For a second, Sindri was taller than her, and she saw the cruel smirk play over his lips. He delivered a short, savage blow to the base of her neck, right on the carotid artery. Brigid felt a sharp pain, a numbness and her muscles turned to watery mud.
Then the hard floor slapped the side of her face. Sindri grappled with her, wrestling her up and over onto her back. His arms were like compact masses of knotted steel cables. His hands tore at the zippers and seals of her suit. He dug ten vanadium-hard fingers into her arms, her breasts, he shook her, buffeted her, pum-meled her to and fro. For a dizzy handful of seconds, she felt as if she were being dismembered in the grip of an earthquake.
The manhandling stopped suddenly, and she lay gasping on the floor, tasting the salty tang of blood at the comer of her mouth. Her body throbbed with a dull, steady ache, and sharper pains let her know of strained ligaments and tendons. She felt the cool touch of air on her torso and shoulders and knew her suit had been opened and peeled down to her waist.
When Brigid’s eyes were able to focus again, she saw Sindri standing between her outflung legs. He undid the silk scarf around his throat and unzipped his bodysuit. Gently, smilingly he said “Accept, Miss Bri-gid. Don’t struggle against the inevitable.”
Sindri tugged the one-piece garment down over his lean hips, revealing a broad chest with a downlike covering of hair. He stepped out of the suit and kicked it and his boots away. His uncircumcised penis was like a length of heavy rope, uncoiling from a tuft of brown-yellow pubic hair.
Brigid was shocked to see it. It was not erect, but it was enormous, the one disproportion in a small but perfectly proportioned body. It made him a monster.
Still smiling, Sindri bent Over her.
Suddenly the atmosphere of the room seemed to give a great upward lurch. Brigid’s stomach heaved, and an off-key ringing sounded in her ears. Sindri’s eyes flicked back and forth in frantic bewilderment.
Slowly he drifted up from the floor.
Chapter 27
Despite the continuous stream of cool air playing over his face, Kane perspired profusely. Blinking the sweat out of his eyes, he stretched his arms out full-length, shoulders jammed up against his ears, chin dragging on the shaft floor. The crown of his head bumping against the top of the duct, he wormed his way forward with a steady wriggling motion. A burning ache had settled in his hips, the base of his spine and the back of his neck.
Kane had never experienced claustrophobia before, but he battled it now. If not for the slight give in some sections of the ductwork, he would have been trapped, caught fast yards ago. Dim light peeped in from vents where the shaft branched off. He prayed he wouldn’t have to turn down one of the side arteries in order to follow the airflow. Trying to negotiate a turn would be almost impossible.
At least the neoprene texture of his gloves helped his fingers to gain some traction on the smooth surface of the duct. Still, after a few minutes of regular flexing, curling and uncurling his fingers, the metacarpal bones and wrist tendons stiffened and shook with the strain.
Although the confines of the shaft were almost intolerably cramped, Kane was grateful he had so far not encountered driving fans, internal grilles or vertical drops. The builders of the compound had gone for straightforward efficiency, with a minimum of accessories requiring maintenance or replacement.
Obviously no one had ever foreseen the ductwork being used as an alternate route of getting around the compound, since the shaft was barely large enough to comfortably accommodate a transadapt.
The deeper he dragged himself into the shaft, the more pronounced became a deep-pitched humming, interwoven with a steady clatter. Somewhere up ahead, machinery was working.
Kane glanced into the side shafts as he passed them. He didn’t investigate any of them, continuing to crawl toward the steady airflow. At one point, he heard muffled, distant voices issuing from one of the vents. He thought he heard Baptiste, but he couldn’t be sure.
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