A Loner Mentalist Pt. 06

He thought of being ordered to stay and look out for himself and made holes in his cloak in the exact shape of those orders. He listened to hear a mind think of them. The thoughts came. They were broken telegrams at first, but he altered the holes in his cloak until he could receive them in full. There were four goons waiting to back up their boss when Jack came.

Back him up?! Jack chuckled mirthlessly.The blonde bastard's actually waiting for me! He carefully modified the holes until he managed to receive the words "dumpster" and "alley" through them. He closed up those holes and sent his dogs the order to locate the back alley that had the dumpsters in them. He made a new hole, waited, and soon received the location through it. He sent his dogs the order to sneak in and investigate. He heaved a deep breath and stepped into the hall.

The auditorium was exactly as he had seen it through Jacobs' fan's eyes and he hurried past the rows of stained seats towards the stage. He scrambled up on stage and ran through the side exit to reach the backstage area. He proceeded carefully from there until his dogs reported finding all four of Jacobs' goons in the alley, crouched behind dumpsters. The monster himself was standing still and calm in the middle of the alley. Jack deployed one of his dogs to each of the goons, still under the strictest of orders to remain hidden, but ready to attack at a moments' notice. He strode through the empty backstage area and came out the alley door. The wide alley was covered in loose litter and the dumpsters lining its walls provided ample cover. On either end of the alley was a corner, so no one from the streets could see, or hear, anything going on in this middle stretch of it.

Jacobs was standing just twenty feet away from him. His arms were folded across his chest and a smirk uglied his features. "Did you think I'd run? From a phony like you? I'm the original, you thieving, punk-ass bitch!"

Jack squared off with the man. He knew two of the goons were behind him, but he had them all covered. "It doesn't have to be like this, Jamie."

Jacobs looked nonplussed. "It doesn't?" He cocked his head at Jack as his brow wrinkled.

"No." Jack knew the man wasn't going to listen to reason, but he went through the motions anyway. "You don't have to persecute others like you. The-"

"There are no others like me," Jacobs roared. He pounded his chest with each following statement. "I am the original.I am the special one. Theonly one! You are all just fakes, stealing my gift by..." Jacobs faltered and his chin shook for a moment. He composed himself quickly. "You are all insignificant, thieving little gnats that I am going to squash under my feet."

"That's not true and you know it. You've hurt and killed mentalists that had their powers since long before you were even born, so drop this-"

"Fuck you, asshole," Jacobs roared, pointing a threatening finger at Jack. For a moment, Jack thought that was the signal for his goons to attack, but the dogs sent him no warning. The goons were still crouched in their hiding places. "I don't answer to the little people! I am great! I am mighty! I..." Jacobs seemed to swallow back his next words.

"Drop your shield and let me in your mind," Jack calmly said.

Jacobs gaped at him. "What?!"

"After I see the exact memories you had taken from the mentalists that are still alive, I will take your power from you and spare you. You will be free to live your life as you wish, but I will make you unwilling to harm others, ever again."

Jacobs stood staring at Jack in disbelief for a pregnant moment. He laughed briefly and then went back to his smirk. "You take my power, you take my shield, you take my know-how and you would take my freedom. But, have you taken my pain?"

"Let me into your mind and I'll ease any pain you feel."

"Fuck you! You don't know pain. If you had gone through what I had gone through, you'd know that I! Am! The! Original! I'm the special One! It was my...mysoul that they..." Again, Jacobs faltered. Jack searched the man's eyes. They seemed to be unseeing, looking right through Jack at something that was miles, or years, away. Then Jacobs reached up and started smoothing back his gelled hair, over and over again. The haunted look slowly vanished to be replaced by one of pure madness. Jacobs sneered as his crazy-eyed gaze focused on Jack. "You must all be purged. No mercy."

Jack closed his eyes for a moment and searched for patience. He had none. His dogs had none to give him, either. They were eager to get on with the bloodshed. His lips tightened as he nodded to himself. He looked Jacobs right between the eyes. "Yup. Knew this wouldn't be settled with logic." He sent his dogs the order and moved.

The twenty feet vanished in a second and Jack's open hand struck out at Jacobs' surprised face. The heel of his hand connected with the blonde's jaw and sent him tumbling backwards. The goons reacted as soon as Jack moved, but the dogs had started first and dragged them down, chewing on their gun hands as they shrieked in pain and panic. Jack kicked Jacobs in the gut with all his might. The short man was lying prone and he doubled over as he tried to clutch at Jack's foot like a boxer trying to hang on to his opponent to stop the rain of blows. Jack knelt down and grabbed Jacobs' greasy blonde hair in his left hand. He lifted the man's face and cocked his arm. He smashed the heel of his right hand down on Jacobs' nose. A wisp of the man's hair stayed in Jack's grip even as his head was slammed down against the tarmac. His nose was smashed in and spurting blood. His scalp broke out in red, angry dots, too.

Jack stood up again and kicked Jacobs in the side this time. He felt ribs cave under his strike. His dogs had disarmed the goons by now and had them lying prone on the floor of the alley. Their teeth were on their throats, ready to kill at a moment's notice. Jack guessed that the men were probably Jacobs' mind-controlled slaves. He had every intention of freeing them, but he couldn't spare the effort to examine their minds and set them free while Jacobs still drew breath and had power. He'd just undo it in a heartbeat. Consequently, Jack had ordered the dogs to kill if necessary.

Jack shook his left hand over Jacobs' face to dislodge the oily hairs that were clinging between his fingers. "You're not much good when it comes to actual fighting, are you?" Jacobs spat his blood on himself in reply. "You're not much good, period." Jacobs' head lolled around as blood still poured out of his nose. Jack made another small hole in his cloak. It was in the shape of the sight of him towering over someone. He watched through it to see if Jacobs' shield was down. It wasn't.

"Look at me, Jacobs!" Jacobs was still insensate on the ground. Jack stepped on the man's hand. Jacobs groaned in pain as his body stiffened, but he could do nothing to stop Jack. "Look at me!" Jacobs suddenly came alive again and glared up at Jack's face. His own, smashed face was now a terrible rictus of hatred. Still, Jack received no image of himself from the man's mind. "Lower your shield!"

"Fuck you!"

Jack lifted his foot off the man's hand. Jacobs immediately pulled it up to his chest and nursed it with his other one. "Youwill drop your shield, Jacobs."

Jacobs tried to snarl, but his bleeding lip stopped him. "Never," he roared with a nasal voice. "I'd rather die than ever submit to a thieving phony again!"

"You'll drop your shield," Jack said with finality. He smiled down at Jacobs. "And you'll do it soon. My dogs will be taking tiny, but painful, bites out of you until you do, but that's notwhy you'll drop your shield. You'll drop it because I'll drop mine at the same time and the two of us will go toe-to-toe in the only way that matters. Mind against mind. Nothing but our imaginations and willpowers pitted against one another. Winner takes all. If I win, I take your power, undo the damage you had done and change you into someone that doesn't hunt extraordinary people for sport. And if you win...well, you alone know what happens then."

Jack spread his hands. "What'll it be, Jamie? How much of you will my dogs have to chew off before you man up and meet me on the mental battlefield? Surely the original should have no trouble dealing with a phony?"

Jacobs closed his eyes and seemed to be concentrating. Jack's heart skipped a beat as he realized the moment of truth was coming. Their minds were going to clash. He was a bit surprizes to learn that he was no longer afraid. His dogs were with him and their minds were open to his. They filled him with their staunch faith and devotion. Their predatory instincts cleared his mind of all distracting thoughts. Jacobs' goons could not provide their master with such succor. When Jacobs lowered his shield, he was going to get slammed by five predatory minds at once and Jack was going to make him his bitch. Jack kept his emotions in check and focused on overpowering the man's mind. He looked through the tiny hole in his cloak for the sight of himself which would let him know the shield was down.

Two sharp pops suddenly rang out and Jacobs' brains exploded across the floor of the alley, away from Jack's shoes. The dogs followed their orders and ripped the men's throats open in the very next instant. Aramis also pounced on the left arm of his man. Quiet gurgling noises came from all four of the goons as they were drowning in their own blood.

Jack stood stone still and stared at the bloody mess at his feet with incomprehension.

He blinked a few times and sealed up his cloak tight to make sure Jacobs hadn't snuck a trick in. The splattered brains were still there. Jacobs' eyes were closed, but Jack could see in his slack face that he was truly gone. Jack watched the blood come out of the gaping hole in the side of the man's head. It flowed away from Jack and towards a storm drain just two feet away from Jacobs' head. Its course took it away at an angle from the gray and pink splatter and it formed a slow, red river of its own.

Aramis' confused whine brought Jack out of his state of shock. He finally realized he was standing next to a bloody corpse and he stepped back to notice blood coming out of the entry wound, too. His retreat had kept the oozing blood from getting on his shoes. The four goons were dead. Their pale faces bore expressions of regret and fear. Jack could smell the coppery tang of blood and it made him retch. He bit back the bile and forced deep, slow breaths through his nose.I never wanted this.

When he got his stomach under control, he straightened up and looked back in the direction of Aramis. The goon he had been covering had fired the shots that killed Jacobs. Jack walked over to the man and saw his left hand had been bitten off. A tiny pistol was still clutched by the lifeless fingers. The gun looked like something a saloon madam from an old-timey western would hide in her garter. The goon's right wrist had bloody gouges on it from Aramis disarming him. Taking care not to get any of the dead man's pooling blood on himself, Jack crouched lower to take a better look. The gun had been propelled out of the man's sleeve by a concealed spring mechanism and the man had quickly fired both shots from it.

Jack felt queasy again, only this time it was at the realization that he could have been killed just as easy as that. One flick of a downed enemy's wrist, a squeeze of the finger, and no more Jack. His breath seemed gone from his lungs as icy fingers tickled down his ribs to grip his bladder and bowels. He stared at the tiny pistol with unseeing eyes.

I will never, ever run headlong into a fight again.

Mindful of the large radius bloodstain, Jack stepped around to the other side of his would-be assassin's corpse and crouched to look down his extended arm. Aramis had bitten the man's hand clean off, but left it in place, at the end of the arm. Both arm and hand pointed at Jacobs' head. Jack frowned. From the man's position, he should have aimed several inches to the left and raised his hand by almost a foot to blow Jack's brains out. Even with a dog's jaws pressing against his throat, the man had badly missed his shot.

Jack stood up and moved back towards Jacobs. As he did that, he could see the dead shooter's eyes were also locked on to Jacobs' head. Jack felt a shudder run deep through his innards. Goose bumps ran down his skin. Jacobs' last action in this world had been to slide into the mind of the dead goon to make him shoot. As Jack looked from Jacobs' splattered brains to the goon's bitten off hand and the dead eyes fixed on his late master, he realized the shot had beenaimed for Jacobs.

"Holy fuck!" He stood up and gulped air. His dogs stopped licking the blood off their snouts to look up at him.He could have killed me, but he chose to commit suicide instead. He couldn't even begin to fathom why. A gust of wind swirled some crushed papers and made them land atop the pools of congealing blood, where they quickly soaked up the red. He needed to get out of there.

Jack barely managed to open the backstage door with trembling fingers and his shaking legs left the alley behind him. The dogs whined as they followed him in. Jack looked them over. They seemed to be upset by the bloody paw prints they were leaving behind themselves with each step. There was blood on their paws, snouts and necks. Jack sighed and looked up. There was no one around, so he led the dogs to a dressing room and ran the water in its ensuite bathroom's tub. On Jack's orders, the dogs obediently stood still to be washed and suppressed their instincts to spray forensic evidence everywhere. Jack washed them as best he could and then spent a lot of time drying them. He could feel how unnatural and uncomfortable it was for them to remain damp when they could just shake the fluids off their fur, but they obeyed his ban, nonetheless.

Jack grabbed some blankets and old coats he found in the dressing room and led the dogs to the car. There was still no one around and Jack guessed that Jacobs had cleared the theater on purpose, to be able to face off with him. Mia was nervously pacing next to the car and she jumped in the driver's seat as soon as she saw them coming. Jack put the blankets and coats down on his back seat and had the dogs get in and sit still on them. He went around to the driver's side of the car. "Ok, baby, let me drive," he said to Mia.

Mia slid over and let him get behind the wheel. "Well," she said in a trembling, nervous voice, "did we get here on time? What happened in there?"

Jack sighed heavily. He knew she was still thinking of doing some kind of penance and that was the source of her trepidation. He also knew she was still confused by her actions earlier in the day. He decided she deserved to know the truth. She had already suffered at the hands of an evil mentalist and being kept in the dark would protect her in absolutely no way. "We need to talk."

She sniffed and muttered out a tearful, "I'm so sorry."

Jack gasped and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "No! No, Mia, it's not like that! I'm not angry with you, or anything. I swear! I just need to tell you some things...and it would be best if we had some privacy, ok?"

She nodded, but kept weeping quietly.

"Damn it," Jack muttered and put the car in gear. As much as he wanted to talk to her and give her comfort, they were parked in front of a crime scene and they needed to get away before the hall's staff came back and saw the corpses when they took out the trash. He drove past the nearby University campus and up the hill. The house they were going to live in was just minutes away and would be a private place to discuss things. He was almost there when he remembered the place would most likely be crawling with construction workers since he had blackmailed the owner into quickly fixing it up for free. He turned the car towards the freeway exit.

"Fuck," he whispered as he considered other options. They were few, since the city wasn't his stomping ground. There was a necking spot in a nearby park that the students had told him about, back when he had visited the University, but that was out in the open and it was only supposed to be private after dark, anyway. He scanned the streets and spotted nothing of use. He got onto the freeway and drove until he reached the first rest stop. He pulled in and parked. "Mia..." He had no idea how he was going to tell her the truth, but he had to. He decided to start by addressing the pressing issue; the events of this morning. "About what happened back at the motel-"

"I'm sorry," she bawled. "I'm so, so sorry, Jack! I'd never..."

"No, no, Mia! It's not your fault!"

"Yes it is! It's all my fault! I've sinned and the Devil has gotten into me! I'm damned!"

"Mia!" She wailed and didn't heed his call. "Mia! It wasn't the Devil from the Bible that had gotten into you." She stopped wailing and regarded him through watery eyes as her breathing hitched. "It was a very, very evil man with supernatural powers." Mia's face scrunched up and she shook her head no as she resumed her wailing. "Mia, I'm telling you the truth. Nothing you did this morning was your fault." She was weeping inconsolably. He bit his lip as he looked up to the heavens. Clouds covered the sky with a broken canopy, keeping the sun from turning the day into a complete scorcher.God, help me!

"Mia...I'm a man that has supernatural powers. I'm not the one that made you did those things this morning, but..." He trailed off when he realized she wasn't paying any attention to his confession. He sighed heavily and imagined feeling shame at his sin and the weight of it making him cry. He cut such holes into his cloak and projected his power into Mia's mind through them. His mind resonated with hers, through the shared guilt, and he pictured himself being completely naked and unable to feel any clothing on his skin. He made the corresponding holes in his cloak and his thoughts took root in her mind.

Mia suddenly gasped and clutched at her t-shirt over her tits. She crossed her legs as if to hide her bare pussy and bent forward as she stared at passing traffic with wide eyes. "Where are my clothes!?"

"They're still on you," Jack said. "I just used my power to make you think you're naked."

She kept squirming in her seat, trying to keep hidden from the eyes of everyone that was passing the car. "Jack! I'm naked! In public! People might see! Do something!"

"Only after you acknowledge that I have supernatural powers."

She looked him in the eye and her face had an expression like she just realized he was sitting there. "What did you do? Oh, my God! Youare a witch! I knew it! I totally knew it!" Jack was somewhat glad to hear her words, as they indicated he was getting through to her. Then she said, "That's why the Devil has me! I've sinned with a witch! I'm damned beyond salvation!"

Jack facepalmed. "Oh, for fuck's sake..." He cleared his throat, drew a deep breath and beat back his frustration. He didn't want to have this conversation with her, but his guilt at having allowed her to be enslaved pushed him along. He looked deep into her bloodshot, watery eyes as he searched for the right words. She licked her lips repeatedly. He gasped when he finally recognized the telltale signs of pot use.Oh, fuck, I had her eat the cookies so I could test my cloak-holes! He groaned.

"The Devil is coming for me! The Devil is coming for me!"

He realized she was both high and having a bad trip. As she shivered in fear, he removed his suggestion from her mind. She looked down at herself and gasped. After a brief giggle, she repeatedly smoothed down her T-shirt, as if she was hugging a long-lost friend. Jack imagined himself feeling his hands running down his T-shirt and made the corresponding holes in his cloak. He felt Mia's thoughts through them and did his best to feel the rest of her mind. He failed again. He simply couldn't reshape his holes on the fly fast enough to follow her changing thoughts. The brief glimpses he got told him she was definitely going to freak out as soon as she got over the delight of not being naked in public. He imagined himself feeling profoundly safe and unable to think of anything that made him afraid. He made the appropriate holes in his cloak. After projecting his power through them, Mia calmed down. He put the car in gear and drove back to Springfield.Her high should expire by the time we get there.