Sweet Mercy

by Naomi Stone

  “I just got a report that two of the Capital Finance board members have been taken.”

  “Taking any bets our puppet master hasn’t gotten himself a teleporter?”

  “If you can find someone who’ll take that bet, more power to you. Obviously, Johnson used Tom to get to the board members. Alice is sending out an alert right now, letting the other members of the board know they’re at risk, to stay behind locked doors, go nowhere alone.” David spoke again. “Alice, contact the available Team members and patch them into this channel as you can. We need more input.”

  Fluke checked his rearview mirror. Mabel’s car appeared as expected, hanging well back. Not enough cars drove the highway this late for her to keep any between them.

  “Do we have any notion what Johnson’s limits are? How many people he can influence at one time?”

  “The only literature on the subject suggests there is a limit, but our

  info comes from only one subject.” David’s voice kept him company on the road. “She reported having trouble controlling any more than four or five ‘puppets’ at one time, but that varied depending on how complex the instructions, and whether she had determined opposition from any of them—and we can’t know whether she represented a norm or an outlier of either extreme on the spectrum for her talent.”

  Fluke let that sink in. “Swell. We do know teleporters have limits. Tom can only carry about as much mass as he can lift– he’s a strong guy, so that’s about twice his mass, but it tires him accordingly. In the last hour he’s moved Rachel, Tamara, and Johnson from the ashram, and he’s moved those two board members…”

  “Hmm.” David fell silent for a moment.

  Fluke passed one car after another, foot heavy on the accelerator. Despite his habit of exceeding speed limits, he’d been lucky enough to’ve never been caught, and he counted on that luck now.

  Alice cut in. “I’ve got personal stats on the missing board members. Both adult males. Graham Hanson is fifty-four, six foot two, two hundred thirty pounds. Joel Rosso is forty-nine, five foot eight, two-seventy.”

  “Hefty guys. Tom’s got to be exhausted…”

  “Hopefully that’ll buy us some time to figure out where he’s stashing these people.”

  “Can we hope they’re all still alive?” The question came from Stacy Peterson, the telekinetic, who’d just signed in along with several other Talents.

  David jumped in again. “Reports from Johnson’s previous killings suggest he plays out some elaborate scenarios with his victims before killing them. That’s what led police to believe his ex and her new husband performed a murder-suicide. Johnson doesn’t just want to kill his targets, he wants to make them suffer.”

  The thought of Rachel in this guy’s power sent a chill through Fluke. “What does he want with Rachel? He used her to get to Tom Stanton; isn’t that enough? He doesn’t have anything personal against her. Any chance we can bargain with Johnson, get him to release her?”

  “We'll have to find him, first.”

  Five

  Rachel turned at the sound of a thump. A door opened and closed, and a moment later Tom Stanton appeared through the door dividing kitchen from dining room. He breathed hard, like a man who’d just run a marathon.

  “Tom! Are you okay?”

  He didn’t respond, just turned blankly toward Johnson, who’d entered on his heels.

  “Shut up.” Mesmero told Rachel before turning to Tom. “How were our guests when you left them?”

  “Uncomfortable,” Tom answered. “But they’re in place.”

  “Good.” Mesmero sat in the chair opposite Rachel, turning back to her. “My ride, Tom here, has taken two of the Capital Finance board members to a very special place I’ve arranged for them.”

  He leaned across the table toward her while the exhausted Tom, and Tamara with her bloodily bandaged leg, stood by like statues.. “You see, after I lost my job and my wife, and their company foreclosed on my home, I had no place to stay—no roof for my head, no comfortable bed. I lived on the street. Do you know what that’s like?”

  Rachel opened her mouth to say that yes, she had some experience along those lines, but Johnson plowed ahead.

  “I thought my life was over. The best nights I had were spent in jail when I got picked up for vagrancy.”

  “I know what—”

  “You know nothing! I had nothing! I had no one. I can’t tell you how often I thought I’d be better off dead, but doing anything about it seemed like too much effort.”

  “That’s terrible.” She couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for Johnson. He’d become a monster, but no one deserved what he’d been through. She couldn’t think of the pathetic little man by the grandiose name he’d given himself, but she’d better try—or he’d take her lapses out on Tamara. He seemed to grow calmer before going on.

  “Well, all that changed when I got my power. I go where I want. I get what I want—people give me what I want. I can stay in the best hotels, the nicest homes, and I don’t have to work for any man or say please to any woman.”

  Rachel recoiled in revulsion at the leer with which he said this.

  Mesmero leaned further across the table until the warmth of his sour breath touched her face. “Don’t try any of your tricks on me. I felt that.”

  “I didn’t—” She stopped. She hadn’t tried, but he had felt what she felt. Apparently her talent worked better on him than vice versa. Something to keep in reserve. For now.

  “Anyhow—I have a little logistics problem maybe you’d like to help me with.” Mesmero smiled as if he hadn’t just been totally creepy. Apparently, treating people like his puppets had played hell with whatever social skills he might once have had.

  “Because we’re such good friends?”

  He gave her a blank look before going on. “Tommy here gave me the home addresses of all the board members before we threw his specs away. I’ve got two of them at my facility now, and I’d like to have all of them gathered together before we start the festivities—but then there are those stories of teleporters disappearing in mid-transit if their powers are taxed too far. What do you think? Should I send you with Tom now, to join the two men I’ve got, or let him rest up first?”

  Rachel looked him in the eye, wondering why he’d even ask. Some strange game of his own devising? Did he expect her to appeal to his better nature? Ask for mercy?

  “If you plan on having Tom’s help later, you’ll need to let him rest.”

  Mesmero laughed. “Of course I will. Have a seat, Tom. But how nice to hear you put it in such practical terms. None of that ‘we’re human beings, you can’t treat us like this’ crap. No, he’s a resource, and so are you, and you’re exactly as important as you are useful to me.” His laughter cut off like he’d a thrown switch. He glowered at her.

  “And here’s another question for you. Since I need to rest my ‘horse’ it will take a long time to gather all seven members of the board. And since it will be tricky keeping these two alive long enough to gather them all, do you think it might be better to deal with them a few at a time?”

  “Why would it be so hard to keep these men alive?” Rachel asked in growing alarm.

  “I wanted a place to replicate the wonders of living on the streets without food or clean water, without warmth in the winter or escape from summer’s heat, and with no refuge from the violence of our fellow men. Thanks to a puppet who owned an abandoned warehouse space in North Minneapolis, I had such a place created. It’s fully insulated and climate-controlled. The temperatures drop below freezing at night and climb to a hundred degrees by day. There’s no escape from that, and my guests have only the clothes they wore when I took them. The facility is bare of any human comfort, floored in asphalt, walled in brick and steel—and I’ve

  instructed the two board members to treat one another as enemies.

  “So you see,” Mesmero spread his hands broadly, “they might not last long enough if we wait to bring all their colleag
ues to them before starting—but, on the other hand, since I plan to throw you in there with them, I don’t want to deprive the late arrivals of the benefits of your presence... if you don’t survive so long.”

  Breathe, Rachel told herself. Center. Focus. She had to calm her rising dread, her fury, and the panic that could lead to her friend’s destruction.

  “That’s very good,” Mesmero told her. “But you won’t be able to stay so calm when you’re alternately freezing and frying, surrounded by men programmed to attack each other. Your talent won’t stop any of that—but your fear, your panic and suffering will add to theirs. You won’t be able to do anything but make it worse for them as they suffer and die at one another’s hands.”

  She’d already called him a monster. Rachel could think of nothing worse to call him. His actions defined him. Evil acts made him an evil man. She stared, taking note: so that’s what evil looks like. So ordinary. Such an ordinary-looking man, with no room for anything but self-justified malice scowling from his eyes.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” he snapped at her.

  She turned away, checking on Tamara and Tom. The dark stains on Tamara’s bandage had turned rusty brown at the edges. The blood seemed to have stopped flowing. Tom had closed his eyes, apparently asleep, sitting up in his chair.

  Mesmero rose abruptly. “I’m going upstairs. Tom, you rest up. Let me know when you’re able to transit again safely. Yoga girl, you keep an eye on your talented friend here. Don’t go throwing any parties while I’m gone.” He giggled as he left the room.

  ~ * ~

  David cut the connection with Fluke when the police arrived at the ashram. Fluke approached his Lake Street exit from the highway and wondered why he bothered heading for the ashram. Rachel wasn’t there. David and the police would check it out for any clues as to where she’d been taken, along with Stanton and Tamara. But Tom could have taken them anywhere.

  Fluke doubted even his extra dose of luck would help find anything the police overlooked. His video of Mabel’s phone call still hadn’t produced results. The target had probably been moving around too much for his phone to be traced.

  He had to think outside the boxes other people had covered. He had to think like Johnson—but he didn’t have a clue what that head case could want with Rachel. She calmed explosive situations. Her talent lay in her gentleness. That seemed at odds with Johnson’s apparent motives. Unless he needs to soothe his intended victims. Not likely. Fluke dismissed the thought. Maybe he just wanted her as a hostage—to keep the Team off his back if they got too close??

  In any case, it didn’t seem she could be part of any well-thought out plan. Johnson had probably grabbed her to get to Tom, then kept her because it had seemed expedient somehow. Maybe he’d stashed her somewhere expedient too?

  What did they know of Johnson’s movements? He’d been at the ashram. He’d been close enough to put someone on their tail as soon as Fluke had left with Rachel on their way to the casino. He’d been at or near Mabel’s house at that time. After making Mabel his puppet, he’d probably gained access to her house. Rachel had mentioned it being right around the corner from her place…

  Just a theory, but easy enough for him to check it out.

  Fluke checked the case database for Mabel’s address, and when he reached Rachel’s street he drove on past the ashram to find a parking space near the corner of the cross street—a couple doors away from Mabel’s place.

  Mabel drove past him and pulled into her own driveway. Floodlights lit the car port to make the whole vicinity as bright as day.

  He exited his car and sauntered up the walk to meet her as she exited her vehicle.

  “You are following me!” she confronted him.

  “I have a friend in the neighborhood.” He held up his hands, showing them empty. “But I noticed you pass me and pull in here just now—and that explains the coincidence—I set out from here and you must have set out at the same time. Since we both headed for the casino, that’s why we each thought we were being followed.” He gave her his best charm-the-ladies grin. “But it was Fate, Mabel. Fate threw us together.”

  She laughed. “You’re a tease, young man. I saw the redhead with you at the casino—anyone could see you were sweet on her.”

  He threw open his hands again. “You’ve got me there, Mabel, but now I’m here, I have to confess I like what you’ve done with your place. I have a bit of interest in landscape design. What are those on the trellises by the window? I don’t think I’ve seen climbing roses that color before.” He approached the side of the house as he pointed out the feature. Light streamed from the windows, illuminating the roses growing beside the frame.

  Mabel followed along. “Those are Blue Moon roses—really more of a violet. Aren’t they nice? That’s as close as they’ve come to an actual blue rose…”

  While Mabel went on to tell him about the roses and how she’d fallen in love with the idea of a blue rose when watching a Douglas Fairbanks Jr. remake of a Douglas Fairbanks Sr. silent movie, The Thief of Baghdad, Fluke moved closer to the roses—and peered through the window behind them into an empty living room where he could see Mabel carried her love of roses into her decorating scheme.

  “No one would guess you were such a romantic, Mabel,” he told her as he edged around the trellis of blue roses to the next window and its trellis. “Peace Roses,” he noted. “I recognize these. My mother loves them.”

  “Oh yes. They’re my next favorite and I love the way they look beside the Blue Moons—you can see I’ve alternated them all along this side of the house.”

  “Very nice.” But it wasn’t. Through this window he spotted Rachel. She sat tied to a chair. Thank God. He hadn’t realized how tightly strung he’d grown until the tension rushed out of him at the sight of her. Only to be replaced by a new urgency. He had to get her out of there.

  Tom Stanton slumped in another chair. Tamara—he’d recognize that head full of gold streaked dreads anywhere—sat near the head of the table, facing the empty living room, her gaze fixed blankly on nothing.

  Rachel’s chair sat beside his window, open only a hand-span’s width to the fresh air of the pleasant June night. Nearly dawn in fact, the horizon clearly paler than the surrounding night sky.

  “Rachel!” He whispered sharply.

  “What are you doing peeping in my windows?” Mabel raised her voice. Rachel turned her head toward them.

  Why did he get only a sense of grim determination from her, when she should be excited to see him—to see the prospect of rescue at least—and freedom.

  Fluke turned to Mabel. “You might want to see this,” he told her. “There are people in there.”

  “What? I live alone!”

  Mabel stood just tall enough to peer over the sill from outside, while Fluke stood aside to give her space.

  Mabel sputtered. “What are you people doing in my house?”

  “It wasn’t my idea.” Rachel answered her, shrugging as far as her ropes allowed. Tom never twitched and Tamara only blinked

  “Are you tied to that chair, young woman?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Those are my good Hepplewhite chairs!” Mabel stopped, apparently in thought, turned to Fluke. “Maybe we should call the police?”

  “Hey, wait. Let me talk to Fluke.” Rachel called through the window.

  Fluke leaned into the window, frustrated by the screen and the narrowness of the opening. “Why shouldn’t we call the police and the rest of the Team to get you out of there now?”

  “Those board members—we don’t know where he’s got them stashed and he set them up to die. If you leave us here, he plans to take me to where he’s got them—you can follow.”

  “Not if he teleports.”

  “He wants Tom to go after more board members. He says his facility is located in North Minneapolis—a former warehouse space. I think he’ll take me by car—” She cut off his attempt to protest, “And if you try to take us out of here I
don’t know what it’ll do to Tamara or Tom.”

  “They say Longo’s doing okay, better anyhow, since they brought in the TP Healer—”

  “I don’t want to put them through it,” she hissed. The determination he sensed from her grew harder, backed by a degree of steel he’d scarcely glimpsed in her before.

  “I don’t want to put you through it,” he hissed back. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “I’ll be okay,” she told him. “Those two board members might not be. Mesmero—”

  “Mesmero?”

  “Johnson.” She shrugged again. “It’s a thing for him. Anyhow, right now he’s upstairs. There’s time to coordinate the Team and police to move in on the warehouse when we find it.”

  “Let’s see what your brother says about that.” He suspected David wouldn’t be any more inclined than he was to keep Rachel in such a dangerous position. He turned to ping the Team coordinator. But just then Mabel called out, entering the house. She must have left his side while he’d been arguing with Rachel.

  “Who are you people? What do you think you’re doing, sitting around in my dining room?” Mabel held what looked to be a Smith and Wesson semi-automatic. “I don’t care if you are tied up.” She addressed Rachel. “None of you belong here.” The muzzle wavered back and forth between those seated at the table.

  Oh, Mabel. Fluke groaned inwardly. Rachel gave him an accusing look.

  “I’m not the one pulling her strings,” he whispered.

  Tamara only blinked, but Tom stirred at last. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “How much do you remember? Rachel asked him.

  “Everything up until I took my nap.” He looked around the room, “But it seems like a dream… There’s something I’m supposed to do…”

  “Hey!” Mabel spoke sharply. “Answer me! What are you doing in my house?”

  Rachel turned and used her talent to calm Mabel. Poor woman. Mesmero had brought this circus to her quiet home and she couldn’t have any idea how he’d messed with her life—and her head.

  “See these ropes,” Rachel inclined her head to indicate the ropes binding her arms to the chair. The lady didn’t seem to be thinking too clearly. She repeated herself, hoping the concept would get through this time. “None of us is here because it’s our own idea.”