Another Whiskey Tale
If I leave now, I can be home watching the game in half an hour. When was the last time I made it home in time for a basketball game? It was probably before I started my job three months ago.
“Still workin’ Mr. Duke?”
I looked up to see the night watchmen here at the firm. “Yeah, Benny, work, work, work.”
“Don’t work too hard, Mr. Duke,” the old man smiled good-naturedly. “A young buck like yourself needs to go out a meet a nice girl and settle down.”
“Thank you, Benny,” I sighed.
He tipped his hat in my direction and closed the door before going on to finish his rounds. I like Benny. He’s good man, when he’s not reminding me of my nonexistent social life. How the hell else would I have time to rocket to the top and be a partner by the time I reach thirty-five. That’s only six years from now. If I want to even be in the running I better be on their radar in the next five years and that means busting my ass everyday and every night.
So much for that basketball game.
“Work, work, work, wor-”
One minute I was staring at the brief for the Lawson case and the next I was on the other side of the desk with something heavy on top of me. Just as I begun to mull over the possibilities of what could be atop of me, the pressure let up.
“Get up, we have to get you out of here now.”
I rolled over onto my back and looked up to find a black trench coat wearing chick with dark hair to match. She was looking down at me with deep brown eyes and a sour look.
“I said get up, moron. God, do I have to do everything myself?” she asked. Her hand shot out and slowly she turned it so it was palm up. With a quick flick of her wrist, she brought her hand up.
“What the hell?” Broken bits of glass clinked its way to the floor as I suddenly ended up on my feet.
“Get use to it, Alan,” she called over her shoulder while she peered down the hallway. “Coast is clear; now hurry before it’s too late.”
I grabbed her arm, my fingers making prints on her through the coat. “I’m not going anywhere till you tell me what the hell is going on here and how the fuck did you make get up? You weren’t even touching me!”
She shook her shoulders and I dropped my hand. “I’m psionic.”
“What the hell is psionic?”
“Just shut up and follow me. I’ll explain everything later,” she whispered. “Gabe can’t keep this up forever.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I shouted as I planted my feet.
She looked back, her eyes regarding my stand as little more than a childlike stubbornness. “Have it your way.”
She began moving like a cat slinking out of one room trying not to gain the attention of its owner. I stood there, watching her wondering if maybe I’d fallen asleep and she was just a dream of a very deprived man. A very deprived, horny man.
As her form completely disappeared out of my office, I turned to look around at my now destroyed workspace. Shattered glass everywhere, the Lawson case flying out the window, lamp haphazardly-
“Christ!” I clutched my nose as I stumbled out into the hallway. Pain colored my vision and suddenly it was like everything was in Technicolor. As I stood there in the hall, wondering if my nose was broken, I was shoved again. Stumbling forward, I turned to look over my shoulder to see nothing. I reached out, feeling foolish, till my fingers brushed a wall. I laid my palms on the smooth, glasslike wall and still could see nothing but air.
“Now do you believe me?”
Knowing that she had been watching me was a bit unnerving.
“It’s a TK wall. I made a bubble around us to keep out the pheromones,” she explained.
“TK?” She began to move again and the wall bumped me forward to keep pace with her.
Her speech was fast like her walk. “It stands for telekinesis. It’s how my psionic energy manifested itself.”
“Ok, you lost me,” I told her as I jogged up to her.
She looked back and smiled. “You know the X-Men?”
“Saw the movie.”
“A psionic is kind of like a mutant, but we keep our secrets better than they did,” she smiled.
“You got a name?”
“Jezebel-“ she began before getting cut off.
“Blake, extraction report.” The voice was scratchy from static, but distinctly female.
“Blake?” I asked.
“Almost to rendezvous, Evers,” Jezebel Blake, I’m assuming, answered into her sleeve.
“Connelly says that you have approximately two minutes before they begin to wake up.”
“Before who wakes up?”
“Affirmative,” she answered with finality.
Turning she grabbed my hand and began running toward the elevator lobby. I easily kept up with her quick strides, being seven or so inches taller. As we approached the main elevator she again held out her hand and, with a flick of the wrist, the doors opened.
“I tripped the lift sensors,” she answered before I could even ask. “It’ll be faster if we go down the shaft.”
“Oh hell no.”
She laughed, “Don’t worry.” I felt my feet be begin to lose their grip on the floor as I was lifted up. “I’ve got you.”
I slumped into the ring holding me up and watch as she too lifted off the floor. She seemed to be concentrating, probably takes a lot to do all this TK crap. Now, if only she wasn’t wearing that trench coat. At least then I might have a view.
Being carried down the elevator shaft was pretty painless. Whatever it is was chaffing my armpits. I heard a telltale ding and the doors opened to the second floor.
“I thought we were going to the main lobby,” I wondered aloud, “It’s on the ground floor.”
“Duh. All the elevators are on the ground floor,” she explained as she turned to me, “and I don’t want to rip one open just so we could get there. A broken window is more than enough collateral damage for one night.”
“I agree, Blake.”
Jezebel’s head snapped around faster than I thought was humanly possible. The fleeting look I glimpsed on her face was a mixture of shock and fear. Something that could make someone with abilities like Jezebel’s afraid could not be good for an ordinary lawyer from the north side.
“Leslie,” she breathed.
A playful voice lilted toward us. “Yes, how is my little replacement doing these days?”
“Stay away from him, Lancaster.”
Jezebel’s hand, clenched in a fist, tightened till her knuckles were white as she spoke to the other woman. I could, though still being held back by Jezebel, see the redhead at the other side of this floor’s elevator lobby. She was tall, but her body seemed to lack the soft curves most women possessed. Instead she was built as if she spent most of her time in the gym, bulking up to overzealous proportions, but her form spoke of power if nothing else.
“Dear little Jezebel, a little girl all alone against the big, bad Leslie Lancaster,” she laughed. “You and I both know how this’ll play out. Just give me Duke and I’ll let you return to your band of miscreants.”
“They’re my friends,” Jezebel fired back.
“As was I once upon a time.”
Suddenly, I felt the ground rush up to meet me as I was shoved down. The sound of splintering wood accompanied my fall and I covered my head instinctively. After a few minutes I got up and saw the woman swinging her fists against an invisible wall that looked to be held up by dark haired office crasher. Sweat was beading on Lancaster’s forehead as Jezebel’s hands shook with the effort of holding her blows back.
“Run,” she grunted. “My friends are waiting downstairs. They can get you to safety.”
She looked back as another table was thrown at her shield, spraying more bits of wood around the lobby.
“Please Alan, run.”
I nodded as I backed away from the two psionics battled it out. I pushed the door to the stairwell open and practically jumped down most of the stairs to the main floor. Pulling the door open I was met with three more black wearing people.
“About time, Blake,” the woman on the right said as she turned toward me. “Where’s Blake?”
“Upstairs,” I breathed out. “L-Lancaster is fighting her.”
A stern, expressionless façade replaced the momentary look of fear on her face. The other two weren’t as quick.
“Kaori, port us back home,” she said. “We must get him to a safe location before Blake gives out.”
The Asian woman keeping her distance from the others nodded.
“What?” I yelled at the blonde. “You’re going to leave her here to die?”
“Back off,” the man said sternly.
He held his arm out preventing me from getting any closer. I didn’t even know I was advancing on her.
“Jezebel knew what she was getting into when she joined us,” he explained.
“But we have to safe her.”
The blonde pushed him aside and her look grew sterner than I thought possible.
“Kaori port us back home,” she ordered through clenched teeth, “now.”
“We are going to save Jezebel,” I told them.
The words felt different rolling off my tongue. It was a strange kind of different, as if my words resonated oddly when they came out. And now these people were staring at me as if they realized it too. As if they knew it left a burning taste in mouth akin to a bad shot of whiskey. Canadian Mist came to mind.
“Kaori, hold that order and port us all to Blake and Lancaster,” she said. “We are going to save Jezebel.”
They all nodded woodenly, in unison, as if in a trance. Their motions stiff and seemingly performed without much thought. Puppets. Did I do this? What am I?
A bone chilling coldness seeped into my skin, penetrating through muscles and tissue. I felt it begin in the soles of my feet and gradually make its way up my legs. A feeling of fear gripped me and sweat beaded on my skin. I felt pressure on my arm. I looked down to see a hand squeezing me.
“Don’t worry, Alan Duke,” the woman in charge, the mysterious Evers most likely, told me in that same hollow tone. “You’ll get use to it.”
“What-” I began to ask but, as I looked her, dark matter covered her face. I suddenly felt it crawling up my neck and took a last breath before I was overtaken.
Can’t breathe. Suffocating. Air. Need air. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Light. Noise. Fighting. Yelling, someone was yelling. Screaming for help. Jezebel.
I lifted my head and looked around. Jezebel was still fighting her, the redhead. She was holding her own and now the others were helping. She was saved, I’d saved her. So tired. Heavy.
“Port us now!”
“Alan, Alan Duke,” called a cheerful voice. “Wakey, wakey.”
I opened my eyes and closed them again.
“Sorry about that.” I heard her shuffling around as I waited. “Ok, open’em.”
The light was dimmer now and Jezebel was smiling down at me. Her ears were covered with bulky headphones. Made her look like a kid. The room itself was comfortable, almost cozy with its warm brown hues, overstuffed chairs and soft bed, which I was currently occupant of.
“Where?”
“You’re safe and sound at home base. Don’t worry about the whole passing out thing though. A lot of people pass out their first time through a shadow port,” she babbled at a rapid-fire rate. “Even Clara did according to Gabe and he doesn’t lie about anything!” Under her breath she added, “Boy scout that he is.”
“Shadow port?” I inquired, trying to sit up.
I felt her hands on my back and shoulder, supporting me. “It’s how we travel so fast. Kaori, she uses shadows to disappear and travel. Pretty cool, don’t ya think?”
“Yeah, cool.”
She turned puppy dog eyes on me and shot me frown with zest. “Don’t worry Alan. You’ve got neat powers too.”
“What powers?” I asked. “If I had any wouldn’t I know about it?”
“Well yeah,” Jezebel sighed as she twirled a pen. “But yours aren’t as obvious as moving things with my mind or making illusions like Clara. Who’s my boss, FYI.”
“Illusions? “
She waved my question off, using the pen as a baton. “Doesn’t matter.” She looked at me, drilling holes through me. “Why’d you become a lawyer?”
Taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“Why did you become a lawyer?”
“I like to argue.”
“You like to win.”
“If you already knew the answer why bother asking me?”
Twirl, twirl, twirl the pen went again. “I wanted to see what you’d say.” She sat a moment, in silence, but as if listening. “You’ve always won. All your cases since you got out of U of M.”
“I’m good,” I replied.
“No one is that good.” She sighed. “Let me be blunt. You can make people believe what you tell them to believe.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your vocal cords, it’s where your psionics have developed,” Jezebel began to explain, “Turns out this make you have the ability to vibrate them at a particular frequency that human will power go out the door and we become your stringed puppets. Hence these things.” She tapped the headphones. “Sound cancelling headphones. I can’t hear anything you say. I can only hear what the microphone picks up and machines filter of your voice. Nothing against you, just precautions you understand.”
“Can’t trust me?” I asked. “I thought I just saved your life.”
“You did, thanks by the way. It’s just that you can’t control it, your powers that is, and I’d hate to have to beat you to a pulp.”
“I don’t-”
“I could and I would,” she reminded me. “In a heartbeat.”
I said nothing to contradict her. I knew it was true. I had seen the amazing things she could do with her TK. I would be no match, even if I could talk her into doing what I want.
“You should sleep, Alan. Tomorrow begins your new life.”
My ears perked. “What new life?”
“Welcome to the Psions,” she smiled as she walked out of the room.
“Psions,” I repeated to myself. I guess I won’t be a partner after all.
What do you think? Does it work? Should I give up on writing? Inquiring minds want to know! Also, if you haven't read the first Whiskey Tale (I call the world my Whiskey World hence calling all the stories Whiskey Tales. I usually change the title.) you can go read it here.