Robert Crane - Soulless

I got to my feet, knife in hand as Beauregard struggled to his knees, the remaining snake head giving him license to do so. It extended five feet from his body, keeping out of range of the knife, hissing and striking every time it got close to me. I feinted toward him and it snapped and came at me. I reached out with my free hand and wrapped my arm around it, trapping it in a headlock as I drove the blade through the top of its skull, slicing the head off. Without so much as another sound, it fell still and quiet, and I turned to Franklin, who was on his knees, both snake bodies limp and hanging from his shoulders.

“Andromeda,” I said as I dangled the knife before his eyes. “Would you care to guess what you lose next?”

He bowed his head, and I heard a whisper. “Decorah, Iowa. It’s in Decorah.”

I knelt and dropped the blade to the ground, clucking my tongue. “Why do you have to lie to me, Franklin? It demeans us both.”

“I’m telling the truth.” He looked up at me, his fingers resting on the floor as though he were drawing strength from it.

I reached up and my hand wrapped around his neck, applying only the slightest pressure, forcing him to look me in the eye. “Site Epsilon is not in Decorah, and we both know it. You’ve certainly got an Omega safehouse there, but that ain’t where Andromeda is.” I smiled at him. “So…the hard way, then.”

He gasped as the pain began, my other hand holding him tight on the cheek. “But…you…would have done this anyway…”

“Of course,” I said, my hands holding him as he started to grunt, then let out his first scream. “It’s not like I trust you.” I felt the surge begin as his life, his soul, drained out of him, my hands pressed tightly to his cheeks. His memories flooded into me, into my mind, causing it to swirl, a fresh infusion of life into my brain. I let his body drop to the floor and I stood up, looking down on him in pity. “Now that you’re in here,” I tapped the side of my head, “you can’t lie to me anymore, Franklin.”

I heard something move behind me and I turned. His son (I knew because of his memories now in my head) was stirring, moving from where I had put him down against the wall. I walked to the back door and knelt next to him, flipping the boy over. He still looked young, but I’d put a nice gash on his forehead. His eyelids fluttered and he mumbled something. “Shut up,” I said. I stared at him for a minute, then shook my head, letting out a sigh of impatience. Too young.

“This is your lucky day,” I said as I pressed my hand against his face. Even unconscious, I felt him squirm when the pain started. I held contact for another couple of seconds and then pulled my hand away. I could see the rise and fall of his chest, the regularity of his breathing a sign of the mercy I didn’t even know I had in me. “Don’t worry,” I said. “You won’t remember any of this.”

I awoke to a headache that felt as though a lumberjack had decided to chop down my skull. Light was shining through a window and there was a faint rattling that I was sure was between my ears, the remnants of my brain trying to escape its own stupidity for drinking too much last night. I groaned and realized that the buzzing was not in my head: it was in fact to the left of it, on the nightstand next to the hotel bed I was sleeping in.

I rolled over and grabbed my phone, slapping the talk button without bothering to check the display. I wondered for a half-second if this was what life had been like before Caller ID. “Hello?” My voice was little more than a croak.

“Hey.” I heard the quiet voice of Zack on the other end of the line and sat up, far too fast for my own good.

“Owww,” I said, my hand rushing to my temple, which felt as though it were about to explode.

“You okay?” Zack sounded a little resigned. Or cautious. Actually, it was hard to tell because the pain in my head was so sharp.

“Yes. Just…have a headache.”

“Hm. First night on a mission, away from the Directorate…” He sounded like he was brainstorming. “Let me guess, they gave you cover as an FBI agent, complete with an ID that said you were over twenty-one.”

“Should I worry that you immediately assume the worst about me?” I tried to cram some reproach into my words, but I’m pretty sure it failed. I dangled my legs over the edge of the bed. Apparently I hadn’t managed to shed my suit before I passed out.

“You should assume that I’ve been a college student at roughly your age. My fake IDs weren’t as realistic as what the Directorate can produce. Also, I’ve been on some of those ‘sit around and wait’ assignments. They’re moments of excitement followed by long stretches of boring nothing.”

“That sounds familiar.” I stood up and hung my head, because it felt better for some reason. I paused, trying to string together some thoughts. “About last night…”

“It’s all right, you don’t have to apologize. I know it’s been tense for you lately.” His voice was soothing.

“Yeah, I…wait, what?” I bristled, every muscle in my body tensing as the meaning behind what he said made it through my fog-addled brain. “What did you just say?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I…I said…”

“Did you just say ‘ I don’t have to apologize’?” I felt my jaw clench. “I know damned well I don’t have to apologize. I was just minding my own business in my room when you came in and we had a lovely conversation about how you secretly resent the fact that I can’t put out, which is something that you’ve never had the balls to say to my face.”

I waited for a response, and when it came, there was a little heat on it. “This isn’t the time to have this conversation.”

“Really?” I almost yelled at him. “When’s a good time to discuss the fact that we’ve been dating for months and can’t touch for more than two seconds per day? Wedding night? Golden Anniversary? When would be the appropriate time to talk about the fact that we can’t have sex, Zack? Please, tell me so I can write it into my schedule!”

There was the barest gap of silence on the other side. “Fine, you want to do this now? Yes, it’s grating on me, okay? But that doesn’t mean—”

“It’s grating? Grating?” I let fly with my disbelief. “Just say it, okay? It’s frustrating and it’s never going to get any better! Unless you really love the touch of heavy leather gloves, you’ll be enjoying a nice embargo of skin-to-skin contact for the rest of your life.”

“I – what? Touch of leather gloves? You mean, like—”

“I mean it’s never going to get better, Zack.” I was firm, final.

“So, what?” He didn’t even sound real on the other end of the phone. “You want to be done? Finished with me?”

It felt a little like someone was choking me, and the pain in my head was splintering, telling me to say something I didn’t really want to. “I think we’ve gone as far as you can go with me, Zack. If you ever want to have anything approaching a normal life, yeah…I think we’re finished.”

There was a smoldering quality about the way he said his next words, like there was a fire underneath every single one of them. “If that’s the way you feel—”

“It’s not the way I feel, Zack.” I should have been on the edge of panic, ending things like this. It’s not like I set out to do it the day before, when I was content on the campus, in training, and with my boyfriend. “It’s the way it is. You’re too big a boy to keep holding back; time to grow up. My life is solitary confinement – it’s a prison sentence, and you don’t deserve it, even if you do act like an ass sometimes.”