“You bastard, let him go! Let him go!” she shrieked at the enormous Scourge.
The cold, dead eyes looked at her without expression. Suddenly the bloody metal spike was retracted and Vic’s body fell to the ground with a horrible thud that Torri knew she would hear in her nightmares the rest of her life.
She was distracted for a moment by the sight of the man she loved, lying motionless on the ground. Vic’s blue eyes were open but sightless, staring up at her like doll’s eyes—glass eyes. He didn’t move, even when she cried his name.
“Vic! Vic, please!” she begged but there was no response—just those dead eyes looking at her and the ragged wound in the left side of his chest where the dark blue shirt had turned a sodden purple with his blood.
“You killed him!” Torri tore her eyes from the terrible sight and focused on the enormous Scourge warrior. She raised the gun again and started blasting. “You killed him! You killed him!” she shrieked over and over, not even noticing the way the blue energy beams were bouncing off the huge warrior’s armor. “YOU KILLED HIM!”
She didn’t even care when the silver spike shot out of the massive fist again. She was past caring about anything but the man she had grown to love in such a short period of time. Past anything but the horrible grief and rage that dominated her mind completely.
The spike drew back for another killing blow, its bloody tip glittering in the greenish light of the Fathership.
“Stop! Stop it, you vat-grown fool!” a loud voice shouted. “You’ve already killed the scout—we need to keep the girl alive so that the AllFather can scan her! We must know what the Kindred are doing here, so near our latest prey.”
The huge warrior froze, its mailed fist arrested in mid-air. At the same time, someone knocked the gun out Torri’s hands. Turning her head, she saw it was the gray-skinned man with the red-on-black eyes that had appeared earlier on the viewscreen.
He grabbed Torri firmly by her upper arms and lifted her bodily out of the ship, over Vic’s dead body, before setting her on the floor.
“Let me go! Let me go!”
She tried to struggle, but the sight of Vic lying there, so lifeless and still, brought her grief to the foreground of her mind again. Like a tidal wave, it washed everything else away. Torri sagged in the gray-skinned man’s grip, sobs wracking her.
“I loved him!” she gasped, tears blinding her. “Why didn’t I ever tell him I loved him?”
“Contain yourself—you are overcome with emotion,” the gray-skinned man said coldly.
But Torri couldn’t. She knew she had only known Vic for a little while, but somehow they had formed a connection so strong that the loss of it now felt like a blow she would never recover from. She was wracked with sobs, her heart broken into a million pieces—shattered on the metal floor beside the body of the man she loved.
“Vic,” she sobbed. “Oh God, no…no!”
“Get hold of yourself.” The gray skinned man was dragging her along now, forcing her to stumble after him as his merciless grip on her arm cut off her circulation. “The AllFather will not be pleased if you are unable to provide him the information he desires.”
The AllFather…that name seemed to penetrate the fog of grief that had surrounded her and Torri felt a cold shiver go down her spine. But the next moment, she decided she didn’t care. Even if she was destined to live out her worst nightmares right here and now, what did any of it matter now that Vic was gone? Let the AllFather do his worst—he couldn’t hurt her more than she was already hurting.
Soon enough, they were standing in front of the impossibly tall, dark gray doors with their glowing, neon-green symbols that Torri recognized from her dreams. They opened smoothly and the gray-skinned man dragged her inside.
A feeling of dread descended on her, a horror so dark, that mixed with the grief she already felt, hit Torri like someone had dropped a lead weight on her head. She fell to her knees, sobbing helplessly. She was going to die—she was already dead. At least, she wished she was.
Wherever Vic is, maybe if I die, I can be with him again. I just want to die—I can’t stand any more of this!
“Gods!” the gray-skinned man muttered. Lifting her bodily, he swung her into his arms and ascended the broad steps Torri had seen so often in her dreams. When he reached the top, he put her down in front of the throne with its glowing green runes. Torri promptly fell to her knees again, sobbing—she simply couldn’t stand when she was so overcome by grief and horror.
The AllFather was there, wreathed in smoke and shadows, his eyes glowing a malevolent red, just as they always did in her dreams. But by this time, Torri was past being frightened. Her whole mind was too filled with grief to have any room left for fear.
“What’sss thisss?” the AllFather hissed, sitting forward on his throne. “Finally, the little Earth female who hasss been visiting me in her dreams hasss come at lassst in person?” He stared down at the sobbing Torri. “But what isss wrong with her?”
“She is…overcome,” the gray-skinned man said shortly. “She was with the scout we captured and one of the vat-grown ones killed him.”
The AllFather hissed with displeasure.
“Before I could monitor his thoughtsss and find out why the Kindred are here, in this obssscure arm of the galaxy?”
“Forgive me for not stopping him in time, Father,” the gray-skinned man said stolidly. “You know the vat-grown ones are nearly mindless. The scout was shooting at him, so he stabbed him through the heart.”
Hearing this dispassionate telling of what had become of the man she loved, made Torri sob all over again. Dead—Vic was dead and he was never coming back! She felt like she might drown in her own tears and she didn’t care if she did.
“Take the ssscout for dissection, then—sssee if the Doctor can get anything from his positronic memory banksss.”
“I will see to it,” the gray-skinned man said. “But it will probably be a lengthy process.”
The AllFather hissed angrily again.
“True…true. Since the girl isss the only one left alive, I mussst sssee if I can gather the information from her mind. Ssstand her on her feet—I must tassste her,” he commanded.
The gray-skinned man pulled Torri to her feet and forced her to stand front and center, facing the AllFather as he sat in his shadowy throne. The glowing green eyes drew closer to hers, just as they had in the dream, but this time there was no Vic to pull her out of her nightmare and tell her to take them someplace else. No Vic to escape to Nana’s meadow with. No Vic to hold her tight and tell her everything would be okay…
Torri sobbed again, the tears running down her face. She felt as though she had fallen into a dark chasm she would never be able to climb out of—a grief so deep no light could be seen from the bottom of its trench.
As she cried, she was vaguely aware of someone or something trying to get into her mind. It felt like cold, wormy fingers palming her brain like a puzzle cube, trying to find the right combination to get in and see her thoughts.
The sensation didn’t last for very long, though.
“I can sssee nothing while the girl isss hysterical,” the AllFather hissed in disgust. “Take her away, Xairn. Put her in the dungeons until ssshe is sssomewhat calmer. Then bring her back and hook her to the monitor. We mussst know if the Kindred somehow know our plansss or if the ssscout wandering near our latessst prey is sssimply a coincidence.”