(Nip/Tuck / CSI:Miami)
by wordwolf
Disclaimers in Part I.
PART VII.
Horatio Caine pulled up to the building in a very ugly mood. It wasn't often he got home and into bed at a decent hour, and to be rousted out of it on account of Sean McNamara was just too irritating. What DID that pompous flesh shaper know about police work, after all? In some kind of lather about not being able to reach his partner, according to the night desk when they contacted Caine. Said partner, that even more annoying Christian Troy, was paying a visit to the woman whose home was being surveilled. A quick call to the ranking officer on the stakeout had confirmed that. It had also confirmed that no one had entered or left the place since. Caine felt only a little short of stupid coming out here himself, most likely for nothing.
As Caine pulled up, a glance took in the two unmarked cars and the listening-post van ... but who was that just now pulling up and getting out of that Audi? The criminalist peered through the streetlight shine, and his irritation deepened. What is McNamara doing here?! Damn. He's got no business at my stakeout! Caine moved to intercept. "Good evening, Dr. McNamara; mind telling me why you're here?"
"YOU'RE here because I called," the surgeon replied sourly. "I'm here because this involves my partner and my patient. My responsibility."
"I wouldn't say that, Doctor." Caine smiled without feeling it. "This is the responsibility of Miami-Dade PD."
"Then meet it." McNamara did not change his tone at all. "Why can't I reach them? Where are they?"
"Upstairs, no doubt. According to the officers on the scene here, no one has entered the building or left it since Dr. Troy came. So relax."
"Not until I see for myself!"
Caine sighed. These damn civilians meant well, but they so often got in the way. A quick check of the apartment ought to be enough to satisfy this fussy mother hen of a doctor. Again, Caine inwardly cursed this pointless interruption of a rare pleasant night. "Then please come with me, Dr. McNamara."
They stopped in the lobby for Caine to check with the officers inside. Of course, they confirmed the uneventful evening. The CSI chief wondered, a little uneasily, if the perpetrator had somehow been tipped off, changing his plans in a way they couldn't anticipate. More likely, though, he simply hadn't yet made his move.
Into the elevator, up to the fourth floor, to the correct door ... Caine knocked. Waited through silence, and knocked again. "Miss Avalon? Are you there?"
"Christian?" McNamara called behind him. Then, "See what I mean? Something's wrong!"
Caine barely kept from rolling his eyes. "Please, Dr. McNamara. They're probably just asleep." By way of demonstration, he put his hand on the doorknob ... and to his astonishment, turned it.
"I told you!" growled McNamara. He pushed past the criminalist, barged into the apartment in the lead, calling, "Christian! Miss Avalon! Anyone home?" He paused in the dark living room, an irritated policeman right behind him, when he saw the sole light beaming brightly from the bedroom. "I don't think they're asleep, Lieutenant."
Now Caine pushed past, hurried into the bedroom to see a single bedside lamp alight beside a rumpled bed. A rumpled, empty bed. The rest of the little apartment was dark, uninhabited. Caine stopped, utterly stunned – and suddenly afraid.
"CHRISTIAN!" McNamara's voice had taken on a frenzied edge. He whirled on Caine, pointing to the neatly folded suit and aligned shoes on the floor beside the bed. "My partner is not here. His clothes are. What now, Lieutenant Caine?"
"There's no way this could have happened." Caine's voice had gone low and dangerous as he forced down the rising fear.
The surgeon snorted at him. "Right. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy'! I bet you hear that one all the time."
Caine glared venomously at the other and quickly shook off the spell of his astonishment. "I don't know what went down here, Doctor, but I intend to find out." He snatched out his phone and called the surveillance van. "This is Caine. Activate the tracer on Karen Avalon. Now. No, she DID leave the building!"
McNamara drew close to hear what he could. There was silence for a moment, then a stunned voice from the other end: "Jesus Christ, Lieutenant ... she's in the 'Glades! But how ..."
Caine snapped the phone shut. "We'll need the Hummer," he muttered half to himself as he spun and hurried out. "You'd better go home now, Dr. McNamara."
"Forget it!" the other rumbled, hurrying right on the criminalist's heels. "What kind of pussy do you take me for? My partner, my patient, and I'm coming!"
In a whirl of bewilderment and horror, Caine wasn't about to bother arguing with the pest anymore. Let him see how far he could push that Audi into the swamp, if he wanted ... and whether or not he could stand before a ruthless and unnatural killer.
XX
From the rear of the X5 came a faint sound of scratching, then a soft moan. Pierce didn't bother looking toward it. "Looks like the dose is starting to wear off. Perfect timing. You hang in there, Christian darling; only a little farther. Then the fun begins."
Apprehensively Karen looked toward the back. Troy was indeed beginning to stir, but only a little, and seemed racked by pain as he tried. She turned back to their abductor. "Please, Mr. Pierce, why don't you let him go? It's me you want. I swear, if you release him, I'll cooperate fully – dear God, I'll let you kill me, I won't make a sound!"
He looked hard at her. "How can you make that promise?"
"You have my word."
"It's worthless." He shook his head. "Fear changes everything, and I can't risk this. I've planned too long and worked too hard ... and far, far too much is at stake. In the asvamedha, if even a single human finger touched the sacred horse before the blade fell, the entire rite was invalidated. I've read between the lines of the ancient records; as far as I can tell, the true asvamedha was never performed successfully ... or the world would be a very different place today. This triple purushamedha I complete tonight, in the second dark of the moon, will be the most awesome rite ever attempted. After twenty-five years of preparation, I don't intend to fail!"
"You said asvamedha means a horse sacrifice, right?"
"Right."
"So purushamedha means ... " She couldn't finish.
"Right." His smile was cruel.
From behind them came a low sound of sobbing.
Pierce chuckled and went on. "Don't think this is the first time I've called upon these forces. As you could probably tell about me – my strength, my youth, the things I can do – I've been doing this for more years than you dare imagine. This will be the final rite I will ever perform. The powers I invoke will be inconceivable – and mine to control. And your dear Christian Troy is my insurance of success. You're not going to want to see what I do to him if you don't cooperate."
Karen glared defiantly at him. "What if I'm willing to sacrifice him in order to thwart you?"
"You're not." The cruel smile sharpened. "I'm the closest thing to a parent you have; I know you better than anyone, sweet Karen Avalon! I have no fear of you." Smugly he turned back to the road, leaving his captives to silence.
Eventually they turned off the highway. The road grew narrower and darker; ahead they could smell the sweet rank stench of plant rot and stagnant water. The BMW was heading into the great ancient wetlands. Pierce maneuvered the SUV along an unpaved trail, the headlights deepening the darkness to all sides, and spoke again. "I'm actually gratified that it worked out this way. True, the first two offerings were much easier, but greater effort will mean a bigger payoff! The rites always use the secret powers of fluids: water, sperm, blood. But now I can invoke another, equally awesome one." He took his right hand from the wheel, reached for her face, came away with a single perfect drop balanced on one fingertip. "Tears."
XX
The X5 finally ground to a halt on a small spit of solid ground surrounded by the grassy water. Before Pierce killed the lights, Karen could make out the bulk of a vast cypress tree growing out of the swamp and overshadowing the patch of firm ground, and the smaller forms of two large brushpiles, and some kind of cubical lump in the middle of the tiny peninsula. She could tell that her captor had been here before; this spot had been prepared. Prepared for her... for her violation and death.
"Get out," Pierce commanded, releasing the doorlocks. "And please don't be so silly as to try to run away. It's too dark to see the trails, the place is swarming with alligators ... and I don't have to remind you who will be left behind with me."
He didn't have to. Karen stepped silently from the vehicle, trying through the darkness to make out the details of the killing ground, looking desperately for anything that might be turned to the captives' advantage. But the brushpiles were just that: brushpiles. The low, lumpish block was too sinister to look at closely. There was something hanging from a bough of the cypress that didn't look like moss. Nothing that could be used.
Meanwhile Pierce swung himself to the ground, took up his sword again, and opened the back of the SUV. "Time to go, Dr. Troy!" he sang. As Karen watched, incredulous, he was able to pass one arm under the feebly stirring body and swing the six-foot bulk up onto one shoulder. Troy moaned, his limbs in an agony of pins-and-needles as the drug was releasing him – but too slowly to fight back. He tried to swing at Pierce, aim a kick at him, anything, but mustered no more speed or force than a baby. Pierce handled him with no more effort than he would a cotton-stuffed doll.
"Please don't hurt him," Karen implored him.
"Not unless you make me." Pierce pointed with his sword to a spot on the turf beside the block. "Sit down and wait there. Don't try anything stupid."
She obeyed, and watched as he carried her lover to the tree where the shadowy thing dangled. With starlight and the wan phosphorescence of the swamp the only light, she could barely see what was happening ... A hand was forced up, a metallic click sounded; repeated with the other hand. Pierce stepped away, leaving Troy hanging from the limb of the cypress by his wrists. On a chain.
"Almost ready," Pierce murmured as he headed for the brushpiles. In a few seconds he had set them alight, and lurid firelight spilled across the night, reddening everything around. Now the prisoners could see their tormentor's satisfied look as he appraised his preparations. He turned from the bonfires, strode over to Karen, stood above her. "You know it's time, Karen." She nodded, not looking up at him. "Lie down." She didn't move for a moment. "I said, LIE DOWN!" He brandished the blade; this time she slid to the turf, unresisting. Now she met his eyes, her expression hard and unreadable. "That'll do. Now shut up and don't move. Any resistance, and I'll be slicing pieces off your pretty doctor."
"I know." Karen tensed where she lay and went silent, waiting for the unthinkable. She did not take her eyes off her tormentor for a moment.
Pierce closed his own eyes, turned his face up toward the moonless sky, and began a chant. Within a few syllables, both prisoners gave up any attempt to guess the language he used. Alternately sibilant and guttural but always harsh, it grated cruelly on their ears, almost causing physical pain. It sounded unnatural, some kind of loathsome glossolalia never meant to be spoken by human mouths. A language fit only for curses.
As he recited, obviously with the confidence of long practice, Pierce brought a hand to his crotch, opened his pants, released an organ already swollen with anticipation. In the firelight, it looked more like the horn of a beast than any part of a man. His chant building, rising, the sorcerer stretched himself upward, straining toward the sky, his sword raised to the invisible moon. Soon, mercifully, the awful words ended, the blade was lowered, and Pierce opened his eyes again to look down at the one who lay below him. The cruel smile split his face, and he sank down toward her, laying the sword aside on the turf, reaching for her naked form.
Troy cried out in anguish to watch Pierce plunge to his knees, straddling Karen, one hand going to her breast and the other to her throat. Oh God, if only I were free... Helpless, he couldn't tear his gaze away as Pierce lined himself up for the thrust. Their captor closed his eyes again, panting with excitement, tightening his grip on his prisoner.
Karen made no sound and no movement, steeling herself against the attack, by sheer will fighting to feel nothing. Surreptitiously her right hand reached out, pawing, searching – finding. Her fingers curled, then locked around the hilt of the sword.
TO BE CONTINUED