“Yes, you probably would. I have your measure, Linnet, and you are tenacious and very bright. I can’t risk it, and so I’m sorry to say you must become a casualty.” He sighed. “Sad, but such are the fortunes of war.”
He settled back into the corner of the seat and closed his eyes. It was clear our conversation was at an end.
I studied the wide neck of the driver. Maybe I could appeal to our shared humanity. An obvious ploy, but God knew I had nothing to lose. “Why are you doing this? Working for an Alfar. You heard him. He’s going to kill me. Are you really going to let that happen?”
“Yep.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “When the pay’s this good, I don’t care who dies.”
“Wow, are you really this stupid?” Thug Boy took a one hand off the steering wheel and cuffed me across the ear. It was like a love tap from a rhino.
“I told you, don’t leave any marks on her!” Qwendar was obviously paying attention even while pretending to be asleep.
Desperate, I tried again with the driver. “Look, do you honestly think he’s going to let you live after you help him with this?”
“He’s taking me back to Fey with him. I can’t leave. Problem solved, and I avoid a few legal problems here.”
The car accelerated onto the freeway. We were heading north. I wondered where they were taking me. My mind ran in frenzied ferret circles. I tested the cuffs. They didn’t budge. My only hope was outside intervention. I needed CHiPS. So I needed Thug Boy to do something that would attract the attention of any passing cop or have a concerned citizen call the police.
I glanced over at Qwendar before I risked another remark. He was watching me and listening with an indulgent smile.
“Legal problems, huh? What kind?”
His laugh had all the humor of boulders rolling down hill. “Why you want to know? You gonna represent me, Counselor?” He laughed again at his own wit.
“Fine. Don’t tell me. I can guess. Bet you played football in high school. Probably the highlight of your life. Dated a cheerleader. Probably did a little date rape action on prom night. Beat up the queers and the geeks. You weren’t good enough to win an athletic scholarship, and then suddenly you had graduated and discovered you were too damn dumb to get into college.”
“You lose. I was in school selling blow, so I didn’t have to take out student loans. You think you know me. You don’t know anything.”
Illuminated by the glare of headlights I watched his knuckles whitened as he took a harder grip on the steering wheel when a merging car cut us off. The car swerved into another lane to pass a slower car, and Thug Boy didn’t slow down once we were past. I had to get it right. I cast around desperately. Then I noticed the lighter skin on the fourth finger of his left hand. Wedding ring. Gone now.
“So, what happened to your wedding ring? Your wife get sick of carrying the family because you didn’t graduate and couldn’t get a job?”
“I always had to work for cunts like you. Having it in for me.” The car jackrabbited forward as he smashed his foot against the accelerator. I was thrown against the door and felt the handle dig into my back. I thought briefly about trying to lever it open, but being thrown out of a moving car onto the 405 freeway would kill me just as surely as Qwendar and his knuckle dragger.
“Yeah. I’m sure. Well, maybe if you had an IQ above 80 you wouldn’t have lost out to all these smart women. How you doing on that child support? Behind? Of course you are, because people like you always are. Big man. You can ejaculate, but you sure can’t follow through. Although men as fat as you usually have problems in that department. Your wife find somebody who could satisfy her—”
“SHUT UP! Shut the fuck up or I’ll come back there and gag you.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Qwendar drawled, while not opening his eyes. “She’s baiting you. Don’t fall for it.”
The back of Thug Boy’s neck was brick red. He hunched his shoulders, his hands closing spasmodically on the steering wheel, but he started to slow down. “I’m not an idiot. I’m not stupid,” he said.
I started to open my mouth to respond, but lightning quick Qwendar thrust his handkerchief into my mouth and tied it in place with his tie. I fought the sense that I was choking and forced down vomit. Aspirating on vomit was not going to make the night better. Eventually they would have to get me out of the car. That would be my only chance, and I had to be ready for any opportunity that might present itself.
From the 405 we changed onto the 101 freeway. Sometime during that drive my cell phone began playing “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” which was the customized ring tone I had for David. Great—now he calls. Not that calling earlier would have made any difference to my situation. During the drive I had time to consider my every contact with Qwendar, and a lot of his statements now took on a whole new meaning.
Headlights flared on the green and white overhead sign for the 134 freeway, and I realized we were going to the Equestrian Center. That added a whole new terror. What if they were going to hurt Vento, too? Images from
Thug Boy parked. Qwendar got out and pulled a briefcase from the trunk. They pulled open my door, and I nearly pitched backward out of the car since my back had been resting against that door. The human managed to catch me before my head bounced on the pavement. I was flung unceremoniously over his shoulder and carried into the barn. There was shifting in the stalls and a few experimental nickers that seemed to say, Is it morning yet? Is it time to eat? When no hay was forthcoming the horses settled. I was deposited in the breezeway in front of Vento’s stall. The stallion’s long head was thrust over the stall door. He gazed down at me and chuffed, his breath ruffling the hair on the top of my head. I started to cry because I was scared and because I’d never get to ride him again and because I was going to die, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.
The briefcase landed on a nearby tack truck with a thud. Qwendar opened it and removed a pistol, a legal pad, and a pen.
He turned to face me. “And now, Linnet, you are going to write a suicide note.” It was then the fact that he was wearing gloves really penetrated. “An angry, ranting note about how your boyfriend rejected you, and how he’ll be sorry now that you’re dead. He’ll realize how special you were. How you came out here to die with the only thing that loves you.”
Vento had begun to paw in the stall, his hoof hitting the door with echoing thuds. “Yeah. Fat chance,” was what I tried to say but it emerged from behind the gag like a series of grunts and squeaks.
“Untie her hands,” Qwendar ordered. The muscle complied. My hands began to tingle and ache with returning circulation. “Chafe them. It’s fine if the handwriting is shaky. It adds to the sense that she was distraught and furious.”
Qwendar came over and grabbed one of my hands. He drove a pin into the ball of my thumb. I yelped behind the gag. I tried to pull free, but Thug Boy pressed his hands down on my shoulders effectively nailing me in place. Qwendar carefully wiped the oozing drop of blood onto a mirror. “Soon you won’t have to hold her,” he said to the driver. He squatted down so his eyes were level with mine. He then pricked his own finger and mixed his blood with mine on the surface of the mirror. He gazed intently into my eyes. I tensed, preparing for him to bust out with some kind of Alfar shit. Nothing happened. I watched a frown begin between Qwendar’s white brows and slowly spread to encompass his entire forehead. Minutes passed. A bead of sweat trickled down the old Alfar’s temple and lodged in his sideburn.
“Is something supposed to happen?” the thug asked.
Qwendar slowly stood up. “It seems we are going to have to do this with less finesse. You’re a very strange human, Linnet. In all my long years I’ve never met a human who could resist me.” He continued to regard me, and he even stroked his chin with the air of Emperor Palpatine regarding Luke Skywalker. I had an insane desire to giggle that I knew was born out of sheer, bowel-loosening terror. “It does explain how you cheated death when Jondin was spraying bullets all about. Even a wretch as pathetic as that girl should have been able to have hit you.”
