** RAVEN'S HOLLOW – Part VII **
=== SIGNATURE DEATH ===
The office overlooking a Portland Southwest neighborhood had always been too sleek, too modernist for Gus Bennet's taste.
He'd seen himself more as a lumberjack type, but following in his father's footsteps he'd covered his muscles with bespoke – though as a concession his suits tended to be tight fitting.
Maybe for the best. Being half-Chinese on his mother's side, he couldn't have grown a beard if his life had depended on it and a stereotypical affinity for numbers ran in the family. The neck-long Tarzan-mane he had grown in his rebellious youth was tamed into a short ponytail.
Gus sat at his too-modernist desk, ruling over the empire of the Bennet Timber Logistics Company, when Corry entered with a brown package the size of a pint.
Some days, Gus wanted to bend Corry's over his desk and rail the slim assistant's hole, maybe with the blinds to the office space closed, maybe not. Other days, he'd rather have sat Corry on his desk, pulled the pants off the confused guy and swallowed his dick down to the pubes that were probably as nearly trimmed as the eyebrows.
Nearly all of Gus' fantasies lately involved his desk and most involved Corry. He didn't get out of his office much.
"Someone left this for you, boss," Corry said. "Doesn't say who."
"Not ominous at all, huh? Thanks, Corry."
The assistant tossed the package into the air a few times. "Not heavy enough to be a bomb, haha. Do I open it for you?"
Gus looked up at him and patted the space next to his keyboard. "If it blows up, I'd rather it not mess up your, uh, face."
Wow, he had almost said `pretty face'. If he stayed this overworked he was going to sexually assault Corry out of stress eventually.
"Boss? Anything the matter?"
"Ugh. Nothing new. Just, oof," Gus leaned back with a grimace, "a bit tense from sitting all day."
Corry stepped around him. "Would a massage help?"
"I... yes?"
Was this really happening? Corry was kneading his shoulders, slipping his small hands under the suit. It hurt too good. Gus barely suppressed a moan.
To stay focused, he opened the package. The sturdy, gold painted paper box inside contained three beautiful stained glass pens, glinting in the harsh office light.
Gus extracted one from the wrapping. The sun broken through the clouds above the city and streamed into the windows. Light danced in swirls off the pen and the deep black ink contained within, casting a kaleidoscope shadow into the room.
"Gorgeous," Corry said. "Any idea who from?"
"Nah," Gus said slowly. He truly didn't know, which bothered him. But they were too beautiful not to keep. In thought, he forgot to hold back with the grunts of pleasure as Corry's hands wandered further into the suit, to Gus' pecs.
He grabbed a sheet and set the pen down to write `Bennet'.
The pen attacked. Ink seeped from it like tentacles and latched onto his hand. Burning pain speared his writing arm as the ink sank into his skin.
Too stunned to scream, Gus gasped with a whimper as Corry freaked out behind him, stumbling backward. Gus clutched his burning arm and grit his teeth. He couldn't loosen his grip on the implement as much as he tried.
As the ink was halfway drained from the pen and moved as pain into his veins, pulsing black from the inside, some unseen force tore the pen free. It smacked against the computer monitor.
Gus collapsed into his chair, huffing incoherently. He dropped the aching, black-veined arm onto the desk, holding it down with the free hand as if this could stop the spread of the poison.
"Am-ambulance?" Corry asked, dumbly. Then he fumbled with his pocket, shaking too much to get his phone free.
The pen dragged itself toward Gus' arm again. Except... No, it wanted to move onto the paper.
Gus shoved the sheet under the pen and it stood up, frantically writing diagonally in large letters:
<and without a leader, they'll be begging for acquisition. When Bennet Timber is mine, I'll be impossible to dislodge.>
Gus' eyes widened in comprehension. These were the words of his would-be murderer. Someone from the competition wanted him dead and the pen was the weapon – and a snitch.
But who?
The pen changed handwriting in the next line, as if to indicate a different speaker.
<Murder. You're speaking of murder. For money.>
Back to the first, larger handwriting.
<As if you got your slice of the pie by playing nice. No? Thought so.>
<So what? Because I evade taxes you can hire a sniper?>
<Haha, nothing so crude. My means are... let's say I've found a way to have it done as if by magic. You could call it poison. Acting within hours. No antidote. No one can trace it to me.>
Gus laughed bitterly through the pulsing pain. "No one except the murder weapon itself. Come on, pen, give me a name."
<Seriously, I don't like this, Os.>
Os? He didn't know an `Os'. How did you find someone by his first name? How could he narrow it down?
<But you'll like my owning Bennet, hehe. Now get this package sent.>
<I... I guess so. The things I do for you, Os.>
Gus tore his suit jacket off and began to roll up his button up's sleeve. The black blood was less prominent, having distributed itself all the way into his biceps.
The pen slid off the paper's edge, writing on the desk. It assumed yet another style, indicating a third speaker.
<Excuse me, can I interrupt this meeting. The men from finance are here, sir.>
<Great,> Os `said'. <We're done anyway.>
<Gentlemen, Mister Fisher will see you now.>
"Fisher!" Gus yelled out. "Corry, find out where-" he grunted through a pulse of pain. "-where the FTT guy is. Fisher Timber Transport. Oswald Fisher. Fuck."
Corry had freed his phone by now and followed orders instead of calling an ambulance.
Gus rose and the pen skid toward him, now empty. "You want to come along, huh?"
Gus pocketed the pen and rushed from the office, hiding his hurt arm and the pack of two remaining pens under his jacket.
Corry followed, on the phone with Fisher's company. He hung up after just a few words. "Boss, Mister Fisher is not in his office today. Vacation. Where are you going, sir? You're in no condition to drive. Gus!"
"You're right," Gus said and tossed his keys at Corry as they entered the elevator. "You're driving."
He didn't want to involve his assistant in all this but he truly wasn't in a condition to do things alone – and he had hours left to live. No time to nobly protect people who were willing to lend him a hand.
Whatever it took, he was going to kill Oswald Fisher with his final breath.
==========+++++==========
They left the parking garage in Gus' black BMW. The weather had changed. Light rain drizzled onto the windscreen, blurring the taillights of cars ahead.
Gus had taken off his shirt to judge the spread of pen-venom. It was hurting less now but part of that was numbness spreading from his right hand. The ink was less visible farther up his arm but it had clearly spread into his chest, like a fading tattoo of roots or tendrils. What if it reached his heart? Was he down to his last minutes?
"Corry? Floor it. I know you're not the type for that, but I'm on the clock."
"Of course, boss. On it." Corry sounded so nervous it would have been heart wrenching even without the fear gripping Gus' chest.
"I'm wiring you whatever I've got on my account. Should take care of any traffic fee. Sorry if you gotta hand in your license."
"No problem, boss."
"And Corry?"
The assistant took his eyes of the road, briefly, to meet the shirtless hunk's eyes. "Yeah?"
"It's been an honor."
Corry said nothing, blinking hard to keep his eye clear for driving.
"Uh, boss. Where to?"
"Fisher's home address is- Ouch. The fucking pen is stabbing me."
Gus pulled the treacherously beautiful glass work from his pocket and it twisted in his hand, as if someone else was fighting him for it.
He opened his hand, pen laying on his palm, and watched the implement spin. It came to a rest pointing diagonally ahead. He put it on the dashboard where it spun into the same position again.
"It's a compass," Gus said with a gasp. "This isn't the way to... He's not at home. He's afraid I'm coming. Corry, follow the tip."
"Yes, sir."
The pen jerked and swung to point left.
"Fuck, it's not a compass," Gus said. "It's giving directions. It wanted you to take that exit, I think."
"On it." Corry took a left.
They headed onto a major road and Corry merged. The pen's tip pointed straight ahead.
Gus slipped into his suit jacket. He could close it to hide his shirtless torso and the ink tendrils if necessary, but keep an eye on the spread as long as he left it open.
With an annoyed grunt, Gus tore his hairband away and shook his mane free, strands dancing around his face.
The pen directed them out of Portland and Gus grew less sure if it lead him to anywhere useful. Was it aiding him in his final revenge? Leading to a healer who could deal with ink-venom? Or was it helping Fisher by leading him far from the city to die away from any option to damage Fisher's plans?
The rain swelled to a pouring.
"If I don't make it," Gus said. "Don't let Fisher take ov- No, you know what? I don't care about the fucking company. He's killing me for money. I'm not playing that game. If I don't make it-"
Corry swallowed hard. "Boss?"
"Just... please quit. Don't work for him."
"Wasn't going to, boss."
Twenty tense minutes outside the city, the pen led them off the main road, into a slight descend, framed by ancient hemlock trees - to a small town called Raven's Hollow.
==========+++++==========
They didn't have an umbrella.
Corry used a folder to shield his hair from the straight vertical downpour, while Gus kept the Jacket over his head, more to protect the pen in his palm than himself, water dripping onto his naked, muscled back.
The two men speed-walked along Ponderosa Drive.
"This one," Gus said and deflated. "I... I was kind of hoping the pen would find me help, but this is a hotel. It's got to be where Fisher is hiding." He laughed bitterly. "Guess there is no help. But there sure as fuck is revenge."
He stormed ahead, the empty pen in his left pocket, the now crumbled pack of full ones in his right. He slipped into the suit jacket as he entered the antechamber, but didn't take the time to close it.
The receptionist was a buff, dark-skinned guy with an eyebrow slit and a killer smile. His gentle voice didn't quite match his intense presence. "Hello, I'm Jasper. Welcome to Rav-"
Gus hated rudeness but he was vengeance-sworn and rapidly dying. "Where is Oswald Fisher?"
He expected to get a negative response. Fisher must have instructed them to not be disturbed – bribed people to lie for him. This `receptionist' had the physique of a bouncer. Gus would fight for it. With his arm as numb as it was, he wouldn't even feel the pain of any punch he threw.
But Jasper's expression changed from confusion to professional smile. "He's in the Oak Room. Up the left side, first door after the corner."
Gus dashed off, but froze and doubled back. His assistant had walked up behind him.
"Corry... Don't follow me. I don't want you implicated. Wait in the car. Get your story straight. I've always... I'm sorry."
Then Gus raced off. He dropped the jacket. The poison had spread across his pecs and down his abs. He was done for. His right leg was getting numb, making stairs a minor challenge, despite his rage-infused strength.
Jasper was right behind him. "Excuse me, is that Balthasar's Bane-stroke under your skin? Has Mister Fisher done that? Hello? Uh..."
The first door on the corridor was open, a ginger boy inside cleaning a room with blue tapestry and curtains. Jasper stopped and shouted at him. "Thomas, get Lazaro, then Mordecai."
This distraction let Gus get ahead, a full pen in his hand. He rounded the corner and rammed his weight against the first door in sight, expecting it to be locked. It wasn't.
He stumbled into a room with paneling and furniture of dark oak. Too opulent for his taste, but surrounded by shiny wood was fitting way to go out for a Bennet.
Right ahead, on the edge of the bed, was a shirtless Oswald Fisher, flanked on either side by a prostitute dressed down to their frilly panties and bras.
"Fisher!"
The early-grayed man's sly features distorted in horror as he recognized the intruder.
"Fuck."
Fisher tried to crawl backward on the bed. He had taken care of his body, but he lacked the natural strength of Gus' lumberjack-sans-chest-hair physique.
Fisher tried to kick Gus but didn't break the buffer man's running lunge. Gus had prepared the glass pen as a stabbing weapon, not caring to see if the poison worked on his killer.
He had put it in his right hand, but his aim was off from numbness and his gestures uncoordinated in rage-tremors.
Fisher knocked the pen out of his hand and clawed at the poison victim's eyes. Gus fended him off with the right hand that felt no pain and grappled for Fisher's neck with the other.
The two hookers ran screaming, their tacky outfits and high heels in their hands. They ran past Jasper who stayed at the entrance. Good, Gus would get his kill without interference. Who would have thought he'd go out a murderer?
Gus' hand landed on Fisher's neck but the smaller man was successfully pushing him away. The soft mattress made it difficult to pin him.
"Fucking... f-kill," Fisher gasped, "...should be... dead."
"Yeah?" Gus screamed through the choking man's attempt to scratch at his eyes. "I'm taking you – fuck, ugh – with me to hell."
A huge black guy in tight underwear burst into the room, his naked feet halting on the thick carpet. He had a boner, his underwear showed a wet spot at the tip.
He dropped a red-brown feather. As is sailed down, the strength went out of Gus, but he didn't slump. His body stayed as it was, hand on Fisher's collar bone, no longer obeying him. He stayed tense but felt loose.
As the feather hit the ground, he froze completely. Even his eyes were no longer mobile. As he saw from the corner of his vision, Fisher was just as frozen.
"Not a second too soon," Jasper said and gave the bodybuilder a pat on the shoulder. "Sorry I had to call you away from, hehe, important business."
"So what's this?" the massive guy said, unamused.
"This, Lazaro, is a man dying of Bane-stroke, probably from the pen he's brought, and that's the one who presumably poisoned him."
Lazaro grunted. "I'd like to know who makes Bane-stroke and puts it on the market. Just to have a word with them."
"You'll have to ask."
The two men tore the frozen fighters apart and laid them next to each other.
As Gus was shoved around, he saw Corry appear in the doorway. The assistant stepped into the dark, luxurious room, his eyes avoiding Gus.
"Is... is there anything you can do?" Corry asked. "If you know what it is?"
Jasper huffed. "I can make something to halt it but that would take at least a day and he's got an hour or so left."
"No antidote?" Lazaro asked. "Isn't there Balthasar's Blessing?"
To Gus disappointment, Jasper shook his head. "Don't think even Lady Courtenay could get some in such short order. And it's not an antidote. You have to ingest it before exposure to gain immunity for a-"
Jasper frowned and leaned over the motionless men. "We'll let you move again. Don't try anything. I have questions."
Lazaro picked up the feather and Gus could feel his strength return – and his rage. Fisher scooted away from him and sat up at the edge of the bed.
"Mister Fisher," Jasper said. "How did you handle the pen? Were you given something to drink? Probably dark purple."
"A loaf," the would-be murderer said. "A small purple dyed loaf of bread. I was told it would make me immune."
"Perfect," Jasper said. "We can transfer some poison. Hopefully enough to keep our angry hunk alive until I get the halting drought going."
"How?" Gus asked. His voice was weak. His throat felt numb.
"He could suck some of your blood, but that's messy. The bane-stroke could retreat if we spill too much. Hm, dicksucking? Or sex, however you two want."
Gus tore his pants off with his shoes. Fisher fought the attack but this time Lazaro was helping and brought the immune man down kneeling by the bed.
Gus tried face fucking the bastard but no matter if he gently rub his thick dickhead on the unwilling tongue or shoved his seven inch meat forcefully down the man's throat, making him cry from reddened eyes, he faced the same issue.
"Fuck, I can barely get a semi."
"Guess he's not a good cocksucker," Jasper said, irritatingly amused by himself. "I'll get the lube."
"Fuck," Gus said. "I'm gonna die because nobody here is sucking my dick?"
"C-can I try?" Corry said, taking a hesitant step forward.
"Corry," Gus said with an exhale. "You..."
Jasper sucked in air through his teeth. "If he cums into you instead of the target..."
"Then I won't do it," Gus said. "I'd never hurt Corry."
"It's my decision," Corry said, with more confidence than he had ever shown before.
Within a minute, Corry was naked and stroking himself. He sank between Gus' thick legs with a wavering smile, his lean chest rising and falling in fast breaths.
Gus tried to look as attractive as his ink-marred state allowed, subtly flexing and legs spread wide as his fantasies came true.
Corry sank his throat onto the semi-hardon and it took just a few heartbeats for Gus to develop an achingly solid erection.
"Fuck, you've been a slut this whole time?"
"Yes sir," Corry said, his lips running over his boss' dickhead. "Training for the day you'd finally let me please you."
Lazaro kept Fisher's head nearby. The defeated FTT owner stared at the ground, resigned to his fate.
Orgasm approached fast. With Corry's face between his legs, Gus knew he'd shoot in record time, but the assistant's tongue-skill was a surprise regardless.
"Hng, Coming," Gus grunted and pulled away. He dove deep into the struggling, gagging Fisher's mouth and stroked his shaft's base to finish the job.
Corry creamed his own load up his light abs as Gus unloaded into the ugly-gagging oral victim whose hands had to be held down by Lazaro.
Gus could feel poison stream from his body, through his dick, as if he shot two dozen loads' worth.
He dropped onto the bed, letting Oswald collapse into a heaving mess, struggling for air.
"How many times till it's all out?" Gus asked.
Jasper had procured a leather-bound book in the meantime and was focused on a page. "Sorry but we can't get rid of all of it. Bane-stroke is pretty smart. Your name was written into it, in a sense. It won't leave in such amounts to let you recover. We still need the halting drought." He looked up from the page, flashing a smile somewhere between apologetic and mischievous. "Better settle in."
Gus looked around, a hand on his shrinking dick. The oak-leaf patterns on the curtains, the acorn accents on the furniture, the gentle smell of forest. He hadn't had the time to appreciate it yet. It would have been a nice enough place to die, perhaps, but it was an ever nicer one to vacation in.
Jasper closed the book. "I'll see if I can out-brew the poison's spread."
==========+++++==========
Corry's felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the brewer, Jasper.
"I'm sorry," the hotel employee said. "This must be difficult."
"It's just," Corry said, fighting back tears. "This whole thing made me finally open up to him and now..."
Corry wiped his eyes and looked again at Gus' ink-marred, motionless body, tugged into the silk sheets.
No rising and falling of the chest, no fluttering of the closed eyelid.
Corry sighed. "This is a... strange question but do you think I can still fuck him, sometime?"
Jasper chuckled. "He can be awake for at most ten minutes every few days. Maybe half an hour a week, if I dose it this way." He vaguely raised the empty bottle that had contained the halting drought. "Not sure he'll be up for much of anything, though. I'll let you know in advance."
"Thanks." Corry steeled himself. "Well, I've got a company to run in his absence." He took one more look around the oak room. It was a place Gus would really enjoy. Certainly better than any hospital room. "I'll trust he's in capable hands."
"Thanks," Jasper said. "I'll see you out."
They left the CEO behind. Corry couldn't help but feel like he was the fairytale prince turning away from Snowwhite. He'd see Gus again. Their revenge on Oswald Fisher was incomplete.