“Those stories are bullshit, man. You hear the description of her? Tiny bitch, barely five feet tall? Doesn’t even use a gun? Explain that shit.” There was a grumble of general agreement from the four guys around the table.
The conversation moved on to something else, and I slipped away. Luckily, the house he had stashed Dorothea in was only a few blocks away. I knew where it was a surely as Dorothea's boyfriend did. Sometimes, telepathy is damn convenient.
I jogged the few blocks to the quad, cutting through backyards when I was able to, and just generally trying not to be seen. About fifteen minutes later, I was there. The house was in decent shape, but the shrubs around the porch were overgrown, and the lawn was straggly and long.
My lost girl was in one of the two upstairs apartments. This was an old-fashioned quad, with stairs running up the back of the house to the two upper flats. I went up the stairs silently, listened at one window, heard a TV and a baby inside. I listened at the other. Silence
I’d hoped he’d left a window open, but I wasn’t that lucky. I took my lock-picking set (which I’d barely used — stuff like this was not my strong suit) out of my pocket and worked at the lock, listening. The last thing I needed was for someone to sneak up on me now. I looked around. This was all creepier than it should have been. I wondered again if I should have let the imps come with me. I wasn’t overly fond of them, but at least it was someone who could watch my back.
Damn, I was hungry. I tried to ignore it. Tried to focus on what I was doing. The latch clicked, and I turned the knob, then shut and locked the door behind me.
The apartment was sparsely furnished. A couch and a TV in the living room, a card table and chairs in the kitchen. The bedroom was down the hall, along with a bathroom. I pulled a small penlight out of my pocket and made my way to the closet. I opened the door, and the young woman, Dorothea, looked up at me, wincing from the bright light.
I pointed the light at the floor.
“It’s okay. I’m going to get you out.”
Dorothea started sobbing, and I worked at the padlock on her chain. It had just clicked, when I heard the front doorknob start rattling.
“Fuck,” I muttered, Dorothea sobbed. I shushed her. I put my hands in my pockets. Readied my pepper spray and knife.
Footsteps came toward the bedroom, and I stood at the ready, barely breathing. The bedroom door opened.
“Honey, I’m home,” the man from the other house said. And he switched on the light.
“Welcome home, darling,” I said. The man jumped, then reached into his waistband.
“You don’t want to do that,” I said, lacing my voice with will. He looked uncertain. Then he shook his head and continued to pull the gun. “I’m giving you one last chance. Drop the gun. Step away. And then don’t fucking move. It will be done.” My power snapped, and his eyes went blank. The gun fell from his hands, and he looked at me, confused.
I walked toward him and kicked the gun out into the hallway, reached into my pockets for zip ties.
“Guns. Weapons for cowards,” I growled, leaning in to tie his wrists together. He was deathly still. A blank look remained in his eyes. I looked at him.
Something was not right.
His eyes were completely blank, his face slack after that initial confused expression. He didn’t move. I went into his mind, tentatively.
There was nothing there. As if he was empty. No. Broken.
He was broken. I’d bashed my will into his mind with so much force I’d destroyed him. There was nothing there. The man was a vegetable.
I stared at him. I’d done this. In my rage, my hunger, I’d lost control with yet another Normal. A piece of shit Normal, yes, but a Normal just the same.
I remembered Dorothea, then. I walked, in a daze, to the closet and finished freeing her. The woman ran over to her captor.
“What did you do to him?” Fear. Of me. Something in me woke up, savored that fear.
I shrugged.
“You did something to him! He’ll be okay, right?” Dorothea's fear reached a fever pitch, and I soaked it in. So good.
“Are you kidding? He’s been beating your ass and keeping you locked in a closet,” I said. “He didn’t care about you nearly as much.”
“He loves me,” Dorothea insisted. “He just can’t control his emotions.”
I looked at her. “Are you telling me you would have preferred to stay in the closet?”
Doretha shook her head. She looked at me. Her fear hit me then, full on.
Her eyes. Why-the-hell-are-her-eyes-glowing-like-that?!
I savored her fear for a minute, as she sat, terrified, next to her vegetable of a boyfriend.
And then I went into her mind.
I removed every memory of myself.
And I locked the door behind me when I walked out.
I stormed down the back stairs, fuming. Headed toward the nearest bus stop, trying to figure out what the hell I’d just done. Completely drowned in guilt, anger. So when I’d wandered a few blocks, to a less-populated part of the neighborhood, and looked up to see the street blocked by two cars and a half dozen or so heavily armed men, it was too late. Guns were pointed solidly at my head, and I had nowhere to run.
The men watched me. They were all big, burly men. Dressed alike. Same posture, same expressions. I stopped walking a few feet from the cars, running through options in my head.
“Angel,” the man closest to me said. “Our Lady has a proposition for you.”
“What is it?” Sizing him up, weighing my options.
“Our boss wants to give you another chance. Come with us, quietly, and you won’t get hurt.”
“And your boss is?”
“The Puppeteer.”
“Ah. Of course. That explains some things. Does she make you all dress the same or was that by choice?”
The six of them looked at each other.
“Our Lady likes us to present a certain look,” the leader finally said.
“You look like a boy band. Except that one doesn’t match. His shirt is cut totally wrong,” I said, pointing at one of the guys at the rear of the group. They all turned to look at the offending sextuplet and I took the opportunity to bolt back into the neighborhood.
I liked to fight. There was a time to fight. This was a time to run my ass off and hope I was fast enough.
I heard guns firing, felt bullets whizzing past me like angry hornets. There were shouts behind me.
I ran through the neighborhood, jumped a few fences, zigzagged through a few streets. I lost a few, but there were two behind me. They must have split up, trying to box me in.
I put on a burst of speed, ducked into a garage. I left the old-fashioned garage door swinging slightly open. Held a canister of my pepper spray in each hand.
And the two puppets came around the side of the garage. They opened the door, and they each got a full-force, point blank dose of pepper spray. They went down, shouting in agony, and I jumped over them and ran back the way I’d come, zigzagging through yards, hoping the misdirection would throw off the other puppets.
I was just thinking I’d managed it, when I saw three more. They’d spotted me, and were running toward me, guns firing. I took a bullet to the thigh (again. Damn!) but I was determined to keep running. They followed, and my leg slowed me down while I healed myself.
They were catching up with me. Running was not going to work. All they had to do was get one or two more shots in, and I was screwed. Time to switch tactics. I stopped, looked at them. “You hate guns,” I began, power filling my voice. One of them laughed.
“Your powers are shit compared to the ones our Lady has.”
“If you’d have come with us, we would have been forced to keep you safe.”
“But since you ran, we get to do what we want.”
“And take you to our Lady anyway.”
The way they switched off, almost completing each other’s sentences, should have been creepy. But I was full of adrenaline and power, and I burst out laughing. I felt my power building.
“You want me? Come on then, big boys.”
They approached me, warily, guns drawn and pointed at me.
“We’re going to rip your body to shreds.”
“All we have to do is keep you alive.”
“But you’ll wish you were dead.”
I crossed my arms, shook my head. I hoped I looked cooler than I was feeling. My heart was about to pound out of my chest, and I felt like I was going to puke. But my power was filling me, near to bursting. I had to trust that it would be enough to keep me safe now.
They came closer, maybe four feet away now.
“She’s so scared she can’t even move.”
“Not so tough now.”
“I get first dibs.”
I closed my eyes, pictured going inside the triplets’ minds. It was agonizing. One on one was one thing, but that was not possible. The Puppeteer had a hook into them, mentally, and they were linked together.
Which explained why they talked in such a damn creepy way.
I couldn’t just change their minds. The Puppeteer was strong. They had been so fully tampered with, so fully wired to obey her orders, that there was no changing.
I couldn’t even read their thoughts. My head started pounding as I made my way into their minds. I was there. I could see the Puppeteer’s connection to them as if it was a physical thing.
I felt one of them grab me and pull my arms behind my back. I forced the panic away, kept working even as another shoved at my clothing.
I kept at their minds. The power and fear filled me, completely. Hands were on my body. All the hot showers in the world would not be enough to make me feel clean again.
I pushed away the fear. Focus.
I used my power, my anger, my fear, and I started attacking their connection to the Puppeteer. There was nothing for me to take here. It was a matter of complete destruction.
Leave nothing.
They started screaming.
I kept ripping.
And something snapped. I opened my eyes.
The one that had been on holding my hands behind my back fell, hard. The other two, who had been pawing me, fell to the ground, marionettes without their strings. I tried to sense for them. Nothing.
My head pounded. My nose was bleeding, and my body hurt all over between being shot, healing, and then being manhandled by the triplets.
I slowly stood up, pulled the ripped remnants of my top into some semblance of order. I pulled the knife out of my pocket and tucked it into my sleeve, out of sight but at the ready.
My powers wouldn’t save me if another baddie came my way. It had taken an incredible amount of power to destroy the triplets. I was tapped out. At that moment, I probably couldn’t read a thought if it was being mentally shouted at me.
Gone.
I walked toward where I thought the nearest main street, a street with a bus stop, might be, well aware that I was stumbling like I was drunk.
Of course, there was that last puppet that I hadn’t dealt with yet. And just my luck that he’d seen me before I saw him. He walked toward me, grinning.
“I am so sick of you ugly motherfuckers,” I muttered. My head felt like someone was hitting it with a hammer, and they just hit harder every time I spoke.
He came toward me. I hoped the knife would be enough. I ached, and I was exhausted. Powerless. My body was healing itself from the wounds I’d taken, but that requires energy. The energy that my body was putting into healing was more than I could spare if I expected to fight this last one.
“Too weak to fight. Perfect,” he said. “This is why she made me the leader. The others were stupid enough to face you in a fight.”
I just glared at him. Gritted my teeth. Trying to look like I wasn’t on the verge of pissing myself.
“You look like they roughed you up, though. Did you manage to kill them before they enjoyed themselves too much?” And he laughed. “Nothing left to fight me, though.”
Cocky son of a bitch.
He gave me a shove, and I fell to my knees. He kept walking toward me. “Let’s get you trussed up so I can deliver you to my Lady,” he said. “Be nice, now,” he said, grabbing my hair and pulling a syringe out of his pocket.
He was in close. Which was exactly where I needed him to be.
I struggled to free my hair from his hands, keeping his focus on taunting me, and I pulled the knife out of my sleeve.
And slashed up, stabbing him in the thigh. I’d been stabbed there before. Bleeding out from a femoral carotid would be a quick way to die. He screamed in pain and rage. Doubled over on himself, screaming. And I took the opportunity to smash his head into the concrete, knocking him out.
“I think your idea of ‘nice’ is different from mine,” I muttered, standing up stumbling away.
I stumbled as far as I could, ended up falling against a tree. Nothing left.
It was just that kind of night. I was about to pass out. I wasn’t even positive where I was, exactly, in terms of the nearest main street. And who knew when or if more Puppets would come after this group?
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Prayed, for once, that Nain would answer.
He answered on the first ring. I almost cried in relief. “Hey. It’s me.”
“Molly. What’s wrong? I swore I felt something…” he said.
“Yeah. I need you to come and get me. I just got my ass kicked, and I’m tapped out,” I said, fighting back tears of frustration, fear, pain, embarrassment.
“I’ll be there. Where are you?”
I told him where I was, as best I could. I could feel myself losing consciousness.
“I’ll be there, Molly. Stay on the phone with me.” His voice faded a little as he said “Brennan, let’s go.”
I heard heard him moving around, telling Brennan what was going on, heard a motor start up. A couple of minutes of a car, questions from Brennan.
Then Nain was back on with me. “What happened, Molls?”
“Puppets.”
“How many?”
“Six.”
He cursed. “How did you get away?”
“I fought. I did the mindflayer bit. It was too much.”
I waited for the lecture. “Just hold tight. Don’t let yourself pass out. I can’t feel you if you’re unconscious,” he said, and I could hear the tension in his voice.
“Okay.”
“I’m not too far from where you are.”