A-Cup Angst Ch. 15

With the cover screen gone, Jamie adjusted the aim of his AK and fired one enchanted bullet which tore through all of Helena's magical protections and went straight through her shoulder. Helena shrieked in agony and rolled on the ground. Welling threw himself over his mistress to act as a meat shield for her. Alice groped blindly for a few moments before she found the phone.

"Stop," she yelled into the gadget, hoping it still worked. "Please, stop!"

"Why should I," Jamie asked, coldly.

"Please, please, please," she begged, while her daughter mewled in agony. "We'll go away! We'll never come back! We'll leave you alone!"

"Never," Helena screamed from under Chris.

"Yes, we will," Alice yelled. "We'll go away and forget all of this! I swear! I'll make her see reason! This vendetta is gone! Over and done with! I swear! It's done. Just let us go, please!"

Jamie watched on his screen as Alice Worth knelt in a frozen field on the side of a back road in Tuscany and begged him for her daughter's life. "How the fuck did it come to this," he asked himself. He used to play with the girl he had just shot, back when both of them had been little.

"Jamie," Alice said, her voice trembling with emotion. Her eyes were scanning the hill where his hidden rifle was installed and they nearly found the lens of the camera in their sweep. "I know you're a good boy. Man. You're a good man. You want to be a good man. Deep down inside, you're the little boy that used to play with Helena. Please, don't become the big, bad man that kills her. Please, Jamie. I swear to you, on her head and mine..." She drew a shuddering breath. "That we will leave you and your family alone. I swear."

"I'll kill him," Helena screamed.

"I'll make her see reason," Alice said. "Please, Jamie! Please don't take my baby girl away from me!"

"Funny that you should be begging me for that," Jamie said. "When you were gleefully talking about how you were going take my sister away from my mother, right before her eyes, just hours ago!"

"Please, Jamie," Alice begged. "Please, stop this! I think you're tired of killing and violence. I know you're a good boy-man! Be the bigger man! Show us mercy and we'll let go of vengeance! Please, let us go! Please. I promise you, you won't regret it. Not ever."

Jamie muted his mic and sniffed. He wiped the tears from his eyes and cleared his throat. Seeing Alice beg so desperately and earnestly was quite distressing. It was almost enough for him to tear up. He needed to make a show of ruthlessness, lest they try this again, sometime. He retreated into his calm center and opened his mic again. "Alright, Alice," he said, in a blasé tone of voice, "I'll let the three of you go. For old times' sake."

Alice repeatedly babbled, "Thank you," at the phone in her hand.

"You have four hours to get out of Italy," he said. "After that, I kill you."

"No," Alice said, "we will! We'll go!" Helena let out a shriek of frustration. "Hush, baby!"

"Just remember, Alice," Jamie said. "I am always watching. I am always listening. The next time you see a chance to have your vengeance and decide to seize it, I am not going to let you get nowhere near this close. I only allowed you to come this close to make a point. To let you taste it, if you will, before I snatched it away from you. The next time you decide to come after my family, you will die. There will be no warning. There will be no mercy. There will be no torture. This vendetta of ours will only have one more chapter written to it and it will be a short one that reads, 'And the Worth girls, brimming with confidence, walked blindly into Jacobs' trap and were dead before they even knew it'."

Jamie disconnected his microphone and took his earphones off. He got out of his car and wiped the tears from his eyes. After he took a moment to compose himself, he turned back to his computer and watched Alice and Chris help Helena sit up next to the car. Alice tended to her daughter's wound while Chris gave the car a quick once over. He gave the girls a shake of his head. Alice and Helena looked to be arguing.

Jamie made a timer appear on the phone next to them and made it beep. The timer ticked away the four hours they had to get lost. He watched Alice pick it up and then quickly set it down again to tie the triangular bandana from the first aid kit around Helena's shoulder. Chris helped Helena stand up and the three of them began to walk back the way they had come. Jamie swiveled his cameras and followed the trio. After they walked out of his camera's views, he followed the GPS on the phone Alice was carrying. He expected them to send Welling on ahead with the phone while they circled around to attack his mother's house. Jamie picked up the remote control for the toy airplane he had bought and fitted with a camera. He took off and followed the trio from the air as they walked away from his mother's house. The toy plane was very quiet and it had one of Jamie's Colt 1911s mounted under it. If the Worths turned around, Jamie was going to blow their heads off.

The trio kept walking until they came to an intersection. They rested there, for a minute, and Jamie watched as Alice tended to Helena's wound some more. He saw, on the screen, that a truck was coming towards the trio. He saw Alice clean the blood off Helena's thick, winter jacket with a spell. The girls flagged down the truck and the trio boarded it, after a quick talk with the driver. The truck rolled on down the road, away from his mother's house and away from the small town were the Rossi girls lived. Jamie heaved a big sigh of relief as the truck kept on driving.

He kept the plane following the truck, mostly on autopilot, and drove back to the ambush point. He cleaned up all evidence of his intervention and then telekinetically shoved the rental car off the road. It took him several exhausting shoves to accomplish that. He looked up at the dusky sky and gulped cold air after he finished. He kept following the truck until his plane indicated it was running out of fuel. He landed the plane in an empty field and followed the GPS. He turned on the phone's mic to check and see if any of them had gotten out and doubled back. He heard both the Worth girls quietly talking in English and sighed in relief. After listening to their whispered conversation for a few more minutes, he couldn't help but burst out in tears. Alice was convincing Helena to let go of their vengeance and the girl was reluctantly agreeing with some of what her mother was saying. It seemed that a shot through the shoulder all but inoculated her against the idea of revenge.

Jamie sat in his car and let himself cry. He wasn't sure why he was crying. He had many valid reasons. He had saved his family from being tortured to death. He had shot a girl he used to play with. He had shot a girl he had kept as a sex slave. He had gotten Mara kidnapped. He had had his head messed with by the Rossi girls. He was still a wanted man. It all piled up and he just let it out in one big, slobbery mess.

He thought of Mara and found the strength to pull himself together. After he finished crying, he took some self-propagating code Nova had left him and installed it in the phone Alice was carrying still. It was going to infect every computer and phone the Worths ever came into contact with and keep tabs on everything they ever did from now on. The server Jamie had in Florence was going to collect all that data and sort through it, looking for any sign of them making a move against his family, even by way of third parties. Jamie made a firm decision to never spend more than a few hours of his life at a time without checking the server. He was going to check up on it right before he went to sleep and as soon as he woke up. It was going to be his life-long vigil, from then on. He told himself it was the price he had to pay for his past actions.

He checked the time and saw that he had just about enough time to drive back to Florence, shower, put on some clean clothes, eat something, get a few hours' worth of much-needed sleep and drive to the airport to greet Caitlin. He got in the car, turned the key and drove off to do just that, leaving the ruined rental car by the side of the road to make the local cops scratch their heads at it tomorrow.

He got to the airport early in the morning and waited patiently in the lounge for Caitlin's plane to land. It was twenty minutes late and Jamie took another stab at figuring out how to find Mara. He came up with no new idea. His mouth drew down and he heaved a great big sigh of disappointment. He was starting to seriously doubt that she was still alive.

Finally, Caitlin's flight landed and Jamie impatiently went to greet her. His lips drew up into a hopeful grin, all on their own, as soon as he saw her walking his way. She was smiling and nodding at him. Jamie's heart began to lighten as a chance of finding Mara was walking his way. Jamie's grin fell when he saw the two girls that walked behind Caitlin. His former slaves Rose Romano and Sandra Grant were striding his way, their faces grim and determined. His heart skipped a beat and he nearly panicked at seeing them. He retreated into his calm center and sensed that neither of them could recognize him. He stood stock still and probed their minds, finding out, much to his relief, that neither girl had any magic to her name. They weren't armed either, though he could sense Rose was burning with desire to do him harm as soon as she found him.

Caitlin ran the last few yards to him and jumped into his arms. "Jamie," she said, "it's so good to see you again!"

"Yeah, uh, you too, Caitlin," Jamie said, eyeing the two girls that were following her. "Did you bring it?"

"Yes," Caitlin exclaimed, letting go of him. "Yes, I got it right here!" She rummaged through her purse and pulled out a small box. "We need to go someplace where no one can see us deploy it."

Jamie nodded and turned to leave, saying, "Right this way!"

"Wait, Jamie," Caitlin exclaimed. "Aren't you going to greet the girls?"

Jamie turned back and looked at Sandra and Rose. Both of them looked as uncomfortable as he felt in that awkward moment. He could sense their certainty that he wasn't who he was. After a pregnant moment, Sandra extended a hand and said, "Jamie," by way of greeting. Jamie shook her hand and then shook hands with Rose, too.

"Jeez," Caitlin said. "You two weren't kidding when you said it was a bad breakup."

"Yes, let's not dredge up the past and let's go see if we can find Mara and save her," Jamie said, again turning to lead them out of the airport. The girls followed him mutely. Caitlin kept shooting questioning looks at Rose and Sandra, looks that the two of them pointedly ignored. As soon as they came to the parking lot, Jamie insisted Caitlin release the hairfly to lead them to Mara. The hairfly took off and hovered this way and then that, before it settled to hover in place.

"Fuck," Jamie swore viciously. His last hope of finding Mara just failed.

"I'm sorry," Caitlin said, reaching out to touch his arm in a comforting gesture. Jamie nodded mutely. He had no other course of action left to him. He would have called Laura and asked for her help, but he knew she couldn't do anything Caitlin and he hadn't already done. Not since he had destroyed the Jonathan fetishes. He kicked himself over it. Those might have contained a way to find someone.

Caitlin then suggested that the four of them retreat to a place with good food where they can talk about old times and strategize over how they might find Mara. Jamie nodded along and drove the girls to a restaurant. They sat at a table and Caitlin did her best to animate the conversation, but Jamie was only interested in hearing new ideas on how to locate Mara. When no one came up with any, all the fight left him. He sat there, picking idly at his food and barely paid any attention to what Caitlin was babbling about. His head was full of images of poor Mara O'Donnell, probably dead in someone else's grave by now, and he was the one that pushed her out of serious danger and into mortal peril with his carbuncle into the brothel. As unwitting as his actions were, he still felt guilty over them.

He took his phone out of his pocket and checked again on the Worth girls. They were in an express train in Switzerland, heading north, further away from Italy. They had just about made it out of Italy before their four hour deadline expired. "Well, at least that's going well," he thought to himself.

Caitlin left the table to visit the ladies' room, unnoticed by him. As soon as she was out of earshot, Rose kicked his shin hard, provoking his attention. "What," he barked.

Rose glared at him and said, "Where's Jacobs?"

"None of your business," he said.

"Oh, but it is our business," Rose said. "Where is he? And who the fuck are you?"

"Yeah," Sandra said. "Why are you impersonating Jamie?"

Jamie looked from one girl's angry face to the next and felt glad the French vampire had rendered them unable to recognize him as part of the process of releasing them from being his slaves. "I am one of Jamie's decoys," Jamie said. After his encounter with Helena, he was glad for the opportunity to lie his guts out and avoid any further unpleasantness with the two of them. Just sitting there and facing them after all that he had done to them was almost too much for him to bear.

"And where is Jamie," Rose asked, insistently.

"Again, that's none of your concern, girls," Jamie said.

Sandra touched Rose's upper arm and gave her a meaningful look. Rose swallowed what she was about to say and sat back in her chair. "You see, fake Jamie," Sandra said, her voice sweet and soft, "we miss the real Jamie terribly. We just want to see him again, that's all. Maybe have some fun together, like we used to, before." Jamie could plainly tell that was a lie. Rose wanted to hurt him. Sandra also wanted to get in touch with him, though she was keeping the reason why hidden. He was still feeling the exhaustion from his telepathic search of the center of Florence and he had trouble getting a read on either girl. Rose mimicked Sandra's cuddly smile and the two of them held hands over the table. "We used to have some wild, sexy fun with him. I'm sure he'd love to revisit those memories with us."

"But, until then," Rose said, suggestively, "perhaps we could have some fun with you."

"Yeah," Sandra drawled happily. "You look just like him!" She reached out and squeezed the muscles on his arm. "Only you're built better."

Rose lifted Sandra's hand and kissed the back of it. "We could treat you like we used to treat him," she said and then sucked one of Sandra's dainty fingers into her mouth.

Jamie felt decidedly uncomfortable being reminded of the many times he had used them like that. He wanted them to go away so he could focus on finding Mara. Every second they sat before his eyes was another second that reminded him vividly of how he had abused them. "Yeah, you girls need to come to terms with the fact that you'll never again see Jamie Jacobs. It's for the best. Trust me on that."

"That's not for you to decide," Rose said, somewhat sharply.

"Yeah," Sandra interjected, "if you could just give Jamie a message from us?"

"No," Jamie said. "No messages, no contact whatsoever. Jamie told me all about you. He knows you want to be avenged for all the wrongs he had inflicted upon you. That is not going to happen. You need to find a way to get on with your lives, or you will have no lives left."

"Get on with our lives," Rose hissed viciously. "Are you fucking kidding me?! After he took-" Sandra's hand on her shoulder made her pause. "You have no idea what he took from us."

"I do," Jamie said, sadly. "He told me all about it."

"Then how can you sit there and tell me to get on with my life," Rose asked. "I'm ruined! I had magic, now I don't. I can never gain magical power again, even if I could find someone stupid enough to give it up to me. I'm..." She sniffed back her tears and buried her face in her hands. Sandra rubbed her back and whispered into her ear.

Jamie was having a hard time keeping his head on straight. The mere presence of the girls was shoving all of his past misdeeds into his face, so he could no longer suppress the memory of his crimes. He had built a life for himself in Italy, but it had been based on the lie that he had not been a bad guy. He was almost glad that life was over. The lies would have destroyed it, anyway.

"I was a beautiful, young witch," Rose said, "with a bright future before that nobody Jacobs just up and decided to ruin me. Ruin both of us."

Jamie's brow drew down in displeasure. "Really," he said. "I heard a different story. I heard that you just up and decided to cut his life expectancy in half and got enslaved when he turned your own ritual against you."

Rose snorted. "You would hear that," she said. "Jacobs is a fucking liar. Always has been."

Jamie crossed his arms across his chest. The terrible feeling of guilt that had been gnawing at his insides was fading away to be replaced by a slight feeling of vexation at the story Rose was telling. He decided it was best if he simply scared the two of them away, like he had done with the Worths. "The past is the past," he said and fixed his most fearsome expression on his face. "You need to worry about the future. In the future, if you go looking for Jamie, you'll find one of us decoys and the other decoys will shoot to kill. Do you understand? Jamie planted us decoys so we'd kill anyone that tried to find him and settle old scores. You girls need to go back where you came from and forget all about him."

Sandra's already pale complexion managed to turn visibly lighter at hearing his words. Rose also sat up straight with an expression of barely contained terror on her face. The two of them exchanged a worried look and then Sandra whispered, "But you aren't going to kill us? Right?"

"No," Jamie said. "Not this time." He saw Caitlin exit the powder room and walk back over to them. "You two girls need to go home and forget about Jacobs. Find some kind of meaning or purpose to your lives or..."

Rose and Sandra nodded and made their excuses as soon as Caitlin sat back down at the table. She barely had the chance to say goodbye to them as they rushed out of the restaurant. Jamie watched them go and wondered if that was the last time he'd ever get to see them. He felt like the worst kind of shit for threatening them like that, but he could sense that Rose was dead set on ambushing and killing him, somehow, somewhere. He had gleaned from her mind that her original plan was to find a Mafioso and get a gun to shoot Jamie dead with. She had been so fixated on it that she had been broadcasting it mentally. Even in his exhausted state of mind, he had managed to pick up on it. Sandra's intentions remained a mystery to him. He was just too exhausted to go probing around in her mind. Especially after the day he had had yesterday and the lack of sleep in the past two nights.

"Why are they leaving," Caitlin asked Jamie.

"They don't have magic and they don't feel like they can be of any use," he said.

"But they were so eager to see you! It was all they could talk about the whole trip over here! And now they just up and leave, after talking to you for less than three minutes!?"

Jamie just shrugged in response. Caitlin was utterly stumped by the girls' behavior and she kept pressing him for an explanation while they ate their dessert. Jamie wasn't in a talkative mood. He wasn't in a listening mood, either. His past had caught up to him that day and spray painted the word "LIE" over everything he held dear. His own personal story of self was ripped up and burned away in a furnace of abuse and murder. He had always laughed at poets when they had written about pains of the soul, but now he truly felt those. He found himself wishing he could feel empty inside. Caitlin talked about disturbed spirits in North America. She mentioned Section and many other things, but Jamie was hardly listening to her. His thoughts ran solely to the time he had been a slave master and worldwide slaughterer. He truly felt like someone who should be called the Bludgeoner, in a pejorative sense.