Anthology of Ichor III: Gears of Damnation (47 page)

He finished his second cheese steak by the time he reached D.C. The Flying Hand could reach speeds that passed the sound barrier. George never liked going that fast so the trip to Philly was longer than even a normal airplane flight. The time spent with his brother equaled out the long flight. Joshua looked down as night arrived in D.C. He could make out the Whitehouse, but didn't dare go closer. They had special equipment that could alert them of anything flying toward the seat of power. Joshua had gotten in trouble twice already for just showing up to talk with his old friend. Tonight he wasn't in the mood for John Angels. He had a destination to get to. Ashley was waiting and he wanted to get home quickly. He sped up the Flying Hand and headed towards his home.

It was still strange that he was in a relationship with Ashley Maulberg. He was twice her age and had watched her grow up. Every day she used to ask him to marry her. He had always dismissed her as a little girl teasing an old man. She had proven him very wrong. For months they had been fornicating every day. He knew if he kept it up he would have to marry her. Being a Christian knight it wouldn't look good if he got her pregnant first. But like George said he belonged to her for twenty years. The Lord would understand and be a little patient for the ceremony. Joshua had been surprised that Ashley saved her virginity for him. Ironically, Joshua lost his to a prostitute Ashley's father had gotten for him. Jim always used to say that Joshua would make a good brother. Would Warkraft approve of Joshua becoming his son instead?

Before Ashley he had only been with two other women. The prostitute and a psychic who forced Joshua to her will. An image of a beautiful woman decorated in jewels, holding a leash in her hand, appeared in his mind. He shivered and quickly destroyed the thought. His Ashley set him free of that nightmare twenty years ago. At six years old, Ashley became a veteran of combat to save the man she called her Fairy Tale Knight. Amazon Ashley the Keepers named her. Being with his hero and little Amazon was like being with a woman for the first time. It was like learning how to all over again. She was so affectionate that Joshua found himself missing her whenever she wasn't around. He would miss her full lips locking onto his. The way she nibbled his ears. Joshua was afraid of Ashley at first. Now he knew why. He was totally in love with her.

He slowed the Flying hand and the landscape stopped blurring. So wrapped up in thoughts of his twenty seven year old girlfriend, the fifty four year old nearly passed his apartment. The street he lived on was strangely empty even for a rundown neighborhood. Where were the bums and winos? People blamed psychics for the continuing economic decline. They wouldn't see that America had depended too much on imports. With every country going crazy at the moment, the U.S. was on its own. His apartment stood eight stories in the middle of the slum neighborhood. It was a brick structure that had gargoyles on ledges dividing each level. Once all the lights of the building would be on at this time. Now the building was completely dark save light coming from a patio on the eighth floor. Ashley must be there getting ready for him.

He floated over to the building looking at the windows of every apartment void of curtains. Four studio apartments on each floor yet no signs of life. All the tenants moved out after finding out Mr. Handz was living on the top floor. It wasn't fear, but respect they had said. The buildings all around him emptied within a month of his residence. He could understand the fear of psychics, but he was Mr. Handz. A hero that fought and bled for them. He was so hurt no one wanted to be around him. It wasn't until a few months after he was alone that he found the real reason everyone decided to leave. He had heard a rumor that they moved for fear George would come for a visit and kill them all in their sleep. Their fear of George helped ease Joshua's hurt. Even he was afraid of The Mad One. Joshua mourned the feel of neighbors, but he could endure. He now had a roommate.

The patio was concrete and twenty feet wide. A decorated cement railing surrounding it. A potted plant stood in one corner. Floating above the patio, he saw the huge glass doors were open. He stood up on the Flying Hand and did the unthinking. The hand began to dissolve into a silver mist beneath his feet. He fell through to land erect on the hard patio. He smiled as he thought of the sinful things he was going to do to Ashley. Walking past the glass doors he thought he saw something on a roof across from his building. He turned to look, but saw nothing. Dismissing it as some bums playing around, he went into his apartment.

The big room was relatively empty save a big red couch and glass table in the middle of the spacious room. He could see his kitchen in the far corner of his studio apartment. His bedroom was through a door next to the kitchen. Joshua liked similarity and enjoyed the fact that all the apartments looked exactly the same. A woman was standing with her back to him. She was staring up at the only thing decorating the pale blue walls. It was a painting of a pale hand with a silver eye in it's palm, with a brown background. Joshua loved that painting. It was a memento from Japan and a friend had made it for him. He slipped his trench coat off while walking quietly to the couch. Joshua laid it and his suit jacket on an armrest. Ashley could be very vigorous when removing his clothes. He began to unbutton his dress shirt.

"Hey baby. Daddies home," he announced loudly. The woman turned around. His mouth dropped open in shock. He stood there looking at the woman look at him. He had expected a Maulberg to be waiting on him. Just not Jennifer Maulberg.

"Hello Joshy-Poo," she said hoarsely. Her voice sounded dry as if she had been screaming all day. Her white blouse was unbuttoned halfway showing an impressive bosom in a white bra. Her navy blue skirt was wrinkled and she was barefoot. She had an extremely sad face like one would have at a funeral. She looked at him with tears shining in her eyes. "I needed to speak with you. You weren't in when I got here."

"What's going on Jenny? You look a mess." He hadn't seen her like this since the death of her husband. A terrifying thought popped into his head. "Have you seen Ashley? She said she was going to come by and make me dinner." He didn't know if she knew about their relationship yet. He wanted to be careful.

"She let me in," she said. A small smile broke through her sad expression. “I already know about you two. About how you seduced my little girl."

"Wait a minute Jenny. I never..." She held up a hand stalling his words.

"I'm just kidding Joshy-Poo. I know she ran you down like a deer. I have always know that she was in love with you. I was there for her first proposal, remember?" She crossed the room to stand in front of Joshua. Even after all the years he knew her he couldn't help but watch the way she moved. Like a professional model she walked with her hips swaying hypnotically. Her long legs making the easy trip over to him seem like a breath away. She stopped and reached up to caress his face. "I love you Joshy-Poo and I always will. My daughter I give to you to love and cherish forever. I wish you two all the best and I hope you have a long future together, but that is not why I'm here." That sad expression was on her face again. Her hand slid from his face to his shoulder. Tears started leaking from her eyes and she squeezed his shoulder hard as if doing so gave her strength. " I...I was at the Whitehouse today and..." Tears burst from her eyes like water through a dam. " John he...he...signed a bill into effect this morning. He....He outlawed psychics." She looked at him crying and waiting for his reaction.

Joshua didn't know what to think. John Angels had signed a bill outlawing psychics? Never! The man had fallen in love with a psychic once. Fought side by side with Joshua. Hell, the man's son was born from that psychic. Joshua's mind started to race. He knew Jenny wouldn't lie about something like this. Her whole demeanor screamed it was true. Joshua found it hard to breath. He released himself from Jenny's grip and began to pace back and forth talking fast and incoherently.

"No...No...No...John...Outlawing...Japan with unit...a bill..." He knew he was babbling but his mind was trying to sort things out. His eyes grew frantic. They went this way and that as if searching for a way out. He didn't know what to do.

"Joshua!" Jenny shouted loudly. He stopped pacing. He stopped thinking. In the nearly forty years he had known her she had called him Joshy, Joshy-Poo, or Mr. Handz. Never had she called him Joshua. He looked at her. "It’s because of L.A. that it happened." He looked at her confused. She saw his expression and closed her eyes for a moment. "You don't know do you?" She hadn't opened her eyes. She said that last statement in almost a whisper.

"L.A.? What happened in L.A.?" He said it in the same whisper she had used.

Jenny opened her eyes and looked at him for a moment. Taking deep breaths she walked over to him. She grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the couch. He numbly obeyed. At that moment she could have led him off a cliff and he wouldn't have noticed. She sat him down on the couch and knelt on the floor beside him. She had learned a lot of old traditions in Japan. This was one of them. She gripped his knee hard and looked intently into his face. He watched her and the feeling of the headsman's axe about to come down washed over him.

"Earlier this morning..." she started. She seemed to be trying to choose her words. Tears were still running down her face. Her eyes held determination and they locked his to her's. "In L.A. a seventeen year old girl named Lisa Wilson was attacked by a mob of her fellow students and passerby's in cars. They tried to beat her to death. Lisa was a psychic." She paused and let that sink in. Joshua had heard dozens of stories like this. Each more horrific than the last. He knew in the pit of his stomach that this would be the worst. "They beat her until she attacked back with her powers. She...she was of the suggestive class Joshy..." She stopped as more tears soaked her cheeks. "She had never used her powers before except once, so she didn't know how powerful she was. She ...She...made them kill themselves." At that point she lost control of her emotions and laid her head on his knee and wept.

That was it? Joshua was shocked. A mob tried to kill the girl and she killed the mob. Now psychics were being outlawed? It sounded like justice to Joshua. How could Angels do such a thing because of that? It was pure self defense in Joshua's mind. He got angry at that point.

"Jenny, that sounds like self defense. We are being outlawed because the mob got killed instead of the girl? That's bullshit! Angels knows it," he said angrily to the weeping woman. Jenny lifted her face and looked at him with despair in her pretty brown eyes. He knew in that moment there was more. The headsman's axe started inching closer.

"No Joshy...She is the most powerful of the suggestive class. She couldn't control it....A quarter mile radius was consumed by her suggestion to kill themselves." She wept harder before continuing. "A church, high school, middle school..." She was weeping so hard her body was shaking. Joshua's eyes widened in understanding. "And an elementary school."

"No! No! No! Not the babies!" He shrieked to her. She nodded numbly. Tears sprang up in his eyes as he thought about what she said. An elementary school. He couldn't fathom what happened. She had killed babies? He realized he was crying as badly as Jenny. Racking sobs escaped him as he and Jenny cried together. A psychic killing a mob trying to kill her was one thing. A psychic killing three entire schools filled with babies would turn the public against psychics. Joshua began to fill complete despair. But he had to know. "How...How...How many Jenny?" Through his sobs he asked her. She looked up at him and he saw a reflection of his own despair.

"Three...Three...Three thousand one hundred twenty-two" She said it as if it was ripped out of her chest.

"Three thousand one hundred twenty-two," he cried. She nodded slowly.

Joshua put his head between his knees filling sick. He threw up a little in his mouth. Three thousand one hundred twenty-two people were killed! Most of them babies! Joshua held his head there gasping for air. His apartment felt suffocating all of a sudden. He felt the walls closing in on him and all psychics. One of his kind had unintentionally become a mass murdering baby killer. To Joshua anyone under twenty-five was still just a baby to him. A child still learning the world. And today over three thousand had been killed by a psychic. He couldn't even blame Angels for signing the bill. He lifted his head up and sat back against the couch. Thoughts of mobs attacking and killing psychics everywhere filled his head.

"They are going to try to kill us all now," he said softly. He was still crying but he felt numbness on the inside. His head felt like it was full of stones. He felt hopelessness coursing through his veins. He didn't know what to do. He heard the phone ringing, but he couldn't move. It was all the way over on the kitchen counter, but it was Alaska as far as Joshua was concerned. He hurt so badly he didn't know if he would ever get better. He needed something to ease the pain. "Where is Ashley?" He needed her now more than ever. "Ashley!" Was she in the bedroom? How come she wasn't there with him?

"She's gone Joshy. She had to take care of things," said Jenny sitting up.

"Gone? Taking care of things? How come she isn't taking care of me?" His voice was soft as he spoke to her. He couldn't understand what was so important that the woman who chased him for twenty years could leave him alone like this. He loved his Jenny, but their love was different. He needed his Ashley. Jenny got up and sat next to him. She took his head between her hands and stared hard into his face.

"I made her go. Do-not-blame-her. Someone needed to be here to tell you what was going on. Had she been here you two would have locked yourselves away for days. I'm here to make sure you get over this so we can prepare for the future."