24 - “Retribution Part 2: Lust”

Originally Written: April 2nd, 2000

“Elisa?  Are you here?” Goliath called for his wife as he entered their room.  He had been searching for Elisa for some time now, but she was nowhere to be found.  From the media room to the kitchen to the gym and pool, he had turned up absolutely no trace of her.  “Where is she?” the lavender giant wondered as he left the bathroom.  Her scent still lingered through the hallways of the castle, yet only a fading vestige of her enticing aroma remained detectable to Goliath’s excellent sense of smell, a telltale sign that she had left the castle.

Angela had taken Trinity for the night, but refused to tell her father why.  He had shrugged off his oldest daughter’s odd behavior as wanting to spend time with her sibling, unaware that she had received her own letter, with detailed instructions to take care of her sister until her parents returned.

He wandered to their bed and sat down, the mattress relenting to his bulk as he settled his entire weight into the bedspread.  ‘She must have run out for something,’ he thought, ‘but why didn’t she tell anyone, especially me?  I wonder where she is?’

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Elisa’s shirt was forcefully ripped from her body, leaving only her bra to cover her slender upper torso, left exposed to Thailog’s sickening stare.  He had stripped Elisa of her clothing, leaving her almost nude and her copper skin tremored with the drafts of cold air grazing across her.  The sedative coursing through her blood had rendered her barely able to move and left no chance of fighting back against her attacker.

Thailog hovered over her, his stagnant gasps catching her skin as he moved along every curve and contour of her body.  He pressed his tongue to her creamy hide, licking up the side of her face, with a feeling of sandpaper scraping away at her flesh.

She instinctively retreated from his abhorrent molestation upon her frame and turned her gaze away, unwilling to accept in her mind what was happening to her.  Her vision, blurred with the onset of tears, caught sight of the cages far from her stead.

Delilah bore through the iron bars, a perception which made her sick to her stomach, as the dark skinned clone raped her friend, her mother, her very family.

Demona’s emotions were flooded with anger and pain at this thing she had at one time dared to call love, defiling the very soul of a woman she thought of as an enemy.  But Elisa meant too much to her daughter, too much to Goliath and the clan, too much to...her.  This human who almost died at her hands had now embraced her as a friend, even allowing her to hold her newborn child.  ‘No one deserves this, no one,’ words of passion flowed though her conscious thoughts, ‘not even this woman whom I once wanted to destroy.  This will not happen tonight...or ever.’  Demona screamed and flung herself at the bars, the entire enclosure rattling with her powerful strikes, pounding away on the thick steel.

The clatter behind forced Thailog’s attention from Elisa to the cages, and he amusedly watched Demona, and Delilah, attempt to break from their prison.  “You won’t succeed,” he gasped, “even Goliath himself couldn’t break through those bars.”  Satisfied of his prisoners’ futile efforts to free themselves, he turned his eyes to his victim under him.

Elisa was still struggling against his grasp, even with enough drugs in her system to bring someone twice her size to his knees.  Her limitless willpower fueled her resistance to his acidic touch, keeping her alert to the threat of Thailog, and what he would do to her if she couldn’t fight him off.

In an instant, he was on her again, suckling on her neck and drinking in her breathless fragrance with his lips.  Elisa gritted her teeth and sealed her eyes from his amoral countenance, trying to keep herself from vomiting.  Thailog’s massive hands, with the identifiable grafts of decaying skin, moved up the inside of her thighs, clawing their way near where her legs joined.  Tears flowed freely down her bronze skin as Elisa sobbed relentlessly within her chest, and released the wail of a dying soul.

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He had remained on the bed for awhile now, concentrating his gaze on the floor.  Goliath had become anxious, as his wife had not returned.  He wouldn’t have given it a second thought, as Elisa came and went as she pleased.  But tonight it felt wrong, the air carried an inauspicious emanation which the lavender giant could not deny.  Especially when his mate disappears from her home without a word.

His eyes never wavered, until he noticed the small garbage can beside Elisa’s nightstand, with the contents catching his immediate focus.  He saw what looked like an envelope, and pulled it from the bin.  Inside was a letter and his own handwriting leered back at him with a spiteful tongue.

He skimmed the letter and growled with animal fury, obviously his wife had been duped, and perchance by only one man capable of copying his handwriting to such an eerie degree.

Crumpling the letter within his massive hand, turning it to nothing but a wadded pulp of paper and ink, he stood up and headed for the private balcony.  Flaring his wings to catch the wind, he thrust himself into it’s grabbing fingers and braved the snow, intent on finding his mate.

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Delilah’s hands bruised with dark ebon patches as she thrashed endlessly at the bars.  The gleaming steel had been coated with her blood, pouring from her knuckles, yet she never gave up.  She ignored the tortuous pain and continued her bid for freedom.

Demona watched from afar with loathing eyes.  This clone before her was so much like Elisa, and god willing, so much like her own self.  Yet reminded constantly of the pain Thailog had brought upon her, when she opened her eyes to her former love’s replacement for her affections.  “You’ll never get out that way, clone.” she rasped, inadvertently coming off angrier than she intended.

“I don’t care,” she yelled back in a furious reply, “I’m not giving up!!  I just can’t stand by and watch as Thailog rapes Elisa!!  She’s the only mother I have!”

Demona paused and stared at the courage displayed to her by what she thought to be a bashful young woman, somewhat shocked at her outburst, but simply nodded, joining with her to endeavor for their friend.

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“Stop, please...”  A hushed cry slipped through Elisa’s lips as the last of her strength was withering, and her body relenting to Thailog’s grasp on her arms.

“Don’t worry, my human love,” Thailog whispered as he unfastened the belt on his loincloth and tugged at Elisa’s red panties, “it will all be over soon...”

“...Goliath...” Elisa could barely muffle a whisper as a large hand covered her mouth, effectively ceasing anymore pleas for help.  Her eyes were forced to his, and in those soulless eyes lay a river of blood that chilled her to the bone.  “...Goliath...” she muttered beneath his hand, “...I love you...”

“ELISAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!”  The room was filled with a bloodcurdling roar, as if the cry of an angry god had erupted from the heavens itself.  The window near the bed, and the surrounding wall, exploded in a shower of glass and wood, as a huge lavender shape barreled through.  Goliath had found the building where his wife, daughter and ex-mate were being held, using the address that led them here hours before, and arrived only to see his clone raping his wife through the dark glass. “LET...GO...OF...MY...WIFE!!!!!” he screamed, lunging towards Thailog in a blind rage.

Thailog tried to block the oncoming blow, but it proved to be a futile effort against seven hundred pounds of enraged, destructive wrath.  Goliath’s fists connected square with Thailog’s jaw, sending the clone flying backwards, off the bed and tumbling across the floor in a haggard heap.

Goliath reached for his wife, but she recoiled in fear, eyes wide with dread.  The drugs had completely confused her senses, transforming the loving form of her husband into the very man who had attempted to rape her.  Yet Goliath was left with no time to explain as Thailog had recovered enough to retaliate.  Goliath was knocked back, barely being able to stay on his feet.  He shook his head and glared at his dark skinned twin.

Thailog was wheezing.  His injuries sustained years ago had stripped him of his once powerful form, and yet, he stood his ground.  “Why do you have to ruin every relationship I have?” Thailog gloated, flicking his eyes to where Elisa was laying.  “Don’t worry, ‘father’, I’ll take care of your wife, and your children, or should I say...my children.”

What fires of hatred burned within him now erupted like an atom bomb, sending Goliath over the edge.  He tore towards Thailog and rammed his fists against the clone’s head with enough intensity to spill blood from both his ears and nose, and forcing him to the ground.  Goliath pummeled upon the clone with all of his might, giving in to the intense rage that was building inside of him, and he made no attempt to control himself.  His hands had become stained with Thailog’s blood, incensing his primal instinct for battle, and the clone became limp under Goliath’s frame.  Lavender claws wrapped around Thailog’s neck, with the intent of choking the very life from his body.

“...Goliath?...”

A soft whimper caught the leader’s ears and he turned to see Elisa sitting up on the bed, groggily looking around her.  He released his hold and quietly ran to her side.  But with his outstretched hand, she pulled back at the sight of him.

“Stay back, you bastard!  Leave me alone!!”  She wrapped her arms around herself and slumped to the bed, burying her face into the sheets and soaking it with her tears.

“Elisa, it’s me, Goliath.  Please, you know I wouldn’t hurt you...Elisa!”  Goliath placed his hand on her shoulder, but she reacted like it was ice cold.  She jumped away and edged her way towards the end of the bed, curling into a fetal position.  Goliath reached for her again, but paused, for whatever Thailog had done to her, traumatized her enough to draw back from his touch.  He searched his mind for what to do to help her, but was distracted by a loud crash behind him.

The two captive she-goyles had at last burst from their cage, the iron doors crashing to the ground as they lept out.  Delilah immediately came to Goliath’s side and reached behind him to Elisa, tending to her mother.

Demona halted herself at Thailog’s fallen form, inspecting what damage Goliath had wrought firsthand, and became pleased at the anguish he had suffered.  “Is he...” she asked her ex-mate.

“No, he still lives...barely.” Goliath answered solemnly, watching Delilah cradle Elisa’s body, now unconscious, in her arms.

“And...Elisa?”

“I don’t know.” Delilah answered.  “She’s sleeping now, but...she was pumped full of some kind of sedative before Thailog tried to...uhm...I think she’s okay physically, but emotionally...”  Delilah gently laid her mother’s sleeping form back on the bed and joined the others who were gathered around the toppled clone.

“You...are becoming...an annoyance, father,” groaned Thailog as he looked up to the three pairs of eyes directed at him, “as is the rest of your clan.”  Two dark fists shot up and caught Goliath and Demona, sending them in opposite directions.  Demona was hit hardest, landing severely against the floor and passing out.  Goliath collided with the wall, the ancient wood collapsing against his great weight and creating from the power of the blow, a massive hole.  Delilah rushed to help but was snatched upon her neck by Thailog’s hand and lifted off her feet.  “I could have made my own children with but another sample of Elisa’s DNA, but I always love that expression on our father’s face when something bad happens to his little mate.  Well, I suppose I should start by erasing a mistake I made years ago.” he snarled, squeezing her neck with enough pressure to break human bone.

“NNNOOOOOOOO!!!!” Goliath howled, forced to watch as his clone crushed the life from Delilah’s slender form.  Attempting to force himself from the entanglement of wood, his hand settled upon on a long piece of reebar within the building’s structure. Dementia reigned over his intelligence and reason, a mad frenzy tearing through his body at the sight of another he loved at the mercy of this madman.  He grabbed the jagged rod and ripped it from the wall, lunging forth towards his quarry.

“Time to die, little one.” the dark skinned clone cackled as he tightened his grip and Delilah’s eyes rolled back in her head, her arms falling limp from Thailog’s grasp.

But suddenly, Thailog’s smile fell from his lips, as a searing pain ruptured in his torso, and a long spear-like object burst through the front of his chest.  He dropped Delilah and looked to Goliath, who stood behind, hands still upon his weapon.  Thailog staggered away, clutching the reebar, soaked in his blood.  It had pierced what passed for his heart, and his own bodily fluids poured from his gaping wound by the gallon.  “No...it can’t happen this way...”  Thailog fell to the ground, a slick crimson puddle growing beneath him, his body emptying itself of it’s vital juices, flowing onto the floor and seeping through the cracks in the floorboards.

Demona awakened and gazed at Thailog, lying face up with the reebar standing in the air, still dripping with his blood.  She smiled an evil smile as he gasped for air through shredded lungs.  She noticed Goliath checking on Delilah.  She was hurt, but able to stand and he helped her over to Thailog, as he lay dying before them.

They all had personal reasons to want him dead; betrayal, assault, rape, attempted murder, but watching this clone as his very essence slipped from his body, Goliath couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if he had been given a real chance. Yet the leader didn’t deal with what ifs, only what is.

He had ran the steel bar through Thailog’s chest in a moment of sheer anger.  In that split second, he wanted the clone dead.  Did protecting his family justify killing someone else? He didn’t have the answer.  All he knew was this gargoyle before him had no conscience, no love, no soul.  And he was about to prove it to the lavender giant.

“You...think you’ve...won, don’t you...” Thailog gasped as he turned his sights on Goliath and Delilah.  “But...I will...have the final laugh...I have infected the other clones with...a virus that...will unravel their...very DNA.  You can’t...save them, they...will die...before morning’s light,...they...will...all...die...”  Thailog’s eyes burned crimson one last time as he died in front of the guardians’ eyes.  His limp body stiffened and his stone form enveloped him, then cracked, shattered, and crumbled to dust.

“Oh no...my brothers...”  Delilah looked in morbid fear to Goliath.  “Was...was he telling the truth?”

“I do not know, Delilah, but we had better get to the labyrinth, and quickly.”  Goliath turned to Demona, whose eyes were transfixed on the dead form of Thailog.  “Will you accompany us, Demona?”

She was torn from her gaze with a sudden start, and nodded silently.

Delilah ran to the window and scrambled outside.  Goliath gingerly wrapped Elisa into the blankets adorning the bed and scooped her into his arms, and headed for the window. He followed his daughter into the unforgiving wind, heading in the direction of the home of the mutates and clones, praying they were not too late.

To be continued...

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