Dark Paths Ch. 06

Steffen let him wriggle away, not only because he needed a second to swallow down the pain, but because that was part of the game. Let Wylde get away from him, let him run a bit, let him think he had a glimmer of hope.

Rayne almost fell off the rough pallet and dirty mattress on which Xavier had been imprisoned. He rolled as soon as he hit the floor and kept rolling until his back was up to the door. He got his fingers to the handle but Steffen moved as soon as he reached for it. He was disconcertingly fast for such a big Vamp, even in agony, which he must have been. The singer let go of the handle and moved again, trying to keep behind, or just offside of him. His prison was not the biggest of rooms but there was space enough to pass at arm's length which was all he needed for the time being.

"Okay... let's see how fit you are, sweetheart!" he panted ducking a grasping hand and swinging around sharply to his left to come behind his assailant again.

Another manoeuvre like this brought him back to the door and this time he gripped the latch in both hands and rattled it furiously, finding it locked. That bastard Lagrado had locked them in when he left. Which meant he was probably watching what went on, somehow.

Rayne turned fast with his back to the door, eyes searching the ceiling for cameras. Eyes that should have been watching the more immediate threat.

Steffen smashed into Rayne from the right and the strength of the older vampire took him off his feet. They hit the floor hard and Steffen did not waste time gloating. He bit Rayne, sinking his teeth into the tender skin of his throat. Not for blood but to cause maximum damage. The bite was not a simple puncture wound but a savaging. Steffen latched on and shook him like animal with prey between its jaws. Hands that suddenly felt like iron claws ripped and stripped away his clothes.

The shock came more from the speed of the attack than anything else. Initially, Rayne was too dazed to respond but as Steffen's jaws closed on his throat and he threw his head from side to side like a dog trying to tear off a haunch of meat, the smaller Vampire struck out at him, his furious cry half-strangled in his throat. All he could think of as his assailant clawed the shirt off his back and those grasping hands lunged for his pants was how the hell Xavier had withstood this bastard for more than half an hour!

"No!" he gurgled, thrashing and kicking out desperately as Steffen wrestled with his fly, then clawed at the material so violently that the buttons flew in all directions and the seam tore right down between his thighs. "You fucker! D'you know what they cost?" he yelped, as his throat was briefly released and Steffen concentrated all his efforts on tearing his pants right off.

At the same time, Rayne could feel the immense surge of energy that suddenly diverted into his body's instinct to heal. It was as if someone threw a switch shutting down a quarter of his physical strength. His throat felt tight and sore as the flesh knitted. Then a new pain ripped right through his left hip as Steffen wrenched his legs open wide and hard. Rayne's fangs extended automatically and he reared up from the ground, trying to fight free, trying to bite, trying to do anything but play the good little victim.

"You do not taste nearly as sweet as your mortal boy, Wylde, but you put up a much better fight!" Steffen laughed as he finished ripping Rayne's clothes away. He went to flip him over; it was much easier to control arms and legs when he took them from behind. In his haste he was careless and Rayne took the opening, sinking bared fangs into his arm.

The pain sent a surge straight to Steffen's cock. Rayne's struggles already had him excited; this put him over the top. Steffen's fist came down in a vicious backhand, knocking Rayne loose from his arm. He flipped the smaller vampire over and slammed his head against the floor. Either blow might have killed a mortal lad, but he didn't need to be as careful with Wylde. Pinning the slender, struggling body beneath his bulkier frame he wasted no time stabbing his cock urgently into Rayne's tight channel.

The first punch broke bones in his neck and he reeled, falling back, feeling sick to his gut. Even as his ever-efficient nervous system set to work repairing itself, he felt strong hands slam his skull against the stone. He wanted to tell his body to hold on, to wait and mend things afterwards, but it was like trying to stop the tide coming in or the sun setting. Steffen broke him and his persistent body tried valiantly to fix the damage.

And Rayne got weaker.

Even so, Rayne fought against him for every inch and every stroke, though he must have known how it inflamed the older, stronger creature. It was no longer in his nature to submit mildly to injustice. As a mortal he had let men get away with it because he had no idea how to stop it happening. Since he had been Turned no ordinary human would have got away with the treatment Steffen meted out to him. No few Vampires would have suffered for trying it. But this one was tough. Rayne knew the moment he was brought down and his attacker began to beat and strip him that he would not win a physical fight with this creature. He screamed and swore all the same, kicking out and trying to twist away from under Steffen's body and his rough handling. It was insanity but it had to be done. He could not lie back and take what Steffen wanted to give, not without trying to draw blood, at least!

The worst thing of all was, Steffen could see what this was doing to him. And he kept on doing it. It was firing up his boner as he dragged the small, English Vampire's limp, virtually naked body back roughly towards him, over and over. Each time Steffen impaled him on that thick, pulsing member Rayne bit down hard on his lips to keep in the scream of rage and frustration that wanted to tear itself free. Blood spilled from his mouth and ran down his chin, dripping to the floor as Steffen thrust hard, taking him from behind like a wild beast. The urgent strokes, pushing deeper inside him, stretching him and forcing him until he wanted to howl with a combination of fury and disgust, nevertheless stoked an unwanted flame in his loins.

He bucked crazily, absolutely desperate to get free, to get this bastard out of his body. It no longer mattered if he even survived the attempt, he was determined that he would not cum with this animal's cock inside him.

Steffen was almost drunk with lust. Not only could he mete out an almost unlimited amount of punishment and not have to worry about damaging a fragile victim beyond repair, but Wylde's furious struggles pushed him higher and higher. He twisted his fist into Rayne's hair, forcing his head down again whilst he drove into his victim's body again and again.

Ignoring the Englishman's attempts to claw his hand away he snaked one arm around Rayne's hips, the hand groping his crotch obscenely. He chuckled nastily in his unwilling mate's ear. "Two of a kind! Your boy liked it rough too."

Steffen's hand squeezed painfully tight and his thrusts quickened. He groaned with satisfaction as Rayne bucked hard under him.

"Ahh, that's it, give me a good ride." He had no intention of making this last long enough to bring Rayne off. The humiliation would be sweet, but he'd rather leave the other vampire frustrated. "Your pet was so eager to spill his hot seed with me." That part was further from the truth. He had felt the boy begin to respond, however unwillingly, but Xavier had been in too much pain, and suffering from excessive blood loss, to have even got close to orgasm.

Steffen's rapid, urgent huffs of breath turned into victorious little grunts as he powered harder astride his reluctant mate and came in a copious, if not joyful, spill deep inside Rayne's nude, struggling body.

Rayne shuddered involuntarily, huddled on the floor of the cell where Steffen dropped him as he yanked his rod out, gloating silently over the act he had just committed. He felt dazed and dirty. His throat was too tight and too dry as he croaked; "That all you've got? Heh... no wonder Xav wanted out of here. You must have been a real fuckin' disappointment to him after me and the boys! A proper 'three minute hero'!"

He rolled onto his knees and tried determinedly to pull himself back towards the door handle, even though his head was still spinning from the violent contact with the floor. His lips were bleeding where he had bitten himself and would not stop no matter how much he licked them.

Not good. Not good at all! He needed an escape plan and his brain was refusing to co-operate.

Steffen did not bother with a verbal response. He did, however, deliver a kick to the gut hard enough to lift Rayne off his knees and move him further away from the door. Before Rayne could react, he kicked the smaller vampire again, this time higher in the body and kept up the rain of blows. Ribs snapped like dry twigs under his heavy boot, though Rayne barely made a sound. He was biting down on his lips again, eyes closed tight as he rolled on the ground, hugging himself desperately, trying to shield against the attack but too weak to fight it.

"You got a mouth on you that just don't quit." Steffen snarled. He grabbed Rayne's hair and dragged him back to the manacles fixed deep into the wall. He ignored the small gasps and whimpers from his bleeding victim. Forcing his hands above his head roughly, Steffen got him shackled again before using his own key to exit the cell. The door clicked shut and locked, leaving Rayne alone in the darkness to heal the damage he'd absorbed tonight.

Rayne curled his fingers around the chains, gripping them tightly as he curled around the pain in his gut on the filthy mattress. He flinched as the door slammed shut and the tumblers of the lock fell. His back teeth were clenched hard and his eyes closed, trapping the treacherous tears that only came now that he was alone.

That big, brutal bastard had a point, he supposed. He never did know when to shut the fuck up!

Shivering in agony he sprawled on the hard, rancid-smelling mattress and tried to close his senses down. It took a long time to shut out the pain and humiliation; longer still to shut out the memory of his Uncle standing over him, belt in his hand, telling him to strip and spread or he knew what he'd get.

Only when the nightmares finally retreated did he slowly, and painfully begin to heal.

~~~

Xavier had slept poorly. He couldn't seem to get warm. He tossed and turned and nightmares plagued him. It was only toward early morning that he became more peaceful, after having kept Chavez up most of the night as well. He had curled into a tight ball at the centre of the bed, the blankets wrapped around him in a cocoon. Xav woke suddenly, alone in the room. Struggling to shrug off the blankets he bolted upright. He had been dreaming again. Vague shadows, Rayne chained, bloody and hurting.

His heart still beating hard he staggered up and to the bathroom. He took a leak and washed his face. Spotting his clothes on the floor he wrinkled his nose. He didn't want to wear those clothes again. The might have traces of vampire slime on them.

A look around the room located a bag that had to belong to Chavez. He didn't think the Mexican boy would mind if he borrowed a tee shirt and a pair of jeans. They were a little big, and a little long, but not that bad a fit. He had just finished getting dressed when Chavez returned.

"I borrowed some clean clothes, hope that's alright."

The young Hispanic man looked him up and down with an open, friendly, appreciative smile.

"They look better on you than on me, man!" he laughed. "Help yourself. When we're not hiding out any more you can get PJ to buy you something that fits. What you were wearing was pretty messed up but I didn't want to trash it without your say so." He hesitated a little, then quietly added; "You had a rough night?"

Xavier rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension there. "Rayne had a worse night than me," he murmured.

It wasn't just that he knew how Steffen would be with him, he had felt it in his dreams. It wasn't mind reading or telepathy, it was just a feeling. A bad one. "I need to talk to PJ and Clay."

Chavez led the way down the hall, where the two older men were both in PJ's room. Clay was on the phone again. To Xavier it looked like he hadn't taken the damned cell away from his ear all night. He was just finishing up his conversation and closed the phone as Chavez and Xavier came in.

Xavier looked a bit better then he had the night before, there was colour in his face at least and he wasn't weaving on his feet like a strong wind might blow him over. The improvement stopped there though. He still looked tired, his eyes… when people talked about someone looking haunted you could look into Xavier's eyes and know what they meant.

He didn't bother with a good morning, politeness could wait.

"We have to do something. We have to get Rayne out of there." Xav swallowed hard, knowing he sounded stressed and on the verge of craziness. "That… that fucker hurt him, I know it."

The older man looked him up and down, gravely but suprisingly - given the abrupt nature of his entrance - not with any disdain or impatience. He looked as if he was assessing Xavier's state of health before dropping a bombshell.

"We'll get him out of there, once we know where there is, just as soon as we've got the wherewithall to take those bastards on," he told the blond youth, and his Cali accent had slipped almost completely. The Irish lilt had a hard edge to it though.

Clay rubbed his forehead and rumbled; "Link at Studio 7 reckons Lagrado has access to a whole network of tunnels under Sydney Walton Square. There are access points all over the city so his people can come and go without being seen by the guys at the Studio. One of his Hispanic engineers reckons they even call ABC 'Ajuntamente Broadcast Coelho', Lagrado's in so deep there. It's all a cover for something, or so Link's buddies figured. They thought it must be gun-running or prostitution and they kept well out of it."

The burly ex-porn-star looked exhausted, as if he'd slept even less than Xavier. His expression was still keen though.

"Did anyone come up with leads on the other matter?" PJ asked, without taking his eyes of Xavier. He could see the frustration in the boy's face but held up a hand for silence.

"The bloodsuckers? Well, y'know I had to be careful what I asked. Don't want these guys thinking I'm getting loony-tunes in my old age!" Clay laughed humourlessly. "But, yeah... there's rumours that his friends have a kind of club down there; again the guys I spoke to thought it was kinky sex, even maybe a bit of snuff. They take street kids, whores, the ones that won't be missed if their fun gets out of hand. Again, if anyone asks questions the party line seems to be that Mr Lagrado gave the kids money to go home to Pokeass, Nevada or wherever the fuck they came from, and sort out their lives. Very neat and tidy!"

"So he comes out of this shitheap smelling of Calvin Klein" PJ muttered, shaking his head. "He's in deep with the networks and we all know that the media people run this city. Anyone that tries to dis' him gets a heavy media dirty tricks campaign and has to run for the hills before even their nearest and dearest try to lynch them. He doesn't even need to get his hands dirty." He sighed deeply. "We need to get into those tunnels. Any ideas, Mr Gavrilov?"

The look in his eyes now told Xavier straight off that Lagrado wasn't the only one they had been busy investigating.

Xavier was not exactly surprised, but he did wonder how deep they'd dug. Not that there was anything he wouldn't have told them anyway. Well, maybe a few things. He did a quick mental inventory of what had probably been easy enough for them to find out. If they started with where he worked they would have been told he stayed away from the drugs, he didn't take clients on the side, and he'd worked there for about a year. Before that, he'd worked at a less trendy club, and from there it wouldn't have been too hard to find out he'd been a hustler and an addict. Beyond that… he wasn't sure if they could have dug much deeper. His mom had died, he went into the foster care system, ran away when he was fifteen, lived on the street for a while. They may or may not have found out about the pornos he'd been in. He'd purposely kept tight-lipped about that, considering he'd been underage, and he'd left the city in a hurry before the producer could kill him for fucking his girlfriend and stealing his dope. And so here he was.

"I can take you to the building where they were." Xavier said, focusing on the present.

If PJ noted the hesitation before he answered, he said nothing about it. He seemed on the verge of asking another question when the phone in Xavier's pocket bleeped imperiously, a little chirrup of sound and the dancer remembered that he still had Rayne's cellphone. Chavez had taken it from his jeans pocket last night in the bathroom and put it by the bed, and he had picked it up and tucked it into the pocket of his borrowed pants almost without thinking. It was still switched on.

He pulled it out and stared at it for a moment. The instant of mindless hope that the caller would be Rayne himself was pushed aside as a stupid impossibility. Why would he ring his own phone, even if he had managed to get free? The caller ID on the readout screen said 'LADY W'.

"You gonna answer that?" Clay asked him with a little frown.

At the same time, PJ murmured; "That's Ray's cell?"

Xavier nodded to them both, still looking at the phone as it rang again. He flipped it open, "Hello?"

There was a pause and then a very proper sounding voice said, "This isn't Rayne?"

"No."

"To whom am I speaking, then?"

"Who is this?" Xavier asked, not impolite, just cautious.

"Xavier?"

"How do…" He shut up, and then figured what the hell. The caller was somebody that had to know Rayne, his number was in Rayne's phone, it stood to reason. "Yeah."

"Oh hell," the speaker said, a little breathlessly. There was a lot of commotion in the background, then a clunk like a car door closing, and things were suddenly quieter. "Please tell me that he's sorted this business out and the only reason he isn't answering his calls is because he's asleep beside you?"

The tone of voice was more optimistic than confident.

Xavier debated playing stupid, he didn't know who was on the other end after all, but it seemed rather silly. His caller obviously knew something was happening. Rayne must have called and told him, how else would he know who Xavier was?

"No." And Xav suddenly found his throat a little thick at the thought of where Rayne was instead. "No, he isn't here." He cleared his throat. "Who are you?" he asked again, still sounding politely neutral, if not borderline hysterical.

There was a little pause on the other end of the line. Xavier thought that the caller caught his breath, then, rather more gently he answered; "My name is Warren; Dominic Warren. I'm a friend of Rayne's from England. He called me yesterday, in rather a state. Your name was mentioned. He seemed to think that you were in some kind of danger." Dominic took another breath, as if steadying himself. In the background Xavier could hear something that sounded like the engine of a car revving up. "Look, I'm just leaving the airport now. Are you all right, darling?" he asked in a solicitous tone. "Are you safe? You can talk to me."

"Yeah, I'm fine." Which was mostly true anyway. How much had Rayne told this guy? What did he know? Why had Rayne called him in the first place? "Look, let's not play the guess-how-much-I-know game, okay? Rayne must of trusted you enough to call you and tell you what was happening, and if you immediately hopped on a plane to get over here you must know it's not bullshit, so…" Xavier took a deep breath and reached a decision. "Rayne must have talked to you just before he met up with Lagrado. The first thing I knew about it was when they came in to where they had me locked up and Rayne made a deal, he traded himself for me. He got them to let me go, and give me some clothes and promise not to hurt me on the way out or follow me, but that's it. He didn't try for any other conditions, no kind of limits on what they can do to him, not even a time limit. So now they got him and that bastard said he was going to make him his servant, and he put him in chains, and they got this… this thing… like a starved rotting thing… and that sadistic fucker Steffen…" And he couldn't seem to quit now that he'd let a little bit out. It was just too much, everything that had happened, everything that had been done to him. He hadn't had time yet to assimilate it all and put it behind him. Now it all came flooding out of him.