Wings of Retribution (18 page)

Stuart stumbled to his knees on the sidewalk.

“Goddamn it, that’s enough, Darley.”  Rabbit’s voice was like an oasis in the desert.  He came walking up out of the darkness of the alley behind The Shop, looking irritated.  For such a small man, he had a commanding presence that rivaled even Athenais’s.

“But…”

“This man isn’t a Utopi,” Rabbit growled.  “Why the hell do you think he’d come to The Shop, you knuckle-dragging moron?”

“Because he—”

“Go get Earl to carry him back to my room.”

“Why Earl?” Darley blabbered.  He looked absolutely terrified of the lean little man.

“Because Earl’s bigger than you are, not a blind idiot, and he doesn’t give a shit about Utopis.”

“But I can—”

“No, you can’t.  Get Earl, unless you never wanna use my place again.”

Stuart rolled over and looked up at Darley.  His tormentor’s face was pale.  “Earl’s crazy.  He’s not gonna help you carry this piece of shit anywhere.”

“He will, or he can stop patronizing my establishment.  Same for you.”

Darley’s bloodshot eyes went round.  Like a terrified rat, he scuttled backwards into the bar and disappeared.  A few minutes later, the hulking man with the blue bandanna came to the door and glowered at Rabbit, then down at Stuart.

“What you want?” he grunted, looking more than a little tweaked at being interrupted.

“I want you to help me carry this man to my room,” Rabbit said, gesturing at Stuart.  “Darley just beat the crap outta him.  He’s injured, probably broken ribs.”

Earl frowned down at Stuart.  “So?”

“So, I thought of you first,” Rabbit said.  “Thought you might want a free beer or two.  Grab his feet.”

Earl scowled at Rabbit, then at Stuart, but bent down and did as he was asked.

“We’ll take him around back,” Rabbit said.  “Don’t want to make any more of a scene with Darley if I can help it.”

Earl grunted, lifting Stuart’s host’s legs off of the ground.  Rabbit grabbed Stuart’s hands and tugged, struggling with the weight.  Earl gave him and irritated look, but said nothing as the small man grunted and cursed, waddling with Stuart’s weight.  The process took much longer than it should have, and by the end of it, Earl looked like he was ready to throw down Stuart’s legs and stalk off in frustration.

They carried Stuart around to the back door and set him down while Rabbit fumbled with his keys.  Earl leaned against the wall of The Shop and waited impatiently, scowling alternately at Rabbit and Stuart.

As Rabbit continued to fumble, Earl pushed off the wall and growled, “Just give me the damn—”

Something sprang from the darkness of the alley so suddenly that the man didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence before two separate entities slammed into him, plowing him into the ground.  As he cursed and struggled, they wrenched his hands behind his back and tied them in place.  Then they bound his legs together, stopping only to kick their victim when he bit one of them. 

Stuart’s mouth fell open when he realized it was Darley and Giggles.

Rabbit stopped fumbling and put his keys back into his pocket.  He twisted the handle and pushed the door open.  Holding it wide for them, he said, “Tape his mouth shut—I don’t want him disturbing my clients.  And get him inside before he pisses on my doorstep.  I just had that mat cleaned.”

“What the—” Earl began, but it was cut off as Darley applied the tape.  Then he and Giggles grabbed the struggling man and roughly dragged him through the open door.

“Put him over there, on the plastic.”

At the mention of plastic, Earl started screaming behind the tape, kicking and twisting like a wild thing.  Giggles hit him over the head with the butt of his gun to quiet him.

“Good,” Rabbit said.  “Now the Utopi.” 

Much more gently, this time, Giggles and Darley helped Stuart to his feet.  “You okay, bud?” Darley said.  His eyes caught on his bloody nose.  “Sorry, man.  Wasn’t tryin’ to break shit.”

“You two get out of here,” Rabbit ordered.  “Darley, you’ll have to get your drinks somewhere else the rest of the night.”  Rabbit reached into his shirt and removed a credit coin from a hidden pocket inside.  “Use this.  It’s got a hundred-some credits on it.  Should be good for a night if you don’t go off gambling.”

Darley grinned.  “I should get booted out of The Shop more often.”  He tucked the credit coin away in a breast pocket and sauntered off.

“Go make sure he doesn’t try to get back in,” Rabbit muttered.

“You two got this?”  Giggles eyed the struggling shape on the floor.

“Yeah,” Rabbit said, eying Stuart.  “He’ll be a different man by the time we’re done with him.”

“I’m not so sure,” Giggles said dubiously.  “He’s liable to just be pissed off.  He’s a crazy bastard.”

Rabbit grinned, and his smile made Stuart go cold.  “Give us a few hours and he’ll be singing a different tune.”

Giggles shrugged and glanced at Stuart.  “How bad you hurt?  I saw Darley give you a couple good ‘uns, the prick.”

“He’s fine,” Rabbit said.  “See no one disturbs us, all right?”

“You got it.”  Giggles turned and went back out into the alley, closing the door behind him.

Rabbit let out an explosive sigh.  “Well, he’s all yours.”  He looked up at Stuart, grimaced, then nudged the struggling man in the back with the soft leather of a loafered toe.  “Can’t say I envy you the next few years, pisswad, but you earned every minute of it.”  He squatted to ruffle the man’s hair, which made Earl howl obscenities through the gag.  Then, grunting, the wiry little man stood and went to the back door.  Hand on the latch, he paused at the threshold to look back at Stuart.  Nodding at the man on the floor, Rabbit said, “I don’t think anyone will really miss him, if you know what I mean.  Pretty much been a self-serving terror around T-9 since he was outta diapers.”

“You’re not staying?” Stuart asked, nervous.

Rabbit gave Stuart a long, hard look.  “I got stuff to do.”  Then he jerked the door open and disappeared into the night, slamming the door behind him.

Stuart flinched at the reverberating thud.  Swallowing, he looked down at his new host.  Bound hand and foot, his mouth taped shut…  He’d be helpless until Rabbit came back.  Was that what the wily little man wanted?  After pulling the stunt with Darley, he wouldn’t put it past him.

Stuart tried to think of a way to avoid another transfer.  He didn’t want to take another life.  What he
wanted
to do was wake up and find that everything after running into the shifters was just a really bad dream.  Knowing that wasn’t going to happen, however, every millimeter of him yearned for the alluring alternative of crawling in a hole and hiding, and letting everything—the shifters, the Millennium Potion, the struggles on Penoi—go on without him.  He was good at that.  Part of how he stayed alive so long. 

Coward,
his conscience snapped. 
While you were safely keeping your head down and living a happy human life, your people were being slaughtered.

Stuart didn’t want to do another transfer.  While the man definitely fit the type of host Stuart preferred—a hardened criminal that society would be better without—he was still a man.  Not a
harra
.  It wouldn’t be a bond, a symbiosis between two creatures, a blissful give and take.  It would be completely one-sided, Stuart forcibly seizing what he wanted, the human a helpless, unwilling participant. 

A parasite and its host.

Stuart’s stomach churned.  He knew his survival depended on it.  He knew he had no other choice.  With his escape from the Utopian ship, where every hall was monitored, every room under video surveillance, the S.O. knew exactly what he looked like, and would throw everything they had at tracking him down.  If he didn’t change hosts, now, all that time he’d spent hiding in a hole would have been for naught. 

Reluctantly, he made his decision.

His victim stiffened as Stuart approached.

“Just try to stay calm,” Stuart whispered, though the all-too-familiar shame was settling like a rancid pool in his gut.  “I’ll be quick.”  He tried to touch the man’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort him, but Earl jerked away, snarling something behind the tape.  Torn inside by the rebuff, wishing to the depths of his soul that it didn’t have to be this way, Stuart nonetheless lay down beside the man and propped his head to the side so that his ear was facing him.

Confusion flashed across Earl’s face, followed by cold disgust.  Stuart heard him bite out a rebuff behind the tape. 
He thinks I’m going to sexually assault him
, Stuart realized, anguish tugging at his soul.
 

Instead, Stuart was going to do something far worse.  He was going to take his entire body—not just his sexual organs—and use them for his own whims, for as long as he wanted. 
This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be
, a dying part of Stuart whimpered.
  It’s supposed to be a bond, a link between friends… 
That instinctive urge of the
suzait
to seek out a sympathetic host and create a mutually beneficial symbiosis was the same one that was now making him detest his very existence. 

“I’m sorry,” Stuart whispered, taking the man’s struggling head and holding it steady.  “I wish I didn’t…” 
Didn’t what?
his conscience demanded. 
Didn’t
have
to do this?
  Stuart knew better than anyone that he didn’t have to burrow into this man’s brain.  He didn’t
have
to ruin this man’s life, too.  All he had to do was have the courage to resign himself to a bone saw and a little glass jar. 

Shame hot in his awareness, Stuart leaned down, until they were almost mouth-to-mouth.  Beneath him, the man began to curse and attempted to twist away.  Holding him steady, Stuart gave him a weak jolt, just enough to startle him, then gathered himself up and lunged out of his host.

Sudden, skin-cracking dryness assailed his senses.  That, and light.  It was everywhere and nowhere, and once again, Stuart was blind and deaf to everything except the horrible reverberations as his new host stiffened, then began to thrash.  He climbed deeper into what he hoped was the sinuses, seeking refuge in the man’s head.  As he did, he felt the man begin to scream through his taped lips.

Reaching his insertion point, Stuart flexed his teeth and began to burrow, making sure to avoid as much damage as possible.  He had the leisure, this time, since his host could neither call for help nor try to remove him, and he did everything he could to ease into a host that was never meant to accommodate a
suzait’s
thin form.  Earl continued to scream until Stuart finally reached his objective and shut off his vocal cords. 

As Stuart installed himself, his host’s struggles slowed until they finally stopped with Stuart’s appropriation of his motor skills.  Like a caged animal, his new host began to thrash at the insides of his own mind, a feral rage completely devoid of panic.  Rabbit had made a good choice, then, Stuart realized, relieved.  The psychotic rage was typical of a good number of the truly evil men that Stuart had inhabited—not at all like the terrified panic of the innocent Utopian soldier.  Stuart sent a mental apology to his last host, wishing that transfer hadn’t been necessary.

At least it had been quick. 

Successfully embedded, Stuart took a moment to forcibly calm himself.  Never before had he switched hosts in such rapid succession, and his anxiety levels were such that he was having trouble controlling the beast he now rode.

You’re fine,
Stuart thought. 
An easy transfer.  Won’t have to do that again for—

Stuart froze when he realized that his discarded host was getting to his feet.

With only a day under Stuart’s control, Corporal Koff was almost fully in command of his body once more.  He wavered a little as he stood there, but there was no mistaking the look of hate on his face.