Shadows of Fear -- Part 17
by Martin H Slusser

Angie uttered a small scream of pure outrage. On the gleaming white stone of her father’s driveway was a battered motorcycle. Low and cat-like, she growled, nearly matching the soft rumble of the Native American Built Uohali:Night Sun.

That ‘breed bastard. How dare he?

Pushing away from the window, Angie hastened - with dignity - to her door. She slipped down the stairs and tiptoed breathlessly past the study where her father was sweating over videos of the day’s docket.

Nose stuck in the air, she scurried out the back door, in vain attempting to ignore Mara and a snort of contempt. Humid warmth met rage-pale skin. A slight breeze played with the hem of the short iguana hide skirt she wore.

A teasing breath of wind caused the silk-thin skirt to flare up, and up, baring far more than Angie wanted to reveal. Benny’s eyes popped open. His hands shook on the cups. The old Uohali coughed, purring loudly at a slender length of leg and what lay beyond.

Geezis, but Angie really was blond all over. He didn’t remember that. Benny choked and swallowed his tongue before it could hang over his jaws and wiggle. He hiccuped.

“Cool it, you jerk.” Angie hissed something unladylike. Benny offered her a shy grin. Grabbing Benny’s hands, Angie shuddered at having to touch him. The old Uohali rumbled an ugly growl. She snatched her hands away, barely resisting the urge to scrub them off on her skirt.

“Dad is in the house,” she announced hotly. And that Mara.

Benny’s smile of pleasure at her touch died to a coiling scowl of horror. Caught in a lie, Angie grimaced.

“He . . . just got home.”

Mind chittering with ideas, Angie studied him. This would be almost too easy. Motor-head Grey was already putty in her oh, so talented hands. Angie felt a strong desire to purr. She snapped, “And where’s the car?”

His face dropped at least an inch.

It wasn’t much of a car, but you really couldn’t expect much from trash. “We can’t go to the party on this . . . thing. I hate them.” Angie’s foot stomped on the limestone.

The cups twisted in Benny’s guilty hands and the motorcycle rumbled at her insult. Didn’t this bim know that it was only the very best? No other motorcycle could ever hope to out-do a Native American Built, and an Uohali at that. No other make was as long lived or as much worshiped. The harpies’ council, er, Grandmothers’ Council, made certain of that. Those old Mohawk babes were hell on wheels, personally inspecting each and every one.

Shuddering at the very idea of auto grease and calluses, Angie took the work-lined hands. How they would scratch her delicate skin. If she actually had to let him touch her, of course. Something she intended to resist except as a last resort. He better have protection, though.

In a stage whisper, she screamed, “Will you stop that? Daddy will hear.” Angie bared her teeth in a grim snarl. “You had better take me to that party at the Blackman Street Bar to make up for this.”

Or Daddy will hear all about you hanging around.

“Donald,” she said scathingly, “is going to die for this.”

Blackman Street Bar?

“Wilkes-Barre?”

Cold sweat poured over Benny’s face. If he went to Wilkes-Barre . . . Mom would kill him. Cops all over his butt. Old man Ryan . . .

Fear warred with the raging ache below the Sun:Eagle belt buckle at his waist.

Chrisake. What was that about Donald? She was stringing him along. No way he was going to get mixed up with that clown. That jerk was captain of the football team. Donald could cream him with just one flick of his little finger. And those ritzy Mountain Top scuds’ all hated White Haven and Freeland kids. Said they were all in-breds and swamp-rats.

Except for kids like Angie, who’s old man had gelt up the wazoo and were therefore ‘in,’ they were all fair game.

How did he get mixed up in some party? And Wilkes-Barre, for chrisake? Old man Ryan, he lived in Orange, on Nob Hill. The Feds had dozens of witnesses all swearing they saw him having kids snatched. As head of the local Party, the old fart was immune from prosecution. The Spider even had convicts stolen out of prisons to sell on the underground market. Turk and Janet. Oh, God, poor Turk. And the feds were helpless.

Benny snarled in contempt. That prick was held together only by the most modern life expanding techniques and a slender thread of hope. Ryan spit in the face of man and God alike. Continuing to prey on people of all sorts, he made a desperate quest for more money to continue his tenuous hold on life.

More than a little queasy at the thought of meeting Spider again, Benny shivered at ice in his spine. A party? Like Mary’s little lamb, where the parties were the wildest, old man Ryan was sure to be. Hell, Ryan hosted most of them. They made him rich. Leda and her crew were the main attraction. Spider invited her to them all.

Even Leda Melancowski didn’t cross the old fart.

Shaking his head, Benny soulfully eyed Angie. Not even a night with a hot babe like Angie was worth the risk of losing his freedom. The Project’s reward was too big. He felt like a piece of candy with all the greedy pigs in the world out for him. Soon the reward would grow so big no one, not even Ryan, would be able resist.

He would cross that bridge when he had to, not before.

Only a wild, un-admitted-to fear of Leda’s darkening powers kept Spider’s crew of raptors at bay. And only Leda’s terror of Mom kept Leda at a distance, or Leda would have cut his heart out on the ‘Stone years ago, the Spider not withstanding.

Two forces of evil, both drooling at the prospect of owning him.

Leda and the Owl verses the Project and old man Ryan. Leda and the Owl . . . It ran over and over in his mind. The scorching need below the brass belt buckle withered to a slow burn, then flickered, nearly out.

What the freek was he doing here? All her father needed was the skimpiest of excuses and he would be locked up on suspicion. The Project lifted him from tighter places than Luzerne county’s dungeon of a jail. Walnut Street Jail.

The Spider -

 Benny wanted to puke. Ryan would nut him, just because he had made the old geezer look like a fool. He said he would. Swore on his mother’s grave he would.

“Geezis,” he blurted, jamming the run-down heels of his engineer boots onto the cobbles of gleaming stone. Benny shoved the Night Sun back towards the gates and freedom.

“Wait a minute.”

God, if she didn’t get to that party she was doomed socially. She would have to page Donald, and after what he had done, too. Donald would laugh in her face and pull all kinds of male BS. She’d be done for. Dead.

“Please, Benny.”

At the sound of female distress, no matter how shrill and haughty, a flicker of heat purred to a glow. A woman in need. And Benny had been disciplined harshly by the Project to respond, to be chivalrous. A patsy. That thought whispered rebellion in his soul. But the conditioning of the Project was too strong.

Sandy Valley and safety receded to a desperate whimper in the back of his mind.

Waiting for the axe to fall, Benny hiccuped.

Two Swords groaned. Angie’s cat, Hamilton-the-Hair-Buyer II, whipped his over-fed body away in terror. The tiny blue bird Hamilton was stalking cocked an eye and gave a mental shrug. Safe again from ol’ fatty fur-ball. He winked at the aka:ki.

Leaping to Benny, Angie groaned in self-pity.

“Please, sweetheart?”

A well-manicured nail slipped into the throat of Benny’s white tee shirt. It pressed lightly at the corded neck. Scalding sweat drenched the tee shirt. Benny muttered a helpless groan. The nail clawed gently, scoring a slight, almost invisible line. Her mark of ownership on Benny’s darkly tanned skin.

The line seared from brain to groin. The uncontrollable agony of being male and only fifteen ripped into flames. It became a storm, unmanageable, a sensual and greedy hunger for something avoided in his shame at having been forced. On the verge of taking her, there, on the motorcycle in her father’s driveway, Benny ground his teeth and threw back his head.

No.

Gnawing discomfort whispered from the depths of his unconscious. It enslaved him with its power. The control owned him. Tears welled up at the burst of pain. Sparks of fire ran down his nerves. They exploded in a raging, all consuming blaze. The shame of being only an experiment, a lab rat, hit hard. His head hung, his face burned. Dark memories of the collar restricted his breathing, her eyes seared him, took away all thoughts but that of strict obedience to the needs of the woman. Took the pain of need to have her.

Be gentle, Benny. Help her. Old Conn’s voice soothed and the pain eased. Be anything she desires, my boy. Be everything she needs.

His eyes narrowed. The girl was totally awed at her power. Benny’s head tilted forward. He thrust her hand from his chest. Benny rubbed sweaty palms on already sweat-soaked jeans.

Croaking something unintelligible, he blinked away the acrid sting of hot sweat from his eyes. In a silent plea, he begged Angie - sweet, beautiful, desirable Angie - not to torment him like this.

There was a noise, a tremor on the spirit-line. Some thing that made him aware someone was observing him other than the Pest, Spike.

Following Benny’s gaze, Angie glanced up at the second story of the house.

Mrs. O’Brian watched her stepdaughter doing things she could only dream of. She stood by the window of the bedroom the man she once loved banished her to, and let the tears fall.

Angie smiled a knowing ghost of a smile. Mom used to lead Daddy around by the meat. When this woman invaded her life eleven years ago it took the joy out of a lot of things. Her stepmother’s diary, the part about Fern Ridge, was quite helpful in getting her out of Daddy’s life. Very explicit. Delightfully so.

Mother ‘knew’ Benny Grey. From the way she looked now, Mother probably had wet dreams about him.

The bright blue eyes flicked downwards. Maybe Benny did deserve the Manse’s title, ‘Young Stud.’

Her idiot stepmother even kept a video dossier supplied by the Manse. A steamy souvenir. And, my, but did it have a lot of information on Benny. Of what he was capable, with just the right push.

Mmmm.

Too bad about Daddy finding Mother’s diary.

Angie sighed. Though it mentioned only the alias, a description of the teen taken from the dossier put in the Police Net-Files showed an exact match in Benny. And then there were the files from the Manse, of course. Her smile was faint.

Unmistakable. Benny Wya Grey.

She turned, smiling at her mother’s bedroom. One eye cocked up. The smile at her mother grew to become a thread away from being an open leer.

Nuala O’Brian watched for a moment longer. On silent feet the woman slipped away, head bowed. In a crib by her bed lay a child.

Angie sighed. No wonder Daddy hated Benny so much.

©2002 StoriesByEmail.com

Activity Web