The Guildsman scowled, and then suddenly smiled with feigned patience and understanding. He folded his hands together in front of him. “I don’t mean any offense, or to make any implications about your character, Mr. Jones, but I naturally need to see that she hasn’t been beaten or bruised. I don’t want her deformed in any manner.”
Jones told himself that this made sense, although the gleam in Drex’s eyes made him uneasy. The Guildsman leaned back against the wooden desk, brushing aside one of his piles of hardcopy as he watched.
Uncomfortable and filled with distaste, Jones undid the front of Julia’s gray jumpsuit. He blinked and his eyes went blurry with shame. He didn’t want to know if they were tears. Julia did not move until Jones muttered under his breath, “Help me, please.” With the slightest of motions the Servant shrugged out of the jumpsuit and Jones tugged it down her body, letting it drop to the floor.
Drex stood up, smoothed the back of his trousers with a brush of his palm, and took one step forward to stare at Julia. Even though the light streaming through the plate glass window left no shadows in the room, he squinted, making the indigo-dyed crow’s-feet clench together.
The Enforcer swallowed awkwardly and stepped back, trying to hide as Drex paced around Julia.
Her skin was pallid but smooth; her eyes had a great, blank, innocent look to them. The Guildsman bent closer to look at her fist-sized breasts tipped with pale bloodless nipples, the naked and hairless folds between her legs, the curves of her buttocks.
He made a little humming noise of satisfaction, but Jones was taken by surprise when the Guildsman suddenly turned and addressed him. “All right then, Enforcer, I don’t understand. Why are you trying to get rid of her?”
Jones felt cornered, trapped, and out of self-defense he spoke plainly, “I realized I don’t need a Servant after all. I’ve had her only for a few weeks and I just… it was different than I thought. I work at Resurrection, Inc., you know, escorting the other Servants and… if I may speak openly, sir, I just didn’t want her anymore.”
Drex nodded and absently ran his spread fingers through the thick black/gray strands of hair, but the resilient and perfectly straight bangs immediately fell back into place.
“Very well, Enforcer. I’ll take her. At the price you ask.” He looked up and motioned to the console at the side of his desk. “Please logon, enter your password, and I’ll transfer into your account. Do you mind if I have the Guardian Angels check your title to this Servant?”
“No, of course not. It’s clear.”
As they transferred the money, a heaviness sank deeper and deeper into Jones’s chest. But the momentum of the transaction pushed him along and he tried not to think, following only the instructions second by second as they happened. Finally he swallowed and was surprised to find how dry his throat was.
He stood before the Servant and said, “Julia, Guildsman Drex is now your master. You have to obey him just like you would obey me.”
“Thank you, Enforcer. That was a nice touch.” Drex smiled, sincerely this time. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.” His tone had a certain dismissal to it.
Jones hesitated a moment, looked searchingly at Julia’s eyes, but again he saw nothing there. “Goodbye, Julia,” he said, his voice hoarse. She made no response.
“Thank you, Enforcer,” Drex repeated, punctuating his words with an impatient finger tapping on the desktop. Jones had no choice but to leave.
Julia didn’t turn as he walked out the door.
13
“Danal!”
The Servant looked up as Van Ryman’s voice reverberated through the intercom system. Danal stopped his vigorous polishing of the stair railing and quickly ran down the carpeted stairs with precise control of his feet. He made only a whisper of sound.
He paused as the locked door under the stairs called out to him again, yanking at his puppet strings of dreaded curiosity. But he pushed past it and into the study, where his Master Van Ryman waited.
Van Ryman’s face changed immediately upon seeing Danal. He looked up from the scattered books and papers on the rolltop desk against one wall of the study. The French windows were open, letting in a cool breeze; Danal could hear the faint hum of the Intruder Defense field surrounding the mansion. The laser fireplace had been shut off, and only the overhead lights illuminated the room.
Van Ryman carelessly rolled and folded several ancient looking scrolls, charts with planetary signs, constellations, and other symbols. His odd eyes were bright but bloodshot, and he had not shaved, giving the impression that he had slept little.
Sometimes Van Ryman looked at his Servant in awe or in worshipful expectation; at other times his eyes had a wistful look, a loving expression; yet in contradictory moments, he looked at Danal with scorn and distaste. It was as if Van Ryman were seeing three totally different people.
“Ah, Danal,” the man said and wiped both of his hands on his shirt, sitting back. “Please make me some tea. Red hibiscus, I think—I’m in the mood for something… bitter. And hurry—when you come back I’m going to have a very important mission for you.”
He paused and looked up at Danal for emphasis. “This will probably be the most important thing that either one of us has ever done.” Van Ryman quickly bent back to his documents.
Danal acknowledged the orders and went into the kitchen area. The white tile and stainless steel glistened from his thorough cleaning the day before. Sometimes he suspected that Van Ryman saddled him with tedious and trivial cleaning jobs just to keep him occupied, making a good show of needing a Servant.
Danal dispensed a small beaker of water and slipped it into the insulated heating chamber; a moment later he used the beaker’s handle pads to lift the boiling water out. Turning to the tea cabinet, he selected the drawer filled with hibiscus blend and removed a small amount by hand. As the strainer sank to the bottom of the beaker, Danal watched as the hibiscus petals caused a bright scarlet color to seep into the water, red like foaming arterial blood.
Blood.
Bright red.
Steaming under the light of black-wax candles and torches.
Echoing chants like thunder.
The flicker built in his mind, thrumming. Sparks of fragmented visions came and went in front of his eyes, each a miniature nova.
He paused, cradling the fragile webwork of the oncoming memories, terrified of the revelation and too frightened to hold it back. He jerked his head upward, gritting his teeth, trying to keep control of his identity. He forced himself to pick up the beaker and pour the bright red tea into a thin porcelain cup.
But a different force grabbed hold of his mind, relentlessly cracking open his buried thoughts like a cruel stepfather throwing skeletons out of the closet. Danal moved like an automaton as he reached forward to the knife rack embedded into the wall. He strained against a rubbery nightmare, reaching forward, groping away from his past.
He removed one of the wide kitchen knives from its whet-slot and held it out gingerly, staring at it in blank-eyed horror as visions caught themselves on the glint of the blade and exploded in a panorama of dark ritual in front of his mind’s eye.
The kitchen knife became a sacrificial knife held in his hands. Runes and symbols had been electrostatically etched on the stainless-steel blade. He saw robes—white, scarlet, black. He heard the chants, synchronous, nonsensical, augmented by the microspeakers hidden in the ceiling of the yawning sacrificial grotto.