Read Traitor, Book 1 of The Turner Chronicles Page 67

  Chapter 31

  Jorrin's hammer was silent when Aaron slipped into his workshop. This unusual condition was explained when Aaron found him busy filing a new edge onto a saw. Watching him for a while, Aaron felt envious of the peace in the man's soul. Aaron's life had been peaceful once. Only two weeks back it had been filled with peace and contentment, filled with the love of a wife and children.

  No more. That time was over.

  Jorrin finished a section, looked up, and spoke carefully, almost as if he were afraid of shattering something infinitely fragile and precious. "Aaron."

  Aaron thought about telling Jorrin there was no reason to worry because Aaron was not brittle. He was not the man he had once been. No, that time was over. Disappeared. This was Aaron's time of rock. He felt granite cold and granite hard.

  "Do something for me." Aaron's voice, flat and unemotional, sounded cold and empty. It matched the way he felt inside. He was dead and empty and cold and hard.

  Without waiting for an answer, he held out four steel knives. "Melt these down. Make small round pellets out of them."

  Jorrin gave the knives a doubtful look. "I'm not really sure how to do that."

  "Make it hot. Make it really hot, until they melt. Let drops of molten metal fall into a barrel of cold water."

  Jorrin took the knives. "I'll do what I can. I won't make no promises. This here is a metal I've never dealt with before." He gave Aaron a close look. "Are you going to be all right?"

  Turning abruptly, Aaron left without answering because he did not want to lie to Jorrin. Some part of honor, some part of integrity still remained.

  And then he decided that it was time to see Doctor Gunther. He started down the street, ignoring people who tried to stop him, not wanting to hear empty sympathy. He made it halfway to Gunther's home when the fight started.

  A man, his back to Aaron, stood beside a low wheeled wagon and screamed invective while Cathy cowered before him.

  Suddenly feeling grimmer than the death that was his constant friend, Aaron stopped and narrowed his eyes while new anger roiled through him. Some small part of his mind separated out and formed a new thought.

  Not Cathy. Not the Cathy who had spent two unaided years raising her siblings, had stood up to everyone and feared no one, had faced death and suffered injury battling Beech in defense of Aaron. Nobody had the right to make her afraid.

  Feeling even colder and harder and more empty, Aaron's eyes narrowed even more, and he released a low growl. This was wrong. Cathy might be an inconstant bitch, but she had tried to kill Beech in Aaron's defense, had stood her ground. He owed her.

  The man raised his hand, struck Cathy down, and Aaron started walking towards them with slow, deliberate steps.

  "Damn you! Give me money. I owe people."

  Cathy shook her head. "Gambling debts," she whispered as Aaron drew nearer. Her hand fumbled at her bodice.

  "Never you mind why I owe it. Give it to me now." Scowling, the man reached down and tore her bodice open. Coins spilled free when her breasts were partially bared. Drawing nearer, Aaron looked at the soft swell of her milk white breasts and saw purple and yellow finger sized splotches marring their upper swell.

  Taking one more step forward, Aaron reached out, grabbed the man, and spun him around.

  The man was young, stood inches taller and broader than Aaron, and wore a sneer. Brian Haig, the milk wagon driver.

  "Mister Haig, you're fired," Aaron said simply.

  "Do you think I care?" Haig turned his head and spat, missing Cathy's face by less than an inch. "She makes ten times the pittance you pay me."

  Nodding, Aaron half smiled, though he still felt empty inside. "If you touch her again you will die."

  "Mister Turner." Cathy pulled herself to her feet. "Please don't interfere. He's my husband. It's his right."

  "I'll not let him strike you again."

  "Hear, hear." Mistress Golard called out from the gathering audience. Every eye looked disapproving.

  "Fuck you, Turner. You're just pissed because you never got to screw her yourself."

  "I am pissed," Aaron admitted. Unbelieving gasps sounded around him. "I'm pissed because Cathy married herself to low-life scum who beats up on his wife because that's the only way he can make himself a man."

  Haig bent, twisted, and threw a swing.

  After swaying his head to the side to avoid the clumsy blow, Aaron throat punched the man, then leaped forward and broke Haig's eardrums by slamming his cupped palms simultaneously across both of Haig's ears. Stumbling backwards, Haig called out hoarsely and pulled a bronze knife so Aaron broke his elbow with a quick grab and twist and then shattered his kneecap with a snap kick.

  "Gawds," Perk muttered from nearby. "I ain't sparring with you no more."

  Aaron looked down on the crying wreck. He had destroyed a man and felt nothing. Nothing at all.

  "Cathy," he said emotionlessly, "you can leave him or not. Just know that you are safe. If he hurts you again, I will kill him. If I'm not here to do it, someone else will." Turning on his heel, he pushed his way through the stunned crowd.