(Nip/Tuck / CSI:Miami)
by wordwolf
Disclaimers in Part I.
PART VIII.
As he saw the sword lift, Christian Troy's heart lifted with it. A sudden rush of confidence flooded him; he felt much of his old strength returning to his drugged body. His legs could now hold his weight, and he could see a glint of hope.
And then Pierce's hand locked around Karen's wrist like a steel shackle.
"Drop it," he commanded coolly. Karen only glared her defiance up at him, bit back the pain and said nothing. He shook his head as if amused and repeated, "Drop it! Look, I have to give you credit for your courage, but we've reached endgame. Drop the sword!"
"Can't fault a girl for trying," she growled back. "Let Christian go!"
Pierce sighed, an edge of mockery in his breath. "Have it your way." He slowly squeezed; bone gave way, and Karen shrieked in agony, releasing the hilt. He caught it up almost before it hit the ground. "You asked for that, Karen. You asked for this, too." Smoothly he withdrew himself and stood up, enclosing his member back into his pants.
"What are you going to do?" she whimpered, cradling her crushed wrist.
"What I promised." The firelight reddened his smile and his blade as he turned toward the prisoner chained to the tree.
"Oh, my God, no – please, spare him, he didn't do anything ...!"
"Shut up. You gambled and lost." The sorcerer ambled the few steps over to his other captive. "You know who to blame for this, Christian."
Troy tried to steel his still-tingling body as Pierce approached, raised the sword. It hung poised for a moment, then the heavy round pommel of the hilt smashed against Troy's right side. His scream ripped the night; Pierce chuckled coldly and observed, "Not bad. Think I shattered two ribs there, or was it only one?"
Sobbing with anguish, Troy choked out, "Damn you, Pierce ..."
"As if any power is listening to you." Pierce turned back to the woman, his gaze imperious upon her as she knelt on the damp turf, holding the broken limb. "Did you get the message? You WILL keep your promise, little girl. Fight me again, and he'll pay for it again, not you. And I've got a very good imagination for that sort of thing. Maybe next time, I'll pull a branch from the fire – "
"Enough!" she wailed. "I'm sorry! I swear, you'll have no more trouble from me. Just do what you must, and get it over with quickly, I implore you."
Triumph shone in his eyes. "Lie down again. Lie down, and this time don't you dare try a thing." His grin broadened as he watched her lower herself before him again. Once again he released the hardened horn of his member; once again he raised his blade and his voice in the awful, unknown recitation. His prisoner lay as if dead already. Only the leaping flames made the scorpion image stained into her flesh appear to live and crawl.
The sorcerer completed the diabolical chant, stabbed his sword into the earth, and plunged again onto Karen's body. Troy watched and wept, in agony inside and out, unable to believe the nightmare that enclosed them. The violation he witnessed was like nothing else. To compare it to love was blasphemy, but neither was it anything like the natural heat of lust, or even the bestial rage of rape. This was something cold, tainted, utterly unspeakable.
Finally Pierce moaned and shuddered in his release, and the first phase of the dreadful rite was complete. True to her word, the woman had not uttered a sound or moved a muscle as he took her. After a moment to recover his breath and strength, he withdrew and rose again. "Good. You learned. Now get up and go over to the block. You know what to do." Pale in the firelight, still trying to protect her right wrist, she rose trembling and approached him. On her face, in her eyes, there were no illusions as to her fate.
Through the crimson haze of his own pain, Troy cried, "NO, Karen! Run! Please don't do this; I'm not worth it!"
She turned streaming eyes to him. "My mind is made up. Please, Christian, don't make this any harder than it has to be." With that she turned away again, knelt down before the block, and slowly lowered her head.
Troy kept howling in his desperation, this time to his captor. "You're mad, Pierce! Why the hell are you doing this? You'll get nothing out of it but three dead women! You don't really believe all that bullshit about secret powers – "
The other's laughter was harsh and cruel. "And after what you've seen, how can you NOT believe it? Have you forgotten a squad of police who saw and heard nothing? A man whose name and face you couldn't recall within minutes of meeting? Who hasn't aged in decades? What's YOUR explanation, man of science that you are?"
"I don't have one, and I don't give a damn!" Troy flexed his recovering muscles wildly against the shackles. "All I care is that you let her live. Can't you appease your secret powers, whatever the hell they are, with my life instead of hers?"
Karen's head rose from the block; she turned toward them. "Christian, no!"
Pierce ignored her. He swaggered over to his other prisoner, stopping to pluck his sword back out of the turf, and lowered his voice to a mocking, dangerous register. "You have no idea how much I enjoy emotional displays like this. There will be more of them, many more, when tonight's rite is finished and I come into my own. You'll have the honor to witness the change, and you can be the first to bow down to me – the first of many millions."
Troy met the cold eyes. "Go to hell."
Pierce smiled. "No need. I'll bring it here by dawn." He crossed the firelit clearing again, returning to the block and the woman kneeling beside it.
Karen Avalon watched him approach, and knew what he wanted of her. Tearing her gaze away from her captive lover, she returned her head to the block. Pierce leaned low over her and spoke softly, almost tenderly. "Really, I hadn't intended for any of you three to suffer so much, but now you know why, in your case, it couldn't be helped."
"I don't care," she sobbed back. "Please, end it."
He bowed his head gravely. "I need you to die instantly, and I promise you will. You know how strong I am, and I will strike true. Trust me; you won't feel a thing." Gently he gathered up her hair, parted it and lay it to the sides of her neck so as not to deflect the blow. With that, the sorcerer stepped back, looked down to consider her for a moment. Then slowly, carefully, he raised the blade.
Maddened with grief and agony, Christian Troy saw only one desperate chance. He gathered every ounce of his weight and strength, reached up toward the bough he was chained to ... then flung himself toward the earth with all he had, straining against the chains, the tree, the cruel fate of his lover, in a single moment of supreme effort.
And the branch splintered and gave way.
Troy barely kept his balance as he broke from the tree, staggering on his bare feet, a meter of iron almost hitting his head as the fetters tumbled down; then he was plunging toward the enemy, the chain still binding his wrists, leaping across the few feet of open ground between him and Pierce as the sword flashed down its deadly arc.
Troy hit – and hard.
So did the sword.
Pierce reeled backwards as Troy crashed against him, barely keeping his grip on his weapon. In a tangle of flesh and steel the two men tumbled across the turf and almost fell into one of the bonfires, but Pierce quickly recovered his footing, dug in his heels, and struck back, balling his left fist and slamming hard against Troy's broken ribs. It hurt too much for screaming; Troy let out only a gasp and collapsed to his knees, tears bursting forth.
With a shriek of triumph, the sorcerer brandished his bloody sword. "You're too late, Troy, too goddamned late! I GOT HER! Do you hear me, you stupid goat? I killed your precious Karen Avalon, and it's over – NOTHING can stop me now!" He flung his head back and his arms wide, face upward to the moonless sky; a terrible silence descended on the clearing.
A silence broken by a sobbing voice, weak and growing weaker: "Christian, I love you ... "
Pierce froze, stared. "WHAT? She's not dead? She's still ALIVE? What the fuck ...?"
As fast as the scarlet blaze of pain would let him, Troy turned around. The dance of fire and shadow was hard to read, but he could see that Karen had indeed not been decapitated; she had fallen from the block, a dark gleam of blood flowing from her wounded neck. "My God, Karen!" He struggled to rise, to get to her side ... Her voice had already died away, replaced by the rising sound of motors struggling through the swamp around them.
And that sound was drowned by screaming as Pierce's handsome pale face contorted into a mask of rage. "Troy, you stupid fucking ANIMAL! You've ruined EVERYTHING! Over twenty-five goddamned years of preparation shot to fucking HELL!" The sword, dripping innocent blood, rose again, and Pierce charged after Troy, aiming a last mighty stroke. If the fleeing doctor, crippled by agony and unbalanced by his chains, had not slipped and fallen under the arc of the blade, he would have been cloven in two. Pierce roared in wordless demoniac fury, and drew back the sword for another swing at the fallen man, but staggered back blinded when the headlights stabbed into the clearing. He recovered in seconds and had the sword up and poised, but by then the black Hummer had lurched to a halt and spilled men onto the killing ground.
Horatio Caine was astonished by what he saw, but not enough to keep him from grasping the essentials. His gun was out. "Drop the sword!"
It was as if Pierce didn't see or hear him. He only had eyes for Troy, and revenge. Before the blade could fall, the gun spoke twice; red blossomed on Pierce's black-clad chest. He looked down at himself in bewilderment, then across the clearing at the man who had shot him. He swayed on his feet; the sword fell from his hand, and on weak legs he stumbled toward the edge of the solid ground, where he flung himself into the muddy black water of the swamp.
Among those who had tumbled from the Hummer, a slim dark figure burst from the group and tore for the bank where Pierce had sunk. "No!" Caine shouted to Eric Delko. "The gators, Eric! We'll have Recovery out here at first light; I hit him point-blank in the chest. He won't go anywhere."
Behind the Hummer, an Audi had wobbled shakily to a halt; a slim figure leaped from it and hurried into the light of the twin fires. "Christian! Christian, is that you?"
"Sean!" Troy looked up from where he'd resumed struggling across the damp earth toward the naked, bleeding body beside Pierce's chopping-block. "Help me, Sean; I think she's dying!"
The surgeons converged on Karen; Sean McNamara held back a shudder. So much blood, the right hand bent at such an angle ... He sank down beside her, reached down to put pressure on the neck wound, gasping as he saw his partner come up beside him, bruised, bound and naked. "My God, Christian, what did he do to you?"
"Busted ribs and a chain – it's nothing." Troy's groan belied his words. He was at the flank of his friend and colleague, using whatever strength he had left to grip and close Karen's wound, careful to keep the black iron chain from weighing on her neck and face. The pumping blood, once a torrent, was a trickle now, the pulse of life slowing, the only color in her face from the lurid glow of flames. "Karen, can you hear me?"
She could, but the wisp of voice was fading fast. "Oh, Christian my love ... I can't see you ... please remember me ... please ... " With that, the voice, the pulse, the shallow damp breaths all ceased, into silence.
"NO!" McNamara declared. His hands went from neck to chest to pump her heart with bruising force. Troy wailed and replaced the other's efforts at the wound, putting on the pressure. But there was no more bleeding; only gravity made the blood fall. Karen Avalon was gone.
McNamara moved a hand from her breast to his friend's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Christian. We – we were too late."
"I was too late," the other answered, choking on loss and grief and failure, tears falling on the body of the beloved. "Another second more and I could have saved her ... " His voice dissolved into sobbing as he cradled her, the chain encircling her small, limp form.
Shadows fell across them. The police were gathering, looking down, trying to think of words. "Gentlemen," Caine said softly, holding back the bitter edge of his own failure, "this is a crime scene. We have to – "
"I know." McNamara came to his feet and met the other's eyes, his own moist in the light of the slowly dying fires. "Please, Lt. Caine. Leave him. Leave them. You can spare a few minutes; we now have all the time in the world."
END