“Did they tie you up?”
“No,” Bonnie answered. “They didn’t need to tie me. There were six guards on the front steps, and I saw other Hounds on the estate and in the mansion. There was nowhere I could go.”
“Were you locked in the King’s bedroom?” Blade questioned.
“No. Nothing like that. The captain left me inside the front door. I was waiting there, nervous as all hell, when the King came down the stairs.
Man, was he something, all decked out in a black uniform with gold buttons and braid, and enough medals to gag a horse. He was all smiles and polite as could be. I told him that I didn’t want to be there, that there must be some mistake.”
“What did he say?”
“The bastard was slick as shit. He apologized for his men. then invited me to stay for supper. Claimed it was the least he could do,” Bonnie said, and frowned. “I should have said no right then, but he was so nice, so—charming—I was sucked right into his trap. I agreed to stay for supper.”
“What happened then?”
“The King took me on a personal tour of his mansion. Blade, I never imagined such wealth existed. He has fancy furniture, carpets thicker than grass, paintings and drapes and even a damn chandelier. And his throne room! The man has a gold-plated throne! I’ve got to admit it. I was really impressed.”
“Did you like him?”
Bonnie scowled. “Yeah. I hate to say it, but yeah, I found the creep fascinating. I’d always imagined he was some kind of monster. Little did I know.” She closed her eyes for a second and shuddered.
“There’s no need to go on,” Blade mentioned.
Bonnie ignored him. “So he walked me to his royal dining room, as he called it, treating me like the perfect lady all the while. You should have seen the spread! A polished table as long as a truck was covered with enough food to feed an army. Meats. Fresh fruit and vegetables. Bread and cakes. And candy bars too. Candy bars! Do you have any idea how rare candy bars are?”
“No,” Blade admitted.
“The sucker had a box of them,” Bonnie declared in astonishment. “My tummy was doing flip-flops just looking at the table. I probably drooled like a starving dog.”
“So you ate your fill?”
“I ate until I was ready to puke,” Bonnie responded. “I never knew I could cram so much food into my stomach. And the King talked on and on the whole time, about his big plan to conquer the country, then the world.
Something about a vision he had once. Everyone will worship him one day, or some such nonsense. I hardly paid attention, I was so busy stuffing food into my mouth. I topped the meal off with four candy bars. Four.” She grinned at the memory.
“And then?”
“And then the meal turned ugly,” Bonnie disclosed. “The King had his butler bring a bottle of wine. A vintage year, he said. The King poured my glass himself. I should have suspected something was up. What a jerk I was!”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
“Who the hell else can I blame? When your mind knows a situation is bad, and your intuition tells you a situation is bad, and you allow yourself to be drawn into it anyway, then there’s no one to blame but yourself if you get burnt. True?”
“True,” Blade concurred.
“Where was I? Oh, yeah. The wine. About ten minutes after my first glass, I started seeing double and feeling all woozy. I couldn’t sit up straight.”
“The wine was drugged,” Blade decided.
“You got it,” Bonnie said. “I heard the King laughing like a lunatic, and then I passed out. When I came to, I was naked and tied to the post of a big canopy bed.”
Blade’s features hardened. “He stripped you and bound you to his bed?”
Bonnie nodded, her lips trembling. “That was only the beginning. The next thing I know, the King waltzes into the room. But get this. The man was wearing lacy undies, mesh stockings, and carrying a whip.”
“A whip?”
“Yeah. One of those leather whips with the round handles.”
“You can stop right there,” Blade said. “I get the picture.”
Bonnie sighed and her eyes watered. “He did sick things to me, Blade.
Gross things. Do you want me to pull my shirt up and show you the marks? I’ll prove it to you.”
“No,” Blade replied softly.
“I can’t sleep anymore,” Bonnie went on. “Every time I close my eyes, I see his face leering at me and feel his teeth. The bastard gave me gold coins, but I tossed them in his face.”
“There is more to be done here than rescuing Rikki,” Blade commented harshly.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to terminate the King.”
“Terminate?” Bonnie repeated, and halted. She looked into his simmering gray eyes. “You intend to kill the King?”
Blade nodded.
“Now wait a minute,” Bonnie said. “I never meant to involve you in my affairs—”
“It’s not just your affair,” Blade replied. “The Hounds ambushed us and abducted Rikki. The King is their leader, so the King will pay the price.”
Bonnie shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I agreed to help you because I want to do whatever I can to hurt the bastard, and freeing your friend should piss him off no end. But trying to kill the King is a whole new game. We can’t do it by ourselves.”
“We intended to free Rikki by ourselves,” Blade noted.
“That’s different. That’s a matter of locating where they’re holding him and setting him free. But killing the King means you have to go up against all of the Hounds and the Dark Lord. There’s no way we could win.”
“What is this Dark Lord?”
“I’ve never seen him, but I’ve heard all the stories. The Dark Lord does the dirty work for the King. Some people say the Dark Lord is a mutant.”
“I’ve fought mutants before,” Blade said.
“This isn’t your fight,” Bonnie stated.
“You’re wrong,” Blade responded. “This became our fight the moment the Hounds attacked us.”
“You’d be better off if you found your friend and left Memphis,” Bonnie said. “You’re just asking for trouble if you try to kill the King.”
Blade scratched his chin. “In other words, we should avoid a confrontation instead of dealing with the problem?”
“Yeah.”
“You sound like one of the prewar types,” Blade remarked.
“The what?”
Blade idly gazed at a cloud overhead. “We study the prewar society in depth at our Home during our schooling years. Our Elders wanted us to recognize the flaws in the prewar culture so we won’t commit the same mistakes. The prewar society prided itself on being a nation of laws. They forgot that they were a nation of people, and they allowed their laws to replace the development of genuine character.”
“I don’t understand,” Bonnie declared.
“Let me put it this way,” Blade said. “What would you do if a guy came up to you and slapped you on the face?”
“Kick him in the balls.”
Blade smirked. “Well, in the prewar society, they believed in settling every problem through the law. If someone was attacked, they were supposed to do the civilized thing and sue the attacking party. Personal retribution was taboo. The liberal leaders, the social scientists and the psychologists used the educational institutions and the media to turn the people into spineless jelly—into wimps, as Hickok would say. We have literature in our library from the period. The books actually encourage women not to resist if someone tries to rape them, and advise men to do nothing if someone should break into their home in the middle of the night. Gun owners were branded as barbaric morons. If a man or woman did defend themselves against assailants, they were taken to court by the government.”