All Conscience Fled (The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Two) Read online

  I let him take me back to his apartment and let him take me. He was an egotistical jackass, but at least he knew what to do with his cock. He already came twice, so he was getting tired. It would be a while before he would be ready again.

  I was still going strong. I wanted more. The sex was good, and I enjoyed every minute of our sweaty fun. This minute, coming up, would be a very good minute. I held the man tight, and gasped and bucked. “Come on, handsome. Come on,” I urged him between gasps.

  “God,” he said.

  Finally, heaven came over me. Wonderful, better than before. Almost as good as a kill. I shuddered with ecstasy. I convulsed and squeezed and bucked and groaned.

  Finished, I relaxed, still gasping for air. The man fell off me to the side, limp. I lay motionless in a warm post-kill, post-orgasm glow. Sex didn’t get any better than this.

  A minute or two passed before I realized something was wrong. The man didn’t move, quite understandable. I had worn him out. A couple of minutes later, I realized exhaustion wasn’t his problem.

  His heart didn’t beat. I pushed him all the way off me and raised myself up on my elbows. His head lay twisted to the side at a funny angle. Not only didn’t his heart beat, but also he didn’t breathe, either.

  Keaton would kill me for this.

  I knew what happened, of course. I had been holding him close, and I had been holding him up high, around his neck. When the moment of passion came, I squeezed. I didn’t know my own strength, and I accidentally broke his neck.

  I needed to get rid of the body. I didn’t dare screw up any more. I needed to get rid of the body, clean up the mess, and try to salvage something out of disaster. I scrambled out of bed and set to work. I had a lot to do.

  And, dammit, I was still turned on.

  I got down on my hands and knees as soon as Keaton came in. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to kill him. Please, I’m sorry.”

  She sighed, and walked the length of the warehouse to her recliner and sat down. I followed her and fell to my knees again as soon as we reached the kitchen.

  “You have a new rule, skag,” she told me. “You can kill for fun, but no more than once a month, and never in Philadelphia.”

  “Ma’am?” I looked up at her. I expected her to punish me. I deserved to be punished for this.

  Keaton raised an eyebrow. I continued. “His death was an accident. I didn’t kill him on purpose.” She needed to understand my mistake. I wasn’t that kind of monster.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I said bullshit,” she said. “Quit lying to yourself. The greatest pleasure and the greatest turn-on you have in the world is killing. So you killed somebody in bed. It’s just more of the same thing.”

  The blood drained out of my face. “Ma’am?”

  Keaton was being tolerant. She let me go on. “It’s not the same thing,” I said, my voice reduced to a whisper. “Draining a Transform and murder aren’t the same.”

  Keaton smiled at me. “Bullshit.” She tapped a finger to my head. “Maybe you think so up here. But down where your reactions come from? That’s a hell of a distinction for your average subconscious.” With every word she spoke, the pit opened underneath me, exposing more of my Beast. I hung over the abyss by a thin rope, and snip by snip, Keaton clipped the fibers, enjoying every minute of it.

  “Tell me it wasn’t good,” she said, snipping again. “Tell me it wasn’t a turn-on. Can you tell me that?” she asked.

  “Ma’am,” I said, searching for an answer. A turn-on, yes, but that was before I knew I killed him! I didn’t know! Down in the abyss, a smiling face stared back. Mine? Keaton’s?

  It was an accident!

  “You don’t kill someone you’re screwing ‘by accident’,” she said. So cold, so casual. “You’ve got the same urges I do. You need to learn to master them, before they master you.” She heaved and tossed me into the abyss, and she didn’t even care. “The rule stands. No killing for fun more than once a month. And you don’t do it in Philadelphia. Now get dinner on the table.”

  (17)

  I put the sheet of clear plastic over the map and carefully drew in the orientation marks. Scattered papers covered the kitchen table, but I needed more, and I drew the sheaf of Chicago land-use maps near. I put the appraisal records next to the land-use maps. Neighborhood by neighborhood, starting in downtown, I carefully computed approximate peak population density based on land use and property values, with variations noted for time of day. Once I made my best guess, I color-coded the neighborhood on my clear sheet of plastic.

  Chicago was a long way away from Philadelphia, but the place was huge, and I dreamed of how many untagged Transforms the city might hold. If I showed Keaton a sufficiently competent hunt plan, she might actually let me hunt Chicago.

  Once I colored the entire map of Chicago, I selected the areas with the highest population density – the best areas for a hunt – and put another sheet of clear plastic on top. I drew my hunting grid on the clear plastic, the optimal path through the city streets to allow me the most thorough coverage in the least amount of time.

  Keaton hunted. She had left this morning, and she would be back as early as this evening, or as late as days from now. I was delighted. One of the few things that made Keaton’s so-called training bearable was the fact that she sometimes left.

  This time she left me with the car. I didn’t know how she managed to hunt after leaving her car at home, but I expected she stole what she needed. I didn’t ask.

  With access to the car, though, I resolved to work on my piled-up chores. Already this morning, I had been to the Laundromat and washed three weeks’ worth of dirty laundry, been to the dump to dispose of a week of garbage, and been to the grocery store to load up on supplies. While I worked on the hunt grid, a big pot of bean soup simmered on the stove and a roast marinated on the counter. If I got ahead of the game, Keaton wouldn’t be such a pain in the ass when I tried to take some time out for my own hunts. Her absence also gave me a few spare minutes for my own projects, such as this hunt plan.

  Above me, the light made a funning frizzling noise and went out.

  Damn it!

  Six lights illuminated the warehouse, each hanging from the high ceiling by cables, all a pain in the ass to change. Unfortunately, I couldn’t predict when Keaton would come back, and she would be all over me if I didn’t keep up with basic maintenance. I sighed and headed back to the storeroom to get a fresh bulb.

  I hauled the appropriate box down off the top of the stack and set it on the mat that functioned as my bed. Dug through it and found the light bulbs.

  Light bulb.

  I swore under my breath. Keaton wanted three bulbs in the box, another of her screwy rules. Most likely, two bulbs blew when I hadn’t been here, and Keaton replaced them herself. Did she tell me we were running low on light bulbs? Why, no. She probably would have used the last one and still not told me we needed more. When we needed one and we were out, she would have taken it out on me. I was lucky to discover the shortage, and even so, I would need to go return to the store and get more.

  I tucked the bulb into my pocket and went out to the back of the warehouse, where the ropes and gymnastic equipment were located, swearing under my breath.

  Halfway across the gym, I hesitated.

  I had cleaned the spot on the floor until all visible signs had disappeared, but the scent still lingered. A man, one of Keaton’s toys, died here last night.

  I killed him.

  Keaton insisted.

  My Beast gibbered in my mind, angry and destructive. The dark tendrils of the Beast continued to grow, sapping my sanity and eating at my self-control. I knew the Beast well, now, a monster of mad rages, murderous brutality, and unconstrained cruelty.

  The Beast had been born back when I transformed. The Beast’s early rumblings were responsible for my early fits of temper, when I hit people, or cut them to mince with my words.

  Under
Keaton…

  Keaton made me kill. Keaton fed my Beast.

  My Beast had grown large. I hadn’t even bothered to care when I killed the toy. I just followed orders.

  Soon… I didn’t want to think about ‘soon’.

  (18)

  Six days after the lightbulb incident and two days after hunting down my latest kill in Chicago, Keaton brought in another man for her evening entertainment and my humiliation. Instead of the usual, though, Keaton broke all precedents. She bowed to me and said, “The prisoner is yours. I’m going out.”

  Thus, after behaving like a mother cat giving a half-dead mouse to her kittens to play with, she left. I shook my head, trying to figure out her test.

  She didn’t say when she would be back.

  She didn’t say what I should do with the prisoner.

  She didn’t say how long it would be before I had to start torturing him.

  Fuck.

  The situation gnawed at me. Keaton didn’t need to be present to torture my mind. I was fully capable of doing that myself, thank you very much.

  She had bowed to me. So…this must be a reward, at least from Keaton’s psychotic perspective.

  A reward for what?

  I had no idea.

  The man in the gym remained gagged, so I only picked up on his muffled voice and the sounds of the clinking chains.

  Dipshit there should enjoy the peace, I thought. Soon he would scream.

  I started to clean up the dinner remains, all the while wondering what Keaton wanted me to do. Insane voices gibbered of death and horror deep in my mind. The pull of anticipation grabbed at my entire body. Keaton might have me beat the man. I knew now how to cause crippling pain with no more than a nightstick. The kidneys are highly sensitive, as are the nuts, of course. As are the knees, elbows, hands and feet.

  I thought about letting him go. Keaton had brought him in gagged, but not blindfolded. He knew our location, or, at least, he potentially did. His knowledge made him a security risk. Not just to Keaton, but to me, as well. I couldn’t let him live. Damn.

  Maybe Keaton would have me break bones.

  Maybe she would have me pull out his fingernails. Or his teeth.

  “The prisoner is yours,” Keaton said, in her memory voice. Damn. At least when she pulled this trick in person, I had something to resist. Her. Now, with my own beastly darkness as my only companion, the darkness ate at me from the inside.

  I imagined Keaton ordering me to torture the man. I visualized his hands with his fingernails gone. I sensed the cold metal of the pliers in my hands, and the resistance as I pulled.

  I remembered too much.

  Memories whirled in my head. I sat down at the table because I couldn’t make my legs stop shaking.

  Too much thinking. My mind betrayed me, filled with Keaton’s thoughts.

  The man in the gym pulled on the chains to try to break free, making yet more noise. The man was an annoyance! I couldn’t think with him here.

  The men Keaton brought in without blindfolds always died. Most of the time she, or we, tortured them. The pattern was laid in, inevitable, inescapable.

  Some of these men she termed ‘toys’. Others she termed ‘prisoners’. I didn’t understand why. The prisoners always died, but some of the toys lived. Most prisoners and toys were tortured, but not all. I didn’t understand why, either.

  I went back to the gym and stood in the entryway. My heart raced and my blood pounded in my head. The man lay miserable, on the floor. He no longer tried to shout through his gag and lay resting, staring at nothing. He didn’t notice me.

  He was an older man, with dark hair, and a craggy and weathered face. He was grimy, and he wore filthy clothes. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in several days. Something authentic in him, in his situation, made me want him in some way I did not fathom.

  His skin was whole, a situation as temporary as his quiet. Would Keaton order me to use a knife on him? You can flay off quite a large amount of skin before the victim died. I visualized his flayed body in my mind, the raw red of his muscles exposed to the air. I listened to his imagined screams in my mind.

  I flew back to the kitchen and tried to finish cleaning. I needed to finish clearing the table. I needed to bring water from the bathroom and wash and dry the dishes. I needed to put the dishes away and drain the sink into the bucket below and dump the water. I needed to go back to the gym and do my evening exercises.

  The gym, where the prisoner lay chained.

  Startled by my own thoughts and desires, I dropped a plate. The plate fell and shattered and I jumped a full four feet backwards. My heart raced as if I just finished a workout, or after Keaton threatened me with the belt.

  I found the broom and swept up the mess. I would need to go mug someone for the money to buy a replacement plate.

  I washed the dishes. I tried not to break anything else. I would be lucky if Keaton didn’t beat me over the plate.

  I tried to think, tried to be rational. The easiest way to abide by Keaton’s command would be to cause him some kind of medium level pain for a couple of hours before I killed him. I suspected the man would oblige me by screaming, no matter how little pain I caused him. He wouldn’t want me to have to apply any extra effort to induce screaming.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t dare take the easy way. Not after Keaton’s bow. Her bow and her absence made the situation unique. Special. A show, as much as a test.

  No easy way for me, today. No easy death for this poor man.

  I found myself back by the gym again, staring at him. This time the man saw me. “Mmph! Mmaagh aagh aagh!” He twisted in his chains.

  I came closer to him, a miasma of madness whirling through me. I couldn’t do this. I had no reason to do this.

  The voices of the victims Keaton made me torture screamed in my head. The sound of the crack of the nurse’s skull on the night of my escape echoed in my mind. The snap of the man’s leg as I broke it with the dumbbell followed, the night Keaton taught me I possessed enough skill and muscle to beat a normal man in a stand-up fight. The screams of the homeless woman from eight weeks ago, toothless and mad, who got between me and my kill.

  So many innocent victims.

  Each one fed the Beast inside me.

  I feared the Beast.

  I stood over the man. He shouted louder into his gag. I didn’t hear what he had to say. I couldn’t do anything about his words and desires, anyway. My hands shook. The cold in the warehouse sunk into my skin as I crouched down beside the man. He looked at me and stopped struggling and shouting.

  He thought I might help him.

  I reached out a shaking hand to his hands. He moved his hands toward me in hope I might release him. I studied the man’s hopeful face from the depths of the abyss where I crouched.

  I saw him already dead. If I released him, doing so would blow our cover here in Philadelphia. We would have to move. He wasn’t worth the price I would have to pay to Keaton for such an act of betrayal.

  The Beast inside me hungered.

  It was his fault he had attracted Keaton’s attention. I wanted to leave, flee. None of us is without sin, though, and we all get what we deserve. I flashed on the horrid pinball game dream that haunted many of my nights, and heard manic laughter.

  Mad thoughts.

  I hated it when Keaton put me in this position. I couldn’t allow myself to care about him. Keaton often questioned her prisoners, and sometimes her toys, and she always got the truth. Some of them beat their women. Some cheated on them. Some raped women. Some killed women.

  Some had just glanced at Keaton funny. I couldn’t read minds, Keaton style. I couldn’t talk to this man and find out his story, because I wouldn’t know when he lied. I couldn’t take the chance he was a true innocent.

  The Christian soul inside of me howled. My conscience recognized the wrongness here. This was the one step I shouldn’t ever take. This one thing would put me beyond redemption. The stench of spilled excrement came to me, no
t from the man, but from my memories, after Keaton yanked a prisoner’s intestines out of his…

  More madness.

  “Goddammit!” I reached out from the abyss and clasped the index finger of the man’s right hand. I snapped it. The man screamed in pain, fear, and astonishment.

  I shivered.

  I did it, of my own free will, without Keaton by my side.

  I blinked, and looked around the warehouse, wary. No one stood here ready to stop me or arrest me. I blinked again, and took several short breaths. If anything, the madness surrounding me receded. My heart hammered in my ears as loud as his heart did.

  I did this and I remained me.

  Oh.

  The tension drained from me, an unexpected pleasurable release.

  The man writhed backwards, trying to flee. I looked at his terrified sweat and filth covered face and didn’t move.

  What I did was wrong. I knew it. I just couldn’t figure out why. I wasn’t able to come up with a reason why I shouldn’t hurt him. Here he was, ready for the taking. I knew how to dispose of bodies. No one would hear his screams. No prying eyes hovered over me. I could just do this. I saw no new penalties for what I did to this man. No one could stop me.

  I had skated on Lucifer’s frozen pit of ice so long I had forgotten where I lived.

  Over the last several months, I had learned I enjoyed letting my anger out. All my life, as a normal, I had been temperamental. My parents taught me not to explode at people. Temper tantrums were childish and bad.

  I learned as an Arm that temper tantrums are actually enjoyable, very enjoyable, one of the greatest releases in life. The best cure for moodiness. Letting all my aggressions loose left me in a good mood for hours, if not days. I also learned that temper tantrums could be stupid if they interfere with your goals and self-preservation. These days, I kept a tally sheet in my head of temper tantrums the world owed me when I repressed my anger for practical purposes – and yes, I made sure I collected on these tallies.

  Oh.

  The man thought I gave up on him and started to relax. I interrupted my reverie with an explosion of temper, reaching out and breaking the middle finger, next to the one I broke earlier. He screamed again. More release.