A Loner Mentalist Pt. 07

Mia sat down opposite him. She was all smiles. "So, what's the plan for today?"

He didn't need to read her mind to know that she wanted to go into the city. "Well, I've got some more tracking to do here. Bad guys to take down, good guys to warn." Her expectant face fell a little. He grinned and grabbed his wallet. "You'd be bored to tears just watching me sit in one place, so why don't you go do some sightseeing and maybe some shopping?" He took his credit card out and handed it to her.

She squealed in joy and jumped out of her seat to hug his face with her tits. When she let go of him, he licked the butter off her cleavage, eliciting a throaty laugh from her. They looked at one another for a few heartbeats and then she twined her hands in his hair again. She pulled his face up for a soft, leisurely kiss. When they broke their kiss, he wanted to stand up and take her to bed. She pushed him to sit back down. He looked up at her with a questioning look.

She smirked mischievously. "You just finish your breakfast." She got down on her knees and undid his zipper. He relaxed and enjoyed his pancakes while she blew him.

After she left, he ordered the dogs to keep visitors at bay. He ate three pot cookies and did his meditations. In half an hour, he was in the theater. He looked up the remaining three malevolent mentalists and the first times they had used their powers. His high was still running by the time he gathered that intel, so he focused on benevolent mentalists. Almost sixty people showed up on stage, backed by about a hundred and sixty gravestones.

Jack focused on the living mentalists and asked how many lived in New York city. The tombstones and ten mentalists vanished from the stage.That's a lot of people. He thought of the ten that lived outside of New York city and focused on them. He looked up their histories and how they came to know they had powers. He also looked up some of their most intimate secrets, things that no other living being could possibly know about. He didn't like to intrude into their privacy like that, but he felt like he needed to demonstrate his power to get them to heed his warnings. By the time his high ran out, he had such info on four of the ten.

He wrote all the pertinent information down, while it was still fresh in his memory, and called the remaining three asshat mentalists on the phone. He took their powers and felt good about himself. He was also parched, so he made a pitcher of ice cold lemonade. He slowly sipped it as he thought about his warnings to the benevolent mentalists and how exactly to put them into words.

He wrote the letters to the first four mentalists. He included their darkest secrets, so they'd know he was for real. After that, he ate more cookies and looked up the remaining six non-New Yorker mentalists. He wrote them letters, too.

He called Mia before heading out to lunch.

"What's up, babe?"

"Nothing. I'm taking a lunch break and I wanted to hear your voice. You know, just to see if you're ok."

He could hear her smile over the phone. "I am! I totally am! New York is the best place on Earth!"

"I'm glad you like it."

"I love it! There's just one teeny, tiny thing wrong."

"What's that?"

"I'm here all alone and you're across the river, doing your thing."

"Well, I'll probably be done today, so we'll head into town together tomorrow, ok?"

"I'll do you one better! I've booked us a hotel room for tonight. You'll come over and wash my back. Ok?"

He laughed. "Ok. Text me the details. See you tonight, Mia."

"See ya, babe!"

He picked up the dogs and drove to a diner for some lunch. When he returned to the parking spot, he ate a dozen cookies and did his meditations. He wanted to be done with New York mentalists before he went into the city to spend the night with Mia.

When he found himself in the theater, he thought of benevolent mentalists living in New York. He counted forty-nine of them on the stage. As he looked at them, wondering where to begin, he noticed they were actually standing in three wedges, not neat lines. He focused on their strange arrangement and learned that the mentalists in New York were organized into three loose societies.

The first group was a coven of seven people of Hispanic descent. They lived on Staten Island and were led by a wizened old man. They considered themselvesbrujas and did rituals they believed would enhance their "magical" powers. Jack looked up some intimate details of their lives to lend credence to his warning letters. He raised his cloak briefly to make notes on those. The words floated past his hands as he wrote, but he managed to get them down on paper, all the same. He decided he would not confront their beliefs about their powers and wrote only to warn them of Shauna Patrick and her handler.

After he dropped his cloak, he looked at the second group. They were of mostly African and Caribbean descent and lived in the Bronx and Brooklyn. There were sixteen of them and they considered their powers to be gifts from Houdoun demigods. A big, rotund black woman led them and saw to it that they didn't abuse their powers. Jack learned their secrets and took two trips out of the theater to write down notes on them.

The third society, counting twenty-six members, was located in Queens, with a few members living in Manhattan. Their membership was eclectic, but dominated by second and third generation immigrants from Eastern Europe. They were led by an elderly Romani woman, who seemed quite protective of them all. As Jack looked at her, she began to tell a story.

"My mother survived Dachau. The Nazis took her there, along with all her family and tribe. Every one of them was murdered, only my mother survived. But she did not survive by accident, or luck. They let her live because she was their most successful experiment." Jack shuddered at her words.

"She told me many times about how the Nazis experimented on the prisoners. They made people miserable and frightened for the sole purpose of harnessing those emotions for their dark experiments. They did things in those camps..." She frowned. "Things that tried to wed dark magic and sorcery with science and medicine." She shook her head. "Such vile things. They executed children to see how much pain their parents would feel. They executed parents to see how much pain their children would feel. They executed one twin in secret, just to see if the other twin could feel it. My mother told me of all this. She told me all of that, but she never said what experiments they did on her, or why they left her alive. I guessed it was because she could throw things with her mind."

Jack gaped at the woman's words.Is telekinesis possible?

"The soldiers that freed her brought her to this country. She was just a little girl back then, but others already looked up to her. She was strong, you see. After Dachau, after what the Nazis did to her and the rest of our tribe...no one could fuck with her. Not anymore. She stamped out evil in every form, wherever she could find it. That's what drew all the people to her. That's what made this society. Her strength. When she died, I inherited the leadership." The old woman shook her head sadly. "I'm not as strong as she was. I'm not as wise, either. There is darkness gathering around us and I can't do anything to stop it. It will come for the people that look up to me for guidance and protection." Tears started to run down the Gypsy woman's wrinkled cheeks. "I wish my mother was here. She'd chew up the darkness and shit out rainbows."

Jack grunted sadly. "Well, now I wish I could meet this woman."

A tombstone appeared behind the old gypsy woman and another, similar woman stood up from behind it. She was bent over and had murky eyes, but she looked ready to spit fire and piss acid on anyone that dared look at her askance. Jack wondered what happened in the concentration camps. He knew he didn't have the range to see that from New York.

He was surprised when the old woman on stage looked right at him. Their eyes locked and her face blurred out of existence. He could feel her eyes boring into his soul, but he couldn't see them anymore. He looked away from her and blinked his eyes. When he tried to focus on her again, she was nothing but a blur. He couldn't see any of her, but he could feel her eyes boring into him. He looked away from her, but her eyes were still on him. When he looked back at the blur, it had grown in size. It also seemed much closer to him. He chose to focus on the members of the society, but the blur was beginning to eat up the theater, making everything fade into a kind of nothingness where everything existed, but nothing could be made out clearly. Because nothing mattered. All things were the same and that same was pain and suffering and the sounds of all the screams that ever happened because-

Jack raised his cloak and found himself safely sitting on the RV's bed. "Oh, fuck." He breathed deep to calm himself. He gulped down two glasses of lemonade and splashed some cold water in his face. His vision was blurry and the RV seemed to be changing dimensions. It reminded him of the blur. His fear cropped up again and he spun repeatedly, fearing the woman suddenly popping up behind his back, unseen and blurry. He became dizzy and fell onto the bed. "Fuck."

Over his labored breathing, he could hear some squeals.On, no! Not the sounds of all the screams that ever happened! Before he could start screaming in panic, he heard barking. It echoed through a thousand caves, but he still knew it. Spot, Aramis, Porthos and Athos were barking in alarm.

He snapped out of his fugue and made holes in his cloak to see into their minds and find out what the real danger was. He learned the dogs were merely worried about him, cause they could smell his fear. There was no external danger. He sighed in relief and thanked them for their concern. He drew strength from them and dropped his cloak.

He found himself back in the theater. The cartoon dog was sitting in the seat next to his. Jack thought of the third group of mentalists and the gypsy woman and her twenty-five followers stood on the stage. He wasted no time in reading their deepest secrets, completely ignoring the woman at the head of the society. He already knew what he was going to put in her letter. He raised his cloak three times to jot down notes.

When he dropped his cloak for the third time, he was done with New York mentalists. He just had to write up the letters and mail them. He looked at the cartoon dog and shook his finger at him. "I've got a bone to pick with you, dog! What the hell kind of protective meditations did you teach me the other day? I've had nothing but nightmares ever since!"

"First of all, let me congratulate you on your success. You've managed to teach your subconscious to raise the cloak before dreaming, so you are now safe from mentalist intrusions, 24/7."

"Yeah, ok, bully for me, but why am I having nightmares?"

"Those are only natural, I'm afraid."

"Natural?" Jack spread his arms in bewilderment. "What the actual fuck? Are the new meditations making me have nightmares, or not?"

"No, they are not."

"Then what gives?"

The dog sighed heavily. "This is not a topic you wish to discuss, Jack. Not even with your own subconscious."

Jack squinted at the dog. "I'm pretty sure it is."

"Jack...you've been through a very traumatic experience in that alley. You could have been killed. That's not something you can just shrug off. It's going to stick with you for a long time. Along with the guilt. You feel guilty about causing those deaths, particularly after you've learned that Jacobs and his quartet had been innocent pawns of a greater evil."

Jack looked away. "I had no choice. I had to do that. It was them or me."

"I know that, Jack. You did the best you could, based on what you knew at the time. But you still feel guilty over it."

Jack drew a deep breath and sighed. "So, what's going to happen to me? Am I going to have nightmares for the rest of my life?"

The dog moved to sit in front of Jack. His cartoon eyes locked on Jack's and gazed deep into him. "No," he pronounced at last. "You'll always feel guilty over those deaths, we both know that, but the nightmares will slowly fade away. You're too tough, deep down inside, to let them turn you into a neurotic mess. You'll get over it. Just give it some time and keep meditating to control your emotions."

"How long will it take?"

The dog shrugged. "A few months, maybe more."

Jack put his head in his hands. "God, I wish things had gone down differently."

The dog put a four-fingered cartoon paw on Jack's shoulder. "I know, Jack. I know."

After a while, Jack felt his high running out. "Well, I have to go write letters. Bye, dog."

The theater faded away and Jack found himself back in the RV. He pulled his cloak around his mind and gathered up the mess of notes he had made. He moved to the side table and opened up his laptop. He looked at the river and the city beyond. It was well past noon. He sighed and got down to the task of deciphering his stoned notes on the most intimate memories of almost fifty people.

He perused the ten letters he had already typed for the non-New Yorker mentalists. He made a form letter for the remaining mentalists in which he warned them about Shauna Patrick and her unidentified master. He included a copy of her driver's license photo. He also pointed out what Jacobs had already done. He put the innermost secret of each recipient at the very beginning of their letter, to get their attention right out of the envelope. Those would also make it painfully clear that his warning was genuine.

The dozen rapist fucks from Wall Street had come from all wakes of society and he didn't want to even think about what kind of damage they would have been able to get away with if they had known how to cloak their minds. The three societies he had looked at also had members tempted to turn to the dark side, but the oversight of their leaders kept them in line. Jack suspected some of the mentalists might go rogue if they had a way to hide from their peers. In the end, he made a firm decision. He didn't tell anyone about becoming one with the aether, or protecting their minds. He didn't feel like he could trust such power to just about anybody.

He didn't write about himself in the letters, but he let a lot be read between the lines. When he finished the letters, he stared at the blank space on the bottom of each letter. The space where a signature should be. Whilst he had no intention of revealing himself to anyone, he felt a sudden desire to mark his work. He knew it was immature, but the desire refused to be dissolved with reason. At length, he typed, "Half a league, half a league," in lieu of a signature.

After he saved drafts of all the letters, he went to a copy shop, where he used his power on the lone employee. He made her print the letters, put on a pair of latex gloves he handed her, stuff the letters into the envelopes with printed addresses on them, seal the envelopes with a wet brush, charge him and forget what his face looked like. He drove into the city and tossed the letters into a mailbox. He tossed his gloves, and the ones the copy girl had been wearing, into a trashcan two blocks down.

It was early evening by the time he drove to the hotel Mia had texted him about. He groaned as he pulled up in front of it. It looked like a five-star place.Damn it, Mia, you don't need to spend allmy money. He parked around the side, forgoing the valet parking. He walked in and asked the man at the front desk about Mia.

"Are you Jack Watts?"

Jack was startled, for an instant, before he realized Mia must have given the man his name. "Yes. Why?"

"Miss Newman would like for you to join her party in the restaurant." Jack frowned as the man gestured at a big, mirrored door on the opposite end of the lobby. "It's right through there, sir."

Jack forced a polite smile. "Thank you." He headed towards the door, shaking his head to himself.Who could she have invited to dinner? Neither of us knows anyone up here. He opened the door and stepped through. The restaurant was very tastefully decorated. The furniture was made from quality wood and the brass details that were everywhere gave it a distinguished feel. The bar was large and to the left of the entrance. Soft light was provided by scores of gas lamps along the walls. Thick, wooden posts spanned the height of the room at regular intervals. Each post had four gas lights attached to it, one per side.

"Party of one," a woman asked Jack.

He hadn't seen her standing at the other side of the door, behind a hostess' podium. Even in her black, slinky dress, he wondered how he could have missed her. She was tall and lean. Her hair was braided and fell down her bare shoulder. Her dark brown skin glistened in the lamplight. "Uh, no." He gathered up his composure and smiled at the beautiful mulatto. "Newman?"

The woman immediately smiled, showing off a row of perfect, white teeth, and said, "Of course. Let me lead you to their table."

Again, a pang of worry struck Jack.She said theirtable. Who's with Mia? He followed the hostess through the restaurant. As he passed under a lamp, he noticed they weren't actual gas lamps, but electric bulbs situated in metal and glass casings in the shape of old-timey, gas-powered, street lights. Some flickering paper between the bulb and the outer casing gave the illusion of flame.

His admiration of the restaurant's decor was cut short when the hostess led him around the bar. A whole other half of the restaurant was there, invisible from the entrance. Unlike the more intimate part they had walked through, this one had large windows along one wall and pedestrians were visible walking outside. The setting sun was painting the fronts of the buildings on the opposite side of the avenue with many shades of orange and purple. Across the room from the large windows were big swinging doors, which Jack guessed led to the kitchen. The hostess led him halfway to the opposite corner, not too far from those big doors, before he finally spotted Mia.

She was wearing a violet, off the shoulder dress which Jack had never seen her in before. It looked really hot on her, as it hugged her big bosom, narrow waist and wide hips. Her hair was swept sexily to one side and had a lot of wave and bounce to it. Her appearance reminded him of how she had looked on prom night, when they first had sex. He smiled at the memory.

His smile fell when he saw who was sitting across the table from her. It was some chubby, middle aged guy he had never seen before. The way the guy's eyes ate up Mia's form made Jack hate him right off the bat. He was bald in front and wore the rest of his long, wavy hair in a pony tail. He was wearing a white shirt with an unbuttoned, black, sleeveless vest and faded jeans. To Jack, he looked like an aging hippy.

"Jack," Mia happily exclaimed when she saw him coming. She stood up and waved. The guy's hungry eyes glued themselves to her ass, so he didn't notice Jack glaring at him. Mia pulled Jack into a hug and gave him a kiss.

The passion in Mia's kiss made Jack realize she had been primed by Pony tail's leering and, now that Jack was with her, she was ready to jump his bones. If they weren't in public, she'd probably have his dick out, already. He pulled back, looked into her glazed eyes and said, "No."

Mia cooled off and nodded in the affirmative. She turned around and said, "This is my boyfriend, Jack Watts. Jack, this is Eric Winters."

Jack held out his hand. "Hello."

Eric's eyes went from Mia's cleavage to Jack's face. Eric extended his hand and Jack grabbed it, crushing the man's fingers with all his might. Eric frowned and seemed confused. His face was betraying signs of discomfort, which made Jack happy.