Chapter Twenty-One

 

Ryan was alive. Alive!

 

The thought wouldn't leave Krysty's brain.

 

He was alive, and Poseidon had lied. Krysty couldn't be sure if Ryan had just arrived or had previously been on the base. Her instincts told her the former; otherwise the Admiral wouldn't have brought her in to show off like a prize heifer. She was smart enough to know when she was being used as a bargaining chip.

 

The question was, why? What could he want or need from Ryan to use her as a hostage?

 

After allowing her and Ryan to glimpse each other, Poseidon had ordered her jailers to march her back, but not to the hospital psych ward where she'd been previously kept with Jak.

 

This time she was walked across the compound to a flat, ugly building made of the same off-white stone as the rest of the base. Apparently this had once been a mass of offices and tiny cloth-walled cubicles. Inert comp terminals were in each little half room. Some of the desks still held photographs in frames or other personal mementos that were very different from the ones she was used to seeing inside the utilitarian military redoubts.

 

Two cells had been assembled at the end of the largest central conference room.

 

Krysty had seen this type of setting before. Once, this was a building used for the conducting of military business. Now, a part of it had been remodeled as a brig for those who displeased Poseidon.

 

"Sit tight, bitch. We've got some smokin' plans for you once Cawdor shows the Admiral where the fireworks are hidden." The leering sec man gave her a shove, and she half fell, half stepped into the windowless room. The man who pushed her had answered part of her question. Krysty was being held to force Ryan to show Poseidon where something was hidden.

 

Krysty decided to play dumb. She didn't turn back or give off an angry retort to the sec man. If she kept quiet, perhaps he would stupidly say more. She merely went over and sat on the small mattress on the floor in the corner of the room. She attempted to wear her best beaten-down expression, the wilted flower, the helpless womanwhatever was most convincing.

 

Unfortunately for her plans, the sec man chose not to gloat any more, and blew her a kiss as he slammed the heavy door shut.

 

After the door closed, she waited. The sound of a lock being turned came from the steel frame. A dead bolt. This bit of information was filed in her brain, although she really wasn't dwelling on the immediacy of her surroundings at the moment. Krysty Wroth wasn't a passive type of woman. She was ready to go on the offensive. If she could escape, her value as a wedge would cease to exist, and Ryan would be free from his obligation to help Poseidon in exchange for her safety.

 

Her green eyes closed to slits. She wasn't seeing the outside world anymore; she was looking within. She drew her long legs beneath her in the lotus position and began to whisper in a soft, breathy voice a string of words, sentence fragments and prayersa mantra she never relished in calling up from her unconscious because of the dangers to herself and to those around her.

 

But Krysty was alone now, and there was no one around her but her enemies.

 

"Earth Mother, help me. Aid me now, Gaia. Help me and give me the strength," she whispered.

 

She had been trained since childhood to hone this empathy by being in tune with the electromagnetic energies of the great Earth Mother, Gaia. By tapping into these hidden pools of energy, Krysty sacrificed her humanity to become a creature with the strength of a sheer force of nature, but only for a limited time, and the transformation took a terrific toll on her physical and mental well-being.

 

She hoped she would be strong enough to free herself now.

 

"Help me, Earth Mother, I need your embrace. Aid me now, Gaia. Help me and give me the strength," she chanted, faster now, her face simultaneously calm and urgent. "From the center of the world to souls of your children, give me the power"

 

 

 

KRYSTY STEPPED UP to the door, a crooked smile of dark amusement on her face. She looked like a living embodiment of a dream, a walking human dream caught up in private songs and hidden thoughts. Her long fingers traced the frame of the reinforced cell door. Even in the near state of delirium that calling on the power of the Earth Mother always placed her mind in, she knew that one or both of the men who had brought her into the building would be outside guarding the door.

 

Two wouldn't be enough to stop her. Not even close.

 

The brutal ballet that was about to begin would be vicious and ugly, and luckily for the two walking dead men assigned to watch over her, blessedly brief.

 

One of the pair, a fortyish man named Murphy, heard a faint scratching noise come from behind the reinforced steel door.

 

"What's that?" Murphy asked, tilting his head and trying to pick out the source of the sound.

 

"What's what?" his younger partner, Fade, impatiently responded.

 

"I hear scratching," Murphy insisted.

 

"Probably rats. This building is crawling with the bastards. Screw 'em. Sit down and we'll play a hand of cards or something."

 

The older man had stepped up to the door of the cell now and placed his ear against it. "Sounds like they're inside with the girl," he observed.

 

"Lucky them," Fade retorted.

 

"Think they could hurt her?" Murphy asked.

 

"Naw. Not as long as she doesn't turn her back on them," Fade said. "Besides, what the hell difference does it make? Once the Admiral gives the order, we're going to pull a fuck train on that little morsel that'll cause her to be walking on her hands for months afterward."

 

"Oh, yeah?" Murphy was interested now. He felt the telltale sensations of an erection starting to grow in his denims. "I didn't know that. I haven't gotten laid in months."

 

"Hell, yeah! I heard that, bro. You know how Poseidon feels about women. Thinks they carry disease. Said we could do as we wished as long as we wore protection," Fade said with a chuckle. "Protection. She's gonna need it! I'm gonna ride that bitch so hard, she's liable to split in two. God damn, but I love the military!"

 

Fade stood up and walked over to Murphy. "Take a seat, Pops. Let me take a listen. If there are rats in there, I don't want them touching that girl 'fore I do."

 

The two men switched positions. Murphy sat at the small industrial green desk and picked up the deck of well-worn playing cards that Fade had been shuffling earlier. The middle drawer of the desk was crammed full with old porn mags that were near rags, and various other sedentary amusements to help pass the time when watching over a prisoner.

 

Meanwhile, Fade listened.

 

"Nothing," he announced.

 

"No, no, you gotta bend down. The sound is coming down lower. You think rats would be standing six feet high or what?" Murphy said.

 

Fade shot his companion a glare, but went ahead and got down on his knees. He leaned into the door, and damned if the older guy wasn't right. He did hear some scratching sounds.

 

Suddenly the sounds abruptly ceased. He pressed his ear closer and waited for them to start a second time.

 

By doing so, Fade never saw what was coming as the door crashed hard into his skull and shoulder from the terrific two-handed push delivered from the inside, a push of such force the steel frame came free along with the locked door, dripping bits of metal, plaster and wood. The end result was the temporary immobilization of the sec man on the floor, and a jagged hole where the cell door had been.

 

Standing there, framed in the ruin and still wearing the beatific smile, was Krysty.

 

"Knock, knock," she said in an innocent whisper.

 

Her eyes shone with cold fire now, the pupils blazing as she took in the scene. The two men reacted as quickly as they humanly could, which didn't mean a thing to the voluptuous creature now in their midst. The parts of herself Krysty called human had been submerged, replaced with a red molten force. A lover of life and all it entailed, she was now the destroyer, no longer a creator, no longer a preserver.

 

In the killing state of mind Krysty had been forced to induce within herself, the sec men who had brought her here and locked her away were now moving in slow motion. Pathetic. The red mist of death swamped her mind. There would be no reasoning with her now.

 

No begging.

 

No mercy.

 

Fade was the first to die. He had managed to shift the broken door from his body and crawl away, scuttling on his hands and knees to a point where he could spin and pump a full clip of hot ammo into this crazy witch.

 

Krysty idly watched him as she might have observed an insect seeking refuge from being stepped on. The thought made her body temperature glow even hotter.

 

With ferocious velocity, Krysty's right boot shot out, catching Fade in the ear and jaw. Cartilage tore, and the eye socket of the man's skull shattered like a dropped eggshell. The upper part of his jawbone broke and tore away from the connecting tissue and muscle.

 

The end result was shocking. To Fade, and to the watching Murphy, she'd moved so fast the kick had barely registered, until the lower half of the man's face went from whole and solid to hanging like a wet burlap sack full of marbles. Unintelligible screams were coming from his throat and out of his ruined mouth and nose, a mix of snot and blood dripping from his nostrils.

 

Murphy looked at the scene, at his partner, and his mouth dropped open in disbelief. How hard had she kicked Fade anyway? What the fuck was in the toes of those boots? He'd never seen anything like this in all of his forty-four years of existence. Like some kind of adventure vid player set on fast forward, this woman, this thing , had broken a steel door in two, ripped out the frame and proceeded to kick the shit out of a man who in all likelihood would normally be able to pick her up one-handed without even breathing hard.

 

Murphy responded by pivoting in the padded swivel chair behind the desk, tossing aside the deck of cards, rising to his feet and running as fast as possible from the engine of destruction that had erupted in his midst.

 

Fade looked on in rage at the lower half of his own face sagging limply into his line of vision, then set his sights on the demon above him. He cursed her in a string of profanities that would have done any man proud.

 

But to Krysty, the bleating figure at her feet was merely a distraction. She watched, with a mix of bemusement and pity, as Fade managed to blindly shoot off a single round from the rifle he'd been carrying. In response, Krysty kicked out a second time, and a third, and a fourth, and a fifthher movements a blur as each blow struck home, catching the join of Fade's chin and neck as if she were repeatedly punting a football.

 

Fade's features were destroyed beyond recognition, blood spraying up like the high-pressure contents of a burst water pipe. The lifeless head flew upward at a forty-five-degree angle, hitting one of the ringed silver ceiling lamps with a wet slapping sound. The screeching noise the man had been making before the final blow was replaced with a bellowslike wheeze from the wet hole between his shoulders.

 

All of this occurred within a span of mere seconds.

 

Murphy was up and running for his life. To Krysty, he was merely walking away at a leisurely pace. A casual follow-me jog.

 

The sec man was scared, as scared as he'd ever been in his mercenary life.

 

Fuck the navy and fuck Poseidon, too. No amount of jack was worth having to deal with this! Stickies and muties and bands of wandering marauders with killing on their mind was one thing, but this was beyond even the usual day-to-day madness of Deat-lands.

 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," came in a torrent from his mouth as he ran.

 

Behind him, Krysty stepped on Fade's still-thrashing body and began to make her move.

 

Murphy was babbling faster now, praying, begging, gasping as he ran. He didn't look back. He'd seen more than enough, the empty smiling expression on the woman's face coming up behind him was etched forever in his memory. He staggered, trying to keep his balance and hoping he wouldn't fall.

 

When he felt her iron fingers bite down on his shoulder and lift him bodily into the air, it was almost a blessing.