A Loner Mentalist Pt. 06

"Of the hundred or so mentalists that have lived within range of your aether vision and whose memories you have access to, no one had ever come across anything relevant to your situation. Not one of those mentalists had ever even tried drugs, believe it or not. They had either thought that would have robbed them of their abilities, or turn them evil, or some such."

"Well, fuck their stupid asses! Look at comic books and fantasy literature! Find me a kid somewhere in range who's dwelling on a similar situation and dreaming up a solution!"

The screen came alive with a montage of various superheroes and how they dealt with similar problems in their fictional universes. None of their problems or solutions really applied to Jack's circumstances, but, as he analyzed and rejected each and every example, he did wind up whittling down an idea of his own. He pulled up his cloak and found himself sitting against the bed, with Mia's warm, naked body still wrapped in his firm embrace. He shushed and cooed at her to get her to calm down as he reached for the bag of weed cookies. "It's alright, Mia. It's all going to be ok." He let go of her to put a finger under her chin and get her to look him in the eyes. "Trust me, baby. Everything's going to be a-okay." His voice sounded to him like it was being piped in through really crappy speakers.

Her face scrunched up and she moaned out a breathless, "Sorry," before continuing to bawl miserably.

Jack fought against the dark feelings her misery was evoking in his altered state of consciousness. He pulled a cookie out of the bag and held it up for her to see. It seemed to be right in front of his nose, even though he was holding it at arm's length. "Mia, if you want to pay penance, you must start to do so, right now." Mia's hitched crying started to lose its strength and volume as she opened her eyes and looked at the cookie. "Do you know how the Catholics have a ritual where they drink the blood of Christ and eat of his body and such?"

Mia's brow furrowed as she looked him in the eye. She blinked away her tears and sniffed her nose before shaking her head no.

"Well, they do. It's called Communion. We're going to do a similar thing. If you want to start atoning for your sins, you are going to very slowly eat this cookie. You are to feel it on your tongue first. The texture of it. Then you are to bite off a chunk of it and taste the chocolate chips inside of it. You are to slowly chew on the cookie and dwell on its taste and texture." He felt so wise for knowing all this. He felt like he had it all covered.

"I don't...understand," she gasped between sobs.

"First atonement, then forgiveness, then understanding." Jack held the cookie to her lips, which looked like they were covered in cherry blossoms.Fuck, I'm high.

She looked at him with incomprehension as she fought back her sobs. Finally, she took the cookie into her own hand.

Jack drew a deep breath. He focused and fought back against the high. He needed to gather all his mental might for this little experiment. He recalled the way the cookies had felt against his tongue. He remembered their taste and made it come alive in his mouth yet again. He could feel the soft specks of chocolate again. As he dwelled on those memories, he could feel their shapes. He picked at similarly shaped strands of his anti-aether cloak until he made holes in it. His mind remained mostly cloaked, but he now felt himself able to look outside for anyone else thinking those exact same thoughts that he had cut into the cloak. He looked into Mia's eyes as she brought the cookie to her mouth and bit into it.

Her thoughts of how the cookie tasted went right through the hole in his cloak, settling in his own mind. They were stilted and flickered in and out of his perception as her experience of eating the cookies differed from his, but he felt them all the same.Yes! I can read minds while cloaked! This new method of reading minds was all but identical to the one without the cloak. He still had to become one with the other person, but now he only had to match the one specific thought he was looking for. Unless another mentalist happened to be thinking the exact same thought at the exact same time, he would be protected from other mentalists, while he read minds.This way requires more concentration, but less power.

His beaming smile made her brow scrunch up in confusion, but she sniffed her nose and took another bite of the cookie. Jack tried to root around her mind, but his cloak didn't allow him to. He imagined her guilt and unraveled another tiny rip in his cloak, just big enough for that feeling to come through. He felt her guilt and the taste of the cookie at the same time. He tried to read the rest of her mind, but he could only get the briefest of glimpses before his own cloak stopped him. The holes kept closing on their own, as soon as he stopped focusing on maintaining them. Well, at least I won't have to worry about leaving them open and getting owned by anyone. They're self-sealing.

He took another cookie from the bag and handed it to Mia. She obediently took it and bit into it. Her watery eyes were searching his, looking for a sign of forgiveness, or a simple connection, Jack didn't know. Her eyes started changing color as rivers of sludge began to flow from them. Jack frowned and refocused his mental energy, fighting back the hallucinations.

He kept his guilt-shaped and cookie-shaped holes in his cloak and looked out of them again. He felt her corresponding emotions and tried to explore beyond them. He could again catch only the briefest of glimpses of other thoughts and fears that were consuming her. He tried to alter the holes in his cloak to allow for those thoughts to come into his own mind more clearly, but he wasn't fast enough to do so on the fly. He fought back the sensation of flying. He made himself feel that everything is alright and that everything will be fine, if he just obeyed Jack's commands. He made another hole in his cloak, shaped like those beliefs. He projected his power out of that hole and into Mia's mind.

Stars flew in through the windows, trailing brightly colored rainbows behind them and his vision became sluggish as he tried to trail the stars with his eyes. Mia was calming down in his arms, her hitched breathing quickly becoming even and strong. "Get dressed and drive me home as quick as you can!" Mia propped herself up on her arms and nodded. Jack tried to blink his vision clear. Mia's long, dark hair was floating around weightlessly and her big breasts seemed to elongate and soften as they floated in front of her chest. He dropped his cloak and found himself in the movie theater again.

"Fuck, that was trippy," he exclaimed as his high once again disappeared.

"Quite," the dog said.

"Ok, I need to focus! I have to get dressed, get the dogs, get Mia to drive me to the city and kill Jacobs. Right?" The dog nodded. Jack thought again of how much he would love to be near Jacobs and the screen showed him leading his flock in chants and prayers. The blond-haired man touched a woman who suddenly stood up from her wheelchair and exclaimed joyfully that she was healed. Jack dismissed the film and pulled up his cloak.

Getting dressed while high proved to be quite a chore and he was very grateful for Mia's help. He did his best to explain to her that she needed to drive him into the city after picking up his dogs at home. His voice sounded distorted, like he had been turned into a cartoon, but she nodded along with his instructions and even repeated them back at him, when he asked her if she had understood him. The car was parked right in front of the room, so he managed to walk to it without much difficulty, but the seat kept sliding out of the way as he tried to get in. Finally, he gave up and sat in the back. The rear seats welcomed him with a cheerful sigh. The car began moving. To Jack, it seemed like they were moving sideways. He dropped his cloak to return to the theater.

"Fuck, I'm high!"

"Quite," the dog said.

"I didn't overdose, or anything?"

"Of course not! You'll be right as rain in time to fight Jacobs. Just stay here with me for about half the drive to the city."

"Ok," Jack said. He checked again on Jacobs. The man looked to be positively beaming with joy as the mass of people chanted his name. The theater shuddered and Jack dismissed the movie to pull up his cloak.

Mia was shaking him by the shoulder. He looked around. They were parked in front of his house. "Jack! You said to get your dogs, but they're not listening to me!"

Jack unraveled holes in his cloak, in the shape of commands, and projected his power through them. Spot, Porthos, Aramis and Athos came running. Jack changed seats and let the dogs take the back. The passenger seat started to sink down below the ground, but his hands grew extremely long at the same time and he had little difficulty with inputting the address of their destination into the onboard navigation system. "Drive us there like the hounds of Hell were after us, Mia!" His voice sounded like the chirping of birds. "Seriously, drive as fast as-" He gasped at the smell of hair burning behind him. He turned around to see four hellhounds growling as brimstone clung to their flaming fur. His cloak dropped and he found himself in the theater again.

He shook off the sudden fright and his faculties quickly restored themselves. "I am never eating any more pot! Not ever!" The dog grinned, but made no comment. Jack checked on Jacobs and saw him still preaching to the crowd. The rabid fan whose eyes Jack was seeing through was trying to get up on stage to be with the object of his worship, but some guards stopped him. Jack grunted in disappointment at seeing their nondescript suits. If Alpha had been doing security for Jacobs, he would have had an ace in the hole. He briefly considered calling in the many favors he had been promised by the guys, but dismissed the idea. He was heading to the city to end a life. A mass murderer's life, but a life, none the less. It was not something to involve other people in.

"And then what?" the dog asked, referring to killing Jacobs.

"After I kill Jacobs, I'll enjoy the tremendous weight falling off my shoulders and finally be free of the fear that's been hounding me for too long now. Then I'll be able to go traveling with Mia and see the world. After I set her straight about what's happened this morning. And after I heal the minds of the mentalists that...haven't..." Jack trailed off as he considered exactly how he would accomplish that task. He wanted to restore those people's sanities, but it was dawning on him that it would be much easier said than done. "He erased some of their memories, too, didn't he?"

"Yes. Jacobs erased memories of the first time they had used their powers and also an unknown quantity of other memories that robbed them of their sanities and their wills to live."

Jack realized he would be unable to restore those people's minds unless he could read Jacobs' mind to see the exact damage he had done to them. The first time they had used their powers would be an easy memory to find and restore-it would surely stick out in their aether footprint-but he had no intention of restoring supernatural powers to a bunch of crazy and suicidal people. It would be the equivalent of handing a live nuke to a suicide bomber. He needed to first restore their minds and only then decideif he was going to restore their powers.

His recent walk down memory lane had illustrated to him just how difficult it would be to find the missing memories. The mentalists' aether footprints and the memories they have in their minds in the present would differ in many ways. It would be impossible for Jack to spot which discrepancies were the result of Jacobs' intervention and which were just the results of revisions and the passage of time. "Ah, fuuuuck..." He raised his hands to his head as his mouth opened wide.

"Sadly, you need to take him alive," the cartoon dog said.

Jack wiped his face in frustration. He wanted to kill Jacobs. It wasn't just his sense of duty telling him to rid the world of this monster, he genuinely wanted to stand triumphant over the man's mangled body as the light went out of his eyes for good. He wanted to see Jacobs' blood spilled on the ground and smell its coppery tang in the air as he whooped in joy over the kill. He had never thought he'd feel that way about another human being, but here it was. He desired that man's death more than anything in the world at that moment. As far as Jack was concerned, the moment Jacobs had taken over Mia's mind, he had signed his own death warrant. And for the crime of taking Jack's power, the executionhad to be painful and protracted.

"Fuck," he groaned out loud again. He shook his head. "I can't do that. I can't take him alive. I can kill him. Iwill kill him. But I can't take him alive."

"If you kill him, how will you restore the minds of those other mentalists?"

Jack sighed bitterly. "I don't know how! And I don't care! Where's it written thatI have to be the one to bail them out of trouble I didn't get them in?!" Jack slammed his fists on the armrests. "I can't do it." He shook his head. His voice was barely a whisper as he said, "I'd love to take him alive, but I can't do it, dog. I really can't."

The dog stood atop the seat directly in front of Jack's and regarded him sadly.

"Don't look at me like that! Tell me how I'm supposed to do it! Tell me how I'm supposed to beat him in a mind-against-mind battle! He's got a lifetime of experience with his cloak and making tiny holes in it and shit and I'm...I'm..." He chuckled bitterly. "He's right! I'm just a phony, compared to him. My cloakis just a copy of his shield. The holes I've started ripping in it are an idea I've cribbed off his intrusion into my mind." He tapped his forehead as if he had just remembered something. "And, oh, yeah! He had literally been inside my head, dog!Literally! How the fuck am I supposed to compete with that?!"

The dog made no reply. His snout hung low as he regarded the floor of the theater. On the screen behind him an image slowly came to be. A camera panned over a beautiful meadow, bathed in sunlight and covered in all kinds of flowers. It panned over to a big pile of brown leaves. Jack frowned. A gust of wind suddenly swept the leaves away, revealing a familiar gravestone. The marker bore the name of Jack White.

Jack's face lowered and he glared at the floor between his feet. "I'd love to be able to defeat that monster," he quietly said. "I'd love to slice through his defenses, see all the damage he had ever done and undo it. I would." He shook his head. "But I can't do it. If I don't kill him before the next time I fall asleep, I'm doomed. Worse than dead. It's either him or me and Mia and everybody else he's going to drive to suicide in the future." He looked up at the dog. "He's not going to stop. Not until he's dead. You know that."

The dog kept giving him the same, sad look.

"This is just like war, dog. You can't abandon your post to help a fallen comrade if it means the enemy wins because of it. Sometimes, a man just has to stand his ground and finish the job, no matter the cost." The dog was as silent as the grave of the lieutenant that had died young to save Jack's father and eight other shipmates. Jack blinked back tears and sighed. "Fine. I'll try."

"Do, or do not! There is no try."

The dog's rendition of Yoda broke the tension and Jack laughed, letting go of his nervousness. He sat up straight in his seat. "I guess I'll just have to have my dogs take tiny bites out of the man until he caves in and drops his shield to let me run rampant in his mind. But if he doesn't..." Jack bit his lower lip and shook his head. "Then he's dead." The dog nodded solemnly. "I can feel my high running out. Let's check on Jacobs one last time." As Jack let himself feel the great desire to be near the faith healer, the picture on the screen shifted to show the auditorium slowly filing out. Jacobs was walking off the stage and one of his security men was keeping the fan from following him. "Oh, fuck! His show's over! He must have reached for Mia's mind and felt nothing. He's going to run!" The cartoon dog showed a collection of huge teeth as he snarled at Jacobs' retreating figure on the screen.

Jack's high ran out and he found himself sitting in the passenger seat of his SUV. He pulled his cloak around his mind. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat and his ears crackled to allow him to hear the roar of the engine. He looked out and flinched when he saw the breakneck speed Mia was driving at. The SUV leaned to one side and then the other as it weaved between two cars she overtook. Jack's insides nearly switched places as his arms shot out to brace him against the violent motions.

"Nice to see you awake at last," Mia said. She sounded cheerful as she floored it past a semi.

Jack glanced at the speedometer and nearly whistled in admiration. She got the big car to do a hundred and thirty. "Yeah, it's, uh, it's good to be awake." Mia took her foot off the gas and the car started to slow down. "Why are you slowing down?"

"I'd love to race through the city, but there are too many idiots on the streets."

Jack finally allowed himself to look out the windscreen and into the distance. Just half a mile ahead of them, the city began in earnest. Jack checked the navigation and saw that they were less than ten minutes away from their destination. If they obeyed the speed limit. "Floor it, Mia! I need to be there three minutes ago!"

Mia huffed audibly, but tailgated the station wagon ahead of them.

Jack wiped his palms against his thighs and drew a deep, calming breath. Chills were running up his spine and he didn't know which he feared more: finding Jacobs gone, or finding Jacobs. He squirmed out of the grip of fear and set about getting ready to fight Jacobs. He kept his cloak tightly pulled around his mind and opened up tiny holes to allow himself to feel the dogs' minds. As he did that, their blind devotion to him flooded through and filled his heart with courage and hope. They adored him like a god that stood over them. He had felt it every single time he had used his power on their minds, but at that moment, it struck him like a flash flood, washing away his fears and doubts. He felt mighty, loved and worshipped. He felt like he could take on an army of Jacobs' clones and win, power or no power. Mia drove them to the venue's crowded parking lot. "Don't go in yet! Circle the place, slowly!"

She shot him a confused look, but then nodded and drove around the block. Jack modified the carefully shaped holes in his cloak and gave orders to his dogs. Despite being four different breeds of dog, they acted with one mind under his direction. He let one dog out on each corner of the block with orders to search for Jacobs. They each had his scent and image in mind from when they had found him spying on the Latina. He felt them search for the man's scent as Mia drove back around to the front and parked. The parking lot was rapidly emptying and Jack could only pray they weren't too late.

He got out of the car and leaned back in. "Wait here! Keep the car running!" Mia nodded and he left to find his nemesis. The people had practically emptied the hall by now and the last of them were getting in their cars, or walking off down the street. Jack scanned them with a glare, searching for his target, but finding no one who even remotely resembled the short, blond-haired man. His dogs reported no luck, either. The sheer number of scents they were hit with was making their search very difficult. Jacobs had some goons doing security, so Jack hesitated going indoors. There might be a wholly mundane trap waiting for him inside. He stood in front of the hall's big, open doors and forced himself to think.