Pulled to the Dark (The Siriena Series)

by Julia P. Lynde

  We glared down at the men. They laughed. Then one of them walked the rest of the way around the tree and began loping down the trail. "Gone to brag and fetch the boss-man, I'm thinking," I said.

  "If Vincent or Jeremy arrive, I'm popping home. Give me three seconds then throw me behind him." I paused. "Unless you want to negotiate."

  From our vantage point ten feet above the forest floor, I had hoped to get a better view, but the woods were so thick I still couldn't see very far. I got bored quickly. Unfortunately, so did our captors. Two of them went to the rope holding us in the area and began lowering us, then retied it when we were six feet off the ground. They tied it back off.

  "Oh oh," I said. "They got bored."

  "We can take them," Petra said. "No one will see our trick."

  "You're the boss," I said. "I think we should wait, but your call."

  "I love you," she said quietly. "Let's wait."

  Waiting, it turned out, wasn't fun. One of the men reached over and grabbed my foot and pulled on it.

  "Hey!" I yelled, trying to kick at him. "Knock it off!"

  He pulled us a short distance then let go, which meant Petra and I started swinging back and forth. The three men started laughing. Every time we got close, the first man grabbed my foot and pulled us into a higher arc, and then he put some spin into it.

  "Bastard," I said. "I'm getting dizzy."

  "Done waiting?"

  "Yeah, but these guys aren't going to get away. Give me either a good ten seconds or right away if you see a sword come out."

  "Whenever you're ready," she said, gritting her teeth. "My aim is going to be bad."

  I popped home, straight to the dojo, and grabbed my two-hander. I steadied myself for a minute, getting over the dizzies, when I felt myself pulled back. As soon as I felt her, I began swinging the sword.

  I was back in the forest, and a man's head fell to the ground, the body spitting blood as it toppled over. I glanced around quickly. His buddies were slow to react, and I got a solid slice across the next one's shoulder, then spun, crouching, and slashed the third one from shoulder to groin. I rolled away, stood up, then spun in a circle, taking the second man's head. The third man was on his knees, screaming, and I walked up behind him and beheaded him.

  I looked up at Petra. She was swinging back and forth while spinning. I walked over, reached up, and brought her to a halt.

  "I'll port home," she said.

  "Let me lower you first," I said. "They might think the idiots let us down and we got away."

  I walked over to the rope, braced myself, and untied it. I slowed Petra's decent as much as I could, but she still banged into the ground. I helped untangle her from the net.

  Looked over at the three men. "I've never hurt anyone before," I said. "We didn't need to kill them. We could have both left."

  "Renea and Kelly couldn't have," Petra said.

  "I know." I thought about it. Then I kicked one of the bodies. "Assholes."

  I turned to face Petra. "So, do we wait to see who comes, or do we leave?"

  There must have been something in my face she didn't like.

  "Honey, do you think you can summon Sally?"

  "We don't know where she is," I said. "She might be in the middle of writing a ticket or something."

  "I want you to pop home and call her. You have five minutes and I'll pull you back."

  I nodded and popped home. I dug my phone out and called Sally. I woke her up.

  "What?" she said.

  "Are you alone?"

  "Felicia?"

  "Sally, I just killed three men. Are you alone?"

  "What? Yes. Are you all right?"

  "I need you," I said. "Get some clothes on. You have about three minutes." Then I hung up and walked to the bathroom.

  I was splattered in blood.

  I started washing the sword. I was still scrubbing at it when Petra pulled me back.

  I kept scrubbing. "Honey?"

  "She's alone," I said. "You bring her. You can, can't you?"

  She turned me to face her. "You bring her, Petra."

  She nodded and looked away. There was a pop, and Sally was standing next to us. She was wearing jeans and a poorly buttoned blouse. She looked around, took in the scene, then turned to me.

  "Felicia, are you all right?"

  "Yes," I said. "Are they dead?"

  "Yes, Felicia, they're dead."

  "You didn't check. Don't you need to check?"

  She exchanged looks with Petra then looked at me. "Their heads are three feet from the rest of their bodies. They're dead."

  "You should check," I said. "They could be zombies or something."

  Sally walked over to me and stared me in the eye. "Petra, what happened?"

  Petra gave her the story in Reader's Digest Condensed form.

  "I need to sit down," I said. I walked over to the tree and sat down with my back against it, staring into space. They both followed me and crouched down in front of me. I looked at Sally. "Do you have to arrest me? Am I going to prison?"

  She laughed.

  "It's not funny!"

  "No," she said. "I'm sorry. Cop humor. It can be pretty dark. Felicia, this is outside my jurisdiction. I patrol Minneapolis. And this is not Minneapolis."

  I thought about it. "I'm not going to prison."

  "No," Sally said. "You're not going to prison."

  "If this were Minneapolis, would I be going to prison?"

  She thought about it. "I don't know," she said. "You can't claim self defense because you were able to leave and come back. You could argue you were defending Petra, but she could have left, too. If that had been Renea in the net, then you would have been completely justified in defending her. Given three to one odds and a credible belief Renea were in real danger, use of lethal force would be a judgment call by the district attorney. So I don't know."

  She paused.

  "But if you consider this a war zone, and these are enemy combatants, then you are morally obligated to capture or kill them. Capturing them would have been unlikely and exceedingly dangerous to attempt, so killing them is correct."

  Petra said, "They were bad men, honey."

  "We don't know that," I said. "We don't know what Vincent has told them."

  "Honey," she said. "We don't know for sure, but there is a good chance these men were associated with the slaughter at the village. We know they attacked us just now. Preying on women makes them evil to me."

  I thought about it. "You're right." I looked at Sally. "I shouldn't ask you to do something I'm not willing to do."

  "I'm going to search them and see if we find anything useful."

  "Honey," Petra said. "Maybe you would like to take a shower? Would that make you feel better?"

  I nodded. "Give me twenty minutes. If you hear anyone coming, pull me back immediately. I can always pop back and grab clothes."

  She nodded, and I popped straight to our bathroom. I set the sword down, stripped out of my clothes, and stepped into the shower. The water ran red for a minute or two, but I felt clean fairly quickly. I washed thoroughly, climbed out of the shower, dried off, and got dressed. Then I cleaned the sword and grabbed a sheath. I grabbed swords for Petra and Sally and waited for Petra to pull me back.

  I only had to wait a few minutes. As soon as I arrived, I handed the swords out.

  We waited two hours before we heard crashing through the underbrush on the other side of the tree. I heard one voice ask a rough question and the other give a short answer. We followed their progress as they walked around the tree, coming to a halt when they saw the bodies.

  The three of us stepped forward. "Hello, Jeremy," I said. "Invade any apartments lately?"

  He took one look at the three of us and disappeared.

  "Coward," I spat after him.

  There was only one other man, and I thought he was one of the fourth who had tried to capture us. He turned to run, but I popped home and Petra immediately threw me in front of him. He
turned to run another direction and Sally was there. Petra used Sally and I to herd him back until he was cowering in the middle of the net. Sally and I began pulling on the net's rope together and got him a couple of feet off the ground.

  "Now what?" I asked.

  Petra walked up to him. "Do you speak English?"

  He gibbered at her. It wasn't a language I understood. "Do you understand him?" I asked her.

  "Not a word," she said.

  "I'm going home," Sally said. "Give me two minutes and summon me back."

  She disappeared. I began counting. At 120, I pulled her back. She held up a piece of plastic with two loops. "Cops don't use metal handcuffs much anymore," she said. "These are basically zip ties." She walked up behind the man and tried to pull his hands behind his back. He resisted.

  I walked over and drew my sword. I pointed it at him. He got the hint and let Sally bind his hands behind his back. Then she walked over and untied the rope. He crashed to the ground. I held my sword over him in case he got any ideas.

  Sally walked to him, shoved him flat on his face, then bound his ankles about twelve inches apart using two of the plastic handcuffs. She pulled him to his feet.

  "Which way to the castle?" she asked. "Maybe Renea wants to talk to him."

  It was nearly dark by the time we got back. Sally had to go when we were halfway there. "I have the four to midnight shift," she said. "I'm sorry."

  I pulled her into a hug. "Thank you," I whispered into her ear. "I really needed you, and you were here for me. Thank you."

  She hugged me back. "No worries. I'm off at midnight if you need me. Call first though, in case I'm driving."

  Petra and I got our captive the rest of the way on our own. As soon as he saw the castle, he put up a new fuss. "For a mercenary," I said, "he sure is a pansy." I clouted him across the head a few times and he let us pull him to the castle. But the look of terror in his face was evident.

  "I wonder what Jeremy has been telling him," Petra said. "I wonder what happens if we bring him in, feed him, act nice to him, then let him go."

  "I'm delivering him to Renea and then it's her problem," I said. "If you don't mind."

  We walked up to the castle and opened the door. The man saw that and freaked out. He tried to pull away from us but tripped over his own feet. He tried to crawl away.

  "Wow," I said. "This is a little excessive."

  I drew my sword and walked around to stand in front of him, my legs spread, the sword tip inches from the ground and directly in front of his eyes. He stopped and backed away. Together, Petra and I herded him into the castle, poking him with the swords when he balked. We closed the door and backed away. He crawled to it, then curled up on his side, whimpering.

  "Perhaps you should go see who is home," I told Petra. "I can manage the great warrior here."

  Petra laughed then went in search of Renea. She also found Andrea and Kelly. The five of us clustered in a group fifteen free away from the man. "We brought you a present," I told Renea.

  "I see that," she said. "Whatever am I to do with him?"

  "We were thinking you should feed him."

  She stared at me for a moment then smiled. "I like the way your mind works." She turned to Petra. "Perhaps some finger food. I don't believe I care to release his hands."

  "Chicken McNuggets it is," Petra said.

  "Chicken McNuggets?" Kelly said. "I'd kill for some. And fries. Please, Petra?" Petra looked around. The rest of us waved off.

  "I want a real meal," I said. "And a long soak in the tub while the woman of my dreams massages my feet."

  Petra grinned and disappeared. It took her twenty minutes to secure dinner. She came back carrying two bags of food and a round of sodas for everyone. Kelly grabbed all the food and two of the sodas and sat down near the man. She opened the bag and clapped her hands in delight, then reached into the bag and pulled out a French fry. The joy she had while eating it was clear.

  She ate two more then looked at the man. "I bet you've never had a French fry. Would you like one?"

  She held one out to him. He stared at it like she was offering him poison.

  She shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said, and ate the fry. She ate a couple more then found the nuggets. She ate two of those, almost groaning in pleasure, before she offered him one. He looked at it suspiciously but eventually let her feed it to him.

  He chewed it slowly. It wasn't clear whether he enjoyed it, but when she offered him another, he ate it without hesitation. After that he accepted a fry. Then Kelly took one of the sodas, inserted a straw, and took a big slurp. She belched. It wasn't very ladylike, but the man smiled. Kelly put a straw in his soda and held it for him. She had to pantomime a bit, but he figured it out. He made a face, but when she offered him the soda again he took some from it.

  They finished the food, and he was much calmer by the time they were done. Kelly got up, collected the garbage, and walked over to Petra. She gave Petra a big hug. "Thank you."

  "I'm sorry, Darling," Andrea said. "It never occurred to me you would be missing fast food."

  "It hadn't to me either until Petra mentioned it," she said. "I would have asked."

  "Now what?" I asked.

  Kelly smiled. "Now I become useful again. I teach him English." She turned to me. "Are you using the store room in the base of your tower?"

  "No," I said. "It's all yours. Just make sure you don't give him a chance to get the drop on you."

  "Twelve foot ceilings," she said. "I'll just go halfway up the stairs and open a window. I can sit on a ledge and talk to him."

  Renea turned to us and said, "No more patrols. I don't want to think what would have happened if they had attacked with bows instead of setting a trap for capture."

  Planning

  Two hours later Petra and I were soaking in the tub together. I was well fed and a little tipsy from the wine she had been pouring into me. The front doorbell rang. Petra climbed out of the tub, wrapped herself in a towel, and went to answer it. She returned with Erika, Beth and Karen.

  "Serve yourselves," she said, and she dropped her towel and climbed back into the tub with me.

  "I didn't know we were going to have an audience," I said.

  "Like you have anything we don't have," Beth said, grinning. She walked over and leered at me. "But yours looks pretty good to me."

  I splashed her. She scuttled back and laughed.

  They pulled chairs in, found wine glasses, emptied the bottle, then went in search of another one. In the meantime, I slid my toes underneath Petra, hoping to embarrass her for inviting them in. She caught my foot, pulled it into her lap, and began massaging.

  "Ooh," I said. "All right, I forgive you," I told her after a moment. I slipped deeper into the water and closed my eyes.

  "What happened?" Erika asked once they were all settled in. "Sally wasn't long on details."

  I let Petra explain everything. They listened quietly. She got to the point where I'd asked about going to prison.

  "I was a little upset," I said. "I don't feel all that badly for those men. Does that make me a bad person? The one we captured was terrified."

  We went around in circles about that. Eventually Petra said, "We did what we thought we had to do."

  They proceeded to get me pretty tipsy. Then they all left and Petra put me to bed. She held me while I fell asleep.

  * * *

  Over the next two weeks, Kelly taught our prisoner, whose name was Bindi, enough English for rough communications. His accent was terrible, but he and Kelly were able to communicate using a combination of words, pantomimes and drawing.

  Vincent had indeed hired him and, as best he knew, fourteen other men. He claimed to have had nothing to do with the dead villagers, although he knew about it. He claimed that was Jeremy's doing, and it appeared to involve a daughter who tried to say 'no'.

  Bindi claimed Vincent had patrols and traps set up for anyone trying to leave the castle. He was attempting to hire enough mercenaries
to take the castle by force. Bindi didn't know how fast that would happen.

  We waited until Sally had Saturday off and all met at the castle to discuss options. We gathered in Andrea's tower. Karen made fresh coffee and tea for everyone.

  Renea started our conference by reviewing what we knew. "We need to consider what is at stake."

  "Your life," said Petra. "And Kelly's."

  "Not just that," Renea said. "All of us eventually. And do we really want Vincent to be the one to control this world? We've already seen what that can mean for the locals."

  Everyone was silent for a moment.

  "I want to ask a question," Erika said. "Let's say Vincent goes away. Then what? Are we going to grow our club? Are we going to establish influence in the area?"

  "Vincent's father, Benedict, used Siriena as a playground. All he cared about was his own pleasures. He'd started talking about turning this into a kingdom." Renea paused. "Power corrupts."

  She was trying to say something with that. No one jumped on it.

  "Does anyone know the quote?" she asked. "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

  "I don't want to think about my dear old boss with absolute power over anyone," I said. "The man is already corrupt."

  Renea nodded. "I agree. He's definitely a product of his father's. When I drew Andrea over, and then later Petra, I made sure Benedict didn't know. Once he was gone, I've been hesitant to add to our band because I don't want to go down that same path."

  "So," Erika said. "No, we're not growing the club."

  "Actually," said Renea. "That's not the answer, either. The answer will be finding ways to make sure that I don't become corrupt. Or any of you."

  We discussed that for a while.

  At one point, Sally asked Renea, "If you return to Earth, do you die instantly?"

  "No," she said. "The aging effect takes some time. My earth body would age from eighty-nine to ninety-four over the course of about an hour. However, the last time I was on earth, I had pneumonia. At eighty-nine, recovery is not certain. Even if I weren't to die by ninety-four, there is a good chance the pneumonia would kill me. I might only have a few minutes."