“Then again, father and son, perhaps they…” He left the possibility open.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“The more fools they, then,” he growled, stepping in close.
Demurely, she placed both hands against his chest, holding the man at bay. “No, sweet brother. We can’t, must not. It’s immoral. Illegal!”
“Yes,” he said, his hands traveling freely over her form, the white cloth tearing in spots. “We must not. Forbidden.”
Amanda grabbed a fistful of hair at his temple and pulled him away. He stared at her like an animal, his face flushed red. “Not until Father is dead, and you are leader,” she brutally reminded him. “The maker of laws. Not until then!”
Reluctantly, the deputy ward released his sister and took a step away from her. “Yes, agreed. Of course. Now if you will excuse me…” Turning on a heel, he left the room, his shoulders hunched as if carrying an invisible load.
Amanda watched him go, amused at how childish men were. Give them a treat, then a slap, and they danced like puppets. Once the fool was baron, soon she would become his wife, then the sole, widowed, ruler of Novaville.
“Captain of the guard!” she called out, crossing the bedroom to a predark nightstand and mirror. The sheet of glass was nearly intact, only the tiniest chip in a corner marring its silvered perfection. Even her best servants hadn’t been able to patch glass, and many had died trying.
“Captain!” Amanda repeated, taking a seat.
An elderly man bustled into view from behind the curtains of a doorway. “Yes, my lady?” he said, groveling dutifully. “How can I serve you this morning?”
She said nothing for a minute, studying herself in the mirror, letting the man sweat out her displeasure.
But Amanda had no plans to debase the elderly fool today. There were more important matters to attend to. “Find me a female servant of good health and my age.
“Certainly, my lady.” He bowed.
“Make sure she has good teeth,” Amanda said, tonguing the inside of her mouth, then grinning to display her broken smile. “And bring pliers.”
Chapter Twelve
The door closed with an echoing boom. The spotlessly clean walls were now splattered with gore, and a ragged thing of mostly bones hung from the ropes above the clogged grating. In the, corner, the water hose was still neatly coiled, completely unused.
“God almighty, that was a bad one,” Shard said from his cell, a tremor breaking his voice. He leaned his forehead against the bars and closed his eyes at last. “They must really want you folks.”
“They have our vehicle,” Ryan told him, his stomach an aching empty void, the sour taste of bile in his mouth. The stink in the dungeon was beyond describing. “But they don’t know how to operate and maintain the equipment.”
“Radar is pretty much magic in these fine days of clubs and arrows,” Doc said. The elderly man leaned against the cold stone wall. “I thought I was going mad a few times, and actually wished I would slip away to another time.”
“Me, too,” Jak stated. The albino teen was staring at the floor. concentrating on his breathing. “Killed before. Lots times. But nothing like…that.”
“It was pathological,” Mildred uttered in barely controlled fury. “Madness! That eunuch is a sadist of the highest order.”
Finished with a prayer for the dead, Krysty asked, “When will they be returning? For us.”
“Tomorrow. We sleep with the mess tonight,” Shard said, slumping to the hard floor. “Then in the morning we gotta clean it up, and you go see the ward.”
In spite of himself, Ryan admired the technique. This would soften the minds of most people. The dead man’s screams and pleas for death were still ringing in his ears. But his friends had seen worse. “J.B., let’s get out of here.”
Slipping off a boot, J.B. wriggled out of his sock and groped about in the vomit on the floor. “Good thing barfing was allowed. I was afraid we’d have to wait till it worked its way out my other end.”
“What did you swallow?” Mildred asked, perking up. “A lockpick?”
“Yep. While the bikers were attacking. I figured it couldn’t hurt.”