Zoo pt 3 Felix groomed Molly carefully, thoroughly, taking as long as he could without seeming to be taking as long as he could.
Brewster that bastard! - had won the auction and now, fours hours after the funds had been transferred into one of the Zoo's accounts, Felix was readying his 'prize' for him. To his credit the keeper's hands didn't tremble, his expression didn't falter, he gave no outward indication of his inner turmoil. Brewster... Brewster was going to hurt the bunny-girl, if not kill her outright. She was going to suffer and if she survived the encounter she'd be put on the roster with the other pets. After Richard's teasing display of her, Felix didn't doubt there was now a waiting list...
Molly was nervous, twitching under the strokes of the soft brush. She'd been kept out of circulation pending the outcome of the auction but she'd been in the Zoo long enough to see the state of some of the other pets when they were returned to their pens. Felix couldn't think of anything to say and he wasn't going to lie to her. He wasn't going to reassure her that everything was going to be all right because it wasn't.
He glanced at his watch: no time left. Felix clipped the chain onto Molly's collar and summoned a small, sombre smile.
"Okay, let's go."The amenities in Room 17 were a little different to the rest of the Zoo's suites. It had a wide, comfortable bed and a small ensuite like the rest, even the sturdy metal rings set into the wall and floor were standard to tether the pets, but 17 also had a few extra features that brutes like Brewster appreciated. The mobile, metal 'whipping frame' was very popular, the narrow wooden bench certainly had it's uses, and there was a walk-in wardrobe full of things toys and implements, sharp and blunt, restraints all available for the client's use.
Felix loathed this room, no matter how thoroughly he cleaned in here it always seemed to hold the lingering odours of sweat and shit and blood. He clipped the end of Molly's silver lead to one of the rings in the wall, paused for a moment to wordlessly stroke her cheek then turned to leave. Except... he couldn't do it, he couldn't leave her here to wait on her own. Felix exhaled noisily and plonked himself down on the edge of the bed. Molly watched him, wine-red eyes wide and frightened, then she shuffled over to the length of her chain and knelt beside him, pressed tightly against his leg, her head resting on his thigh. Felix lifted his hand to stroke gently between her ears and they settled down to wait.... and wait.
Fifteen minutes later Brewster still hadn't put in an appearance. Felix frowned and checked his watch again. This was unusual, the bastard was really anal about being somewhere on time. His face flushed with a surge of hope maybe he wasn't coming? The keeper decided to give it another five minutes before... before what? Before he took Molly back to the pens Felix decided and damn Richard, and Brewster if they said anything!
The five minutes crawled by and still Molly's client didn't arrive. Ignoring the nervous hammering of his heart Felix stood, disturbing the bunny from her light doze, and untied her lead.
"I'm not sure what's going on," he informed her as she blinked sleepily at him, "but I'll take you back to the stable for the meantime."
Molly's smile was uncertain but she couldn't help but be relieved to be leaving that room, even if it was only a temporary reprieve.Felix had settled the bunny back in her pen then gone in search of Richard. He found his cousin in the office rifling through the wall safe, pulling things out and tossing them carelessly into an open briefcase.
"Richard?" the proprietor snapped his head around to look at him, then went back to pawing through the secure box. "What's going on?"
"Fucking Agency is what's going on!"
Felix blinked, taken aback he'd never heard his cousin swear before.
"What?"
"The Agency," Richard enunciated each word with heavy, sarcastic emphasis, "has raided the London clinic." He slammed the door of the safe shut. "There's all sorts of shit going down and I'm leaving."
Felix gaped and stammered out the only thing his befuddled brain could grasp.
"So... Brewster won't be coming around then?"
Richard stared at him then laughed bitterly.
"No. Brewster or anybody else for that matter if they've got any sense won't be coming around."
"Right." Felix watched his cousin close the briefcase and shrug into his suit jacket. Something else permeated the fog. "Wait a minute." He frowned. "Where you going to tell me any of this or where you just going to bugger off without a word?"
"Oh I was going to tell you," Richard smirked mirthlessly. He tugged open a desk drawer and pulled out first a pistol, then a clip of ammunition and dropped them on the desk top. "Kill the animals "
"What?" Felix spluttered. "Why?"
"So they can't talk!"
"But... they can't talk anyway...
"Telepaths, moron!" Richard snarled.
"Oh, right..." The 'paths could pick the incriminating evidence right out of the pets' brains.
"And when you've done that," Richard pulled something else out of the drawer, "I want you to set this off, in this room."
Felix read the label on the canister he'd been handed and almost dropped the thing. Incendiary grenade it'd vaporise the office, and all the records, then the ensuing fire would destroy the building. Very neat.
"It's got a 20 second fuse," Richard continued, "pull the pin then get the fuck out."
"Right." Felix tore his gaze away from the grenade as his cousin pushed past him. "Where are you going?"
"Florence." Richard threw back over his shoulder.
"Wait, Richard!" Felix called to the brunette as he bolted out of the office. Richard stopped.
"What now?" he growled, impatient.
"I don't owe you anything, okay?"
"Yeah, fine. We're quits. See you 'round." And Richard was gone.Felix listened to his cousin's footsteps growing fainter, followed by the unmistakable clang of the outer door. He shivered: he was alone with a handful of modified human slaves Richard was expecting him to murder, in a building Richard was expecting him to torch. Time slowed and froze, it was as if all Felix's choices, all the decisions he'd ever made in his life were pointing to this one moment.
A blissful serenity settled over him.
Very carefully, the ex-keeper placed the grenade back on the desk top, then reached for the phone...Lenore Baxter was weary, tense, feeling like she was running purely on adrenalin. The raids on the London 'pet-makers' were progressing smoothly but it'd been go go go since before dawn and damn she needed a coffee. She was at her desk, focusing hard on fixing the initial details of a report and the sound of her phone ringing was not welcome.
Charles chuckled at her barely civil greeting and Lenore instantly forced herself to relax.
"I'm sorry, love," she sighed, "It's frantic here."
"No problem," the Metropolitan Police detective smiled. "Look, we've just had a call from a man claiming he's at a secret pet brothel."
"What?" Lenore stiffened in her chair.
"Name's Felix Roysdon. He says he was the keeper there, he looked after the pets."
"Holy..." the Agent breathed, reaching for pen and paper. "Anything else? Did you get an address?"
"Yes, hang on..." there was a slight pause then Charles returned and dictated an address in one of the new industrial suburbs. "Do you think it's genuine?"
"Don't know, could be." Lenore rubbed her eyes. "Given what I've seen so far a pet brothel is well within the realms of possibility."
"Oh, Roysdon also said he's alone, unarmed and he won't resist so please don't shoot him."
Baxter half-smiled.
"I'll bear that in mind, anything else?"
"Yes, he says the door will be unlocked, that there's nine captive pets and one of them needs medical attention a.s.a.p."
Lenore finished scribbling and was already *calling* for her partner.
"Thanks for that, hon, we'll check it out immediately."
"Be careful." Charles said. "Will I see you tonight?"
"Don't know, love, I hope so. Though I doubt I'll be good for anything bar eating and sleeping!"
The detective laughed.
"No problem, won't be the first time you've fallen asleep on me!"
"Har har." Lenore was grinning. "Love you, too. See you later." She hung up and was out of her office before she'd finished *organising* a team...Felix wasn't sure what result he'd been expecting when he'd made the call to the police but it certainly wasn't being confronted by a tall, beautiful woman with cold blue eyes who seized his mind then knifed in, quick as a thrust, then out again before he'd had a chance to draw breath.
"I... I'll take you to the pets " Felix started to say.
"We know where they are." The 'path snapped as a dozen armed and armoured individuals streamed past.
"I... just need to sit down." Felix's head was pounding and he slumped against the wall.
"Time for that later," there was a firm grip on his elbow, preventing him from sliding to the floor. The ex-keeper raised his aching eyes to see a short, blonde woman regarding him narrowly. "Right now you can take me through to the office..."An hour later and Felix's head was still throbbing dully in time with his pulse. The painkillers he'd been given didn't seem to be doing much.
He was in a blank room somewhere, sitting at a table, waiting to be 'interviewed'. Felix wrapped his hands around his beaker of strong coffee, willing the warmth into nerveless fingers. The door opened and two figures came in, the blonde woman who'd headed the raid on the Zoo and Felix involuntarily flinched when he saw her the icy 'path.
Were all 'paths freaky?
She smiled like a panther and Felix curled in on himself had she heard that?The blonde sat opposite him, taking her time, placing a file on the table in front of her, opening it with deliberation, arranging the papers inside just so. The telepath was somewhere behind him, out of his line of sight and the skin between Felix's shoulders crawled.
"Mr Roysdon. Felix." The blonde spoke with sharp authority. "Why did you call us?"
Felix blinked.
"Why do you think? The pets needed to be rescued."
"Why did you stay, after calling us?" Green eyes bored into him. "You could've run."
"What and spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder? No thanks."
"You'd have been free at least," the blonde pressed, "Now it's almost certain you're going to do some serious time inside."
He shook his head.
"I wouldn't have been free. If Richard had found out I'd not only not done as instructed but let all those records fall into your hands, I'd be a dead man walking."
She glanced at her notes.
"That'd be Richard Roysdon, your cousin?" Felix nodded and she frowned. "He's family and you're grassing on him."
"What? You'd rather I hadn't?" He grimaced. "My cousin is a greedy, unfeeling prick who doesn't care about someone else's misery if he can make a profit!"
The blonde quirked an eyebrow at his outburst.
"You don't like him?"
"No, I don't like him!"
"Is that why you've been so helpful, revenge?"
"... Not entirely." Felix slumped again, deflated.
"Then what?"
He tilted his head and smiled mirthlessly at her.
"Would you believe I'm trying to atone?"
She frowned.
"Atone? For what?"
"For... for not helping get those poor sods out of there sooner, for just doing nothing even though I knew what was happening to them."
"And what was happening to them, Felix?" the woman's voice was soft.
"Rape, torture, mutilation, murder." His mouth twisted on the words. "And I did nothing."
The blonde leant forwards.
"Why didn't you help, Felix?"
"Because... because I'm weak, and I was scared and.. and..." He brushed away helpless tears, hating himself all over again.
"What were you scared of, Felix?"
"My cousin, the people who paid to use the pets... Jane." He shuddered.
"Jane?"
"A telepath," Felix sniffed, wiped his nose on the back of his hand. "She was... nasty." He rubbed his hands across his eyes and so missed the look that flashed between the blonde and her partner.
"Did she mess with you, your mind?"
"Yes." Felix shuddered at the memory. "She was the one to check me out before I started work."
The woman nodded slowly, then she straightened up.
"We need your help, Felix. We need to find this woman. Locked in your subconscious is a memory... scent, if you like, of her. We'd like to have one of our 'paths scan you they can retrieve that scent, then we can track her down." She gazed at him, green eyes earnest. "Will you help us?"
Felix shuddered at the thought but nodded.
"Thank you." the woman smiled, her face softening and brightening. "We also need to find your cousin. Any idea where he'd be?"
A slow, rather malicious smile spread over the ex-keepers face.
"Florence. Richard said he was going to Florence."It wasn't the most luxurious of accommodation but at least the food was reasonable...
Felix was in a remand centre waiting for his preliminary court hearing. He'd been here for ten days - in protective custody because of the perceived threat to his life and hence his evidence but his brief had high hopes of his getting a lenient sentence, if his case came to court at all. Felix wasn't so sure. Yes he was only a small fish in the large pond of the pet industry but he still had to take some responsibility. The plea of 'I was only following orders' hadn't worked at Nuremburg, or any other trial since: there was no guarantee it'd work now despite his lawyer's improbable optimism."Roysdon, you've got a visitor."
Felix looked up from the book he was reading and blinked at the guard.
"A visitor?"
"Yes, a visitor," the middle-aged, self-acknowledged comedic master rolled his eyes. "You know, one of them as visits people."
"Right. Thanks." Felix closed the book, stood up and glancing into the tiny square of mirror above the basin, quickly smoothed his hair down.
"Yes, you're beautiful." The guard smirked. "I'm sure she'll be impressed..."He was shown into one of the private visiting rooms and he stood there dumbly while his guard took up a position beside the door.
"Molly?"
"M'name's Elise." The bunny-girl gave him a small half-smile. Felix stared.
"You can talk. How?"
"'ve got one o' those cyber voice-box thingies." Elise self-consciously touched fingertips to her throat. "Took a bit o' gettin' used to."
"That's fantastic," Felix beamed, running his gaze over her furred face, trying to work out what else was different.
"ve got a proper nose now too." She grinned, '... and..." she held up her hand and wiggled all ten of the normal-looking digits. "No more paws."
"Wow." Felix knew his own grin was a bit on the dim-witted side. "That's great." He flicked his eyes up to her long, velvety ears. Elise shrugged.
"Can't do owt about them, or the fur, or the tail, but 's okay I kinda like 'em."
"How... how are you, anyway?"
"'m fine, good. Ta." She smiled again, shyly. "'m goin' back t' school."
"That's great," Felix said, wondering just how old she actually was. "To do what? I mean, what subjects?"
"Teachin', pre-school. Always wanted t' teach little 'uns." She shrugged again, looking down. "Can't 'ave kids o' m'own now, but I c'n still teach."
"You'll be a fantastic teacher, I'm sure." Felix dragged up a smile.
"Anyways, can't stay long," Elise looked up, "Just came t'say thanks."
He frowned.
"For what?"
"F'r helpin' us. 've been speaking t' th' others and they've told me what you used to do, even though it meant trouble f'r you 'f you were caught."
"Oh. Right." Felix shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. "It wasn't much."
"Y'r did what y' could." Elise said softly, "'an it's appreciated."
Felix nodded.
"You said you've been speaking to the others? How are they? How's " he realised he didn't know the big cat's name, "How's the leopard?"
"Kyle." Elise's eyes were sad. "'e's not well. Renal failure or somesuch. The doctors think he'll be all right eventually. They've gotta go slow with him though. He dun't 'ave 'is voice back yet, or 'is 'ands; doctors think 'e's not strong enough for surgery yet."
"Damn." Felix's shoulders drooped. "I hope he'll come good soon. Can you give him my best if you see him again?"
"I will." Elise stood up. "Sorry, 've gotta go. 's been good t' see y'again, Felix."
"And you." the ex-keeper smiled up at her. "Good luck with everything."
"Ta." She paused at the door then smiled back at him over her shoulder. "We've told 'em the cops 'bout what you used to do f'r us. Hope it helps y'r case."
"Thanks." Felix was surprised, and touched; he didn't deserve that sort of consideration.
"See ya!" Elise flashed him one last smile and then the door shut firmly after her.
"Back to your cell now, Roysdon." The guard tapped him on the shoulder.Felix wandered along beside the guard feeling a little less apprehensive, a little less... guilt ridden, he guessed. It was likely he'd be spending a good chunk of his life behind bars anyway but at least he'd tried to do the right thing, and his efforts had been noticed...
© 2004 June 17th Lutra
Darkside
© 2004 Wordwrights