Table of Contents [Report This]
No Good - by MMB
PLEASE NOTE:: This story is rated "R" for sexual situations and violence.
There is a certain point at which the body finally gives up - where the will to live can no longer over-ride the stresses being put on the physical being. At that point strength melts - all resistance, tension, muscle tone simply evaporate in an instant; leaving the body loose, limp, drained, boneless. The eyes, the windows into the soul itself, catch on a vista beyond the horizon and snag there, and then slowly the curtain of vitality behind them that reflects the life within would close. It is a moment of ultimate power and control, and Lyle lived for such moments.
He carefully pulled his hands from the throat of his latest mail-order bride - a cheery and round-faced cherub of nineteen named Su Xing-li who had graced his life for all of five months. As always, it had taken several moments to stop shuddering from the electric sensation of all that power flowing through his limbs. There was nothing that could compare to the orgasmic experience of being in utter control of the power of life and death of a lover. He was addicted to the mind-blowing climax he would achieve as the muscles that had been spasming around him in ecstasy would suddenly spasm even harder as the whole body bucked beneath him in its death-throes. He was a god in that one amazing instant as his lover resigned herself to death at a pinnacle of life-affirming action.
Lyle nonetheless felt the ridiculous sensation of a tear begin to well up in his eye as he gazed down breathlessly into her face, forever frozen in horrified confusion. This had been a difficult decision to make - to have Xing-li join the others - and he found himself unexpectedly wondering if he shouldn't have made an exception in her case. She had been special - and even in death, she still was.
The day she had arrived in Blue Cove was indelibly etched into his memory, one of the very few truly warm experiences he'd ever been allowed in his thirty-eight years of life. Unlike so many of his other mail-order trophies, she had been brimming with exuberance and excitement rather than standing back shyly. And almost unique in his experience of the mail-order world, Xing-li had not been obliged into having her destiny made a matter of a foreigner's money. She had not been sold to the mail-order broker by impoverished parents but had chosen that path willingly as a way to adventure into the exotic West. When he had met her at the bus station, she had flung herself into his arms in a sincere and whole-hearted demonstration of gratitude without a moment's hesitation, quite a departure from the traditional Chinese code of decorum.
Her English upon arrival had been surprisingly good, and her entire attitude toward this arranged marriage a positive one. She had been a virgin the first night he slept with her, as had all his Chinese brides, but she had not treated the marriage bed as a onerous duty but rather as another interesting facet to her adventure. She had been willing do anything he had asked of her, but also to experiment and learn what it took to genuinely please him in bed. What was more, she seemed to get enjoyment out of the effort herself as well. She was a good cook - too good, actually - and he'd had to let out his belt by two notches already from his nightly meals. He would miss her cooking - but his doctor would be glad he could lose the weight again.
Lyle found himself surprised in that he genuinely started to like the girl almost immediately - and even more astonished when he could begin to see the possibility of growing to love her eventually. It was a feeling he wasn't used to, wasn't sure he wanted, wasn't sure he was capable of, and wasn't sure he enjoyed or not. After all, love - by any definition at all - was not something he had ever enjoyed before.
No, Mr. Raines had trained him well in that regard, from very early on. His first memory was of being punished for crying out for the nurse whose responsibility it had been to take care of him. He had been three, and she had warned him never to “come crying to” her. Raines - or, as he came to call him privately later, “the devil-man” - had happened into the nursery just at the moment Lyle fell from his crib and knocked his head hard against the cement floor. Screaming, he had run for the nurse, only to have his arm jerked back hard by “the devil-man”, who had asked him why he was running to his nurse. When he had cried that he loved his nurse and just wanted her to make him better, he received a vicious whipping with a belt and buckle for being “soft.” When Raines was gone, he had tried to go back to Nurse, whimpering - only to end up being spanked again on an already blistered bottom for his temerity at telling the “devil-man” that he loved her. That was the day Lyle learned for the first time that love hurt. It was a lesson that Raines repeated often and with diverse means and instruments, so that Lyle would never forget.
Still feeling his heart pounding wildly in his chest from the sexual release, Lyle withdrew from her and sat back on his heels, contemplating his next actions as he enjoyed the sensation of the cool air caressing his sweat-covered and satisfied nakedness. Such a beautiful soul as hers deserved a truly lovely resting place - especially after the magnificent moment she'd just given him. The others had found their rest up at Silver Lake, scattered across a hillside and each beneath a shady tree that would protect their repose. Xing-li, on the other hand, he would want closer, in a better place yet, where he could shower his love on her safely at last. His face lit up as the ideal location occurred to him: there was a gravesite in the Blue Cove Cemetery that, while a headstone indicated his true last name, was actually completely empty. That was where she would lie, where not only he would be able to visit her more often, but where no one would question the visit.
He looked back down at her, then frowned. Those beautiful, clear black orbs that had always had a hint of laughter in them were already beginning to cloud. He reached out and closed her eyelids so that he wouldn't have to watch the indignity death would inflict on her start its inexorable path, and moved her limp arms to cross and cover her breasts. The necessary movement broke the spell of quiet that had gathered around them, and he swung his legs and climbed from the bed. He had a few minutes in which to fold her properly - to make the body small and compact and easier to handle alone before death froze her limbs into place. Patiently and with the easy of long practice, he rolled her to one side and brought her knees up to her chest, then began pulling at the bottom sheet to wrap the body tightly in place. There were heavy plastic ties to secure the sheet into place once he had it holding her tightly in a small bundle. As he worked it suddenly occurred to him how odd it was that she'd never commented on his preference for plastic sheets on the bed beneath the satin.
Now, finally, he could head to the shower to wash the scent of sex from his own skin. He had already laid out the clothing he would wear as he transported her to her final destination - a flannel shirt and jeans that were easily washable, easily explained as “slob clothes.” His hygiene restored, he went to the closet for that mammoth wheeled suitcase he had purchased a week ago, on the pretense of their packing for a trip to Hong Kong in time for Chinese New Year. Xing-li was a tiny woman - her folded body in its satin bundle fit easily within the black canvas, and the zipper moved smoothly over the slick material that held her.
Only after her body was packed and ready to transport did it occur to him that he hadn't taken his usual pound of flesh from her flank for the next day's stir-fry. That was, after all, half the reason for the plastic sheet - to prevent what little blood would result from staining the mattress beneath. The meal had become a tradition, a sacrament, a necessary rite where he brought the essence of his victim into himself and made her part of him. He laid his hand to the side of the baggage and decided that Xing-li had wormed her way into him so thoroughly in other ways that he didn't need that part of the rite this time. He'd miss his treat - it had been a while since last he'd feasted properly - but not enough to unwrap her again.
So many years had passed since he had begun this practice that he could hardly remember a time when he DIDN'T have a taste for human flesh. When the Triumvirate had sent him to Cambodia to learn the basics of the opium business, and he had made the acquaintance of General Thon, he had been a quick study of the charismatic Khmer's more exotic and dangerous pass times. It had been Thon who had first introduced him to the thrill of the man-hunt - the excitement of stalking and terrorizing the target first, then the take-down, the kill, and finally the feast.
Much later he found out that the Triumvirate had made an explicit request that Thon initiate him into the rites of the man-hunt, ostensibly to get yet another axe to hold over his head to assure compliance later on. But by the time he discovered this, he had developed a real addiction to both the hunt and the feast and had added in his own, individual preparations and killing techniques - not to mention brought his private ritual back to civilization with him, much to the Triumvirate's consternation. He was very aware that were their complicity in his training ever to come to light, he would not be the only one held responsible for the lives he had taken. What had once been intended as a weakness to exploit to exercise control had become a mistake that HE could exploit as well. He had eventually reached an unspoken agreement with them: he would exercise infinite discretion when he went on his hunt, and they would clean up behind him without complaint when unforeseen forces brought his occasional activities anywhere near discovery.
But even without harvesting her flesh for the traditional stir-fry, there were disposal preparations to make - equipment to collect together. He rose and found the secret latch that opened that hidden room, the one that even to this day he found difficult to enter without breaking a sweat of nervousness. Raines had insisted that he keep all his man-hunting tools stored away from prying eyes in this fashion - Lyle had a feeling it was another method of control, but could think of no reason to refuse or resist. Still, while entering a small, enclosed space so much like the shed Lyle Bowman had used to lock him in after yet another beating took several deep and steadying breaths, it was a convenient place to keep essential tools for after the hunt - like shovels to handle burial. All he had to do, he reminded himself over and over again, as he did each time he made this trip, was avoid raising his eyes enough to catch sight of the shackles...
The shackles had been Raines' idea, salt thrown repeatedly on the wounds created by his Centre-arranged adoption by an abusive father-figure and a nearly-inarticulate and co-dependent mother-figure. As “Bobby” had entered puberty and begun the normal rebellious stage all adolescents go through, Raines had conveniently re-entered his life - and the good doctor had suggested shackling his son and then beating him as punishment for any show of spirit to the elder Bowman. And no longer would a belt and buckle be sufficient as the instrument of punishment - Bowman was encouraged to be creative and use pipes, chains, blade-sharpening strops, anything he could think of that could be wielded and used to raise welts.
Lyle shook himself and dove into the room just long enough to grab up the shovel from against the wall and drag it out into the light as fast as he could. Then with a vicious wrench, he closed the little panel that hid his own, private Hell away again - a private Hell that generally managed to keep him aloof and removed from caring about anything but his own welfare.
But barely had the panel clicked shut again when Lyle's world was rocked by the raucous summons of the telephone. He leaned the shovel against the side of the bed and grabbed up the handset, still breathing hard. "What?"
"And you dare lecture me on my grasp of common courtesy," his sister's caustic humor came at him as smooth and sour as vinegar. "You're breathing hard, dear brother - what HAVE you been up to this evening? Or should I ask, what's her name?"
"None of your damned business," Lyle snapped brittlely at her. "If you have a reason for calling, now would be a nice time for you to spit it out..."
"Broots has had a hit on Jarod. Centre jet's firing up its engines. Get your ass over here, pronto." He could tell she was waiting for him to reply that he was on his way, but all he could do was stare at the black suitcase standing in the middle of the room awaiting it's trip to the cemetery. "What's the matter, Lyle, cat got your tongue? You want in on this or no?"
If he said no, considering this was a weekend and he'd bragged about not doing anything special to the recovery team as a way of rubbing their noses in Raines' orders to be tireless in finding Jarod, he'd raise her suspicions. And God knew she was already more suspicious of him than was often comfortable. On the other hand, if he said yes, then what was he going to do with Xing-li while he was gone? God only knew how far away that jet was going to take them, or how long they'd be gone... He cast his eyes around the room, hoping for something to occur to him - and it did.
"I have a stop to make on my way, but I'll be there within an hour," he stated hurriedly.
"An HOUR?!" His sister was dumbfounded, then turned sourly caustic again. "Are you sure you can work us into your busy schedule? Would you like a rain check?"
"I said I'd BE there," he snapped back, thoroughly angered now. There were few people in this world that could anger him as quickly or as thoroughly as his sister.
"Be on the tarmac in an hour, or we're leaving without you," she warned him triumphantly, as if sensing that the time constraint would prove a problem and delighting in the gift Fate had handed her. "The clock's counting down." She hung up in his ear abruptly.
"Son of a bitch!" he hissed and slammed the receiver down, then reached for it and dialed another number from memory.
"Pakor Frozen Foods," came the voice on the other end.
"It's me," he announced without preamble. "I have a small item to be stored for a short time that I want left completely undisturbed until I retrieve it. Is that going to be a problem?"
"Oh, no, Mr. Lyle!" the plant manager stammered. "When will you be bringing the item by?"
"Expect me in twenty minutes," Lyle demanded while looking at the alarm clock on the nightstand. "Find me a nice, quiet, dark corner likely to be left completely alone, understand?"
Obviously the plant manager DIDN'T understand, but he knew Lyle's level of authority at the Centre, his reputation for temper and the consequences of when it was aroused. "Yes, Sir," he responded quickly. "In twenty minutes?"
"That's what I said. Why must you repeat my every word?" The question was rhetorical, but Lyle was too angry at this disruption of ritual and tradition to care. "Be ready." He slammed the receiver down again. With an angry sigh, he climbed quickly out of his jeans and flannel and back into a more civilized suit - and hauled out his overnight case that he kept always packed and ready from its place on his closet floor.
He was brought to a halt by the sight of the suitcase standing ready in the middle of the room, and he frowned. This abrupt summons put his schedule completely out of whack - and he no doubt was going to be hungry by the time he hit town again. It was like awakening from a soft and fuzzy dream to reality, and he grimaced in disgust while he questioned his sanity at thinking NOT to take his piece of flesh for the feast. Well, considering everything, at least THAT was a mistake that could be quickly rectified. He unzipped the suitcase and lifted the bundle with the already stiffening body from its depths and brought it back over to the bed. He cut the tie and carefully took a healthy carving from a thigh that he slipped into a ready plastic bag and then tossed into the freezer. He rinsed the heavy carving knife and stuck it in the dishwasher and set it to sterilize, then went about the process of bundling and stuffing the body back into the canvas suitcase. He looked at his watch - ten minutes, not enough to really bollix up the schedule Parker had set for him, but it would be tight.
At last he pulled the retracting handle from the wheeled suitcase. "I'll only be a little while, Xing-Xing," he promised her in a soft and loving voice. "As soon as I can, I'll be back for you to take you to your final home. Wait for me, now..." Putting his overnight case on top of the black canvas suitcase, he looked like any other businessman getting ready to leave for a business trip.
~~~~~~~~
The gate in the chain-link fence that surrounded the Centre airstrip had been left agape, Lyle assumed for his arrival. Trust his sister to be true to her word - he looked at his wristwatch and noted that he'd managed to make it to Pakor and back here to the airstrip and still have three minutes left to his hour. He steered the sleek black sports car over to the waiting knot of sweepers and leapt out, overnight bag over a shoulder and briefcase in hand. "Don't let anything happen to her," he cautioned ominously as he tossed the keys at Willy, not surprised to find Raines' personal sweeper there observing the proceedings. He flashed a wide smile and mounted the steps of the jet - noting out of the corner of his eye when Willy tossed the keys to yet another sweeper and followed him up the steps.
He halted just inside the door and took in the scene - quintessentially the same from one cross-continental jaunt to the next. Sydney and Broots looked thoroughly bored already at their window seats, Sam watched his arrival with very little expression from his place at the back of the plane, and Willy pushed impudently past him to make his way to the seat next to Sam. Miss Parker looked up at him with thinly-disguised frustration. "How kind of you to join us after all, Lyle. What were you doing, seeing how close to my hour you could cut it? For all we know, the hour you spent taking care of your latest conquest will be the hour by which we missed Jarod - AGAIN!"
"Enough!" The crack about his “conquest” had been WAY too close to the truth. "I'm here, aren't I?" He tossed the overnight bag into the overhead compartment and plunked himself and his briefcase down next to Sydney, who shifted away from him and toward the window as if away from a leper. "Let's get this show on the road, shall we?" he glared over at his sister, who had taken the leader's seat before he'd arrived as if it were her right.
Grey eyes narrowed for a moment, and then Miss Parker reached for the phone handset that gave her direct communication with the pilot. "Let's do it," she ordered tersely, then replaced the handset carefully.
"You sure you're in the right seat?" he asked her with a wicked twinkle in his eye.
"That's what you get for being late for supper, Romeo - deal with it," she snapped and then apparently dismissed him from her thoughts entirely, focusing instead on the contents of the file in front of her.
God, she was magnificent! He was glad he'd put the briefcase on his lap, because he never failed to be affected by her perfume. Right now, his trousers beneath his briefcase had a decided bulge. He continued to study his sister - from a long and appreciatively hungry look that took in every inch of those long and shapely legs to her slim waist and breasts that were just the right size...
He felt Sydney shift away from him yet again, and a glance to his left gave him a quick appreciation of the intense look of utter disgust that flashed briefly across the Belgian's face at the sexually hungry look given a sister by a brother. He merely smiled widely and sweetly at the psychiatrist and then inwardly chuckled at yet another disgusted flinch toward the window. Sydney was great fun to play with - so old-fashioned and moral in his own, twisted way, and so entirely predictable in his defensiveness toward the other members of the team, especially Miss Parker. God, you'd have thought he were her own father protecting her from all the young studs, he thought irreligiously, then returned his gaze to her - not that Daddy Parker had ever laid a stick in his daughter's way in that respect.
While the old shrink might have delusions of protecting Miss Parker's virtue, Lyle happened to know that the lady in question HAD no virtue to protect. He had known that without a doubt the first time the two of them had stepped within touching distance of each other. Her blatant and powerful sexuality had reached out and grabbed him by the balls, giving him a heat that would only be drenched in very short order in the dry ice of her attitude. Her reputation was common knowledge at the Centre - the claim was that she'd screw anything with two legs and the wherewithal otherwise. And yet he'd never seen the least bit of evidence of her rumored promiscuity, nor had she ever given him the time of day. Of course, she'd never consider it now, now that their sibling relationship had been confirmed - but HE would. Boy howdy, would he!
"Put your eyes back in your head before I feed them to you," he heard her hiss, and he shook off his reverie to find her staring at him with frank loathing.
"Where are we headed, anyway?" He decided to try to make nice - and at least find out how long it would be before he could get back to what he'd been doing before she'd interrupted him.
"Phoenix. Cyber-Scooby here has him pegged working at the university there as an art professor. It's all here." She handed him a file folder with no further ado and turned away to gaze out her own window as if dismissing him from her entire reality.
He stared down at the contents of the folder, not really seeing anything written on that first page. "Arizona." Lyle's mind went to work immediately thinking through the hours needed over and back, and added half a day of poking around finding the lair and - with any luck - the damned lab-rat himself. His best guess was that he'd be leaving Xing-li on ice - literally and figuratively - for twenty-four hours at least. What was more, he'd have a rip-roaring case of jet-lag when he DID get home and would probably not be in any shape to do any late-nite cemetery excavations at all. Pakor would just have to hang onto her for a little longer than originally planned.
He settled back into his seat as he felt the powerful little jet lift itself from the ground and thrust itself into the air. Oh well, he thought to himself in satisfaction, at least he had everything he'd need for a nice supper when he got back...
PLEASE NOTE:: This story is rated "R" for sexual situations and violence.
There is a certain point at which the body finally gives up - where the will to live can no longer over-ride the stresses being put on the physical being. At that point strength melts - all resistance, tension, muscle tone simply evaporate in an instant; leaving the body loose, limp, drained, boneless. The eyes, the windows into the soul itself, catch on a vista beyond the horizon and snag there, and then slowly the curtain of vitality behind them that reflects the life within would close. It is a moment of ultimate power and control, and Lyle lived for such moments.
He carefully pulled his hands from the throat of his latest mail-order bride - a cheery and round-faced cherub of nineteen named Su Xing-li who had graced his life for all of five months. As always, it had taken several moments to stop shuddering from the electric sensation of all that power flowing through his limbs. There was nothing that could compare to the orgasmic experience of being in utter control of the power of life and death of a lover. He was addicted to the mind-blowing climax he would achieve as the muscles that had been spasming around him in ecstasy would suddenly spasm even harder as the whole body bucked beneath him in its death-throes. He was a god in that one amazing instant as his lover resigned herself to death at a pinnacle of life-affirming action.
Lyle nonetheless felt the ridiculous sensation of a tear begin to well up in his eye as he gazed down breathlessly into her face, forever frozen in horrified confusion. This had been a difficult decision to make - to have Xing-li join the others - and he found himself unexpectedly wondering if he shouldn't have made an exception in her case. She had been special - and even in death, she still was.
The day she had arrived in Blue Cove was indelibly etched into his memory, one of the very few truly warm experiences he'd ever been allowed in his thirty-eight years of life. Unlike so many of his other mail-order trophies, she had been brimming with exuberance and excitement rather than standing back shyly. And almost unique in his experience of the mail-order world, Xing-li had not been obliged into having her destiny made a matter of a foreigner's money. She had not been sold to the mail-order broker by impoverished parents but had chosen that path willingly as a way to adventure into the exotic West. When he had met her at the bus station, she had flung herself into his arms in a sincere and whole-hearted demonstration of gratitude without a moment's hesitation, quite a departure from the traditional Chinese code of decorum.
Her English upon arrival had been surprisingly good, and her entire attitude toward this arranged marriage a positive one. She had been a virgin the first night he slept with her, as had all his Chinese brides, but she had not treated the marriage bed as a onerous duty but rather as another interesting facet to her adventure. She had been willing do anything he had asked of her, but also to experiment and learn what it took to genuinely please him in bed. What was more, she seemed to get enjoyment out of the effort herself as well. She was a good cook - too good, actually - and he'd had to let out his belt by two notches already from his nightly meals. He would miss her cooking - but his doctor would be glad he could lose the weight again.
Lyle found himself surprised in that he genuinely started to like the girl almost immediately - and even more astonished when he could begin to see the possibility of growing to love her eventually. It was a feeling he wasn't used to, wasn't sure he wanted, wasn't sure he was capable of, and wasn't sure he enjoyed or not. After all, love - by any definition at all - was not something he had ever enjoyed before.
No, Mr. Raines had trained him well in that regard, from very early on. His first memory was of being punished for crying out for the nurse whose responsibility it had been to take care of him. He had been three, and she had warned him never to “come crying to” her. Raines - or, as he came to call him privately later, “the devil-man” - had happened into the nursery just at the moment Lyle fell from his crib and knocked his head hard against the cement floor. Screaming, he had run for the nurse, only to have his arm jerked back hard by “the devil-man”, who had asked him why he was running to his nurse. When he had cried that he loved his nurse and just wanted her to make him better, he received a vicious whipping with a belt and buckle for being “soft.” When Raines was gone, he had tried to go back to Nurse, whimpering - only to end up being spanked again on an already blistered bottom for his temerity at telling the “devil-man” that he loved her. That was the day Lyle learned for the first time that love hurt. It was a lesson that Raines repeated often and with diverse means and instruments, so that Lyle would never forget.
Still feeling his heart pounding wildly in his chest from the sexual release, Lyle withdrew from her and sat back on his heels, contemplating his next actions as he enjoyed the sensation of the cool air caressing his sweat-covered and satisfied nakedness. Such a beautiful soul as hers deserved a truly lovely resting place - especially after the magnificent moment she'd just given him. The others had found their rest up at Silver Lake, scattered across a hillside and each beneath a shady tree that would protect their repose. Xing-li, on the other hand, he would want closer, in a better place yet, where he could shower his love on her safely at last. His face lit up as the ideal location occurred to him: there was a gravesite in the Blue Cove Cemetery that, while a headstone indicated his true last name, was actually completely empty. That was where she would lie, where not only he would be able to visit her more often, but where no one would question the visit.
He looked back down at her, then frowned. Those beautiful, clear black orbs that had always had a hint of laughter in them were already beginning to cloud. He reached out and closed her eyelids so that he wouldn't have to watch the indignity death would inflict on her start its inexorable path, and moved her limp arms to cross and cover her breasts. The necessary movement broke the spell of quiet that had gathered around them, and he swung his legs and climbed from the bed. He had a few minutes in which to fold her properly - to make the body small and compact and easier to handle alone before death froze her limbs into place. Patiently and with the easy of long practice, he rolled her to one side and brought her knees up to her chest, then began pulling at the bottom sheet to wrap the body tightly in place. There were heavy plastic ties to secure the sheet into place once he had it holding her tightly in a small bundle. As he worked it suddenly occurred to him how odd it was that she'd never commented on his preference for plastic sheets on the bed beneath the satin.
Now, finally, he could head to the shower to wash the scent of sex from his own skin. He had already laid out the clothing he would wear as he transported her to her final destination - a flannel shirt and jeans that were easily washable, easily explained as “slob clothes.” His hygiene restored, he went to the closet for that mammoth wheeled suitcase he had purchased a week ago, on the pretense of their packing for a trip to Hong Kong in time for Chinese New Year. Xing-li was a tiny woman - her folded body in its satin bundle fit easily within the black canvas, and the zipper moved smoothly over the slick material that held her.
Only after her body was packed and ready to transport did it occur to him that he hadn't taken his usual pound of flesh from her flank for the next day's stir-fry. That was, after all, half the reason for the plastic sheet - to prevent what little blood would result from staining the mattress beneath. The meal had become a tradition, a sacrament, a necessary rite where he brought the essence of his victim into himself and made her part of him. He laid his hand to the side of the baggage and decided that Xing-li had wormed her way into him so thoroughly in other ways that he didn't need that part of the rite this time. He'd miss his treat - it had been a while since last he'd feasted properly - but not enough to unwrap her again.
So many years had passed since he had begun this practice that he could hardly remember a time when he DIDN'T have a taste for human flesh. When the Triumvirate had sent him to Cambodia to learn the basics of the opium business, and he had made the acquaintance of General Thon, he had been a quick study of the charismatic Khmer's more exotic and dangerous pass times. It had been Thon who had first introduced him to the thrill of the man-hunt - the excitement of stalking and terrorizing the target first, then the take-down, the kill, and finally the feast.
Much later he found out that the Triumvirate had made an explicit request that Thon initiate him into the rites of the man-hunt, ostensibly to get yet another axe to hold over his head to assure compliance later on. But by the time he discovered this, he had developed a real addiction to both the hunt and the feast and had added in his own, individual preparations and killing techniques - not to mention brought his private ritual back to civilization with him, much to the Triumvirate's consternation. He was very aware that were their complicity in his training ever to come to light, he would not be the only one held responsible for the lives he had taken. What had once been intended as a weakness to exploit to exercise control had become a mistake that HE could exploit as well. He had eventually reached an unspoken agreement with them: he would exercise infinite discretion when he went on his hunt, and they would clean up behind him without complaint when unforeseen forces brought his occasional activities anywhere near discovery.
But even without harvesting her flesh for the traditional stir-fry, there were disposal preparations to make - equipment to collect together. He rose and found the secret latch that opened that hidden room, the one that even to this day he found difficult to enter without breaking a sweat of nervousness. Raines had insisted that he keep all his man-hunting tools stored away from prying eyes in this fashion - Lyle had a feeling it was another method of control, but could think of no reason to refuse or resist. Still, while entering a small, enclosed space so much like the shed Lyle Bowman had used to lock him in after yet another beating took several deep and steadying breaths, it was a convenient place to keep essential tools for after the hunt - like shovels to handle burial. All he had to do, he reminded himself over and over again, as he did each time he made this trip, was avoid raising his eyes enough to catch sight of the shackles...
The shackles had been Raines' idea, salt thrown repeatedly on the wounds created by his Centre-arranged adoption by an abusive father-figure and a nearly-inarticulate and co-dependent mother-figure. As “Bobby” had entered puberty and begun the normal rebellious stage all adolescents go through, Raines had conveniently re-entered his life - and the good doctor had suggested shackling his son and then beating him as punishment for any show of spirit to the elder Bowman. And no longer would a belt and buckle be sufficient as the instrument of punishment - Bowman was encouraged to be creative and use pipes, chains, blade-sharpening strops, anything he could think of that could be wielded and used to raise welts.
Lyle shook himself and dove into the room just long enough to grab up the shovel from against the wall and drag it out into the light as fast as he could. Then with a vicious wrench, he closed the little panel that hid his own, private Hell away again - a private Hell that generally managed to keep him aloof and removed from caring about anything but his own welfare.
But barely had the panel clicked shut again when Lyle's world was rocked by the raucous summons of the telephone. He leaned the shovel against the side of the bed and grabbed up the handset, still breathing hard. "What?"
"And you dare lecture me on my grasp of common courtesy," his sister's caustic humor came at him as smooth and sour as vinegar. "You're breathing hard, dear brother - what HAVE you been up to this evening? Or should I ask, what's her name?"
"None of your damned business," Lyle snapped brittlely at her. "If you have a reason for calling, now would be a nice time for you to spit it out..."
"Broots has had a hit on Jarod. Centre jet's firing up its engines. Get your ass over here, pronto." He could tell she was waiting for him to reply that he was on his way, but all he could do was stare at the black suitcase standing in the middle of the room awaiting it's trip to the cemetery. "What's the matter, Lyle, cat got your tongue? You want in on this or no?"
If he said no, considering this was a weekend and he'd bragged about not doing anything special to the recovery team as a way of rubbing their noses in Raines' orders to be tireless in finding Jarod, he'd raise her suspicions. And God knew she was already more suspicious of him than was often comfortable. On the other hand, if he said yes, then what was he going to do with Xing-li while he was gone? God only knew how far away that jet was going to take them, or how long they'd be gone... He cast his eyes around the room, hoping for something to occur to him - and it did.
"I have a stop to make on my way, but I'll be there within an hour," he stated hurriedly.
"An HOUR?!" His sister was dumbfounded, then turned sourly caustic again. "Are you sure you can work us into your busy schedule? Would you like a rain check?"
"I said I'd BE there," he snapped back, thoroughly angered now. There were few people in this world that could anger him as quickly or as thoroughly as his sister.
"Be on the tarmac in an hour, or we're leaving without you," she warned him triumphantly, as if sensing that the time constraint would prove a problem and delighting in the gift Fate had handed her. "The clock's counting down." She hung up in his ear abruptly.
"Son of a bitch!" he hissed and slammed the receiver down, then reached for it and dialed another number from memory.
"Pakor Frozen Foods," came the voice on the other end.
"It's me," he announced without preamble. "I have a small item to be stored for a short time that I want left completely undisturbed until I retrieve it. Is that going to be a problem?"
"Oh, no, Mr. Lyle!" the plant manager stammered. "When will you be bringing the item by?"
"Expect me in twenty minutes," Lyle demanded while looking at the alarm clock on the nightstand. "Find me a nice, quiet, dark corner likely to be left completely alone, understand?"
Obviously the plant manager DIDN'T understand, but he knew Lyle's level of authority at the Centre, his reputation for temper and the consequences of when it was aroused. "Yes, Sir," he responded quickly. "In twenty minutes?"
"That's what I said. Why must you repeat my every word?" The question was rhetorical, but Lyle was too angry at this disruption of ritual and tradition to care. "Be ready." He slammed the receiver down again. With an angry sigh, he climbed quickly out of his jeans and flannel and back into a more civilized suit - and hauled out his overnight case that he kept always packed and ready from its place on his closet floor.
He was brought to a halt by the sight of the suitcase standing ready in the middle of the room, and he frowned. This abrupt summons put his schedule completely out of whack - and he no doubt was going to be hungry by the time he hit town again. It was like awakening from a soft and fuzzy dream to reality, and he grimaced in disgust while he questioned his sanity at thinking NOT to take his piece of flesh for the feast. Well, considering everything, at least THAT was a mistake that could be quickly rectified. He unzipped the suitcase and lifted the bundle with the already stiffening body from its depths and brought it back over to the bed. He cut the tie and carefully took a healthy carving from a thigh that he slipped into a ready plastic bag and then tossed into the freezer. He rinsed the heavy carving knife and stuck it in the dishwasher and set it to sterilize, then went about the process of bundling and stuffing the body back into the canvas suitcase. He looked at his watch - ten minutes, not enough to really bollix up the schedule Parker had set for him, but it would be tight.
At last he pulled the retracting handle from the wheeled suitcase. "I'll only be a little while, Xing-Xing," he promised her in a soft and loving voice. "As soon as I can, I'll be back for you to take you to your final home. Wait for me, now..." Putting his overnight case on top of the black canvas suitcase, he looked like any other businessman getting ready to leave for a business trip.
~~~~~~~~
The gate in the chain-link fence that surrounded the Centre airstrip had been left agape, Lyle assumed for his arrival. Trust his sister to be true to her word - he looked at his wristwatch and noted that he'd managed to make it to Pakor and back here to the airstrip and still have three minutes left to his hour. He steered the sleek black sports car over to the waiting knot of sweepers and leapt out, overnight bag over a shoulder and briefcase in hand. "Don't let anything happen to her," he cautioned ominously as he tossed the keys at Willy, not surprised to find Raines' personal sweeper there observing the proceedings. He flashed a wide smile and mounted the steps of the jet - noting out of the corner of his eye when Willy tossed the keys to yet another sweeper and followed him up the steps.
He halted just inside the door and took in the scene - quintessentially the same from one cross-continental jaunt to the next. Sydney and Broots looked thoroughly bored already at their window seats, Sam watched his arrival with very little expression from his place at the back of the plane, and Willy pushed impudently past him to make his way to the seat next to Sam. Miss Parker looked up at him with thinly-disguised frustration. "How kind of you to join us after all, Lyle. What were you doing, seeing how close to my hour you could cut it? For all we know, the hour you spent taking care of your latest conquest will be the hour by which we missed Jarod - AGAIN!"
"Enough!" The crack about his “conquest” had been WAY too close to the truth. "I'm here, aren't I?" He tossed the overnight bag into the overhead compartment and plunked himself and his briefcase down next to Sydney, who shifted away from him and toward the window as if away from a leper. "Let's get this show on the road, shall we?" he glared over at his sister, who had taken the leader's seat before he'd arrived as if it were her right.
Grey eyes narrowed for a moment, and then Miss Parker reached for the phone handset that gave her direct communication with the pilot. "Let's do it," she ordered tersely, then replaced the handset carefully.
"You sure you're in the right seat?" he asked her with a wicked twinkle in his eye.
"That's what you get for being late for supper, Romeo - deal with it," she snapped and then apparently dismissed him from her thoughts entirely, focusing instead on the contents of the file in front of her.
God, she was magnificent! He was glad he'd put the briefcase on his lap, because he never failed to be affected by her perfume. Right now, his trousers beneath his briefcase had a decided bulge. He continued to study his sister - from a long and appreciatively hungry look that took in every inch of those long and shapely legs to her slim waist and breasts that were just the right size...
He felt Sydney shift away from him yet again, and a glance to his left gave him a quick appreciation of the intense look of utter disgust that flashed briefly across the Belgian's face at the sexually hungry look given a sister by a brother. He merely smiled widely and sweetly at the psychiatrist and then inwardly chuckled at yet another disgusted flinch toward the window. Sydney was great fun to play with - so old-fashioned and moral in his own, twisted way, and so entirely predictable in his defensiveness toward the other members of the team, especially Miss Parker. God, you'd have thought he were her own father protecting her from all the young studs, he thought irreligiously, then returned his gaze to her - not that Daddy Parker had ever laid a stick in his daughter's way in that respect.
While the old shrink might have delusions of protecting Miss Parker's virtue, Lyle happened to know that the lady in question HAD no virtue to protect. He had known that without a doubt the first time the two of them had stepped within touching distance of each other. Her blatant and powerful sexuality had reached out and grabbed him by the balls, giving him a heat that would only be drenched in very short order in the dry ice of her attitude. Her reputation was common knowledge at the Centre - the claim was that she'd screw anything with two legs and the wherewithal otherwise. And yet he'd never seen the least bit of evidence of her rumored promiscuity, nor had she ever given him the time of day. Of course, she'd never consider it now, now that their sibling relationship had been confirmed - but HE would. Boy howdy, would he!
"Put your eyes back in your head before I feed them to you," he heard her hiss, and he shook off his reverie to find her staring at him with frank loathing.
"Where are we headed, anyway?" He decided to try to make nice - and at least find out how long it would be before he could get back to what he'd been doing before she'd interrupted him.
"Phoenix. Cyber-Scooby here has him pegged working at the university there as an art professor. It's all here." She handed him a file folder with no further ado and turned away to gaze out her own window as if dismissing him from her entire reality.
He stared down at the contents of the folder, not really seeing anything written on that first page. "Arizona." Lyle's mind went to work immediately thinking through the hours needed over and back, and added half a day of poking around finding the lair and - with any luck - the damned lab-rat himself. His best guess was that he'd be leaving Xing-li on ice - literally and figuratively - for twenty-four hours at least. What was more, he'd have a rip-roaring case of jet-lag when he DID get home and would probably not be in any shape to do any late-nite cemetery excavations at all. Pakor would just have to hang onto her for a little longer than originally planned.
He settled back into his seat as he felt the powerful little jet lift itself from the ground and thrust itself into the air. Oh well, he thought to himself in satisfaction, at least he had everything he'd need for a nice supper when he got back...
