Mercy moved to roll another compulsion over Feeble, to get her to move, to come with her. Not wanting to spark another rebellion, I sent a gentle suggestion to Mercy to wait. She did.
The longer Feeble didn’t move, the more Chop’s mouth curled upward into a cruel smile. He turned to Mercy, secure in his fucking little kingdom of domination and power games, ready to fight again.
“You killed him.”
It came out of the corner, quiet but cutting.
Chop scowled. “So what?”
Feeble scrambled to her feet, still wobbly and so pale I feared she might faint. Braced with one hand against the wall, she tucked poor little Marcel into her chest and took a step.
“He was only protecting me, and you killed him.”
“The fucking thing bit me!”
“You hurt him.”
Top lip curling back, Chop ground out, “It’s just a fucking animal. A dumb monkey. It probably gave me rabies!”
“Good!” Feeble shouted, taking another step toward him. “I hope you die in agony, you fucker!”
Chop raised his hand. “One more word, bitch,” he threatened.
“Try it,” she replied, deadly serious.
And then she walked right past him and out of the room.
The crowd of Tools parted like the Red Sea. Head high, Feeble left Chop behind.
In the room, Chop gaped after her, every molecule of air sucked from his sails and every thread of rug pulled from under him.
Mercy cackled, gave him the finger and followed Feeble out.
Feeble got to the footpath before she crashed. She crumpled into a pitiful pile of shivering limbs and sobs. In a flash, Mercy was there, scooping her up and carrying her away before anyone from the house could catch them.
I got out of my car and ran back to Erin’s. She and Dev immediately hammered me with questions about what was going on, but I merely opened the back door in time for Mercy to lay a quivering teenager on the back seat.
Erin moved without prompting. She fetched the first aid kit from the boot and while Feeble shivered from shock, I tidied up the wounds in her neck and wrapped her in a blanket. Climbing into the backseat, Erin wrapped her arms around Feeble and rocked. Gently, I pried the dead monkey from her hold.
It was close but I managed to keep my shit together as I wrapped Marcel in a towel. Such a brave little spark, extinguished.
Dev joined me at the boot as I tucked the little body away.
“We should move,” he said softly. “In case they come looking for her.”
I agreed with a nod. “You drive Erin’s car. Follow us.”
We ended up in a small park a couple of suburbs over. Mercy prowled the darkness around our small group, keeping an eye out for intruders. She was still brimming with a need to fight, a desire to crush Chop into a pulp for what he’d done. I was torn between hoping Chop found us, and that he never crossed our paths ever again.
Feeble sat at a picnic table in the circle of Erin’s arms, no longer crying, but not saying anything, either. Erin kept stroking her hair, murmuring soothing words. Dev and I did what useless men do in these sorts of situations, we hung back and looked awkward. In terse, quiet words I told Dev what had happened and he looked like he might take out a share in Mercy’s Smash Plan.
“Your sister?” I asked.
He flashed me a dark scowl, but managed to smooth the anger from his face before it ignited my own festering need to punch.
“Yeah,” he drawled. “Friedrich tortured her into obeying him. If it was anything like what Elise would do to me, he’d hurt her, then make her feel better. Over and over until it was hard to tell what was pain and what was kindness. I nearly broke. Lana did. She managed to get free of him, though. And he killed her for it.” Dev swallowed hard, troubled gaze on Erin and Feeble. “I’m glad she got out before Chop could do anything worse to her.”
“I’m sorry about your sister.” I squeezed his shoulder and Dev nodded in thanks.
“Matt,” Erin called calmly. “Fiona’s willing to talk.”
Fiona? I deciphered it as I approached them. Fiona, Fee, Feeble.
I crouched in front of them, so I was lower than the trembling girl, trying to be as unthreatening as I could. Still primed from the action at the house, I caught a taste of her aura. The flavours were still uneven, would remain so until she calmed, but at least they were flowing again. The sweetness and the tart, swirling freely around her. Smooth, not as heavy or thick. Despite all the other shit going down, for someone who’d just had a litre and change of blood sucked from her body, Feeble… Fiona, looked, well, better.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
Fiona chewed on her lower lip, looking from me to Erin and back again. “Lighter.”
It could have been a spiritual, I’m free of my abuser, lighter. Or it could have been an I’ve lost the extra blood that was endangering my life, lighter.
Or it may have been both.
“Good. We’d really like to know about your friend, Scary.” That too had been easy, when I knew to link them. Sean Carey. S Carey. Scary. “Are you okay to talk?”
Feeble sniffled and ducked her head against Erin’s shoulder. “Yeah.”
“He was good to you, wasn’t he?”
Nodding, Feeble whispered, “He took care of us. He had a job and he paid the rent on the house, so we wouldn’t have to be on the streets, or go home. He always took me to the doctor when I needed it.”
I shoved aside the memory of his head just disappearing right in front of me. “He sounds really cool. Marcel was from Scary, wasn’t he.”
Another nod and a sob. “Scary said the monkeys were given to him, by the boss of the zoo, because they had too many and had to get rid of some.” She smiled, sad and wry. “I knew he was lying. I knew he stole them. But I didn’t care, because Marcel’s so… Was so sweet and loving.”
“He was a brave little man,” I agreed. “You know Scary sold the other monkeys he had, right?”
“I guessed. He had a lot of money after he gave me Marcel. We were going to go to Sydney. Him and me and Razor. Get away from Chop, but then Scary disappeared. He’d said he had a date.” Another small smile, as if she couldn’t believe Scary would date. “At a place on Queen Street. But he never came home. Then the cops came looking for Chop and they said he was dead.”
Tears appeared again and Erin rubbed her back until she could pull in a steadying breath.
“Fiona,” I prompted as gently as I could, “we need to find the man Scary sold the monkeys to. Can you help us?”
Sniffing back her tears, Fiona nodded. “Scary took me there, once. He had to get the last of the money off the guy. I had to stay outside and hide Marcel, because Scary said if the guy knew he’d kept one of the monkeys he’d be in trouble.”
This was it. We were going to finally get this bastard.
“Where is he?”
Fiona looked at me helplessly. “I don’t know.”
Before I could blow an artery, she continued, fast and eager to please.
“I mean, I don’t know the address, but I can get there!”
There was a hungry desperation in her eyes seeking reassurance she hadn’t messed up, that I wasn’t angry with her, that I wasn’t going to punish her.
I had to walk away. It wasn’t that Feeble had disappointed me. It was that I wanted to run back to Chop and finish what Mercy had started. Behind me, Erin gave the girl the assurances I couldn’t right then.
Mercy joined me in the dark. “Now we hunt?”
“Now we hunt.”
Her surge of sparkly joy warmed me right through.
Erin bundled Fiona back into the BMW, Dev and I got into the Monaro and Mercy on the bike. This time, Erin lead the way, guided by Fiona.
One of these days, I was going to learn to not make assumptions. Hopefully a day in the not too distant future.
Our destination was in Kangaroo Point, at the exact spot on the map Kermit had pointed out and I had dismissed as the home of Tanqueray.
The house was one of the palatial monstrosities looking out over the Brisbane River, rendered to within an inch of its life and bursting the seams of its block of land. All the windows were dark, not a hint of movement inside.
“Bad memories,” Dev murmured as we sat in the car for a moment, casing the joint, as it were.
“Of?”
“My last visit to Friedrich’s place,” he answered grimly.
“Let’s hope it goes better this time.”
Grunting, Dev muttered, “It couldn’t go much worse. I can feel it even out here. The rogue’s definitely spent a lot of time here. Done a lot of tricks here.”
Even I thought I could feel it, a tingly irritation at the back of my skull. Mercy felt it too. She didn’t like it at all, shaking her head and snarling as if she could either dislodge the sensation or scare it away.
Maybe Carver hadn’t ensorcelled Tanqueray at the hospital. Perhaps he’d just seen the big man there, decided he’d make a nice real life Thing (of Fantastic Four variety, not Addams Family) and followed him home.
A quick debate later it was decided Mercy, Dev and I would venture in. Erin and Fiona would stay in the car, an open phone line to Mercy (the only one of us three with a working device, as weird as that sounds. Well, not as weird as a ghoul with a mobile, I guess) to warn us of any incoming trouble.
The street side of the property was guarded by an eight foot fence of wrought iron, which Mercy cleared with barely a run up. There was no way Dev and I were going to scale it without alerting the neighbours. Dev took care of it by freezing the lock on the gate with a trick and then smashing it with a rock.
Back itching from the sorcery, with a bitchy echo from Mercy who had felt the trick far more keenly than I had, I crossed the narrow front yard, Baby Glock ready, telekinesis lurking like a warm weight in my chest. Dev scouted a little further afield, making sure there were no sorcerous traps waiting to spring out at us. Mercy flashed about in a blur of moonlight, racing around the perimeter, looking for more mundane issues.
Neither had sprung any traps by the time I reached the front door. Squashing a perverse urge to ring the doorbell, I waited for my cohorts to catch up.
“Merce,” I sent down the link, “take the back. Make sure our prey doesn’t flee that way.”
She narrowed her predator-sheened eyes, but blurred away.
“She’ll take the back,” I told Dev.
He nodded and the background level of sorcery amped up several notches of my spine, from mildly annoying to actively teeth-gritting. Couldn’t blame him, though. We had to be prepared for anything.
“Ready?” I asked Mercy.
She snapped in the positive.
“Ready?” I asked Dev.
He grunted in the positive.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s dance.”
As I had in the hotel, when looking for Dev’s room, I blew in the door with a sharp punch of telekinesis. That simmering level of anger might have added to the power of it, somewhat. Lock and hinges were ripped out of the doorframe this time. Oh, and maybe the rock situation in my head may have contributed, because the thick wood of the door was pulverized to splinters. The explosion boomed through the house and rolled across the street. Dogs started barking.
Dusted in woodchips, Dev just cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Ding dong,” I called into the house. “Avon calling!”
Not waiting to see if I got a smile, I ducked inside, gun at the ready. Dev came in behind me. Between us, we cleared the first floor in under a minute, meeting up with Mercy at the base of the stairs leading to the next floor.
Vampire in the lead, we went up.
At the top of the stairs, Mercy went still. Head tilting, she scanned along the dark corridor. With a nod, she indicated which way we had to go. Through her, I could hear the heartbeat at the end of the corridor. Fast, frantic, panicking. Also through her, I felt the poison-prickling of sorcery from that direction as well.
Dev, picking up on the sorcery most likely, moved with us without needing to be told.
Mercy took care of the door this time. A single kick busted the lock and it swung open. She darted in and I followed.
Through our shared senses, we locked onto the dark shadow at the same time. Mercy tensed to pounce and my finger squeezed back the trigger.
“Kufungia!” Dev shouted and the whole room was doused in a sudden, muscle spasming cold.
It was effective, I’ll give it that. My aim went haywire and Mercy crashed into the bed instead of the man in a hoodie in the chair by the window.
In the teeth-chattering silence that followed, there was a muffled shout and the man in the chair began to struggle.
“Shit,” I stuttered, pulling the gun up and away from pointing at anyone.
“It’s not him,” Dev said, breathless with relief.
Mercy picked herself up and very deliberately dusted herself off while glaring at Dev. “He feels like the dick who broke my neck,” she ground out, fangs clicking to punctuate her meaning.
Dev held his hands up. “I know. He’s an earth sorcerer, yes, but not the rogue.” Carefully, he moved toward the bound man. “Why would the rogue be tied up? Or gagged?”
Thankfully, the room was rapidly warming up and I rubbed some life back into my hands. Well, right hand. My left was completely numb, and it wasn’t the from the cold.
“Because this was the trap,” I answered. Fumbling, I found a light switch. “So, who is our mystery player?”
Light flared and we all winced, but when I could focus, I recognised…
“Dr Carver?”