When she paused again, I couldn’t keep quiet. “Perhaps you can share with me the reason you were all in Newark?”
“We came to investigate the reports of miraculous events in your city. Often we will find new pieces of the cross when such things occur. We find them and bring them home for the family.”
I thought through all the giant snake sightings, gruesome deaths, and the swimming pools worth of blood in our back yard when Jen had cut down Spring’s tree. Yep, that could attract some attention if you paid attention to that sort of thing. I’d never imagined someone might take it seriously.
“Could you tell me how you came by such information?” I asked.
“The internet, she makes it very easy to discover this events.”
Great, I’d been targeted by the holy mafia because of Google. Whom should I sue? I tried to digest this new information and integrate it into my world. It didn’t make sense yet. “May I inquire what you do when you find someone with a piece of the cross?”
She glanced at me and then back down. “We acquire the relic for the family.”
“Do you kill the person who has it?”
“Only if it is necessary. Usually it is very easy. We simply put them to sleep and then we take the piece and erase their memory.”
“Perhaps you can share why you did not just do that to me?”
She looked up and met my gaze. “I was not certain about you. I have never seen anyone so powerful. I was scared that you were the one killing us and that you were just fooling me.”
That was actually kind of cool to hear. I guess I didn’t come across as the complete looser I’d always thought.
“I could not believe someone with your power could be so..., so innocent.”
Ouch. The lack of snarky follow-up from Spring killed me.
Colette continued. “I have never heard of a piece of the cross as big as the one you found. I wanted to understand everything before I attempted to reclaim it.”
Suddenly I felt drained. It had really all been a lie. She’d never actually been interested in me. She just wanted to make sure I couldn’t kill her if she took the Caduceus. I sat down next to the cage door with my back against the bars.
“So madam, you have played me for a fool. I was simply a toy for your devious machinations. I must say it was well done. You should receive an academy award for your acting. I hope you found it most amusing to stomp my heart beneath your callous manipulation.” Hey, that wasn’t bad. Maybe this politeness thing had some benefits—even if I sounded like some British lord reject.
Colette drew her legs up, pulled her robe down over them, and wrapped her arms around the bundle. I took some bitter satisfaction that I seemed to have hurt her—even if it was nowhere near as bad as she had hurt me. I sat passively and tallied up all the lies, all the false smiles and acts. I thought of her curling up next to me beneath the stars. I couldn’t believe I had worried about waking her up. Then, because I’d wanted her trust, I’d just told her nearly everything. I’d trusted her, and I got stabbed and kidnapped for my stupidity.
Femme Fatale
indeed. I contemplated the image of her wide eyes when she had stabbed me... Wait, she’d stabbed me after I told her to stay still. I was missing something here.
“Colette, please explain something to me. If I was so powerful, how did you break out of my command so easily? I don’t mean to pry, but my command only held you for a few moments before you shrugged it off and stabbed me.”
Colette’s head snapped up. Her eyes were wide and frightened for a moment before they relaxed into a look of genuine sorrow. “Finn, you are inexperienced with this. If you will come over here, I will tell you what you did wrong.”
“I am terribly sorry, I don’t mean to offend you, but you are rather odiferous and not to say treacherous. I would rather stay here.”
Her eyes flashed wide again. “Please Finn, come over to me. I am sorry for everything I have done. I would do anything to make up for the pain I have given you. Won’t you come here and let me explain?”
Something was off here. I doubted she was serious about the apology, but it seemed obvious she wanted to say something without being overheard even though no one was in the room. Reluctantly, I got up and sat next to her.
She brought her face close to mine and looked like she was going to kiss me.
I pulled back. Not only did she stomp all over my heart, but she looked pale and unhealthy and smelled like urine. Even if she hadn’t stomped me, I probably would have shied away. Yep, I really was that shallow.
She widened her eyes ever so slightly and she whispered, “Come here, I will not hurt you. You need to know this.”
I tried to ignore the smell and edged closer. She whispered in my ear, “It is not hard to break such a raw compulsion if you are trained and know what to do. This pig, he is not trained, and I broke his control quickly. I will show you how to do it, but please do not speak of zis. It is our only advantage.”
This was something I needed to know! I whispered back. “Yes, please, I beg of you, do go on.”
“First, you must realize that the power of such compulsion is ze belief that you must do so.”
“Well, that does seem to get to the point quite neatly.”
“No, you do not yet understand. The only thing planted in your mind is the belief that you must do as he says. You do all the rest of the work. You will follow the command in the way that you believe you must. There is no other control than what your own mind believes. You must learn to question this belief and to stop believing it. If you continue to believe it, you will continue to be trapped by it.”
Her words seemed pretty self-evident, so I knew I must have been missing something. Right now, I was being forced to speak politely. According to her, it was only my belief that I must speak politely that was implanted. So, all I had to do was stop believing it. I told myself that I didn’t have to speak politely and then tried it out. I went for, “That’s too fucking easy.” Alas, it was.
What came out was, “That sounds like it should be quite simple.”
She nodded in agreement. “The concept is simple, but doing this is harder than it seems.”
I guess she was right. I sat back and tried to understand how I could change my beliefs. Imagine being told that gravity is all in your mind. All you have to do is believe you can fly and then step off that two hundred foot cliff to prove it. You will only fall and die if you believe you will. Yeah, right. Discarding the belief created by all those years of trial and error is really hard and seems downright suicidal. My belief that I must be polite seemed just as ingrained.
There were so many things that I wanted ask Colette that it was difficult to let them go and work on the whole politeness thing, but I felt breaking the compulsion was more important. Besides, I told myself I would better express my feelings if I were free to give my real opinions. I closed my eyes and tried to work through it.
I didn’t make it very far before Vinnie returned with a new robe for Colette. I looked at him and told myself that I really didn’t need to be polite to him, but it occurred to me also that it was probably a good idea. At first glimpse, he didn’t seem such a bad sort.
When I grabbed the robe through the bars I said, “Thank you, sir. You are most kind. Would it be possible to get a bucket of clean water, a washrag, and a towel as well?”
He blinked wide eyes at me. It was as if I’d asked him to go first in a game of Russian roulette. I pushed a bit. “Please sir, the conditions in here are quite unnecessarily inhumane, and you do not seem like a man who enjoys the suffering of others. It would be most kind of you. Didn’t your uncle give us orders to behave and obey you?”
His hairline advanced a bit as he relaxed and gave a slight smile, “Oh, yeah. I guess he did, didn’t he?”
“I assume you know how quite impossible it is to disobey his commands.”
He nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah. Been there.”
“So, can you do this for the lady, please?”
“Well, okay, I guess it wouldn’t hurt.”
I said to his retreating back, “Perhaps, you can find some pants and a shirt for her as well?”
He glanced over his shoulder and said, “I’ll see what I can find.”
After he left, I turned to Colette. “Quite a pleasant young man, wouldn’t you agree?”
“He is a pathetic and weak toady.”
“Well, yes of course, madam. That is what I meant to say.”
Colette snorted in bitter amusement.
I scooted back over to her. “I don’t seem to have had much luck throwing off this yoke of oppression.”
She snorted again. “Your idea of being polite is very strange, Finn.”
Damn, I was doing this to myself, and here I was mocking Smith for it just a few short moments ago. I shrugged helplessly, “I find myself forced to agree with you. Please tell me, if you can shrug off his commands, why didn’t you just avail yourself of the minimal facilities instead of soiling your gown?”
She slapped her hand over the grimace that appeared on her face. As I was trying to understand what I said wrong, she whispered in my ear. “Quiet, you imbecile. He cannot know I can go against his wishes. There is a camera behind you.”
I flushed with embarrassment. “Oh drat it all. I apologize if I have been indiscreet.”
She paused, crinkled her eyes at me over her hand, giggled, and then patted my face. “You are so cute. Do not worry. I will get us out of here.”
Damn, this sucked. That should have been my line. I didn’t want to be the damsel in distress.
We waited for Vinnie. He came in with a cart holding a couple of buckets, a towel, and some clothes. He pushed the clothes and towels through to us, but the bucket wouldn’t fit through the small door in the bottom of the larger cage door.
“Okay, you two, move to the back of your cage.”
We did as he asked. Me, because I had to. He opened the door and leaned over to place the bucket inside the cage. Colette exploded into action. She lunged forward and smacked poor Vinnie with a lightning-fast kick to the head. Vinnie went down hard. She instantly had her lab coat off, wrapped it around his head, and gave him another couple smacks. I cringed. That looked like it hurt. Vinnie rolled feebly and then lay still. At least he wasn’t dead. The whole thing had taken maybe a couple of seconds.
Colette ran out the door of the cage wearing nothing but a bandage around her chest. The sight was quite arresting. I could barely imagine the chutzpah required to leap into action half-naked. I pulled my attention back to my part. As she was grabbing the rifle, I ran to the door of the cage and stopped short. Fuck! I couldn’t leave the cage.
Colette quickly cased the room as I watched helplessly. She went through cabinets and drawers containing what looked like medical supplies, and came up with a couple of sharp looking scalpels. I still kept fixating on the fact that she didn’t take the time to dress. That would have been my first priority. I guess that was why she was the secret agent and I was the damsel in distress. Since I had nothing to do but watch her muscular, nude derriere in action, I decided that there were some perks to this secret agent spy stuff—even if I was the damsel.
She came back to Vinnie’s cart, moved some towels, and found an odd-looking pistol. The pack of darts she found next to it told me what it was. Colette cracked the gun open and loaded a dart into it.
She looked over at me standing in the cage like an idiot, rolled her eyes, and grimaced. Damn it, her scorn it wasn’t fair. She had training, and lots of time, to figure out how to disbelieve something. Telling myself this didn’t help.
She walked over to me and without warning snapped a roundhouse kick at my head. Getting hit with one of these could be devastating but they were relatively slow and dangerous to use against a trained opponent. I’d been spending a lot of time practicing the basic Krav Maga my uncle had taught me, and Spring had been working with the Caduceus on improving my body’s reflexes, speed, and strength. I instinctively stepped into the kick, grabbed her leg and took her down. Unfortunately for me, I’d been practicing by myself a lot, and I hadn’t really practiced a lot of combination moves, so once she was down, she rang my clock good with a smack to my head. I fell over and she was on me in an instant with her elbow pressed to my throat. She froze above me with a feral grin on her face that I had never seen before. She pulled me through the cage door and offered a hand to help me up. I stood up wincing at a fresh sharp pain in my leg. I felt a bit woozy as well. I took advantage of the time it took her to throw on the oversized clothes Vinnie had brought and got my head mostly clear. I followed close behind when she brushed by me and headed towards the door.
I froze momentarily when I realized what I’d done. I’d left the cage! I wondered if she hit me in the head while I was talking, it might get me to curse. I wasn’t eager to give it a try. She hit
hard
.
She glanced quickly out the door and froze when a heavy male voice snapped. “Stop right there!”
We’d been caught, but I figured she had some moves to get us out of this situation.
“Stand up slowly with your hands in the air.”
She didn’t drop and roll, nor did she snap off a shot with the tranquilizer gun. She just ducked back inside the room. A gun went off simultaneously with the
SPANK-SPWING-THUNK
sound of the bullet hitting the metal door-frame and ricocheting into the hallway.
“Don’t shoot, you idiot! You’re gonna kill someone. They’re trapped in the room and aren’t going anywhere.”
“Sorry boss,” muttered the first deep voice.
“Okay, you two, there is no way you are going to get past all of us, so we can handle this in one of two ways. We can come in shooting and let the bodies fall where they may, or you can drop your weapons, go back to your cage, and lock it behind you.”
Colette’s shoulders slumped. She marched past me back to the cage. I gaped at her. “Pardon me, but are you planning to give in to these people without a fight?”
“Come here, Finn.”
“I’m most distressed at the thought of returning to that cage. Are you sure this is the best course of action?”