A Long Time from Home Ch. 31

"< Still good to know... I'll stop talking to you now, but no matter what happens, lay still and pretend to sleep >"

"< Will do >" Cyra sent, echoed a moment later by Zena, who added. "< Be careful, Ivan. They have guns >"

I was about to answer when the office door was opened, and Parker came out. I immediately cut of the mental communication and to my relief he didn't even look at the Twins but walked directly over to the two naked women and studied them for a few moments, before he placed a hand on each woman's head.

As it was a lot easier to use mental powers on people you touch, I guessed that he was trying to break their mind-shields or at least weaken them.

That would take time, so I ignored him and looked at the window again. It could be opened from the inside, but not while I was on the window still. I moved to the right until I was in front of the next window and then used telekinesis to open the first one, using as little power as possible to avoid being detected.

A low howling sound started inside the building and I realized I had just triggered one of the modern security systems, spoiling any chance of surprise.

Inside the building, Parker let go of the women and hurried towards the office, while shouting something.

Reacting on instinct, I reached out with my mind, took hold of him after he had run past the Twins and smashed him into the wall before he could reach the door.

That turned out to be a bad move. While looking solid, the wall was made of some thin material and instead of knocking him out, my telekinetic assault sent Parker through the wall and out of sight.

Cursing silently, I removed the long knife from inside the jacket and dived through the open window, flipping in the air, so I landed on my feet.

There was a clicking sound and the crate next to me almost disintegrated as a rain of bullets hit it.

I rolled to the left and caught a glimpse of a black dressed woman, carrying a gun of some kind that was pointing in my general direction. I could see the flashes of light as the guard fired and missed again, but the sound was different from the booming sound I had heard when Curtis had shot me. This one made a loud clicking sound instead, but it wasn't nearly as loud as Curtis' gun and I doubted that it could be heard from the outside.

Judging from the effect on the wooden crate, it was still deadly, so I drew a throwing knife and with a flick of a wrist sent it into her throat, making her go down. As she died, she either managed to pull the trigger on the weapon or cramped up with the same result, sending a hail of bullets through the warehouse.

I glanced over at the two agents and the Twins, but they all looked unharmed. Unfortunately, the twin's presence, along with possibility of cameras inside the building, would seriously limit the powers I could use. Not only weren't the Twins ready to see the full effect of Ars Mentalis, but there might be cameras inside the building, and I didn't want anybody else to see any obvious use of Powers.

The only redeeming factor, was that Parker was a criminal and had kept his powers hidden, making it unlikely that the alarm was connected to any form of law enforcement.

Kneeling behind one of the steel pillars that held the roof, I took a moment to activate Pugna Promptu, allowing me to parry or dodge attacks that I couldn't even see coming. Due to the speed of bullets, I didn't know if it would be of any help against guns, but at least it couldn't hurt.

Then I went into Mutatur Tempus Mente (Baylon: "Time shall be changed in the mind."). My brain accelerated and everything else slowed to a crawl. Mental Power surged through my body, making me faster and stronger.

A trio of guards dressed in dark clothing came into view, as they looked from side to side in an effort to see me, guns following the direction of their eyes. Their clothing was somewhat baggy, but from the shape of their legs and hips, they were all women, just like the first guard.

The way they moved reminded me of crossbowmen and I realized that a modern gun was a faster, handier, and deadlier version of the Lescarian Lian nu, or repeating crossbow, that had been the cutting edge in weapon technology the last time I visited Lescare (China).

It also meant that I was at a severe disadvantage until I could get into close combat with them and getting there without being hit demanded a distraction.

Reaching into my jacket, I took one of the large knives from Curtis' house and sent it flying across the room, aiming at the rear-most guard and augmenting the throw with some Vis.. She must have had sensed or seen it coming, because she tried to dodge away and instead of hitting her in the chest, it hit her point first in the shoulder.

The force of the blow caused her to stumble backwards a few steps, until she slammed into one of the huge shelves. Startled the two others turned around and to my surprise, they fired their weapons per reflex, killing their comrade in a hail of bullets.

Activating the adrenaline in my body to make me even faster, I moved across the floor with lighting speed and hit the nearest guard in the back of the neck. As it was designed to do, the Diucultro effortlessly cleaved flesh and bone, killing the guard as her head was chopped off.

The second guard heard it and was trying to turn around, when I took her weapon arm off with a vertical strike, followed by a horizontal stab that penetrated the side of her chest all the way to her heart as I moved past her.

Pugna Promptu warned me that an attack was eminent, so I continued to move as bullets flew through the place, I had been a moment before and the sound of broken glass hitting the floor reached my ears.

Through a hole in the office wall where there once was a window, I could see Parker who was standing up, radiating disbelief and rage, as he pointed a gun in my direction.

He wasn't alone: Two scantily clad women was standing right in front of him, making him difficult to hit at a distance. Luckily, they weren't armed, but just stood there like a living shield.

A strong mental attack hit me but bounced of my mind shield and for a heartbeat, Parker looked at me in stunned disbelief. I took advantage of his shock by reaching out with my mind and ripped the gun out of his hand, sending it flying.

Parker sneered and even half hidden behind a woman I could see him making a gesture with his right arm. A large crate was catapulted towards me, driven by an invisible force, proving that Parker could use telekinesis. I used telekinesis to deflect it, since I didn't have time to dodge that big an object.

Needing to remove the two women, I used a telekinetic push that sent both of them flying backwards with surprised yells, bashing into Parker and knocking him over, before they hit the wall in far end of the office and crumbled onto the floor.

Then I moved again, jumping through the empty window frame as Parker came to his feet.

An office chair came flying towards me, but I caught it with my mind and sent it in Parker's direction instead.

He dodged it with surprising agility and a heartbeat later a mental attack hit me, going for my body instead of my mind. The weaker shield around my body crumbled under the shockingly powerful attack, and pain shot through my body like liquid fire going through my veins, making me stagger for a moment, until I blocked out the pain, as I had been trained to do.

Seeing me stagger, Parker smiled triumphantly and reached out with his hand. Something came flying through the air again, but this time he was calling an object to him. Unfortunately for him, I was still in the slow world of Mutatur Tempus Mente and had time to recognize the object as Parker's gun. It passed within striking distance and I hit it with a reverse swing of the long knife.

Magical forged Adamant met a modern weapon as the two weapons clashed. Adamant won, and half the gun sailed through the room while the other half ended up in Parker's hand.

He looked at the broken gun in shock and before he had a chance to recover, I had closed the distance between us. Not knowing how badly damaged the gun was, I broke his shooting arm with the flat of the blade, before hitting his jaw with the knife's pommel, knocking him out.

He collapsed on the floor, but just to be safe, I followed up with an Ars Mentalis attack, that sent him into a lengthy coma.

Two high-pitched screams vibrated through the office as the scantily clad women saw him fall and charged me. Running bare-handed towards an armed person was a headless move and I realized they were mind controlled and not really a match for me.

Not wanting to harm them more than necessary, I repeated the Ars Mentalis attack I had just used on Parker, stretching it out to include both and sending them into a coma as well. They hit the floor before even coming close to me, like puppets whose strings had been cut.

A gasp made me look to the right. The office was bigger than it had looked from the window and I discovered that I had an audience. Five of them to be exact.

To the other side of the office, there was a large cage and inside it stood five young women. All of them were dressed in dirty dresses, that looked like they had been wearing them for weeks, but even with the dirt, it was clear that all of them were insanely well-formed and good-looking women in their early twenties.

Two of them looked like they came from the same area as Sheena which meant Bharat (India). Another looked Persian, while the next had the beautiful golden dark brown colour I had only seen on people from the west coast of Africa. The last one looked European with light brown hair and fair skin.

So much for a quick rescue without people seeing me using powers.

Sheathing the long knife, I projected calmness into them, lessening any possible fear, before I signaled that they should be quiet. Then I reached out with my mind and searched the warehouse for mental patterns that would indicate more guards.

There was none, but the Twins must have felt the power, because as soon as the search was over, Cyra mentally said, "< Tell me you're ok!>"

"< I'm fine and you're safe >" I sent back to both of them along with a feeling of calmness. "< The kidnapper is knocked out and there're no more guards... But there're some persons in here that I need to take care off right away, so it'll be a few minutes before I come out again >"

Even over the mind-link I could feel the tension leaving them as Cyra said, "< That's okay... we can wait >"

I closed the link and turned my attention to the scantily clad women and studied their minds. That was bad news: Their thought patterns had been altered so much that it had destroyed their personality and free will. In Baylon times that had been known as Abdere (Baylon: 'Seized' or 'taken'), indicating a person that have had their soul taken away from them. Making an Abdere had been considered murder, since that person could never be the same again, but only restored to a certain degree depending on the victim and the power used.

The two women was compelled to protect Parker at all costs and if woken up, they would attack me again, so I let them stay in the coma. A simple memory wipe removed any recollection of the last couple of weeks, meaning that I could leave them to the police. They had Mentats as police officers and it couldn't be the first time, they had encountered mind-controlled people.

I had just finished the memory wipe when the brunette in the cage whispered, "Who're you?"

I walked over to the cage, doing a did a quick check on the mental patterns of the women in the cage as I walked, expecting to see a repeat of the other women. I was wrong.

The women in the cage had fairly normal thought-patterns, which would explain why they were not only in a cage, but also chained. The thought-pattern of the brunette was especially intriguing, as it showed a lot less strain than I would have expected from someone locked up in a cage.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to examine that right now, so I turned my attention back to the matter at hand, which was replying to her question. The woman had used accented English and not Spanish, so I answered in that language. "Doesn't matter. The police will be here soon. Then you can all go home."

The reaction to that statement surprised me, as they all looked at me with a bleak expression on their pretty faces.

"Don't send us home." The fair-skinned brunette pleaded. "We'll be killed or thrown into prison!"

Strange as it sounded, her statement rang true as if she firmly believed that herself. "Why?"

"Well, Riya and Ayanna are no long virgins." She explained as she indicated the two Indian looking women. "It will bring shame to their family if they're allowed to live." She grimaced. "They're broken property and an embarrassment."

It wasn't the first time, I had heard that, as it had happened in ancient times as well, but to encounter it two thousand years later was almost unbelievable. In fact, I wasn't sure that I believed it myself, but from the look of fear on the women's faces, there was no doubt that they believed it.

The brunette continued. "The rest of us were framed for crimes we didn't commit, and we're all listed as deserters or traitors and are wanted in our home countries."

'Deserters or traitors.' The words rang in my head for a moment. "Wait a minute... You're all soldiers?"

"If we weren't, we couldn't really be deserters, could we?"

The sharp answer caused me to chuckle. Despite everything that had happened, the brunette had spirit, but I needed to know if she would be a danger to me or not. "Quite right... so where're you from and what happened to you?"

She stared at me for a moment and then sighed. "I was in the army in Ukraine but caught my boyfriend selling things on the black marked. Next thing I knew, he sold me. Oh... I forgot to mention that he's a police officer and I'm now a wanted criminal in Ukraine, since I got the blame for everything he had done. Good enough?"

I nodded slowly, while trying to remember where Ukraine was located from the map in the atlas.

To my amusement, I realized it was part of the old Scythia, where women were renowned for being warrior-like, and that the brunette looked somewhat familiar, because she reminded me of Xanthe, an Amazon princess I had known many years ago. More things that haven't changed much over time.

"Good enough... What can I call you?"

"Petra."

Looking at the next, who happened to look like a taller version of Agent Rao, I said, "You?"

She saluted me as she said, "Riya, Combat medic, 7th Sri Lanka Army Woman's Corps, sir." She hesitated, but then added. "Both me and the pilot was taken when our helicopter was highjacked." Again, I used the map to locate the place she was talking about. It was the Island I knew as Cinnamon Island.

The other Indian said, "Ayanna, 153rd Air Defence regiment, Pakistan." That turned out to be the area around the Indus river. "I was taken along with a shipment of electronics."

"Esther, Police Officer, Israel Border police." Said the Persian beauty with the sparkling grey eyes. I had expected her to say that she came from somewhere in Persia, but on the other hand, the Persian Empire had ruled that area of the world for centuries before the romans took over. With a sigh, she added, "I was drugged and kidnapped while shopping:"

The African woman was last, and I noticed she had the same slim nose, high cheekbones, and straight black hair as Rita, though her skin tone was much darker.

"Delina, Communication specialist, Gambia Armed Forces."

Located on the east side of Africa, Gambia was a small country around a large river as well as a place I had visited a long time ago along with the Carthaginian Admiral Hanno the Navigator.

"I was convicted for a crime and fled the country. Unfortunately, I trusted the wrong people and ended up being kidnapped like the rest."

Nodding slightly, I sighed. "You'll have to stay there for the time being, but I'll be back."

They didn't object, so I walked over to Parker, quickly searched his pockets until I found a bunch of keys and then left the office.

Zena and Cyra waved at me as soon as I came outside, and I threw the keys over to them. "Here you go, Rascals."

"< Thanks >" they replied with wide smiles and got to work on the locks with the keys, while I took advantage of the distraction to drag the dead guards out of sight of the Twins and retrieve my knife.

When I returned both girls ran over to me and gave me a hug.

"< Thank you! >" said Zena mentally, filling the link with gratitude and relief.

"< Yeah, thanks >" added Cyra as she did the same, but her eyes wandered over to the pool of blood where the dead guards had been.

I hugged her again. "Easy Cyra. It was them or us and I prefer us."

She nodded. "< So do I >"

"Good, because some people don't give you a choice and then all good intentions in the world doesn't matter one little bit."

To my surprise, Zena broke the hug, turned her sister's face, and looked her right into the eyes. "< Stare contra malum.... Remember? 'Someone has to take a stand against evil.' >"

Zena's use of the Ordo Gladius motto brought a shadow of a smile to her sister's face and after a little while, Cyra nodded. "< I guess so >"

Zena smiled and gave her twin another hug, before looking at the sheathed sword in my hand and then at my face. "< You're an Inquisitor, right? >"

Instead of just answering, I winked at them, whispering, "That would be telling, and I don't tell."

That brought the smile back on Cyra's face and Zena mentally said, "< I guess that is fair... Can we go see Mom and the rest now? >"

I nodded, and they led the way into a room without windows.

There wasn't much in the room except for some mattresses on the floor. Alice, Karen, and Rita were laying on the mattresses, and like the Interpol Agents, they were as naked as the day they were born. They were also chained to one of the big metal columns, effective preventing any escape in case they woke up.

"Wait here." I told the Twins and walked over to Alice and quickly examined her. She was unharmed but drugged to the point of being unconscious. However, the Salamander Vis Power I had used just a few days ago, was already neutralizing the drug and she would wake up in a couple of hours, just like Zena and Cyra had woken up long before the kidnappers had expected. Since it would be highly inconvenient if the three women woke up before I was gone, I reached out with my mind and made sure she didn't wake up before mid-morning.

"She's unharmed... come over."

Cyra and Zena rushed to their mother's side, while I switched my attention to Rita and Karen, with almost the same result. I guessed that Parker had been too busy with Sheena and Honeycutt to do any mind tampering. Like I had done with Alice, I made sure they didn't wake up until mid-morning.

"< Why're they all naked? >" asked Cyra curious.

"To remove traces and to rob them of their dignity." I said with a shake of my head. "The last one is an old trick to keep people from escaping, but I doubt it would have worked. Your mom, Rita and Karen are way too confident to be bothered by that sort." Cyra and Zena nodded proudly as I stood up. "Open the chains but let them sleep for now."

While they opened the locks and removed the chains, I took two blankets that had been left in a corner and spread them over the women.

"Good job. You already got the keys, so go ahead and free the Interpol agents as well."

"< They're Inquisitors as well, aren't they? >" asked Cyra as we walked over to the Agents.