Tempest Reborn (25 page)

Although I hadn’t really suffered at his hands except to be knocked about a bit, I had seen what he’d done to others. I’d talked to his victims, and seen the scars they carried both emotionally and physically.

And one of those victims was my friend Iris.

That the succubus had suffered so horrendously so recently was actually hard to imagine. She’d been kidnapped and abused by the Healer and his followers for almost a month before we could rescue her, all to get back at me and my friends. When we’d first rescued her, she’d been a shell of her former self. But she’d proven her strength and her resilience by building herself right back up again. She’d also found a partner out of the whole mess. Caleb, Ryu’s deputy at the time, had been with us when we rescued her. They’d immediately fallen for each other, and it was a relationship that might not have happened otherwise.

Despite, or maybe because of, her history with the Healer, Iris had insisted on coming with us. I hadn’t thought it was a very good idea, but Caleb had supported her decision, and he was a healer.

Maybe she needed to confront her captor for reasons I couldn’t understand but he did.

‘You okay?’ Iris said to me, her voice concerned. She was wedged up against me, sitting bitch between Ryu and me.

‘Yes. Are you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, although she didn’t look at all okay. She looked pale and drawn. I took her hand in mine and gave it a squeeze.

‘You don’t have to do this, you know. You don’t have to confront him.’

‘I know. But I want to try.’

I put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She’d be safe with us, even though Iris wasn’t the most powerful of supes when it came to offensive magics. Her natural succubus talents were amazing; she could make the sun dip down and say ‘Hey, how you doin’?’ on a good day. Lobbing mage balls was another thing, however. But the Healer wasn’t powerful, either. He was just supersick in a way that made him perfect for plotting strategies for someone like Morrigan, so he had the strength of her patronage. On his own he was nothing.

‘He’ll be coming along anytime now,’ Hiral said. The little gwyllion was standing on Anyan’s knee on the front seat, peering over the dashboard at the massage parlor that did the kind of massages that involved a lot more vagina than normal.

‘He’s as regular as Big Ben. At least before it got knocked over.’ Hiral’s joke fell flat, as it was undoubtedly intended to.

‘I’m surprised they let him in,’ I said. ‘I can’t see someone like that going in for vanilla sex.’

‘He never touched us,’ Iris said from beside me. Her voice was light, despite the subject matter. ‘He watched, and he liked to tell his men what to do with us, but he never actually touched us.’

‘Oh,’ I said, simultaneously nauseous and curious at the same time.

‘Well, aggression isn’t his thing, apparently,’ Hiral said. ‘He likes to be dominated.’

‘What?’ I squeaked. It was both TMI and so incredibly weird I couldn’t help wanting to know more.

‘That’s what the girl told me. Yvonne is his favorite. She’s a domme, as well as a prostitute. Nice girl, very polite, and has a good sense of humor.’

‘Um, Hiral? How did you get to know Yvonne?’ I asked, totally confused.

‘I went up and introduced meself, what do you think?’ The gwyllion was clearly not impressed with me at that moment.

‘Glamoured?’ I asked, just to be sure.

‘Hell no, I wasn’t glamoured. When I glamour meself, I can’t be seen.’

‘Um, is that sarcasm?’ I was so confused at this point.

‘No, I really did go up and introduce meself. Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Because you’re two feet tall. And blue,’ Anyan said. The gwyllion gave the barghest a dirty look.

‘She’s a dominatrix and a whore, fercrissakes. You think she’s not seen weirder shite than a two-foot-tall blue man? She barely batted an eyelash.’

I shook my head, amazed at Hiral’s tactics. ‘And she talked to you?’

‘Oh, yes. She not only talked, she was good enough to make a deal, once I explained why we wanted our boy. Girls in her circumstances understand the importance of the sisterhood, even if they’re the first to be booted out of it.’

I’m not sure what I found more mind-boggling, Hiral’s sensitive appraisal of intergender politics and how women often shun their most vulnerable sisters, or the fact that any human being would calmly hear out a gwyllion. Contemplating this, Iris beat me to my next question.

‘What’s your deal?’

‘Our boy likes to be tied up, flogged, the whole nine yards. I just asked her if she would be kind enough to tie him up a little more firmly this time. And maybe leave the room so we would have our own chance to play with her naughty boy.’

I shuddered at the imagery, but couldn’t help applauding Hiral’s methods. The Healer was kidnapping himself, effectively.

‘She only asks we don’t leave any, er, remains. They run a clean establishment.’

They certainly do, what with those VIP Jacuzzis
, I thought.

‘No remains, period. We need him for questioning,’ Anyan said.

Ryu agreed. ‘Although I doubt it, Morrigan might be willing to barter to get him back. Or we can use him for bait. Or keep pumping him for more information, once we get what we need now out of him.’

Iris was quiet, as was Caleb from where he sat in the driver’s seat. I didn’t like the sound of all that silence, and I worried that bringing Iris wasn’t a good idea. She was a grown woman, decades older than me, but I don’t know if she’d made the right choice. I could understand her desire to confront her tormenter, but maybe it was too soon?

‘And bingo,’ Hiral said, pointing forward with one of his spectacularly long fingers. ‘There’s your boy.’

Iris’s body beside mine went rigid, vibrating with contained energy. I again squeezed her hand, a gesture she returned with painful force.

‘So what now?’ Ryu asked.

‘We let him get upstairs. Yvonne’ll take care of him. Then she’ll give us the signal.’

Ten minutes passed, then twenty. We were getting fidgety, watching the dumpy old former warehouse that housed the massage parlor, when suddenly a stream of people came out the front door. Men and women in various states of undress, the women looking bored and unapologetic, the men’s expressions running the gamut from embarrassed to exasperated. The johns ran to their cars, some hopping into their trousers as they did so, while the girls dispersed leisurely into the night.

One figure, dressed in a leather bustier and short shorts, paired with some seriously pointy dominatrix boots, detached herself from the group and came toward our van, lighting up a cigarette as she walked. The flare of her lighter revealed a sharp-featured, thin face, capped off by a mop of curly brown hair. Large brown eyes inspected our vehicle with cool calculation.

Anyan rolled down his window as Hiral moved around on the barghest’s lap so he was facing the girl.

‘Hey, Hiral,’ she said, her voice rich with boredom. ‘You’re all set, love.’

‘He’s incapacitated?’ the gwyllion asked.

‘Oh, yes. Bound tight as a roast goose. He’s not going anywhere.’

‘Which room?’

‘The rubber room. The hose is in the little cupboard by the sink, by the way.’

‘You
are
a good girl,’ said Hiral gleefully as I wondered what Yvonne thought we’d need the hose for.

Yvonne smiled, but it wasn’t a humorous expression. ‘From what you’ve told me, he has it coming. I figure he’s getting off lightly. Whatever you do to him won’t be as bad as he made others suffer.’

A shudder ran through Iris’s body, but otherwise she didn’t react to Yvonne’s words.

‘We’ll not be back till morning. I’ve warned everyone away. Text me when you’re all done, and I’ll come back to lock up. Just don’t leave a mess.’

‘No, ma’am,’ said Hiral.

Yvonne made a vague gesture of farewell, and Hiral sighed as he watched her strut away. ‘What a woman.’

I couldn’t help agreeing. Opening our doors, we all hopped out and walked toward our destination. Anyan and Ryu took the lead, Caleb and Iris took the middle, and I took our backs. Partially, that was so I could keep an eye on Iris. I didn’t want her getting into anything she couldn’t handle, or fainting at the sight of her captor or something. She was tough as nails underneath all that soft flesh and blonde hair, but there were some things too tough for any of us.

The brothel, when we walked into its low front door, was as sad and dingy as I’d expected it to be. It wasn’t dirty, just drab and definitely depressing. It had been some kind of industrial building before, and it had been carved up into rooms using the same sort of thin walls companies make cubicles from. Which meant there would be no privacy whatsoever, and any goings-on would be heard by everyone else in the place. But maybe that was part of the appeal?

Our little group walked on silent feet down the thin gray carpet lining the concrete floor till we neared what had to be the end of the establishment. Hiral gestured to a door at the end of the corridor on the left-hand side of the hall. The walls here were proper walls, but we still crept forward as quietly as we could.

Until, that is, I felt a tug at my hand. Iris had stopped, her face pale as death.

‘I can’t do it. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come.’

I placed both of my hands on her shoulders, gazing deep into her eyes. ‘You do whatever you’re comfortable with, you hear me? If you want to wait for us here, none of us will think less of you. You were brave just coming.’

She dropped her head, a small sob racking her body. ‘Thank you, Jane. I’ll just stay here. Don’t worry about me, though. I’ll be fine.’

‘Are you sure? Do you want me to stay with you?’

‘No. Please. I’ll be fine. And they may need you.’

I was torn between staying with my friend and going to help take care of the Healer.

‘Seriously, go,’ Iris told me, obviously seeing my hesitation and interpreting it correctly.

After another second of deliberation, I nodded. ‘All right. If you need anything, just shout.’

‘I will.’ She took a seat on one of the little chairs in the waiting area, wringing her hands nervously. I turned and ran down the hallway, catching up with the others quickly. They’d been waiting for me.

‘Iris all right?’ Anyan asked.

‘Yes, but she doesn’t want to go in.’

‘I don’t blame her. You ready?’

‘Yes.’

Hiral did his little disappearing act to scout ahead, and we didn’t see him again till he popped back into visibility, standing right in front of the room Yvonne must have stashed the Healer in. He cocked his head to the side, shaking it slowly, gesturing for us to move forward.

We ended up all crowded inside the doorframe, peering inward with various expressions on our faces. Mine, at first, reflected confusion. In front of us lay what had to be the Healer, although his back was to us. Green goblin scales covered the back of his head and neck, trailing down his spine, broken only by some sort of strap across the back of his head. I wasn’t sure what that was about, because his face was turned to the other wall. The rest of his body was a hodgepodge of goblin scales and human skin, and there was definitely a lot of skin to see.

For the Healer was naked, except for a giant adult diaper and a crisscrossing of ropes binding him up like a hog for the slaughter.

There was nothing so off-putting as seeing the bane of your nightmares wearing some giant Pampers.

He must know something’s up
, I thought. In my naïveté I thought the goblin halfling was struggling, for who wouldn’t know something was wrong after at least ten minutes of being hog-tied in a diaper?

That’s not struggling
, my libido pointed out delicately. A second later, I realized it was right. The Healer was humping the floor. Or his diaper. I’m not sure how that fetish worked, really.

Gritting my teeth, I pulled the labrys. I wasn’t fucking around.

At my unspoken but very bright signal (the ax didn’t seem to like the Healer one bit), we all strode into the room. Squirming to turn his tied body, the Healer eventually made his way over to the new source of light in the room. The labrys flared brighter, then brighter, and he squinted at us, unable to see our shadowed forms in the glare. It wasn’t till I spoke that he realized he was in more of a bind than he’d paid for.

‘Hello, Healer. We meet again.’

This time he squirmed for real, and not in a fun way. His cries of alarm were muted, however, by the ball gag, explaining the thin strap at the back of his head.

Yvonne is a clever thing
, I thought admiringly. I’d have to ask her where she learned to tie knots.

‘Why don’t we make our guest comfortable,’ I told Anyan and Ryu. I was channeling every Bond villain I’d ever seen, trying to mimic the creepy combination of polite threat at which they all excelled. Acting as my evil minions, the barghest and baobhan sith moved into the room. Caleb stayed behind me.

There wasn’t much in the room, which was, indeed, made of rubber. Black rubber, to be exact, and the floor had been left concrete but painted black. A drain was set in the middle of the floor, and I remembered Yvonne’s comments about the hose. Perfect for a quick clean-up, I realized, trying not to think of all the things one might do with a diaper fetishist.

Ryu and Anyan picked up the Healer roughly by the armpits, swinging him in a way that made his bound body jerk painfully. The goblin halfling batted at them ineffectually with his magic, but he was no match for either supe, physically or magically. I would have thought it wasn’t a fair fight, except that the Healer himself specialized in unfair fighting. His victims had ranged the gamut from weak supes to human children, so I didn’t feel too badly about dropping the auspices of chivalry.

‘Oh, that is perfect,’ I said, channeling my inner villain, as Ryu and Anyan untied the Healer’s bindings long enough to bind him back in place, tied to the only furniture in the room.

Ironically, that piece of furniture was the same type of medical gurney that the Healer had used to torture so many of his own victims. It was the sort that could fold up, or down, from almost a chair to more of a bed.