Chapter 8

My mind raced over everything that Sarah Pasternak had told me about Holtzman. I remembered wondering at the time whether the changes wrought on the three of us might have just been overlaid on top of our natural genetic structure - leaving any defects that might already have been there.

"I like you a lot, Miss Ana," Holtzman's child's voice told my wife as she moaned in pain, "but I'm s'posed to hurt you to make him do things."

He jerked his head in my direction as he said 'him'.

"Do you always hurt people you like," Ana groaned.

Holtzman seemed to think about that for a while. "I guess so," he answered matter-of-factly. "I like Sarah, but I hurt her, too."

As I watched the hulking brute prancing gleefully around my bride, the germ of a plan began to form. The chair to which I was tied was made of wood, and I thought I might be able to break it, but I would need some help. There was one very slim possibility and it all depended on an unproven theory...

Mustering all the emotional control I could gather, I first calmed myself, then, groaning slightly, I made a production of pretending to return to consciousness. Like laser beams, Holtzman's eyes flashed in my direction. I let irritation show on my face when my eyes found him as I 'awoke'. Slowly, my gaze moved beyond the brute who bore the 'family' features, so much like mine and Sarah's, and took in Anastasia's naked form, impaled deeply by the business end of a baseball bat.

Steeling myself, I quelled the revulsion that threatened to surface and forced surprise, then amusement to my features. To the consternation of both, I burst out laughing. I knew I was on the right track when first confusion, then anger contorted the features of Ana's tormentor.

"What are you laughing at?" he screamed in a little girl's voice that was so incongruous with his appearance that it only gave further impetus to my mirth.

I laughed even louder. If I had not been tied to the chair, with what I now noticed was electrical cord, I would have been rolling on the floor. Clearly this did nothing to improve Holtzman's mood, but it achieved my first objective. Holtzman towered over me, stomping his feet as he came to a stop in front of me, a petulant scowl distorting his features.

"Stop laughing!" he shrilled, causing even greater amusement on my part.

My laughter renewed itself on the impulse of his petulance, and he backhanded me across the mouth as I strained against my bonds. Pain exploded across my face, and one part of my mind noticed the blood that gushed from the inside of my lips where they were crushed against my teeth. Another part of my consciousness noted with satisfaction that the force of the blow, combined with my struggles had loosened the right arm of the chair.

I spat out some blood, looked once more at Holtzman, and started laughing again. The blow this time was with his fist, and it broke my jaw. Again, my mind noted the pain as if from a distance, while another portion of my brain felt the chair arm come loose from its moorings. The left side, too, now had some play in it...

Stage two of my plan was almost complete. If I could hold onto consciousness, I just might get us out of this. Struggling against my instinct for self-preservation, I shook my head, worked my jaw back and forth, feeling the bone grate, then looked back at my nemesis.

Once more, from deep in my gut, I found the strength to laugh in his face. I watched the thunderclouds gather in his expression as my right arm prepared to use the piece of chair to which it was bound as a weapon. Intent on strangling the laughter out of me, Holtzman wrapped huge hands around my throat. My right arm flashed up between his, and the piece of wood that had been the chair arm butted him solidly in the chin

To my sorrow, the wood did not knock him out, as I had hoped, but as the brute leaped away, hands going to the pressure cut on his chin, I was able to wrench the left chair arm loose, finally getting free of the chair with room to maneuver. I came up ready to fight, but to my astonishment, Holtzman stood staring, aghast, at the blood on his fingers.

He didn't even seem to register the fact that I had gotten free of my bondage. When his eyes finally turned to me, they were filled with deep emotional pain, completely out of proportion with the superficiality of the wound on his chin.

"You hurt me!" his child's voice was filled with confusion and the kind of pain a little kid feels when struck for no reason.

Suddenly, the rest of the Wolfgang Holtzman puzzle clicked into place. My suspicions were confirmed in that one short sentence. Though presumably gifted with the implanted knowledge of an advanced race as Sarah Pasternak and I had been, Wolfgang Holtzman was still, emotionally, a child. I had counted on that when I used my laughter as a weapon, but I had not suspected that it went this deep. His cruelty was that of a child who has never had to experience the pain he causes others, and now he was on the receiving end for the first time.

"Yes, Wolfy," I said gently, "I hurt you because you were hurting me. You must learn how others feel when you hurt them."

"But you're not supposed to hurt me!" he cried petulantly.

Suddenly, he was on me, not with the practiced fighting skills I might have expected, but the wild, uncontrolled rage of a child. It was a whirlwind attack and with his strength, he drove me back across the basement. The chair arms proved to be an advantage in this sort of melee, however, and he soon realized that hitting them was hurting him more than me. As Holtzman's attack slackened, I took the offensive, and soon had him backed into a corner, wide-eyed, as he struggled for breath. My right arm pressed the hard edge of the wood against his throat while the left defended against his feeble attempts to retaliate. Since his left arm was pinned and each attempt to hit me only caused him more pain, his struggles soon deteriorated into sobbing.

"It was only s'posed to be me!" he cried. "I was s'posed to hurt you, not the other way. They said so!"

I was on the verge of asking 'Who said so?' when I realized that perhaps there was more to be gained by postponing that query a bit longer.

"They lied to you, didn't they, Wolfy?" I said softly. "They told you it was okay to hurt other people and that you wouldn't be hurt, but look what's happened."

"But how... ?" I wanted to take him in my arms and comfort him, he so resembled a lost child, but I wasn't yet that sure of him. "How could you do that? You were tied up! They showed me how to tie you up so you wouldn't be able to hurt me."

"Well, it seems that, not only do they lie to you, but they aren't very smart, either, are they?"

"Uh, uh!" he said. Then another thought occurred to him and his hand returned to the wound on his chin. "Am I going to die?"

"Not this time, Wolfy," I soothed, then put parental sternness into my voice, "but if you ever hurt anyone again without my permission, I will have to hurt you even more."

"Can I at least play with Sarah? I like playing with Sarah. She doesn't hurt me."

"No, Wolfy," I answered with finality. "You cannot play with Sarah anymore. She may not hurt you, but I will."

"Okay," he answered petulantly.

This was not a cure, by any means, but perhaps it would keep him in check for a while without me having to kill him. For some reason, the prospect of doing that no longer held the appeal it had only minutes before.

"Untie these and help me get Ana down, Wolfy," I told him, "and don't forget to apologize for hurting her."

It didn't even occur to him to disobey. After Holtzman untwisted and removed the wire that still bound the remains of the chair to my arms, I gently removed the baseball bat from within my wife, and cut the cords that suspended her from the floor joists above.

Wolfy was as strong as he looked. He lowered Ana carefully to the floor and said contritely, "I'm sorry I hurt you, Miss Ana."

Ana leaned against me for several long moments, sobbing. With a herculean effort, she finally got her breathing under control, then turned to the hulk who had been brutalizing her only minutes before. With a gentle hand, she caressed his cheek and said softly, "Let's get that nasty cut cleaned up and put a bandage on it, young man. Can't have you getting an infection. Oh, and Wolfy?"

"Yes, Miss Ana?"

"I am very unhappy with you!" she told him sharply, as if scolding a child. "You must never hurt anyone without Nils' permission again. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Miss Ana," he answered, hanging his head.

Ana had just finished putting the bandage on Wolfy's wound, when, with a rumble, two uniformed policemen charged down the basement stairs, weapons drawn, looking for a target. No bullhorns, no shouts of 'Come out with your hands up!' They just barged in as if expecting to see what had been going on minutes before

They looked confused upon seeing Ana and I unbound. Then, noticing Holtzman, both aimed their weapons at him and said, "Move away from him, ma'am! We'll take it from here!"

"You'll do no such thing!" Ana bristled, putting herself, still naked, between the cops and her new charge. The cops, despite their fervor, took time to ogle her body. "What is the meaning of this? How dare you come charging into our house unannounced?"

"We had a report that someone was being held hostage here." the taller of the two cops said.

Simultaneously, his partner blurted out, "The alarm company called us about a break-in!"

"Well, as you can see," I said calmly, noting that Holtzman was actually cowering behind Ana, "no one is being held hostage. We were simply engaged in some private games and we had a slight accident. Isn't that right, Wolfy?"

He may have been a child, emotionally, but there was nothing wrong with his instinct for self-preservation.

"Yeah!" he nodded, sticking his head out from behind Ana, "Private games!"

"Well, we'd better take this one in for questioning," the tall cop started toward Holtzman, only to run into an implacable Anastasia.

"Has someone filed a complaint?" She asked sharply. "Do you have an arrest warrant? For that matter, do you have a warrant to be on these premises?"

"Well, no, but..."

"Now, now, dear. They're just trying to do their duty," I said, placatingly. I took the tall one by the arm and said, as congenially as I could through the pain in my jaw, "I appreciate your concern, officers, but as you can see, no one is in danger here. May I ask who really sent you down here to check on us?"