A-Cup Angst Ch. 09

Jamie came back to him and smacked the club against one of the support pillars. The resounding smack silenced the Swede on the floor. "I've seen 'The Silence of the Lambs'. You're trying to humanize yourself in my eyes, aren't you?" Sven nervously licked his lips and nodded yes. "Smart move. Good effort. I liked the bit about your younger daughter's horse riding competition next week. Shame I was immunized against it when you took my mother!!"

Jamie swung the club overhead and slammed it down on Sven's immobilized feet with all his might and rage. Sven roared in agony as the bones in his feet were crushed. Jamie used his magic to prevent Sven from going into shock. He kept smashing all the bones in the man's legs and cauterizing the resulting bleeds with an open flame he summoned upon his fingers.

Sven's face was a red rictus of agony as he was kept feeling the horrible pain of his lower limbs. When Jamie reached his hips, he kicked his arms away from his torso and got to work reducing them to mush. His club broke and he fashioned another one from the other end of the formerly massive closet. He used it to finish work on Sven's arms. He then released the paralyzing spell from Sven and let him worsen his own pain by squirming helplessly in agony.

Everyone was packed by then and they descended the stairs, one by one. Jamie glanced at his clock and said to Sven, "Aw, Such a shame. Our time is up. I have to go save our parents, now. Too bad, cause you deserve much, much worse than what I've done to you now." Sven's mute face turned to Jamie and Jamie grinned at seeing a faint glimmer of hope in the man's eyes. "Aw, now, don't fret. I won't leave you here like this. You might live long enough until you get your magic back. And we wouldn't want that, now would we? Nah, I am going to kill you, no worries."

Jamie lifted his club and planted it against Sven's throat to crush his windpipe with it. He made to press down on it, before he lifted it and said, "Oh, and by the way, thank you for telling me who your family is and where I can find them. After I'm done with the rescue, I'm going to go to your house and rape and mutilate your women. How's that sound?" Jamie smiled at the tears that flowed from the man's eyes. "I still haven't decided on whether of not I'll snuff them afterwards."

Jamie held up his bloody club with both hands and tilted it, first one way and then the other, as he said, "On the one hand, they'd never, ever recover from what I'll do to them, particularly not mentally. On the other, killing your daughters right in front of their mother's eyes would be so cool. Don't you think?"

Jamie smiled an evil smile at the horrified man. He shrugged. "I guess I'll flip a coin when it comes to it," he said. He raised the club and smashed it across Sven's throat. "Let's go!" He turned and left the house. His people followed him and packed up their supplies in the SUVs. Nova stuffed the corpse into a body bag and sealed it for later disposal. It got in the X5 and drove to the airport. Ray and Felicity were following in the Wrangler.

Helena sat behind Jamie and whispered, "I can't believe you're going to do that to those women. Jamie, you can't do that! You just can't! They're little girls!"

"That's right, I can't," he said. "And I can't order anyone else to do it, either." He turned in his seat and gave Helena a reproachful look. "I'm not going to hurt any innocents, you idiot! Shame on you for even thinking it! Shame on you!" He faced front again.

"Well," she said. "Well... How was I supposed to know that? You get all mad at times and then..." Jamie shot her another glare and she shut up, looking down in shame. "Why'd you say it, if you're not going to do it?"

"I made those threats because I wanted to crush that fucker's spirit, as well as his limbs," he said. "Actually, that's going to be my shtick from now on, okay? I'm going to torture all the bad guys to death and just before I let them finally die, I'm going to tell them I'll do the exact same thing to their families and loved ones."

"So, you're just fucking with their heads?"

"Exactly," he said. "And shame on you for thinking otherwise! I already forgot what he said about his women. Where they lived, what their names were..."

"Jamie," Nova said, "if you do go through with your intention to kill all Syndicate operatives around the world, then the ones you get to later will probably know the families of the ones you killed earlier are safe and unharmed."

"Thank you for pointing that out for me, Nova," he said, "but that's actually part of the plan. I'm going to tell each and every piece of shit I torture that I never hurt innocents, but that I'll make an exception in their case, just because they pissed me off so much. It'll make it all the more terrifying. As a matter of fact, Helena, I want you to practice your 'eager to mutilate little children' face, ok? I don't want you to look away in horror while I make my threats, like you did back there."

"Ok," she said.

"Show me."

Helena made a face and Jamie frowned. "What the fuck is that? Are you constipated, or something?"

"It's my 'I'll kill you' face," she said, stymied.

Jamie rolled his eyes and said, "Just act like you're being offered a big slice of chocolate cake when I'm talking about mutilating the bad guys' kids, ok?" Helena smiled her eager, hungry smile and Jamie nodded. "That's it, right there. See? You smile like that when I threaten to kill their kids and they'll believe me. They'll suffer the more for it." Helena smiled a wide smile, happy for the praise. "Eh, that's too much."

They drove up to the airport and Jamie sent Nova and the twins off to find them some parachutes. The A.I. had already remotely started up the jet and Helena and Jamie loaded up their supplies. By the time they were finishing hauling the packs up the short stairs, Rose and Sandra drove up in the Cayenne. They shared quiet hugs with Helena and Jamie.

The twins and Nova came back with the parachutes and they all boarded the plane. After a few minutes, they took off and headed out to sea. Jamie looked at the seven of them occupying the cabin seats. One seat was empty, Sonya's. The cabin was empty, the A.I. was remotely operating the plane all the way from Bastion's basement, using a satellite phone. It was a risky, but necessary arrangement as the gynoid was desperately needed to spearhead the assault.

The A.I also found the blueprints for the type of vessel they were about to board and quickly rendered the ship's layout into a 3D map and sent it to their tablets. The gang practiced navigating the ship as they formed their plan of attack. Felicity taught all of them the ritual Syndicate used to drain someone of their life force. She had gleaned it from Sven's mind and the casters were going to use it to undo their parents' torture. Then she told Nova everything Sven had known about the Syndicate big wigs. It was a long recitation.

Three men sat on the bridge of "The Forest Spirit" and sipped their hot coffees. They were sleepy, tired and, above all else, bored. The sea was calm, the sky was clear and the torture of the prisoners was on hold while everyone but them slept in their luxurious cabins. One of them pulled out a deck of cards and held it up, questioningly. The other two nodded. He began to shuffle it and then dozed off, mid shuffle. The other two blinked in surprise and then their lids felt heavy and they nodded off as well.

The doors on the opposite sides of the bridge opened and the twins entered, each with an AK slung against their shoulder. They swept the bridge, looking for others that might be on watch. Ray opened a door and found the security room. It was full of monitors that displayed feeds from all of the ship's cameras. Felicity gave a hand signal and the rest of the gang filed into the bridge. Nova, holding two AKs with drum magazines, stayed outside to guard the deck.

Ray whispered, "Security room," and pointed at the door. Jamie gave a few signals and the twins guarded the sleeping watchmen. Rose guarded the bridge and Sandra and he went into the room. He quickly patched a satellite phone into the main console of the security system's computer and his A.I. hacked it to analyze the tapes. He held up the receiver to his ear and listened to the report.

"Ok, the ship's ours," he said to the everyone on the bridge. "Everyone's asleep in their quarters. There are sixty eight crew on board, all Syndicate, all dirty. Twenty are casters, forty eight are mundanes. Our parents are in the cells in the hold. They're still alive." The girls gasped at the news.

"Keep it together," he said. "We have to take out the bad guys first. We'll start with the casters. Their bunks are-"

"Wait," Sandra said. "With this many people on board the ship, we can heal our parents."

"That's the general idea," Jamie said. "We'll drain two or three mundanes to restore each of our parents to health."

"Yes, but what about their minds," Sandra asked.

"We'll use charm magic," Jamie said.

"That's not going to be enough," Sandra said.

"True," Rose added. "Charms fade over time. Cunningly crafted ones can last for years, but they still lose their grip, eventually."

"Traumatic memories can bleed over even the strongest of charms," Felicity said.

"If what you told us about the torture is true," Ray said, "then their minds are irreparably broken by it. There's practically no way you can just cast some charms on them to make them alright again."

"Then what would you have us do," Jamie whispered heatedly. He planted the barrel of his rifle against Ray's neck. "Put them out of their misery?"

"No," Sandra said. She placed a hand on his. "We can fix them. Rose and I studied how the brain works, back when we were making the A.I. If we drain people of their life force and use it to inhibit our parents' brains' ability to turn short term memories into permanent ones, then we can effectively wipe all those memories from their brains. We have to charm them into reliving their torture and each and every memory will get wiped away as it is replayed in their minds. The brain wipes the short term memory as it replays it and stores it into long term memory. If it can't store it into long term memory, it goes away to never return."

"So, you would have us make our parents replay all of their torture," Jamie said, accusingly, "right in front of our eyes?"

"It's a choice of either a few hours of reliving horrors that vanish from their minds as they're revisited, or the rest of their lives of constant suffering and anguish. None of them have survived what was done to them, Jamie. They're broken inside. We have to wipe their short and mid term memory and then we can charm them into believing something else was happening these past few days. A charm on a blank slate is... the best that can be done for them, right now. By anyone."

Jamie lowered his rifle. "Are you sure that would work?" Sandra nodded.

"Yes," Rose said. "We're absolutely certain. We're risking our parents' lives and minds here, too, Jamie."

Jamie considered the plan for a moment and then said, "Wait, if we modify their brains to not form permanent memories, then they'll never-"

"We drain the same number of people to reverse the procedure after wiping the memories of the torture from their minds is complete," Sandra said.

Jamie nodded. "Alright," he said, "we'll do it your way. But I only have five stored spirits. I can only take down ten casters with them. Plus another one I'll take out on my own. That still leaves nine of them to fight back."

"We can take down one or two more between us," Felicity said, indicating her brother and herself.

"Fine," Jamie said. "We'll drain those first and we'll kill the rest of the casters in their sleep." He pointed to Rose and Sandra. "It falls to the two of you to take all the rest of the mundanes prisoner. Can you do it?"

The girls nodded and they used duct tape to tie up the three guards that were put to sleep magically, earlier.

They split up and went to their targets' rooms. Jamie used up his five stored spirits of sorcery to incapacitate the first ten casters he came across. The twins managed to incapacitate two more casters, using their combined magics against them. Jamie did the math and realized they had quite a lot of rituals to perform in order to drain all the bad guys' life force to fix their parents' bodies and minds. He'd need all his power to not risk fucking those up, later on. He snuck into the rooms of the remaining eight casters and knifed them to death. He caught them all asleep and unawares and he easily held them down and dispelled their desperate magical attempts to save themselves.

He saw recognition in their dying eyes. They knew who he was, right before they died. It made him feel all warm and toasty inside, knowing that they knew why they were dying. He didn't know which ones of them had raped his mother, but he didn't care. They were all going to die. A small voice in the back of his mind told him he should have felt sickened by his actions. He smirked at the silly, little voice.

Rose and Sandra followed Nova as it swept the quarters belonging to the mundanes on the crew. The gynoid would simply walk in and restrain the sleeping mercenaries with duct tape while the girls made sure they remained asleep. In just over half an hour, they finished their sweep of the ship and had subdued all the bad guys on it. They rendezvoused in the hold, in front of the heavy, locked door leading to the cells their parents were kept in.

With the risky part of the rescue over, Jamie let himself experience his emotions again. His rage flowed through him. His pulse rose up with his wrath. He screamed at the heavy, metal door and it buckled until it shattered like safety glass to spill loudly on the floor. Everyone but Jamie and Nova cowered at the horrid noise that reverberated through the ship.

Their parents were squeezed into small, metal cages, the size of pet carriers, and they wailed like wounded animals. Jamie's heart broke when he saw the wounds covering his mother from head to toe. Her eyes were lifeless, her ear missing. The tiny voice in his head told him he should feel sick for letting those cunts upstairs draw a single breath more.

The next twenty four hours were the most anxious that Jamie and his girls had ever experienced. If they hadn't have had Nova and the twins with them, they probably wouldn't have made it through.

Their parents had been driven insane by the repeated rape, torture and maiming. First, they drained twenty one people of their life force to undo the damage to their parents' bodies, since unexplained injuries on their bodies would be traumatic by themselves. This was followed by charming their parents into recollecting everything they could since they had been kidnapped. Then they drained fourteen more Syndicate mercenaries to make their parents' brains unable to make new memories.

Holding their parents down while they tried to run away in a blind panic was terrible. The anguish and horror that was evident on their faces was too much for their children to bear. Frequently, they ran out on deck to get some air and cry. Then, they'd go down below and vent their frustration by beating the stuffing out of the mundane mercenaries they had kept alive still. Finally, Jamie ordered his slaves to suppress their own emotions, for the duration, and left to go get some sleep. It was long overdue.

When the horrible memories dried up, their parents' ability to make new memories was restored and they were charmed into thinking they had been on a pleasure cruise, courtesy of their children. The charms were fortified with magical potions that the girls prepared. Jamie and the girls breathed a collective sigh of relief when they saw that their desperate measures had worked. Their parents became themselves again and they enjoyed being on the ship.

The remaining eleven mercenaries were spelled to serve as their crew, providing them with every possible comfort and amenity while they sailed them to Philadelphia, where a private charter flight home was waiting for them. They told Jamie that the jewelry their parents had been wearing was simply torn off them and tossed into a cupboard. It was kept in case they wanted to use it to taunt them with it at a later date. No one had inspected it, naturally assuming that the wards upon it would fade within a day.

Jamie collected the jewelry and their parents donned it with joy. He also had the twins ward the ship against scrying and the A.I. masked their GPS and electronics. While they were on the high seas, their parents were safe. Nine of the eleven spared mercenaries were also charmed into following their parents back to their home town, using regularly scheduled flights, where they would serve as their discreet bodyguards. The remaining two were standing on the deck with Jamie and his coven.

Everyone had gone to sleep, courtesy of potions and spells. Only one mercenary remained awake on the bridge to stand watch. He was noticeably indifferent to the sight and very loud noise of a jet hovering right beside the ship. Sandra, Rose and the twins used all of their power to cool and deflect the hot exhaust of the engines, lest it set the ship on fire. Jamie used a spell to make himself temporarily lighter and let his magic flow into his muscles. He eyed the open door of the plane, hovering unsteadily just five feet away from him.

He smoothly leaped into the plane. The rest of the casters followed him, then the two mercenaries and finally Nova. Once they were all on board, the plane hovered away from the ship and the casters let go of their shield spell. Soon, the plane gained speed and altitude, returning to its conventional configuration and they flew back home.

Once they landed, Jamie took the two mercenaries and Rose and went to get Suzie. Rose and he undid the charms in the couple's minds and took Suzie back. Jamie sent her home, accompanied by the two goons, who would act as her bodyguards from then on, but first, they had lunch together.

The rest of their party went to Bastion and disposed of Sven's rotting corpse. By the time Rose and Jamie showed up, the place was squeaky clean and plans were underway to restore the kitchen to its former glory. Boxes of takeout were on the new coffee table and Rose and Jamie declined the offer of food with a shake of their heads.

"Finally, we get to the juicy stuff," Jamie said. "Nova, Felicity, tell me of all the Syndicate big wigs Sven knew about."

The gynoid and Scot then began a very long lecture, enumerating hundreds of evil casters from all over the world, organized into groups of varying size and purpose. Once it had real names, the A.I. was able to track everyone. Jamie listened patiently. He had already decided he was going to slaughter them all. The fact that only a few of them possessed the information who Jamie and his gang were, didn't matter to him at all. He needed to know how that information came to be in their possession in the first place. Besides, he had no illusions about these people cutting their losses and leaving Jamie and his gang alone. Their livelihood hinged on their intimidating reputations so they were unable to do something like that. Peaceful co-existence was not an option.

Jamie decided that the first they'd hit were the ones that were in possession of their identities. After those, they'd choose their next target on the basis of proximity and foreknowledge of the target's vulnerabilities.

"First thing's first," Jamie said. "Do you two remember seeing my stored up powers?" Ray and Felicity nodded. "It's time to teach you guys how to do that." He drew the pair of intricate, magical drawings that he used to have on his rings. The twins looked at them uncomprehendingly. Jamie magically sized two gold rings to perfectly fit Ray's fingers and two more for Felicity. "Assume the lotus position, both of you, and take off your warded jewelry." They did. He started guiding them through a meditation that would unify them with their power and each other, at the same time. He was pleasantly surprised when the twins accomplished the union in a matter of seconds.