Chapter Two: The Tale Goes Forward

Cairo had not gone well. Damn it all, anyway. Mark had tried to penetrate the cell, but she lost him in the market and he had not made contact since. It had been four days and she was worried. At least she wore the worry well. It went with the goth-girl brood that she had donned for this meet. She was sitting in some goth bar in London, heavy black eye makeup and greasy hair providing her disguise. She ordered another drink, a “blood-sucker” and continued to wait.

In time, a young wiry man approached her, walking as though he wore a very dirty diaper. He spoke to the bartender first in a thick Scots brogue, ordering a “Pulsing Corpuscle.”

“Have you heard the new Inkubus Sukkubus yet?” Samantha hid her tension behind her hair, imitating the hiding manner of so many disaffected teens.

“Aye. Did you get tickets?” He turned toward her, blood red drink with blue flame in hand.

“No.” She began, before he interrupted her.

“Let’s get out of here.” He downed his drink and led her from the dark bowels of the club and out toward the stairs that marked the club’s entrance, grimy as they were with unidentifiable effluvium that resembled the remains of solid human waste. The spotlight shown down through the cigarette smoke that had accumulated and created the illusion of a ghost hanging in the middle of the stairway.

They slouched against the railing, still keeping up the act. Roman pulled a CD case from the inside of his jacket and flipped through the titles, ostensibly discussing them with her.

“What do you know?” She asked in a soft whisper that disappeared in the heavy air.

“Not much, I’m afraid.” His Scots brogue was gone. “Mark left Egypt under an alias. Willingly or not, I’m not sure, but there is someone who can tell you.” He slipped her a concert ticket stub with an address on the back. “He won’t be willing, but he can be coerced.”

“Thanks.” She said, fearing that she’d never see Mark again.

Next day, she took a bus to Stone Henge with the tourists, this time dressed to blend into the crowds of holidaying teenagers. Her hair was in ponytails, braided down the side of her head. But her attire was something else. She wore an itty bitty t-shirt that showed plenty of midriff and left nothing to mystery north of that. She wore itty bitty short-shorts too, that just hinted at the under curves of her rear. She hated dressing like this, but if she were going to fit in with the teenie-boppers, it was necessary. She grabbed a Samuel Adams baseball cap from her bag, placed it on her head, and began her search.

Inside of 15 minutes, she had identified the man. He appeared to get nervous and turned away from the crowds, but she followed him. She slithered into his path through the grass, pulled out her knife, and placed it to his neck from behind.

“Say nothing. Keep walking.” Her voice grated on the words, she was so angry. Too much pent up frustration and worry were working on her control. They walked further until she found a place sheltered from the view of the public. She turned him forcefully around and pushed him up against the abandoned bus, keeping her knife handy, but not threatening him with it. “Where is Atta?”

The dark skinned man stared into her eyes, clearly evaluating and calculating. He took in her appearance, lingering a little too long on her breasts, but said nothing.

She pulled the knife forward and brought it to his scrotum, applying steady but so-far harmless pressure. “Here’s what you need to know: I’m a farm girl. Daddy taught me to perform castrations and Mom taught me to sew. I’ll have no trouble removing your equipment and making myself a handy coin purse and a sack for carrying my tampons.” She reinforced her argument by applying more pressure. “Now..., Where. Is. Atta?”

The man was clearly alarmed and sweating profusely. “But I know nothing.”

“Wrong answer, Asshole.” She pressed her point further and she knew he was near his breaking point. “Look, buddy, it is no skin off my nose if you can’t impress those 69 virgins…” She let her voice trail off.

“Hamburg,” he began, but then a glint of victory came to his eye. She failed to turn in time, and a sharp blow to her head cut off her words and turned her world black.

She awoke, she knew not how many hours later, to find herself cuffed to a rickety iron bed frame with a mattress that smelled distinctly of sex. The room was empty, unless the five or six scurrying rodents or roaches counted. She didn’t wait long before two Arab-looking men entered the room and locked the door behind them. One of them wielded a cricket bat, but neither of them were her would-be coin-purse donor. She could tell they weren’t innocents in this war, but hardened soldiers, hungry for blood.

The larger of the two began beating her with his bat, concentrating on her ribs. She tried to resist with her legs until the second man bent down to hold them to the bed. Her beater seemed to tire of his sport. She suspected that the interrogation was about to begin until she saw the lust in his eyes.

He pushed the second man forcefully away from the bed and climbed on top of her. He cut her t-shirt from her body with a knife and started to remove her shorts. He had them open and was starting to cut into her under garments when she heard a large thwack, like a baseball bat hitting a pumpkin.

Her molester slumped to the side, finally showing her the face of her rescuer. But a fraction of an instant later, her molester’s companion engaged the man and she was helpless, cuffed to the bed as she was.