“We’ve been sitting here for fifteen minutes. What do you think?”
“You planning on talking to them?” McManus asked.
“You betcha.”
“Do you want me to stick around?” he asked.
“At four hundred dollars an hour? No thanks, although you’re more than welcome to stay on your own time. I have your cell phone number. If we need your services again, we’ll call you, but likely as not, we won’t. If the police try and take us into custody, we’ll just go.”
His brows slanted down. “You mean do that speed-away thing?”
“Yeah, and you won’t ever hear from us again.”
“Just me or the whole world?” he asked.
“Both.”
“Moment of truth, huh?”
My heart gave a little thump. I hadn’t realized it until he put it so clearly, but yeah, that’s what this would be. “My terms were pretty clear. The government’s had a whole day to decide what they’re going to do.”
“Cops are going to be coming here soon.”
“I know.”
“Then I hope, for everyone’s sake, no one overreacts.”
“Me, too.”
The first reporters sped into the parking lot, with more news vans following right behind them. Mall security had flocked out, and local police screeched in with the FBI right on their heels—one big ’ole party. All new faces, I noted. Last but not least, a couple of carloads of men and women wearing Homeland Security Windbreakers poured out and quickly organized the milling law enforcement personnel to have them push the crowd back farther away from us. So far none of the officers or agents had made a move on us or drawn their weapons. McManus, I saw, had decided to stay and was talking to a couple of reporters himself.
Quentin and I sat across from each other, close to the velvet ropes, which so far none of the reporters interviewing us had attempted to cross. More media flocked in front of the other two tables. Most were from local stations, but there were several national networks represented: CNN and MSNBC, even BBC World News, broadcasting live, it seemed.
“Mona Lisa!” a male reporter called out. The use of my Monère name caught my attention, had me turning to him. “Why do your people call you Mona Lisa?”
I explained, as I had done earlier to Kelly, that Mona was a title added before the first name of a Queen. “The word
Mona
means
of moonlight
. Why Monère sometimes refer to Queens as Ladies of Light.”
“What other gifts do your people have besides shape-shifting?” asked another reporter.
“We’re much stronger than the average person.”
“How much stronger? Able to lift a car?” someone asked.
“I’ve never tried it,” I said, “but probably yes.”
“Can you demonstrate your strength for us?” the same voice asked.
“I’ll be happy to, if you have something you don’t mind being destroyed, like a rock.”
Someone quickly ran off to search for a rock. Another resourceful cameraman handed me a small metal flashlight, the size of my palm. “How about this?” he asked.
“Do you mind if I crush it?”
“Sure, go ahead, if you can.”
I took him at his word, closing my fingers around the handle. When I released it, the metal under my hand had been mangled and squeezed down, showing the crushed batteries inside. The cameraman took back his flashlight with an astonished expression. My demonstration grabbed the attention of not just the reporters around my table but also garnered the intense interest of some of the watching law enforcement standing several yards away.
Someone ran back with a big rock about twice the size of my palm. “Is this okay?” the man asked, obviously one of the news crew.
“Sure,” I said. “You can help me demonstrate, if you don’t mind.”
He nodded eagerly.
“Go ahead and squeeze the rock. Try to break it with both hands.”
He clutched and strained, squeezing the rock. It didn’t break. He passed it to me under the bright lights of the filming cameras. Taking it in my left hand, I closed my fingers and squeezed with gentle pressure. Dust and small bits of rock crumbled out from where I held it. “I could have crushed it completely, but I wanted to leave something behind, so that you could see that the rock is real and as hard as it looks.” I gave the rock back, with the impression of my fingers nicely grooved a good inch down into the stone.
“Are you a lefty or a righty?” a reporter asked.
“I’m right-handed.” And I had used my left hand.
“What other gifts or abilities do you have?” asked a female reporter.
Another moment of truth. “I am also able to compel people with my gaze.”
“Compel? What do you mean by that?”
I was suddenly very conscious of all the filming cameras. All the people possibly watching right now around the world, and how frightening this next thing might seem to them. How easily it could all blow up in our faces. But it had to be disclosed now, before we met with any policy makers.
Course decided, I took a breath. “Compelling someone means that I am able to control someone’s actions for several minutes, take over their will.”
A second of profound silence. Then the female reporter asked, “Can you show us?”
“If you have any volunteers, I can demonstrate. We can also test at what range and limit of distance my ability works.”
“I’m willing to be your guinea pig,” she offered, “as long as I hear first what you’re going to make me do.” Brave lady. Because after this, she was certain to be grilled and examined by the FBI and Homeland Security, and who knows what other agencies.
“How about if I tell you to squawk like a chicken, flap your arms, and hop on your left leg?”
“Okay,” she said, laughing nervously. “I don’t mind doing that.”
“Let’s start at a distance of about three feet away,” I suggested.
Handing her mike to another reporter, she backed up about a yard. “What do I need to do?”
“Just look at me and try not to do what I tell you to do.”
I captured her gaze with a small thrum of power that drew the attention of the other Monère around me. Their eyes all turned to me, as did all the reporters talking to them.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Maria Camille Ortega, from NBC4 Washington.”
“Maria,” I said, raising my voice so everyone could hear me clearly. “I want you to squawk like a chicken, flap your arms, and hop up and down on your left leg.”
She started squawking, flapping her arms, and hopping.
“Stop,” I told her.
Maria froze, hands under her armpits, standing on one foot like a flamingo.
I released her from the compulsion. Watched her come back into awareness.
“Did she just make me squawk like a chicken?” she asked her cameraman.
He nodded.
“Oh my God, I really did?” She didn’t look like she believed him.
“Did my eyes change?” I asked loudly.
“Yes,” said one of the reporters who had had an up-close viewing of everything. “They lightened in color and grew kind of sparkly.”
A policeman stepped forward, a black middle-aged man with a tough, no-nonsense face. “I want you to try that on me.”
“Have you ever yodeled, Officer?” I asked.
“Never.”
“Good, then we will see if I can make you yodel. But first I ask that you hand your gun to one of your fellow officers, so they won’t get too nervous.”
“Why?” he asked. “You think you could make me shoot someone?”
“If I wished to, yes. But that is not my wish. I don’t want anyone to feel threatened enough to draw a gun on us, because the moment they do, my mission here is over. All of us here will disappear, and I don’t want that. I want everyone to be aware of both our powers and their limitations, so no one can claim later that I tricked or bespelled anyone.”
Another policeman walked over, probably his senior officer, and held out his hand. The first policeman reluctantly handed over his piece and walked over to me, stopping a few feet back from where the female reporter had stood. All the cameras shifted around so they had a good shot of us both.
“Is this far enough away?” he asked.
“How far would you estimate the distance between us?” I asked.
“I’d say about five feet.”
“Are you ready?”
He nodded.
I brought forth my power. “Yodel for me.”
The cop snorted. “Ain’t working.”
“Please step one foot closer to about four feet away.”
He did so and I repeated my command. This time I felt my eyes capture him. He yodeled, loudly and clearly, almost professionally.
“Son of a bitch,” the other cop muttered, the one holding his gun.
I released my compulsion. Watched the blankness ease away from the other man’s expression. “See,” he said smugly. “It doesn’t work.” He turned to look back at his fellow officers. Their expressions made his shoulders tighten. “It didn’t work, right, guys?”
“You yodeled, man,” another policeman said.
“Come on back here, Jackson,” ordered the man holding his gun.
I waited for him to trot back to his other members before announcing to the reporters, “My range limitation for compulsion seems to be about four feet.”
“Can any of the others here do that?” called out a reporter near one of the other tables.
“As far as I know, just Dante and me,” I answered. “Anyone else here able to use compulsion?”
The others shook their heads.
“Which one of the men is Dante?” shouted another reporter.
“Dante is the man standing at the middle table. Quentin, do you mind switching places with your brother?”
“No problem,” Quentin grinned, going over to the other table to take Dante’s place. Dante took his brother’s vacated seat next to me.
“Dante, how far is your range?” someone asked.
“I do not know,” Dante said.
“Speak up louder,” another person shouted.
Dante repeated his words with more volume.
“Any volunteers to help him find the answer to that?” I asked the watching crowd.
A surprisingly large number of hands went up, including some from the restaurant staff. I chose a male waiter and beckoned him over to come stand in front of Dante.
“Why don’t we start at a distance of five feet,” I suggested.
“You think my range is greater than yours?” Dante said, smiling faintly.
“I’m pretty sure it is,” I said, smiling back, and suggested he have him sing “Happy Birthday.”
“Try to resist him,” I told the volunteer.
“Believe me, ma’am,” the waiter said, “I will. I don’t have any singing talent, at all.”
There were a lot of audible gasps as Dante’s pale eyes turned solid silver and began to glow. He gave his command.
The waiter started singing, loudly and robustly and as awfully as he had claimed.
He stopped when Dante told him to, and was released from the compulsion.
Following instructions, the waiter took one more step back. Standing six feet back, this time he was able to resist Dante’s efforts. “Jesus Christ,” he yelped when Dante’s eyes changed color. “Look at his eyes!”
“It seems like six feet for you, Dante, as your maximum range.” I thanked the waiter and quietly asked him to bring me the check for the three tables.
“Are we leaving?” Dante asked.
“No. They seemed to take that well, but I thought it best to pay before I forgot. Or in case we have to leave in a sudden hurry.”
I told the reporters we were done with the demonstration, but added that we would be happy to speak more with them on an individual basis, whereupon they flocked back around each table. We chatted with reporters for another thirty minutes, but unfortunately none of the watching crowd left. They stayed and more people joined them until a thick mass stood beyond the perimeter the police had established around us.
An FBI agent approached our table, stopping a carefully measured seven feet away. “Ma’am, you should probably end this now. We would be happy to let you continue if there weren’t so many people around, but the crowd is getting too large.”
“I was just noticing that myself,” I told him. Then asked, “Are you going to just let us leave?”
“Yes. We’ll even escort you out of here, if you allow us.” Cameras were rolling, recording our interaction, microphones held out to pick up our conversation.
“No orders to take us into custody?”
“Very specific orders not to unless you act aggressively and give us reason to.”
“We won’t. We’re here as peaceful envoys.”