In Death 09 - Loyalty in Death

galley, or the screen selection."
    "A comfortable body produces a sharp mind."
    "That's lame. You're usually better than that when you try to hose me. You're off today, Peabody."
    She thought of that wild interlude with McNab in an empty office. "You're telling me."
    Zeke worked steadily, precisely, doing his best to focus his mind on the wood and his pleasure in it.
    He'd known his sister hadn't slept well the night before. He'd heard her stirring and pacing while he'd laid awake on the living room pull-out. He'd wanted to go to her, offer to meditate with her, or to make her one of his organic soothers, but he hadn't been able to face her.
    His mind was full of Clarissa, of the way she'd felt snuggled into his arms, of how sweet her lips had tasted. It shamed him. He believed strongly in the sanctity of marriage. One of the reasons he'd never pursued a serious relationship was that he'd promised himself when he took those vows to another, he would keep them throughout his life.
    There had been no one he'd loved enough to make promises to.
    Until now.
    And she belonged to someone else.
    Someone who didn't appreciate her, he thought now as he had during the night. Someone who mistreated her, made her unhappy. Vows were meant to be broken when they caused pain.
    No, he couldn't talk to Dee when thoughts like that were skimming through his head. When he couldn't get Clarissa out of his mind and offer his own sister comfort.
    He'd seen the reports of the bombing on the news the evening before. It had horrified him. He understood that not everyone embraced the cause-no-harm tenets that formed the foundation of the Free-Agers. He knew that even some Free-Agers modified that foundation to suit their lifestyles, and after all, the religion was designed to be fluid.
    He knew cruelty existed. That murder was done every day. But he had never seen the kind of terrible disregard for life as he had on the viewing screen at his sister's apartment the evening before.
    Those who were capable of it had to be less than human. No one with heart and soul and guts could destroy lives in that way. He believed that, clung to the hope that such a thing was an aberration, a mutation. And that the world had evolved beyond acceptance of wholesale death.
    It had been a shock when he'd seen Eve moving through the carnage. Her face had been blank, he remembered, her clothes splattered with blood. He'd thought she'd looked exhausted, and hollow, and somehow courageous. Then it had struck him that his sister must have been there as well, somewhere in the horror of all that.
    Eve had only spoken to one reporter, a pretty, foxy-faced woman whose green eyes had mirrored her grief.
    "I don't have anything to add to what you see here, Nadine," she'd said. "This isn't the time or place for statements. The dead make their own."
    And when his sister had come home, with that same exhausted look on her face, he'd left her alone.
    He hoped now that he'd done so for her sake and not his own. He hadn't wanted to talk about what she'd seen and done. Hadn't wanted to think about it. Or about Clarissa. And while he'd been able to control his mind enough to blank out those images of death, he hadn't had the power to do so with the woman.
    She would stay away from him now, he thought. They would stay away from each other, and that was best. He would finish the job he'd promised to do, then he would go back to Arizona. He'd fast and he'd meditate and he'd purge his system of her.
    Maybe he'd camp in the desert for a few days, until his mind and heart were in balance again.
    Then the sounds came through the vent. The angry laugh of the man, the soft pleas of the woman.
    "I said I want to fuck. It's all you're good for, anyway."
    "Please, B. D., I'm not feeling well this morning."
    "I don't give a damn how you feel. It's your job to spread your legs when I tell you to."
    There was a thud, then a cry sharply cut off. The crash of glass.
    "On your knees. On your knees, you bitch."
    "You're hurting me. Please -- "
    "Use that mouth of yours for something besides whining. Yeah, yeah. Put some effort into it, for Christ's sake. It's a miracle I can get it up with you in the first place. Harder, you whore. You know where I had my cock last night? You know where I had what you've got in your whiny mouth? In that new 'link operator I hired. I got my money's worth there."
    He was panting now, grunting like an animal, and Zeke squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for it to