Well, the good doctor was about to get a big surprise. Though Vic’s chest still ached where the massive warrior’s metal spike had pierced it, he felt strong and determined. He was going to get to Torri and get both of them off of the Fathership and nothing was going to stand in his way.
“Very well then,” he heard the doctor mutter to himself as a shadow fell over the cloth covering his face. “Let’s see what you’re made of, Kindred.”
The cloth was thrown back and Vic was looking into the red eyes of a male with gray skin and thin, twitching lips. In his hand, he held a scalpel, its blade glimmering in the greenish light. The red eyes widened when the doctor saw him looking back, alert and alive, instead of dead.
Vic sat up and snatched the scalpel from the Scourge doctor’s hand. Grabbing the other male by the collar of his black uniform, he thrust the metal blade into his throat.
The red eyes widened further as, with a gasping gurgle, the doctor sank to his knees.
“No…” he gasped. “You’re…dead.”
He tugged at the scalpel and it came free—along with a spurt of arterial blood. The doctor’s thin fingers scrabbled at his throat, trying and failing to stem the flow.
“You’re the one who’s dead, Scourge,” Vic growled. He had no regret for killing an enemy but he also had no time to stand around and witness the doctor’s death throes.
He looked around. He was on a metal table in the middle of the room, which was outfitted as a kind of medical laboratory. He slid off the table and looked down at himself—he was still dressed and there was a hole in the front of his uniform shirt that was sticky with blood. But when he reached into the hole, there was no wound—his skin was smooth and unmarked. Indeed, even the ache in his chest was beginning to fade, thank the Goddess.
The doctor gasped something else—it was unintelligible but thankfully quiet—and his red eyes rolled up in his head as his hand dropped away from his bloody neck.
Picking up the Scourge doctor’s still-twitching body, Vic laid it on the table where he himself had been. There was blood all over the floor, but he didn’t have time to clean it up. He stared fixedly at the body for a moment, memorizing every detail before throwing the dark cloth over it and leaving the lab.
He just hoped he could get to Torri and get her off the Fathership in time to warn the Kindred that their period of grace was over. The Scourge were almost to Earth and unless the Mother Ship met them there, death and destruction were imminent.
Fifty-One
Torri crouched in the cell they had thrown her in—a six by six room that was entirely metal—really, it was barely more than a box. She was freezing cold because the guards had stripped her and taken her clothes.
At first she had screamed and struggled, afraid they meant to rape her. But none of them had even laid a finger on her. Now she wondered if maybe they had done it just to demoralize her.
There were two of them standing just outside her door, staring straight ahead. They didn’t respond to her, no matter how much she shouted at them. They had slack faces and blank stares, like zombies.
Like the one that killed Vic, whispered a little voice in her head.
Torri tried to push it away but it wouldn’t go. The grief was still too fresh—the pain too huge and all-encompassing. She felt hollowed out by it, as though there were no more tears left to cry. And yet fresh ones kept squeezing their way past her eyelids and rolling down her cheeks.
She wondered what would become of her—and then she wondered if she even cared. She was living her worst nightmare—she was inside the Fathership, the site of all the awful night terrors she’d been having for months. And yet it didn’t seem to matter because she felt like she was already dead.
Oh Vic…Vic…I’ll never forget you! You died trying to protect me. I’m so sorry I never told you that I loved you…I’ll never forget our time together…
Suddenly she heard a new voice outside her cell door.
“Open at once—I am ordered to take the human girl to see the AllFather,” it said.
Despite her feeling that she didn’t care if she lived or died, those words still struck terror in Torri’s heart. She couldn’t forget the worm-like feeling of the AllFather’s mental corpse fingers picking at her brain earlier. Oh God, was he going to do it again, now? Was she going to be subjected to a mental rape that was a hundred times worse than a physical one could ever be?
She stiffened and pulled her knees tight to her chest as the door opened and another Scourge official in a black uniform walked in. He had the gray skin and red eyes of his kind and he was frowning speculatively down at Torri.
“So this is the human female,” he said in a deep voice. “Up, girl—you will come with me,” he added, motioning for Torri to get up as the slack-faced guards watched.
Trembling, Torri got to her feet. She tried to cover her breasts and sex with her hands and arms, but the new Scourge official didn’t seem to have time for her modesty.
“Come!” he insisted. And taking her by the arm, he pulled her out of the cell.
The guards seemed slightly confused as to what to do but the official turned back to them.
“The two of you stay here—I’ll be bringing her back after the AllFather has finished tasting her pain,” he informed them.
Slowly, they nodded their heads and one of them said, “Yes…Doctor,” in a halting voice.
The doctor nodded and gripped Torri’s arm more firmly.
“Come on—we must hurry,” he told her and began walking her briskly through the Fathership.
Torri thought she had never felt more self-conscious in her life as the Scourge doctor dragged her, stark naked, down the long, metal corridors. They passed rooms filled with enormous vats of bubbling chemicals and some others that were taken up with mysterious machinery. In all the rooms she saw the Scourge workers laboring soundlessly, not even talking to each other. They all reminded her of zombies, but at least they weren’t staring at her naked body!
Finally, she got the sense that they were getting close to the throne room again. She could see it up ahead in the distance—the four-story high doors with their glowing green etchings were getting closer and closer.
But then, just as the dread was beginning to build unbearably in her chest, they turned another corner and the Scourge doctor dragged her, not to the AllFather’s throne room, but back towards the Fathership’s docking bay.
“Where…where are we going?” she gasped out as the doctor tugged her along. “Why are you taking me this way?” She had a horrible thought that he was taking her someplace private to rape her before dragging her back to the AllFather, and she started to tug against his hand encircling her arm. “Leave me alone—let me go!” she exclaimed, pulling backwards against his iron grip.
Instead, the doctor turned his head to look at her. And for the barest instant, his red eyes turned a rich, deep blue.
Torri stared at him, too shocked to say a word. Surely, it couldn’t be—she must have been imagining what she saw! The Scourge doctor’s eyes turned red again and he turned back to face front as he continued to drag her along.
Not knowing what to think, Torri stumbled after him.