Part 9 (1/2)
”We shall see.” Cortin hid a smile, a bit surprised at herself. She'd noticed a little of it last time, but it seemed to be getting stronger: when she conducted an interrogation, she adopted Illyanov's speech patterns--perhaps as a reaction to the prisoner's crudity, perhaps as a tribute to her teacher, she didn't know, and it didn't really seem to matter. ”I think that before too long you will be most curious as to the information I want, and you will be increasingly eager to give it to me. When you do, I will release you.”
She was pleased to see the prisoner starting to look apprehensive. He still had his defiance, though. ”You d.a.m.n servants of corruption never let anyone go! So why should I believe you'll start with me?”
”I did not mean that kind of release, as you should know, having been a trooper yourself. I meant only that I will release you from your pain.” She explored further, identifying areas of promise from his sounds and flinching. It was a temptation to relieve him of his genitals, she thought as she reached them, but that would be short-sighted; from her own torture, as well as her studies, she knew them to be capable of some of the body's most exquisite pain. No, she would leave them where they could be of the most use--right where they were.
For Shannon's reaction: Reaction
Odeon watched in revolted fascination as his Joanie stripped skin, with precise delicacy, from the screaming renegade's hands. He'd expected her to go after the plaguer's manhood in retaliation for what had been done to her, but--except for a couple of times he'd been lying so obviously it was an insult--she had left that alone.
When she finished her subject's hands, Cortin stepped back to study him. She had discovered quickly that his personal horrors included being skinned alive, so that had become her primary tactic against him.
It was slow--enjoyably so, for her--and it was working very nicely indeed. ”Have you decided to cooperate yet?”
”d.a.m.n you, b.i.t.c.h!” The renegade tried to spit at her, without success.
”Do your d.a.m.ndest--you won't get nothin' from me!”
Cortin smiled. He was still defiant, true, but Illyanov agreed with her a.s.sessment that he was the type who would remain defiant until he broke abruptly, and the same sense that told her when he was lying now told her he was close to that abrupt break. Give him the proper physical and psychological stimuli, and he should go from defiance to surrender in seconds.
She had already planned what to do, a continuation of her primary tactic--but a little bit of insurance wouldn't hurt. She turned to the other two. ”Would either of you gentlemen care to avail yourselves of our guest while he still has enough spirit to be interesting? I fear I am being greedy, keeping him to myself.”
Illyanov smiled, bowing to her. She hadn't been avoiding an extremely useful technique, as he had been half afraid she was, because it had been done to her; she had merely postponed it until the optimum time.
”It is generous of you to share, Inquisitor. It has been some time since I have had the opportunity to indulge myself in another's subject. I will not interrupt your work?”
Both ignored the renegade's protests and insults as Cortin returned the bow. ”Not at all--your enjoyment of him should make the removal of his genital skin even more effective.” And enjoyable . . . ”Particularly if you can make him move enough that it is he who pulls himself free of it.”
”That should pose no particular difficulty.”
If it hadn't been his Joanie doing the work, his Joanie who might need his help, Odeon would have taken advantage of his non-Inquisitor status to leave. He'd taken part in some second-stage interrogations, on occasion enjoyed them if the recipient had done something particularly revolting--but even the most methodical of those beatings seemed more human, cleaner, than the cool, meticulous infliction of pain both Inquisitors so obviously enjoyed. At first he'd thought Joanie's enjoyment a pretense intended to make her subject's torment harder to endure, but he couldn't convince himself of that any longer. Joanie was enjoying her subject's anguish, taking a delight in his screams and writhings that Odeon found sickening. But it was Joanie; after what had been done to her, surely she had a right to whatever pleasures she could find . . .
Cortin was beginning to think she'd miscalculated her subject's resistance when screams of defiance turned abruptly, as antic.i.p.ated, into hopeless whimpering sobs mixed with pleas for mercy. She looked past him to Illyanov, who nodded; while he finished, she went to the instrument table and picked up a slender, razor-sharp dagger.
”Here is the end to your pain,” she said softly, laying it against the raw flesh of the rogue's throat. ”As soon as you answer my questions, I will give you your release. You have learned that you cannot lie to me; try it again, and you will find what has happened so far only the beginning. Do you understand?”
”Yes . . . Oh, G.o.d, no more!”
”That is up to you, not Him; you gave up any claim on His Mercy when you pledged allegiance to His enemies.” Though, an inner voice said, he could still repent . . . ”Tell me about Lawrence Shannon. Who he is, where he is, what his plans are.”
”I don't know all that . . . please, I don't!”
He was telling the truth, unfortunately. ”Very well. Tell me what you do know, then.”
”I'm . . . not sure. No! Honest--he's the Raidmaster, everyone knows that--plans all the new-style raids--but n.o.body knows him. A Lawrence Shannon even leads all those raids, but not the same one, maybe not the one who plans 'em. An' that's all I know about 'im, honest!”
”I believe you,” Cortin said. It was too bad he knew so little, and that so inconclusive, but she had no doubt that he was telling her all he did know, as she'd asked. ”Have you heard anything else? It need not be certain--a rumor of his plans, perhaps.”
”No . . . no, wait . . . maybe. I overheard something . . . a hospice . . . or could be a retirement home, or some sort of hospital. Old folks, or sick ones, anyway. That's all.”
”All on that subject, or all on any?”
”All on any . . . please?”