Second That Emotion
by
Latikia
Copyright © 2006
Chapter 32
The girls and I spent a couple of hours doing dishes; cleaning pots and pans, putting the china and silver back into the cabinet and just generally being domestic.
Okay…there was a little bit of grab-ass involved, mostly on my part, so the actual work involved took maybe an hour and ten minutes. But hey, we were young and energetic and a little bit buzzed from all the wine and liquor.
We said good night to Anya, staggered our way upstairs and tumbled into bed. There was another hour or so of additional groping and fondling, kissing and cuddling and then we all fell asleep in our usual mound of flesh.
The next couple of days passed quietly, which surprised the hell out of me. I expected some kind of fallout over eliminating a second Director, but nothing happened and no one called.
We slept and woke, ate and played, wandered the house, wandered the grounds, Peggy spent time with her horses, we all took turns working out with Anya and beginning to learn some of the things she could teach us, ate and played and slept and woke then did it all over again.
Day three AP (after the Party) started out differently and kept on being different no matter what I tried to do.
I hadn’t actually gone to sleep the previous night, so I never actually woke up that morning. I’d spent the wee hours of the morning in the library reading. For some reason I couldn’t get comfortable enough to fall asleep, so I snuck out, went down and curled up with a first edition volume of Tom Sawyer. Tom and Becky were wandering thru the cave when I realized that the phone in the study was ringing. Setting down the book I hurried to get the phone before it woke anyone.
“Blacktower.”
“Jones here. We have some problems and the Doctor thought
you should be warned. Senator Mortenson
has been nominated to become the next Director.
Mr. Davenport, you will no doubt be surprised to learn, has fallen into
a kind of coma and is not expected to wake up any time soon. His replacement as acting Director is still
being discussed within headquarters, but Congressman Bustamante is heading up a
congressional investigation into our former Director’s untimely death and the acting
Director’s sudden sleep disorder. And
lastly…we’ve been going thru Mr. Davenport’s files, and while there’s nothing
concrete to base our suspicion on, we believe that
“Appreciate the news and the heads up, Mr. Jones. Give my regards to the Doctor and my condolences to Mr. Davenport. See you when I see you.”
I hung up the phone and went to wake Anya.
I knocked on her bedroom door and it swung open almost immediately. Her hair was mussed but her eyes were bright and active as she tugged the robe around her.
“Mr. Jones just called to tell me there might be an assassin headed our way. The weather is supposed to turn ugly soon. He’s planning on coming out here with your weapons but might not make it, so you and I will have to be on guard. I want you to patrol inside the house. Keep moving around and pay special attention to all the doors, especially the ones at the back. I’ll watch the outside.”
“I’ll dress and get right on it.” she said.
“Remember, your primary mission is to protect the girls.”
“Yes sir.”
I smiled at her. “You’re doing a fine job Anya.” She brightened up considerably.
I went across the hall and entered the master bedroom where the girls were sleeping peacefully. Dressing quickly, throwing on my pea coat and watch cap, I hurried back down to the pantry and brought out the British sniper rifle, loaded my pockets with rounds for the gun and went out the front door, closing it behind me.
The early morning sky was cloudy and gray; a thick mist hovered over the grass, moving in and around the trees that surrounded the vast expanse of the property. There wasn’t much wind, just a small breeze that swelled from time to time and blew the chill air against my face. There were no birds chirping that morning, the only sounds, apart from my footsteps on the ground, came from the swaying of the taller trees and the occasional cracking of their bark.
I took a seat on the porch steps and scanned the area, keeping my eyes loose and looking for signs of movement.
I was loading a round into the rifle when I spotted a small figure moving towards me at the far end of the drive, some two hundred and fifty yards away. It was definitely human; and from the way it moved I guessed it to be male. There was no way he should have gotten past the external security unnoticed, so I immediately was alert. I linked with him and flipped the covers off the rifle scope, bringing the weapon up to my shoulder and the sights over his torso.
Thru the scope I could see his features better and was surprised to find that he was a young boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. His hair was damp, hanging half way between his ears and shoulders, a reddish color several shades darker than my own had originally been. He didn’t have any facial hair; his skin showed signs of acne but was otherwise a fairly good looking kid.
He took his hands from the pockets of his military style OD green jacket and raised them up to shoulder height, but kept moving towards me.
Thru the link I could feel his excitement. He was pleased, eager, and not the least bit afraid. There was also an underlying sensation of menace and malice.
I probably should have shot him right then. But I didn’t. I hit him hard with a rush of fear.
His youthful features twisted slightly and his steps became hesitant. He shrugged and shook himself, straightened up taller and continued moving forward.
I definitely should have shot him then. But I didn’t. My curiosity was aroused. I changed the flow of fear into abject terror and watched him closely.
His face went white, his eyes opened wide and his hands dropped down. He looked from side to side quickly then over his shoulder. He stopped moving and began turning in circles. I could feel his personal fear rising up in him along with a splash of paranoia. He shook himself like a dog and the fear, paranoia and the terror I’d sent him vanished. He grinned and started forward again.
I should have shot him on the spot. Instead, I unloaded the rifle, set it down on
the steps and got to my feet. I started
walking towards him while he came at me.
We both stopped moving with about five feet between us. He was about
“You shouldn’t be here. Turn around and go home.” I said looking down at his boyish face.
“My name’s Tim. You have got to be Ike Blacktower. There couldn’t be two people that look like you.” he said in a light tenor voice that was just a little reedy and nasal.
I nodded, feeling the malice grow in him. “What do you want here Tim?”
“Arthur Davenport sent me. You know him, right?”
“I’ve met the man, yes.”
“He’s my uncle, my mother’s brother. He told me you were a very dangerous man.”
I watched Tim and felt his heart beating faster and faster.
“He said that you killed the Director of the CIA and that you were going to kill other people if I didn’t stop you.”
“You came here to kill me?” He nodded. “Have you ever killed anyone Tim?” I asked him.
His eyes lit up and his grin got bigger. I felt his heart pounding and a flash of almost sexual excitement filled him.
“Yeah. It was wonderful!” he gushed.
“You like killing? It makes you feel stronger, more powerful, more important…right?”
“Yeah. It sure beats the hell out of jacking off!”
“I would imagine so. There are better feelings, you know. Jacking off is the least of those.”
“I know. But fucking isn’t nearly as good as killing. Its okay, don’t get me wrong. But nowhere near as good.”
“I can show you something that feels better, a thousand times better. If you’d like.”
“Nah, thanks anyway. My uncle warned me about you. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. He said just get in, kill you and everyone in the house and get back out.”
I nodded. I also started to get angry. “How are you going to do it…if you don’t mind me asking?”
“It’s a thing I do with my mind. I’m going to ‘think’ you dead.”
“I see. Do you have to touch me or see me or can you just ‘think’ about me and do it?”
He shrugged. “Touching makes it easier, but generally I only have to see you.”
“What’s it like? Burning, drowning, cutting…anything like that?”
“Nah, more like going insane. It’s really fun to watch. Sometimes I can almost feel them freaking out before their hearts stop.”
“Tell me something Tim, did your uncle tell you how I killed the Director of the CIA?”
“No. I guess you probably used poison or a knife or something. Doesn’t matter.”
I sighed. “Tim, I’m bigger and stronger than you. I’ve killed maybe a hundred men, men who had guns and were trained to kill. You don’t think that matters?”
“Nope. ‘Cause you left your gun back there. And I don’t have to let you hit me or use your strength or size. You won’t have time.”
‘This is fucking
pathetic. Unless you plan on trying to fix this pup, just kill him and get it
over with.’
Tim’s eyes got even wider when he heard the change in my voice.
“I don’t like the idea of killing kids.”
‘This kid likes killing and he’s more than
willing to go after everyone in the house.
You can’t save this one. He
shouldn’t be saved.’
“I’m not a kid, you fucking freak!” Tim screeched, his voice cracking on the final syllable. Then he lashed out at me thru his own link.
He had power; there was no doubt about that.
I smiled at the boy. “Not bad.” I said. “But pain only works if the person you use it on can’t take it. I’ve felt worse.”
‘Stop playing around
and kill the little fucker!’
“He’s right. I’m really sorry to have to do this Tim, but you shouldn’t have come after me.”
Reaching out I wrapped my hands around the sides of his face and held his head firmly between them and unleashed my rage.
Tim continued to try and drown me with pain, and I can’t say it didn’t hurt. It did. My head felt like it was going to explode, every joint ached, every muscle screamed with agony. But it was only pain and I’d hurt worse before. Pick ‘em up and put ‘em down.
The pain fed my rage and I let the flames of that inferno rush down the length of my arms and thru my hands into his body. Tim screamed loudly as his entire body burst into flame and then turned into one man sized charcoal lump which crumbled into gray ash and fell thru my fingers to form a pile at my feet.
The link was severed and the pain in my body melted away. I brushed my hands against each other to clear the dust, noticing that it had started to snow. I walked slowly back to the house, picked up the rifle and went inside.
It continued to snow steadily all thru the day. I went out back and brought in wood for the fireplaces. The girls and I made pots of tea and chocolate and we all sat around the fires in various rooms and talked or cuddled. Peggy wanted to see how the horses were doing in the snow, so she and Anya bundled up and went out thru the hothouse to check up on them. Lilly, Izzy and I sat in the rec room, listening to the radio and sipping our drinks.
“What happened this morning Ike? You were gone when we got up and Anya said Mr. Jones had called about some problems and kept us from going out after you.” Izzy asked.
“Nothing much happened.
Mr. Jones called to tell me that our favorite Senator is being nominated
to be the next Director and that Congressman Bustamante is starting an
investigation into the death of the previous Director. And apparently Mr. Davenport has gone into
some kind of coma and the doctors don’t think he’s likely to come out. Oh, and
“You killed him?” Lilly asked.
“Yeah.” It wasn’t hard to sound regretful, because I was. It shouldn’t have been necessary to kill the kid. Maybe if I hadn’t put his uncle to sleep he would have called off the kid.
‘And maybe he
wouldn’t. You can’t bring the kid back
and you’ll only make yourself feel worse if you dwell on this. He’s dead and we killed him. He would have killed us,
he would have killed all of them if
he could. He said as much. It don’t make a lick
of difference how young he was, or how many zits he had on his face. He came here to kill and he failed. End of fuckin’
story.’
“He’s right baby.” Lilly said, moving closer to me and running her fingers along my hair covered jaw. “You did what you had to do. He didn’t hurt you, did he? You’re okay?”
I smiled fondly at her and kissed the top of her head. “It hurt more than cutting myself shaving, and less than getting hit by a car. I’m fine. He was strong, but very inexperienced. If he’d had Izzy for a sister he might have been a real danger.”
Izzy punched me in the arm and gave me a kiss.
I looked up at the clock. It had been nearly thirty minutes since they’d gone out. Where were Peggy and Anya?
“Come with me.” I jumped up and ran thru the house to the kitchen and into the pantry. I threw the shoulder rig on and turned to Izzy and Lilly.
“Take the shotgun and get down into the cellar. You know the drill. Me or Anya. No one else.”
I ran at full speed to the hothouse and thru the back door and looked around. The snow was falling harder and the clouds had dropped much lower, seemingly impaled on the tree tops. I didn’t see Peggy or Anya anywhere near the house or the corral, so I started scanning the ground looking for foot prints. I did finally notice some indentations in the snow that had been partially filled with new snow and followed them. They went past and thru the corral fence and continued on down the slope towards the crude stable.
I started moving faster, my fear and anger increasing as I went.
Several feet ahead of me I saw a lump on the ground, dusted with a thin layer of new snow. I rolled the figure over, prepared for the worst. It was Anya and she was breathing, but her breaths were shallow and weak. I looked her over. She’d been hit in the back of the head and was bleeding slightly, but the cold had kept the blood loss from being as bad as it could have been. I cast my eyes around ahead of this point and tried to see some movement. I took off my pea coat and draped it over her. It was the best I could do at the moment.
“Daddy!” a very faint voice cried out off in the distance. I pulled one of the Glocks, jacked the slide and started running towards the sound I’d heard. My fear soared and my anger merged with flat out hatred to heat my body. I ran as fast and hard on the snow as I ever had on pavement.
I spotted movement just ahead and linked with it. The figure was male, and struggling to plow thru the snow. I put a steel bullet thru his heart and felt him die.
‘Too fuckin’ good for you, you prick!’ I thought as I continued to run. Two more figures emerged from the mist and snow. I linked with them and cooked their brains with the heat of my rage and strength of my hatred.
“Peggy!!” I roared.
I heard gunfire from slightly off to the side and felt a tug at my side. I kept moving, veering in the direction of the shot. Another shape popped up in front of me. I linked and grabbed it by the neck at the same time. Dressed in white military winter wear and with a knit hood over his face, I watched his eyes pop out of their sockets as I filled him with feelings of his impending death and dismemberment.
“Where is she?” I snarled as I squeezed his neck between my fingers.
The hooded figure struggled, bringing up a hand that held a small K-Bar style knife and shoving it into the right side of my chest. I growled with the impact and grimaced at the sudden flash of heat within my body. I holstered the Glock and shoved the first two fingers of my right hand deep into the eye holes of the mask. I lifted the flopping and shrieking body close to my lips and bellowed, “Tell me where is she and I’ll kill you quick!”
“Right over here.” said a calm voice to my left. I flung the body in my hands off to the right and turned like a wounded bear, swaying briefly as I set my feet.
The voice was lilting and melodious, the figure was thin but only a little shorter than me. Dressed in the same white semi-military outfits as the others had been, this one held Peggy in front of him/her as a shield, with a small hand gun pressed against the side of my girl’s head.
“Are you okay honey?” I asked, linking with the figure behind her.
“My arm hurts.” She grimaced and cradled her right arm with her left.
“She fought us and one of the men grabbed her more roughly than he should have.”
“Let her go and you can walk away, no questions. I won’t draw a weapon, I give you my word.”
“Mr. Blacktower, you have a knife in your chest and a bullet in your belly. Neither of which kept you from slaughtering my men.”
“Let her go,” I repeated, “and I’ll let you live.”
“I don’t think that would be a very smart move on my part, giving up my only leverage.”
“You don’t have any leverage. I’m very sorry Peggy.” I said sadly and put a triple sized spark into her inner ring.
Peggy’s eyes rolled back in her head, she shivered violently, moaned, stiffened and slumped on the snow covered ground.
“No fucking leverage at all.” I growled.
I poured all my anger and hatred into the figure in front of me and listened with appreciation as his/her screams reached the alto soprano range and then locked those feelings with a band of hyper intense pain and agony and left the idiot flailing about in the snow. I bent down and scooped Peggy up in my arms and carried her back the way I’d come, following the trampled and churned up snow until we came to Anya’s body. I linked with her unconscious form and hit her with a large blast of love and her body jerked spasmodically and cried out briefly. I laid Peggy down and tossed Anya and my coat over one shoulder then picked Peggy back up, being careful of her arm, and stumbled back up towards the house.
I eventually made it back to the corral and up to the hothouse. I set Peggy down and opened the door, pulled her inside, shut the door, picked her up and walked stiffly inside to the rec room. I set her down in one of the recliners and lay Anya on the couch.
The heat from the fireplace was intense relative to the cold outside and I started to sweat as though I were in a sauna. I ached all over, and the pain in my stomach and chest were beginning to dull my thoughts.
I lurched down the hall to the kitchen and banged on the cellar door.
“Izzy, Lilly…it’s me. Come up here quick, we’ve got trouble.” I rasped out and sagged against the wall.
I heard footsteps on the stairs and the door opened.
“Oh dear god!” Izzy gasped.
“Listen carefully, ‘cause I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake. Anya is hurt bad, probably a concussion and maybe more I don’t know about. Peggy’s right arm is hurt, might be broken. They’re in the rec room. One of you go to the study and get Jones or Wills on the phone and tell them to get a med evac chopper here ASAP. Tell them I don’t care what the weather is like, this is an emergency. The other of you has to go take care of Anya and Peggy. Keep them warm and try to wake Anya. Keep her moving if you can. Whatever you do, do not try to take the knife out of me. I’m going outside. The cold should keep me from bleeding to death until the medics get here. Got it?”
“I’ll take care of Peggy and Anya.” Izzy said and hurried off.
Lilly helped me up and together we went in the direction of the study. She went inside and picked up the phone, I continued on outside and sat down on the porch. The cold was a welcome relief from the heat.
The snow fell lazily and I watched the flakes as they landed on top of each other and blanketed the ground and my legs. I tried to get comfortable, but no matter how I shifted position, everything hurt. I was so tired. My eyes closed and I felt myself drifting away and the pain began to fade.
‘Don’t give up
boy. There’s still too much left to do.’
“Where’ve you been Granddad? Haven’t heard from you for a while.”
‘You didn’t need to
hear from me. Now you do.’
“I didn’t see this coming. Using the boy to get past the guards and then as a diversion…they lulled me into thinking it was all over.”
‘You won’t always be
able to see everything Ike. There are
times when the best you can do is react quickly and
deal with things as they happen. You did
well enough.’
“I should have known!”
‘How could you
know? You aren’t psychic and you can’t
read minds. Don’t take on more blame
than you deserve. Save some for the
people who are responsible.’
“I’ll destroy the whole goddamn Congress!”
‘No you won’t. You’ll be just because that’s who you are.
You’re not a monster.’
“I’m dying Granddad. I can feel it.”
‘I know. I can feel it too. But dying doesn’t mean dead. You hang tough boy. There’s more of the path you haven’t traveled
yet and I expect you to cover it all.’
“I’ll do my best.”
‘No one expects more
than that.’
There were sounds of voices and a loud ‘thwopp-thwopp’ noise in the background. I heard my name being called, but I was just so tired.
“Tell Jones that there’s one still alive out there.” I mumbled. After that the best I could do was to weakly broadcast reassurance and hope. Then everything got very quiet.