House of Dolls 2

by Harmon Cooper

“Look, you’re not going to get access,” One-eyed Kev blurted out. “No one gets into Prison South. That prison is one of the most heavily guarded facilities in the country, no teleporters. And if you do get past the walls, you’ll have to contend with the Type I—hell, maybe even a Type V. You know some of the exemplars they have there are something else entirely.”

  Fat Kevin nodded, knowing full well it was going to be a fight.

  In Centralia’s odd classification system, Type I was almost always the most severe, but Type V was theoretically more powerful; it was the number used to classify god-like abilities. Kevin personally thought they should have classified these people with god-like powers as Type O or some sort of extension of Type I, but he wasn’t the one who had invented the system.

  A terrible system, to be sure, but Fat Kevin understood what his brother was getting at: the infamous prison was heavily guarded.

  “You won’t get in, Kevin. You’ll need more than a cat girl and a teleporter. Speaking of which, where the hell is the other one?” One-eyed Kev gasped. “So that’s what this is about! She’s injured in some way, right? I figured it out, Kevin, so you might as well just tell me.”

  “Let’s go,” Fat Kevin told Scarlett. She placed a hand on his arm just as Obsidian slinked toward them, retrieving the documents his brother had prepared on the way over. They were gone in a flash.

  One-eyed Kevin waited until he was sure they were gone, still tense, still ready to cover his head if need be. Once he was certain they weren’t going to return, he opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a nice bottle of Northern whiskey.

  Fuck, he hated his brother.

  Chapter Thirty-Five: A Sinking Suspicion

  “I can’t message here,” Roman told Nadine once they had arrived back at their hotel and they were in the sanctity of their shared room.

  “Who are you messaging?”

  “I wanted to let Paris know what we learned.”

  Nadine sat on the bed and pressed her hood back. “Well, you won’t be able to mental message from here. You’ll have to wait until you get back to the Centralian border.”

  “Yeah,” Roman said as he removed his mask. “Figured that out.” He paced for a moment, his thoughts jumping from what they’d learned to having killed three Centralian guards.

  That was something he hadn’t quite been prepared to do.

  “You’re concerned about this?” Nadine asked.

  “ I wasn’t expecting to have to take extreme measures,” he finally said.

  “But you did, and we had to, considering what we were up against. They shot at us first, remember that, and the strongman said they were instructed to kill anyone they came across. The fuckers. They invade my country and then take it upon themselves to do military patrols.” Nadine shook her head. She lifted the back of her hair and twisted it into a ponytail, which she then formed into a bun.

  Roman took a deep breath in and turned to the other bedroom.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To check on our daughters.”

  “You did good work today, Roman. And I have to admit, your powers are quite impressive. I hadn’t seen them in action up until that point.” she reminded him. “That was something else. I still can’t believe you won that power. I thought people usually won shitty Type IV powers through the Hero Lottery.”

  Roman had told Nadine his story a few times now through bits and pieces, which was the way most stories were actually told. If she’d thought he had come across the Hero Ticket in a shady way, she hadn’t let on.

  “It’s definitely been a game changer for me,” he said with a shrug.

  “Understatement of the year right there. You literally used it to wrap a large root around an enormous man and fling him into the distance. I don’t know how far he traveled…”

  “It probably wasn’t a nice landing,” Roman said as he stepped into the hallway. He turned into the other room to find Lisa resting on the bed, one leg crossed over the other. Coma and Celia sat on the other bed, both of them looking at him as he entered, their heads cocking to the right.

  “Our clothing should be here soon,” Celia said. “I really hope it’s elegant.”

  He smiled at the lovely red-haired doll.

  She looked out of place in the conservative blouse Nadine had given her, but it did bring his attention to her face and the deep color of her purple eyes.

  “I’m sure it will be,” he said.

  Roman’s ears perked up as Jorgen called the five of them down.

  The tailor awaited them, a wide grin on his face as his male assistant floated a set of trunks to the opposite side of the room. Once he was done, the trunk opened and clothing on hangers lifted out, slithering in a way that reminded Roman of a snake moving up a stairwell.

  “Try it on, please,” he said as Roman took his suit. “I’ll make any other adjustments that are necessary.”

  The tailor leaned back, his thumb slipping under his suspenders. “But I don’t think any changes will need to be made—just an assumption.”

  “It looks nice,” Roman said, admiring the suit, which was jet black with emerald lining.

  Celia gasped when she was handed a low-cut cocktail dress that showed her shoulders. The dress the tailor had made for Coma was similar to what she normally wore, something frilly with an extremely low-cut V-neck, fancier and more glamorous than anything she currently owned.

  Nadine’s dress was similar to Celia’s, extremely well made, something one would only see in the high-end part of the market.

  Roman went to the room upstairs with Celia and Coma while Nadine changed in the bathroom downstairs.

  Roman was the first out of his bedroom, feeling just about as spiffy as he’d ever felt before his perfectly tailored suit.

  He caught a glimpse of himself in the hallway mirror, turned and admired his look. The best part was it worked with the boots he already had; he just needed to clean them up a bit before the social.

  It struck him as odd in that moment, as he saw his white hair, his orange eyes and his lean body in the tight suit—just an hour ago, he’d taken part in killing people. Now he was playing fucking dress-up in a high-end hotel.

  It was hard to come to grips with, so he chose distraction instead, which was easy once he caught a glimpse of Celia.

  The beautiful doll nearly took his breath away as she stepped out of the shared bedroom, her pale skin at odds with the dark dress, utter perfection in the way it fit her curvaceous form offset by her orange hair.

  “I love it,” Roman said as she extended her hand to him.

  He walked her out into the hallway and slowly spun her, noticing the glint from the gold buttons on the back of her dress.

  “You really like it?” she asked in a soft voice.

  “It’s stunning,” Roman said. “You are stunning. Everyone there is going to be jealous of you.”

  “What about me?” Coma asked, stepping out of the bedroom.

  A grin formed on Roman’s face as he took in Coma’s beautiful dress, her new mask even more bat-like than the previous one, her red eyes simply glowing, her cleavage nearly spilling out of the V-neck opening.

  “It’s great,” Roman finally said.

  “I wish I could go,” he heard Lisa say from the bedroom. Roman peeked his head in to find her sitting on the corner of the bed, her arms crossed over her chest.

  “We’re going for you,” he reminded her. “Nadine is going to do as much networking as she can until she finds someone who can fix your condition. I trust her. And yes, we are both aware she’s a spy, but she knows what she’s doing, so we have to trust in that.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “We really are going to do our best to get you out of this situation,” Roman said as he approached her. “I know it’s been tough, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to see your own body just lying there. But I assure you, we’ll do what we can.”

  Lisa looked up at him, light beaming from her face.
“Have you ever thought about how odd this is?”

  Roman stopped dead in his tracks, his mind replaying the deaths he’d just been part of. “What part?” he asked in a steady voice. “Because from where I’m standing, there isn’t a piece of it that has ever been normal.”

  “I’m talking about how, in a way, Nadine has orchestrated all of this. Somehow, she got you here, and she also brought me. Maybe there’s more going on behind the scenes than we know. Maybe…” She glanced around, her voice lowering. “Maybe the Easterners want to do something else with us.”

  “Something else?”

  “We’re going back downstairs,” Coma called into the room. “Celia needs a small adjustment.”

  “That’s right,” Celia said, covering her breasts, the front of her dress nearly revealing her nipples. “It needs to be tighter.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you down there,” Roman said over his shoulder.

  “I mean, what if they’re going to keep us here?” Lisa suggested. “What if they want to run experiments on us? Look at me; look at my body. How are they going to be able to connect the pieces back together?”

  “This may be a poor country, but the best tech in our entire world comes from this place. If anyone knows how to do it, it’s them.”

  “But don’t you see, Roman? Why did you need to come here? Why would they have you come all the way here if they didn’t want to take a closer look at your power? Nadine told me you won your power through a Hero Ticket—but what type of technology gave you that power? Ever thought of that?”

  “It wasn’t technology; it was an exemplar who gave me this power.”

  “What if they were able to replicate it? What if the East was able to turn everyone into an exemplar? And I’m not talking about simply giving someone some jewelry with a special ability.”

  “I don’t see where you’re going with this,” Roman lied. He knew exactly where she was going, but he’d rather her spell it out than him.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it, and remember, I was staying with Nadine and Oscar over the last few days. I heard them discussing certain things. I think there may be more to this journey…”

  “This trip was an agreement between Nadine and me—I come, and she helps me with some other things. Besides, I’m thoroughly committed to figuring out what’s going on with the healing situation, and why so many healers have died by the hands of my government.”

  “It just seems like something’s up.”

  “Look, I’m not stupid enough to think I’m just going to walk out and become a hero, not with all my baggage,” Roman said. “But I’m going to do the best I can, and figuring out what forces we are up against is the first step in that process. Who knows, maybe we’ll discover something that goes on to change the world. But we can’t do that by staying put. We have to move; we have to act.”

  “I’m all for those things; really, I am,” said Lisa. “But I don’t want to end up some laboratory experiment.”

  “I don’t think you get it. You have to end up that way for Nadine to be able to do something to help you.”

  Lisa huffed. “I’m just saying we both need to be really careful about how we go about this, and look out for each other. Remember, we’re both foreigners here, even if you have a forged passport. This isn’t your home, and it’s sure as fuck not where I’m from.”

  “Aware of that.” Roman paced halfway to the door. “And for the record, I don’t think Nadine would do anything to take advantage of us.”

  “I know you feel that way, but I’m just saying to think about all this logically. Think about where you are, and where I am. We are chess pieces to these types of people. They move us and manipulate us until they get us to the place of their choosing. They use us. Just wait,” she finally said as she lay back on the bed. “You’ll see.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Good Roommates

  Hazrat could do remarkable things with his shadows.

  They allowed him to move silently in dark places, to kill instantly, to do things like lift objects and open doors…

  It was a nice apartment, bigger than he’d thought it would be from the outside. The fur rug gave it a touch of class, as did the red couch. The place felt cozy, warm even. The art on the wall wasn’t to his taste, but Hazrat preferred blank walls anyway.

  He had been given strict orders from Margo, who was still visibly affected by the news she’d recently learned regarding the death of some woman named Paris. Hazrat still didn’t know the details, only that it involved Roman Martin, who seemed to have skipped town.

  No matter.

  There were other ways to put pressure on someone.

  The door handle started to turn, and Hazrat prepared himself, reaching out for all the shadows in the room.

  A woman with wide hips and black hair stepped in, her mouth opening to scream as soon as she saw a man sitting on the couch, his back to her, the red tattoos running down his neck instantly telling her he was a man from the South.

  By this point, Hazrat had wrapped a shadow around her mouth to muffle her shriek. More shadows raced across the floor and grabbed her legs, pulling her to the ground.

  The woman tried to kick free of the shadows’ grasp, but they quickly overpowered her, the door shutting as they dragged her to the carpet before Hazrat.

  “Stop struggling or I’ll end this now,” he said, two sharpened shadows running into her nostrils. “And no mental messages. I’ll know if you send them, and anyone that comes to help you will die before they make it past the door.”

  Another pair of shadows lifted near her ears, ready to pierce her skull if necessary.

  Terror in her eyes, the black-haired woman tried to calm her breath, but the nerves firing in her body did little to help her gain control over her lungs. Things were turning black for her, and once her bloodshot eyes started to roll back, Hazrat loosened the shadow over her mouth.

  “Don’t scream,” he reminded her as he brought his hands behind his head, ignoring her runny nose and the tears that had started to drip down her face. “I am guessing you are Harper.”

  The woman gulped, then opened her mouth to say something and stopped. Her eyes now shut, she bit her lip, refusing to say anything.

  “So you aren’t Harper,” he told her. “Then you are her…?”

  Hazrat looked around and found a picture on the mantle of the woman along with a short-haired brunette wearing a tank top, clearly not the curvy lady lying on the floor in front of him.

  “Ah, the roommate.”

  The woman yelped, and Hazrat covered her mouth with his shadow.

  “How long until she comes home? Nod if you think it will be soon; shake your head if she won’t.”

  The woman made no movement aside from her trembling.

  “That’s not what I asked,” Hazrat said as he crossed one leg over the other.

  Harper’s roommate tried to kick her feet against the carpet, annoying Hazrat enough that he used one of the shadows to make a cleaver. He brought the cleaver within inches of her face and flattened out her hand, exposing her fingers.

  She tried to curl her fingers back and protect them, but his shadows held firm.

  “Don’t make me do this,” he said as he brought the cleaver up.

  “Mmmph!”

  “You want to speak now?” he asked, and removed the shadow muffle.

  “Who…who are you!?” she blurted out.

  “I’m the one asking questions.”

  Whack! Hazrat brought his shadow clever down to the floor, a mere millimeter away from the tips of her fingers. “Where is Harper?”

  She started to sob again. “Are you going to kill her?”

  Hazrat grinned at the struggling woman. He planned to keep her pinned here for however long it took her roommate to come home. There was something very sexual about it, too; seeing the woman helpless stirred his loins.

  A younger Hazrat would have acted on this feeling, but that wasn’t the reason he’d come here today,
and rather than put more pressure on her or use his shadows to tear her clothing off, he simply offered her a sinister smile as he moved forward, resting his elbows on his knees and looking down at her from his vantage point on the couch.

  “Neither of your lives interest me.”

  “Then why are you here?” she whispered.

  “This is about Roman Martin. Do you know him?”

  The woman nodded. “He was here. I think it was yesterday. Yes, yesterday morning.”

  “Let’s talk about that,” Hazrat said, easing up on his shadows. “I’ll keep you company until Harper comes. She is coming, right?”

  The woman nodded slowly.

  “Good, thanks for playing along.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Dirty Dancing

  Nadine wasn’t jealous of the two animated sex dolls, but she was impressed by how well they cleaned up.

  It was uncanny how real they looked, even down to small nuances in their flesh and their gestures. And while Nadine was also dressed up, she purposely wanted to play the role of a slightly older woman, someone who could have two daughters that looked like Celia and Coma.

  The early evening social was exactly what Nadine had anticipated.

  She grew up dirt poor, only having heard of this sort of events; and later, once she’d gone to her training, she’d actually taken part in a handful. These types of socials were extravagant balls, places where the rich could rub elbows, private. Training her how to act around wealthy individuals was yet another part of the Eastern Province spy program, one that had come in handy a number of times.

  The training had paid off, and it was how she’d ended up with an exemplar in western Centralia, the one who had given her the nasty scar on her side. He’d died that night, and a cleanup crew had followed.

  This was right around the time Nadine had met Oscar. She had thought she’d be in trouble, but instead, he’d celebrated what she had done.

  While they were trained to take down exemplars, the non-exemplar spies from the East rarely took on this sort of task. This was just basic logic; it didn’t take a Class E intelligence-based exemplar to figure out that people with powers held the advantage over people who were powerless, even if the powerless individuals were said to have heightened abilities.