Fade To Black Part 22

Sarabande recrossed her legs, and said quietly, "You have been played for the fool mat you are. While the runners were bargaining with you for more time, they were plotting the abduction of the subject's wife.

They now have both these persons. They obviously have no intention of turning the subject over to my client I am very displeased."

L. Kahn grunted, moaned. "They broke ... contract."

"Indeed."

Sarabande signaled again. Aubrey drew back a step. Rollo and Zoge moved in, dragged L. Kahn up off the floor and onto his feet. Aubrey delivered three precisely aimed and executed hand strikes directed at specific points of L. Kahn's upper body, then turned and whirled, slamming the heel of his boot across L.

Kahn's face.

The man sagged as if made of mud. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth. Rollo and Zoge turned him on his knees to face Sarabande. Aubrey grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked L. Kahn's head up straight.

"When you are given instructions, you follow them to the final decimal," Sarabande said. "You do not decide on your own to mount private adventures. You are one little fly hi my web. You do what you are told. Nothing less, nothing more. You will release Victor Guevara at once. You will then sanitize this entire operation. Is that clear?" L. Kahn seemed to have barely the strength left to nod, much less speak.

Sarabande signaled.

Rollo and Zoge dragged L. Kahn around to face Aubrey. The meeting was over. It was time for one final warning. Aubrey drew a knife from his pocket The black monocule-edged blade snapped out of the handle and into position with a soft click. Aubrey grabbed hold of L. Kahn's hair to steady his head, then put the tip of the blade inside L. Kahn's left nostril.

"Remember," Aubrey said. "Do what you're told."L. Kahn grunted, and Aubrey tugged the knife free.

It was a very, very clean cut.

25.

"I'm hungry."

"Come're."

Lying on his back on the bare mattress, Monk turned his head to the right and wondered what Minx meant. I was way too dark to see, but he could feel her lying right up against his side, her head resting lightly on his arm midway between bis shoulder and elbow. He could feel the warm weight of her luscious, lithe body weighing against his side all the way down to his ankle. He could feel the soft, gentle pressure of her body grow subtler then fuller, each time she took a breath.

Come're?

Where ... ?

Then, he felt her moving, maybe rising onto one elbow lowering herself onto his chest. The feel of her body descending onto his inspired him to a not-so-subtle excitement. They had just made love like that, her on top, he on the bottom. He guessed she wanted to do it again. With her, he'd do it forever.

"Monk?" she said softly, her face just a breath away her hair showering down all around them. "Do you like me?"

"Uh-huh."

"Would you like to be with me always?"

"Sure."

"I'm glad." Her lips brushed his cheek. "You're so booty. And it doesn't always work right unless you want it."

"Huh?"

"Breathe with me, silly. That'll make you."

"Make me wha ... ?"

Her mouth closed over his. She exhaled, long and deeply. So long and so deeply that when it came time for him to breathe, he simply inhaled her air, her breath. They did that a couple of times. It was wild and kind of s.e.xy and the excitement it inspired in him made Monk want to go on breathing like that forever.

It made him want other things, too. He began running his hands up and down her sides and over her slender back, down over her behind, then up and over the back of her head and through her lavish hair.

They got it together, their separate parts. Minx began s.h.i.+fting back and forth, making it work. She kept her mouth on his throughout. The harder and faster they moved, the harder they breathed, pa.s.sing the same breath back and forth, back and forth.

By the time it ended, Monk felt dizzy-dizzy with excitement, and dizzy with something that seemed like love.

The room actually seemed to be spinning, turning around and around and tilting wildly back and forth.

The darkness took on a reddish glow, as if the sun were returning from night to twilight, and then to the last fiery radiance of sunset. Minx laughed and her laughter echoed. She smiled and her eyes seemed to gleam a fiery red. Her whole body had a crimson hue. Everything did.

Grinning, Minx leaned down into his face, till their noses touched, and she crooned, "I made you."

"Made you, made you," her voice echoed.

"Huh ... ?" Monk said.

"Huh... ? huh... ?" his voice echoed.

"Come on! come on! come on!" Minx said. "Let's go! let's go! let's go!"

"Go where? go where? go where?"

Minx laughed and laughed and laughed. She tugged him up by his arms. The floor tilted downward, then upward, then back and forth and up and down. Minx grabbed him around the waist and tugged him forward, pitching forward down the slope of the floor, then staggering up, up the slope of the floor. A cacophony of raucous voices and uproarious laughter echoed and resounded. Leering, red-hued faces streamed toward him from out of nowhere, only to vanish right in front of his nose.. Minx forced him to run headlong down a flight of stairs, then dragged him stumbling up and down a long, red-hued pa.s.sage.

"Hurry! hurry! hurry!" Minx said. "Monk! Monk! Monk! It's time! it's time! it's time!"

A metal door slammed open above them.

Minx dragged him up, up and out through the door, then down more stairs and onto the broad, red-hued pavement of a four-lane transitway.

Suddenly, everything seemed normal, just red, except for the fact that the transitway was empty oftraffic.

Monk looked to his left and saw a MediVan with flas.h.i.+ng strobes and glaring headlights bearing down on him from maybe two meters away. He opened his mouth to scream, but didn't quite make it Someone jerked him back off his feet-right off the ground-and set him down again a good two or three meters away from where he had been, but now facing in the opposite direction.

Something shrieked shrilly.

"Monk, quick!"

The MediVan door was open. Minx all but shoved him through, up the step and onto the seat. The driver looked human but skeletally thin, like death. The two orks in the rear had huge, savage tusks. When they smiled, their eyes gleamed a fiery red.

Minx shoved onto the seat beside him.

Tires screamed, the MediVan roared ahead.

"Hear about the wreck on the skyway?" shouted one of the orks hi the rear. "Guy jumped the divider, hit seven cars, decapitated fifteen people before his tires ever touched the ground! Slammed into an oxygen tanker and incinerated himself and a buncha other cars! They still don't know what he was driving!"

Minx bent almost double with laughter.

The MediVan shot down a narrow tunnel and into the burning red glow of the night. A man crossing the street directly in front of them dove toward the sidewalk. His briefcase bounced on the MediVan's front hood, then struck the front winds.h.i.+eld and split wide open. Hardcopy and comp disks whipped across the winds.h.i.+eld and vanished. The MediVan's siren began whooping and wailing.

"b.o.n.e.r!" the driver shouted.

He grinned, eyes glaring red.

Monk looked at Minx as she grabbed his head and tugged him into a kiss, her breath gus.h.i.+ng into his mouth hot and wet, her hand thrusting down and squeezing his groin.

"So booty!" she cried.

The night filled with flas.h.i.+ng stroboscopic lights of red and near-red. The MediVan screamed to a halt.

Minx thrust a reddish MediVan jacket around the back of Monk's shoulders, pulled one on herself, and tugged him out of the van.

Cars and bodies littered the roadway. Gunfire stammered and roared. "This one!" Minx exclaimed, tugging Monk around in a circle. She thrust him right at the sprawled body of a woman, a very large woman in clinging reddish clothes. "Now! Do it now!"

"What ... ?"

She thrust him down, his head to the woman's, his mouth to the woman's mouth, and then with two fingers clamped his nostrils shut. Monk grunted in surprise, abruptly exhaling-just once.

Maybe that was the wrong thing to do.

"No, Monk! No!" Minx exclaimed. "Not like that!"

Abruptly, the woman jerked and stiffened beneath him and her eyes flared open wide, glaring a fiery scarlet-red.

"Oh, drek!" Minx cried.

The woman began clawing Monk's face. She moaned louder and louder, like a creature risen from the grave and bent on exacting a terrible vengeance.

"FIEND!" Mink shrieked.

Monk stared, wide-eyed, till suddenly Minx was tugging him back, right onto his feet.

"TOO LATE! RUN, MONK, RUN!".

They ran. They ran across the width of the street-dodging around smashed cars, jumping over bodies-and in through a doorway and up a flight of stairs. Monk glanced back only once. The woman he had breathed into was up on her feet and staggering around. She grabbed some slag in reddish camos and tore his eyes right out of his head.

Monk opened his mouth and screamed.

The slag screamed, too.

A door slammed open. Monk pitched forward through the doorway. The door slammed again to his rear as he tumbled to the floor, onto his back. In some little, one-room apartment Panting, gasping, thrusting back her hair and groaning, "Oh G.o.dddddd ... ," Minx knelt down beside him and laid her head on his chest.

"That was the wrong thing to do, you little booty," Minx said, catching her breath. "She must've been dead already."

Monk gaped, panting. "Dead?"

Abruptly, Minx's hands were moving gently all over his face, and she gazed down at him with ared-hued look of genuine affection. "Oh, Monkie ... are you tired?" she crooned. "You must be tired. Like you're drained or something."

Now that she mentioned it...

"Come're," she murmured. She pressed her mouth down over hi&, and exhaled. Monk felt his whole body tingle with excitement. When she did it again, breathed into his mouth again, he inhaled deeply. It was s.e.xy and wild and it made him feel like, like ... Like s.e.x. Better than s.e.x.

Later, when they were lying nude in each other's arms, Minx whispered, "Are you still hungry?"

Monk thought about that. "I'm not sure."

Minx smiled and snuggled close. "You're so booty."

"You're all red," Monk said. "Everything's red."

Minx giggled. "Of course."

26.

The door from the alley led into a narrow hallway that ended at a squarish room crowded with artifacts: chairs, a couch, kitchen appliances, trideo, simsense gear, bookdisks, chips, several cyberdecks, and what looked like the scattered components for several more cyberdecks. Bandit had no particular interest in any of this. He investigated further. A small room off to the left turned out to be a lavatory. A third room looked like a bedroom.

The character of the bedroom stood out. Life glimmered here, though faintly. The spiritual essence of the world seemed to matter here. This room must be investigated further.

Bandit returned to his body.

"Okay?" Rico asked from the front of the van.

"Yes," Bandit said. "Interesting."

"You didn't see anything dangerous?"

"Not likely."

Back from his brief trip onto the astral, Bandit sat cross-legged in the rear of Thorvin's van, amid a clutter of tools and spare parts. He waited while Rico gave instructions to the rest of the group. This deep into Sector 6, Little Asia, they were probably safe, thanks to Piper's connections, but they would take no unnecessary chances. Dok and Filly would stay on guard here in the van. Everyone else would take a squat, go into the small apartment Bandit had scouted and shack out.

Bandit followed Rico and Piper, Shank, Thorvin, Surikov, and Marena Farris out of the van, across the alley, and into the cluttered apartment.