ElyriasEcstasy (19 page)

Marny Vilst was basically a clerk. Lowly ranked. It was why
she’d reacted so sharply to his laugh at the table in the mess hall. Apparently
some of those of higher grades liked to bully the juniors. It lessened Rune’s
general opinion of the Guard.

Only two other beds in the small ward were occupied and both
patients were evidently asleep. No medical staff were present. They had a
window of opportunity here, Marny had said.

He gazed at her, drinking in the sight of her bare body. She
was a slight, willowy thing, post-adolescently slim, but with enough muscle
mass to give her a healthy figure. Her breasts were tight, unostentatious
mounds, tipped with darker nipples against fairly complected flesh. Her pubic
thatch, as pale as her hair, was nearly invisible in the dimness behind the
curtain.

“Do you still want to do this?” she whispered, a quaver in
her voice betraying nervousness.

He raised his eyes to her face. “Yes. Oh yes…”

They climbed onto the bed. He took her into his arms. She
was light in his cradling embrace. Her skin was warm and very smooth. He
trailed a hand over her shoulder, onto her back, following the contours of her
form. Her flesh thickened as his hand slid lower and eagerly he cupped a
buttock, squeezing. Her breath caught.

She kissed him suddenly and forcefully. It surprised him
momentarily. He didn’t always kiss the women they brought to him, but this, he
certainly knew, wasn’t one of
those
females. Marny might have a low rank
among the Guard but she was a professional. More, she directly served the Lux,
just as he did. In a stretched sense of the word, they were colleagues.

He returned her kiss and their tongues met for the first
time. Hers was blunt and probing. She pressed herself tightly to him. Her
nipples were rigid against his chest. He even felt the hurried thud of her
heart, which increased his own excitement. There was a definite, delicious
sense of mischief about this tryst. He wondered how many regulations he was
violating tonight, then decided he didn’t give a damn.

His hard cock pressed her thigh. He kneaded her ass. She was
busily devouring his mouth. She raked a hand through Rune’s long, dark locks,
pulling hard enough that he could feel it at the roots. Oddly, he found he
liked the sensation, much the way Urna responded on those occasions when Rune
was rough with the silver-haired male.

No time for thoughts of the Weapon, Rune told himself before
he could even call up an image. He needed to concentrate on Marny.

It wasn’t difficult. She had worked her other hand between
them and taken hold of his cock. He felt himself throb in her firm grip, felt
each individual finger where it held him, as well as the ball of her thumb as
she smeared it over the cock head, catching the first stray oozings of his
pre-ejaculatory fluid. He shivered at the contact.

Reaching over the swell of her ass cheek, he fingered her
damp slit from behind. She bit her lip again, her spine arching. She was ready.
More than ready. And from what she’d said they couldn’t tarry here.

Rune moved to push her over onto her back. She resisted,
which startled him enough to pause and ask, “What’s wrong?”

Marny still had his cock in her grasp. “I’m ready for you,
yes. Time to put a condom on.”

He blinked. It simply hadn’t occurred to him. There was
nothing in his history—what history of himself he could recall with clarity,
anyway—that included ever taking
any
contraceptive measures. Sex for
him, so far as he could remember, had meant only grappling with Urna, or else
deliberately seeding the women who were brought to his quarters. A condom?

The blonde woman saw his confusion and gave a short sigh.
“Didn’t really plan ahead for this, did you?”

He had, actually, though his experience had limited him.
Before he could offer any kind of explanation, however, Marny had turned and
bounced off the bed. The curtain surrounding the bed whispered aside and she
slipped through, still quite naked. He heard her soft bare footfalls and
wondered what she was up to.

A moment later she returned, the mischievous light
glimmering in her eyes. “Lie back,” she told him.

Rune wasn’t accustomed to obeying, not under circumstances
like these. With women, he issued the commands. He could treat his female
partners as he liked. But he did as she said.

She took his rigid shaft again in her hand. With her other,
she set about rolling the slick sheath down the length of his organ. The
sensation was strange, unfamiliar, but not entirely unpleasant. Rune lifted his
head from the pillow to watch as she finished fitting the sleeve of thin,
rubbery material onto him. He wondered from what supply cabinet she’d fetched
this condom, but of course it didn’t matter.

“Stay there,” she said.

Another command. And again Rune did what she said, watching
her climb onto him, taking a straddling position, then guiding herself slowly
and precisely down onto his condom-encased cock.

The penetration felt odd to him, but again it wasn’t
disagreeable. He could feel her grip upon him, was aware of the slickness of
her cleft. She had full control of the situation. He did indeed merely lie
there as she meticulously impaled herself on him. The furrow of concentration
returned to her brow briefly, as if this were a task requiring the same level
of attention as the reports she’d been working on earlier.

She had taken all of him up into herself. She wriggled atop
him, a shiver passing through her as she murmured the softest of moans. A
corresponding pleasure thrilled its way over Rune’s body.

Marny started to rock on top of him, jouncing on her knees,
riding his shaft. She picked a brisk rhythm, steady, forceful. Rune, giving in
to an impulse he didn’t bother to question, reached up and caught one of her
breasts. He squeezed. He stroked the nipple with the edge of his thumb.

She rode him harder. The bed squealed beneath them. He realized
after a moment that he was not rushing headlong toward his orgasm, as would
have normally been the case. The condom, preventing the frantic immediacy of
contact, was slowing him. His pleasure was building but at a more gradual tempo
than what he was used to. It occurred to him—with a flash of pride, perhaps
misplaced—that he could last like this for quite some time. Marny could buck on
his cock for a good long while, if she chose.

But time was a factor. And she, apparently, had keyed her
body to these circumstances. A great shudder went through her trim form, from
knees to shoulders, a sudden violent quaking that probably should’ve been
accompanied by a triumphant orgasmic shriek to the rafters. Instead she bit her
lip yet again, features twisting with the intensity of her release, and emitted
nothing more shrill than another sighing moan.

Her eyelids fluttered and she collapsed onto his chest. Rune
held her, his sheathed cock still throbbing inside her.

A moment later she pushed off him, turned herself around,
lay back on him once more, this time with her back upon his chest. She shifted
her narrow hips until his staff slid back up into her. She turned her head,
pale yellow tufts tickling his cheek.

“Go ahead and fuck me,” she said.

Rune realized he’d actually been waiting for her to say
something like that. With her lying full-length on top of him and his cock
penetrating her from behind, he started thrusting up into her. He liked having
the full, if slight, weight of her body pressing him. He folded one arm over
her middle. With his other hand he mauled her breasts, catching the dark, stiff
nipples in between his knuckles.

It was an effort, lifting his hips to drive himself into
her, but a worthwhile effort, to be sure. She writhed atop him but he held her
tightly to himself. The bed’s frame squealed louder now. Hopefully not loud
enough to wake either of the patients or alert whoever attended this ward. Rune
had gotten away with his bold actions so far tonight. But he didn’t intend to
push it. After all, this was about more than the simple carnal act.

Nonetheless, this was a
hell
of a carnal act, he
thought, feeling an uncharacteristic grin cut his lean features. He fucked
Marny with a mad abandon, lifting her with every hardy thrust now. This was a wholly
new position for him. Suddenly she was thrashing about with renewed orgasmic
fury. At the same instant, Rune felt his own point of ultimate release take
him. He erupted into the condom, spearing Marny deep for those moments of
pounding pleasure. The bliss coursed through him like maddened steam seeking
escape. He found that he too had to actually bite down on a cry.

After, he held her damp body against his. He was reluctant
to disengage but he did so when she made to move off him. He disposed of the condom,
warm with his semen, and fetched his clothes from the floor. Marny was already
halfway back into her uniform.

She looked at him repeatedly, perhaps still not entirely
believing what had just happened, or that he was really Rune.

He felt looser and more relaxed than he had for days. But he
couldn’t ignore his purpose here. He reached out and took Marny by the elbow.
Her tunic was back on but she hadn’t yet adjusted it, and it hung oddly on her
slender body.

“You know what happened to my partner?” he asked.

The question visibly startled her. She gave him a solemn
nod.

“I know that the Guard are searching for him,” Rune went on.
“I need to know how that search is progressing. I
need
to know if
they’re close to finding Urna.” He caught himself before he choked on the name.
Even speaking of the Weapon in a whisper lit dark flames of emotion deep within
Rune. Love. Hate. Lust. Anger. He had to have Urna back. He was, simply,
incomplete without the Weapon.

Marny Vilst lifted a hand and brushed a strand of Rune’s
dark hair from his face. It was a tender gesture. She said, “I have access to
the reports. I can get word to you.”

Chapter Ten

“That’s why I took a job outside of town,” Bongo was saying,
brandishing the travel pass. “You think I like going to the Lux city to sift
through what the official salvage crews bring back from the Unsafe? It was all
so I’d get one of these issued to me.” Again he waved the paper, imprinted with
all its proper stamps.

Virge Temple frowned. “That’s for travel
to
the city.
That’s the wrong way. We want to take Urna away from—”

“We know where he’s supposed to go,” said one of Bongo’s
cohorts. She was a gruff woman with leathery skin and graying hair shorn down
to an unbecoming stubble. Her name was Vika. Virge had never before had any of
Bongo’s associates actually in her home. Now she had several. They were all
preparing to smuggle Urna past the town’s patrolled boundary and away
to—hopefully—safer reaches further out from the Safe’s center. Outside, it was
still evening. Well shy of the midnight curfew.

Virge shot Vika a glare, not liking the woman’s tone. Not
liking much of anything about this. Sending the fugitive Weapon off to safety
had sounded like a good idea when she’d first proposed it. But she hadn’t quite
realized it would entail all
this
. All these scruffy ne’er-do-wells
tramping about her house, taking charge of the situation. These were the same
fools who thought the Lux could be toppled by issuing childish pamphlets.

Bongo said to her, in a reassuring tone, “This is a forgery.
A very, very good one. It allows for travel in the direction we want to go.”

Virge didn’t bother giving it a closer glance. Bongo, she at
least trusted to some degree. If he said it was a convincing copy then it
probably was one.

The cause of all this hubbub, Urna, was sitting apart from
the others, on a chair wedged into a corner of the house’s front room. His thin
elfin features were immobile but his dark-blue eyes ticked back and forth,
watching the activity. Virge wondered what he was making of it. Did he trust
Bongo and these others? Did he trust her?

She crossed toward him. Bongo’s people were still discussing
the details of the operation, still assembling the supplies for the journey,
which they’d brought with them to her home.

“You afraid?” Virge asked bluntly, thinking immediately that
her tone was unnecessarily harsh. It must be a nervous reaction on her part,
she thought. Putting up a tough front.

Urna looked up at her. “I’ve been to the Unsafe. I’ve slain
Passengers.” It seemed a more than sufficient answer.

Virge glanced back at the preparations. Evening had come.
Curfew started at midnight. She had switched on the lights, figuring that
leaving her place dark might call unwanted attention. All this was rather
unnerving for her, whether she wished to admit it or not. It was one thing to
indulge Bongo’s rebellious tendencies by supplying him with paper for his silly
political tracts. But this was a wholly different order of illegal undertaking.

She felt a hand on her arm. Urna had strong, steely fingers.
His touch was firm but gentle. “It’s not too late to forget about this,” he
said softly. “Send everybody away. I’ll duck out a window and you’ll never see
me again.”

Though she couldn’t explain it to herself, the thought of
never seeing the Weapon again wrenched something inside her. But that was
ridiculous. She didn’t know this man. He was just an image on the broadcast
screens, someone with whom she associated kill numbers for the Passengers. He
was a tool of the Lux, a kind of manufactured hero that many of the common
people cheered for.

Nonetheless, he had done a brave thing by fleeing the Lux.
That made him an enemy of Aphael Chav. And any enemy of the Toplux… “I promised
we’d help you,” Virge said. “That’s what we’ll do.”

A smile brushed across Urna’s lips. She wondered—the thought
coming from nowhere and departing quickly—what it would feel like to kiss those
lips.

“You could satisfy my curiosity, though,” she said.

“Yes?” He lifted eyebrows of silver, the same startling
shade as his long hair.

Virge paused pensively then asked, “Why did you run away?”

His smile broadened, turned into a quiet chuckle. “I recall
you saying something about respecting my privacy.”

“Call it
idle
curiosity, then.”

“I’m guessing it’s something more than that.” He glanced up
at her meaningfully. Then he shrugged and reached down into one of his boots.
He came up with a stiff square of paper, old, looking worse for wear.

Virge peered down at it then started. It was a photograph.
Such things were banned, except for use by the Lux-controlled military and
Guard, for security purposes. But, she reminded herself sharply, Urna here
was
military—AWOL or not. She studied the image. Two adults, one child. Nearby the
water, with the sun shining brightly.

“On the beach,” she murmured, struck by the scene depicted
in the photo. It looked so idyllic, so peaceful. Surely the picture was an
artifact. Something pre-Black Ship. When all of Elyria had stood naked beneath
the sun.

“
Beach
,” Urna said, snatching back the picture. “What
does that mean? What’s a beach?”

Virge blinked, nonplussed by his reaction. “It’s,” she
frowned, then shrugged, “just a word. A place that’s alongside the water. Not
like the edge of a lake, though.” She searched her memory. Where had she heard
the term? She couldn’t say. The Safe had several sizable lakes, which supplied
most of the fresh water. A beach, though, was something else. Or so she
thought.

Urna stared intensely at the photograph a moment more. In a
strained voice he said, “I dream about a place where there’s water and warmth.”
His manner indicated he thought this statement significant, but Virge could
only shrug once again. Urna slid the picture carefully back down into his boot.

Virge noticed he hadn’t really answered her original
question. Maybe, though, what he’d said was the start of an answer.
I dream
about a place where there’s water and warmth.

Bongo crossed toward them, his manner purposeful. No trace
of impishness on his handsome features. This was no game to him. Virge suddenly
wondered if she would ever see him again either. It was even more wrenching a
thought than when she’d pondered the same thing regarding Urna.

“We’re ready,” Bongo said.

The Weapon rose to his feet. His blue eyes shifted toward
Virge. “You’re not coming with us?”

She shook her head solemnly. “I have to be at the lab when
the Guard comes to search it. It would look suspicious if I wasn’t there.”

Urna nodded. Then, abruptly, he shifted half a step her way
and planted his lips briefly but poignantly on hers. Something more than a
friendly kiss, something less than a lover’s.

When the contact broke Virge felt a bittersweet rush of
emotion. She wished—suddenly, desperately, angrily—that she and this strange
male had had some time together. Some intimate time.

But time, it seemed, had run out.

Urna and Bongo moved together for the door.

* * * * *

The feel of Virge Temple’s lips on his lingered for a
moment, but plainly there was no time to dwell on the fleeting pleasantness.
Maybe he’d get to see her again some other time. Maybe not. Who the hell knew?

Pastel light softened the sky as Urna exited the small house
with Bongo at his side. The Weapon still had his pistol tucked away unseen in
his coat. The blond man passed him a modestly sized pack. “Provisions,” Bongo
muttered. Urna didn’t ask for further clarification. The time for distrusting
this person had already passed. For good or ill, he’d thrown in with the
so-called magic practitioner. Bongo would either get him to somewhere safe—if
there
was
someplace safe for him—or he wouldn’t.

The small group of his confederates followed them out of
Virge’s house, but at the sidewalk they turned off in a different direction.
Urna gave in to temptation and threw a look back at the door, but Virge,
remaining behind, had already closed it. It seemed to seal something within him
as well, a resignation, a grim acceptance of whatever was to come. Virge Temple
was a damned attractive woman. But if he never saw her again, so be it.

They passed an aging, ragged-looking vehicle parked at the
curb. “That’s mine,” Bongo said out of the side of his mouth. “It wouldn’t last
five miles. We’re not taking it.”

Urna remained silent as they walked on. There was little
other foot traffic on the streets and almost no cars at all. The town seemed
small and quiet though not overly shabby. Urna could remember little about his
own arrival here, staggering through the empty predawn streets, suffering badly
from withdrawal.

He patted a pocket. Virge had given him the glass vials.
They didn’t contain exactly what he was used to taking but the doses would
relieve any serious pains, she’d promised. He was grateful. He didn’t want to
be hooked on all that dope, after all. The military doctors wanted that. The
Lux wanted it. If getting off all that shit meant defying the Lux, so much the
better.

“Keep your head down,” Bongo said with a note of urgency.
They had reached a corner. Someone was coming up the other sidewalk. “Too
late—wait, here.” Bongo stopped and Urna stopped with him, didn’t resist when
the green-eyed man turned, cupped him by the jaw and set a long kiss upon his
lips. Urna understood. He returned it, keeping his face obscured as footsteps
approached, passed and receded.

Even under the current circumstances, Urna felt his cock
start to stir.

Bongo’s sober air relented just enough for him to say, after
he broke their kiss, “That was nice. Makes me think of old times.”

If “old times” were a few hours ago, Urna agreed.

They were moving again. A moment later Bongo said, “This is
it.” He opened the side door of a van and waved Urna in. It was a commercial
vehicle of some sort, with a repair company’s logo on it. Seconds later Bongo
had slammed shut the door, leaving the interior in nearly total darkness. Urna
smelled oil and metal shavings. He heard Bongo get into the vehicle’s cab,
which was separated by a partition, and start up the engine.

He settled in as they moved. Feeling around, he found he was
fairly surrounded by equipment. Some of it shifted a little, clanking together
as the vehicle turned one corner, then another as it made its way presumably
toward the town’s border, which would inevitably be under the eye of the Guard.

Urna thought of how much luck had played a part in his
escape from the Lux city. He hoped that good fortune persisted. Certainly meeting
Virge and Bongo had worked out in his favor.

The vehicle slowed, stopped. A panel slid back in the
partition, letting in a faint glow of dying sunlight, which, nonetheless, was
almost blinding after several minutes of almost complete darkness.

“See that crate?” Bongo said through the slit. “Get in it.”

Urna blinked repeatedly. “What crate?”

A light snapped on in the rear compartment, dazzling him
still more, but seconds later he saw what Bongo meant. Opening the long, narrow
locker, he surveyed its grease-streaked interior. He didn’t hesitate, however,
to climb inside with his small pack of provisions, even though he had to
scrunch himself into an unnervingly cramped position, and even though with the
lid shut, the claustrophobic tightness of the hiding place was nearly
unbearable. Nevertheless, he endured it. As he’d said to Virge earlier,
I’ve
been to the Unsafe. I’ve slain Passengers.
Anybody who could do that could
handle being shut up in a coffin-sized box for a little while.

Still, it was necessary for him to keep his thoughts in
deliberate focus. He brought to mind the recent sensations of kissing both
Bongo and Virge Temple. He remembered as well the latter using that term
“beach” when looking at the photo he’d taken out of the Unsafe. It was the same,
seemingly archaic word he’d found in his own memory. A beach. Sand nearby the
water, and that water rolling onto the land in strangely active way.

Was this some sort of vision of…of the Farsafe? Or was he
somehow confusing all this into some imaginary fantasy of a place which, more
than likely, didn’t really exist?

These thoughts were enough to occupy him until he felt the
van coming to a halt once more. Inside his oblong box he strained to hear what
was going on outside, wishing—not for the first time, actually—that he
possessed Rune’s extra-human senses. What would his bygone lover make of
that
?
The Weapon envying the Shadowflash? Even locked up in his private darkness,
with the air already growing stale, Urna was able to sniff a wry laugh about
it.

He thought he heard voices, but it might just be the blood
rushing in his ears. Were they at the town’s checkpoint? It seemed they’d
traveled far enough to reach it but he couldn’t be sure. He himself had sneaked
across the limits on foot, through some weedy field—so far as he could recall,
anyway. He hoped there would be no trouble with that forged travel pass Bongo
had been proudly displaying earlier.

Why were these people helping him? Why were they willing to
risk themselves?

He had no time to wonder. He heard the van’s door opening.
Bongo getting out. On his own, or at gunpoint? Tension thrummed through Urna as
he lay inside the pitch-black box. A bead of sweat rolled into his eye and he
blinked furiously to clear it.

A long moment passed, then he clearly heard the vehicle’s
side door opening. A routine inspection before the van was let through the
checkpoint? Maybe. Straining anew, he definitely heard voices this time. A
curt, impatient one, and Bongo answering in neutral, unexcited tones.

Someone was poking around the van’s interior now. Urna heard
gear being moved about. His muscles tightened.

Bongo said something that Urna could almost make
out—something about being late for an appointment or a repair call. The other
replied with a vulgar rebuke. These were, however, the only two voices Urna had
definitely heard so far. He focused himself again, preparing, settling into
combat mode. Just in case.