Topic: Armor

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:09 EST
The old man stooped through the low door leading into the longhouse. He smiled, watching the children play around the sacred-fire and remembered how his own mother used to bring him here on the cold or rainy days. She would sit and gossip with her many relatives while he and his brothers ran and screamed and raised hell.

Spotting his furs clad body as he arose to his full height, the children whooped and called for him to join them and tell them more about the Wolf of God. Their mothers and aunts hushed them and the men on the far side of the meeting house smiled and put their pipes away.

"O:tsi:Yu, adutsi," they called, The Eagle-Woman hears you, old uncle.

He nodded and smiled, rubbing arthritic hands over the swollen joints of his elbows trying to ease the sting of pain. The children made exclamations of worry.

"It will warm up soon," he said. A wry smile came over his daughter's face. "And probably rain."

He shrugged, folding his frail body into the place reserved for him due to his age and wisdom at the fire. Slowly, painfully, one joint at a time while every one sat in a deepening and respectful silence. The old man closed his eyes and wiped a tear that formed in the sagging left eye. A stroke almost took his life. It rendered him nearly useless to the things he loved, but it gifted him with something infinitely more precious. Now he told his stories to the children, and what is more precious than the smile of a child?

A story came to him. Not a good one, but a story from the deep mists of the People's past. Yet, this is one they needed to hear.

"In these hills between the Little Black River, once known as the Lehigh, the days in the Land of the Plenty-Corn People things are sweet. Time moves slowly, in one lazy, easy day after another and the shon:gili:i were-beasts are no more." He paused, took his pipe from under the heavy deer skin robe he wore and the woman stretched out her hands for the honor of filling it. He allowed the woman to take it. His hands were so knotted and weak he could no longer do it himself.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:10 EST
She handed it back and he said gravely, "Thank you, daughter," noting it was the daughter of his sister's granddaughter, the Keeper of the Sacred-Fire. It was a very important position in these days of little sun and much cold.

This story was painful to recount. He puffed on his pipe and made an offering to the People of the Sun, and took a deep breath.

"Once, in the Long-Ago times, before the God came and delivered us of the power of the yan:ki invaders, long before my mother's mother's mother's were born, there was a place of seething and grievous pain. A place so terrible -" He stopped, his eyes warning the mothers that this was one they might not yet want their children to hear, fearing it would give them bad nights.

A few stood and drew away with volubly protesting children out of the Kanonasioni Wy:O:Ming, the longhouse of the Sacred Wolf.

"A place so terrible," he said in a trembling whisper, "that it destroyed the lives of all whom entered. It was a slave-house, one of so very many that once existed in the land. People were accused of crimes, not against other people, but against the State, for the government owned the very lives of the people." He shook his head in wonder. How could a man commit a crime against something that was only an invention of people? People, not the State, suffered from crime.

"These people were not taken there to make them better men and women, but because the old masters were often cruel, loving to bring pain to those who could not defend themselves. The people who were caged in these places often were worse after being freed than before they went in." He raised his hands and let them fall in a gesture of amazement. "So far as any can tell, that was the primary reason for these places called prisons.

"One young man had been there since his early days, before he was old enough to be taken in marriage by a woman. He was not yet thirty years of age. This man had been loyal to the dark god of the 'Stone, and his years in the place called 'prison' hardened him beyond hope and turned to stone anything resembling love. He resolved that from the time of his being freed he would serve the dark and grow in power. All he desired was vengeance."

Some of the children slipped to the edge of the crowd and crept away. He nodded. This is good, because not everyone is ready to hear the teachings of adulthood at the same time. They would grow, a little slower perhaps, but would be the better for it.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:11 EST
"His name was - No. I will not speak it." He waved away a chorus of groans. "He had been in this house of darkness for nine long years, locked in a small room. It was cold in winter, hot in summer, and never silent, for the building was crowded and the men there were in pain from being caged.

"It was vile. When he first entered men tried to use him as a Woman. And they died for it. Then came time for his release.

"He spat on all men, hated all women, even his own mother." He nodded at the wails of astonishment from the people. "She who loved him so much she refused to believe her son was guilty of anything but being young and vulnerable to the dictates of old man Grey, the shon:gili. His first night home he took a knife and cut her throat while she slept, then bundled the corpse and threw it in a strip mine for Coyote to play with.

"He drove her 'car' to the Valley of Shadows, to the place he had been arrested. This was one in the afternoon on the thirty-first of October, the Day of the Dead.

"His lips brushed the witch's Stone, kissing it in reverence. He lay his head on its blood-blackened surface and awaited the dark lord. As the sun dropped behind the mountains and cold settled over his stiff body, he raised his head and took the knife out, the one he had used to kill and mutilate his own mother. As the night-sun arose full and red the man slashed through his arm and laughed as the bright scarlet of his own blood spattered over the 'Stone.

"Clouds wreathed the moon, and it looked down from this veil and smiled on its mother, the earth. Down a long beam of watery light rode Owl, his feathers as silent as he was deadly. The young man shuddered, pressing his face to the frozen earth.

"The Owl spoke well of this young man's loyalty and faster than the eye could follow, he raked his claws across the man's chest, marking him with the Sign of the Owl, making him a shon:gili, a Hunter of the Dark. Wisely, Owl did not bestow on him the ultimate power, to change his shape to that of the utgo:gili, the dog that is unclean, a werewolf."

Shivers ran across the children's skin. Several rubbed their chests and winced.

"'You will go,' the Owl told him. 'You will Hunt for me.'"

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:12 EST
"'Who do I Hunt, Master"' he whispered. 'Do I roam these forests and track the unwary man or woman to feed you with"'

"For a long time, Owl was silent. The man began to tremble and wonder if he had been wise to come.

"'The Wolf Bitch's child yet lives,' the Owl told him, his voice bitter and wrathful. 'You will find the boy and kill him for me. Bring me the corpse of Benny Waya Grey, little one, and I will make you lord of all the Earth.'

"Owl faded into the shadows. The new Hunter let a cold smile cross his face. He rubbed his hand over his chest through the slashes and shredded clothing and smeared the blood. He raised his hand and licked the blood from it, his eyes vague and dream-like in his adoration and lust.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:13 EST
She was young, pretty, and best of all, she was naked in his arms. Benny smiled into the petite blonde's sea-green eyes and kissed the small nose. This was Sue, his dream-girl. He had dreams about her since he was only five, and now, in his coma, he could almost believe she was real.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured and it was only the truth. In his dream she smiled back, her full, pretty lips curved for him and him alone and she sighed his name, "Benny."

So many things troubled them. They were a pair of lucky losers. The very things that were done to them in the hope of breaking their spirits were what drew them together.

As Benny lay there, his nose just touching hers, he stroked her back and felt the welts and the scars.

She winced, but was too brave to cry out as callused hands scratched the fresh marks on her back. "Please," she said, a catch in her voice. Benny felt a black, ominous rage well up. He had to protect her, Sue was his only vulnerable spot left.

"Don't let them hurt me anymore, Benny." Troubled eyes told him of the things she had been subjected to only moments before he arrived. "Don't leave me, Benny."

"Never." He brushed his lips across her eyelids and tasted the bitter moisture there. "Not if they skin me alive. I love you, babe." A desperate plea in his voice, he said, "Please, love me."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:14 EST
"How's our patient, Nurse?"

Belle Dellacourt looked up from her paperwork and nodded at the doctor.

"Still out, bud, what did you expect' He moans and groans and sighs, and that's about it."

She eyed him. "Hey, who're you?" Dellacourt frowned and lowered her feet from the arm of the chair. She wracked her brain, but couldn't place the tall, thin man. The knife scars on her face brought a shudder to her body.

"Doctor Drobnicki. I just got back from vacation." He flashed a grin. "You know. Green hell." He motioned at the door. "I need to examine our boy here."

"Not on your life," she snapped. "I'm not to leave this kid's side or old Boyde and Crazy Myers will have my ovaries for breakfast."

"I'm afraid I'll have to insist. What I'm about to do is something highly unorthodox, and no one in the . . . Shall we say practice?, should see. Something I picked up in prison camp." His smile was brief and unpleasant. Drobnicki took the nurse by the elbow and shoved her from the room.

Dellacourt turned to protest and the door thumped shut in her face, then the lock snapped and she raised her fist to demand she be let back in. It was quiet. Dead quiet, and she shivered, unwilling to break the silence. So many had problems sleeping, the least little noises sent them back to the jungles and memories of the things they saw and did.

She crouched on a bench beside the door, her gaze stark, waiting permission to enter.

Long minutes past and she stood, pacing before the room.

The room was dim and poorly lit. Drobnicki smiled at the patient. 'Very good. It goes well,' hissed in his ear. 'For this is that which is best done in the dark.' He pulled a roll of stained and rank smelling parchment from the pocket of the white overcoat. The stethoscope still lay wrapped around the throat of his victim, down in the utility room.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:15 EST
He lay the roll beside the patient, watching the slow rise and fall of Benny's chest. "Yo, Benn-ee, dude," Drobnicki whispered. "How you doin', bud" Remember me" I'm the jerk your mother cut up with the knife the night she murdered your grandfather, old man Grey." Tommy shook his head. What a night that had been. He still dreamed of it. Benny's father, dead six years and some months, rising from the grave at the Sandy Valley crossroads. Christ, what a night.

Of its own accord, the roll of parchment flattened and lay bare to his eyes a skean-dubh, a knife of incredible antiquity from the dark forests of Moldavia. Its balance rotated and opened to reveal a blood-shot eye. The knife hissed. Tommy bent to give a reverent kiss to the black handle. He moved with infinite caution, for it made little difference to the knife which man it fed on.

He took the blade in his right hand and with his left he drew down the sheet that covered his victim.

Benny kissed Sue. His tongue ran over her lips, sought to enter them.

She groaned and pushed away from Benny.

"Please, don't. Don't make me do it, Benny. I'm too sore."

He groaned and flopped onto his back, riding up and down on the cheap, squeaking army surplus cot. A single bulb hung naked from corroding green wires. Benny stared at it, watching the scant light sway in the drafts, the light flickering and snapping in the unheated room. He pulled a scratchy blanket over them both.

A faint scuffle came from the dark hall and a man appeared in the doorway.

"Take this unworthy offering, Master of the Night."

Harsh and strong that night came back to him. Tommy saw old man Grey, his frail body naked against the blackness of massive hemlocks. The Witch's Stone with a six-year-old, Benny Wya Grey, bound with leather from past human victims lying atop it. Tommy smiled, his nostrils flared, remembering the stench of fear on the kid's skin. Or had it been his own fear?

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:16 EST
Up until that night the coven was just a way to get an easy lay, to get stoned off the dope Mr. Grey bought them. That night brought the terrifying reality of what they were doing, and his heart surged with an unholy glee.

The tip of the knife traced the old scars, the one Grey had carved in the flesh of his grandson.

First, the Mark of the Beast. Tommy gave a hollow laugh as the scars glowed under the knife. The faint chanting continued, it muttered on and on and the tip of the knife quivered, hungry after too long a time without being fed. He moved on to the Mark of the Demon, the Owl. Two diagonal lines that slashed through the first mark, proving the Owl was over-lord of all the world.

Now the marks glowered, faint puffs of smoke arose as the flesh scorched and cooked again.

Tommy sniffed greedily at the rank odor of burning flesh. He finished the preparatory chant and raised his eyes to the window. Just beyond the pane of glass hung the Owl, his yellow eyes bright with anticipation for the final stroke, the one that would slice young Grey's heart in two and give his corpse to the Owl for his flesh in this world.

"I will rule," the Owl whispered. "Aye, and all of the Creator-Mother's yi shall bow down to me."

Tommy raised the knife.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Sue began to weep and Benny yelped, scurrying for clothes that were never there.

The first blow caught him on the side of the head. The next sent him reeling onto the warped dresser, scattering the cheap perfumes and make-up kits that marked his Sue for what she was.

"No, Daddy, don't hurt him," Sue cried and launched herself at JJ Hanna's fleshy back. Sue raged, sinking her teeth into the maggoty white, unwashed back and fought like a tiger.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:16 EST
Benny felt a searing pain in his chest, then another. He dropped to the floor and stared in horror at Sue as he began to fade.

"Christ," JJ muttered, shaking his head. "I'm having detox." JJ turned and knocked his daughter to the floor with one vicious slap.

She watched with dull eyes as her father smiled and stripped off his pants. JJ shoved her to the bed.

"And don't you-all give me none of your sass, you slut."

Benny shot a look at his guardian, Two Swords. He moved towards his body, fists clenched in helpless rage at his sides. The first tug jerked Benny almost in two. Benny gaped at his middle. A silver cord ran from it to his body. The cord tightened, pulling now, slight, insistent, but dragging him back towards his body by the power of the knife.

"Tommy' Tommy Drobnicki" Is that you, man?" Benny stared in wonder. The years had changed Tommy, destroying anything human in him and it showed on the knife-scarred face.

"Why you doing this to me, Tommy' Don't you remember, you used to take me fishing and stuff like that. I thought we were friends." A chill crept up his back and he turned and shivered at the face of the Owl, smiling its thin, calculating smile at him. The Owl nodded. Benny spun back to the man hovering above his flesh.

Tommy glanced at the Owl. His gaze flickered and widened as the Owl allowed him to see Benny standing near him. Tommy smiled and it matched the Owl's.

"'Bye, man, and good riddance for all the shit your mom put me through."

"Don't do it, Tommy, please?" Close to begging. Benny scowled and straightened. "My mother helped your family every time they needed it, even when old man Grey beat her for it."

The knife raised for the third and final stroke, the one that would slice through the heart and tap into the life reserves, allow the imp-blade to feed, to entrap the spirit within the decaying flesh for however long the master decided.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:18 EST
"Tommy," Benny said in a breathless whisper. "No, man. I though we were bros."

Tom hesitated. He pressed his groin against the side of the bed. A shiver passed through him. Tom shook his head at any second thoughts and struck downwards.

A bedpan clanged on Tommy's head. Caught up in the erotic, almost sensual ecstasy of the sacrifice, Tommy screamed with pain and hate as a bolt of fire scorched up from his groin.

Clutching at his cramping groin, Tom slashed the skean-dubh at the nurse. She leaped back, darting into the hall and shrieked her lungs out for the MPs.

Giving Benny one last, hungry glance, Tom spat on the floor.

"I'll be back, creep."

"I'll be here, man. I'll be friggin waiting, you prick."

Tom smiled thinly. He gave a small nod. Getting on his knees, he rolled the hissing knife back in its protective layer of human skin. He rose and strode from the room.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:19 EST
Hearing the thin scream of a whip, a sound Benny knew too well from his days at the Manse, Benny hunched over and slipped into the shabby bedroom. He scowled at a thin, naked man.

"You lightening son of a bitch," Benny shouted and hurtled himself at the pale back of the man who wield the lash over a weeping body.

And passed right through him.

The man paused. He cast a scowl about the small room and stared for a moment at the doorless opening.

Ready to do battle, Benny clambered to his feet.

And back peddled away to huddle along the far wall.

Harrison' What was Harrison doing here" Benny shivered in uncontrollably fear. "Please -" Benny heard it and jerked as the whip descended on the bloody back of Harrison's victim. "Please Judge, no more."

"Sue?"

Benny raised himself slightly. Was it Sue" Benny gasped, frozen and not daring to move. She was bloody and streaked with lash marks. He had to do something to stop this. He tried, but his limbs refused to move. Benny was forced to watch the sadist use the girl in ways that would have made old Conn ill.

Finally done, Harrison wiped himself off with her panties.

Harrison leaned over the welted and bloody back. He pressed his lips to the exact spot that corresponded to Sue's heart. Pushing himself up, he licked her blood from his lips.

"My Susie," he whispered into the darkness, "Does my little Susie love her big man?"

Unable to believe what he was hearing, Benny cowered deeper into the corner. Man, this dude was whacked in the brain. He had never had to take a male client, even Cindy wasn't that warped, but he had heard plenty about this 'partner' of hers. The Judge sold Chris and a bunch of other kids to the PROJECT and expected to use them at his leisure.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:20 EST
The washed blue of Harrison's eyes grew chilling. Benny cringed away.

Taking up the black, blood smeared quirt, Harrison lashed it down a few more times. It was like hitting clay for all the response he got. Sue was somewhere beyond him and reality at this point. With a philosophical shrug Harrison pulled on his clothes, clothing that would mean a mugging at the very least in this neighborhood to any but Juvenile Court Judge Harrison, and stuffed the quirt into his shorts where it nestled around his groin.

He took a ratty, moldering blanket from the floor and shook the roaches and the rat pellets from it before laying it with parental gentleness across the lacerated back. Sue's head hung from the bed, her long, softly curling hair pooled on the floor. Harrison tucked the blanket in and smiled. The bed creaked and sagged as his weight settled onto the side of it. Everything was as it should be. All was right with the world.

"You get a good night's sleep, honey, and Daddy will be back to see you tomorrow. We'll play again, then, OK?" He patted the unmoving back. "Daddy has to go now. Love me?" He smiled again and said in a whisper, "Of course you do."

Minutes passed after the Judge had left the room and still Benny didn't feel safe enough to leave the scant protection of the wall. Sue . . . oh, God, not the Judge.

The Judge brought new meaning to the term 'used and abused,' He took kids from Juvie Dentition and claimed they were runaways. those that survived wound up in a place like the Manse, where they couldn't survive. The Judge took no chances with those he 'loved.'

And he was in this nightmare. Yeah, nightmare! Man, was he whacked as the Judge? It was only a dream. None of this crap, the room, the girl, none of it was real. Only the Judge was.

Benny shivered and crept from the wall and into Sue's bed, being careful not to shake the cot. He lay next to her, offered everything he had learned at the Manse in a desperate attempt to bring her back to her mind. Not even in these dreams had they done it, those he tried, even if it meant getting picked on for having wet dreams. Sue . . . man, but she was every guy's dream. Maybe some day he'd meet a woman like her.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:21 EST
"Mom would love you."

A snort came from a blue and gold cloud slowly shifting up from the splintering floorboards.

Benny scowled at Sue's Guardian, Shorty. The amazon shrugged. Her sword, macana Talk-a-Blue-Streak, trilled at Heart-a'-Fire and Guardian Two Swords.

"You got to be strong, Grey-Wolf, for her sake." Shorty smiled a bitter flash of ivories at Benny. "She needs you, Warrior, or she'll die. Believe what Ana:Waya, your mother, tells you. My kid is as alive as you are."

The Guardian watched Benny for a few moments. Seeing only anger and a growing disbelief on the young dark face, Shorty groaned and went to her knees.

"Please" Come home, Benjamin Wya Grey. The Old-Woman is calling you. Why won't you listen to Him' You have to come home and rescue her from this." A hand swept around the room, encompassing far more than a mere dwelling.

Benny shook his head in a fierce denial. He closed his eyes to the pleading face of the eight-foot woman. His hand stroked the long golden hair. So soft, like silk beneath his hands. He crooned to her, "It's all cool, babe. I'm here."

Eyes wild with fear and determination Shorty took a step closer. She would force him to help. Her charge was dying. Sue needed Benny.

A hand grabbed her arm as Talk-a-Blue-Streak cleared her scabbard.

"Dohi:yi, Warrior." Two Swords held Heart in a cool and composed way, unthreatening. His voice was tranquil and sedate. "It is forbidden, Sun-Person Shorty. He is a mortal and may not be harmed nor forced into action." The formal speech broke down into a low mutter, "Think, what?ll Ma say?"

Shorty trembled and melted into his arms. Two Swords patted her on the shoulder and rocked her back and forth, his eyes bright and sad on Benny.

"What a crock," Benny said. His eyes flashed at them. "Who am I to rescue anybody' I'm dead, or might as well be." He finished bitterly, "Right now I couldn't fight my way out of a wet paper bag, let alone save anybody. Just let me alone, OK?"

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:22 EST
"How is he?"

The doctor nodded and stifled a mighty yawn without bothering to turn and see who spoke.

His skin started to crawl and he turned slowly, almost fearfully.

Three pair of eyes stared at him and all desire for sleep was scorched from his mind. He suppressed a shudder. A man who had slept in mud, fought clouds of mosquitoes, been shot at more times than anyone could count, shouldn't be afraid of anything by now. Hell, he spent months on what they laughingly referred to as enemy lines and he went to bed every night with bullets ripping holes in his mosquito netting . . . .

God, they looked like mother wolves.

"He's fine, ladies. No harm done a-tall. Whatever that weirdo had in mind, Nurse Bell put a stop to it with her weapon of choice." He grinned at the dented bedpan and said, "He is. Really." The women offered him faint smiles. They made it clear that if the kid wasn't, they would come looking for him.

Head Nurse Myers reached up behind her back and adjusted an industrial strength girdle around her tall, pudgy frame. She belched loudly and ignored the glare of both Nurse Bell and the big galloot, the kid's guardian angel. She sniffed once, just to show her ire and took a sip. Her whistle wet, she tried it out, making a shrill, annoying monotone that set Two Sword's teeth on edge.

Die, Benny. So many deaths, all your fault. You father. Carl. Sue. Die before you cause another innocent death.

The voice was drowning him, smothering his will to live. The monitors buzzed and the nurses screamed for a doctor. He couldn't fight any longer.

Two Swords bellowed in outrage and cast himself at the Owl. He accidentally, more or less, bumped the glaring head nurse Myers and cold coffee spewed over Benny.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:22 EST
"Huh," Myers said, watching the monitors stabilize. "Fool kid, just funnin us, weren't you?" She gulped more of her coffee and Two Swords glowered at her. His finger slipped up, under the bottom of the cup and held it there.

Myers choked and sputtered, hanging onto his arm. Ice coffee chilled her withered breasts and ran down onto the girdle. He let the cup go and Myers found herself dangling a foot off the floor. Two Swords lowered her and smiled. She sneezed coffee from her nose and shook a fist, her Maine accent biting and harsh.

"Myers, what the dammed hell you think you doing in here?" Boyde rapped out. She squeezed her bulk through the door and glared at her superior.

Myers opened her mouth to give Boyde the blistering she deserved. Benny groaned faintly and tried to open his eyes. She spun and whooped a laugh.

He felt something cold and wet on his face. A graveled voice muttered soothing words to his ears. It was all, like just too familiar. Dreams . . . so many deaths behind him. Why should he live, and not Carl and Sue"

A mangled body. His own, but still and unmoving. Where was Mom' No, better she never came down. Cindy would snatch Mom, make her go to the Manse and be a whore, just like she made him. But Cindy had tried that once. Mom got free. God took her away from there, over the walls, away from the guards and the electronic training collars and the friggin microchips in her brain and all of it. He started to weep and wondered that he only felt the wetness flowing down the left side of his face.

The pain . . . flowed over him . . . felt so good. It took his mind off of the past and onto the present.

Why couldn't he see" He tried to move his arm and found it too heavy. It was incased in cold stone, as was the lower half of his body. What was wrong" He should o' died, that's what was wrong.

Benny heard a familiar growl near his left ear. His body jerked and he groaned again. "You freekin chill, Grey-Wolf, or I'll chill you with the flat of my sword, got it?"

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:23 EST
"Thirsty."

A straw was gently pushed between raw lips. Benny managed to sip a little. The nasal voice muttered something at him. No, not him, somebody called Two Swords.

Myers turned her head and spat a stream of tobacco juice at the cup on the floor. Most of it went in.

The straw dropped away from the mouth and Benny whispered a thank you, to whoever had done it.

"Yep, s' OK, kid. You just rest a little now."

Myers offered Boyde her broadest grin. She almost patted Benny on the cheek and instead turned and adjusted the flow of painkillers dripping down one of the tubes that ran into his arms.

Boyde wedged herself into a chair. She sighed and wiggled a little. "Man, but I got to lose some weight. Know what I mean?"

She eyed Myers.

Myers joined her. Crossing her legs, she dragged her skirt up and scratched through the week old stubble there. Benny's head came up and he shuddered at the varicose veins.

He quickly turned, and made a face at the big ugly guy, his eyes narrow and crossed, his tongue hanging out while he pretended to gag.

Hiding a smile, Two Swords gave his charge a stern look and covered a laugh with a small, explosive cough. In the next room the covers blew off the bed. A large flock of birds near the hospital shrieked in terror and fled.

Two Swords shook his head and shrugged in weary patients.

"You really love that little jerk, doncha," the old woman asked softly. He smiled and nodded. Myers adjusted her triple D cup bra with the added wire netting and shoulder cushions. "Say now, you think I ought o' get me a new bikini"

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:24 EST
Benny gagged and looked at the near-corpse that was his body.

"Good thing I-it-can't hear this, or I-it would get sick. Can you imagine her coming to the Manse?" Benny could and shuddered.

With a dainty snort Myers pulled the stained hem of her skirt over her blue veined legs.

"Huh."

Her eyes brightened, the sagging left one looked almost normal. "Say, this reminds me of a story. Lemme see . . ." She closed one eye in thought. "Was it in aught-six" No, maybe '96. yeah. I was just a tiny thing way back then, and . . . Hey' Where you going?" she yelled.

Benny yelped and was trampled underfoot by a horde of fleeing imps, Guardians, and a minor dark-sun to two.

Glaring after them, she spat into the malodorous cup on the floor. Most of it went in.

"Angels, huh." She grunted with contempt. "Who need 'em?" Reaching under the square neck of the blousa, she adjusted a strap on her bra and leaned over Benny's still form. "You know, kid, my Pap, he use to say only babes and crazies can see 'em. Angels, I mean. But I see 'em just fine." She nodded as if to make an affirmative. "Ayep! Ever since I got conked on the head by that piece of shrapnel when the NK came just a pouring down over the DMZ into South Korea back in . . . Lemme see, was it aught-two or twenty and two?"

The blood-shot eyes lit up. "Lordy, but the stories I could tell you about Korea. And Rio, ho-ho," she chortled. "You'd like them, you being related to that big polock, Ivanovitch, as it were."

Her eyes sagged and filled with moisture.

They slowly brightened. She scowled. "Nah, that 'un would be too shocking for a young kid like you, but was that polock ever wild. Took three girls all at one time and they couldn't move the next morning. None o' them."

The door glided open and Myers scowled at a rotund woman.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:24 EST
"What, Boyde?"

"Just want to check on our patient, Myers." She bustled in. "Lord, but my feet are killing me tonight." She aimed her widest end at a chair and ignored its pitiful groan. "I have got to lose some weight."

Sucking in her teeth before they landed in her lap, Myers asked under her breath, "How many times have I heard that un?"

Busying herself with the lines and tubes that thrust from various unmentionable part of her patient, Boyde leaned over Benny, whispering, "If she bothers you, just holler." Her eyes misted and she patted his hand. "Please, come back to us."

Benny had every desire to do just that, but at the moment even breathing, let alone shouting, seemed to be beyond him. How the heck was he supposed to get back in his body with all that crap wheezing and whining around him' He glared up through the Waters of Life at the big jerk of a Guardian for abandoning him to Myers and her eternal stories. What was he, a captive audience? Geezis.

One of the machines whined, a shrill noise in the dim quiet of the room. Boyde uttered a small cry of horror and leaped to it one hell of a lot faster than Benny thought she could move. She adjusted it. It spat a crackle of fire at her. Hissing curses under her breath, Myers leaned over Benny and thumped her fist down on it a few times. It gave a meek bleep and settled back to monitoring something beyond his ken.

The imp behind it snarled and reached in to play with the wires again. From the shadows a tsi:ge:O smiled. For such a pretty elf, she looked wolfish, all her teeth showing in a leer. She touched the ball of her finger to the point on a shard of flint. Moving from shadow to shadow, the tsi:ge:O crept near. The imp paused, studying the delicate wires. Shrilling her death song, the tiny woman leaped on the unclean spirit, driving it screaming and howling under the bed and out the door.

Casual as ever, Two Swords kicked. The imp smashed into the ceiling, came on a hard rebound off the floor, down the hall and into an elevator shaft, falling a long, long scream down.

Benny crowed a laugh. "Yo, seven points. Glad you're on my team in the final quarter, bro."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:25 EST
With a broad leer, Two Swords asked, "What' No two points for the basket, too?"

In a desperate attempt to change the subject of diets that never worked, Myers raised the frayed hem of her skirt and slapped at the black and gray stubble.

"A-yep! Just as slender as when I was a gel of sixteen," she crowed at the sweating nurse.

An imp spat a glob of phlegm at the machinery. Two Swords slowed it, touched a drop of fire to it from 'Heart. It exploded in a burst of flame, leaving a dank stench in the room. Then he used the sword on the imp.

Sniffing delicately, Boyde glanced at Myers.

"Here now." Myers stiffed with affronted dignity. "It wasn't me." she glared at a disbelieving Boyde. "'Twas the li'l fellah." Myers pointed under the bed to where the whimpering imp huddled.

"Uh huh."

Boyde wiggled her frame out of the chair. She ignored its sigh of relief and opened the door, waving it back and forth until her nose stopped watering.

"Say, Myers," Boyde said, her eyes full of concern, "you aren't nipping on that slop the boys in Morgue cook off, are you? You know they don't wash out the formaldehyde first,"

Eyes filled with wisdom, Myers shook her head. "That's what gives it pep, Boyde."

"Uh huh."

"You evah been to Maine?" Myers addressed this to the spirit standing on the far side of the bed. "I was birthed up on Penobscot Bay."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 14:26 EST
Boyde's eyes narrowed on the blank wall. The lighting in here was dim, but not that dim. Under her breath she said, "More like Bat Bay, you asked me." Myers rambled on.

Myers head tipped back against the cold blocks. "''Twas in . . . Lemme see . . . '80" No, maybe eighty and eight. I was just a little thing, y' see. And pert?" Myers chuckled and took a deep breath.

Snatching out his fiery 'Heart, Two Swords fled, trampling fleeing imps and kicking them through the walls in an attempt to escape.

Boyde was careful not to let the door thump shut as she hastened from the room. Benny moaned and struggled to follow, but his body didn't seem to be there anymore.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:02 EST
Myers snorted in her sleep, crossing flabby arms across a protruding belly. She sought a more comfortable position in the chair. She mumbled around a wad of tobacco in her cheek. It was something she had taken up while living as a prisoner of war in a rat hole of a town called Meio, down in America del Sud. It helped to kill the hunger pangs.

Boyde slipped in, a coarse wool blanket over one arm.

A look close to love on her face, Boyde covered the old woman and tucked the edges in. No matter what Myers had in the way of faults, she was one of the finest, most caring nurses Captain Boyde had ever met. She dropped a light kiss on the woman's wrinkled brow.

Myers opened her good eye, the other had been damaged from a beating the druggies gave her over an escape attempt. She scowled at Boyde. "Here now, ain't you never seen a sleeping woman?" Myers grumbled to herself and pulled the scratchy blanket up under her chin, giggling as the wool tickled the long hairs there.

Captain Boyde snorted. "Ol' war-horse." She spun and walked away, a grin on her face.

"Thanks, kiddo," Myers whispered to the closing door, and steeled herself to watching the sleeping boy.

Holding the bandaged hand as gently as he would an infant, Two Swords held watch. Myers had drifted off again, and he let her sleep. She was old, perhaps not long on this side of the Veil of the Sun, but that matter was not up to him. All he knew was that when she made her trip Home, she would have a far greater place waiting for her than many who professed to be servants of the God. The Warriors of the Sun would sing the Brave-Heart song to this one, and listen with patient joy to her long winded and rambling tales. She deserved the best because she was the best.

"Dohi:yi, Old-Woman," Two Swords said gently to the tears wetting the wrinkled face. "Soon you will be young again, you will hold your child again, beyond the Veil of Tears." He smiled, humbled, at her Guardian, a massive Amazon of a Guardian.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:03 EST
She gave Two Swords a short, stiff nod, then her cold eye sockets turned to her charge and they softened to a shining gold.

"Will he live, do y' think?"

Two Swords' head shot up. "He better, lady, or I'll kick his can across the Trail of Stars and back again."

His gaze went back to his charge and she spoke with a slow smile. "He will live, Warrior Two Swords, if he has your heart, and do it with style."

The Guardian chuckled. "He is a mean little cuss."

The heavy chest rose and fell. A minute later it did the same. He sighed and watched a machine breathe for his charge.

"Your fathers, Little Wolf's Cub Person," he said, "They would be so proud of you. Hewa, Listen to the Wolf. Ben is so proud, and Carl -" Two Swords shook his head and thought of where he had last seen Carl. Floating in the Pit of his own making, tormenters feeding on the man's sanity until nothing was left but the pain and the shame.

"Papa Bear, too, is proud of you, Little Wolf's Cub Person," said Myers' Amazon. She shrugged. "What was so in this Dream-World, still is so in the next, no matter where you spend eternity. Your life follows you, Wolf-Person. Carl loves you." She nodded. "He would do the same, no matter what."

Di:nenepi, imps, gather in a stinking, maggot-infected crowd, just beyond the reach of the swords. A circle of minor Guardians kept them at bay.

Benny slipped from his body. Two Swords growled at him.

The massive Guardian reached for him.

Even with the help of the breather, he was barely alive.

With a shout of "No," Benny twisted away from him.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:04 EST
He stumbled, falling through a wall and into a dank, winter chilled room. Damp air slid through cracked bricks and into the room. Eyes wide and shocked, Benny eased to his feet. It was Sue.

A huge man grunted and sweated over her, panting, heaving his bulk in a groan and the narrow army surplus cot creaked and sagged under him.

Benny shuddered at the jiggling fleshy buttocks, a dead white in the yellow light of a sixty-watt bulb.

He saw her face then, pale and vacant, eyes blinking at the water stained ceiling. Sue turned her head and looked at him. She moaned. The man on her chuckled and nibbled her ear.

"You sure love it, don't you, honey?"

"Benny?"

"I ain't, but honey, I'll be anything you want, if you'll give me another ride."

She turned to the man, her arms rising.

Laughing, he shook his head in regret.

He heaved his bulk from the bed and Sue, shivering in the cold air. A faint snuffle from the doorless hole in the wall made him turn a sour glance at it.

"I'm comin, JJ, dammit." Fishing around in his pants, he took several reds from his wallet and lay them on the dresser.

Just to annoy her father, he bent over the girl and planted a heavy kiss on the cold brow.

Another man in tow, JJ came eagerly into the room. The man glanced at Sue and the mess the last john had left for him and shook his head.

"I don't take sloppy seconds," he said and stalked from the room. "Get her cleaned up for me or there won't be no next time, JJ."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:05 EST
JJ glowered after the man. Wanting to beat him, he bared his teeth, but his fists trembled and he knew he would lose. Pain, like work, was something to be avoided at all costs.

Benny crowed noiselessly at the towering coward with his beer gut and jowls quivering with indignation and fear. The silent laughter was cut off when the man turned his rage on the slight, smiling girl with all the life of a piece of wood.

JJ scooped a piece of tattered lingerie from the floor. He grunted at the effort it took, and began to mop at Sue. In disgust he grimaced at the sperm and k-jell, and threw the ragged panties to the floor. "'Manda," JJ bellowed. "Get your lazy black ass in here, you old whore." His hands went to his zipper, and he fingered it, a hard look on his unshaven face.

"Girl, you are worthless. Trash. Just like all your mama's 'breed family." JJ's piggish eyes narrowed. "Stupid bitch." He grunted, tugging up his pants. He went to the dresser.

Money stuffed in his pocket, he gloated over the amount. With much tugging and a small groan of protest when the damp, warped drawer finally released the top drawer came out of the dresser. JJ took a small black box and extracted a pellet, a dirty needle, and a strap.

In helpless disgust, Benny watched the man light a candle and melt the pellet. Nightmare rides until dawn slid in.

JJ strapped Sue's flaccid arm and tapped a vein. The needle slid in and he released the strap. The plunger slid down and Sue's face grew horrified.

"No," she mumbled, fighting the drug, fighting the demons that reached for her.

In a clumsy, mocking gesture of parental affection, JJ patted her on one blanched and drawn cheek.

"'Manda," he bawled, "get your ass in her, woman, and do like I told you."

A whimper came from the hole in the wall. Benny spun and glared at the old, haggard woman. She padded in on bare, silent feet, uncaring about rat pellet and cockroaches.

Amanda stared with yellowed blood-shot eyes at the needle. Her lips trembled. She licked them, pleading in silence with JJ. He gave a scornful shrug and held out the black box, then snatched it from her hands. He roared with laughter at the tears pouring from the old woman's eyes. They flooded the wrinkled cheeks and ran from her face.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:06 EST
"Clean her up first." He snapped the box shut and stood back to watch with greedy eyes.

Barely lucid, Amanda nodded. She fumbled in the dresser drawers. Her Guardian threw JJ's a bleak stare. JJ's Guardian sagged and pulled a robe up to cover the shame in his eyes.

The drawer clattered to the floor. Amanda stared at it, her mouth working. She glanced at JJ and terror lit her face. "Please," she said, and raised her hands.

"What?" He glanced at the empty drawer and it dawned on him what she was trying to say. Where's the dammed douche, woman' You fo'got again, or did just blow my money on tar?"

His fist balled and he smashed it into her stricken face. JJ smiled and kicked her hard in the side. "You go buy some, whore." He reached into his pocket for one of the red. "I want every penny of change back. Everything I got coming, including the receipt."

Holding her side, the woman reached eagerly for the money. Too eagerly. JJ scowled and she sank back to the floor, a pile of stinking rags, unmindful of splinters and what hid under the trash in the room.

"I best get it," he told her, "You'll just blow the money." A crooked smile passed over his face and for a moment he was almost handsome. Cruelty lit his eyes. Just to be safe, he pocketed the box, and strode out.

Amanda huddled on the floor and wept bitter tears. Compared to the ache in her guts, the fire in her side was nothing. "Please," she said to the empty doorway. "Please don't you do this, JJ. Please." Her dark, wet eyes grew savage. She whispered harshly, "You right on one thing, on the money, JJ Hanna. By the Wolf-God, By the Wolf-God, I swears you'll get what you got comin to you. On the Eagle-Woman, the Mother of mothers, I swear."

Riding the dark horse of the night, Sue whimpered. Crab-like, the old woman darted to her. Amanda patted and stroked the trembling face with gentle hands, her rusty voice a rough croon.

"You my own cousin's baby, Sue, honey. You and me are light night and day in color, but we family. I'm here, baby. Your Ama's right here for you. Ama love you. Ama love you, sugar." She lay her head next to Sue's, her long wiry hair mingled with the pale blond tangles and their tears ran together on the greasy pillow.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:07 EST
"Come on, kid."

Shocked, Benny glanced at Two Swords. The Guardian lay a gentle hand on Benny's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze.

With one backwards glance thrown over his shoulder, Benny allowed the towering Guardian to draw him back to a hospital more than a thousand miles to the south.

With darkened eyes Two-Swords watched his charge. Benny whispered and moaned in the depths of a coma. Behind him a pack of imps gathered into a huddled mass.

One slipped away, a string clutched in his clawed hands.

Between her Guardian and the wall, Myers grumbled in her sleep. One hand flapped loose and she blinked, drawing it back into a loose cocoon of warmth.

The imp giggled and crawled under the bed. Backing out, it sneaked to the pack, chittering and waving its decay-warped hands.

Screaming curses and taunts the pack attacked the Guardians.

Two Swords spat at them. A-Heart-a'-Fire shrilled her war cry as she leaped into his hands. Fire ran down her length, jagged bolts of gold and blue, the center of her twin blades whitened to pure flame. Sparks cracked off her tip that balled into a fury of storm.

Spinning and twisting among the demonic horde, Two Swords hacked down. A minor asgina dark sun screamed. His sword was a streak of black, molten flames. 'Heart shrilled at his sword, they met in a thunderclap. The demon's sword shrieked in agony. It split down the middle, shattering to hilt.

Stunned, the demon gaped at Two Swords and staggered back. Another swung with the maniacal force of a twister. Two Swords dodged, bringing 'Heart up. The clash shuddered her, numbed his arms. He went to his knees. With a cry of triumph the demon charged in and 'Heart took him through the belly.

The demon hung there for a moment. Agonized rumbles came from him and he sank through the floor into the waiting teeth and claws of the tormenters.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:08 EST
Shocked at the clash of battle and the screams of the wounded, Myers snapped out of a nightmare and leaped to her feet, shouting, "Wounded. Help me, wounded." And with a squawk, spatted on the floor. Myers' Guardian roared fire from her mouth and mowed through them with a shrieking sword.

The remaining imps fled in hot pursuit of the idiot who tied the wrong legs together.

Grinning at a tiny speck of blue fire, Two Swords lowered 'Heart. The speck giggled and spiraled up to the Guardian

"Thanks, Oak." The Guardian winked. "But why'd you let them get away with it?"

"Didn't, Giant One Two Swords. Make him figure you were her and her were you were one and same." The sprite covered her mouth in a giggle and zipped away.

Myers gathered herself from the floor. Glaring at Two Swords, she checked her patient. She pulled a knife from a leg sheath and removed the cord. With a loud hrumph at the Guardian, she snatched up the blanket and hobbled out to find a quieter room.

The bed was a lot harder than the room she left, but the men's ward was a lot quieter, too. All that comfy snoring, but the men didn't get on her about it.

Gumming sleepily at her chew, Myers yawned and scratched under her girdle.

"Where's m' teeth?" Myers glared around the wardroom. Her gaze settled on one of the smiling men.

"Who swiped 'em now?" she hollered, shaking a fist at the men. "Best ye fess up now, else I'll -"

"I see them, Nurse Myers." A pretty, new, angel of mercy beamed a smile. "They're under the bed."

Myers glared at her, groping under the bed.

"A-yep, there they be." Myers stuffed them in her mouth. She saw the young woman staring, open-mouthed, at her. She looked faint.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:09 EST
"Aren't you going to wash them off first, Nurse Myers?"

"You're that new chick, Dellacourt, ain't it?" She sniffed and glared at the nurse. Watching in silence to see what Granite-Myers would do now, the men all perked up. In hushed tones bets were laid. The smiling men lay back, their eyes pleading for Myers to go easy.

"You mean to say them floors ain't clean, Nurse Dellacourt?"

Sensing trouble, the young lieutenant backed away.

"Nnno, Ma'am," she said, her mind whirling. She shook her head and mentally kissed good-bye to her up-coming promotion to First. "I never said any such thing. Your floors are clean enough to eat off of." She glanced at the rest of the staff in the wardroom. They scattered like quail.

"Mebby you're right, Nurse Dellacourt. Mebby, them floors ain't righteous-clean." She worked the dentures around in her mouth, champing hard to seat the self-adhesive plates. "Might be they needs a real ex-pert on what be clean and what ain't to see to 'em proper."

Myers gagged, spitting the dentures out into her hand. In wonder she glared at the men around her.

"By goshen, Nurse Dellacourt, if you ain't right. Look here. There's fly on my teeth." A long bony finger snapped at something and a low moan of despair escaped the girl's clenched jaws. Myers popped the teeth back in.

"Where you goin', Dellacourt?" Myers shouted after the fleeing woman. She said the man in the next bed. "I was only joshin' the poor thing." He rolled his eyes and sighed.

Her eyes widened and she spat out the teeth.

"By gum, if there ain't really a dammed . . . er, durned fly."

She flicked it off. The tiny imp shrieked and spatted on the floor. Myers grunted in disgust.

"Ugh, but I do hate bugs." Eyes bulging, the imp watched as the sole of her very comfortable shoe loomed then lowered slowly to the floor. Something made a small crunching noise and Myers grunted a laugh.

"Be-durned imps."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:11 EST
Benny hiccuped. Light scorched his eye. A cool, wet cloth patted the eyelid with the gentleness of a mother.

Anna. Half awake, half still in dreams, he rolled his head and mumbled.

Boyde sighed, checking the empty socket.

"It's OK, Benny, honey. You all just lay quiet while old Nurse Boyde fixes you up."

His head was tilted to one side. A straw pushed between cracked and dry lips. The first few drops of cold water reached his mouth and he pulled harder. A spurt came out and he swallowed before most of it could escape his mouth. Benny choked and tried to draw in more.

The straw was withdrawn, the voice scolded in gentle tones.

"Take it easy, Marine. You got the rest of your days to drink an ocean dry."

He grunted, his throat too raw to speak, and the straw was pushed back in. Benny managed two more mouthfuls and his eye grew to heavy to stay open.

Boyde smiled down at him and patted his left cheek. His light snores were music to her, and it was all she could do not to dance for joy.

"Can he see me yet?"

The whispering voice slipped into Benny's dreams. He blinked through a gray haze, cursing the film that covered his eye.

Murky forms padded around the room, speaking in hushed tones.

"Just for a moment, Chaplain. He's had it pretty rough, poor kid."

One form detached itself, this one in dull olive green, not the brilliant starched whites of the nurses.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:11 EST
"Son?" The form bent over him. "Can you hear me?"

Benny managed to force himself to nod.

"Praise God," the man breathed. Laughter entered the man's voice. With a dry chuckle, he said, "I got the police to drop the charges." The chaplain uttered a weak laugh. He tried not to gag at the bandage that covered the right half of Benny's face or the row of stitches that ran from under it.

"When you get out of here, I don't think it would be a good idea to try and see your family in Fayetteville. I have it on good authority the police stapled pictures of you to their dashboards."

Through the haze of painkillers, Benny gave him a slow smile. The form wavered, just out of focus. He tried to open his right eye. A flash of pain made him wince.

The man stood over him. He cleared his throat and had to look away, his stomach heaved. Outside birds soared and sang. Hating this part of his duties, he shook his head with a weary hand.

"Son -"

The chaplain took a deep breath. Better to get it over with.

"Benny?" The chaplain crossed his legs and fidgeted. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Benny. I've been informed that you may nev -" He gagged and fought down the sorrow. "You may never walk again. The Corp is discharging you as of today. You'll be transferred to Wilkes-Barre, VA, if you like. You can be near your mother there. I'm told she was very distraught. You are her only child. I . . . I think it would be best for now, if you stayed on the base, in this hospital." He took a business-sized envelope from his breast pocket and laid it on the nightstand. "The colonel would appreciate it if you could sign these soon. They need to begin the out-processing and start on your benefits."

In a low voice, rusty from long disuse, Benny cursed as he heard so many Marines curse. The words were dull, monotone, filled with despair.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:12 EST
A damaged nerve twisted in Benny's spine. The spine jerked into a deep U, and a hoarse scream was wrenched from his mouth.

"Medic," the chaplain shouted. "Nurse." He threw himself Benny. Dellacourt raced in. She held a needle and punched Benny's arm with it. Benny settled back with a small groan and drifted away to his dream girl, the woman who rode the nightmares with him.

"Sue . . . ."

In her dreams she reached out and found his arms and his warmth to comfort her.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:13 EST
Outside birds sang and called in mocking tones to challengers. Females sat among branches with the buds only now beginning to swell with new life.

"I've never seen so much hate." Dellacourt hugged herself. "He's been awake nearly a week now, Myers. Why won't he even try?"

Myers glared down at her. "You ain't never been on the lines, have you, kid?" Dellacourt shook her head, a gleam of excitement came to her eyes.

"My transfer takes place next month. I'm going to Rio."

Myers gave her a pitying look. "Grey ain't so bad, kid. You'll see a lot worse in the hospital in Rio. Men who lost less than him, but got more to live for."

Benny slapped the discharge from the covers.

"I don't have to sign them," he said, his eye sullen and dark with a hopeless rage. "I can walk. I know I can. They won't even lemme try." His chin swung at the nurses' station. "Want to see?"

There was too much frightened hope in Benny's eye for the chaplain to try to dissuade him.

A grim Benny tossed aside the blankets, lowering his legs to the floor. He puled himself up and gave the man a triumphant grin. The carefully braced legs trembled. The grin was replaced by hard determination. He tried to move. Benny crashed to the floor.

Dellacourt and the chaplain rushed to help him. Benny flailed them with his arms and his curses.

After putting him back in the bed, the chaplain turned to leave.

"Wait, sir. Please?" Benny cried out, "I can. Please? My legs, they're just real weak, is all." He tried to get up but Dellacourt pushed him back.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:13 EST
Benny lashed out. His fist grazed her cheek. With a gasp she leaped away. Benny stared in horror at what he had done. With mumbled apologies, he turned from her to stare at the wall.

She administered a sedative, her heart fluttering at the near disaster and at his shame. With a heavy heart, Boyde walked in. She smiled at Benny's tearstained face. "He looks like some kind of angel, laying there, doesn't he?"

"He puts me in mind more of a fallen angel, Captain." But as she tucked the blankets in around him, Dellacourt's eyes were gentle.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:14 EST
It wasn't the chaplain's first visit, but this was a special case. This kid was the one he dreaded seeing but who needed him the most. He sat, legs crossed, listening as Benny muttered through one tormented story after another.

All he went through, all the pain and suffering he lived most of his life with, Carl's death was the worse.

"All I ever wanted was to grow up to be a man. And what am I? A freekin crip, for God's sake."

From the first, it was like God planned to destroy him.

No, God had nothing to do with it. Not this mess.

But still, when he looked for the God in the quiet place, all he ever saw was their backs.

"I wish I died on the Stone," he told the chaplain. The man asked what Benny meant by a Stone, Benny turned his head away and stared at the wall until the man finally left.

He stared at the ceiling, counting tiles until chow time.

"Up and Adam, Marine," an orderly called. He pulled a wheel chair into the room and grinned. "This got you name on it." At the look on Benny's sour face, the grin died. The kid turned his head away. The orderly shrugged. It happened a lot.

"Get used to the idea, Grey. The day's a-comin' when you won't have a choice. We got too many real casualties moving through here to put up with one snot-nosed mama's boy."

At the look Benny gave him, he backed up a step, his eyes widening in alarm.

Thoughtful, he stared at Benny and left.

One day slid into another and Benny felt the restlessness of the wolf come into him. Geese called to him in his sleep, wind hissed through his soul, whispering songs of freedom, mocking him with its laughter. To pass the time he mocked anyone foolish enough to come to see him. By now even Myers rarely came around to visit.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:14 EST
He refused to admit it, but he missed the old woman and her mild form of insanity. When she did come, though, her words left bruises.

"Tell me, kid, are you some kind a fairy?" she demanded. "You got every man-jack of us pulling for you, an' all you can do is whine and dine on our good faith." Myers gave him a cold, ugly look, filled with all the scorn she could dredge into it. "I figured you for a man, what with havin' a pa like Ivanovitch."

Benny opened his mouth to chase her from the room. She snatched up his water jug and dowsed him with it.

Over his shouts, she bellowed, "What would Carl do, were he in your shoes?" With that, she left Benny to wallow in a soaked bed.

Pushing the wheelchair with one finger, the orderly sauntered in.

"You want clean sheets, amigo?" he asked, his voice low but hard. "Yes" Then allow me to get you lazy ass in here so I can change them."

Hoisted into the chair Benny stiffened.

The shame turned to rage and he railed against the man.

"Take the brat to the rec-room," Myers told Carlos. "With any luck the boys'll pound some sense into that thick injun skull o' his." She cackled an evil laugh and draped a towel over Benny head. "Stuff this in your face and shut it."

Carlos abandoned him in the rec-hall, snarling, "Man, I wish we'd o' had you when they dropped us in Buenos Aires. You could o' killed all them doper lords with that snake's tongue." He walked away shaking his head.

"Screw you, Carlos," Benny shouted after him. He drove the chair to a corner and wheelied it around, scoring black streaks on the floor. Eye hard, he defied Carlos to come and do something to him.

"Hey kid, you shoot?" A blue bathrobe clad patient grinned, holding up a pool stick.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:15 EST
Eye filled with hate, Benny stared at the friendly face until the man shrugged and went back to his game.

He sat, eye on the clock, fists clenched in his lap, for hours, waiting for Carlos to return. Benny made no bones about wanting to be left alone, and the patients ignored him.

"Hey, Ben-nee."

Benny spit at Carlos. The man sidestepped and smiled.

"My Grammy out in Arizona, she got lamas that ain't as good as you at that." He laughed at Benny's curses. "OK, man. You want it, you got it. I give up, you little perverto. You comfy' Because you can hie your own ass around in that chair from now on." Carlos snapped his fingers at Benny and strode off whistling.

"Yeah. Beat it, creep," Benny shouted, "Before I beat you."

What his mother laughingly referred to as :the wolf: in Benny's stomach growled, demanding to be fed. Benny rubbed his stomach and grimaced. No dinner. And it was already past supper. No one bothered to asked him if he was hungry. He chased them all away. Now he was paying for acting like a sheep-brain. Men let men be men. They didn't offer to help unless they were asked.

Chagrinned, he pushed himself from the rec-hall and into the corridor. Not far away a gurney was leaning against the wall. He saw a tray on it, and with a small grin, shoved over to it, hoping for a meal

"Huh."

The tray was sealed. Through the clear plastic he saw OR tools. A bitter feeling welled up in him. His eye took in the sharp curve of a scalpel and a hunger grew.

Standing near him, an asgina darkened sun whispered. "Ride free."

Benny glanced around. No one was looking. His hand trembled over the plastic. The hall was clearing, people were settling in for the night. Forcing himself, his finger put a hole in the plastic. It popped. Benny jerked his hand back to his lap. He glanced around. Nurses chatted down the hall, a doctor was hurrying home, elevator doors groaned shut on a dozen visitors.

Before he could think, the scalpel lay gleaming in his lap. He slid it in the pocket of the hospital issue bathrobe and the wheelchair glided away.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:17 EST
The Mohawk-Buu stood over him. A cold smile played on the too handsome face, stark with hate.

"Die for me, little Wolf's bastard. Die so I can kill. Die so that I may feed on your mother's sanity, on your uncle. Yea, shall I reward her for all these years of defeat."

It was dark in here, just a dim, reddish cast of light from the wheezing boilers. Sweat pooled on his face and ran under the cheap eye patch. It felt right to Benny. It felt good, this room. A fitting place to run the last ride.

The darkened sun leaned over Benny, listening to the sub-vocalizations of Benny's thoughts. He uttered a hollow laugh and waited, wanting to capture for all eternity Benny's last expression before tormenters captured him. The Mohawk-Buu had a special place set for Benny, one he would never escape from.

"Come. Do it, Wolf Cub. I desire to see thee, brat, when thou realize that thine troubles are just begun.

"I am Death."

Benny looked at the scalpel. He took a deep breath and lay it on his wrist. It felt so cold, its beauty so deadly. Benny's hand jerked up to throw it away.

"Remember the corpses" Remember the dude in the morgue?"

The Mohawk-Buu reached into Benny and gave splinters of bone a delicate twist and he smiled.

A shrill moan escaped Benny's mouth. His eye bulged and he cried out. The nerves in his legs twitched at the pain. When it subsided, the legs were again dead wood. He brought the scalpel back to his wrist.

Benny paused for a moment, head bowed in apology to his mother, Uncle Charlie, Toddy. What he was doing was wrong, but living in a chair for the rest of his life . . . Benny gripped the scalpel and cut himself. A small trickle of blood ran out. His nostrils flared with joy at the scent of blood.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:17 EST
"Drink it, Benny."

Benny raised the welter of blood to his mouth, closed his eye and smelled it.

He was five again, starving for the love and approval of his grandfather, old man Grey. He would cut into the flesh of a living animal, his grandfather guiding his hands and murmuring a chant, rip out its heart, catch the blood in a challis for the men in the coven. Old man would give him a hug, a real hug, not the clutching and panting he gave when forcing himself into Benny.

Even now he craved to be loved by that man. Old man Grey never let him drink, and he always wondered why.

Sacrifices must be pure. To drink would have added something from the animals that they used, something wrongful.

Horror flashed through Benny. He choked and shuddered. Not animals. That old man never sacrificed animals. The Buu spurned animal sacrifice as unworthy.

"God. Oh my God."

Weeping, sobbing children.

He was no better than that bastard.

Blood ran from his mouth and coated the bathrobe.

Let it end now.

Sobbing, he opened the wound further and brought the wrist back to his trembling mouth.

Eagle-Woman shook her head and moaned. With one plump hand she covered Benny's glazed, staring eye.

"It's over, Two Swords. He's gone from us."

The Guardian fell to his knees with a cry and clutched at her feathered robes.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:18 EST
"Mother" Let me call for help. I can bind the wounds until someone gets here." He grasp Benny's arm and pressed against the sluggish flow of blood.

The Mohawk-Buu sneered a laugh.

"So' I warned thee, Guardian Two Swords, that thou waste thy time. Yea, and the time of our beloved Mother." He inclined his head to the Eagle-Woman. She gave him a cool look. "His grandfather Grey was patriarch of the clan, and did sell me the boy. Long have I waited."

His eyes darkened with rage.

"Now I claim what was to be mine from before this aging universe was formed by thy breath, Mother." He stared at Benny with a barely vailed greed. "Now do I claim what was mine. Now I shalt wear his flesh and rule mankind."

He tried to enter the body and screamed, "It burns. It burns"

Mohawk-Buu tore away from Benny..

"How can this be?" he shrilled, slapping at the burns on his robes and body. "He is dead. You." He snapped his fingers at the one of his slaves. "Come. Take him now to the cell." He indicated Benny's spirit as it tried to move from the body.

Sooty black tendrils hissed up from minute cracks in the floor. They swayed, grew, thickening into a shadowed forest of snakes edging away from the Woman. Benny-spirit shook his head. He glanced in despair at the massive Guardian. Two Swords was helpless without Benny's voice to permit him to act.

"Man, I . . . please?" he blurted at Two Swords.

"Thou hast lost, bastard-child."

Two Swords lowered his head. His eye sockets burned black with the pain of his loss of Benny. Benny floated free of the body.

A tendril lanced though Benny's leg.

Others closed in, weaving in and out of each other, chittering like rats, hungry rats smelling death.

"No.

Two Swords snatched up the Mohawk-Buu and rammed him through the walls of the boiler room, down, through tons of rocks, deep into the heart of the earth, passed the blackened Gates of Hell, into the seething rock at the very edge of the Pit.

Eagle-Woman darted passed them. She threw herself between the Guardian and the Pit. Her hands went up, she screamed for Two Swords to stop. The towering Guardian roared, "He goes in. He dies for the murder of too many I loved. Let me by, Mother. I'll carry this beast-master and myself into eternal damnation before I let him murder another of my Charges."

"Please, Two Swords," She whispered. "Please -" Stone crumbled from beneath her feet and she screamed. The Eagle-Woman steadied herself on shifting rocks.

Black lightening competed with the shrieks of the dammed, rolling from the vaulted caverns. A red cast of light glowered in sullen hate.

"Look. Please, look." She held Her hands above her five-foot, two inch body, swaying to the echo of distant earthquakes. A pebble rattled down and as matter met the anti-matter of the Pit exploded with the force of a mega ton nuclear bomb. Her robes crackled in the furnace heat, the feathers shimmered and took on a fierce golden glow, the eagle screamed, wrapping around Her to protect Her.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:38 EST
She closed Her eyes, her head went back. She spoke to him in a soft voice he couldn't hear over the moaning of the rock, the screams of the Mohawk-Bu:u's victims, but felt in his mind.

"You'll have to take me in with you, before I'll let you do this to yourself. I love you."

The blackened rock on which she stood shifted and began a slow slide into the Pit. She leaped forward.

The Eagle-Woman, Mother of Mankind, straightened Herself with an effort. She gave the struggling, whimpering Buu a look that bordered on scorn.

"Be still. I did not create you for this. You chose to rebel and murder my Children of this world. How I loved you," She said, her words bitter with the Buu's betrayal.

"Mercy . . . Mercy, Mother of All."

"Mercy?" Two Swords bared his teeth and raised the Buu to fling him into the Pit. "You get as you give, darkened sun."

"No-no," the Buu shrieked, slobbering on the Guardian. "Keep the brat. I give him back to you. Mercy, great lord Two Swords."

The edge crumbled under the Mother's tiny feet. With a bellow of horror, Two Swords dropped the Buu and snatched at Her robes. Gravel slid under his belly. He clawed at the rocks with his free hand, snatching at anything to stop their decent into an eternal torment only to roll, with Her on top his back.

A hand tangled in his mohawk, jerked them to a halt, and began a slow, steady pull while a flesh melting heat licked at his legs.

"Easy, Moose." The Sun-Wolf grinned down at Two Swords and inched back away from the edge of the Pit. Tormenters wailed, hissing as they crept up the sides of the Pit, reaching clawed paws for him. Lava evaporated in the heat, exploding, bringing upwards the insane laughter of other, worse tormenters.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:39 EST
The Sun-Wolf grabbed Two Swords shoulders, let the Mother clamber over them both and heaved the massive Guardian out and away from the Pit. Both gasped for breath, too shaken yet to think.

With a grin that would out-rival anything Benny ever learned at the cathouse, the Sun-Wolf raised a trembling finger and wagged it under Two Swords nose.

"Bro," he said, "I love you dearly. But next time, in you go. Both of you." While the Eagle-Woman rolled her eyes at his dry humor, he whistled like an incoming bomb and smashed his fist into the palm of his hand.

Old Sam wiped sweat from his brow and muttered dark things about Granite-Ass Myers. The furnace room was a mirror image of hell, of that he was certain. Didn't his Roman ancestors call both il infurnum"

"Hell, yes."

The things that woman made a man go through just to get a little nip, now and then. He sighed. Self-medication, ja, but it was better than those nightmares of night fighting on the Amazon.

"Where the frig is that thrice dammed bottle?" he muttered, feeling around the room. He clicked the light switch a few times. Administration still hadn't approved buying light bulbs.

Blast that woman. One slid his hand along the wall. Did she nose out this hiding place, too"

"Oh, yeah." He grinned at the hole, and took out the bottle. With a long sigh, he smiled and turned and rammed himself on the handle of a wheelchair.

"Huh' Who the hell -" He stooped and peered at the man in the chair. "Grey' Hi, kid. You hide from the Granite-Harpy, also' Sam chuckled and offered Benny a drink, with the order, "And keep your mouth shut. She got a nose like a hund. So, what is wrong" Not thirsty?" He shrugged. "Cool by me." Sam turned away, not wanting the kid to know the rejection hurt.

His bare foot stepped in something wet and jerked out from under him. He roared, "Was die shiesse ist?" Sam went down, arms flailing. The bottle made a short arc and shattered against the raw cement of the wall.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:40 EST
"Jesu," he said, shaken by the fall. He picked himself from the floor and scowled at his hands through the gloom. They were wet, but didn't sting like they had been scraped.

"Hey," he asked, glaring at Benny, "Did you piss in here" Smells like it." He chuckled, his nose wrinkled.

No . . . not like piss. It smelled like something he wanted to never remember. Something that brought back those horrors. Sam whimpered and huddled away from Benny.

Then he saw the scalpel.

"Mmmmmmediiiiiiiccccc," he bellowed, and was off the floor like a shot. Sam wrenched the door open and screamed for a medic. People shrank away from him. "Get a dammed doctor down here. We got wounded. Druggies. Help. We got wounded," he screamed at the staring eyes. "Get a medic." Clutching his chest, Sam's mouth gaped open and he sank to Myers' spit-polished floor.

Benny shivered. He ached. His mouth was like cotton. Cold.

Was hell cold . . . .

"Drink?"

He opened his mouth to say yes and warm, salty water dribbled into his mouth. He swallowed. It stopped. He waited for more, but it didn't come and he slept.

Myers tip-toed into the men's ward. She gave a savage glare at any smiling face. The men glared back, but held their peace. Like Gramma would say, Myers was too tough an old hen to scratch with.

With a flip of her skirts, she took a seat on the edge of Benny's cot, chattering quietly with Sam.

The old man's face stretched into a fond grin, delighted with her every word. On occasion he had to totter out to use the men's room, and would rush back as soon as he could.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:40 EST
"Sie sind kind o' cute, toots," he told Myers. "You . . . maybe you want a fool around?" Sam took her hand and gave Myers a broad wink. She preened and giggled.

Myers rolled her eyes and leaned over to kiss him.

"Thanks for finding the kid."

He chuckled, his hand sliding up under her blousa.

Myers giggled, her face sweating. Feeling eyes on her, she glanced around at a room full of men and leaped away.

"Sam," she admonished him, "by gosh." Myers looked into Sam's blue eyes and her feet slid back to the bed, oblivious to the snickers and chuckles.

Benny groaned. His eye dragged open and the first thing he saw was chin whiskers. As his eye grew used to the light, he saw it.

"Oh my God," he groaned, "I'm in hell." His eye clamped shut.

Myers cackled and gave a gentle shake to his foot.

"Snap out of it, kid. You didn't lose that much blood."

Growing impatient, she barked, "Wake up."

He was alive. Chrisake. Benny opened his eye and the left side of his face hitched up in a weak grin.

"Hey, sweet-heart. Anybody ever tell you you're beautiful?"

She laughed and sucked her dentures back in her mouth in a nick of time. "O' course. Every day, kid." She winked at Sam and danced a little jig.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:42 EST
Teeth bared in a snarl of frustration, Benny dashed the blocks away.

"I'm out o' here."

Intent on giving Benny a good dressing down, the psychiatrist lay a heavy hand on Benny's shoulder.

"Young man," he said in ostentatious, paternalistic tones, "I happen to be your superior officer."

Benny's jaws clicked shut just close enough for the man to feel the moisture of his teeth. He snatched his hand away and refused to give in to the desperate need to count his fingers.

The look in Benny's eye was more than enough to make him back away and temper his rebuttal. He was unconscious of his hand rubbing against his pant leg. One, two, three, four, five.

One two, three, four, five. One, two-

"Why do you persist in these childish displays of anger, Grey?" he shouted, clenching his hand into a fist to stop from counting his fingers. The wheelchair slid an inch in his direction and he ran from the office.

Benny slammed through the door and caught an elevator. He didn't know where it was going, but Nurse Donnelly was in it.

"Hey, Sweet-bottom." Benny leered up at her. Not much worked below the waist, but what did worked over-time.

Donnelly shot out of the elevator just ahead of his hand.

"Up yours, kid," she told him, her fist clenched. "Why don't you grow up?"

"I am, baby. Getting bigger all the time. Wanna see?"

"If you were a man, I'd slap you."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:42 EST
"I am a man," he shouted, his body rocking back and forth in short jerks. "More of a man than you ever had, you bitch."

"You act like a faggot, always bragging how great you are." Her North Carolina accent broadened and drawled in contempt. "It takes more than a dick and a hard-on to make a man." With that she spun and stalked away, leaving a fuming Benny to curse at her while the doors slid shut in his face.

Gliding into the ward, he forced a grin on his face.

"Yo, Sam, but you should o' seen that shrink,," he said. A faint smile on his face The old man listened to Benny. "Guess I showed that jerk something, hain'a, Sam?"

Never losing the smile, Sam nodded. "Ja," he said, his word thick with laughter and a heavy Bavarian accent, "Sure. I think you show him something anyway."

Benny's head jerked up. He glared at the man, but saw no mockery on the gentle, time weathered face. Only a look of concern, like Grampa Wya might have had.

In the back of his head a voice grumbled, About time you figured it out, Grandson.

Shut it, old-man, he snapped, still keeping an empty smile on his face. Christ, much more of this and they were going to cart him up to the bughouse.

Sobered, Benny stared back. A hiccup wormed its way out, and he had to look away, the scar on the back of his head itching.

"Hey, yo, Sam," he jeered, "it's Sweet-Bottom." Benny sent the wheelchair in her direction.

"Stay away from me, you li'l sunabitch," Sweet-Bottom shouted and passed Boyde at the speed of sound.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:43 EST
"I know my subject is somewhere in the state."

Cindy VanTur's fingers rattled a jerking, uncertain beat on a small leather purse.

"But Miz VanTur," the fleshy man protested, "We have every shred of proof he's dead. Crashed in that heli-jet wreck." He nodded, his face burning with anger.

"As my subject might say in this case, Governor, bull-shit."

She rested one buttock on his desk, more than outraged at being treated like some welfare supplicant come to beg a few turnips from this redneck gas-bag. The split skirt rode up one shapely thigh, stopping just short of silk panties. His eyes glazed, trembling along its slender length. The heady aroma of her perfume made the room spin.

"Um . . . What proof have you, Miz VanTur?"

She eyed his, sent waves of heat his way, her eyes hawk-like and hungry.

"Yes. It is Mrs. VanTur, isn't it' Hmmm?" An eyebrow cocked up and the man began to show fear. Sarcastic, she said, "You might want to remember that, sir."

He sat back and wiped the sweat from his paling face.

"It is ex- Isn't it, ma'am?"

"Unfortunately. My dear ex-husband took up with a colored girl."

The governor cleared his throat. VanTur divorced the bitch and marred a black. He bit off a smile.

"However." Smiling, she leaned over the desk. "As a binding part of our marriage contract, I hold power to over half his wealth." Her smile was growing colder, and the governor's growing more strained.

She was pure bitch. But a rich one. Very rich.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:44 EST
He nodded. "Doesn't buy votes down here, ma'am." The hell it didn't. With her help as the poor, down-trodden wife in a failed marriage, he was a sure thing in the next election.

"My maiden name is McAllen."

He managed not to show the wince. The name McAllen bought more than votes, if a man wasn't careful.

He managed his best empty-headed vote catching smile for a member of the family that owned more politicians than even the bat man of Texas. "If I can in any way assist you, Ms McAllen -"

Without preamble she tossed a sheaf of papers on the desk.

"The subject is of a minor age. Only sixteen." She allowed herself a thin smile and sweat beaded anew on the jowled face. "He lied to get in the military." The governor leafed through the paperwork, she tapped one well manicured finger on his desk. "I need you to sign these. They're custody papers as well as release papers from the Marines." The man cocked an eye. Before he could protest, she said, "He's been in the state more than sixty days, and when that bitch -" Cindy ground her teeth together. "When his mother signed the enlistment papers he automatically became a ward of the government. All you're doing is re-assigning him to me. I assure you, it's all legal and aboveboard."

Her teeth worried at her bottom lip.

"I . . . need your help in locating my subject. It's most urgent you sign them. The marines have, shall we say, been most uncooperative."

He held up a hand, an apologetic smile crossed his face. "I am sorry. Truly sorry. But, Ms VanTur, I can in no wise see just cause in uprooting the entire state so you can get your pet back." Lacing plump brown fingers across a wide expanse of belly, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. "Why, your agents from the FBI, the Treasury Department, and a veritable host of other, less savory creatures, are combing the state in search of him. Are you quite certain he's here? The Corp have many bases around the country, even in America del Sud."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:44 EST
She leaned over the desk, her eyes wide. The odor of his cologne was overpowered by the bitter, less subtle scent of fear.

Cindy's fingernail scratched a sheet of paper out of the stack. She thrust it under his nose.

"A little something I've taken the trouble to compile on you. Sir."

She smiled, reminding him of a cat his mother once had, one that liked to play with its prey, just before the kill.

"It is an election year, sir, isn't it?"

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:45 EST
With a broad yawn that threatened to crack his jaws, Benny reached up for the straps above his bed. His legs moved a little, just enough to start a fire in his spine. Sweat gathered on his face, but he moved them a little more. A growl of satisfaction rumbled in his chest. He tried harder.

A cry of pain hissed from him. Benny collapsed on the bed and took a quick look around to see if anyone heard him. Face scorched with embarrassment, he shuddered. These were men in here and he wanted to be a man. Silent and rocking by the torture of his spine, he hoped no one heard.

Slowly, it drifted away.

Relieved, he eased up and took the straps again, this time to raise himself up and into the chair by his bed.

No chair.

"Damn," he grumbled to Sam, "Where is that thing" I gotta go so bad I can taste salt, y'know?" He looked for bedpan.

"Denken, ich bien," Sam said, his face grave but his eyes twinkling, "Thinking, I am, that those are for you." He nodded at a pair of crutches. "The Granite Harpy, she says you are to use them."

"Sticks?" Benny laughed in scorn. "What the frik am I supposed to use them for" Rub them together like a good li'l Boy Scout and start fires? She-it."

"For your legs. They need the exercise. I see you trying. These will help."

Boyde hurried in. A finger across her lips she glared at Benny.

"Shut your mouth, boy." She hissed at his look. "They're for you. Maybe they'll help you keep your dirty little hands off of my girls."

Benny started cursing her, growing louder and more sullen when she only grinned. Snatching his pillow from beneath his head, she let him know that in no uncertain terms she'd use it,

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:46 EST
"Cool it, you little rat. You wake these men in here and I'll lay you across my lap and beat some sense in you where it'll do the most good."

A man shouted, "You tell him, beautiful."

Another laughing voice yelled, "What lap" I got one. Come on over here, Sugar."

Boyde glared them into silence. She bared her teeth at Benny's sullen glare.

"Understand me" You can lay there and let your wing-wang rot off for all I care. I am not going to allow anyone, not a single soul- Listen to me, boy! To come anywhere near you. Never." She looked like she was going to spit on him. "You won't eat, use a bed pan. Nothing. N.O.T.H.I.N.G., baby, until you can do for yourself. We tried, we gave until we bled, and all for you. And what do you do' Huh." she wagged her head. "Mister, I got over a hundred men in the ward alone. Every one of them fighters who got nailed in combat. I ain't got time, boy, for them, let alone some snot-nosed little mama's brat who shafted himself. Got it' I got men to worry about. I got no time for you."

With that, she sailed out, oblivious to the cheers of the men and Benny's curses alike. She burst into song.

"Oh, he'll be madder than a hatter, when he busts his ol' bladder. We'll all be flooded out to sea, when ol' Grey decides to peeeee!"

The crutches sailed out after her. Boyde never broke stride. At the door, she halted and spun in a delicate pirouette.

"Mister Grey, if you touch another of my nurses, I will report you to Hard-Ass Myers. Have a real nice day, Mr. Grey." Laughing, she almost danced around the corner, sailing passed Myers.

Seeing a pleasant grin on Boyde's face, Myers snarled at her and lay a finger on snuff-stained lips.

"Hush."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:46 EST
Boyde nodded and hurried on.

"You're certain he's on base, Lieutenant?"

"Quite, Ms VanTur."

Her mind spinning, she nodded, a hand clasped over her racing heart.

Her informant smiled. Believing it was because of him, he finished buttoning his clothes.

The marine leaned over to kiss her. Cindy moved away.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:48 EST
Benny dreamed he was a water balloon. He was swelling, his skin stretching to a tautness never before known to man. Worse, he was starting to leak.

Startled by this revelation, Benny jolted awake. Gritting his teeth, he cursed under his breath. The crutches lay where they were thrown them two days before. People stepped over them. They swept, mopped, and waxed around them. No one touched them. No one moved the dammed things.

Two Swords gave him a merry poke in the belly. He tried to hide a wicked grin but failed. A tsi:ge:O glared at the guardian from the shadows, then glanced around for that savage machine that had nearly given her a hot wax job yesterday.

The tiny elf-like woman sniffed. In her hand was a dangerous blade all of three inches long. With a lazy grin, Two Swords pulled 'Heart from her harness. He was challenging her? A murderous look came over her and she started out of the shadows after him.

Two Swords stuffed 'Heart back in the harness so fast the sword squeaked in protest. The tsi:ge:O shrugged, but Two Swords wasn't fooled. No-body messes with an injun broad and gets away with it. Even if she was only knee high on a mortal.

Benny reached down and forced his knees together.

Head bowed, he grimaced. Benny tossed the covers aside and pushed his legs over the edge of the bed. He grasped a strap hanging from the framework over the bed and slid off. His hand snarled in the loop.

He jerked on it a few times and muttered under his breath at the worn looking-strap.

"No-va. Damn."

Benny hauled himself back on the bed. He worked his hand loose and tried again. With yelp, he was dumped on the floor by an impatient Two Swords. Blankets piled on top of him, the bathrobe twisting around his body.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:49 EST
Benny floundered for a moment and lay still. What a life. Piss on it.

With a little more prodding from Two Swords, he almost did.

"Geezus." Benny gulped and clenched his teeth together. "Boyde would kill me." Worse, she'd laugh at him. This was bullshit. She was a nurse, wasn't she" And a woman. A lot of woman. At least a delicate three-hundred pounds of woman. A smile crept over his face. Big woman. Yo, babe-ee, yo. Be like doin' the wild thang with the mighty Pacific. Benny chuckled to himself and winced at a roll of pain in his bladder.

With a great deal of care, he extracted himself from the blankets. Gotta be cool, my man, or you'll be needing a mop to wash with. Hell, you mess up her floors, and Boyde'll be using you to mop up.

The robe tangled under him and Benny tore it off as he crawled along the floor. He lay it under his flaccid, twitching legs and slid a little quicker.

Yo, an orderly. What was his name" Carlos" Hanks" No, Hanks was the big ugly jerk with the warped sense of humor, so it had to be Carlos.

Two Swords bared his teeth at Benny.

"I do not have a warped sense a humor. Do I 'Heart?"

The hilt rapped him on the back of the head.

Carlos breezed passed the kid. Orders was orders, man. He wasn't in to scrubbing bedpans or doin' them floors with a toothbrush. She-it, no, even if he did like the little dude. The kid got brio, for a fact. A real 'mano, that injun was. The hair on the back of Carlos' neck shivered with a Stone Age instinct for survival. Either Boyde or the Bat-Bitch was near. He moved a little faster.

Panting for air, Benny stepped and in a low voice to called Carlos. "Yo. Least you could do is hand 'em to me, since I made it this far."

A kick rattled the crutches into Benny's path. Carlos walked on.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:50 EST
Flashing a smile at the man's back, he scrabbled to the crutches. Benny used one to sit up. Hauling them under him, he pulled himself up by the arm grips.

Carlos passed the news. A low murmur of encouragement welled up through the ward.

On his knees, Benny gave them an eagle-proud look and the noise subsided to an inaudible whisper. An imp slid near and Benny sprawled to the floor. Biting off angry words, he pounded the side of his fist on the tiles and tried again. The crutches spun away.

Sweet-Bottom hesitated. More because of the bitter rage on his face than any fear of Boyde, she glanced away and walked by. Benny leered at her. Yo, what a lay she'd be, if she didn't hate his guts. He ached for her.

Sweet-Bottom, she had a butt that was meaty, made every man in the place hungry. It looked just right to hang on to when things got sweaty and down and serious. It was her best feature. Her features were angelic, the war-heads militant and proud, but, man, that rear bumper.

"I'd like to put my teeth on that," he said to himself and winked at the man in the closest bed. The man chortled and clutched himself, his face an expression of agony.

A man is as a man does, Grandson

Shut it, Grampa.

The aged voice in the back of Benny's head cackled a laugh.

Punk. You ain't no kid o' mine. What would your first dad and your mom think, dude" Butt-fairy.

"Carl?" Man, is that you? Carl, I'm sorry, man. You shouldn't a died. I-

Screw off, punk.

A crutch was thrust at him from the next bed. Face grim and determined, Benny wrapped his hands around it. He let the man drag him to the bed, but shook his head at any more help.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-17 17:51 EST
"I ain't a punk."

"We know that, kid. We know."

Benny heaved himself up the bed and then his sticks were there. The man holding them shrugged and shoved them under his arms.

"Shut it. Maybe some day you'll do me a favor, too, yo."

Benny gave him a crooked grin, blinking back a tear of gratitude.

He stood and glared around the room.

The men gave a quiet cheer.

"Go, man, go."

Myers peered around the corner, watching Benny totter to the ward's lavatory. On his face there was a grin stretching from ear to ear. She cackled and mumbled to herself. "O, he'll be madder than a hatter, when he busts his ol' bladder. Ha, I told that fool he'd do it today. Hee-hee. And she was gonna give in, too, huh." She winked at the big galoot with the sword trailing after Benny and he scowled a smile back. Clearing her face of any joy, she stalked into the wardroom with a snarl for every smiling face there. Except one.

Boyde sailed in, her eyes narrowed, mind listing, seeking anything the orderlies might have overlooked. Myers waved at her.

With a cackle of laughter, she called out, "Hope them folks down Cape Fear way got lots o' flood insurance."

Eyes wide, Boyde stumbled to a halt by the mess at Benny's cot. In a fit of laughter she collapsed face down on the bed, choking on tears of Joy.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:06 EST
Sweating cold drops and shivering, he dragged the dead wood of his legs out of the restroom. The wood twitched and each involuntary jerk of dead muscle sent streaks of fire racing along his spine. When he hobbled into the ward Sweet-Bottom was there with a smile only for him. His chest swelled with pride. Benny the returning hero.

"Come to entertain the troops?" A grin that would melt a weaker woman's heart eased over the scarred face. And hopefully her loins. She looked bemused, until he leered at her. "Or at least this one?" He was a mass of raw emotions and exhaustion, but standing naked before her, his hunger showed in a purely physical way. He blushed.

Not saying a word, Lt. Donnelly shook her head and showed him a needle.

Benny grimaced. "God, but I hate those things. Men don't need that crap."

"Right. Men don't, but teenage kids do when mama says so. And mama says so. Benny, you're on fire with it right now. Come on," she whispered.

"Forget it."

"Your choice, Grey. Arm or butt."

Carlos came up to stand beside her. He didn't look like he was going to let Benny get by with BS-ing the babe. Benny groaned. He flashed a brilliant cathouse smile at Sweet Bottom.

"You're right, baby, yo. I am choice. All beef. So do me in the expensive cuts." With that said, he let go of the crutches and flopped face down on the bed.

Carlos took his legs and eased them up on the bed.

"Jeez - 'Scuse me." Benny stiffened but whispers and grunts of pain hissed through his teeth. Carlos winced.

The chill of alcohol touched Benny's butt, then Sweet-Bottom's deft caress, and got an ache between his belly and the cot. The tiny sting of pain was nothing. Not even the fire in his spine could compare.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:07 EST
"Will you kiss it away, Mama?" And he wasn't talking about the needle's pinch.

With a gentle laugh, Lt. Donnelly stroked the wound. Carlos rolled him over. She leaned over Benny, those proud breasts pressed against his naked chest. She kissed him first on one cheek. And it was the scarred cheek, too. He marveled at that.

"How strong you are." Her words murmured over him, reaching through the warm, spreading haze of the drug. Benny tried to hold her, to return the kiss with one she'd dream of, but she slipped away and the sedative replaced the bondage of pain.

The Eagle-woman stood just beyond the edge of his vision. She gave him a slow nod, one that said he was fit to ride the skies with. She couldn't resist a wink at the Aga:Veil, then scowled at Two Sword's happy sniffles.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:08 EST
Between Benny- and Sam's cots, Myers sprawled in the chair. She steepled her knobby fingers and stared through them at Benny.

It had been a long month.

"You know, kid, we're all of us glad you had a change of attitude, but that crazy woman Boyde, she ain't too pleased about you keeping company with her gels at all hours. That time you was rolling around the laundry room with Dellacourt was the last straw. It would have to be the Adjutant Gen'ral who caught you," she said, her mouth turning down in a sour grimace. "Might it be, ye chose that time and person to be caught by?"

That had been all of two days ago, and no 'gels' since. Benny was definitely beginning to feel the pinch.

"Not volunteering, are you, Myers?" He gave her a lazy, wolfish, leer. Two whole days. Benny wanted to groan with the pain of it. Two whole days of sweet agony and a burning ache. Myers was a real hag, but his time in the Manse taught him a woman was a woman was a woman, and a woman - any woman who asked - was def'netly better than having the training collar scald a hole in the gray matter.

Myers slapped a knee. Both she and Sam hooted with derisive laughter.

"Hey," Benny said with an indignant glare, "The women were asking. I must o' had one helluva audience when I dragged my bladder to the lav last week. Ain't my fault they like . . . me." He gave Myers a broad, lecherous wink.

Yo, and Dellacourt fainting on him like that. "All that screaming was what attracted that old fart. Maybe I should o' stuffed her bra in my mouth. The Gen-dude wouldn't o' made a fuss if Dellacourt hadn't o' fainted. She said it was the heat. And she didn't mean the dryers, lady." Tongue in cheek, he raised a thumb and winked at Sam. Sam laughed.

Myers glared at Sam. Sam brushed her cheek with the tip of one finger. Balling a fist she poked him in the arm. Sam chuckled, leaning a little closer to Myers.

"Go with the boy, Nell. But from what the nurses say, I don't think he's worth the effort it would take." He fell back and snickered at Benny's sullen face.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:08 EST
Something smashed into Benny's chest, stuck, and was torn loose with a rip of his pajama shirt. "Huh' Myers, I am wearing the dammed clothes. Lemme sleep."

Myers" Benny shot up, his crutch slicing the air faster than Old-Woman Bonn could ever manage at her worst. The crutch smashed into the bridge of the attacker's nose. With a muffled oath, the man fell back on Sam's bed.

Sam came awake with a roar, cursing and sputtering in the high kens.

"Grab him someone," Sam shouted. A tsi:ge:O charged from under the bed and stabbed a needle into the attacker's ankle and calf. Another hacked at his legs with an axe no bigger than a daisy. The serrated flint edge slashed through the heavy denim cloth and into the tender skin of the man's legs, chipped at the bone.

"Get him, get him." Sam shouted for help and the whole ward was up, shouting for the MPs. Men were scrabbling out of bed reaching for weapons left in America Del Sud. Sam grabbed the intruder only to be shaken off. The man turned on him and stabbed down with the knife. It smashed into Sam's chest and Sam fell back, laying half out of the bed, his arms and head on the floor.

Benny nailed the man across the back. The intruder spun, the knife gleaming in his hands. Light flooded the ward.

Horrified, Benny shouted. "Tommy?" Knife scars were thin slits of scarlet across the pale skin.

"I'm gonna do you like your mother did to me at the Stone, you little bastard." Tommy shrieked and dived at Benny, smashing him back into the cot, his hands clawing at Benny's neck.

Hands jerked him off of Benny. Tommy slashed at the men. Realization came over the crazed face. He tore at the hilt of the knife and it shrilled a cry of agony. Waving the knife and it's bleeding hilt, he forced a way through the packed men and ran.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:09 EST
Tsi:ge:O materialized out of the shadows and ran after him, tracking him until a huge, grinning orderly clothes-lined Tommy. His eyes insane with fear of the man, Tommy shrieked at the orderly. He scrabbled up and away from Hanks.

"Demon of heaven," he screamed. "Stay away from me."

Boyde snatched up a mop and came at him. Muddy water flung a wide arc around the corridor and he dodged, the knife hacking through the middle of her bra. A thin line of blood oozed between her breasts. She threw herself back from him and struck again.

With a shriek, Tommy darted for the stairwell. Half the ward boiled out after him.

"Who the hell was that?"

Benny glanced up at the panting Boyde and drawled, "Loose straps make floppy tits, big mama." He cradled Sam's head on his lap and patted the gray face.

She swelled with anger, but the look on Benny's face stopped her from demanding answers. She wiped at the blood and grimaced at the sting of the scratch. A wry smile came over her face.

A hoarse whimper came from Sam. He clutched at the bruise on his chest. Boyde screamed for a gurney and dropped to her knees beside him. An orderly raced through the ward knocking men out of his way. The gurney skidded to a halt next to Boyde. As they loaded the elderly man on it, Benny caught at her skirt.

"Will he make it?" he whispered, his eye pleading with Boyde to make it all right.

"I don't know, kid." the nurse shook her head, tears ran down the plump face. "Dear Lord, poor Myers."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:14 EST
Benny lay back and stared at the tiles in the ceiling. Casting glances at him, men shuffled back to their cots.

"You tried, Grey," one called out. "At least that mutherfucker didn't murder him out-right, the bastard."

Sam had to live. Benny didn't answer, and the man shuffled to his bed.

He awoke with a start. Myers was standing by Sam's bed. Tears in her rheumy old eyes, she smiled at Benny.

His heart squeezed. Benny swallowed the questions. There was no need to ask.

"Reckon I'm man-hunting again, kid." She stroked the indentation of Sam's head on the pillow. "Why'd that old coot have t' go and die on me?"

She began to cry, deep, gut wrenching sobs, and Benny opened his arms to her.

He didn't need the Project's compulsion to comfort someone he loved. When she fell on Benny's chest his arms came around her and he murmured to her, hugging the old woman through the shock of Sam's death and the fact that she was the old man's wife. All this time he lay here, cracking dirty jokes in front of Myers and wondering who the blind jerk was that put the ring on her finger. And here had been Mr. Myers. Old Sam.

He felt dirty and ashamed. Men act like men. And women, especially old women, are sacred. He had come just short of blasphemy.

"I'm sorry, Myers. Oh, God, but I'm so sorry."

It wasn't Sam Tommy had been after. Wracked by guilt, Benny fought his own tears. Sam's death was as much his fault as it was Tommy Drobnicki's, simply because he screwed up and hadn't cut deep enough. Benny closed his eye. No, suicide was for morons who loved themselves more than they loved people like this old woman.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:15 EST
In silence Benny stroked her back with slow hands. In silence, dry sobs shook him through the dark, quiet hours before the dawn.

Deep in the night a spasm shook him. Not too bad this time, they seemed to be getting better. He hoped his bowels wouldn't loosen this time. A cool, dry hand touched him while he fought against being lost in the darkness of pain.

"Want something for it, kid?"

"Do-not-wanna-get-hooked." He gasped through the mask of a grin that cracked his jaws. Whipping his head back and forth, Benny grunted and rode it out.

"OK, kid," Myers said, her voice a worried mutter. "I'm here for you."

An eternity of time passed for both of them. Benny slumped back and sucked in a double-lungful of air. Myers pulled her hand from his and made a critical examination of it, to make certain Benny hadn't crushed the delicate bones. She shook her hand to bring back the circulation and grinned.

"Tough guy. Ha. Men are all alike. Always gotta do it the hard way -"

"Because we are men, Old-Woman." Benny coughed, the wind rattling in his lungs. He smiled. "If we acted like women, would the ladies wanna hang out with us?" He chuckled at the frosty look in her eyes. "My Grampa Wya always said it's the trials and tribulations that make a boy a man."

Myers patted his arm and nodded. "Sounds like my kind a fellah. He got a wife?"

In the back of Benny's mind came a gasp of horror.

"Too late, Myers. He's gone to his reward."

Myers sighed. "If he's as cute as you, maybe I'll look him up." She cackled at the thought. Grampa Wya disappeared from Benny's mind fast enough he left a tail wind. Benny winced.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:15 EST
"Hey, I want to thank you for being a friend to my Sammy. It meant a lot to him to have a pard at his side." She blinked and the tears darkened her lashes. "He said you had the making of a real man in you, kid. Had the brio to be a righteous warrior." She sniffled and sank to the bed.

Embarrassed, he flushed, muttering "From a dude like old Sam, that's high praise, Myers. I was proud to know him, and I mean that. He set me straight on a few things." Benny glanced away. "I- Myers?"

Benny took her hand.

"I owe you an explanation. It was all my fault he died -"

"It was a heart attack, kid." Myers gave Benny a peculiar smile and reached into the pocket of her sweater. She tossed a small book on Benny's chest. "If it weren't for his heart, he'd be alive yet. That Bible o' yours. It stopped the knife from killing you. He went like he wanted to. A warrior, a man's man."

She cocked her head. "So your dad was Ben Grey. Funny, but I never made the connection. That old biddy, Jarvis, will want to know. He was a good man. One of the best. Quiet, polite, but hell on wheels when it came to a fight. Maybe that's why he was sent in-country so much. God knows, he only ever wanted to get home to see you and your mom. He made quite a hellion in you, sonny boy."

"I . . . met him. Only once, a long time ago." Ten years, last October. It was snowing, thick, fat goose-down flakes covering the ground, the Stone, the victim on the Stone. Grandfather Grey raises the knife for the final stroke, Anna weeping in the background with Tommy Drobnicki laughing as he held her arms behind her back.

And Dad Ben walks into the hemlock grove, naked as the day he was born, smeared red with the clay of his grave.

And he died, hugging his only child, murdered by an insane old man.

Then the real hell began.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:16 EST
The Manse, the Mohawk-Buu. Benny flushed with shame and guilt.

Myers cackled and said in a hoarse mutter, "Sam never told me so much as a word about what you two were always gassing' about, but my girls did. Nobody gets much passed me," she boasted to him. "I'm the mother of a couple a hellions. Them two would make even you look saint-like, as devilish as you are." She cackled at that and slapped her knee.

A few of the men grumbled in their sleep.

Myers lay a hand over her mouth until the dim quiet filled the ward.

She gave Benny a rough pat on the arm.

"He left you a little something. Kind of a goin' away present, when they release you, permanent."

Shocked, Benny could only stare at her. He wanted to shout, Don't you see, Myers" It's all my fault Sam died. He couldn't face. Benny turned his head and looked at the sleeping man next to him. It hadn't taken long to fill the old man's bed.

Myers grew fierce. "Button your yap, kid," she told him in no uncertain terms. "Else I'll button it for you." taking a corner of the sheet, Myers daubed her eyes. "It ain't much. I got plenty coming, bonus pay from my time in del Sud, so you never mind. And he said you wasn't to get it till you split, hear" He didn't want you blowing it on some floozy over in Jacksonville." She glared down at him and he had to smile.

Her hand gave him another pat.

"You ready, kid?"

"For what?" A wary look came into his eye. Chrisake, she didn't want that, did she? The conditioning kicked in, and he felt his groin heating, swelling.

"I got to prep you for your operation. Last one, too, they tell me. Guess you ain't worth the effort." She cackled and Benny winced. It was too close to what he knew to be the truth.

Myers checked the tubing and came up with a needle. She giggled at the cross look on Benny's face and, for once merciful, stabbed it into the tube and not his body. Benny scowled his relief and the warmth crept over him, closed his eye, forced him into another place, another kind of hell.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:18 EST
She jerked. The belt came up, and snaked across her back again over welts that cracked and bled. And again. And again, until her mind screamed for her to cry out, to beg. He would stop then, and force his manhood into her until he spent himself or he went soft. If she begged too soon, he wouldn't make it, and the pain would go on and on and on. Sue's teeth sank into the greasy mattress and she held her cries, shuddering with every stroke of the suit belt.

Mich was gonna freak when she got back to the bar. She gatta ga nai, like Miho Togara said. I can't be helped.

Benny crouched along one crumbling, scabby wall. When Harrison raised the belt Benny pressed his face into his hands, wincing every time it came down with a hiss of the Judge's growing frustration.

With a happy cry, Harrison dropped his belt and thew himself on her driving her face into the mattress. The tendons in Sue's arms screamed, her hands grew cold, trapped in their silken bonds. From the door her father looked on. JJ glanced at his watch. A whole hour wasted on this no-dick punk.

His erection melted. Harrison gave a thin shriek and Benny felt a laugh kick in his stomach. Maybe the Judge wasn't the he-man he wanted the kids to think. Benny crawled to his feet and spat on the thin, pimply back.

Snatching up the belt, Harrison lashed it at Sue. A small cry escaped her lips and he grinned, his hand working at his skinny groin. He crawled over her.

"No you don't, Judge." JJ slouched in the doorway. "You been here for more than an hour, and the nig at the bar'll be pissed, I don't get her back."

Harrison closed his eyes. Benny's jeers about his lack of manhood went unheard.

Low and mean, he said, "Get out, Hanna. Or I'll take her to Juvvie and you'll lose all that money you make pimping her in Anton's Place."

Whimpering, JJ scurried out. Benny spat at the fleshy, damp back.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:19 EST
Sue began to weep and Harrison thrust once, twice, and collapsed on her. Not bothering to make use of a towel to clean himself, the man dressed in his impeccable clothing and stalked out to the kitchen. Down the hall, Benny heard him cursing and railing at a whimpering JJ. There was a rustle of money changing hands.

A woman who had in her youth been tall and raw-boned stepped into the room. Ama had a paring knife in her trembling hands. She sawed the dull knife against the pantyhose. Sue moaned and let her stepmother rub the blood back into numbed hands and feet.

The withered junkie saw Benny and her trembling eyes widened. Benny yelped and spun, his hands covering his genitals. Why the freek couldn't he wear clothes in these dreams"

An imp riding a rat chittered and ran from under the bed. The old woman utter a strangled cry of terror and backed away from this new horror until her back was pressed against the mildewed wall. The needle scars stark against the grayish brown of her skin, Shaking hands covered her face.

"Mama?" Her stepmother's needs overcame the fire of bruises swelling on Sue's back. Cautious, she had seen too many of her friends beaten or killed by a loved one in withdrawal, Sue crept to Amanda. Her arms went around the old woman until the wracking shakes eased and grew more tolerable.

Under normal circumstances Benny wouldn't have come within ten feet of a druggie, especially one in as bad a shape as Ama. But if Sue wanted to hug the old woman, he would too. A naked Sue made it mandatory. Even from here he could feel his unconscious body reacting to the soft, heart-shaped behind.

"It's all right, Mama," she crooned. "I'm here for you. I love you."

"Your daddy. He D-done t-t-took all my money and my medicine." Amanda snuffled a weak trail of blood back into her nose, flattened by JJ in a drunken rage. "I needs my medicine, baby."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:19 EST
A grinning imp leaped at the old woman. Benny's fist smashed it down. He smiled encouragement at Amanda and his arms went around them both again.

To his disappointment, after only a few moments Sue pulled away.

"I got to go, Ama," she said, her voice soothing and quiet. "Let's go get you a cup o' that ol' Maggie's yarb tea first, OK?" She drew the old woman in the tiny, filthy kitchen, shivering as drafts of cold air chilled her. Pressing Amanda into the only decent chair, Sue turned on the stove and put a cup of water on to boil. She smiled at Amanda, who was wiping the dirt out of a cracked glass mug.

Sue dashed to the bedroom to throw on her clothes. Benny trailed her out, his arms aching for her, empty and cold now.

The blood had become a trickle. With the sleeve of the ragged coat she wore Amanda wiped it away, more annoyed with it than worried. In a gentle, scolding voice, Sue took a clean rag and wiped the blood away. She soaked it in a gush of rusty water from the faucet and made Amanda tilt her head back.

"You hold that there, hear?" Sue's eyes crinkled in a mock frown. "Else I'll make it stay, permanent."

"It wasn't your papa, not this time, baby." Amanda chuckled at Sue. "Just as I need my medicine, is all." Amanda closed her eyes to the naked boy staring so hungry at her stepdaughter.

Moving out of the room, she was gone for a few minutes. Sue brought a cracked white mug to Amanda. Emblazoned on the side was a swastika imposed over the new version of the American flag. Under that in black were the words FOR A BETTER TOMORROW, ALL HAIL. 2013. In smaller letter a note from the president-for-life, thanking his supporters for electing him. "I know," she said to the scowl on Amanda's face, "It tastes pretty bad. But Etlo:gi Maggie says it helps with the symptoms."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:20 EST
Amanda nodded. She sipped at the murky tea of cannabis and valerian root. "Lord God," she gasped. "Every time I drinks it, it tastes worst. Like ol' moldy bird nests. Maggie says too much will kill a body. God knows, the taste is enough to do that."

Sue pulled on an imitation rabbit fur jacket, the mark of her trade.

"Sue, you take care, please?" Amanda cast a worried glance at Benny, uncertain if he were real or just another piece of her drug ruined imagination.

Benny covered his groin with his hands and scowled.

Shrugging, Sue nodded. "I will, Ama."

"And my medicine, baby." Amanda's voice cracked and she stared into the cloudy tea, her hands clamped around the mug for the warmth and to stop the shaking.

Leaning her forehead on the splintered doorjamb, sue whispered a sigh.

"I won't forget, Ama. I'll get it from your pusher on my way back with my next john."

"That it?"

The surgeon leaned over the open spine, peering through the laser microscope.

He reached in and withdrew another of the nearly invisible splinters of bone.

"More suction, dammit."

Fighting the sedative, Benny moaned.

"Got it."

Hands slowly manipulating a nano-scalple and tweezers, he opened more of the fibrous nerve tissue and cursed at the minute splinters.

An imp hissed. It inched from the walls, moving closer until its hand rested on the surgeon's elbow. One push, and Benny would be crippled forever.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:20 EST
Hanks looked up from his sweeping down the hall. He scowled. Glancing around, he could see no one in the hall. He reached through to the operation room tackled the imp. Together, they smashed through the far wall.

He kicked free of the imp. It spat at him. Grinning, Hanks/Two Swords pointed down.

It glanced down and shrieked, plummeting two stories into the rank mass of hospital waste in a waiting dumpster. The dumpster lurched, tipped up and into the maw of the dump truck. The minor Guardian driving the truck wore the bright prison orange and shackles of a Servant of the State. Like most warriors, he had a strange sense of humor.

Smiling to himself, Hanks resumed his slow sweeping and stayed alert.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:21 EST
JJ clutched the money and scowled at Sue. "What the hell took you so long?" Barely able to hold back the aching weariness, she said, "Ama's in a bad way, Pop."

"That old bitch ain't your mama." JJ huffed with indignation. Sue leaned back from it. His breath stank of rotted teeth and bad food. "All she is, is some old whore I picked up." He turned back to his beer, grumbling for her to work the crowd.

"She's my mama's cousin, and she loves me." Sue tossed her purse, a small black bag that held lipstick and a few condoms and little else, on the scarred bar of Antoine's Place. "She needs her stuff."

JJ grunted a sour laugh. "Then let her go and earn it."

"You took all her money." Sue's hands clenched into fists. "Where'd it go' The track, I bet. Maybe to a couple a bar flies you call friends." Her head tossed in contempt at a couple of rummies near JJ. Her fist cracked on the bar.

"Dammit, JJ Hanna."

A tall black man ran up behind the bar. "Keep it down." Mich saw the pain in Sue's face. "It's your mama" She bleeding again?"

"Rectum and nose, Mich. She's hurting, bad."

Mich sighed and shoved a hand down in his pocket. He came up with a fistful of bills. "Here," he told Sue. He glared down at JJ when the big man reached for the money. JJ wilted.

"Go on. Take it, girl."

Benny drifted after Sue. He cast a puzzled frown at the bartender and plump woman who came out of the kitchen to hug the man.

"With us, are ye?" Myers leered down at Benny and tipped his head up for a sip of beer. "Don't care what you say, Boyde. Beer's better'n ice water any day." With a delicate hiccup, she tilted the can to her own lips and the straw poked her in the eye.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:22 EST
Boyde sighed and plumped down in a chair. She snatched the can from Myers and drew hard at the straw.

"Ah . . . not bad, old woman. Got another?"

With a grin that threatened to drop her false teeth into her lap, Myers reached under the bed and dragged out the rest of the six-pack.

Still half asleep, Benny had to watch Myers and Boyde kill the rest of them. Myers cackled at his sour look and offered him some water.

"You're too young to drink much, kid," she said. "Best wait until you arteries harden, first."

Boyde rumbled a belch. "Think I can hear mine hardening now. Want to come to my place for Surf-and-Turf" My Tup, he knows his way around a grill like nobody's business." She grew expansive. "I'll stop by the commissary for an extra few kilos of soy-T-bones, so your boys won't go hungry."

Myers grinned and crushed the cans. Benny licked his lips, but all he got was more water. "Leave the fat on 'em this time, Boyde. I like a lot of beef fat, and is it shrimp or steamed clams?"

"Depends, Myers."

"On what?"

"Which have more cholesterol. Shrimp, I hope."

Myers cackled a laugh and pulled out another six-pack. Benny got more water.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:23 EST
"Screw off."

Pressing his lips together before he exploded, the therapist leaned over Benny.

"Look, Grey, I'm sick of your attitude. The doctors said you had to come down here. You're assigned to me, you little faggot -"

He landed about five feet away. Benny walked on his hands between the rails and smiled down at Lt. Laudon.

"That better, Lieutenant?"

"I'll have you court-martialed for this. Grey?" Laudon moaned and held the pieces of his face in his hands. He pulled them away and almost everything stayed in place.

"Can't. I got a medical coming, remember?" Benny snorted and swung around on the bars and back to his wheelchair.

He turned to lower himself in it, and the chair swung away. Benny looked over his shoulder at the grinning Laudon. Laudon held the chair a few feet away and smirked at Benny.

"What's the matter, Grey' Lost your bravado?"

Arms beginning to shake with strain, Benny swung between the rails. His face grew cold and distant.

"I demand an apology."

The lieutenant scowled at Benny, waiting for a humbling that never came.

In a mocking whisper Laudon said, "Then crawl for it, nig. I hear you're really good at crawling. Always got your nose stuck up some nurse's skirts. What are you, some kind of stud?" his eyes tracked down and Laudon muttered, "I interned at the White House. The president, wow. When he put on the Double-Lightning uniform he made me do things that I never."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:23 EST
Young Stud. Benny's 'working' name at the Manse.

Benny screamed and launched himself at the slender man. Laudon yelped and threw himself back. Benny missed. He thrashed on the floor for a moment, then started crawling towards the man. Laudon's mouth gaped. Jumping up, he staggered just out of reach. A look of contempt passed over his face. With half a smile playing on his face, Laudon reached out with his foot and nudged the silent, struggling Benny. Benny tried to catch the foot to him, but the man was too quick.

"Crawl. Crawl, you trashy little worm." Laudon squatted down and gave Benny a mocking smile. "You aren't worth it, dog-collar. You're a waste of my time and the Corp's money. You'll never be fit to wear the Double-Lightning." He caressed a gold lightning pin on his collar marking him as one of the elite. He stared laughing.

He stood to leave and Benny felt something beneath his leg. A crutch' Hot dang.

"Yo," Benny shouted.

As Laudon turned, Benny jerked out the crutch and cracked it across Laud's shins. The man's laughter changed to a shriek of pain and shock.

Laudon tumbled to the floor. Benny grabbed one flailing leg, suffered a kick in the face, and sank his teeth in the calf.

Myers leaned over Benny and lifted the ice pack from his eye. "My, what a beaut of a shiner, Grey." She dropped the ice pack on the eye and sneered at Benny's yelp.

"Kid, were you dropped on your head at birth, or were you born this way' That little fairy's filing charges on you."

Lifting the ice pack, Benny managed to open his eye long enough to glare at Myers. "Who cares? He deserved it, always acting like he owned the Corp, putting everybody down."

"I care, that's who. We all care, you block head," Boyde snapped. She took Benny's neck in one iron hand and jerked him upright. The ice pack rolled down between his legs and Benny yelped at the chill on sensitive flesh. Boyde wasn't very careful when she fished it out and tossed it at the trash can. "We'll do what we can. I don't know what yet, but kid, you could wind up in the bughouse over this. So do us all a favor and cool it."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:24 EST
Clenching his knees together before anything worse happened to his, ah, important parts, Benny hissed and said, "I ain't no suck-up."

The women gave him a hard look. Benny growled deep in his chest but knew when he was lost.

"I guess I shouldn't o' bit him. But he's always acting holier-than-thou, with his old man's stars in his eyes."

Myers sighed. She smoothed at the clean blousa Boyde had stitched together for her.

"Sometimes I'm a little off, kid, in my head, but he wouldn't touch me for it. That Laudon is a little snot. I guess being a general's son made him that way."

Benny nodded. There were other reasons, but the old woman lived in another world, other days, before the Depression of 2012.

"OK. From now on when the needle dick says jump, you asked how high. Please," Myers' eyes screwed up in her head at the sullen anger on Benny's face, "For us?"

"Yeah, yeah. Like you're giving me a choice, right?"

A woman in need. Myers and Boyde needed him to be nice to the wonder-boy. Ol' Conn, slave-administrator of the Manse, whispered soothing words in the back of Benny's mind. Old-Man Wya groused that what Laudon needed was bullet in the back, like lots of punk shave-tails got in Nam. That idea made him yike in pain and flee Benny's head.

The Eagle-Woman glared after the old man and rolled her eyes.

"Boys will be boys," she said in a mutter and huffed a snort of laughter. "Thank God for it."

Nodding at the women, a golden glow came over Benny.

"Have it your way."

They gusted sighs of relief at him and linked arms, heading for the PX and a few beers before going home.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:26 EST
Sweet-Bottom clambered from under the bed.

"For me, too' She gave him a peck on the cheek. "That was for getting that creep Laudon off my case."

He caught her to him. She squirmed in his arms.

"Linen room?"

Lt. Donnelly hesitated.

"In an hour?" Benny was close to pleading and she grinned, relishing her power over him.

"Yo, yes." Benny tickled her. "Thank you, you goddess of the moon."

She giggled, brushing his hands from under her skirt and walked away with a swing to her hips that set the men in the ward growling with desire and made Benny wish he had that ice pack to sit on.

"How come you're the only one Sweet-Bottom fools around with, Grey?"

Lacing his hands behind his head, Benny grinned at the ceiling tiles.

"Maybe I'm the only one around here who can handle what she got."

Pillows began to fly in his direction. Buried under them, he yelped and spat curses.

An hour on the dot, Lt. Donnelly opened the door to the linen room and slipped in.

"We have to hurry," she said, yanking off her clothes. "I have a class in Survival in ten minutes and just do not dare be late again."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:27 EST
Myers sauntered down the hall. She scowled and cocked her head. Someone in pain"

"Hey, Carlos and you, big guy. Get a gurney over there. I think somebody hurt themselves."

On a mission of mercy, she flung open the door and slammed it shut again.

A panting Carlos rushed up with the gurney and Hanks.

"Wha's up, colonel" Where at's the body?"

"Uh . . . body?" Myers face sparkled in a way that showed her new teeth to their best advantage. "No. No body here, Rodrigues. I, ah, must o' been mistaken. See you around, boys." Myers made a shooing motion with her hands and folded her arms. She leaned against the door and smiled for them.

A particularly audible moan was followed by a string of happy curses. Heads turned towards the door. A crowd began to form.

Folding his arms, Carlos took a wide stance.

"O-K, Myers. Wha's behind door number one?"

"I bet she locked Dr. Abernathy in there again." The crowd parted to allow Boyde to sail up to Myers. She leered at Myers and smiled at the sweat on the old woman's face.

"Yeah. Hey, he ain't never gonna asked you out," a laughing Carlos said, "you keep doin' that crap to him. You know that Anglo's afraid o' the dark."

"Might be something as is afraid to come to light."

"Huh' Don't mumble at us. Come on, let's all see who you got in there now." Boyde and Carlos took Myers by the arms and pulled her away from the door.

The room flooded with bright light. Benny roared, "Yes, baby," and fell onto his back. Clenching a scream behind her teeth, Donnelly fainted.

Lying very, very still under her, Benny stared up at all the faces in the doorway. Shocked, Carlos blinked.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:27 EST
Myers closed the door with a firm thud.

"Mayhap now you'll listen when I tell you something." Nose cocked in the air, Myers sniffed and stalked away.

"You come to work or to screw off, Beetle Bailey?" Laudon asked with a smirk.

Throwing the Lieutenant a furious look, Benny attacked the bars. The crutches clattered to the floor and he forced his leg to move, then the other one. They were shaking and by the end of the first pass his back was on fire.

He continued until a bored Laudon announced, "Enough for today. You got just enough time to hit the showers before you see the shrink."

Benny ignored him and continued on the bars, his legs thankfully numb, his back a hot coal of flames.

"Come on, nig. I have better things to do than play games." Laudon stared at the sweat stained back for a moment. He tossed his hands in the air. "Have it your own way," Laudon told him and walked away. "I wouldn't miss that appointment, if I were you."

"Yo," a whisper came to Benny. "Hey, kid."

"What, Carlos?" Benny grunted at the man and shook the sweat from his eye.

"That scuds shrink, man. He wants to put you away, real bad. Beat it, jock. You better hit the road."

Without emotion, he stared at Carlos. Benny nodded.

Benny lowered himself into a wheelchair and grimaced, trying to rub out the cramps.

Kneeling before him, Carlos worked at the quivering muscles. Benny held his breath, half-afraid to breathe until the last cramp was tamed.

"Better?"

"Yeah. Thanks, bro."

"De nada, 'mano." Carlos grinned and winked. "Call it payment for show." Carlos took the handles and shoved Benny down to the ward's showers.

"Hey." Trying to sound calm and nonchalant, Carlos asked, "Did she really faint on you?"

"What do you think?" Benny grinned over one shoulder at Carlos.

"Yo, babe-ee." Carlos whistled long and low. "Hey, master-blaster, you enjoy. Make sure you get all a Sweet-Bottom's sweet smell off o' you before you go see that shrink. That scuds got a nose like a cop."

Flipping off the bathrobe, Benny laughed and rolled into the showers.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:29 EST
"Grey, it has come to my attention -" Myers screwed her face into an awesome scowl. "Idiot. You could have got your ass in a jam over Sweet-Bottom. I mean Lt. Donnelly. We know about the Manse, kid." She crouched in the chair. "We know why you're chasing my girls."

"I- Myers, please." Benny turned his face away. Now she would mock him. Call him names he didn't want, or need, to hear. Or she'd want him to perform for her.

"Want to tell me about it?" Myers sighed. "No?" She sat back and waited, studying the walls, the floor, her desk, anywhere but the shame-filled young man before her.

Benny willed his face to remain cool. His voice was so ragged it fooled no one, least of all himself.

"I . . . got busted, when I was little." He took a deep breath and tried to speak to her like he felt a man would. "My grandfather, my dad's father, he used to make me do stuff. When I was real little, y'know?" Benny chanced a glance at the old woman.

Arms crossed under her industrial strength bra, Myers nodded.

Benny told her things he never even told his stepfather, and Carl and he were like brothers, finishing with, "And I got involved with this woman, Chillin McAvoy. I swear to you, Myers, I didn't know she was charging for it." He groaned and looked away. "I was stupid, only fourteen. A woman called Leda Melancowski was her madam. Leda worked on the side for a guy named the 'Spider' Ryan. Leda said she was gonna tell my mom if I didn't go to one of Ryan's dammed parties and I get scared. Party, hell. It was an orgy. Leda gave me something, opium, I guess. Me and Carl both."

"Carl Ivanovitch?" Myers was shocked. "The big polock whored after he got discharged?"

"His mother . . . she was one. She made him pimp for her." Benny's voice trailed off. He sighed and looked Myers in the eye. "He didn't know. That Leda was makin' me do it, I mean. When he found out it was too late. Carl wanted to break her neck. You know how he was. I didn't let him. I should have," Benny cried out, "But I was s- so afraid for him. If Carl got one more conviction, it was an automatic death sentence."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:29 EST
In the silence that followed, Myers rose and lay a hand on Benny's arm. "You really loved the big galloot."

Boyde eased into the room. She took a seat at Myers desk and the tears rolled down her cheeks.

"When Papa Bear died, I wanted to die too. Carl never meant to get involved with the Project. Leda sold us to them. See?" Benny moved the long hair growing passed his neck to show her the faint scars of the collar. "We had to wear training collars, like dogs. If we didn't do like we were told we got a shock from the collar through a microchip, here." He touched the scar on the top of his spine.

Myers cursed in three languages and Boyde stared at the scar.

"Janissary Project," Boyde said in a frightened whisper. "I saw that in the operating room." Boyde touched it. "Slave soldiers. Slaves in this day and age. Jesus help us. Slavery in the U.S. of A."

"Amen, hon." Myers patted Boyde's hand. "You know it's common enough in third world countries like del Sud and Africa. Hell, the Chicoms brag about it."

"But not here, Myers. Slavery ended more than a century and a half ago. This is America."

"Not for us." In a harsh voice, Benny whispered, "Not for redskins. Kids still get kidnapped off the reservations and out of the cities. Happens all the time, y'know" Man," Benny gave a scornful laugh, "no-body cares. We got no political power, no pull, so no shit, redskin. One less to make treaty payments to. One less criminal type on the streets, ladies." Benny choked on hate. Myers reached over to pat his shoulder. Benny jerked the wheelchair away from her.

"That's the way it goes. The folks at the Manse, Indian, white, black, Asian, they were all Natives and half-breeds."

"Kid?"

"What?"

"You gotta do your best. We know that." Boyde took a slow breath. "But why do you run after my girls like a bull in heat?"

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:30 EST
He laughed again, his words cold and angry. "Hell, lady, I'm the Young Stud. That was my pro-name at the Manse. No shit, Boyde. They got a couple a grand a night for my services. I'm the best. The very best. Or I got punished. And now I'm doing it for free." Benny leered at Boyde. "I can make you cream your jeans just my touching you and talking to you." He laughed. "I'll make you faint."

"Hush."

Benny subsided into a dark scowl.

Myers almost giggled at the shock on Boyde's face. First time she ever saw anything but cool and collect on Captain Boyde's round face. Boyde glared at her and matched Benny's sullen look.

"Benny, son?" Boyde took his clenched fist and stroked it until he relaxed. "What happened to you, well, it happened. You keep on like this and you'll be in a real jam." Her eyes grew liquid with compassion. "You have got to be more circumspect. More careful," she said to Benny's questioning look.

"That shrink -"

With a dark look at Myers for her grumbling, Boyde muttered, "The shrink wants to lock you up and lose the key. Doesn't do any good to deny it, Benny. You know he has the power. Then what? The Manse, again?"

Myers spit in a cup. "That therapist, Laudon, he weasels for the shrink."

"We know, Myers." Boyde continued to stroke Benny's hand. "Laudon gets on here only because his daddy is high in rank -"

"He's rank alright."

Boyde gave Myers a scathing look. The old woman settled into a low grumble.

"General Laudon is with the Pentagon, Benny. He's an aide to a woman called Cindy McAllen-VanTur."

Benny's fist tightened into a rock hard ball.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:32 EST
Laudon bared his teeth in a snarl. He stalked to the bars and shoved at Benny.

"Hey, watch it, man," Benny snapped. "You almost set me on my can."

"What the hell do you think you're doing here at this hour, Grey' You had an appointment with Dr. Hall."

Benny grunted a laugh and stumbled away, holding the wooden rails in a death grip. A week had passed since his talk with the woman and he felt cleaner than he had in years.

"I don't need any shit. Not from you, not from that effing egghead. Lemme alone, Laudon. I'm doing better without you than with you."

Laudon snapped something under his breath.

"Ya," Benny jeered. "Beat it, before I beat you, punk. You get by on your old man's stars, and that's the all of the all."

Laudon lunged at Benny. He hauled Benny up by the lapels of the bathrobe, only to be halted by a harsh voice.

"What the sam hill is going on here, men?"

"He almost fell, Sir." Laudon snapped a salute. Benny nodded at the man.

"How's it hangin', man?" Benny threw a crooked grin at Laudon.

"Colonel, mister."

"Yes-sir. Sorry, sir." Benny grimaced at his mistake and tried to salute. He slipped and almost fell. The officer caught him and held until Benny got his grip back.

"What's the problem here?" The colonel glanced from Laudon to Benny. "You're Grey, aren't you?" At Benny's nod, he said, "I see you had an appointment with Dr. Hall. Why aren't you attending to it?"

Benny flushed. He straightened. "Sir, I thought seeing a shrink was voluntary?" The colonel nodded. Benny rushed on, "Well, I never asked to see him. He came around back in November. When I didn't show, he had this punk -" Benny swallowed hard at the look in the colonel's eyes. "I mean, he had Lt. Laudon come and make me go."

The colonel studied Benny for a moment. "I'll see about it." He smiled at Benny's gust of relief. "How's it going here?"

Laudon opened his mouth to make a complaint, and the man squelched it with a glance.

"Better and better, sir." Benny tried hard to keep a straight face. He glanced at Laudon's deep flush and bit the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:33 EST
It was well into January now. Cindy shivered and threw more wood on the fire. How long could one boy elude some of the world's finest detectives" She took her baby from the sour old woman who was his nurse.

"You may go now, Berretta."

The old woman looked to Cindy as if she wanted to demand the child back. Berretta nodded and took herself to the kitchen.

Cindy patted the baby and sank to the rugs.

"How's mama's little soldier today?"

He lay on his back and smiled, so like his father it made her heart ache.

"I love your daddy. Did you know that, Benjamin?"

Benny, Benny, come back to me.

Cindy groaned. If he came back, after another year he would be terminated. If not by her, then by Grace Hylnn's crowd of fanatics.

She kissed her son.

In the shadows that flickered in the light of the fireplace, a raven watched the child and muttered a happy croak.



Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, two days later

He snarled a grin and helped her dress.

"You got my money?"

The woman nodded. She held out a small briefcase. The lieutenant reached for it but the woman shook her head. "Information first. Then the pay-off."

"Fair enough." The lieutenant shrugged. He uttered a hard laugh. "The kid is in ward 2B, bed four-hundred and twenty. You won't be able to miss him. He's got all the nurses hanging on his dick."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:34 EST
The woman's face darkened and twisted into something akin to jealousy.

He snatched at the briefcase and bolted from the camper. He made it almost all the way to his car before the first shot smashed him into a dumpster.



"What?"

Benny stared up at the cold faces of the MPs, and shook the grogginess from his head.

They helped him down to the adjutant's office and left him there.

An MP with a chest full of hot wind questioned him about his relationship with Laudon.

"Relationship?" Benny snorted at the man. "I don't know squat about the creep. He left me alone and I returned the favor. OK?" Benny managed to cross his legs and met the hard glare of the MP with one of his own.

"Laudon was mixing it up with some people from the JP, the Janissary Project, that's all I know."

"He was seeing a woman. According to what was left of his remains in that dumpster, he had had sex only minutes before his death. What can you tell me about that?"

Benny shrugged. "The JP'll sell your soul for a nickel. They use people like animals, and when they're done with 'em, bam, not a problem' A crooked smile settled on his face. Benny took out a pack of tobacco and a bible of papers. He cocked an eye ap at the man.

"No smoking on base. You know that, kid."

Benny smiled. "Religious thangus, Sarge." He held up a neatly rolled cigarette before the man's skeptical eyes. "Injun stuff."

"Right. And I'm Sandy Claus. You're registered Caucasian, so lay off the bull shit."

"Might be light, skin be bright, but that don't mean you be right. I ain't white. My faith is my business. Remember the law from the '90s? Even cons have some rights on how they worship."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:34 EST
The sergeant growled a sigh and snapped, "Go get the kid a light, Lerries."

Quivering with indignation, the private stalked out. Benny sat, staring at the sergeant with an inane smile on his face.

"You better talk, kid. You're in on the deep end with this one. Laud's old man wants you ass."

"I didn't do squat." Benny flared at the man and grabbed his crutches. "How the hell am I supposed to shit when I have to use these yet?"

The sergeant leaned close and said into Benny's face, "You had motive. And nobody knows where you were at the time of the murder. Confess and it'll go light with you."

"Right. Leavenworth in the spring, such a sight to see. Those assholes in that pen will kill you for the lint in you pockets, and that's just the C/Os." Benny stared at the pores on the man's face. "Back-off." He smirked. "I was, ah, busy. With a certain nurse. Asked her, she'll tell you. It was his old man's friends in the JP that nailed Laud's sorry ass. I heard he tried to sell me to them. You know who I am and what the JP made me do. What I was." Benny flushed. "She wants me back bad enough to kill for me, the bitch."

The sergeant folded his arms. "Who?"

Closing his eye, Benny shook his head. "You got a death wish, don't you?" He shrugged at the MP's cold stare. "OK. Her name is Cindy VanTur. As in Cindy the bitch McAllen hyphen VanTur. Right now she's probably in Who's Who in Washington, DC. Laudon sold me up the river, Sarge. You gonna finish what he started" You gonna sell out a brother Marine?"

The man snapped his fingers. "Get out." As Benny left, he called, "This ain't over, kid. You stick close."

Hanging from the crutches, Benny uttered a short, hard laugh.

"Where the hell do you think I'm gonna go' The minute I step foot off base, I'm in chains again. See this?" Benny opened the collar of the bathrobe. "They're scars from a freekin collar she made me wear, man. If she thinks you know to much, guess what, you get to be a host at a whorehouse like I did. Have a good night, Sarge."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:35 EST
The sergeant glared at Benny and fingered his own neck.



Weeks ground by. The muscles in his upper arms bulged, threatening to rip the tee shit off his back. Sweat ran into his eyes to blind him. Benny clumped around on his legs but they were little more than wood. But he was walking, and that had to count for something.

It was Carlos that wrecked things with Sweet-Bottom. Carlos and his own greed.

"Yo, Ben-nee, my man." Carlos winked at him. "We got us new meat in the hall, bro."

Benny swung through the doors on his crutches and stopped, awed.

She was maybe five-foot and seven inches. The lady was an inch taller than he was, and the resemblance stopped there, thank God. Dark, Latina, a waist he could span with his hands, and he definitely was in the need to get his hands on that waist.

A butt that was meant to be worshipped, breasts a man would kill to see in the natural. Her eyes . . . liquid. Whiskey, he decided. Like fine old bourbon.

If the angels all had faces like hers, then Benny wanted to go to heaven, and fast.

Her eyes took in all of him and Benny hunched forward a little to cover his desire for the woman.

"I take it you're Grey?" she said, her voice a mirror of her beauty.

"Baby, I'm anything you desire right up to and including your wildest fantasies."

Benny flushed. Blood rushed to his face and certain other body parts. Benny muttered a small hiss and fought the swelling that was fast becoming a very painful, very embarrassing cramp.

She laughed, caught her bottom lip between small white teeth, and winked.

Benny felt faint.

The woman led him into the session.

Sweet-Bottom was definitely getting jealous. It took him three days to make a pass at Alicia.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:36 EST
Removing his hand from her posterior, she chuckled.

"Where would you take me" You're broker than I am, Benny." Tapping her chin with the tip of her index finger, she squinted at him. "Maybe," she said slowly, "I could use a cup of coffee. When you can walk without the sticks. How about it?"

They clattered to the floor.

Benny walked to her. At just the right moment his legs weakened and he was smiling into her navel, the tip of his tongue itching to tickle her there. Women, it worked ev-very time, at least with the motherly type.

His tongue grazed her bare midriff.

Alicia jerked away, her eyes wide. "None of that, Grey," she warned. The eyes, they always give it away. She couldn't hide the smile in those brown eyes.

From his knees, Benny said, "The docs tell me I'm doing so good they want to write about me to the Vatican or something, but I think they just want my bed space. No room on the rolls for me, either." He reached for her. "Got any ideas?"

Her teeth worried at her bottom lip.

Inching up, Benny moved into her arms.

She studied him for a moment. "Could be. My folks live off base. I rent their garage apartment. Interested?"

One finger stroked her navel, his eye warm on hers as she squirmed.

"Sounds cool. So long as I pay half the bills."

She laughed, her head tipping to one side. "Bennito, it isn't important. I know you won't have much until you can work again."

He gave her a crooked smile and his eye hardened.

"It is to a man, baby. It is to me."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:37 EST
Sweet-Bottom stood in the doorway of the hall, a tear welling in her eye.

Life goes on, baby, you roll with the punches.

Terry Marie Donnelly ran up to Alicia and swung.

Benny caught her arm in an iron grip. She tore loose and bared her teeth.

"I ever see you again, Grey, I'll finish what the Project started. You hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Sweet-Bottom."

Her hand smashed over his face and she stalked away.



Another few weeks and the crutches were history. He said a few good-byes, awkward and uncertain, and managed to walk out under his own power. Benny packed the few things he had with him, and limped out to meet Alicia. Sweet-Bottom was there, waiting with a pack of nurses at the door. He glanced at her, and his face burning, turned away.

"Yeah, I'll be 'round. Got to finish getting these back in shape, yo." One fist hit the right leg. He felt it, the hit, and smiled. "Another month, that's what the docs said, and I'll be good as new."

Myers and Boyle hugged him, and Myers slapped his butt.

"You be good, here else I'll put y' right back in here."

"Yes, ma'am."

Alicia pulled up in a battered old 2002 VW bus, the paint lumpy with rust, faded, but he could still see the ancient '60s style design of flowers on the yellow body. She waved at the nurses, popped the horn, and grinned. Benny hobbled out to the van.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:41 EST
Tossing his war bag in the back seat, he nodded and let her take his hand. Then Benny grinned. Was this woman the one" He wanted what Mom and Carl had.

Carl. A spasm of pain crossed Benny's face. He shoved aside the cramping sorry. Papa Bear was gone, and the big Rushkie would be the first to tell him to shut it and get on with living. But was hard, friggin hard, when every moment was filled with things he wanted to share, advice he needed to asked. Papa Bear, so full of living himself, so in love with all life had to offer, now only a chunk of scorched meat, rotting in a grave in Sandy Valley.

Like Carl always said, Shit happens.

Benny let it ride for now.

Right at this point, all that mattered was this lady at his side.

There was a stack of gelt in his chain-drive wallet, and too much time on his hands. Money from his pay since November, money from old Sam. Benny didn't bother to count either. Money wasn't important, a man let his old lady screw around with bills and crap like that. Still, it made the wallet bulge under his right buttock in an uncomfortable lump.

"Where to, sailor?"

Benny growled at her. Alicia chuckled. She squeezed his fingers.

"Home" I got the whole weekend to get acquainted with you."

She let out the clutch and the gears ground in an ear crunching groan. Benny winced and shook his head.

"Want me to drive?"

"Would you? Dad gave me this heap. He said it had belonged to my great-gramps a thousand years ago. I can't seem to get the hang of a standard shift."

They traded places. Benny slid the old bus into first.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:42 EST
"Which way?"

Alicia looked up in surprise.

Embarrassed, he said, "I came in by chopper. This'll be my first time off base."

"Oh."

Alicia pointed out the directions and had to smile when Benny didn't grouse about taking them off of a woman. Benny was different. How different, she didn't know, but if he had a sensitivity about everything like he did for her feelings, maybe her grandmother would come around.

And Abuelita was very cool towards Benny at first. Until he offered to cook dinner and then dug the old woman a garden.

Even in the cool afternoon of North Carolina in mid-January Benny sweated over the shovel, planting early peas and potatoes under the eagle eye of la Abuelita. He joked with her in Spanish, and after a few days, she cackled, trading ones with him that made even him blush.

Then one day he happened to look up and a flock of wild geese drifted overhead, their lonely cries faint to his ears.

And a restless, unnamed urge filled Benny.

Taking a deep breath, he shook his head and smiled. Love was crazy. Even a travelin' man like him felt content to stay and putter in the garden, and later look for a part-time job. Pump jockey, maybe, at one of the truck plazas, something to fill the time.

Glancing out at the street he saw a flash of mirror black. Something made Benny run in a crouch to the hedges. He parted them and saw the big, hulking casterati Cindy used as her chauffeur.

The limousine stopped by the driveway for a few minutes, then began its slow cruising of the neighborhood.

An old, old song came to him in Abuelita's still clear voice, singing of fifty way to leave a lover, but for the life of him, Benny couldn't think of the one he needed to show Alicia it was time to go. For her sake, and the sake of her grandmother, her parents, her brother who had died fighting in America del Sud, he had to.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:42 EST
Benny walked down passed winter brown lawns, kicking through drifts of wet leaves. On the next block, amid rusting hulks of long dead autos he saw a speck of red. Benny closed his eye and groaned.

The sound of wild geese drifted on the afternoon breeze.

In his heart a voice called softly to him, pleading for him to ride free before the chains and the slavery of the Janissary Project imprisoned him again.

The spirit assigned to the old motorcycle called to his spirit. Benny's feet dragged up the hump of the unkempt yard and he stopped, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans, looking at her.

"She's for sale."

A beanpole of a kid about his age, maybe a year older, spoke from under the hood of a car. Yeah, maybe a year older. Even two, but one hell of a lot younger than he was. The kid straightened, brushing a shock of bright yellow hair from his eyes and nodded at the motorcycle.

"Interested?"

"She's a '15 Red Sun, and she'll go like the fires a hell were on her tail."

The kid looked at Benny, a wary respect in his cornflower blue eyes.

"Had one, did you?" He went to the old Uohali and stroked the bars. "She was my Pop's. He gave her to me last year."

"She looks like she went through a war." Benny squatted beside the Red Sun.

The kid grinned at him. "She was. Standard Marine issue. Pop kind a borrowed her down in del Sud and never gave her back. Lots a guys did that," he said, growing a little defensive.

"I know a man, knew him, anyway, who brought back a whole Jeep."

"No foolin'?"

"No foolin'."

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:43 EST
Rolling a smoke, Benny ignored the kid's chatter. He made a reluctant offering to the Veil of the Sun and the Sacred-Father on the dalonega throne beyond. A feeling like peace came over him. Benny blew a puff around the manifold in greeting. The old Red Sun accepted the offering like it did everything else, in stoic silence.

"Will she start?"

"Heck, yeah." The kid fished around in his pockets for a moment and dug out a ring of keys, pulling one from it. "Here. Take her out for a spin, man. I tell you, she's sweet enough to take home to mama."

Benny took them. He threw a leg over the cracked and worn saddle, in silence cursing at the snap of pain that caused in his back. Eye closed, he waited for it to die.

She was fine, starting up with a roar that brought a smile to his face.

Papa Bear, if she were two years newer, she'd be the spitting image of yours.

He nudged her into first and she purred, arching under his buttocks, begging to race the very winds.

He patted the battered tank. "Not today, old girl."

"Huh, you say something?"

The Uohali bounced over the curb and he was gone. Sweet, the kid had that right, was all he could think of. She did everything he asked of and offered more. The Native American Corporation up on the old Mohawk rez built proud machines, or they wouldn't have named them after the spirits. The Council of Elders would have ostracized them otherwise, and the Harpies' Council most of all. Those old woman had people's livers removed for less.

At a crossroad that led north, he stopped and stroked the battered tank. She was as good, if not better than, any other make made anywhere the same age.

With more reluctance than he would admit, Benny turned her and rode back to the kid. He eased the big Uohali around piles of car parts and rolled up to the kid and a man standing by the porch.

From the look on the kid's face, it wasn't hard to tell the man had been hard at cussing him out, thinking no doubt the 'breed made off with the Red Sun.

Sortas

Date: 2007-02-19 10:44 EST
Cool, he offed the man a nod, dismounted and crouched to look over the engine.

She hadn't been taken care of. Not like she deserved. Not like Carl would have cared for her. The beer gut on the redneck spoke volumes. Benny checked over the engine, looked at the wires and tried to outwait them both.

"She got a set of tooled leather saddle bags," the man said. He gestured to the kid with his can of beer. "Go fetch 'em out here, son."

She was built to climb mountains and scream defiance at the elements. If she was built for the Corp, then she was better than even Carl's, and Carl bought only the very best.

Working his jaws around, Benny glanced at the bags. They were nice, well made by some poverty stricken camposino in the Andes. Lamas and horses with a row of jagged peaks behind them were the design, all in hand tooled leather and lama wool, the colors bright behind months' worth of grease and dust.

He nodded. Relief showed in the beanpole's eyes. The kid couldn't handle the Uohali, that was plain in his face, and he was afraid of the spirit-power behind the Red Sun. Benny took a deep breath and asked for advice from the One the Red Sun had been named after.

The Eagle Mother grinned.

There was a lot of miles left in her. He would need the power and the brio to stay free to ride. Benny nodded to himself, glanced up at the kid and asked in a soft voice, "How much?"