I stood there in the doorway of the bingo parlor. Across the street sat a forest green hovervan, amber and green FORCE lights flashing at every corner. A muscular man in a red-and-white checkered casual jacket leaned against the front of the van, arms crossed. He smiled at me and nodded, but didn’t move. My whole body shook as I glanced over towards my hotel, wanting to run as fast as I could to the perceived safety of my room and my beloved Chantre. All I needed to do was pack my duffle and take a bus to anywhere, as long as it was away from here.
Oh, who am I kidding? How could I possibly hope to escape the Dark Man on my own? I collapsed in the doorway, turning back into the welcoming darkness. A hand touched my arm.
“We can help you, Ms Duval,” the fox’s voice assured. “Please let us help you.”
I nodded. “I can not run any more. The Beast, I can not control her. The Dark Man, he will torture me. Do as you will with me,” I cried.
I felt soft fabric wrapping around my shoulders. Bright yellow cloth covered my nakedness as the fox helped me to rise, the blanket I had dropped now in Scott’s hands. He handed me the blanket once I stood on my own, helping me wrap it tightly around myself before stepping back and letting me tuck the top in. I’m sure Tracker’s cape looked a little silly over the green blanket, but I couldn’t refuse his offer of comfort, going so far as to buckle the collar around my own throat to hold it in place.
Another man joined us then, the warrior in the red-checked jacket.
“Hi!” he greeted in a cheerful baritone. “I’m Red.”
“Good to meet you, monsieur le Red. Is that your name, or your favorite color?”
“Both, sweet lady. Both.”
“Then that is good, no? Your favorite color is your name, and your name, the color?”
“Well…” He drew the sound out, almost sounding like a Texan in the way he carried it. “Really, my name is Charlie. Charlie Overton. Everybody just calls me Red, though.”
“I see. Nice to meet you, Charlie. And thank you for helping to drive those Blacksnake people away yesterday.”
“For a pretty lady like you, I’d do it any day.”
“Flatterer.” I turned to Scott, obviously the leader of this little group. “Monsieur, may we go to my apartment now? I would collect my things if I am to accompany you to wherever we are going.”
“Of course, Ms Duval. Do you wish to ride, or can you walk?”
“My hotel, it is just over there.”
“Of course.” He touched his earpiece again. “Captain, follow us to the hotel please. Ms Duval has some things she wants to collect.”
As we walked along, a shadow fell over me. Glancing up, I saw another figure floating silently overhead.
“You! You shot at me last night!”
“I only wanted to stop you, miss.”
“So you shot at me with some kind of power. What? Were you trying to take over my mind?”
“No, miss,” he replied, his voice sounding a little more mature than Red’s, “my powers don’t work that way. I can only make things heavier or lighter.”
“So you were going to make me too heavy to move, is that it?”
“Not really. I intended to lift you off your feet, so neither you nor the tiger could scramble away. I’ve never seen anyone move as fast as you did to escape my beam. Not even Scott. How did you know I was there?”
“I don’t know. I just… felt you. I simply knew something was about to happen and where it was. When I sprang away, I saw you right where I felt you.”
He laughed. “We’ve got us a good one, Scott. She might even be better than ol’ Animal. Even he can be surprised.”
“That’s up to her, Jay. We’ve got no right to assume she will join us. Once she’s rested and feels sure of herself, it’s her privilege to just walk away.”
“No offense, boss man. I’m just saying that if she does, I feel sorry for whomever goes up against her. Did you see that scratch down Pneumata’s leg yesterday? I don’t think anyone has even touched her before! She might have even given Vengeance a run for his money had she joined the fight!”
I looked up. “You think so?”
“Little lady, I saw what you did to Pneumata. If you hadn’t pulled her down, I’m not sure the four of us could have come out as well as we did. In that armor, Vengeance is tough enough to keep all of us busy. Having Pneumata and Lumen along for the ride kept us from ganging up on him. As it was, I’d have been hard-pressed to keep him grounded if someone hadn’t knocked out his jet pack. Was that you?”
“No,” I pointed to the fox man, “He did it–to stop Vengeance from carrying the Beast away.”
“Really?” He looked over at Tracker. “Will wonders never cease!”
By this time, we had reached the door of the hotel. Tracker sprang ahead to open the door while Scott escorted me in, the others following behind. Tracker led the way up the stairs to the second floor, his claws clicking softly on the old wooden steps. At one point he moved a glass bottle aside, standing it upright in a corner against the riser. Once on the second floor, he led the way to my room and stopped by the door.
“How do you know this is my room,” I asked.
“Umm… well?” He glanced nervously over at Scott, who provided the answer.
“We… talked to your boss over at the Nightbirds Club. He told us who you were and where you lived. We’d… well, we ran into a little Cartel trouble yesterday after our fight with the Blacksnake gang. We discovered they’d been looking for someone and had your address in his notes. From some of the things we found in here, we deduced you probably danced at the club, and your boss confirmed it.”
“You broke in my door,” I asked, noticing the way it hung free, the latch broken.
“No,” Scott answered. “We found it that way. Tracker scented that a stranger had entered your room and the door was already broken. We almost despaired that you’d already been kidnapped, but Tracker said you hadn’t been in your room in nearly two weeks.”
I shivered. “Two weeks?” Mon dieu! Had I been in the Dark Man’s grasp for two weeks? “What is the date?”
“The thirteenth of June.”
“The last date I remember is June second. I remember it was a slow night and raining. That’s the night I was kidnapped.”
“I can check on that for you, if you wish; but that sounds right. Sounds like we can add a kidnapping charge to Blacksnake’s sheet as well.”
I pushed the door open and entered the apartment. Only one room, the bed stood against one wall and a dresser stood opposite it, the closet taking up most of the third wall, along with the doorway into the bathroom. Everything I owned lay strewn around the room. The drawers were pulled out of the dresser and the closet was empty, even the hangars scattered around the floor.
“This is how we found it yesterday, Ms Duval. We didn’t want to move anything in case they came back and assumed you had returned.”
I stepped around the bed, reaching down to pull out my guitar case from underneath. I didn’t need to. The case lay open at the side of the bed, its lid leaning against the mattress. Chantre lay inside, silenced forever by the destructive boot of a Cartel vandal. Falling to my knees, I gingerly lifted Chantre from her bed, tears running down my cheeks, knowing I would never hear her sing again.
