Flying Blind Ch. 06

"You've helped a lot of people," Ed said. "Without you, we never would have found Madison and Alvin. We've taken Detrius's food supply away."


"It just makes him more dangerous," Heda muttered. "I want him gone. I want to get him for what he did to those students, and I want to rip his throat out for what he did to Madison."

"Now you're the one who needs to calm down, little sis. She's as safe as she can be now, and your girl is going to be just fine. You won't catch him if you lose your cool."

Heda leaned back. "Cool." She was pondering something. "This guy we're after has some kind of hard-on for the cold."

"Huh?"

"I mean, he used cold as a way of torturing his victims. The ones that survived talked about how cold it was."

"Use of cold as a torture device is not uncommon."

Heda shook her head. "Everything with this guy means something."

Edgar closed his eyes. "The torture devices were things that he picked up from Professor Hill's class. Detrius blames the shifters for what happened, specifically Reichert. The murderer was one of Hill's best students, so he took away Reichert's in some bizarre form of balance."

"We'll add it to the criteria being used to profile this psycho, but he's smart. He's not going to just be hanging out in a fridge somewhere waiting for us."

"I know. Just let me pretend I'm brilliant for a little bit," Heda chuckled punching her brother in the shoulder.

"Heda, the one thing you can count on your family to do for you is to squash your ego whenever we can. It's kind of annoying that most of the time, you are as good as you claim to be. Though I doubt Madison complains about your mad skills."

Heda actually had the good graces to blush a bit. "Well, she hasn't complained to me. Hey, we better be getting back. Despite the galactic unfairness of it, I still have class tomorrow."

"Hey, about what we were talking about earlier . . . don't tell Mom. You're right. I shouldn't go worrying anyone unless I'm sure."

The two shifted in silence, then took flight in the last light of the sun towards home.

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That night . . .

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The Cold screamed and wailed against the surrounding walls like the wind and waves at a Scottish coastline. Over the weeks since It had met with disaster. It's lair violated, It's Messages lost, It's visage known to the enemy . . . unacceptable! But the Enemy had sent His little puppets away, out of even the Cold's long reach.

"All my plans," It hissed, "all my dreams. Gone!" But they could not be gone. How could the Cold truly be denied. It came for all things. The Cold could lay mountains flat, and leave the greatest predators humble in their graves. And the Cold demanded It's due.

It would draw the Enemy out. It would use the Enemy's arrogance and pride as weapons against It.

"The story is not over," the Cold whispered. "Not until I have had the final word."

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A few days later . . .

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Madison was actually doing pretty well. The last of the bandages had come off that afternoon, and she had immediately shifted and flown around the house. She had even clung to the bottom of Mr. Hannity's arm, chattering away happily before flitting off. Then in the evening, Morgan and some of her friends from high school, all of whom thought that Madison was the coolest chick ever, had descended on the convalescing bat-shifter. They had given her a home facial, then painted her nails, despite her protestations that she was blind and that the concept of "Sasha red" coloring was pretty much lost on her. Morgan had told her that some things transcended sight. Madison told her little sister that she was, in point of fact, off her rocker.

Madison found herself relaxed and kicking back in her king-sized bed, sipping the most amazing raspberry lemonade and listening to T-Bone Walker wafting out from her I-Pod's docking station. She felt safe here. The only other place she had felt safe was in the arms of --

*Buzz*

Madison picked up her phone. "Hello?"

"Hey baby!" came a friendly voice. How's my girl doing?"

"Horrible," Madison replied with an insincere pout in her voice. "This lemonade isn't quite chilled enough, these pillows haven't been fluffed since this morning --" She stopped when she heard Heda laughing at her.

"You are so full of shit. You're loving being a pampered princess now, aren't you?"

Madison closed her eyes. "Is that horrible of me? I mean, with everything that's happened, should I really be . . . happy? It kinda feels inappropriate."

"Madison, you've paid more than your pound of flesh in this," Heda said vehemently. "You've put up with more than anyone I know in your life, and you suffered at that asshole's hands. No one deserves to feel good more than you."

"One girl died, and the rest . . . Damn, I mean even Carla --"

"Would have been taken even if you never existed. And Carla's safer now than anyone except maybe you, thanks to your father. She's getting back tonight, right?"

"Yeah, late. We're taking an armored limo to the airport to pick her up, and her security guy is going to call once she gets on the plane. It'll be nice having her here. She'll help distract Morgan, and I think Timothy has a crush on her. Little goober," Madison added with a chuckle.

"He's gonna be as much of a heartbreaker as his sister," Heda snickered.

"You've gotta be talking about Morgan," Madison sighed, lying back on her pile of unfluffed pillows. "She's had two boyfriends. Two! And she's sixteen! I'm twenty, and I'm on girlfriend number one."

"Well, at least you started with the best. I will absolutely ruin you for other women."

Madison was grinning like an idiot. "Well, you better step up your game. I've been assured by at least half-dozen semi-pubescent teenaged girls that they know at least one lesbian who they could hook me up with."

Heda was laughing at the other end of the line. "That's it! No hanging out with your sister's friends. They're a bad influence on you. I can't even defend my territory."

Madison's face scrunched up. "Territory? I'm new at the whole dating thing, but comparing a girl to something you might purchase from France for cheap is hardly flattering."

"Cheap? I'll have you know that I would not accept anything less than an acre of land and a mule for you."

"You want a mule? Why, so you can have two asses?" Madison stuck her tongue out, then remembered that Heda could not actually see her.

"Touche. You're sticking your tongue out at me, aren't you?"

"Uhm . . . no?"

Laughter. "Liar. Too bad, though. I can think of a lot of fun things to do with your tongue."

Madison's whole body underwent muster in the course of a second. Heart beat up, check. Skin hot, check. Face flushed, check. Libido doing a mambo inspired by a full jazz band . . . definitely. "I . . . uhm, what --"

"Are you alone?" Heda asked, her voice as pure and innocent as the Marquis de Sade on a bender.

Madison almost forgot how to use her echolocation, but she was able to scan the room. Door was closed. Blinds were down on all her windows, at Madison's request. She was not a big fan of glass anyway. People could look at her, but she could not sense them through it. "Yeah. Why?" she asked, trying to sound casual.

"Don't play coy with me," Heda purred. "I told you that there had been great advances in the world of phone sex. I could get off just listening to you talk."

Madison's brain was tempted to give out, because it was not the recipient of most of the blood and oxygen in her body at the moment. But she rallied her few working brain cells and switched on her on-air voice. "Are you just talk, or can you dance too?" Heda had told her once that her voice was like hot chocolate stirred with a cinnamon stick, and Madison was laying it all out there for this conversation.

"Oh, I'm ready to dance. My hand's been in my shorts since you picked up the phone."

Madison's mind was awash with images. "Your volleyball shorts?" she whispered, putting as much heat in her words as she could. "Those tight little ones you wear when you play? I hope they're your game shorts, because practice is over." Madison stifled a giggle. She could not believe that she had just said that. She heard a moan.

"I play for keeps," Heda replied, then sighed. "Guess what I'm doing right now?"

"You're playing with yourself," the blind girl replied, forcing her breathing to stay deep and steady. She knew what Heda wanted to hear. "Playing with your pussy?" she added, drawing out the "s" sound like a serpent in the garden.

"Oh yeah. I've got two fingers up inside, and I just keep wishing they were yours," Heda said. "Where are your hands?"

Madison ran one hand up her body to where her nipples were trying to poke their way through her body stocking. "I'm playing with my tits," she whispered, gently twisting one nub. She managed to get her hand through her neckline and under her bra so she could feel her skin, and it felt good. "My nipples are acting like you're mouth is on them."

"I wish it was. You are so sexy," Heda replied, and her voice conveyed her sincerity. "Do something for me, please? Take your clothes off, and talk to me while you're doing it."

Madison crawled off the bed, then hurriedly double-checked every lock and every window-shade, all the while trying to find her wireless headset. She almost stubbed her toe on the bed frame, then managed to trip on the rug.

"Madison? Baby?"

"Still here," Madison said, her voice breaking out of its sexier tones, but only for a moment. "Just getting the bluetooth ready. You know, in case I need both hands?"

There was some chuckling on the other end. "Oh, you'll be need them both, I think. You know, I haven't heard about what you're wearing or, more specifically, what you're not supposed to be wearing."

The bat shifter was struggling to get back onto the bed. She thought she might have hurt her knee, but she would not be needing her knees for what was on the schedule. Under the safety of the covers, she peeled off her dress and body stocking until all she had on was her --

"Are your panties still on?"

Madison nodded, then remembered that Heda could not see her over the phone. "I was just getting to them."

"Leave 'em on."

"Are you sure? They're the cotton --"

"Madison, play along."

"Fine, fine," Madison whispered huskily, her hand tracing circles on the soft fabric of her underwear. "You know I'll play," she added with her throaty voice. "I'm just aching to play."

"I'll bet you are. I'll bet you just couldn't wait to touch yourself."

"I'm being so good," Madison whispered. "I haven't really touched myself. Not the way I want to." She grinned when she heard Heda take a harsh breath. "You don't have clothes on do you?"

"No. I've been naked since you picked up the phone."

Madison smiled. "You're in your room then. Lying on that big bed, all alone. I'll bet the windows are open, aren't they?"

"How'd you know?" Heda asked with a horny chuckle.

"Because you like the night air on your skin. Because you like being nude when you're near nature. I don't know what the moonlight looks like, but I know you must be beautiful in it. The moon is probably caressing you, and the wind is licking your body like I want to be. I'll bet they think you're sugar-sweet." She heard an ever-so-gentle moan on the other end.

"Do you know what you do to me when you talk like that?" Heda asked. "I promise you, my thoughts are anything but sweet right now."

"It depends," Madison countered, rubbing one finger down her slot, dampening the panties that separated the two, "on whether or not it agrees with my sweet tooth." She gasped as her thumb rubbed her clitoral hood through her underwear, and she made sure Heda heard it. "I'm hungry, Heda, and the only thing I want in my mouth is you."

"Well we'll have to find you a substitute. Stick your finger in that wet pussy of yours, then put it in your mouth."

Madison bit her bottom lip, partially due to nervousness but also due to excitement. She stuck her hand under the waistband of her panties and plunged one digit into her hot sex. "Do you know what you do to me?" she asked, playing with herself for a moment and savoring the moments. "You're eight hundred miles away, and you've got me so fucking wet," she hissed, plunging her finger in a few more times, then withdrawing it and putting it in her mouth.

"I'm playing with my nipples," Heda told her. "I know how much you like them."

"Can you lick them? I wish I could," Madison said, returning her fingers to the private paradise between her thighs.

Do I look like Joanna?" Heda teased. "I can't quite get a nipple to my lips."

"Twist it, just a little," Madison requested. Heda's breasts were firm, but Madison's slightly larger and softer tits made her own nipples accessible, though only barely. She pushed one to her mouth while continued to finger herself. "You're like a good jazz band," she told her girlfriend. "Smooth, amazing, and you can keep me up all night when you get rolling."

"Then tune up the band, because I'm just getting started." On Heda's end of the line, there was some heavy breathing. "I can't keep my fingers off of myself."

"I can't keep fingers out of myself," came the retort.

Heda's next word send a most pleasurable shiver up Madison's spine.

"While seeing you, I could forget The image so sad and fair, But, look, you sing -- and it is set Again before my eyes in air."

Madison let out a little breath and increased the tempo of her fingers. Heda loved poetry, had a tremendous amount of it in her memory and at her disposal, and she knew one important thing. It got Madison going. Not just physically, but Madison loved the very notion of someone caring about her enough to read her poetry.

"I don't know what that means," Madison said, her voice taking on a richer, warmer tone, "but it tickles my ears like a feather. It tickles everything."

""You know what I want?"

"What?"

"Sing something."

While normally Heda tended to give Madison performance anxiety, the eagle-shifter had just made a request that the bat-shifter could handle. She knew she did not have the kind of voice professional singers had, but it was certainly good enough for this. She put every bit of sultry voodoo that she knew how to do into her voice, then:

"You hold me so close that my knees grow weak, but my soul is flying high above the ground I'm trying to speak but no matter what I do I just can't seem to make any sound. And then you took the words right out of my mouth. Oh-it must have been while you were kissing me."

Maybe not the most romantic song on the world, but it seemed to be working. On the other end of the line, there was breathing. Not your ordinary drawing in of air, but a much more expedited process. Madison could picture those firm breasts pounding at the air above them, straining themselves towards the dark Southwestern sky as Heda's ever-so-talented hand maneuvered a little south of the border.

"Madison, I'm gonna . . . fuck yeah," Heda moaned into the phone.

While she listened to her girlfriend hit the plateau, Madison pulled out all the tricks, sending herself hurling towards orgasm like a bat out of hell. She had to bite her lip to keep from squeaking as her climax hit her. "Heda, me too. Me fucking too, baby!" she hissed.

Madison was happy. She cuddled down in her blanket and let the pleasant afterglow wash over her. She listened to the chuckling on the other end, and it made her smile even wider.

"So, still have reservations about phone sex? And feel free to make a joke about 'reaching out and touching someone'."

"As if," Madison scoffed. Actually, that exact joke had been sitting on the tip of her tongue, but she wasn't going to do it if Heda just gave it to her.

"Ready for round two?"

Madison pondered it for a moment. "I dunno. Do we have enough anytime minutes in our phone plans?" She grinned. "Okay, this time --"

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Madison squeaked and almost jumped through her headboard. "It's Morgan!" she whispered into her headset. "What is it?" she asked out loud, her voice breaking.

"Madison, some of my friends are coming over and we were going to watch a movie and I was wondering if you wanted to come join us?" her little sister asked.

"One, didn't we hang out with your friends all day?"

"Yeah, but they think you're so totally cool, and any excuse to hang out at Casa de Hannity is usually good enough --"

"Two, it's a movie," Madison said. "What physical impairment that I suffer from might infringe on me watching a movie?"

"It's okay," Morgan replied. "It's a 3-D movie."

Madison blinked several times. She could almost hear her sister's brain turning over as she began to realize everything wrong with that last statement. And the bat-shifter could definitely hear Heda on the other end of the line. Her girlfriend was currently laughing her ass off.

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Somewhere near FCU . . .

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Neil Reichert was sitting at his dining room table, looking over the stack of bills before him that seemed strangely unsympathetic to the clusterfuck that his life had turned into. A sociopathic disciple of a disgraced former professor had tortured and killed students on his campus, all because of some deranged belief that Reichert himself was responsible.

He stood up and walked over to the fridge, scanning the contents before deciding nothing in it really appealed to him. For some reason, he was craving something warm. He glanced outside at the leaves on the trees in his yard, not yet even hinting at the fall to come. For some reason, it felt cold. He looked at his programmable thermostat, which was reading a balmy seventy-eight degrees, perfect for a reptile shifter.

'Then why am I feeling so damn . . . cold,' he thought, his eyes widening. He gripped his chest as he felt a blast of cold in his chest, like he had tried drinking a frozen beverage far too quickly. 'That Daryl Mosely kid is up to something,' he realized, hopefully not too late. He scrambled for the phone as that painful feeling spread, and he managed to call the changeling hotline before letting out a gasp of agony. And in front of him, his breath rose up like a fog on a cold Colorado morning. He knew, to some degree, what was going on. If someone did not show up soon, he was going to die.

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To be continued . . .