A Cat Called Kat

Chapter Twenty-Four - The Torturer's Contract

Caroline took another couple of minutes to get herself together then drank the second bottle of water. "Let's go and pay a visit to Slimeball," she said. "There are a couple of things I'd like to discuss with him."

"I've got a couple too," I replied with my best evil grin.

The tattered remains of her clothes had been chucked in a corner - they looked as if they'd been cut - or ripped - off her. At least her ball-breaking combat boots looked OK so I helped her to put them on. Then she grabbed my hand and let me haul her to her feet. She was a bit wobbly but basically OK. I helped her out of the torture chamber, along the corridor and into the office bit.

"Lucky bastard," she said sort of mildly when she saw that the torturer guy was dead.

I gave her a bit of a look.

"He wouldn't have been any less dead if I'd got my hands on him but it would have been much slower and more painful."

I gave her another look.

"I know it sounds like I'm being hypocritical," she explained, "but I'm not really. He wasn't just torturing me... he was enjoying it... evil and stupid..."

Yet another look.

"There's usually this sort of contract between the torturer and the person they're torturing... if you tell me what I want to know, I'll stop hurting you... but I could tell that that guy was never going to stop... and so there was no point in telling him anything.

I decided I'd have to think about the whole morality of the situation some other time.

We collected the guy's pistols and I basically had to lug Caroline up the stairs. Then we crept around the courtyard until we got to the spot just below my broken window.

"We've got to get up there," I told her in a whisper. She nodded and, before I could even think, she was boosting me up. We'd practiced this sort of thing so many times in our training that it was just automatic.

By the time I'd worked out that she was managing this even though she'd spent most of the day being tortured, I was already inside, turned around and ready to grab her wrist.

She took a step back then, taking a bit of a run up, she put a foot on the wall and jumped up towards me. We grabbed each other in the two handed double wrist hold that we'd practiced and I braced myself, ready to support her as she walked up the wall.

Except, of course, her strength failed her.

So I had to drag her up that wall.

And she was a fair bit heavier than me.

At that point, I was glad for every one of those stupid press-up and pull-ups and things she'd made me do!

Once I got her inside, she collapsed to the floor. I mean... she was Caroline so she didn't say anything but she did a bit of the eyebrow thing to admit her body had failed her. I gave her a couple of seconds then hauled her back to her feet. We drew our pistols and set off up the stairs.

Fortunately we didn't come across anyone until we got to La Governante. She was not happy when she saw the state Caroline was in and let out this stream of Italian. I didn't understand most of it but I got the gist .

"She wants to sort you out," I translated.

"We don't have time for that."

"No, Caroline! You've got to let her deal with you," I told her emphatically. I guess I'd got used to giving people orders. "I really do not need you passing out on me at a critical moment."