Chapter 25

"Numbers are irrelevant. They received as they themselves gave, and they served a higher purpose. They furthered my research."

"This was not mere research. The things the papers say were done to those people… Those…traps."

"These vermin? These microbes? They're mine to do with as I please. But you are correct, this was not mere research. I'm close to perfection."

"This is abhorrent."

"This is my will."

It'd taken a few pulled strings…

Strings pulled to make hooks bleed and ache in the cheeks of those necessary. He had his fingers so deep in so many people it would have made one wonder just who was left that couldn't be bought. He only knew of one that could never be bought.

Juli…

Because she could never be bought; because she was one good person in a sea of wretched and worthless…

I will impose my will on all of them and bring her some peace.

She would know soon, but not that he acted out the deed. They all would know, and those who knew that they had a part in it would scurry into the dark and stay there. Not one of them would go against him. They were not defiant. They were cattle and gnats and all other forms of lesser beings.

Lesser than I…

With each step, Ruvik could feel excitement crawling through the husk that was his body. Preparations had been made. The delivery was done in the dark of night by two men who didn't ask questions. The law of the land was weak; it could never deliver the results of Ruvik himself.

I will have to make this quick…

Turning the knob, he pushed the door open to the basement. How it had changed over the years… He had played a few games already with poor Louis. An unfortunate foot stepping into a bear trap had rendered one foot completely useless. He couldn't run, and after a sedative, he slept like a child until Ruvik had him on the slab. A constant feed of carefully measured tranquilizers kept him below the surface. The foot was wrapped and gauzed just enough to stop the bleeding. Ruvik had not planned on that.

No matter… He will still scream and beg for death.

There still was some use to him… A few tests that could prove useful to STEM itself. Though…

This isn't about STEM. This isn't about those rats at Mobius or the hospital. This is for her… all for her.

From the shadows he approached the rack, a glance cast to the various tools spread out on his workbench. Orbitoclasts, cutters, hooks, various pliers, a saw…

Nicholas chose wisely… A shame he doesn't have the stomach for this scene.

Dead gray stars lashed their stare toward the man laid out on the rack. Barbed wire wrapped around appendages forced Ruvik's latest victim to remain stretched out the length of the ancient rack.

Louis was gagged, but his spooked stare could not be ripped from Ruvik. His head was forced to stay high, a heretic's fork and its collar had already been wrapped around his throat. It seemed that the man had already tested the fork, puncture wounds visible along his breastbone.

From under the ghostly shroud, Ruvik smirked. In the florescent lighting, he looked more cadaver than a living man.

The victim's breath heaved harshly from his nose, nostrils flaring with each breath.

"I told you that it was just the beginning of what I was going to do to you."

Louis swallowed hard, fighting the urge to tear up.

Ruvik's lips twitched into an amused smirk. "Do you like what I've done with the place? The rack you're tied to came from Spain. It was supposed to be merely a decorative piece but I really desired to put it to the test." His stare drifted up the device. "Though there is no need to stretch you. You look perfect like this."

A pitiful sound escaped the other man's throat.

"What was that? I couldn't understand you." Ruvik released the gag of rags.

A couple of short breaths and Louis' fright could not be contained. "You're fucking insane, man!" He tried not to cry but it was far too late for that. The wounds on his wrists from the barbed wire were killing him.

"I'm insane? I wasn't the one who brought this on himself." Ruvik turned away to the workbench, fingers drifting over the various tools.

"When she finds out what you did to me, she'll have you arrested and thrown in the electric chair."

Ruvik stopped in his tracks, his expression falling from amused to flat. The very idea that his perfect pet would turn on him…

She could never turn on me.

Without warning Ruvik picked up one of knives off the table and swiped it clean across Louis' face. A howl of pain was his reward and he did it again and again until blood ran freely and there were more blood than features left on the other man's face "You don't know her you filthy microbe!" Ruvik roared in his face, the knife driven through Louis' bicep and left to weep blood.

Slice cleanly…

Louis' cries to a nameless god went unheard by his tormentor. The heretic's fork lodged itself into the flesh under his chin.

Every cut brought new torment.

"Just kill me! I know that's what you're going to do to me anyway!"

No cure for what I'm going to do to you…

Instead of gagging him again, Ruvik sliced off the man's scalp and shoved it as far into the man's mouth as he could manage.

Louis thrashed, trying desperately to break his bonds to little avail.

"Usually microbes are not so willing to provoke me with their foolishness. I will end you when I feel like it." Ruvik uttered, dumping the knife onto the work bench. He went for the snips gleaming in silver.

Toes, fingers and nose were the next to go. Every crunch and snip rendering more cries of terror and screams in agony.

Ruvik reveled in it all, though he was not close to perfection yet. His coat, bare chest, and arms all were drenched in lovely crimson.

Louis was thrashing far too much for what Ruvik had planned next.

A sedative was needed.

A sedative was chosen.

A sedative of Ruvik's design.

Though Louis could not move, he still could feel every cut and every tear that stripped his body of something more.

Tourniquets were applied, the saw put to use removing appendage after appendage.

"Can't have you dying before I allow it."

Thirty minutes passed of this torment before the phone rang. Far too busy to answer, Ruvik allowed it to go to voicemail.

"Hey, it's me… I was hoping that you would come back to the city tonight. I have the night off. I…miss you. Bye."

Before Louis gave up the ghost, Ruvik held the fool's beating heart in his hand.