Pulled to the Dark (The Siriena Series) (39 page)

She paused.

"But if you consider this a war zone, and these are enemy combatants, then you are morally obligated to capture or kill them. Capturing them would have been unlikely and exceedingly dangerous to attempt, so killing them is correct."

Petra said, "They were bad men, honey."

"We don't know that," I said. "We don't know what Vincent has told them."

"Honey," she said. "We don't know for sure, but there is a good chance these men were associated with the slaughter at the village. We know they attacked us just now. Preying on women makes them evil to me."

I thought about it. "You're right." I looked at Sally. "I shouldn't ask you to do something I'm not willing to do."

"I'm going to search them and see if we find anything useful."

"Honey," Petra said. "Maybe you would like to take a shower? Would that make you feel better?"

I nodded. "Give me twenty minutes. If you hear anyone coming, pull me back immediately. I can always pop back and grab clothes."

She nodded, and I popped straight to our bathroom. I set the sword down, stripped out of my clothes, and stepped into the shower. The water ran red for a minute or two, but I felt clean fairly quickly. I washed thoroughly, climbed out of the shower, dried off, and got dressed. Then I cleaned the sword and grabbed a sheath. I grabbed swords for Petra and Sally and waited for Petra to pull me back.

I only had to wait a few minutes. As soon as I arrived, I handed the swords out.

We waited two hours before we heard crashing through the underbrush on the other side of the tree. I heard one voice ask a rough question and the other give a short answer. We followed their progress as they walked ar
ound the tree, coming to a halt
when they saw the bodies.

The three of us stepped forward. "Hello, Jeremy," I said. "Invade any apartments lately?"

He took one look at the three of us and disappeared.

"Coward,
"
I
spat after him
.

There was only one other man, and I thought he was one of the fourth who had tried to capture us. He turned to run, but I popped home and Petra immediately
threw
me in front of him. He turned to run another direction and Sally was there. Petra used Sally and I to herd him back until he was cowering in the middle of the net. Sally and I began pulling on the net's rope together and got him a couple of feet off the ground.

"Now what?" I asked.

Petra walked up to him. "Do you speak English?"

He gibbered at her. It wasn't a language I understood.  "Do you understand him?" I asked her.

"Not a word," she said.

"I'm going home," Sally said. "Give me two minutes and summon me back."

She disappeared. I began counting. At 120, I pulled her back.
She held up a piece of plastic with two loops. "Cops don't use metal handcuffs much anymore," she said. "These are basically
zip
ties." She walked up behind the man and tried to pull his hands behind his back. He resisted.

I walked over and drew my sword. I pointed it at him. He got the hint and let Sally bind his hands behind his back. Then she walked over and untied the rope. He crashed to the ground. I held my sword over him in case he got any ideas.

Sally walked to him, shoved him flat on his face, then bound his ankles about twelve inches apart using two of the plastic handcuffs. She pulled him to his feet.

"Which way to the castle?" she asked. "Maybe
Renea
wants to talk to him."

It was nearly dark by the time we got back. Sally had to go when we were halfway there.
"I have the four to midnight shift," she said. "I'm sorry."

I pulled her into a hug. "Thank you," I whispered into her ear. "I really needed you, and you were here for me. Thank you."

She hugged me back. "No worries. I'm off at midnight if you need me. Call first though, in case I'm driving."

Petra and I got our captive the rest of the way on our own. As soon as he saw the castle, he put up a new
fuss. "For a mercenary," I said, "
h
e
sure is a pansy." I clouted him across the head a few times and he let us pull him to the castle. But the look of terror in his face was evident.

"I wonder what Jeremy has been telling him," Petra said. "I wonder what happens if we bring him in, feed him, act nice to him, then let him go."

"I'm delivering him to
Renea
and then it's her problem," I said. "If you don't mind."

We walked up to the castle and opened the door. The man saw that and freaked out. He tried to pull away from us but tripped over his own feet. He tried to crawl away.

"Wow," I said. "This is a little excessive."

I drew my sword and walked around to stand in front of him, my legs spread, the sword tip inches from the ground and directly in front of his eyes. He stopped and backed away. Together, Petra and I herded him into the castle, poking him with the swords when he balked. We closed the door and backed away. He crawled to it, then curled up on his side, whimpering.

"Perhaps you should go see who is home," I told Petra. "I can manage the great warrior here."

Petra laughed then went in search of
Renea
. She also found Andrea and Kelly. The five of us clustered in a group fifteen free away from the man. "We brought you a present," I told
Renea
.

"I see that," she said. "Whatever am I to do with him?"

"We were
thinking you should feed him."

She stared at me for a moment then smiled. "I like the way your mind works." She turned to Petra. "Perhaps some finger food. I don't believe I care to release his hands."

"Chicken
McNuggets
it is," Petra said.

"Chicken
McNuggets
?" Kelly said. "I'd kill for some. And fries. Please, Petra?" Petra looked around. The rest of us waved off.

"I want a real meal," I said. "And a long soak in the tub while the woman of my dreams massages my feet."

Petra grinned and disappeared. It took her twenty minutes to secure dinner. She came back carrying two bags of food and a round of sodas for everyone. Kelly grabbed all the food and two of the sodas and sat down near the man. She opened the bag and clapped her hands in delight, then reached into the bag and pulled out a French fry. The joy she had while eating it was clear.

She ate two more then looked at the man. "I bet you've never had a French fry. Would you like one?"

She held one out to him. He stared at it like she was offering him poison.

She shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said, and ate the fry. She ate a couple more then found the nuggets. She ate two of those, almost groaning in pleasure, before she offered him one. He looked at it suspiciously but eventually let her feed it to him.

He chewed it slowly. It wasn't clear whether he enjoyed it, but when she offered him another, he ate it without hesitation. After that he accepted a fry. Then Kelly took one of the sodas, inserted a straw, and took a big slurp. She belched. It wasn't very ladylike, but the man smiled. Kelly put a straw in his soda and held it for him. She had to pantomime a bit, but he figured it out. He made a face, but when she offered him the soda again he took some from it.

They finished the food, and he was much calmer by the time they were done. Kelly got up, collected the garbage, and walked over to Petra. She gave Petra a big hug. "Thank you."

"I'm sorry, Darling," Andrea said. "It never occurred to me you would be missing fast food."

"It hadn't to me either until Petra mentioned it," she said. "I would have asked."

"Now what?" I asked.

Kelly smiled. "Now I become useful again. I teach him English." She turned to me. "Are you using the store room in the base of your tower?"

"No," I said. "It's all yours. Just make sure you don't give him a chance to get the drop on you."

"Twelve foot ceilings," she said. "I'll just go halfway up the stairs and open a window. I can sit on a ledge and talk to him."

Renea
turned to us and said, "No more patrols. I don't want to think what would have happened if they had attacked with bows instead of setting a trap for capture."

Two hours later Petra and I were soaking in the tub together. I was well fed and a little tipsy from the wine she had been pouring into me. The front doorbell rang. Petra climbed out of the tub, wrapped herself in a towel, and went to answer it. She returned with Erika, Beth and Karen.

"Serve yourselves," she said, and she dropped her towel and climbed back into the tub with me.

"I didn't know we were going to have an audience," I said.

"Like you have anything we don't have," Beth said, grinning. She walked over and leered at me. "But yours looks pretty good to me."

I splashed her. She scuttled back and laughed.

They pulled chairs in, found wine glasses, emptied the bottle,
then
went in search of anoth
er one. In the meantime, I slid
my toes underneath Petra, hoping to embarrass her for inviting them in. She caught my foot, pulled it into her lap, and began massaging.

"Ooh," I said. "All right, I forgive you," I told her after a moment. I slipped deeper into the water and closed my eyes.

"What happened?" Erika asked once they were all settled in. "Sally wasn't long on details."

I let Petra explain everything. They listened quietly. She got to the point where I'd asked about going to prison.

"I was a little upset," I said. "I don't feel all that badly for those men. Does that make me a bad person? The one we captured was terrified."

We went around in circles about that. Eventually Petra said, "We did what we thought we had to do."

They proceeded to get me pretty tipsy. Then they all left and Petra put me to bed.
She held me while I fell asleep.

* * *

Over the next two weeks, Kelly taught our prisoner, whose name was
Bindi
, enough English for rough communications. His accent was terrible, but he and Kelly were able to communicate using a combination of words, pantomimes and drawing.

Vincent had indeed hired him and, as best he knew, fourteen other men. He claimed to have had nothing to do with the dead villagers, although he knew about it. He claimed that was Jeremy's doing, and it appeared to involve a daughter who tried to say 'no'.

Bindi
claimed Vincent had patrols and traps set up for anyone trying to leave the castle. He was attempting to hire enough mercenaries to take the castle by force.
Bindi
didn't know
how fast that would happen.

We waited until Sally had Saturday off and all
met at the castle to discuss options.
We gathered in Andrea's tower. Karen made fresh coffee and tea for everyone.

Renea
started our conference by reviewing what we knew. "We need to consider what is at stake."

"Your life," said Petra. "And Kelly's."

"Not just that,"
Renea
said. "
All of us eventually. And do we really want Vincent to be the one to control this world? We've already seen what that can mean
for
the locals."

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"I want to ask a question," Erika said. "Let's say Vincent goes away. Then what? Are we going to grow our club? Are we going to establish influence in the area?"

"Vincent's father, Benedict, used
Siriena
as a playground. All he cared about was his own pleasures. He'd started talking about turning this into a kingdom."
Renea
paused. "Power corrupts."

She was trying to say something with that. No one jumped on it.

"Does anyone know the quote?" she asked. "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"I don't want to think about my dear old boss with absolute power over anyone," I said. "The man is already corrupt."

Renea
nodded. "I agree. He's definitely a product of his father's. When I drew Andrea over, and then later Petra, I made sure Benedict didn't know.
Once he was gone, I've been hesitant to add to our band because I don't want to go down that same path."

"So," Erika said. "No, we're not growing the club."

"Actually," said
Renea
. "That's not the answer, either. The answer will be finding ways to make sure that I don't become corrupt. Or any of you."

We discussed that for a while.

At one point, Sally asked
Renea
, "If you return to Earth, do you die instantly?"

"No," she said. "The aging effect takes some time. My earth body would age from eighty-nine to ninety-four over the course of about an hour. However, the last time I was on earth, I had
pneumonia
.
At eighty-nine, recovery is not certain. Even if I weren't to die by ninety-four, there is a good chance the pneumonia would kill me. I might only have a few minutes."