"Third Generation Unicorn"
"Third Generation Unicorn"
6/23/2016
I.
"I could have a different cookie every day, I like the oatmeal raisins best but they are all so good, I would eat any one of them. Even the dry old scones. If we came here every day, you could have your coffee and I would have a different cookie every day and we would both be so happy, doesn't that sound like a good idea--?"
April Whitaker had turned into a chatterbox just before her fourth birthday and now, two months later, the deluge of conversation showed no sign of slowing. Often it was just her narrating in great detail whatever had happened to her that day, but recently she had been proposing a lot of 'what if' and 'how come' questions. What would Daddy do if a dog got in our car, what would happen if she cut her own hair, why do people say 'bless you' when someone sneezes?
Securing her in the child seat in the rear of his canary-yellow Jetta, Cory Adams did his best to keep up with the flow of questions and observations. He was not by nature particularly chatty, although he had to admit April's mother sure was. The daughter took after Ashley so much that strangers smiled when they saw the two of them out together. April had the same platinum-blonde hair, pale blue eyes and cleft chin of both her mother and her grandmother. Cory saw almost nothing of himself in his daughter but who knew how she would change as she got older?
Cory himself at thirty-four was presentable if not amazingly good-looking the way his girlfriend and daughter were. He had wavy black hair and dark brown eyes, a pleasant but unremarkable face, and he had kept himself in reasonably good shape despite spending most days trapped in a cubicle preparing presentations on new smartphone features or pretending to listen at motivational meetings. Just forty minutes on the treadmill at the gym he had to pass anyway on his way home seemed to do it. Ashley said his best feature was his smile, especially when he was trying to get away with something but she sometimes remarked how proud she was that he still wore his belts at the same notch as when they had met.
Satisfied that April was snug and safe in her seat, Cory got behind the steering wheel and answered her questions about why cats don't like to get wet. That seemed to give her something to think about and she was quiet for a minute. He reached up to his sun visor and turned off the security alarm that Ashley's friend Megan had installed recently. As long as the tiny lights blinked green and blue, everything was okay. If they stayed on or turned red, it meant that someone had been in contact with the car for more than fifteen seconds and he was supposed to be on the alert for trouble.
That reminded him of the defense panel. As he started up the Jetta, Cory reached under the dashboard and swung down a black plastic panel that had a horizontal row of four toggle switches and a red button. He studied it for a second, made sure he remembered what each switch did and clicked the panel back up out of the way. As much as he loved Ashley's adventurous spirit, he was grateful she had dropped out of the Midnight War, at least until April was older. He wanted as little to do with the weird and the paranormal as possible.
Pulling out of the shopping plaza, he realized that they had been at the Barnes and Noble for over three hours. It was a great place for April to blow off steam checking out the various toys and games and activity kits for children. Today she had been obsessed with dinosaurs for some reason and the girl working that section had been incredibly patient describing how the various dinosaurs had lived and acted. She assured April that no one had ever seen a live dinosaur but yes, maybe just maybe in some jungle somewhere a few really old dinosaurs were still walking around. In fact, April was wearing her latest favorite shirt that day, a green T-shirt from the Museum of Natural History that showed the skeleton of a Triceratops.
Hitting the Long Island Expressway, Cory Adams glanced at the rear view mirror and saw April had dozed off. Well, she had gotten up extra early that day and the interior of the car was warm on the July day. Feeling it was stuffy himself, Cory wound down his window partway. He let her nap. They would be home in another thirty minutes and the silence would do him good. As long as Ashley didn't call him, in which case the ringing of his phone would roust April. Today Ashley was supposed to be in Manhattan, visiting with her friends from the Kenneth Dred Foundation. Ashley was still a member on reserve duty, and had been called three times in the past year, always in the middle of the night to rush out to handle some menacing creature or maniac. It was like being married to a police officer or a firefighter, he supposed.
Her old teammates all called her Unicorn, and he knew all about the actual Unicorn horn she carried everywhere in a cylindrical leather sheath. But, although he knew about his girlfriend's adventures in the dangerous Midnight War, he had never been affected directly by her former career.
Nearing the South Fork peninsula toward Montauk, Cory was on a relatively deserted side road. Ashley's mother Mary Cassidy owned quite a few acres out here, with a plush four-story house that just missed qualifying as a mansion. Cory, Ashley and April had been living in the family house while the mother generally stayed at her apartment in the Tribeca neighborhood in Manhattan. While Cory wanted for his little family to establish itself in its own home, he had to admit this arrangement did allow them save most of their combined income. College for little April seemed so remote but it was only thirteen years away if one thought about it.
From the corner of his eye, he spotted something coming up behind him fast. It was a black van with tinted windows, moving way over the speed limit. Cory grumbled under his breath. On either side of the road was nothing but flat dry dirt and some brush. He hit his right turn signal and pulled over to the side of the road, slowing down to a roll. If this guy was in such a hurry, let him pass. The last thing he needed was someone right on his tail the next ten miles.
Catching him completely by surprise, the van got ahead, then swerved over and blocked him. Cory had slowed down enough that he could brake in time but he felt a surge of pure anger. He had a four year old in the back seat! What was wrong with this guy? Cory started to put the car in reverse, intending to back up and get away from this maniac.
His heart almost stopped. A red pick-up truck had pulled up bare inches behind him. He was boxed in. Cory felt so panicked he could hardly breathe. He pulled down the defense panel under the dashboard but none of the gimmicks seemed useful. One discharged thick black smoke and another triggered a blinding strobe light set in the rear bumper. Another switch changed the way the tail lights looked. They were all intended to discourage pursuit. He had just enough presence of mind to press the red alert button and then his door was yanked open and he was smacked across the face with a gun of some sort.
This couldn't be happening. Cory Adams stared up at a tall man wrapped in a white raincoat with a face entirely hidden behind a full-head white cloth mask and topped with a white fedora. Even the hands were concealed behind white cotton gloves so no skin showed anywhere.
In that situation, Cory froze motionless and could not have acted no matter what. He had no idea what to say, what to try. He had never been held up before. He had never even been in a fistfight, his life had been as peaceful as anyone could have wanted. Cory stared at the gun pointed in his face and vaguely realized it was not a normal firearm. The weapon had a long flaring rubber muzzle like a fire extinguisher and there were two metal canisters the size of bullets fastened in front of the grip. What the hell? A gush of stinging white vapor spewed from the weapon right into his face and that was the last he remembered.
II.
It seemed to take forever to wake up. Voices echoed from miles away. His head was wrapped in fog thick as wool. Cory vaguely remembered something very bad had happened and he made an effort to snap out of it. Suddenly he vomited strongly, retching until nothing was left to come up. He was sitting on the ground in the hot sun, with someone rubbing his back and the world snapped back into clarity
"You'll feel better now, honey. Here, rinse and spit." A bottle of cold water was placed to his lips, he took a gulp and spat it out to clean his mouth. Again. Cory forced his eyes to focus. Unicorn was squatting next to him with her hand high up on his back. She had dragged him out of his car and propped him up against it.
"Take a second, take a second," the little blonde whispered. She was the same age as he was, thirty-four. Ashley Whitaker was less than an inch over five feet tall and weighed one hundred pounds within a pound either way. The family's glossy hair, so fair it was white, and light blue eyes in a delicate-featured face were traits she shared with both her mother and her daughter. Ashley was wearing black sneakers, snug blue jeans and a red pullover shirt with the sleeves pulled up to her elbows.
"Okay, okay, you just sit for a second," she told him. "I was already heading home myself when I got your red alert so I burned the road catching up to you. You were knocked out for half an hour. I, well, I injected you with a stimulant to counteract the gas that I can still smell on you. Sorry I don't have a legal right to do that, it's a felony actually but we have to act quick."
"Wait!" he struggled and got to his feet. "April..?"
"She's why we have to work fast. Look, we're going to leave your car here for right now. Get in mine. Come on." Once he settled into the passenger seat, Ashley ran around the front of her fire-engine red Mazda MX-5 Miata and was starting it up even as she slammed her door. Unicorn shot out onto the road, still wrestling her seat belt on with one hand as she drove.
Cory seemed to abruptly understand the situation. "She's been kidnapped. Oh jeez, Ashley, I was useless. I just sat there. I felt helpless." His voice broke and he tried to regain control. "I am absolutely useless!"
"No time for that now," Unicorn said, making a U-turn right in the road and zooming back the way they had come but this time doing more than seventy. "No one has dared try anything with our families before. They're too scared of us. This guy either has too much ego or just doesn't know who he's dealing with." She handed him a flat electronic device with a screen taking up one of its sides. "Watch this for me."
Cory blinked away moistness in his eyes and tried to get a grip. Shame and guilt were pressing down on him like a boulder. The screen on the device was covered with a grid of fine lines, and there was a blinking green dot up near the top. "What am I looking at, Ash?"
"That's a tracer. The KDF has been using them for ages. If you press the first button on the top, a local map will overlay the grid but we don't need that now. Just tell me we're heading in the same direction as the blip."
"Yes. We are. I don't... is this telling us where our daughter is?"
"Absolutely," Unicorn said. "I stuck a signal chip in every pair of shoes she owns. Yours too, maybe I should have mentioned it."
"No, that's okay. You know your business, Ash. I'm just a civilian."
Unicorn reached over and smacked him lightly on the back of the head. "One dope slap for you, Cory. You're MY civilian and I wouldn't have another. How's the blip?"
"Getting down near the center of the screen."
"Good. Good. We're catching up." As they hurtled along, up ahead a police car turned off onto a side road but for some reason didn't seem to notice them.
"Hey, a cop car. Should we report this to 911?"
"No. Police just get in my way," she said. Coming from a tiny blonde who looked as if she never encountered anything more stressful than a foot rub at a spa, her deadly calm confidence under these circumstances was shocking.
"Well, I won't be any use. I just sat there and I couldn't even react..."
"Knock it off, Cory. Feel guilty later," she said with a sharpness that cut through his emotional daze. "You've never been in this kind of situation before. But you can still help now." Ashley reached over and placed her right hand on his leg, squeezing hard. "I was brought up for this. My mom raised me to be the second Unicorn and it's going to pay off now."
He remembered now. Sitting and having coffee with the sixty-year-old Mary Cassidy, it was hard to realize that she had been a wild adventuress herself before Ashley had been born.. that she had been known and even feared as Unicorn. Or that, when Ashley had turned sixteen, Mary Cassidy had turned the name and the talisman over to her girl.
They had all even joked that little April might someday want to continue the family tradition. Third generation Unicorn, they had said. The light-hearted discussions seemed so far away now.
III.
April woke up feeling sick to her stomach. She didn't think she was going to barf but it might be close. Was she getting the flu or something? The child sat up on a double bed in a room she had never seen before. On the floor next to the bed was her car seat. "DA-Adddd?" she called. "Dad? What's going on?" No answer.
In one corner of the room, a flatscreen TV was showing Spongebob cartoons and she was distracted by this for a few minutes. Quickly enough, though, she realized how wrong everything was and she climbed down off the bed and went over to open the door. It was locked. Now she was getting scared. "Dad! Daddy!" she yelled in a high shrill voice that Nature had designed to be heard for miles. "Hello? Hello? Anyone home?"
Getting nowhere, the child wandered around the room. At four, she was capable of following short sequences. 'If this happens, do that' and "If you want some of this, you have to go there.' But she was still frequently at a loss what to do in unfamiliar scenarios. April went back to the door and pounded on it with her open hand. No one answered but she did hear a low man's voice mumble something in the room beyond. That really scared her and she was quiet after that.
If you can't get out through one door, find another door, she thought. But there was only one door. She stood thinking and went over to the window. It was a rectangle of white wood strips with square glass panes. There was a lock holding it shut that had a blob of hardened glue on it so she couldn't turn it. Whoever did that is awful dumb, she thought. April pressed her face up against the glass and saw the ground outside just a few feet beneath the window. April had been taught repeatedly that when she was in trouble, she should look for 'Helper People.' Bus drivers, firemen, police officers, doctors and nurses, they were all Helper People. Maybe if she got outside, she could find some of them and tell them that she didn't know where her daddy was.
IV.
Ten miles further on was a gravel and landfill site, with earth-moving equipment and backhoes standing about. Abandoned just off the road were the red pick-up truck and black van with tinted windows. No one was in sight.
Unicorn only slowed for a second as they went past. "How's the blip, Cory?"
"Still ahead of us," he said. "Not in the direction of those vehicles."
"All right then." The blonde accelerated again and tore along the highway. "We're dealing with at least three in the gang. They left their real vehicle here before attacking you. I'm sure we'll find that truck and van were stolen today and the police are just getting reports about the thefts now... assuming the owners noticed immediately. The bastards have our girl in their real vehicle, heading for their hideout."
"We're almost on top of the blip," he said. "It's right in the center of the screen, Ash."
"Good." She slowed and pointed at a small bungalow that sat back from the road with its own short gravel drive. Behind it was a ridge of pine trees and shrubbery that led to Long Island Sound not far away. Parked next to the bungalow was a white Ford Econoline Cargo Van they had not seen before. "Let me know if the blip gets lower on the screen."
After a mile or so, Cory Adams said, "Yes! It's down below the middle. That cottage must be where they are."
Ashley Whitaker swerved off the road and came to a halt almost touching a tree. "I want you to listen closely to me, honey. In a situation like this, I'm in charge. No hesitation and no second-guessing. Otherwise, I'll leave you behind. Are we clear on that?"
He had never heard such an edge in her voice before. Complete single-minded determination rang clearly. "I'm with you, Ash," he said. "You know what you're doing."
"Good. From your description, I think we're dealing with a minor crook called the White Crow. He only turned up in the past few months. Extortion, blackmail, that sort of thing. Nobody knows where he gets that knockout gas but it's hellishly strong stuff. I haven't heard of the White Crow pulling a kidnap before."
As she was speaking, Unicorn reached to unsnap a latch on the bottom of the driver seat. From a fitted compartment within, she drew out a small compact handgun with an extended thin barrel, clicked its magazine into place and chambered a round. "This is one of the KDF anesthetic dart guns," she explained. "They work well enough with non-lethal results and they keep us from being up on manslaughter charges all the time. But honestly, right now I wish I had a big old Colt 45 automatic to use. I don't feel merciful."
Seeing her being perfectly comfortable with that odd-looking weapon, Cory asked, "What about me? Do I get a gun? I know you have pistols locked away in hiding spots at the house."
The faintest trace of her usual smile flickered over Ashley's face. "Oh, honey. You have no training at all. You would shoot me or April or your own foot before you had a chance of nailing the bad guy. Trust me on this. I've seen amateurs in firefights, they're a menace to themselves."
"Fine. But I want to help. I'm not going to just sit here and bite my nails worrying about both my girls."
"You're going to play an important part..." she said.
A few minutes later, they both left the Mazda. Ashley got up on her toes and gave him a quick kiss. "This is gonna work out, Cory," she said. "Trust and faith!" She took off at a full run toward the trees and vanished between them. Left behind, his heart sinking with a fear he had never known before, Cory Adams started walking along the road back the way they had come. Every step took an effort.
Soon, he was standing at the point where the gravel drive met the road, facing the bungalow. Following Unicorn's instructions, Cory walked slowly halfway to the building, glimpsing a curtain move in the front window, and just fell flat on his face. He tried to make it look as convincing as possible.
As Ashley had told him, the crooks could not dare leave him just lying out there in the open. The chance that a driver going by would phone 911 and that the yard would be filled with police, EMTS and local volunteer firemen would be too risky. Almost immediately, the front door slammed open. A red-bearded man in a flannel shirt and dungarees came hustling out, his beer belly wobbling. Looking to both sides, he grabbed Cory under the arms and dragged him frantically back toward the open door of the bungalow where another man helped him.
Keeping his eyes closed, staying limp, Cory Adams felt his heart pounding so hard it alarmed him. One voice said, "It's the father, all right. But where's his car? Don't tell me he walked this far?"
From directly over him, a deep male voice with a faint accent said, "He is not the threat, fools. It is the mother we must be on guard against."
"You're so right!" sang out Unicorn from the other side of the room. "Freeze right there. You're close to death right now."
Rolling over and opening his eyes, Cory took in the situation. Ashley had snuck into the house by the back door while the men were occupied with him. She took in the doorway across the room from the kidnapers, both arms extended in a marksman's stance with one leg in front of the other.
"Cory!" she snapped. "Don't move, either. White Crow, huh? Keep those hands right where they are. I'm aching to put a few rounds through that white mask."
Looking up, Cory saw the man in all white was still concealed by his mask and gloves. One hand rested on the end table next to him, the other was slightly raised. "Ah, Unicorn. I had hoped we would not be communicating in person."
"That accent. Danarakan, eh? You're African. Where is my daughter?"
"She is safe. I will give you instructions where to find her but you must realize we did not do this for mere ransom money." The White Crow inclined his head toward his two henchmen, both common-looking thugs in work clothes. "There is a buyer for your famous talisman."
"The Unicorn horn," she said. "You idiot. Whatever he paid you, it's not enough to die for. You didn't have time to hide April anywhere. I bet she's right in one of these rooms."
As she spoke, Ashley's eyes flickered involuntarily toward the closed bedroom door, the most obvious place for her daughter to be kept. In that split-second, the nearest of thugs lunged for her and she fired the silent dart gun. The sudden pain of the sharp point sinking into his neck, followed instantly by a burning agony as the drug was injected into his system, was enough to make the henchman stop in mid-stride. Less than a second later, he was dazed and disoriented and then he was sagging to the bare wooden floor as if he suddenly had become extremely tired.
During the brief interaction, the White Crow had swung up his own odd-looking weapon and discharged a burst of the white vapor under high pressure. It slapped into Unicorn's face and she took a breath of it before she could react. The blonde reeled back drunkenly, dropped her dart gun and fell onto her back not far from the thug she had felled with the anesthetic dart.
While all this was going on, Cory Adams had jumped to his feet and tried to tackle the White Crow. He meant well and gave it his best try but he was inexperienced and up against a tough trained fighter. The masked man sank his fist deep into Cory's stomach, doubling him up, and then cracked the butt of his gas gun down across the top of the civilian's head. Cory did not completely lose consciousness but he was too dazed to get up or try to get away. He remained on hands and knees with his head hanging down and breathing harshly.
"In many ways, this complicates things," the White Crow told his remaining thug.
"What about Jack here? Is he gonna be all right?"
"Yes. The KDF is famous for their anesthetic darts. To tell you a secret, a few of their darts were retrieved undischarged from a battle last year and my chemist broke down the anesthetic formula enough to rework it for my gas gun. In a way, Unicorn and I are using related weapons." He chuckled as if he found this deeply amusing.
VII.
It had been years since Ashley Whitaker had regained consciousness to find herself tied up. She remembered to not show motion at first, to keep her eyes closed and her breathing shallow. Unicorn took in her situation. She was leaning back up against a wall with her wrists bound tightly behind her. Her legs were stretched out in front, and she could feel her ankles were tied way too tightly to be good for her circulation. Next to her was a warm solid presence that could only be Cory.
"Hey, boss, I think Blondie here is waking up," came a gruff voice near her face. "She's fakin' being out cold."
"Indeed," said the voice of White Crow. "In only five minutes? That's remarkable. My gas is calculated to leave someone unconscious for at least a half hour. It must be that Tel Shai healing we hear so much about."
A stiff hand slapped her painfully hard across the face. Ashley's eyes snapped open and she wriggled, trying to get up. "I demand to see our daughter!" she yelled.
"You are in a position unsuitable for demands," the White Crow said smugly. "But I can assure you that she has not been harmed. A little co-operation and none of you need suffer. Just surrender the horn and we will phone the police to come here and untie you once we are a safe distance away."
"Yeah, right! Like I can trust a kidnaper's word. There's a reason why kidnaping is a capital offense. Scum like you deserves the death penalty." Ashley stopped her efforts to get up and exchanged anxious glances with Cory next to her. He was tied hand and foot as well, but neither had been gagged.
"With my fee for the Unicorn horn, life in the South of France will be comfortable enough," said the White Crow. "My employer intends to use it in the ongoing Midnight War but honestly that is not my area of interest."
Ashley brought the anger in her voice under control. "Listen. Try to follow what I'm saying. That horn will not work for just anyone. My mother spent a year in Okali. She rescued an injured baby Unicorn and nursed it back to health. When the Unicorn died of natural causes later, its horn dropped off by itself into my mother's lap... a sign she was meant to have it."
The White Crow scoffed. "Go on, this is most amusing. I love nursery tales."
"When I became the new Unicorn, Mom gifted me with the horn. It only works for the two of us. The guy who hired you will only be buying a plain piece of ivory. This is a waste of your time and his." This was not at all true. The horn had been blesssed by the Eldarin ages ago and would in fact work for anyone holding it, but this was not something Ashley wanted the White Crow to learn.
Again, the man in white made a dismissing noise. "Feh. Little do I care. I will be keeping my word. Whether or not this horn works for him is not my concern." Only a pair of dark intense eyes could be seen in the featureless cloth mask. The White Crow tilted his fedora back on his head and went over to sit in an easy chair facing the two prisoners.
"I'm afraid it's time to bring up the unpleasant subject of torture. I dislike doing it myself but I believe Gerry here has no problems with the practice. In fact, he rather likes it. Is that so, Gerry?
The henchman who had been knocked out by Ashley's anesthetic dart was standing with his partner off to one side. "Sure, boss. It don't bother me none. Start with the blondie, I guess."
"No. She is a former KDF member and Tel Shai knight," the White Crow said. "Her threshhold for pain is high and she will not break easily. I think maybe her lover there will be easier to crack. He looks like a pampered office drone."
"Wait a minute," Ashley interrupted. "How is it that guy is up and walking around already? I tagged him with a dart."
"The gas I use is based on your dart drug. My staff found a counteragent that revives victims quickly, although it leaves them nauseous. Very well, Gerry. Put down a tarp under the man first. There's going to be a lot of blood before it's all over-"
His words were cut off as someone kicked the door open behind them. Gerry swung around just in time to catch two bullets high in the chest that knocked him down. The echoes of the gunshots were deafening in that enclosed space.
Standing in the doorway was a woman in her middle sixties, a little thick around the middle but otherwise obviously still fit and active. She was wearing a dark short-sleeved blouse over olive-drab slacks. The collar-length hair was silver now rather than platinum blonde, and there were fine lines in the face but the resemblance between her and both Ashley and April was amazing.
"This is a Ruger LCP 380," she announced, swinging the compact little handgun to cover both the White Crow and the remaining henchman. "My favorite weapon and I am so good with it. Ashley, Cory, you both saw that punk was going for his gun and I had to shoot him in self-defense, right?"
"That's exactly what I saw, Mom," Ashley laughed. "You had no choice."
"Same... same here," added Cory Adams. He had never seen Ashley's mother as acting anything but languid and distracted in her Tribeca apartment full of curios. Now she seemed to be cold steel.
"Sorry it took me so long to get here. I was just leaving Manhattan when I saw the red alert. That tracer gadget is a big help." Mary Cassidy frowned at the other thug. "I'm warning you, get your hands up. Don't reach for that gun."
"What? I ain't got no gun-" His words were cut off as a slug tunneled a path into his head just above the eyes. The man fell straight down, landing on his knees and dropping forward face down.
"These fools are forcing me to defend myself," the original Unicorn said. There was no humor in her voice. Despite the contradiction between what had happened and what she said, her tone was completely serious. "Ashley, Cory, I'll untie you two in a minute. You, the White Crow or whatever you call yourself, give me an answer I'll like. Where is my grandaughter?!"
The man in white had raised his hands helplessly. He had jumped out of the chair when she had crashed the door open, which left him much too far from his gas gun to entertain any thought of successfully going for it. "Wait, wait, don't kill me. She's in that bedroom, I swear it. No one hurt her in the slightest. See for yourself."
Stepping closer, the gun absolutely steady in her grip, Mary Cassidy whispered, "You only have a few seconds left. If she's in there, why hasn't all this noise scared her? Why don't we hear her crying?"
"Because I gave her a good dose of my knockout gas. At her size, I calculate she will be waking up soon," the White Crow said in an unsteady voice. "I assure you, her pulse was strong and she was resting comfortably when we left her in there."
"Good." The original Unicorn took another step toward the man in white. "I don't care who you are under that mask. It doesn't matter. You threatened the three people I love most in all the world." And she fired three more times. The white mask caved in with a spout of bright blood spraying out through the material. The kidnaper sagged in a limp heap back into the chair he had been sitting in only a minute earlier.
"Never get a grandma angry," Ashley told Cory with a straight face. "They just lose it completely." He was so stunned by the violence in front of him that he could only nod.
Unfolding a pocket knife, the original Unicorn knelt and sawed through the clothesline tying Ashley, then handed her the knife. "Here. Get Cory free, I'm going to check on April."
In the few seconds it took Ashley to cut Cory loose, the grandmother marched over and unlocked the door to the bedroom. In a strangely baffled voice, she called over, "You two need to get a look at this."
VII.
The bedroom was empty and the window had been slid wide open. "Look," Mary said. "See these nail clippers? The small cuticle blade is open. Someone used it like a screwdriver to unscrew the lock on the window and open it."
"Oh, April wouldn't know how to do that," Ashley gasped as if afraid to admit that her daughter did indeed know such tricks.
"I dunno..." Cory muttered. "She watches everything and asks questions non-stop. I wouldn't put much past her. But come on, we have to start looking for her."
"Split up. Three different ways, hurry." As Mary and Cory headed back out into the living room to leave by the front door, Ashley Whitaker hesitated and then scrambled out through the window. Crouching low, she thought she could just detect a tiny sneakerprint in the soft dirt.
"Hey! Hey, you two! This way!" With that, Unicorn was off at a full run along the treeline. Her mother and boyfriend were soon trailing behind her but could not catch up. Every now and then, she got a glimpse of another miniature footprint and was convinced that April was walking parallel to the highway. Well, that figured, Ashley thought. She knows she's not allowed to cross a street by herself.
In a few more minutes, they were closing in on Ashley's Mazda Miata and saw that the right rear door was open. Two little feet were dangling down. As Unicorn hurtled up, she stopped short in overpowering relief and surprise.
April was nibbling crumbs from inside a napkin she had stuffed in her rear pocket. "Oh, hi, Mommy. I saved half my cookie from before. This is NOT a second cookie because you said I could only have one.."
Unicorn seized her daughter in a bear hug and swung her around, the child's legs dangling free. "Oh baby, I can't talk right now. Mmmmph! Big hug! Who loves you so much? Who loves you?"
Seeing the other two family members running up, April squealed like a dolphin. "Daddy! Gramma! Hi!"
Everyone gathered around the child and assured themselves that she had not been harmed. There was not a mark on her. She started babbling about taking a nap in someone's room where Spongebob was on TV, but then she had to pee real bad and no one came when she called and she was afraid of getting in trouble, so she climbed out the window and relieved herself behind a tree before taking off to find one of the Helper People like a firefighter or a nurse.
"Sweetie, how did you know how to unscrew that lock?" asked Ashley.
"I saw Gramma do it once when we were locked out of the house," the child explained cheerfully.
Making an embarrased throat-clearing sound, Mary Cassidy backed up. "Well. Imagine that. I had better get back to that house and fetch my own car. Then I have to get rid of this gun, which is too bad because it's my favorite. Let the cops figure out that crime scene any way they want. I'll meet all of you back at the house?"
"Wait, ride with us back there," Ashley said. "We need her car seat. She can't ride around without one. Come on, everyone in. April, you want to let Gramma hold you?"
"Sure. Where's Daddy's car? We were riding in it. He doesn't drive real fast like Mommy does. Who was that funny man in the white clothes? I didn't like him at ALL. Is Gramma gonna have dinner with us? Can we go for ice cream after dinner, I haven't had ice cream in the longest time..." The dam had burst and April was chatting away again.
Getting everyone settled in the Mazda, Ashley got behind the wheel and started it up. Next to her, Cory was almost trembling with relief after all the tension of the past few hours was released. He leaned back and heard his daughter going on about everything that passed through her head.
"Listen to April, rambling like nothing bad happened. She sure bounces back completely," he told her.
Ashley Whitaker sounded like her usual self again for the first time that day as she chuckled, "Third generation Unicorn coming up!"
10/27/2016
6/23/2016
I.
"I could have a different cookie every day, I like the oatmeal raisins best but they are all so good, I would eat any one of them. Even the dry old scones. If we came here every day, you could have your coffee and I would have a different cookie every day and we would both be so happy, doesn't that sound like a good idea--?"
April Whitaker had turned into a chatterbox just before her fourth birthday and now, two months later, the deluge of conversation showed no sign of slowing. Often it was just her narrating in great detail whatever had happened to her that day, but recently she had been proposing a lot of 'what if' and 'how come' questions. What would Daddy do if a dog got in our car, what would happen if she cut her own hair, why do people say 'bless you' when someone sneezes?
Securing her in the child seat in the rear of his canary-yellow Jetta, Cory Adams did his best to keep up with the flow of questions and observations. He was not by nature particularly chatty, although he had to admit April's mother sure was. The daughter took after Ashley so much that strangers smiled when they saw the two of them out together. April had the same platinum-blonde hair, pale blue eyes and cleft chin of both her mother and her grandmother. Cory saw almost nothing of himself in his daughter but who knew how she would change as she got older?
Cory himself at thirty-four was presentable if not amazingly good-looking the way his girlfriend and daughter were. He had wavy black hair and dark brown eyes, a pleasant but unremarkable face, and he had kept himself in reasonably good shape despite spending most days trapped in a cubicle preparing presentations on new smartphone features or pretending to listen at motivational meetings. Just forty minutes on the treadmill at the gym he had to pass anyway on his way home seemed to do it. Ashley said his best feature was his smile, especially when he was trying to get away with something but she sometimes remarked how proud she was that he still wore his belts at the same notch as when they had met.
Satisfied that April was snug and safe in her seat, Cory got behind the steering wheel and answered her questions about why cats don't like to get wet. That seemed to give her something to think about and she was quiet for a minute. He reached up to his sun visor and turned off the security alarm that Ashley's friend Megan had installed recently. As long as the tiny lights blinked green and blue, everything was okay. If they stayed on or turned red, it meant that someone had been in contact with the car for more than fifteen seconds and he was supposed to be on the alert for trouble.
That reminded him of the defense panel. As he started up the Jetta, Cory reached under the dashboard and swung down a black plastic panel that had a horizontal row of four toggle switches and a red button. He studied it for a second, made sure he remembered what each switch did and clicked the panel back up out of the way. As much as he loved Ashley's adventurous spirit, he was grateful she had dropped out of the Midnight War, at least until April was older. He wanted as little to do with the weird and the paranormal as possible.
Pulling out of the shopping plaza, he realized that they had been at the Barnes and Noble for over three hours. It was a great place for April to blow off steam checking out the various toys and games and activity kits for children. Today she had been obsessed with dinosaurs for some reason and the girl working that section had been incredibly patient describing how the various dinosaurs had lived and acted. She assured April that no one had ever seen a live dinosaur but yes, maybe just maybe in some jungle somewhere a few really old dinosaurs were still walking around. In fact, April was wearing her latest favorite shirt that day, a green T-shirt from the Museum of Natural History that showed the skeleton of a Triceratops.
Hitting the Long Island Expressway, Cory Adams glanced at the rear view mirror and saw April had dozed off. Well, she had gotten up extra early that day and the interior of the car was warm on the July day. Feeling it was stuffy himself, Cory wound down his window partway. He let her nap. They would be home in another thirty minutes and the silence would do him good. As long as Ashley didn't call him, in which case the ringing of his phone would roust April. Today Ashley was supposed to be in Manhattan, visiting with her friends from the Kenneth Dred Foundation. Ashley was still a member on reserve duty, and had been called three times in the past year, always in the middle of the night to rush out to handle some menacing creature or maniac. It was like being married to a police officer or a firefighter, he supposed.
Her old teammates all called her Unicorn, and he knew all about the actual Unicorn horn she carried everywhere in a cylindrical leather sheath. But, although he knew about his girlfriend's adventures in the dangerous Midnight War, he had never been affected directly by her former career.
Nearing the South Fork peninsula toward Montauk, Cory was on a relatively deserted side road. Ashley's mother Mary Cassidy owned quite a few acres out here, with a plush four-story house that just missed qualifying as a mansion. Cory, Ashley and April had been living in the family house while the mother generally stayed at her apartment in the Tribeca neighborhood in Manhattan. While Cory wanted for his little family to establish itself in its own home, he had to admit this arrangement did allow them save most of their combined income. College for little April seemed so remote but it was only thirteen years away if one thought about it.
From the corner of his eye, he spotted something coming up behind him fast. It was a black van with tinted windows, moving way over the speed limit. Cory grumbled under his breath. On either side of the road was nothing but flat dry dirt and some brush. He hit his right turn signal and pulled over to the side of the road, slowing down to a roll. If this guy was in such a hurry, let him pass. The last thing he needed was someone right on his tail the next ten miles.
Catching him completely by surprise, the van got ahead, then swerved over and blocked him. Cory had slowed down enough that he could brake in time but he felt a surge of pure anger. He had a four year old in the back seat! What was wrong with this guy? Cory started to put the car in reverse, intending to back up and get away from this maniac.
His heart almost stopped. A red pick-up truck had pulled up bare inches behind him. He was boxed in. Cory felt so panicked he could hardly breathe. He pulled down the defense panel under the dashboard but none of the gimmicks seemed useful. One discharged thick black smoke and another triggered a blinding strobe light set in the rear bumper. Another switch changed the way the tail lights looked. They were all intended to discourage pursuit. He had just enough presence of mind to press the red alert button and then his door was yanked open and he was smacked across the face with a gun of some sort.
This couldn't be happening. Cory Adams stared up at a tall man wrapped in a white raincoat with a face entirely hidden behind a full-head white cloth mask and topped with a white fedora. Even the hands were concealed behind white cotton gloves so no skin showed anywhere.
In that situation, Cory froze motionless and could not have acted no matter what. He had no idea what to say, what to try. He had never been held up before. He had never even been in a fistfight, his life had been as peaceful as anyone could have wanted. Cory stared at the gun pointed in his face and vaguely realized it was not a normal firearm. The weapon had a long flaring rubber muzzle like a fire extinguisher and there were two metal canisters the size of bullets fastened in front of the grip. What the hell? A gush of stinging white vapor spewed from the weapon right into his face and that was the last he remembered.
II.
It seemed to take forever to wake up. Voices echoed from miles away. His head was wrapped in fog thick as wool. Cory vaguely remembered something very bad had happened and he made an effort to snap out of it. Suddenly he vomited strongly, retching until nothing was left to come up. He was sitting on the ground in the hot sun, with someone rubbing his back and the world snapped back into clarity
"You'll feel better now, honey. Here, rinse and spit." A bottle of cold water was placed to his lips, he took a gulp and spat it out to clean his mouth. Again. Cory forced his eyes to focus. Unicorn was squatting next to him with her hand high up on his back. She had dragged him out of his car and propped him up against it.
"Take a second, take a second," the little blonde whispered. She was the same age as he was, thirty-four. Ashley Whitaker was less than an inch over five feet tall and weighed one hundred pounds within a pound either way. The family's glossy hair, so fair it was white, and light blue eyes in a delicate-featured face were traits she shared with both her mother and her daughter. Ashley was wearing black sneakers, snug blue jeans and a red pullover shirt with the sleeves pulled up to her elbows.
"Okay, okay, you just sit for a second," she told him. "I was already heading home myself when I got your red alert so I burned the road catching up to you. You were knocked out for half an hour. I, well, I injected you with a stimulant to counteract the gas that I can still smell on you. Sorry I don't have a legal right to do that, it's a felony actually but we have to act quick."
"Wait!" he struggled and got to his feet. "April..?"
"She's why we have to work fast. Look, we're going to leave your car here for right now. Get in mine. Come on." Once he settled into the passenger seat, Ashley ran around the front of her fire-engine red Mazda MX-5 Miata and was starting it up even as she slammed her door. Unicorn shot out onto the road, still wrestling her seat belt on with one hand as she drove.
Cory seemed to abruptly understand the situation. "She's been kidnapped. Oh jeez, Ashley, I was useless. I just sat there. I felt helpless." His voice broke and he tried to regain control. "I am absolutely useless!"
"No time for that now," Unicorn said, making a U-turn right in the road and zooming back the way they had come but this time doing more than seventy. "No one has dared try anything with our families before. They're too scared of us. This guy either has too much ego or just doesn't know who he's dealing with." She handed him a flat electronic device with a screen taking up one of its sides. "Watch this for me."
Cory blinked away moistness in his eyes and tried to get a grip. Shame and guilt were pressing down on him like a boulder. The screen on the device was covered with a grid of fine lines, and there was a blinking green dot up near the top. "What am I looking at, Ash?"
"That's a tracer. The KDF has been using them for ages. If you press the first button on the top, a local map will overlay the grid but we don't need that now. Just tell me we're heading in the same direction as the blip."
"Yes. We are. I don't... is this telling us where our daughter is?"
"Absolutely," Unicorn said. "I stuck a signal chip in every pair of shoes she owns. Yours too, maybe I should have mentioned it."
"No, that's okay. You know your business, Ash. I'm just a civilian."
Unicorn reached over and smacked him lightly on the back of the head. "One dope slap for you, Cory. You're MY civilian and I wouldn't have another. How's the blip?"
"Getting down near the center of the screen."
"Good. Good. We're catching up." As they hurtled along, up ahead a police car turned off onto a side road but for some reason didn't seem to notice them.
"Hey, a cop car. Should we report this to 911?"
"No. Police just get in my way," she said. Coming from a tiny blonde who looked as if she never encountered anything more stressful than a foot rub at a spa, her deadly calm confidence under these circumstances was shocking.
"Well, I won't be any use. I just sat there and I couldn't even react..."
"Knock it off, Cory. Feel guilty later," she said with a sharpness that cut through his emotional daze. "You've never been in this kind of situation before. But you can still help now." Ashley reached over and placed her right hand on his leg, squeezing hard. "I was brought up for this. My mom raised me to be the second Unicorn and it's going to pay off now."
He remembered now. Sitting and having coffee with the sixty-year-old Mary Cassidy, it was hard to realize that she had been a wild adventuress herself before Ashley had been born.. that she had been known and even feared as Unicorn. Or that, when Ashley had turned sixteen, Mary Cassidy had turned the name and the talisman over to her girl.
They had all even joked that little April might someday want to continue the family tradition. Third generation Unicorn, they had said. The light-hearted discussions seemed so far away now.
III.
April woke up feeling sick to her stomach. She didn't think she was going to barf but it might be close. Was she getting the flu or something? The child sat up on a double bed in a room she had never seen before. On the floor next to the bed was her car seat. "DA-Adddd?" she called. "Dad? What's going on?" No answer.
In one corner of the room, a flatscreen TV was showing Spongebob cartoons and she was distracted by this for a few minutes. Quickly enough, though, she realized how wrong everything was and she climbed down off the bed and went over to open the door. It was locked. Now she was getting scared. "Dad! Daddy!" she yelled in a high shrill voice that Nature had designed to be heard for miles. "Hello? Hello? Anyone home?"
Getting nowhere, the child wandered around the room. At four, she was capable of following short sequences. 'If this happens, do that' and "If you want some of this, you have to go there.' But she was still frequently at a loss what to do in unfamiliar scenarios. April went back to the door and pounded on it with her open hand. No one answered but she did hear a low man's voice mumble something in the room beyond. That really scared her and she was quiet after that.
If you can't get out through one door, find another door, she thought. But there was only one door. She stood thinking and went over to the window. It was a rectangle of white wood strips with square glass panes. There was a lock holding it shut that had a blob of hardened glue on it so she couldn't turn it. Whoever did that is awful dumb, she thought. April pressed her face up against the glass and saw the ground outside just a few feet beneath the window. April had been taught repeatedly that when she was in trouble, she should look for 'Helper People.' Bus drivers, firemen, police officers, doctors and nurses, they were all Helper People. Maybe if she got outside, she could find some of them and tell them that she didn't know where her daddy was.
IV.
Ten miles further on was a gravel and landfill site, with earth-moving equipment and backhoes standing about. Abandoned just off the road were the red pick-up truck and black van with tinted windows. No one was in sight.
Unicorn only slowed for a second as they went past. "How's the blip, Cory?"
"Still ahead of us," he said. "Not in the direction of those vehicles."
"All right then." The blonde accelerated again and tore along the highway. "We're dealing with at least three in the gang. They left their real vehicle here before attacking you. I'm sure we'll find that truck and van were stolen today and the police are just getting reports about the thefts now... assuming the owners noticed immediately. The bastards have our girl in their real vehicle, heading for their hideout."
"We're almost on top of the blip," he said. "It's right in the center of the screen, Ash."
"Good." She slowed and pointed at a small bungalow that sat back from the road with its own short gravel drive. Behind it was a ridge of pine trees and shrubbery that led to Long Island Sound not far away. Parked next to the bungalow was a white Ford Econoline Cargo Van they had not seen before. "Let me know if the blip gets lower on the screen."
After a mile or so, Cory Adams said, "Yes! It's down below the middle. That cottage must be where they are."
Ashley Whitaker swerved off the road and came to a halt almost touching a tree. "I want you to listen closely to me, honey. In a situation like this, I'm in charge. No hesitation and no second-guessing. Otherwise, I'll leave you behind. Are we clear on that?"
He had never heard such an edge in her voice before. Complete single-minded determination rang clearly. "I'm with you, Ash," he said. "You know what you're doing."
"Good. From your description, I think we're dealing with a minor crook called the White Crow. He only turned up in the past few months. Extortion, blackmail, that sort of thing. Nobody knows where he gets that knockout gas but it's hellishly strong stuff. I haven't heard of the White Crow pulling a kidnap before."
As she was speaking, Unicorn reached to unsnap a latch on the bottom of the driver seat. From a fitted compartment within, she drew out a small compact handgun with an extended thin barrel, clicked its magazine into place and chambered a round. "This is one of the KDF anesthetic dart guns," she explained. "They work well enough with non-lethal results and they keep us from being up on manslaughter charges all the time. But honestly, right now I wish I had a big old Colt 45 automatic to use. I don't feel merciful."
Seeing her being perfectly comfortable with that odd-looking weapon, Cory asked, "What about me? Do I get a gun? I know you have pistols locked away in hiding spots at the house."
The faintest trace of her usual smile flickered over Ashley's face. "Oh, honey. You have no training at all. You would shoot me or April or your own foot before you had a chance of nailing the bad guy. Trust me on this. I've seen amateurs in firefights, they're a menace to themselves."
"Fine. But I want to help. I'm not going to just sit here and bite my nails worrying about both my girls."
"You're going to play an important part..." she said.
A few minutes later, they both left the Mazda. Ashley got up on her toes and gave him a quick kiss. "This is gonna work out, Cory," she said. "Trust and faith!" She took off at a full run toward the trees and vanished between them. Left behind, his heart sinking with a fear he had never known before, Cory Adams started walking along the road back the way they had come. Every step took an effort.
Soon, he was standing at the point where the gravel drive met the road, facing the bungalow. Following Unicorn's instructions, Cory walked slowly halfway to the building, glimpsing a curtain move in the front window, and just fell flat on his face. He tried to make it look as convincing as possible.
As Ashley had told him, the crooks could not dare leave him just lying out there in the open. The chance that a driver going by would phone 911 and that the yard would be filled with police, EMTS and local volunteer firemen would be too risky. Almost immediately, the front door slammed open. A red-bearded man in a flannel shirt and dungarees came hustling out, his beer belly wobbling. Looking to both sides, he grabbed Cory under the arms and dragged him frantically back toward the open door of the bungalow where another man helped him.
Keeping his eyes closed, staying limp, Cory Adams felt his heart pounding so hard it alarmed him. One voice said, "It's the father, all right. But where's his car? Don't tell me he walked this far?"
From directly over him, a deep male voice with a faint accent said, "He is not the threat, fools. It is the mother we must be on guard against."
"You're so right!" sang out Unicorn from the other side of the room. "Freeze right there. You're close to death right now."
Rolling over and opening his eyes, Cory took in the situation. Ashley had snuck into the house by the back door while the men were occupied with him. She took in the doorway across the room from the kidnapers, both arms extended in a marksman's stance with one leg in front of the other.
"Cory!" she snapped. "Don't move, either. White Crow, huh? Keep those hands right where they are. I'm aching to put a few rounds through that white mask."
Looking up, Cory saw the man in all white was still concealed by his mask and gloves. One hand rested on the end table next to him, the other was slightly raised. "Ah, Unicorn. I had hoped we would not be communicating in person."
"That accent. Danarakan, eh? You're African. Where is my daughter?"
"She is safe. I will give you instructions where to find her but you must realize we did not do this for mere ransom money." The White Crow inclined his head toward his two henchmen, both common-looking thugs in work clothes. "There is a buyer for your famous talisman."
"The Unicorn horn," she said. "You idiot. Whatever he paid you, it's not enough to die for. You didn't have time to hide April anywhere. I bet she's right in one of these rooms."
As she spoke, Ashley's eyes flickered involuntarily toward the closed bedroom door, the most obvious place for her daughter to be kept. In that split-second, the nearest of thugs lunged for her and she fired the silent dart gun. The sudden pain of the sharp point sinking into his neck, followed instantly by a burning agony as the drug was injected into his system, was enough to make the henchman stop in mid-stride. Less than a second later, he was dazed and disoriented and then he was sagging to the bare wooden floor as if he suddenly had become extremely tired.
During the brief interaction, the White Crow had swung up his own odd-looking weapon and discharged a burst of the white vapor under high pressure. It slapped into Unicorn's face and she took a breath of it before she could react. The blonde reeled back drunkenly, dropped her dart gun and fell onto her back not far from the thug she had felled with the anesthetic dart.
While all this was going on, Cory Adams had jumped to his feet and tried to tackle the White Crow. He meant well and gave it his best try but he was inexperienced and up against a tough trained fighter. The masked man sank his fist deep into Cory's stomach, doubling him up, and then cracked the butt of his gas gun down across the top of the civilian's head. Cory did not completely lose consciousness but he was too dazed to get up or try to get away. He remained on hands and knees with his head hanging down and breathing harshly.
"In many ways, this complicates things," the White Crow told his remaining thug.
"What about Jack here? Is he gonna be all right?"
"Yes. The KDF is famous for their anesthetic darts. To tell you a secret, a few of their darts were retrieved undischarged from a battle last year and my chemist broke down the anesthetic formula enough to rework it for my gas gun. In a way, Unicorn and I are using related weapons." He chuckled as if he found this deeply amusing.
VII.
It had been years since Ashley Whitaker had regained consciousness to find herself tied up. She remembered to not show motion at first, to keep her eyes closed and her breathing shallow. Unicorn took in her situation. She was leaning back up against a wall with her wrists bound tightly behind her. Her legs were stretched out in front, and she could feel her ankles were tied way too tightly to be good for her circulation. Next to her was a warm solid presence that could only be Cory.
"Hey, boss, I think Blondie here is waking up," came a gruff voice near her face. "She's fakin' being out cold."
"Indeed," said the voice of White Crow. "In only five minutes? That's remarkable. My gas is calculated to leave someone unconscious for at least a half hour. It must be that Tel Shai healing we hear so much about."
A stiff hand slapped her painfully hard across the face. Ashley's eyes snapped open and she wriggled, trying to get up. "I demand to see our daughter!" she yelled.
"You are in a position unsuitable for demands," the White Crow said smugly. "But I can assure you that she has not been harmed. A little co-operation and none of you need suffer. Just surrender the horn and we will phone the police to come here and untie you once we are a safe distance away."
"Yeah, right! Like I can trust a kidnaper's word. There's a reason why kidnaping is a capital offense. Scum like you deserves the death penalty." Ashley stopped her efforts to get up and exchanged anxious glances with Cory next to her. He was tied hand and foot as well, but neither had been gagged.
"With my fee for the Unicorn horn, life in the South of France will be comfortable enough," said the White Crow. "My employer intends to use it in the ongoing Midnight War but honestly that is not my area of interest."
Ashley brought the anger in her voice under control. "Listen. Try to follow what I'm saying. That horn will not work for just anyone. My mother spent a year in Okali. She rescued an injured baby Unicorn and nursed it back to health. When the Unicorn died of natural causes later, its horn dropped off by itself into my mother's lap... a sign she was meant to have it."
The White Crow scoffed. "Go on, this is most amusing. I love nursery tales."
"When I became the new Unicorn, Mom gifted me with the horn. It only works for the two of us. The guy who hired you will only be buying a plain piece of ivory. This is a waste of your time and his." This was not at all true. The horn had been blesssed by the Eldarin ages ago and would in fact work for anyone holding it, but this was not something Ashley wanted the White Crow to learn.
Again, the man in white made a dismissing noise. "Feh. Little do I care. I will be keeping my word. Whether or not this horn works for him is not my concern." Only a pair of dark intense eyes could be seen in the featureless cloth mask. The White Crow tilted his fedora back on his head and went over to sit in an easy chair facing the two prisoners.
"I'm afraid it's time to bring up the unpleasant subject of torture. I dislike doing it myself but I believe Gerry here has no problems with the practice. In fact, he rather likes it. Is that so, Gerry?
The henchman who had been knocked out by Ashley's anesthetic dart was standing with his partner off to one side. "Sure, boss. It don't bother me none. Start with the blondie, I guess."
"No. She is a former KDF member and Tel Shai knight," the White Crow said. "Her threshhold for pain is high and she will not break easily. I think maybe her lover there will be easier to crack. He looks like a pampered office drone."
"Wait a minute," Ashley interrupted. "How is it that guy is up and walking around already? I tagged him with a dart."
"The gas I use is based on your dart drug. My staff found a counteragent that revives victims quickly, although it leaves them nauseous. Very well, Gerry. Put down a tarp under the man first. There's going to be a lot of blood before it's all over-"
His words were cut off as someone kicked the door open behind them. Gerry swung around just in time to catch two bullets high in the chest that knocked him down. The echoes of the gunshots were deafening in that enclosed space.
Standing in the doorway was a woman in her middle sixties, a little thick around the middle but otherwise obviously still fit and active. She was wearing a dark short-sleeved blouse over olive-drab slacks. The collar-length hair was silver now rather than platinum blonde, and there were fine lines in the face but the resemblance between her and both Ashley and April was amazing.
"This is a Ruger LCP 380," she announced, swinging the compact little handgun to cover both the White Crow and the remaining henchman. "My favorite weapon and I am so good with it. Ashley, Cory, you both saw that punk was going for his gun and I had to shoot him in self-defense, right?"
"That's exactly what I saw, Mom," Ashley laughed. "You had no choice."
"Same... same here," added Cory Adams. He had never seen Ashley's mother as acting anything but languid and distracted in her Tribeca apartment full of curios. Now she seemed to be cold steel.
"Sorry it took me so long to get here. I was just leaving Manhattan when I saw the red alert. That tracer gadget is a big help." Mary Cassidy frowned at the other thug. "I'm warning you, get your hands up. Don't reach for that gun."
"What? I ain't got no gun-" His words were cut off as a slug tunneled a path into his head just above the eyes. The man fell straight down, landing on his knees and dropping forward face down.
"These fools are forcing me to defend myself," the original Unicorn said. There was no humor in her voice. Despite the contradiction between what had happened and what she said, her tone was completely serious. "Ashley, Cory, I'll untie you two in a minute. You, the White Crow or whatever you call yourself, give me an answer I'll like. Where is my grandaughter?!"
The man in white had raised his hands helplessly. He had jumped out of the chair when she had crashed the door open, which left him much too far from his gas gun to entertain any thought of successfully going for it. "Wait, wait, don't kill me. She's in that bedroom, I swear it. No one hurt her in the slightest. See for yourself."
Stepping closer, the gun absolutely steady in her grip, Mary Cassidy whispered, "You only have a few seconds left. If she's in there, why hasn't all this noise scared her? Why don't we hear her crying?"
"Because I gave her a good dose of my knockout gas. At her size, I calculate she will be waking up soon," the White Crow said in an unsteady voice. "I assure you, her pulse was strong and she was resting comfortably when we left her in there."
"Good." The original Unicorn took another step toward the man in white. "I don't care who you are under that mask. It doesn't matter. You threatened the three people I love most in all the world." And she fired three more times. The white mask caved in with a spout of bright blood spraying out through the material. The kidnaper sagged in a limp heap back into the chair he had been sitting in only a minute earlier.
"Never get a grandma angry," Ashley told Cory with a straight face. "They just lose it completely." He was so stunned by the violence in front of him that he could only nod.
Unfolding a pocket knife, the original Unicorn knelt and sawed through the clothesline tying Ashley, then handed her the knife. "Here. Get Cory free, I'm going to check on April."
In the few seconds it took Ashley to cut Cory loose, the grandmother marched over and unlocked the door to the bedroom. In a strangely baffled voice, she called over, "You two need to get a look at this."
VII.
The bedroom was empty and the window had been slid wide open. "Look," Mary said. "See these nail clippers? The small cuticle blade is open. Someone used it like a screwdriver to unscrew the lock on the window and open it."
"Oh, April wouldn't know how to do that," Ashley gasped as if afraid to admit that her daughter did indeed know such tricks.
"I dunno..." Cory muttered. "She watches everything and asks questions non-stop. I wouldn't put much past her. But come on, we have to start looking for her."
"Split up. Three different ways, hurry." As Mary and Cory headed back out into the living room to leave by the front door, Ashley Whitaker hesitated and then scrambled out through the window. Crouching low, she thought she could just detect a tiny sneakerprint in the soft dirt.
"Hey! Hey, you two! This way!" With that, Unicorn was off at a full run along the treeline. Her mother and boyfriend were soon trailing behind her but could not catch up. Every now and then, she got a glimpse of another miniature footprint and was convinced that April was walking parallel to the highway. Well, that figured, Ashley thought. She knows she's not allowed to cross a street by herself.
In a few more minutes, they were closing in on Ashley's Mazda Miata and saw that the right rear door was open. Two little feet were dangling down. As Unicorn hurtled up, she stopped short in overpowering relief and surprise.
April was nibbling crumbs from inside a napkin she had stuffed in her rear pocket. "Oh, hi, Mommy. I saved half my cookie from before. This is NOT a second cookie because you said I could only have one.."
Unicorn seized her daughter in a bear hug and swung her around, the child's legs dangling free. "Oh baby, I can't talk right now. Mmmmph! Big hug! Who loves you so much? Who loves you?"
Seeing the other two family members running up, April squealed like a dolphin. "Daddy! Gramma! Hi!"
Everyone gathered around the child and assured themselves that she had not been harmed. There was not a mark on her. She started babbling about taking a nap in someone's room where Spongebob was on TV, but then she had to pee real bad and no one came when she called and she was afraid of getting in trouble, so she climbed out the window and relieved herself behind a tree before taking off to find one of the Helper People like a firefighter or a nurse.
"Sweetie, how did you know how to unscrew that lock?" asked Ashley.
"I saw Gramma do it once when we were locked out of the house," the child explained cheerfully.
Making an embarrased throat-clearing sound, Mary Cassidy backed up. "Well. Imagine that. I had better get back to that house and fetch my own car. Then I have to get rid of this gun, which is too bad because it's my favorite. Let the cops figure out that crime scene any way they want. I'll meet all of you back at the house?"
"Wait, ride with us back there," Ashley said. "We need her car seat. She can't ride around without one. Come on, everyone in. April, you want to let Gramma hold you?"
"Sure. Where's Daddy's car? We were riding in it. He doesn't drive real fast like Mommy does. Who was that funny man in the white clothes? I didn't like him at ALL. Is Gramma gonna have dinner with us? Can we go for ice cream after dinner, I haven't had ice cream in the longest time..." The dam had burst and April was chatting away again.
Getting everyone settled in the Mazda, Ashley got behind the wheel and started it up. Next to her, Cory was almost trembling with relief after all the tension of the past few hours was released. He leaned back and heard his daughter going on about everything that passed through her head.
"Listen to April, rambling like nothing bad happened. She sure bounces back completely," he told her.
Ashley Whitaker sounded like her usual self again for the first time that day as she chuckled, "Third generation Unicorn coming up!"
10/27/2016