The Devil's Surrogate (12 page)

'Aye, well,
whether you did or didn't, I reckon the blame can be laid before
you fair enough anyway. The man was a weak fool, and somehow you
managed to get inside his stupid head to mess with his thoughts,
and that's why he did himself in, no mistake about it. So it'll be
fair and square, an eye for an eye, when we hang you tonight.'

Harriet
whimpered, but there was no way in which she could otherwise
communicate with her tormentor.

'Ha, well, you
might be scared, but it'll be painless enough, just a quick drop.
Of course, if the old witch you call your grandmother still refuses
to pay by the time dusk comes, then maybe we'll get the drop wrong,
and maybe there'll be a little jig for her to watch.' He reached
out and grasped Harriet's nipples cruelly between his thumb and
forefingers. 'I've sent a man to find her with that message, but it
seems she's disappeared into thin air for he reports there's no
sign of life at her cottage. Not that it'll help her much, for
she'll be the next one to swing, and the miller's lad too. Jed
Mardley's body was discovered in a hut in the woods and there's
witnesses that both the crone and the lad were out that way, so
once we've dealt with you, we'll have to deal with them too.'

Harriet
blinked as she struggled to take in everything Crawley was saying.
That he still thought she was Matilda was obvious, for the mask and
the spike branch prevented either recognition or appeal. That he
had originally taken Matilda in collusion with Wickstanner was also
not surprising, and neither was the apparent admission that greed
for gold had more to do with his actions than a genuine belief
Matilda had offended the Church, despite his occasional references
to the devil. With Wickstanner dead, that now left Crawley in
complete control of both church and village, at least from a
spiritual point of view, and the ease with which he had recruited
additional support was testimony to the greed and ignorance of a
certain element of humanity. But that one of his original cohorts
had died and he was preparing to lay a case against Hannah
Pennywise and James Calthorpe as a result meant that if Hannah did
in fact come forward in an attempt to buy Matilda's life, she would
be walking straight into a trap.

Did Hannah
still labour under the misapprehension that Crawley was holding her
granddaughter and preparing to execute her? If the old woman had
been in any way connected with swapping herself for Matilda
(perhaps she had paid Jane and her friends to do the deed in the
first place) might that not explain the old woman's disappearance?
She and Matilda would surely be many miles away by now and unlikely
to return until long after they were sure Crawley had left the
area. In that case, there would be no attempt to pay a ransom, and
even though it was obvious Crawley did not intend to release his
prisoner anyway, if the money he demanded did not arrive, he would
be very angry.

Harriet
shuddered.

Isobel de
Lednay was not only beginning to regret her impulsive wager (she
had begun to regret it even before the maid finished fitting her
bird tunic and mask) she was beginning to regret not withdrawing
from it before it had become too late to do so.

Now, with a
gag strapped into her mouth beneath the beak (she had protested and
tried to resist this, but to no avail) further argument was
impossible, and she knew there was nothing for it but to run with
the other bird girls when the order was given.

The guests had
watched her humiliation with a curious mixture of anticipation and
stunned silence. Even the usually brash and obnoxious Bressingham
seemed at a loss for words and made no comment when Grayling
insisted she wear these awful nipple clamps with their attached
bells. He pointed out that as the other girls had nipple rings it
would give her an unfair advantage if she also were not obliged to
wear them. 'At least I'm not insisting your teats be pierced, my
sweet,' he had murmured as he tightened the round clamps, 'but we
can't have totally silent birds in the woods, otherwise how will
the hunters know where to start looking?' He then completed her
ensemble by tying a length of ribbon between the rings, which would
distinguish her from the other birds so only Bressingham would be
permitted to hunt her.

'However,' he
announced to the gathering, 'if any other hunters see this pretty
bird, they are at liberty to let Bressingham know where she is
lurking.'

A large
hourglass filled with sand had been brought out from the house and
set up on a small table in the centre of the lawn. Isobel saw the
glass had been marked in several places, both at the top and at the
bottom, and that the sand currently in the lower section would
apparently take four hours to run through. She, however, only had
to remain at liberty until the first hour's passing was marked.

'When the
first hour is up,' Grayling announced, 'I shall instruct the bell
in the tower to be rung ten times. Its sound can be heard
everywhere in the grounds and a good deal further, so there will be
no mistaking when, or if, the wager has been completed.' He turned
to where the actual hunters had gathered. The deadly-looking Oona
squatted before a black-garbed figure who held her leash, and
Isobel realised it was a female, although she was tall for a woman
and her breasts were either small or bound flat against her chest
beneath the leather jerkin. 'And now it is time. The birds are
allowed a head start of four minutes. I shall count to
two-hundred-and-fifty at a steady pace to make sure.'

The bird-girls
shuffled uneasily, eyeing each other as if wondering whether or not
they should already be running and glancing at Oona, whose hands
had been encased in strange glove-like pouches from which a steel
claw projected at the end of each finger.

Isobel turned
her head to peer out at Grayling from her bird head, and he seemed
to be looking directly at her.

He raised a
hand, and glanced back at the spectators, playing the drama to its
full. 'If we're ready then,' he said, and dropping his hand with a
flourish cried, 'Run, you little feathered whores!'

Sarah nearly
collapsed when Ross finally released and lifted her down from her
terrible perch. Her knees buckled, the strength drained from every
muscle by the prolonged and wracking orgasms her captor had
inflicted upon her. Now, as he indicated for her to kneel before
him, she was only too willing to obey. His manhood rose up straight
and stiff despite the rigours to which it had subjected her as he
leaned forward and unbuckled her gag strap, pulling the sodden and
chewed wedge of leather out from between her teeth. She knew
without being told what was now expected of her.

Closing her
eyes, she bobbed her head forward until she felt the head of his
weapon bump against her lips. Slowly, she allowed her lips to slide
over his taut, hot flesh until she had taken his head entirely into
her mouth and it was pressing firmly against her tongue. The taste
of it was at once salty and sweet, and Sarah realised she must in
fact be sucking on her own juices. Ross grasped her head, forcing
himself further into her reluctant mouth, and she all but gagged as
his shaft pushed towards the back of her throat.

'Make some
effort now, my little bitch slave.'

Reluctantly,
she drew back until only the tip of his erection was between her
lips, and then she plunged forward again, sucking firmly as she did
so.

'That's more
like it... just keep that up, there's a good girl.'

Sarah screwed
her eyes tightly closed and began to work at the task with a slow
rhythm that was rewarded by matching strokes of her hair by his
fingers.

'That's very
good,' he said, and it seemed his voice had risen somewhat.

She wondered
if he was going to show the same restraint and control he had
displayed during his prolonged fucking, or if he was now going to
pay her the ultimate insult, having refused to come inside her body
only to spend in her hapless mouth. Her answer was not long in
coming.

'Faster now,'
he urged, thrusting forward to meet her movements and almost
choking her in the process. 'That's it... damn you, you little
bitch, but you have a soft mouth!'

Sarah
whimpered around her flesh-and-blood gag, but now she did not dare
stop, and having come this far she began fiercely telling herself
it no longer mattered, that anything was better than the
punishments she had both received and witnessed. The air in this
gloomy and bizarre little chamber seemed more oppressive than ever,
and the only thought she now had was to please this beast and
hopefully get out of this place as soon as possible.

'That's it,'
Ross gasped, and an instant later she felt her throat being sprayed
with his hot, salty seed. She tried to pull back, but his hands
grasped the back of her neck and held her to him, and she knew he
would not release her until she performed the ultimate act. With a
choking sob, Sarah swallowed.

Matilda
stumbled several times during the first few yards of her run, but
she quickly realised that haste meant less speed and so she reduced
her run to a short striding canter and began to take greater stock
of her surroundings.

Already the
house and lawn were well hidden from view. The trees were tall and
grew close together, and the undergrowth ranged from low-lying
brambles to large, sprawling bushes taller than she was. The place
truly was a wilderness, and but for pathways cut fairly clearly by
human hands, she could have been in the depths of the most remote
countryside weeks away from civilisation.

The bells
hanging from her nipple rings kept up a constant jingling as she
ran, and there was no way she could bring her arms around far
enough to suppress the sound. She tried calculating how much time
had passed since she began running. She guessed maybe half of the
four minutes must have elapsed, yet the time could just as easily
be up and the bells would give her away if she was still moving
once the hunters began approaching.

She staggered
to a halt, panting heavily and looking wildly around. Before her
the trail forked left and right, but unless she wanted to risk
remaining on the open pathways and offering no option to her
pursuers other than a simple this way or that, she would have to
risk making her way through the forest itself. Perhaps, she
thought, there would be other turns after the fork, but there was
little time now in which to find out. Assuming the hunters could
run twice as fast as she could, she had less than five minutes
before they would be able to hear her, and once they got a bearing
on her position, she was unlikely to escape their clutches for
long. Turning, she began to lope along the pathway again.

All the
bird-girls had been directed to enter the woods at different
points, so there was little chance of a hunter who chose her route
stumbling across another victim to distract him. She had to find
cover, but there seemed no way to make progress through such dense
foliage. Praying the trees would thin out a little before long, she
hesitated only for a moment when she came to the fork in the path
before swinging off to the right. She almost cried out with relief
when only a few paces along her chosen path the greenery on her
right suddenly thinned out. A long clearing stretched at right
angles to the path, and unless she was imagining things, several
other narrower trails appeared to lead away from it at irregular
intervals.

Breathing
hard, Matilda ran into the middle of the clearing, cursing the
jingling bells and the constant pulling and jerking on her tender
nipples. She had tried all along to ignore the hard leather
phalluses, but as she ran they seemed to come alive inside her. Air
whistled through the holes in her mask as she paused to try to get
some air back into her aching lungs, and she used this brief
interlude to try and think. She counted seven different paths
leading away from the clearing, none of them very wide, and there
was no guarantee they might not all peter out after only a few
yards. However, if she kept thinking like this then she might as
well give up now, and she had been warned what became of girls who
allowed themselves to be caught too easily.

Whether the
paths led anywhere, more important was whether her pursuers knew if
they did or not, or if their knowledge of the grounds was as sparse
as her own. If the latter was the case, then the seven routes
offered Matilda odds of seven to one, odds that, with any degree of
luck, should give her a reasonable chance of remaining at large for
more than an hour, perhaps even two. If she did choose a dead end,
then she would go to ground and try to lay quiet in the hope that
anyone who happened to follow the same path might not feel inclined
to search too thoroughly.

The last exit
seemed the obvious choice since it would take her the furthest away
from the hunting area... too obvious, she decided, for if she was
followed this far, the hunter might realise her initial choice at
the fork had been made with exactly this thought in mind. Two
pathways to her right seemed to lead back in the approximate
direction of the house, so she discounted those as well, although
not before she allowed herself another couple of seconds to
consider whether this fact alone might put off a would-be captor.
In the end, she decided it would be too confining if she did go
back that way, and after only an instant's hesitation she plunged
down the central path to her left. She almost caught her foot
against a trailing tree root, and flapping wildly to keep her
balance silently cursed the bells, the tree, and above all the
wickedness that had brought her to this pass.

All the while
as she ran, the image in her mind of the awful dog-woman began to
grow, the fang-like teeth appearing to elongate in her mental
picture, the baleful, predatory eyes seeming to shine with a
sinister light...