Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Midvalley's Serenade ❯ A Killer Horn Solo ( Chapter 36 )

A Killer Horn Solo

Knives was in an odd mood as we walked to the White Cat Saloon. I would never have known from his easy loping stride that he had ever been crippled. I could see now the raw sexuality he exuded, a potent combination of vitality and self-assurance packaged in an elegantly sculpted body. He walked two steps ahead of me and a half step ahead of Legato.

"You're a man of few words this evening, Hornfreak. I'm curious about how you spent your day. This morning you were a vegetable. I suppose my able assistant, Legato was able to work the miracle with his healing ability and now you're able to walk and talk at the same time and button the buttons on your clothes. It's an improvement," he sneered, "but, tell me, how did he do it?"

I could read his angry mood loud and clear. He already knew, so why was he asking? He sounded jealous.

"I guess it was a little like what you did with me," I offered.

Knives turned to Legato and asked him, "Can you tell me if he's being subtle or stupid. I can't quite figure him out."

"I think that was subtlety, Master."

"You know him so intimately…Should I trust you to tell me the truth, Legato?"

"Of course, Master."

"So did you kiss him?" asked Knives.

"There may have been some contact of that nature."

"You know I don't approve of that. What happened after you fucked him?"

"Why, he felt better, Master."

"You look like you feel better, Legato. You look too relaxed. Did he do something to you?"

"Nothing to speak of, my lord," said Legato.

"But I want you to speak of it," countered Knives, "yet you give me vague generalities. I think you want to keep something from me. I'll ask the Hornfreak."

"What did you do to Legato?" he asked me.

"I gave him a massage," I said.

Knives snickered, "I'll just bet you did. So you have some talent along those lines as well. I heard rumors of your sexual exploits. You started out quite young I hear. I heard you were turning tricks at the White Cat Saloon in your teens."

" I don't know where you heard that rumor. I never sold my body for money," I said.

"Oh really?" said Knives, "then just what is it you do for me?" He burst out in laughter as if he had just made the best joke in the world.

"I heard you gave blowjobs in the alley behind the White Cat Saloon. I heard you let them fuck you up the ass. I heard you liked it rough," he whispered in a confidential tone.

Legato looked frozen.

"Not particularly," I responded, but inside I was quaking. He had reawakened my memories of the rape and my mood began to darken.

Since I volunteered nothing further, Knives dominated the conversation as he had from the beginning. It was more of a monologue really, with Legato injecting parenthetical comments. There was something quite feminine about Legato's submissiveness with Knives and to me it appeared artificial, but Knives seemed not to notice.

I didn't want to engage either of them in conversation. I wanted to reach out with my link and get a sense of Nick's presence, but found my link to him blocked by the proximity of Knives and Legato because of the relative recency of my intimacy with them.

With that option cut off, I decided to listen and observe as much for my own safety as for any other reason. Knives was one of the most dangerous individuals I had ever spent time with. I watched the way Knives and Legato interacted with the same careful respect that I would show any lethal predator.

Legato was everything that was solicitous and servile. With his empathic gift and as attuned to Knives as he was, I was sure that he was receptive to every small nuance of feeling that he caught from Knives.

Knives treated Legato as a man might treat a well-trained pet. He gave him just that kind of encouragement., the same that he had shown to me when he applauded me for my cleverness or showed me where I fell short, but there was also an undercurrent of anger in Knives feelings towards Legato.

Then I thought, no, not as a pet--he sees us more like work animals, such as a watch dog that he could kill with out a second thought. He appreciated our ability to do a job for him, despite his contempt for our very existence.

My reverie was interrupted when I heard Knives say, "You've got it wrong, Hornfreak. It's not your animal nature that I have a problem with. It's your pretension in presuming that you're anything more. I can understand your sweaty grappling with the priest or Legato. Its pleasure you're after. What I don't understand is that after a little while, you confuse that feeling with love. I think it's a problem with your basic programming.

A bitch in heat has more honesty. At least she is trying to preserve the species. As for you, the fevered groping serves to release physical tension--nothing more. But humans insist on calling it love. It's part of the tendency of the species towards self-hypnosis."

"Don't give me that blank look, Legato," he continued. "You're as prone to it as any of them You cringe like a whipped dog, because what you really want is for me to treat you as an equal and you know I never will. I should never have given you the arm. It has given you delusions of grandeur. Your bleeding heart disgusts me. Your emotions cling to me like filth. Stop it, Legato."

"As you wish, Master."

"It was almost refreshing in comparison, fucking the Hornfreak. At least he didn't spill his sloppy emotions over me the way you do. And now I have to deal with your jealousy?

I could take the arm back and put it back in stasis. You didn't really think I'd allow you to keep it forever…Yes, I'll just take it back and be done with you."

"As you wish, Master,"

For the life of me, there was something about the interaction between the two that reminded me of a lover's spat. It would have been comical if Knives hadn't been in such dead earnest.

"Let me touch his hand, Legato," said Knives in a tone that was almost amorous. Legato extended his arm to Knives with seductive slowness and they walked hand in hand for a while.

I couldn't understand Legato at all. He had healed me that very morning, but his motives eluded me. I reached out to touch him through the link we had, but he blocked off as much of his emotions as he could. I wondered if he was using me to somehow get back at Knives and awaken his feelings of jealousy. If he had, his ploy seemed to be working like a charm. Knives couldn't see his own behavior, but I could. There was an intense chemistry between the two. Though I was somehow the catalyst of this jealous drama, I felt in a way that it had nothing to do with me.

And yet, there had been more between Legato and me when we had sex. There was an unspoken declaration of--I couldn't call it love, but there appeared to be a strong kinship between us. I had felt sympathy for him, and even the stirring of passion.

After a minute or two of the contact, Knives dropped Legato's hand and began to berate him again, "I won't be manipulated by your attempts to make me jealous. You'd use anyone, including your friend, the Hornfreak. I'm a little sick of the game, but I know how to end it. Why don't you tell him about the rape, Legato, or shall I?"

I stared at Knives, who considered me with a pitying sneer. I got gooseflesh from the look he gave me.

"Did you forget I know all your dirty little secrets, Legato, including today's. You call yourself loyal?"

"It was just for the healing. I assure you he can prove useful to you, Master."

"He was useful to you, Legato, but I think that will end when he finds out."

Knives turned to me and said with a smile, "He set you up, Hornfreak."

I wasn't sure what he meant but I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"No," I said.

"Oh, yes, Hornfreak. It was years ago, but Legato orchestrated the whole thing. He hired the men at the White Cat who raped you. They used a choke chain as I recall from his memories. Did you know he watched the whole thing before he came like an angel of mercy to rescue you. And you've always been so grateful to your benefactor. Did you show him your gratitude this morning? How do you feel about him now?"

I felt as though the earth had opened at my feet and I almost longed for it to swallow me and end this. It was too much. I looked at Legato who walked alongside me, an arm's length away. His betrayal hit me hard. My feelings must have shown on my face. I wondered that he could meet my eyes at all. When he did he shook his head as if to deny Knives' accusation.

Was he trying to tell me he hadn't done it? But I remembered my dream and his voice, saying, "I'm here, Midvalley. Help me," just before they dragged me down the alley. The certainty overwhelmed me. He had done it.

"Why, Legato? Why?" I breathed and tears stung at my eyes, but I would not let them fall. My memories of the rape assailed me…'Pretty pink whore…that can't be no man's ass…I'll kill you first and fuck you after'…the memories of their words… what they did to me…a feeling of horror and disgust ran through me. I felt a sudden desire to run, but could not. The revelation had shocked me.

"Legato…" I couldn't say the word without wanting to vomit. I walked for a few more steps in a daze and then we were within earshot of the White Cat Saloon and I heard music, and it wasn't just any music.

The first thing I heard was an exciting fevered pounding of drums and cymbals, then the smooth deep rhythm of a bass guitar, fingered fast and clean. Someone on piano played aggressive stride style with the left hand while the melody from the right hand rippled like water from the keys. I heard the strident scrape of a bow on fiddle strings and two master guitarmen trading off seamlessly on rhythm and lead.

It was the Midvalley Seven, I nodded in recognition and I hastened my steps. I had to get away. I had to play Silvia. It was the only way I could get these thoughts out of my head. Hell, Nick might even be in town waiting for me at the saloon. I tried to smile at that thought, but my heart was too heavy. Then an inimitable flurry of golden notes from a trumpet floated out into the night and I knew that Hot Lips was in town.

I burst through the doors with a need to feel clean. The music called me, I wasn't quite sure what great tune they were playing but I heard it three times by the time I made it across the floor. I unsnapped the fastenings of Silvia's case as I went and in no time had her strapped around my neck and I bounded up on stage.

Lenny's eyes lit up. "It's "Dixie's Shout" he called out to me. I shrugged and smiled thinly, while Dixie arched an eyebrow, smiled at me and started to pound out another chorus on the keyboard. I slipped right in and took the next solo.

Silvia and I cut loose. I just closed my eyes and let my sax wail, let the waves of music wash over me like a baptism, cleansing my soul, but even linked with Silvia, still my feelings were dark as memories of the rape intruded. There were even men in the saloon who looked like the ones that raped me that night.

Legato, you bastard! I thought. I couldn't keep the blues out of my horn. In a minute, Hot Lips slid in behind me and matched me note for note. I started to get loose. The music went on wild and free, dizzying even discordant and we played it higher, wilder and hotter until suddenly I heard the strings of instruments breaking. Lenny's drum rhythm staggered and lurched, I heard screams and moans, as I kept playing hotter and hotter and the glass of Miss Adelaide's great glass window shattered into shards. I felt dizzy, opened my eyes, and the next note died on my lips.

I was shocked at the devastation I saw before me. The only people still alive in what had been a crowded saloon seemed to be Hot Lips, me, Legato, and Knives who clapped his gloved hands and shouted "Bravo! Hornfreak. That was music to my ears.!" I looked around the bandstand in shock. Dixie's body slumped over her piano, blood leaking onto the black and white keys. Randy, Jason, Toby, and Sunny lay in a tangled pile of shattered limbs, blood splattered and sprayed on splintered instruments.

"Oh, God, Lenny," I whispered when I saw him lying dead and broken as his drumheads. Inches away from him, I saw Dave's bloody corpse.

Tears sprang to my eyes as Knives continued his lonely applause. I turned to look at Hot Lips. He seemed stunned.

What was going on? In shock from what I was seeing, I lurched down the bandstand steps to get a drink to calm my nerves. When I got to the bar, I saw Miss Adelaide lying dead in her black spangled gown, with the bar girl from the picnic, limbs splayed, lifeless beside her, shattered bottles on the floor. The smell of cheap whiskey hit me. I poured a shot, tossed it back, gagged at the taste, but kept it down. When I raised my head, I saw the figure of a tall man with dark hair and a black suit lying dead by the batwing doors. I started to moan like a wounded animal.

I tore like a madman across the corpse-littered room throwing toppled chairs out of my way. I dug through bodies and felt a painful surge of relief when I realized the one I'd seen was not Nick's. I tried to open my link to him, but I found Knives and Legato instead. I was blocked again. I saw another body that looked like Nick and began to panic. There were more bodies. Every time I saw a black suit on a dark-haired man, my heart quaked, but in a short time I realized that Nicholas was not among the dead in that room.

I saw a tall dark figure slumped against the cushion of the booth in the saloon's back room and walked back slowly. I seized him by the shoulders and my panic eased as I recognized Caine. The eye of her masked face flew open. It was bloodshot from tears and liquor.

I heard a voice behind me. Knives.

"You needn't panic, Hornfreak. Your former partner is quite safe. I sent him out on an assignment this evening."

"Were you expecting him," Legato asked me.

"You know damned well I was, you crazy fuck." I growled in my throat. "How could you? Damn you to hell, Legato!"

I was about to take a deep breath and blow into Silvia's reed when a grip like a vise took hold of my lungs and I could neither inhale nor exhale. I couldn't catch my breath. My vision turned dark and the back of my neck got hot and sweaty. I was on the verge of fainting and heard a voice.

"Temper…temper, Hornfreak," said Knives. "This is just a little reminder that your loyalty is not to your band or your partner or even your father. It is to me.

I saw Hot Lips' body lying at my feet.

"You are the minstrel, but I am the Master and you will play whatever tune I set. Is that clear?"

My heart struggled to say no, but my mouth said, "Yes."

"I don't think you were paying attention to what I said earlier. You think you have free will, but you don't. You're a collection of protoplasm and biochemicals, part of a breeding experiment set in motion long ago on Planet Earth. It seems that freaks like you and Legato are the culmination, the pinnacle of the effort to improve the human race. If you are the high point of its evolution, its better that it ends with you.

Such primitive organisms really.

You have your bit of psychic power, a little healing ability, you really should be modest about your talents in that regard, and that empathic ability…it's really more of a liability now isn't it? What kind of gift is it to know what another one of the pitiful members of your race is feeling? As if it mattered.

True, you have mastered the ability to evoke emotions with the tonal patterns you play on your horn, but to think, you waste your talent, playing for the delectation of humans. The syrup you pour out of your horn is music to their ears. Your love ballads are only feel-good drugs for the masses.

Still you do have a talent and it's the only real talent you possess. It's what caught my attention from the first though you use it so rarely. But I saw you in fine form this evening.

With the talent you showed tonight, you leave the realm of humanity behind and actually touch the plane of the divine with the destructive chaos you unleashed.

My brother fights against it but he has the same talent for destruction. But with a little help from me, the power just flowed out of him just like it did from you…"

"What are you saying?" I asked sharply. I was beginning to enter a state bordering on shock.

"Not very quick on the uptake…smarter than most, but still so gullible and naïve…" Knives went on. "You thought that I killed your friends? I may have amplified the effects a bit, but it was your doing that killed them. You did it yourself and the only reason that anyone is still alive is that I blocked the sound waves from destroying those that I thought might be useful to me."

"It's a lie! It never happened this way before." I shouted and I stumbled back to the stage. The quietness of death was all around me. I looked down at Dixie and Lenny. Oh, God, the waste of that talent. I was stricken and I could not stop my tears. Toby, Sunny--the way the music had flowed out of his fingers, the sweet music I'd never make again with them. And for what? A madman obsessed with revenge.

I sank to my knees by Hot Lips and cradled his body in my arms. I felt lost and alone in my grief for my music, for my father, my friends.

Knives said in a condescending tone, "A family drama, both boring and futile. I thought I made it clear earlier, but I forgot I'm dealing with a human and its seems you need to be reminded every few moments…You will serve me!"

I was angry then and my tears dried. I tried to hold back the intense feelings of hatred that churned in me, but only because I wanted to see Nick again.

"You were right about that too, Legato. He is obsessed with the priest. I thought I'd made it clear to you, Hornfreak, that you serve me. Anything good that comes into your life only comes because I allow it. I begin to doubt that you'll ever see the priest again."

"I will see him again," I promised myself.

"Like you see your father now?" Knives sneered. "You still don't understand. Legato tells me you're smart but then that's what comes of listening to the opinion of a human. You don't have free will, Hornfreak. It's time you learned that you only have what choices I allow you. Get up, dog."

I got to my feet.

He'd made it clear that he could kill Nick if he wanted to, but if he did, what was the point of going on?

"Fuck you," I said with contempt. "I am not your dog. How's this for free will?"

I acted quickly, put my lips on Silvia's reed took a breath and blew, the air already thick, all my negative emotions focussed inward. I'd kill myself first…but I could not force the breath through the reed. I stood still as a statue with the breath stopped in my lungs. He wouldn't even allow me that much control over my destiny.

"I am the master and you are the minstrel. You will play the tune I set you. Is it clear?"

He allowed me to empty the breath in my lungs. It came out as a long sigh.

I hesitated a long moment before replying as the overwhelming sense of my powerlessness sank in.

"It is clear, Master Knives," I said in a dull voice.

Knives spoke to Legato, "Should I leave him just the slightest shred of hope the way I do you? Yes, it's crueler that way, I think."

I sensed movement at my feet, saw Hot Lips moving groggily, soft groans coming from his throat as he struggled to sit up.

I dropped to my knees and put my arm around him and let healing power flow through me. I felt the power that moved through me was stronger than it had been before. Hot Lips came to with a sharp intake of breath as if he'd been jolted awake by a whiff of smelling salts.

"Midvalley," he mumbled.

"I'm leaving, Hornfreak. Remember your new responsibilities," Knives called. "McCoy and Legato can explain everything you need to know. By the way, you are still Legato's assistant and I expect you to fulfill your role to perfection. Do you understand, Hornfreak?"

"Yes, Master Knives," I said.

"Are you coming, Legato?" asked the blond man in a petulant tone. "I want you tonight. The music put me into an odd mood. All that blood and death. It was positively intoxicating."

"Of course, Master," he murmured softly and pushed through the batwing doors after Knives.

I looked down at my father. He seemed fragile and diminished and looked every one of his fifty odd years of age. I helped him to his feet. He shuddered when he saw the devastation around him.

"Dixie?" he asked me.

"She's dead."

"Lenny? Sunny? Dave?"

"They're all dead," I replied.

He shuddered again.

"Let's get out of here."

My father was staying at the Hotel Central so I walked him back to his room. I had a lot on my mind., some of my thoughts so raw, I couldn't even consider them.

I wanted to arrange for the burial of my friends in the band. Toby was a bachelor but he had family in Mei City. Sunny's wife, Kima, was going to be devastated, and Knives had said that I killed him. I'd killed them all. How could it be? I'd always been able to control my gift before, but now, I had questions.

Dixie, Lenny, oh, God, I was going to miss their music. Now what? Would I even be able to play again? Only if Knives allowed it. But, no one would ever want to play with me if the truth got around. My thinking grew panicked.

"Relax, son," said Hot Lips as we got to the door of his room. He fumbled in his pocket for the key and I opened the door for him. He almost lost his footing but I caught him before he fell.

"I'm still a little dizzy. Was that Knives doing?"

"I don't know. Master Knives told me that you could explain things to me."

"It's simple really. Master Knives makes it his business to know what we value and buys our loyalty with the threat of destroying what we hold dear, but he destroys something we love first, so we will not doubt the seriousness of his intentions. You've seen his power. Do you have any reason to doubt that he could follow through on any threat?

"None, but you counseled me to be loyal to him. Why? He's a monster!"

Hot Lips sighed. "I told you he destroys something we love. It was because of him that your mother died. I thought it was an accidental death and that I was free of him at last, but he knew you were my son even before you showed the power. He knows the human instinct to protect progeny. He knows our instincts better than anyone. When he took you into the Academy on Legato's advice, I realized that you were the new hostage for my loyalty and for that reason alone, I serve him gladly."

"You're glad to serve the man who raped me?"

"At least you're alive."

"And without a shred of dignity left. Answer me this, do you know why he raped me? Was it for revenge or does he just enjoy inflicting pain?"

"There may be some of that reasoning, but you must have noticed that there is something in the sexual bond that magnifies the healing effect. Knives needed healing, so he used you. He had exhausted Legato's reserves and he needed the strength to try to find his brother. I think he may have used you before--those times when you were ill. He had a bond with you through Legato."

"So these are the actions of a superior being?" I asked.

"He can do what he wants," said Hot Lips, "and you can't deny that he's your superior."

I found that I couldn't.

"The bottom line is that even if he weren't, he knows what you value and he knows that he can take it away. I've told you before. You have to know where your priorities lie…"

"Nick…"

To Be Continued