Circle Thrice

“Who?”

“Trader. Fireblast! Why are you playing this stupe game with us, Straub?”

The head shook slowly, and he seemed genuinely puzzled. “Never heard of this Trader. But since joining the countess, she’s taught me to remember only what’s important. What she wants is important. Nothing else. She edited my memory, marked me as hers and changed my body so that I no longer needed to be weak in lust.”

He fumbled with his shirt, pulling it open.

“By the Three Kennedys!” Doc gasped. “What kind of?”

Straub’s body was covered in tattoos. Silver chains had been etched around his wrists, around his arms, circling his chest. Both nipples had been pierced with steel rings, and a length of glittering chain linked them.

“She did that?” Ryan asked. “The countess did that and you let her?”

Straub rolled onto his stomach, smiling in delight at their reaction. “See how she claims me.”

“I am the humble and valueless property of the Countess Katya, who may dispose of me in any way she wishes when I am no longer of use to her.”

The words were tattooed in flowery letters of crimson, green and rich cobalt, covering him from shoulder to shoulder, down to his waist.

“Those are whip scars, lover,” Krysty whispered, pointing to the seamed and welted surface of the man’s skin.

Straub ignored their shock and horror. “But see how she rewarded me for a failure. I wasn’t able to fulfill her deepest wish, so she has done this”

He pulled down his pants, revealing his naked loins to their eyes.

He had been emasculated, his penis and genitals sliced away, leaving a neat, puckered scar and a narrow incision that also carried two silver rings and a linking chain.

“Dark night,” J.B. whispered. “She did that?”

Straub giggled, and they all realized with a frisson of disgust that the man was now mad, his once-brilliant brain tilted by whatever had been done to him.

“She did,” he said. “And we’re close to her ville, so you can all meet her very soon.”

“That’ll be interesting,” Krysty said. “I can hardly wait.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“It is such a pleasure to have you as my guests in my ville. And to have the chance to thank you properly for rescuing my most valuable councilor, dear Straub.”

Countess Katya Beausoleil was in her late thirties and was one of the most handsome women that Ryan had ever met. She was a couple of inches below six feet, with a luxuriant mane of tumbling hair as black as the sheen on a raven’s wing. Her eyes were almost as green as Krysty’s, hidden beneath hooded lids. Ryan noticed that her complexion was surprisingly pale, as though she spent very little time out of doors.

She wore a maroon pantsuit in some soft material that he guessed might be velvet. Her only concession to jewelry was a small silver brooch on her breast.

Straub had given them instructions how to get to the main building of the countess’s ville, and they had driven there in three hours. It was to the east of Memphis, in what looked like an area that had once been very exclusive. The house was better described as a mansion, standing in grounds of a couple of hundred acres, and it had been extensively securitized with sec-steel shutters and heavy doors, as well as gun ports slashed into the walls and battlements erected along the line of the roof.

She had seemed pleased to welcome Straub, and he had fawned on her like a puppy, telling her who the visitors were and giving the impression that he had once been the closest of friends with them. It was a strange performance and seemed genuine enough. But Ryan, knowing the old Straub, was still deeply suspicious of the man’s motives.

“We will be taking lunch shortly,” Katya said, motioning toward the main hall. “The room at the far end. You will stay with us for a few days?” She placed her hand on Ryan’s arm in a gesture that was noticed by Krysty.

“Like to.”

“Good. I will have my people show you to rooms on the second floor. We eat in fifteen minutes.”