Quinn threw away the bottle, and started to lick the luxurious drink off her skin. “This is the fucking max,” he said. “You know, it really is true; the bad guys get the best of everything. Best clothes. Best drugs. Best babes. Best parties. Best sex. It’s fucking great. ”
“We’re the bad guys?” Courtney asked, puzzled. “I thought we were doing the right thing smashing up the world?”
Quinn stood up, sending the floating candles surfing into the bubbles. His erection grew to a thick flesh sword hanging over Courtney’s upturned face. “We’re both; we’re bad and we’re right. Believe it.”
Her confusion vanished, and she was smiling with simple contentment again. “I believe in you.” She cupped his balls, squeezing like he’d taught, and started to lick the length of his dick.
“After I’ve finished fucking you, I’m going to go over and kill another one of Banneth’s people,” Quinn said. “This time, I’m going to do it right in front of her. Force her to see how impotent she is.”
“I don’t get it.” Courtney sat back, glancing up inquiringly. “Why don’t you just march in there and start torturing her? It’s not like she can stop you, or anything.”
“Because this is exactly what she did to me. To us. All of us. She frightens people. It’s her bang. What she can do to you up in that sanctum of hers is so fucking freaky and scary it hammers into your brain like some monster prick. All you can think of is how to stop her doing anything bad to you. Everybody in the coven knows they’re gonna be strapped down on one of her tables some day. All you can do is ask God’s Brother that when it’s your turn, she does something that boosts you. Nothing you can do about the pain. That’s fucking standard issue with Banneth.”
“I see what you’re doing,” Courtney said, pleased with herself. “You’re stalking her.”
“That’s a part of it, yeah. Each time I go over there and kill one of her people, it ruins a little more of what she is. The Banneth they all fear is growing smaller and smaller every day. Even dickheads that dumb are going to realize that the one person who can defeat anything is utterly helpless against the coming Night. I want her sitting there while the entire headquarters’ coven freaks out and deserts her. I’m going to make that he-bitch feel what we all did. That she’s a total nothing; all that power she’s spent fuck-knows how many decades building up isn’t worth shit any more. She used to make people piss themselves just by being sarcastic. Sarcastic, for shit’s sake! Can you believe that? But that’s how strong she was. Well now she’s going to know what I’ll do to her, and she’s going to know there’s no way out when I come for her. That puts me in control, and me on top. It switches her whole life around; screws with the way her brain’s wired. I love that almost as much as I love the pain I’m going to inflict.”
Courtney rubbed her cheek along his dick, eyes closed in dreamy admiration. “I want to watch.”
“You can.” He beckoned. She was taken up against the wall, hands pinned above her head. A loutish violation of hard thrusts, energistically strengthened muscles overcoming any hindrance to pummel his body against hers. In his mind he let it be Banneth, enhancing the pleasure.
Halfway through, when Quinn’s orgasm was building, Billy-Joe knocked tentatively on the door. “Get in here, you little shit,” Quinn yelled. “Wait. Watch us.”
Billy-Joe did as he was told. Standing well out of the way. Keeping still, but with inflamed eyes following every aspect of Courtney’s contortions. Quinn finished with her, and let go. She sank to the floor, propped up clumsily against the wall, shivering heavily. Her hands stroked gingerly over her body, touching the fresh bruises.
“What do you want?” Quinn asked.
“It’s one of the possessed come to see you,” Billy-Joe said. “He’s one of the new ones. Come from the Lacombe sect. Says he’s got to see you. It’s like real urgent, he says.”
“Shit.” Quinn’s skin dried; his robe materialized around him. “Hey! You want any of those healed up?”
“It’s all right, Quinn,” Courtney said thickly. “I’ve got some cream and stuff to rub on. I’m fine.”
“This better be fucking important,” Quinn said. “I told you dickheads not to move around the arcology. The police are going to be watching for you.”
“I was careful,” the possessed man said. His name was Duffy. He’d taken over the Lacombe coven’s magus. Unlike the magus, Quinn judged him devout enough to God’s Brother. Duffy had been left in charge of the coven, organizing several successful strikes against Edmonton’s infrastructure.
Quinn sat down in one of the lounge’s fraying leather armchairs, and let his mind wander through the Chatsworth and its neighbouring buildings. They were only a couple of blocks away from Banneth’s headquarters, a location perfect in every respect.
There were no suspicious minds anywhere near. If Duffy had been spotted and followed, then the police were keeping well back. Quinn resisted the impulse to go over to the window and pull back one of the tatty curtains to peer down onto the street. “Okay, you haven’t completely fucked up. What is it?”
“This magus, Vientus, I been squeezing him. He ain’t a magus, not a real one. Doesn’t believe in God’s Brother.”
“Big deal. None of those shits ever did, not really.”
Duffy played with his hands, wretchedly nervous. Nobody liked the idea of telling Quinn what to do—like shut up and listen —but this was vital.
“All right,” Quinn grunted. “Go on.”
“He’s some kind of secret police informer. Has been for years. Every night he makes a report to some kind of supervisor about what the coven’s been doing and what’s going down on the street.”
“That’s impossible,” Quinn said automatically. “If the police had that kind of information they would have raided the coven.”
“I don’t think the supervisor’s that kind of police, Quinn. Not like you get in the local precinct house. Vientus never met them, he just datavised the information to some eddress each night. There was other stuff going on, too. Vientus sometimes got told to target people for this supervisor, local business people, buildings that needed to be firebombed. And they’d talk about what other gangs were doing, and if they needed to be chopped back. Real detailed shit like that. It was almost like the supervisor was running the coven, not Vientus.”
“Anything else?” Quinn was listening, but not really paying attention. He was too involved thinking through the implication, and with that came a growing sense of alarm.
“This supervisor must have had some influence with the cops. Quite a bit, I guess. There were times when Vientus got useful sect members released from custody. All he had to do was ask the supervisor for them, and the cops would let them go. Easy bail, or community work sentence, some shit like that.”
“Yeah,” Quinn said quietly. That recollection was one of the most bitter he owned. Waiting in Edmonton’s Justice Hall for days with the dwindling prospect that Banneth would get him released. Banneth could make the whole legal system do tricks for her, like every judge owed her a favour. Murder suspects out on parole within an hour. Stim suppliers given house arrest sentences.
“Er.” Duffy was sweating badly now. “And, er . . . the supervisor had told Vientus to look out for you.”
“Me? The supervisor used my name?”
“Yes. There was a visual file on you and everything. The supervisor said you were using the possessed to take over sect covens, and they thought you’d try to kill Banneth.”