by Hondo Jinx
Frankie relaxed a little and took a long drink.
“Will you help us?” Remi asked.
Frankie bit her lip.
Eyeing those white teeth and the full, red lip pinched between them, Brawley figured he’d like to take over for her.
“I don’t want to get into any trouble,” Frankie said.
“You won’t,” Remi said. “Everything’s cloaked.”
Frankie looked to Brawley for confirmation.
“Deeply. One of my other wives is one hell of a Seeker.”
Frankie arched an eyebrow. “How many wives do you have?”
“Three,” Brawley said. “Remi, the Seeker, and a force mage.”
The Gearhead looked at him for a second. “So, as a power mage you can, like, do all that stuff?”
“Yes, ma’am. Three days ago, I was just a dirty old cowboy.”
“Wow,” Frankie said. “Three days, three wives…” Then she broke off, blinking rapidly.
Remi laughed.
Brawley pulled a wad of cash from his pocket. “We’ll pay you in cash.”
“Wait,” Frankie said, looking startled. “What?”
“To work on the RV,” Brawley said. “Fix the windshield, the body, make some mods. Remi said you could work the engine.”
Frankie smiled, instantly transformed by discussing the Winnebago. “I could do all sorts of stuff with that big beauty.”
“How much?” he asked.
Her mouth wriggled uncertainly. “I just do the work. Cotter sets the prices and takes the money.”
“He still paying you peanuts?” Remi said.
Frankie looked sad. “It’s my fault. I signed the contract.”
“I’ll pay Cotter,” Brawley said, “but I’ll pay you a bonus, too.”
Frankie smiled, impressing him again with her lovely mouth and teeth. “That’s sweet, Brawley, but I couldn’t take the money. I agreed to hand over every penny, including tips, to Cotter until I…” She trailed off, looking sad again. “It’s complicated.”
“Well, if you could help us out, I’d really appreciate it,” Brawley said. “Especially the windshield. Pain in the ass, driving with my head sideways, and we have a long trip ahead of us.”
Frankie looked wistful. “That sounds amazing. Just drive off. Where are you going?”
“Texas,” Remi said, and gave her a hip bump. “Come with us.”
Frankie laughed. “I wish. But you know I can’t, Rem. You go ahead and leave the RV and take the Caddy. I’d tell you to wait, but I’m not sure about the windshield. I’ll check the yard. Even if we don’t have one, RVs are a dime a dozen in this neck of the woods.”
They thanked her.
Frankie smiled brightly, bringing her dimples back. “Tell Cotter to charge you for the glass and the bullet holes. After that, we’ll see. I might not be able to take tips, but I never said I wouldn’t do extra stuff for friends. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, sweetie,” Remi said, hauling Frankie into another embrace. “You’re the best.”
Frankie pulled a set of keys off a pegboard and pointed to an old, green Cadillac parked alongside the hangar. “She doesn’t look like much, but she’ll get you where you’re going. Guaranteed.”
She tossed the keys to Brawley.
“Thanks, darlin,” Brawley said. From his back pocket, he pulled the strange little book he’d found in the Miami mausoleum. Feeling it in his hand, he had to wonder about the two missing items his parents had apparently left for him. “You know any Cosmics for hire around here? I want somebody to take a look at this for me.”
Frankie paused, thinking about it, then said, “Maypole.”
“That a person or a place?”
“That’s a person. I don’t know his first name. He’s a bit odd.”
“What Cosmic isn’t?” Remi said.
“There are other Cosmics close by. There’s even a boutique in town that offers a whole menu of services. But the thing about Maypole is he wouldn’t rat you out.”
“Sounds like the right guy,” Brawley said. “Where’s he at?”
“Little town called Braidusville. Different world up there.” She told them which roads to take. “Keep going till you run out of town, and the cemetery will be on your right. Go on in, and you’ll see Maypole’s shack. Tell him the girl that fixed his AC sent you.”
“Thanks,” Brawley said.
“Don’t head up there yet, though,” Frankie said. “Maypole’s a late riser. You show up before noon, he’ll run you off.”
Brawley nodded. That would give him time to pick up a few things, do some training, take care of his women, and send them out clothes shopping. Nina needed more. Remi and Callie had none at all besides those they had borrowed.
“Watch out for Maypole’s wife,” Frankie said. “She’s a strange bird. Keeps a paper bag on her lap. You say something she doesn’t like, she’ll show you what she keeps inside.”
4
“Honeys, we’re home,” Remi said, pushing through the door.
Sage was reading on the couch with her legs folded beneath her. She looked up and blinked at them from behind her glasses.
Nina had field stripped the MAC-10 and was in the process of reassembling the boxy submachine gun.
“Grabbed some stuff on the way home,” Brawley said, dropping the grocery sacks on the counter.
Nina popped up, gave him a quick kiss, and went for the bags.
Sage closed her book and laid it in her lap. “How did it go at the garage?”
“Good,” Brawley said. “Cotter overcharged us, but the Gearhead thinks she can fix up the RV pretty quickly. And she gave me the name of a Cosmic who might be able to help me figure out the book.”
Sage tilted her pretty head and smiled. “She, huh? I detect a change in you, husband.”
“I like her,” he admitted. “You would, too.”
On the ride back, Remi had explained Frankie’s situation.
Frankie grew up in the suburbs of Tampa, daughter to a dispirited Gearhead father and a pain in the ass fuggle mother.
After cracking her strand, Frankie’s world blew up. Junior year was a blur of spinning gears. Her grades crashed and burned. Her mom went apeshit, and her dad was too much of a pussy to interpose.
Frankie quit school, hit the road, and soon ran out of money. Right after hitting rock bottom, she met Cotter, who conned her into working for him.
Indenture was an old tradition in the psionic community. Seeker attorneys drew up contracts that stipulated the conditions of apprenticeship. Once finalized, the contracts were legally binding. Governing attorneys instantly sensed breaches of contract, which were punishable under a draconian code that had endured through the centuries.
Desperate to make it on her own and taken in by Cotter’s phony warmth and the idea of learning her trade on a sprawling junkyard, Frankie hadn’t read the fine print and hadn’t understood the accounting to which she had agreed. She hadn’t understood things like net versus gross, or deductible operating expenses, or what Cotter had meant by training fees or reasonable wages.
Cotter was lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut. But Brawley respected Frankie for how she was handling the situation.
A lot of people, they got their ox in a ditch, they set to crying. But Frankie worked seven days a week, clocking fourteen-hour shifts in hopes of breaking free.
Even working that hard, though, the gorgeous Gearhead wouldn’t escape for a long, long time. A decade, Remi reckoned, maybe longer.
“Pie!” Nina hollered, hoisting the dessert overhead like a victorious hockey player displaying the Stanley Cup. “I love pie!”
“Enjoy,” Brawley said, glancing around. “Where’s Callie?”
“Girlfriend got all anxious after you left,” Nina said. “Went in her room, trotted back out in cat form. Then she walked out the door and disappeared in the tall grass.”
“I believe that Callie is hunting,” Sage said. Then she narrowed her
blue eyes for a second. “Yes. She’s hunting on the other side of the lake.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for her,” Brawley said, starting for the door. “See y’all soon.”
“Wait,” Nina said, and shut the door with her mind. “Aren’t we going to get freaky?”
“You know it, darlin,” Brawley said. “But I got to try something first. You girls get warmed up. I won’t be long.”
Brawley walked the path to the lake. He saw no sign of Callie.
Reaching the water, he dropped his ass onto the sandy beach and glanced around the lake, taking in the numerous pavilions, fire pits, and boat launches.
They would use the nearest pavilion tonight. He and Remi had grabbed beer, steaks, corn on the cob, chips, marshmallows, and, of course, Nina’s lemon meringue.
A beautiful day stretched out before them. Sex and a cookout, all while the RV was getting fixed. He might even learn a thing or two about the mysterious book his parents had left him.
Not bad.
But he couldn’t just fuck and eat and hope for good news. He needed to work, needed to prepare for the next time he crossed paths with the albino tiger.
Because his Seeker sense told him that they would meet again. And common sense told him he’d need every advantage he could muster in order to survive.
He wanted to do more than just survive. He wanted to kill the son of a bitch and avenge his parents.
He slid inside his skull, shaped his consciousness into his inner self, and stood atop the dark pediment within the shadowy cavern of his mind.
Before him wavered the three open strands. Red, yellow, and pink. Behind them, four inactive strands jutted up pale and stiff like the splayed fingers of a corpse’s hand.
Which of these would he crack open next?
Part of him wanted to call Callie right now. Ask her was she sure, then get it over with. Put it to the little Beastie right here on the sandy beach. Crack his strand and welcome her to the family.
But something in him still hesitated. His reckless life had taught him a thing or two. Recently, Bella had reminded him to listen to his gut. If he felt any reservation about a girl, it was best to take things slow. As he’d been reminding himself a lot lately, bonding was forever.
He needed to get a better handle on the cat girl before going down that road.
Callie seemed all right. A little different, maybe. But she had spirit. She’d saved Remi from Dutchman’s people and had tracked Brawley down to warn him about the people hunting him.
She didn’t have much meat on her bones, but she was a pretty girl, and he liked her eyes and hair, and there was something erotic about her hard, little nipples. His dark side wanted to dominate the horny waif, strip her skinny ass, and chastise her for compulsive masturbation.
I would let you put a baby in me right now, she’d said.
That excited his primordial beast more than anything. He wanted to bend her over and breed her, wanted to pump her young womb with seed and give the scrawny cat girl not just a baby but a whole litter of tiny power mages.
He grew hard at the thought, the idea of fathering her children very arousing to him.
That, he thought, is a problem.
Because an erection was part of the waking world, a reaction of his flesh and blood. And right now, he needed to commit wholly to the task at hand.
So he blocked out thoughts of Callie and kids and tabled the question of which strand he might open next, focusing instead on the glowing strands before him.
Perhaps it would be easier to splice while using his new Carnal strand. He coaxed forward a short length of the pink strand, which felt different than the others. Hotter. And rather than buzzing or vibrating, the Carnal strand throbbed like a giant artery.
He laid the drawn power at his feet.
Which should he pull next?
Maybe it didn’t matter. But splicing Carnal energy and Unbound force might create one hell of an explosion.
He seized the yellow strand, hauled a short portion from the depths of his mind, and dropped the buzzing length beside the throbbing pink cable.
As with previous attempts, he detected no attraction or repulsion between the drawn strands, no arcing, nothing.
Good.
With a bounty on his head and the tiger on his trail, he needed to master this.
He crouched and braided the strands one over the other.
When he’d twisted a short length of psionic cordage, he stood there for a second, feeling that same adrenaline he’d always felt climbing into the bucking chute. The braided strands didn’t lurch and snort like a bull, but they’d go zero to sixty as soon he hauled back. Trying to splice was like climbing into the chute and having the gate fly open before you had a chance to even grab your bull rope.
So be it.
He tugged back, jerking both strands.
The braid turned a blinding white and whipped left.
Yanked from his feet, Brawley held on tight, clinging with his arms and legs.
The fused force lurched up into the darkness and shook back and forth like a high-pressure hose on the loose.
Brawley forced himself to keep a cool head. Getting worked up wouldn’t help any. He knew better than to try and muscle it. So he concentrated on his balance and focused on his hips.
The supercharged braid rushed toward the pediment then whipped sharply to one side.
Brawley squeezed his knees, trying not to overcompensate, because he figured he knew what was coming next.
Sure enough, the sizzling white braid slashed back in the other direction.
Brawley held on tight, spun halfway around when the braid lurched to a stop, and swung back around before the braid arched back like a whip ready to crack.
It was the moment Brawley had been waiting for. As the pulsing braid lifted high, he loosened his grip a little and slid down the spliced strand.
The braid shot forward, trying its bullwhip trick, but Brawley had hurried halfway to what would have been the whip’s handle. The snap of the braid still jarred the hell out of him, but there was no loud crack, and he managed to hold on.
Barely.
Then the braid collapsed in on itself like a serpent falling into a coiled position.
Brawley’s feet hit the pediment then leapt away as the braid shot once more into the air.
Brawley’s feet slipped, his legs followed, and for a second, he was holding on with only his hands. His chest, abdomen, and legs were no longer in contact with the strand, and his arms were stretched out to full extension.
Not good.
He reacted quickly, pulling his body back against the up-rushing column of power and tried to grab hold with his legs again.
But then, as if sensing Brawley’s vulnerability, the braid quit its upward rush and yawed hard to one side, then swung back the other way in a tight curve.
Brawley’s legs whipped uselessly behind him as the raging strand spun like a lariat.
Brawley held tight with his arms, squeezing the braid to his chest, but the spliced force whipped faster and faster, whirling like a tornado.
With each revolution, Brawley’s grip loosened slightly, and he couldn’t get his legs into the game. His body was trapped in a losing equation of centrifugal force.
The whirling braid slammed to an abrupt halt, breaking Brawley’s grip and sending him tumbling once more into the surrounding darkness.
He snapped back into consciousness beside the lake. For a time, he just sat there catching his breath and grinning like a madman.
An improvement. A definite improvement. It was the first time he’d survived a whip crack and the first time he’d encountered the twister move.
He would keep climbing onto the damn thing until he covered it.
Once he caught his breath, he went back in.
After a dozen wrecks, he stood and dusted himself off and stared out at the wind-rippled surface of the lake.
He had not managed to conquer the twister, but he had beat
en the whip almost every time.
Progress.
The bull rider in him wanted to climb back on, but from previous sessions, he had learned to bide his time. A little beacon of pain pulsed at the center of his mind. It was nothing. But if he kept riding the braid, he’d end up all beat to hell.
Better to orchestrate his efforts. Go at it, take a break, and head back in later. That would increase his chances.
Besides, he was all charged up now and ready to take care of business back at the cabin.
When he came through the door, he was greeted by one hell of a sight. For a moment, he said nothing and just stood there watching and growing hard as granite.
Nina lay hogtied on the floor. She squirmed, helpless and naked, her purple hair dark with dampness. A short distance away lay her discarded towel.
“Just like old times, huh, Nina?” Remi said.
The Carnal bounty hunter was naked, too, standing with her back to Brawley, her shapely ass and muscular back covered in ink and dripping with water from a recent shower. “Remember that time you tried to run from me over by the Hemingway House?”
“Let me go, Remi,” Nina growled. “I’m warning you.”
Remi laughed. “Pipe down. Brawley will be back soon. He’ll like the little present I wrapped up for him. Wonder if he’ll use you like a fuck doll or force you to watch while he—hey!”
Remi flew backward onto the couch, eyes wide with surprise. Her arms jerked up over her head, making her breasts wobble. The shocked Carnal strained in vain against invisible restraints. “What the fuck?”
“You think I’m still that scared little girl you tracked down, but I’m stronger than you now,” Nina snarled. “I might not have your speed or muscles, but I can do things you could never dream of.”
The women were so focused on their battle for dominance that they hadn’t even noticed Brawley.
Which was fine by him. This was downright entertaining.
Remi started cursing but then cried out as her knees jerked apart, spreading her legs wide.
“I hope you’re flexible,” Nina said.
Remi’s legs shot up straight and pressed into her body as if the ankles were gripped by invisible hands over her head.