“Do you know who this is? Do you recognize her?”
The deliverer held up the woman’s face so that the betrayer could see it clearly. She’d been here longer than he, though the fog in the captive man’s eyes was matched by that in the woman’s. The same drug for both victims, though her fate was to be very different from his.
“Look closely.” He watched the betrayer’s expression as recognition began to show through the grog of his semiconsciousness.
“Good, good. You know who you’re looking at.” He held her face in his line of vision. Her eyes, behind the clouds, were blue. She had a spattering of freckles on her cheeks, and her auburn hair was neatly styled in an elegant, not-too-modern look. A few wrinkles might just have been forming at her brow, but they were expertly concealed with make-up that nonetheless remained subtle. She looked as she always looked. Kind.
“You know her. You spoke with her. You conspired with her.” He knew that the betrayer didn’t know the woman well, but that his interactions with her had been important. He would recognize her.
The man writhed a little in his bonds. He didn’t take his eyes off the woman.
“Her part in what you did to us was minimal, perhaps,” the deliverer with the slender fingers continued. “I don’t really know the details. It wasn’t as significant as yours, at any rate. She provided you with aid, but it was you who took us down. Who destroyed all that we had worked for. All that we were set to become. That I was set to become.”
He breathed deeply, striving to control himself. The memories were fierce and painful, and his voice rose with each word. He forced it down, back to a constrained quiet.
I was set to become the prophet. The king. The leader. A new Moses for a new era. It was hard to subdue the pain of such loss. But perhaps, like Moses, I was simply not meant to go all the way into the new world.
He turned his attention back to his male captive.
“You must learn that there is a cost to your actions. A cost the innocent must sometimes pay. Some lambs are sacrificial, just like in the good old days, and each has its price.”
The betrayer’s head lolled. It was clear his consciousness was waning. But whatever the force of the drug, what was coming next would not escape his notice.
“Watch this closely,” the attacker instructed. Releasing the unconscious woman’s head so that it fell forward, he extracted a serrated hunting knife from a sheath at his hip. Then he grabbed the woman’s right wrist and held it up before the other man’s gaze.
“This,” he said, laying the knife against her pale, pearly flesh, “is only the beginning of that price.”
When he saw that the betrayer’s eyes were again focused, he pulled down the sharp blade until it met with bone, and set to work.