Message-ID: <26201asstr$968184608@assm.asstr-mirror.org> From: michaeld38@aol.communism (MichaelD38) X-Original-Message-ID: <20000905140524.18500.00000360@nso-mc.aol.com> Subject: {ASSM} Vector, ch.14 {MichaelD} Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 16:10:08 -0400 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: dennyw, english, RuiJorge, Vulpine AUTHOR'S NOTE AND LEGAL STUFF I did not e-mail you this story. If you unexpectedly found it in your mailbox, it's because your kid and/or your spouse is subscribing to adult newsgroups without your knowledge. Flame them, not me. This story contains explicit sex. If you're a minor, you've obviously gotten past whatever paltry filters your parents tried to put on your computer, so hell, you might as well read it. No one ever died from reading about sex. This story is mine. Free reposting and archiving is okay; commercial use is not (that includes using it on some slimeball banner farm). Contact me if you have any questions; cross me and I'll have you fed to rabid weasels. This is another serial like "Call Girl Cheerleaders." I have no idea where it's going or how it will end. Want to find out? Send me mail. ***NOTE: Like the previous one, this chapter contains some rather detailed scenes of violence, gore, and in this case, also rape. And, as before, they appear out of an interest in historical accuracy. Deal with it. *** My stories, including this one, are archived at: www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/MichaelD/www/ www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Richard_Bissell/www (all the work of my alter ego) www.storiesonline.net (complete but not always up) --- VECTOR Copyright 2000 by MichaelD38@aol.com. No commercial use without prior authorization. <-> While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: "The one I kiss is the man; arrest him." Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, "Greetings, Rabbi!" and kissed him. Jesus replied, "Friend, do what you came for." Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" --Matthew 26:47-54 (New International Version) <-> Chapter 14. [Jerusalem] [July 17, 1099] The stench was the worst of it. He could block the screams and wailing from his ears when he wished to, and he could close his eyes against the worst of the atrocities, but the smell of the slaughter around him defied all his attempts to ignore it. He was certain he would still be smelling it on his deathbed. The Franks seemed intent on slaughtering the entire population. Robert expected they would accomplish their goal in another day or two at most. The Christians had largely been expelled by the city's Egyptian ruler before the siege, leaving behind only Muslims and Jews. The troops were thus under no need to differentiate amongst their victims. A few Christians remained, but they were being slaughtered alongside everyone else. The Usurper and his forces now held much of the city. Robert fully expected that he would be named the city's ruler when the sack was complete. Robert ached to do something, anything to strike the man down, to prevent this most paramount of blasphemies, but the Order had given him strict instructions to merely record. There was nothing he could do anyway. Godfrey wielded the stolen Power of God. Against that, Robert was as an ant before a charger. Godfrey would use the Power of God to seize the City of God. In his moments of weakness, Robert yearned to know why God tolerated this travesty, why he did not strike Godfrey down for his impertinence, but the answers remained beyond his grasp. Robert picked his way past another pile of corpses in the street. The gutters now ran continuously with blood. Up ahead, he saw another forest of severed heads. Godfrey's troops had been amusing themselves by gathering the heads of the slain and mounting them on poles around the city. Godfrey did nothing to stop this, and Robert did not expect him to. Robert had known all along it would come to this. No one else in the Order had believed him. --- Godfrey's acceptance of the Cross had baffled his fellow nobles. Though he was Count of Bouillon and Margrave of Antwerp, Godfrey was not a wealthy man. He had to mortgage much of his holdings to finance his participation. He had no great reputation for piety. He seemed to have no real reason for joining the Crusade. Robert, as did the other members of the Order, knew better. In 1095, they had found him after searching for many years. It had not been easy. Godfrey had been in hiding, using his Power only sparingly. Godfrey was not even Godfrey--he had murdered the man who had been born Godfrey of Bouillon and taken his form and his place. But he had given himself away one day when he was assaulted in the street by a crazed beggar. The beggar plunged a dagger into Godfrey's heart, and had he been a normal man, Godfrey would have died on the spot. But the dagger drew no blood, and Godfrey's men-at-arms struck the beggar's head off at once. By pure chance--though many in the Order saw the Hand of God in it--Robert had witnessed the assault. He was at the time a priest at the cathedral in Bouillon, and he knew Godfrey well. The other witnesses saw what they wished to see--perhaps the dagger had been turned aside by Godfrey's armor, perhaps it had missed entirely--but Robert saw what he saw and knew there could be only one explanation. He contacted other members of the Order. The Revered Elder had come to Bouillon to hear Robert's story and see for himself. They spread through the countryside, quietly interviewing Godfrey's subjects. Eventually, the Revered Elder called a conclave of the Order, and the decision was made to confront the Usurper. Godfrey, of course, denied everything. But the Revered Elder spoke eloquently and at length, quoting from the old Histories and threatening Godfrey with eternal damnation if he did not agree to serve the Order as God intended. Eventually Godfrey fell to his knees and begged forgiveness. Robert, for one, did not believe Godfrey's conversion. He had witnessed Godfrey's irreverent behavior during Mass too many times, had heard his insincere and mocking confessions. He was not a man to suddenly submit to the power of God. But the Revered Elder refused to listen to Robert and proclaimed that the Power was at last back in the hands of the Order. Godfrey asked what penance he might do to save his soul. As it happened, Pope Urban had only just recently sent out his call to liberate the Holy Land, and the Revered Elder (though the Order denied the Pope's authority in religious matters) felt this was a Just and Holy cause. He directed Godfrey to join the Crusade and raise an army to accompany him. Furthermore, he was to use his own resources to do so, not the Power. Robert requested to accompany Godfrey, and the Revered Elder agreed. Godfrey's forces left in August 1096, and arrived in Constantinople just before Christmas, where they remained until the following spring. Godfrey (as near as Robert could tell) had kept his promise not to use the Power until then, but when his forces crossed into Anatolia, things began to change. Godfrey had become consumed with ambition, which his compatriots mistook for religious fervor. His troops seemed to find provisions while those of the other lords starved. The other Crusaders accused Godfrey of hoarding supplies; Robert alone knew better. When the Crusaders took Antioch, only to be trapped within it, Robert watched in disgust as Godfrey manufactured a miracle to rally the troops. A peasant named Peter Bartholomew began proclaiming a vision of the Holy Lance, which he claimed was buried within St. Peter's Cathedral in Antioch. What no one seemed to know (other than Robert, who had witnessed it in his spying upon Godfrey) was that Godfrey had planted the visions within Peter's head. When Peter emerged from the excavation with the Lance, Robert had no doubt that Godfrey had caused it to be there. His belief was confirmed the next year, during the siege of Arqa, when Peter had another vision and submitted to a Trial by Fire to prove his authenticity. Robert was not surprised in the least when Peter failed the trial and died of his burns after twelve days of agony. He had outlived his usefulness to Godfrey by then. Robert had been sending reports of Godfrey's misdeeds to the Revered Elder, and after the Crusade gave up its siege of Arqa, he finally received a reply. To his shock, the Revered Elder chastised Robert for his lack of faith. He demanded that Robert give up his doubts and aid Godfrey to the best of his ability. Far from accepting Robert's version of events, the Revered Elder insisted that God was guiding Godfrey's hand and that it was not Robert's place to question him. Disgusted, Robert tore the letter to pieces. He had seen Godfrey's cynical manipulations firsthand; if the Revered Elder insisted on blinding himself to the truth, Robert would not be held responsible. The army arrived at Jerusalem on June 7th. Though others starved, Godfrey's troops remained well-supplied. As a member of Godfrey's retinue, Robert was himself well-fed, though the provisions were bitter in his mouth. He considered refusing to eat at all, but he needed his strength to continue his mission. The Crusaders spent a month building their siege engines and preparing for the attack. The assault began on the night of July 13; by noon on the 15th, the first Crusaders entered the city. The slaughter began immediately. --- Robert had witnessed scenes that could have been vomited straight from the mouth of Hell. Babes torn from their mother's arms and tossed into the air on spear points. Small children made to fight wild dogs. Some of the Franks were content to simply hack apart the Muslims and Jews they encountered; others were not satisfied until their victims were tortured beyond reason. Robert saw men being slowly roasted alive, others tied to posts and slowly dismembered. One group of Franks took particular delight in emasculating their victims before torture and set the severed genitals in a mound in the middle of the street. Other men stood around urinating or defecating upon the bodies of their victims. The promise of remission of sins for participation in the Crusade, rather than inspiring the Crusaders' piety, seemed to have had the opposite effect: thinking they faced no spiritual punishment for their misdeeds, no sin was now deemed too foul to commit. After having watched the sack of the city for two days, Robert was convinced the male populace was lucky. They faced only death, while the city's women were subjected to the most profound of indignities before being slaughtered. The luckiest were merely raped; others were forced to service the Crusaders' horses or their own children. Robert witnessed one group of Godfrey's men raping a Muslim woman a dozen times in succession. They had tied her arms and shoulders to the fence of a sheep pen, and her ordeal ended only when one of the men, in a drunken fit, struck off her head in the midst of her rape. Yet even her death did not deter her rapists, who continued to violate her bleeding, headless remains. The worst of it had come yesterday, at the Temple of Solomon, which the Muslims called al-Aqsa, the Dome of the Rock. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of citizens had taken refuge there, but the Crusaders had shown no respect for the holy ground. Robert hoped he would never see such a sight again in all his life. Godfrey's troops had waded in with their swords and lances, slaughtering all: men and women, young and old, able and infirm. The blood soon ran out the entrance in a great river, carrying with it severed pieces of the victim's bodies. Men rode their horses through the Temple, and the horses emerged with blood up to their bellies. No one was spared. The Temple became an abattoir, blood coating the floor and splattered many feet up the walls. Robert recorded everything he saw in his journal. The Revered Elder would have no choice but to accept Robert's arguments after hearing of this atrocity. In any case, Robert was not waiting for instructions. That morning, he had had a visitation from God, instructing Robert to confront Godfrey. God would protect him, Robert was told. Robert should confront Godfrey and slay him, and then God would bestow the Usurper's Power upon Robert. Passing one last pile of burning bodies, Robert finally reached the Tower of David. Godfrey was encamped outside of it, besieging one last pocket of resistance. Robert saw him directing the attack from the rear and approached his entourage. No one noticed his approach. He was known and trusted after all, a priest who had accompanied Godfrey all the way from Bouillon. Godfrey alone knew Robert's true allegiance. Robert steadied his mace in his hands and moved closer. "Father!" one of Godfrey's men called out to him, "witness the judgment of God upon these unbelievers!" Robert nodded. The man was more right than he realized. Robert was but a few feet from Godfrey now. Then Godfrey turned, drawn by his lieutenant's exclamation. He met Robert's gaze and immediately pulled Robert's intentions from his mind. Robert swung his mace against Godfrey's head. Godfrey simply smiled at him. The mace bounced off Godfrey's skull without leaving a mark, and the other troops immediately piled onto Robert, knocking him to the ground. "Have you taken leave of your senses, priest?" one of them shouted. "Let me up! Let me go, I say! The Hand of God guides my weapon!" Godfrey's men wrestled the mace away from him and pulled him to his feet. He struggled against their grip as Godfrey continued to smile at him. "He is merely struck by the sun. Let him go." Robert struggled from the mens' grasp. Godfrey grinned at him. And Robert at once forgot everything he ever knew about the Order. He stood there staring blankly at Godfrey. "Move along, Father," Godfrey said, "there are wounded for you to minister to." Robert nodded, vaguely disoriented. "Yes, my Lord. Of course." --- [Las Vegas, Nevada] [Present Day] In the back seat of a rented Ford Excursion racing up Interstate 15 on the outskirts of Las Vegas, the older man sat pensively examining the bleached skull in his hands. Guiliano da Vinci's skull. He was sure of it, however much the recent events were making less and less sense. The Order had never before possessed the remains of a former Usurper such as da Vinci, and they had certainly never been able to examine such remains with the tools they now had at their disposal. Tools that were now giving them nonsensical results. The older man, who in another life was Dr. Eoghan O'Braonain, Professor of Quantum Physics at the National University of Ireland at Galway, understood what they were doing as did no one else in the Order, indeed, as did no one else on Earth. The advances he had made in neutrino detection would be enough to win him the Nobel Prize in physics, but he was not after temporal glory. His research had one goal and one goal only: to confirm his theories about how the Power operated, and to use what he learned as a means of tracking down Guiliano da Vinci once and for all. He had enjoyed a near-unbroken string of successes up to now. Yet even he could fathom no explanation for why da Vinci's skull was giving out the neutrino radiation they had detected. Neutrinos are fiendishly difficult to detect, because as massless, chargeless particles, they almost never interact with other matter. That even their field instruments were able to pick up the radiation meant that da Vinci's skull had to be spewing as many neutrinos as a main-sequence star. It violated everything he knew about particle physics. Yet here it was. The radiation was strong enough that the Order's large scale detectors had picked it up around the world once O'Braonain told them what to look for. It had been strong enough to distort their first attempt at finding da Vinci in Los Angeles. The skull had been a like a beacon calling out for their attention. But it was beacon that had only recently appeared, and O'Braonain was convinced it had appeared only when da Vinci passed the Power on to Victor Hayes. Had the transfer somehow changed the character of da Vinci's skull? Perhaps the transfer had produced some burst of radiation that caused the skull to emit the neutrinos. Some burst of radiation that O'Braonain could not fathom, no matter how hard he tried. The laws of the universe, as he understood them, could not explain it. O'Braonain did not pretend to know every thing there was to know about particle physics. The only explanation, he began to think, was that da Vinci had done something that was far beyond current human understanding. Something deliberate. It was almost as if da Vinci wanted them to find the skull. But why? Da Vinci knew about the Order; that much was beyond question. Too many men had gone in search of him, only to be found later with their minds wiped clean. If, as appeared to be the case, da Vinci had finally become bored enough with existence to pass on the Power, why would he want the Order to find Victor so quickly? O'Braonain suspected that da Vinci knew about his research; he had been in the Order too long to underestimate him. And the state of the skull seemed to confirm that. O'Braonain's central theory was that any use of the Power to alter the physical structure of the universe should produce a detectable burst of neutrinos. His experiments had confirmed it, and when they were able to build usable field detectors, they had found da Vinci in short order. So why the skull? Why had da Vinci not warned Victor about the Order, not warned him that indiscriminate use of the Power would bring the Order to his doorstep? Perhaps he had, and Victor had ignored the warnings. But the things they had already learned about Victor made O'Braonain think that Victor was too smart to be so careless. The Power might have gone to his head . . . or he might simply not know what he was doing. O'Braonain looked up, watching the coruscating lights of the Strip casinos, and exhaled slowly. The answers to all these questions should soon be within their grasp. --- The scent of sex was in the air, mingling with feminine sighs and whimpers. Victor lay on the bed nursing the remains of a bottle of champagne, watching the girls beside him. Leslie was on her back, head near Victor, under Meredith; Meredith was above her, on her hands and knees, mouth latched to Leslie's sex. The girls were gently making love to each other in a sixty-nine position while Victor watched, occasionally stroking Meredith's behind or running his fingers through Leslie's hair. He didn't really need the rest after making love to both of them in succession, but he felt like taking a break anyway. They had spent much of the night gambling and cruising around town in another limo. Victor had won almost a hundred grand that night and was up nearly two hundred on the weekend. One of the Bellagio managers had approached them earlier that evening, asking if they wanted to play at one of the high-stakes VIP tables. Victor knew they simply wanted a chance to win their money back, but he agreed. At first, he did nothing, losing heavily and getting the girls nervous and edgy. Then he went to work and rapidly won back his stake and more. He had a feeling that, sooner or later, they were going to shut him down, so to throw them off, he had quit playing craps and asked the manager if they could play roulette instead. The manager quickly set the three of them up at a private table. Victor knew, from probing into various minds around the casino, that the management was getting suspicious, but so far they were baffled at how he was winning so much at the worst sucker's game in the building. The two girls had spent almost five grand on clothing that afternoon, Leslie on a long skirt that was slit nearly up to her waist and a midriff-baring corset top that gave new meaning to "gilding the lily." Meredith's outfit was simpler, just a skin-tight minidress that put all of her charms on display. Both outfits came off more than once during the limo ride. They returned to the hotel past four and went straight to bed. Now Victor could see the first light of dawn trying to work its way past the curtains, spilling across the bed, across Meredith's perfect behind, the behind that Leslie was doing her best to consume. Victor could see Leslie approaching orgasm even without probing into her mind. Her breath began to whistle through her nostrils, and she pushed herself further up between Meredith's thighs, sucking and licking frantically. Her arms were tight around Meredith's waist, her legs thrashing at the foot of the bed. Finally she let out a quiet squeal and came. But she paused her attentions to Meredith only a few moments before diving back in to return the favor. Victor reached into Meredith's mind to help her along, and soon Meredith was throwing her head up, arching her back, and crying out in ecstasy. Victor took another sip of champagne as Meredith fell to the side, off of Leslie, who giggled happily and caressed Meredith's thigh. She reached for Victor's hand beside her and squeezed it. "Enjoying the show?" "It's lovely." She sat up and gathered her long hair behind her head, then pulled it around onto her left shoulder. She sprawled herself over Victor's legs and took his penis in her hand. With a mischievous grin, she took him into her mouth for what had to be the fourth or fifth time that night. Victor tried to concentrate on the gentle sucking and licking sensations Leslie was giving him, but he was troubled. For two days now, he had been indulging himself in one debauch after another. What was he going to do Monday morning? Go back to school and teach as if nothing had happened? As if he did not possess the power to do his students' learning for them? To make them parade across campus in the nude? To do, in all honesty, whatever he wanted to them? What would be the point of pretending to go back to his old life? A life, he realized now, that he somewhat missed. Oh, not that he wanted to give up Meredith and Leslie exactly, but he suddenly yearned for the simplicity of that existence. In the space of a few days, his life had lost all its challenge. He could do whatever he wanted to now--except go back to being Normal Victor. Meredith crawled across the bed, folding her arms across Victor's chest and setting her chin on her wrists. She watched Leslie fellating him for a few moments, then reached up and playfully poked his nose. "What are you thinking about?" He caressed Leslie's bobbing head and tried to act amused. "What do you think?" "I don't know. You looked, maybe, just a little sad there for a minute." Leslie stopped what she was doing and looked up at them. "What's wrong?" "Nothing. Nothing. Except maybe that we have to check out and go home this afternoon." They grinned at him, and Leslie resumed her oral attentions. Meredith watched her for another minute before moving her off and throwing a leg over Victor's waist. She straddled him and backed her wet, overheated pussy down onto his erection. Leslie crawled up beside them, and at Meredith's urging, straddled Victor's head. The two girls embraced, kissing and holding each other. Victor lapped up at Leslie and played with four pendant breasts as Meredith rode him slowly. But his mind was not in the act, even when one girl, then the other, reached a shrieking, mentally-enhanced orgasm from his attentions. This climactic tangle of femininity fell exhausted onto the bed beside him, and he climbed between Leslie's thighs to finish himself off. When he was done, the girls cuddled with each other as he rose from the bed to get the last of the champagne. He poured himself a glass and watched them drifting off to sleep. --- Victor had been sitting by the window for ten or fifteen minutes when he noticed the discreetly blinking message light on the phone, the light that had been blinking all night long. He stood and padded across the room, then picked up the phone and hit the message button. "You have six new messages," the automated voice said. Victor hit the "1" button to start the first. He recognized Hemingway's voice immediately. "Yo, Vic, we got problems. Big problems. Three weird guys just broke into the house looking for you, and if I wasn't seeing things, they know all about you and that da Vinci character. I don't know what you're up to out there, but call me, okay? This is big." Hands shaking, he started the next message. That was from Hemingway as well, as were the remaining four, each more aggravated than the last. Victor sat down, heart pounding. What was going on? He hung up the phone and then dialed his phone number. With a clatter, someone answered on the third ring. "Vic? Is that you?" "Hemingway?" "Yeah! Where the _fuck_ have you been? Those guys are probably in Vegas already looking for you!" "Who? What are you talking about?" "I don't know who, but I'm telling you, they know all about you and da Vinci. They took his skull outta your desk. They got some weird Star Trek things they used to find it. My guess is they're gonna use them to find you too. They already know where you're staying." "But what did they want?" "Beats me. But it didn't sound like they wanted your friggin' autograph, you get my drift?" "When was this? How long ago?" "Fuck! Yesterday morning! Twenty-four hours ago, almost! I tried to call you right after they left. Where were you?" "We--we were out all day. I didn't think to check the messages until just now." "Well, shit, Victor, you'd better get your ass out of there. You and those dames. The way those guys were talking, I didn't get the idea they were too worried about you turning them into frogs, you know? From what I saw, they know what you can do, and they didn't seem too fucking concerned." "Okay. Thanks." "Let me know what's up, okay? Don't fucking disappear on me again." "I will." Victor hung up the phone and took several deep breaths, trying to calm his pounding heart. Behind him, someone knocked three times on the door to the room. --- --- Vector Copyright 2000 by MichaelD38@aol.com Free redistribution permitted; no commercial use without authorization Michael ~Story Archives~ www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/MichaelD/www/ www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Richard_Bissell/www ~Other Archives~ www.storiesonline.net www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/BitBard/www/forray/michaeld/ -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: | | FAQ: Moderator: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Archive: Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository | |, an entity supported entirely by donations. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+