Guise Page 3

  “Even if you were lucky enough to find a teacher, they probably couldn’t help you with your particular ability.”

  Patience gained some enthusiasm as she saw the question on Darwin’s face.

  “Most likely, any teacher would have a talent different from yours, so you could have a telekinetic trying to teach a pyromancer – not very helpful. Even if they had the same talent, we have yet to develop the language to tell someone how we perform some of these psychic feats, leaving us no way to instruct an individual.

  “So, given all these obstacles, is it any wonder that the number of people able to manifest any amount of psychic talent is so small and the capabilities they display are so minor?”

  Darwin reluctantly nodded.

  “Now, add in one more factor,” said Patience. “In all these examples, the superior individual excels in one area. You don’t really have a lot of piano virtuosos winning marathons. Sometimes you have a Michelangelo who has superior skills in arguably related fields – painting and sculpture. Far rarer is a da Vinci with genius in areas as divergent as mechanics and painting.

  “One characteristic of most psychic individuals is that they display a single talent. Some believe this is because the use of whatever talent they have, engrains certain pathways in their brain, preventing them from channeling their abilities in other ways. Like a Michelangelo, there are some who can manifest closely aligned abilities, but usually to a lesser power level. Extremely rare is an individual who can – or has the potential to – manifest significant abilities in a wide range of areas.

  “An individual such as you.”

  Darwin opened his mouth to comment but snapped it shut. Patience stared at him for a moment, and then continued.

  “This next part is harder to believe,” she said, deliberately refusing to acknowledge Darwin’s incredulous look.

  “Employing focused psychic abilities has a calming effect on the background turbulence in the area around the user. This, in turn, allows them to harness a greater degree of their abilities. It also has the side effect of attracting the attention of beings from another dimension.

  “These beings have no physical presence, existing within a realm composed entirely of psychic energy. When the background noise falls below a certain threshold, these beings can traverse the dimensional barrier and enter our world. Fortunately, for us, they cannot directly interact with anything physical and as the psychic practitioner stops using their ability, the background noise increases and the entity either retreats back into its home dimension, if it can, or is destroyed.

  “However, on occasion, the entity is able to attach itself to the psychic and use them as an anchor to maintain their presence within our world. They battle the individual for possession of their mind and, if they win, they relegate the original occupant of the body to the status of a prisoner within their own mind, feeding off of their thoughts and memories until, after a while, there is nothing left of the original person.

  “Once established in their host body, they try and bring others of their kind over into other bodies. Luckily, for us, they basically need to reproduce the process that allowed them to cross over, but with another gifted person present, which compounds the problem, making a full-scale invasion rather impractical.

  “Sadly, these entities have developed a way to reduce the psychic background noise within an area, making transitions easier, and even allowing them to occupy less than ideal hosts. While inefficient and time-consuming, this process does offer a singular advantage which makes it worth their while.

  “Through this process, they are no longer dependent on a gifted individual using their talents to establish a connection. All they need to do is have that individual within proximity of the weakened area they created and they can launch an assault to take them over.

  “The more gifted the individual, the better the host they are, so a premium is placed on special individuals.

  “An individual like yourself is priceless to them.”

  Patience paused in her recitation. She leaned back in her chair and plucked at a thin gold chain around her neck. As she pulled on it, a tiny pendant emerged from her blouse. Her left hand played with the small crescent moon hanging from the chain. When she continued, her voice had a faraway sound to it.

  “There is a group operating somewhere in this area. They have already brought over one of their more powerful individuals. They need you, and your abilities, to provide a host for one of their leaders. Once that individual has crossed over, they plan on establishing a permanent breach between their dimension and ours. If that happens, they will be able to start flooding into our world, and we would have precious little chance of stopping them.”

  Dropping the pendant, she leaned forward and earnestly continued.

  “The more powerful the alien entity, the more powerful the host they require. The aliens make use of psychic abilities the way we make use of physical ones. However, most human bodies can’t stand the strain of psychic manipulation on a scale the aliens are used to. If the entities are not careful, they can easily overload and burn out their hosts.

  “The only way to stop this leader from coming over, possessing you, and creating the breach, is for me to trigger your abilities, and then train you to combat the entity.”

  As memory faded, Darwin looked at Patience. She sat in her chair, teeth worrying her lower lip as she nervously watched him. He couldn't deny the sincerity in her speech, but seriously?

  To say her story was unbelievable was to muster a level of understatement he didn’t think was possible. He was supposed to be some kind of psychic da Vinci, targeted by an other-dimensional Ming the Merciless set on conquering Earth, and the only way to stop it was for her to unlock his hidden abilities and train him in the ways of the Force?

  He was suddenly very much aware of being alone with someone who sounded totally off their nut. Not only that, but he had also gone with her where no one knew where he was. And then there was the gun hiding all too close at hand in her desk. If he was going to get out of this alive, he was going to have to play along. At least until he was well away from her. Then he would figure out what to do.

  “If what you're saying is true,” said Darwin, carefully, “and I'm not saying it isn't, how do you know all of this? What does this have to do with you? How do these entities know about me? What does this have to do with your sneaking into my place?”

  Darwin trailed off as Patience abruptly stood up.

  “We've got company,” she said flatly.

  CHAPTER 04

  “What?” asked Darwin, turning to look over his shoulder.

  Patience stood and removed her gun and holster. She placed the gun in the holster, clipping that behind her. She moved around the desk and headed towards Darwin.

  “What are you doing?” asked Darwin, getting to his feet.

  “Preparing for the worst,” said Patience. “You might want to get your jacket on and get ready to leave, quickly.”

  “Why? I didn’t hear anyone come in. Did you have a premonition or something?” he asked sarcastically, reaching for his jacket.

  “Maybe I just looked at the security cameras,” she answered, nodding towards her laptop.

  Darwin blushed.

  The sound of the front door banging open was accompanied by the noise of a couple of people hustling into the waiting room. Shortly afterwards, the knob to the office rattled as someone tried to open it. A dull thud followed this as, whoever was on the other side, threw their shoulder against the door trying to force it open.

  “Look,” said Patience, facing Darwin, “they'll want to take you alive. That gives us an advantage. Our first priority is to get you out of here. Once we do that, I can deal with these guys.”

  The door rattled in the frame as someone started kicking it.

  “Wait a minute,” said Darwin, holding up his hands. “This is all a little hard to believe. First, you break into my place. Then you spin some
outlandish fairytale about psychic powers and beings from another dimension. Now, you're telling me that there are people trying to kidnap me. Get real.”

  “I think you have some pissed off clients out there and are just using them to try and make me believe your cockamamie story. Well, it isn’t working.”

  “I have no idea what your game is, but I am done playing along. You’ve had your say, I listened, but this is where we part ways.”

  Patience grabbed Darwin's arm as he started toward the door.

  “I don't have time right now to convince you,” she said, in a steely tone. “But you have to trust me.”

  “No!” snapped Darwin jerking his arm free of her grip, temper flaring. “I don’t.”

  “You do if you want to live,” stated Patience flatly. “Those guys outside don't care if you believe me. All they care about is collecting you in one piece to use as a host.”

  Before Darwin could protest further, the office door came crashing in, lock smashed. Two men burst in through the doorway, guns in hand. The men fanned out to either side of the door, their pistols focused on Darwin and Patience.

  A third man strolled through the ruined doorway, hands in the pockets of his beige overcoat. Like the other two, he was dressed in a conservative, blue business suit. He was easily the tallest of the group, at six and a half feet, but he did not share the overly developed muscular build of his companions.

  “Well, well, well,” said the tall man, the apparent leader of the group. “Look what we have here.”

  Patience slid between Darwin and the tall man.

  “We’re just here for the guy,” growled the man standing next to the bookcases. “Give him up and there’s no need for us to hurt you.”

  “Martin,” admonished the tall man, shaking his head sadly. “I do not believe that the young lady will just allow us to take Mr. Mendelson without putting up a fight. After all, as an augmented agent of the Observers, she is sworn to oppose us at every turn, even unto death, if necessary.”

  The men on either side of the leader exchanged startled glances.

  “Her?” growled Martin in disbelief. “An agent? You’ve got to be mistaken.”

  “Yeah,” chimed in the third man. “I’ve heard stories about those guys. She doesn’t look like any super-powered protector.”

  Patience gave the man a condescending smile.

  “Don’t let her looks fool you, gentlemen,” said the leader. “The Herald was quite specific.”

  The two men tightened their grips on their weapons and sized Patience up once more. Their inability to reconcile her appearance with their leader’s claims was plainly written on their faces. However, they both adjusted the aim of their weapons towards Patience, versus trying to cover both her and Darwin.

  “What do we do?” asked Martin.

  “That is entirely up to Mr. Mendelson here,” said the leader reasonably, removing his left hand from his overcoat and waving toward Darwin. “If he comes along peacefully, I see no reason to escalate this situation into violence.

  “However,” he continued in a harder voice, pulling his right hand from his overcoat and aiming the revolver in it, squarely at Patience’s head. “Should he decide to be uncooperative, we will be left with no choice but to kill this fine-looking woman before removing him by force.”

  “What do you say Darwin?” asked the man, cocking the hammer on his revolver for emphasis. “Do you really want her death on your conscience?”

  Before Darwin could answer, Patience acted.

  Placing a hand on Darwin’s chest, she pushed him toward the corner by the bookcases and her desk. He went sailing through the air, impacting the bookcase and tumbling to the floor, stunned.

  At the same time, she pulled her Ruger Blackhawk and fired at the man who had just entered the back door in an attempt to take her by surprise. Three rounds hit him in the chest, stopping him and pushing him back. Two more rounds connected with his head, spreading his brains across the wall.

  As the man’s lifeless body collapsed to the floor, the three men facing her opened fire. Their bullets passed harmlessly through the space where she had been standing, impacting the wall behind her desk and shattering the window above it.

  Patience cracked open the cylinder and dropped the spent ammunition, sacrificing the remaining round in favor of using a speed loader to reload. She snapped the cylinder closed with a practiced twist of her wrist.

  Patience finished rolling to her right and popped up into a kneeling position. As she stood, she fired on the man closest to her. Bullets hit him in the knee, hip, shoulder, and head. The man dropped like a marionette with its strings cut.

  “Kill her!” screamed the leader.

  The remaining two men adjusted their aim and fired.

  Patience sprang upward, cartwheeling through the air to land behind her desk. As she did, she emptied her gun into Martin’s broad chest. The stocky man staggered backward, gun falling from his hand, before slamming into the wall and sliding to the floor.

  “You’re out of bullets bitch,” spat the leader.

  “But not tricks,” retorted Patience. She dropped her gun onto her desk and sprang across it at her final enemy. The leader fired his last round.

  Patience landed in front of the leader and slapped the gun from his hand. The man backpedaled and reached inside his overcoat. He pulled out a pair of butterfly swords and adopted an aggressive stance. Looking at her, he smiled.

  Patience glanced down to see a dark stain spreading on her shirt just below her ribs. Frowning, she reached into a back pocket and removed a small metal rectangle. With an expert flick of her wrist, she snapped open the balisong.

  “Mine is bigger,” said the leader, mockingly wiggling the swords in his hands. “And it comes with a friend.”

  Patience snapped her arm straight down and grasped the short metal tube that dropped into it from the gravity holster strapped to her forearm. Pushing a button on the cylinder’s base caused it to telescope into a short stick.

  Silently she advanced.

  The two exchanged a rapid series of strikes and parries, too fast for human beings to be moving. After five minutes, the two broke apart and examined each other.

  Patience had a hairline cut on her right cheek and a solid slice on her right thigh.

  The leader was missing the smallest finger from his left hand. A half dozen stab wounds leaked blood down his left arm from the elbow to his wrist. The left side of his jaw was cut open down to the bone. His right wrist hung at an unnatural angle.

  With a snarl, the leader shook his right arm, aligning the shattered bones in his wrist, before tightening his grip on his sword. A soft glow surrounded the wound. Duller glows haloed the stab wounds on his arm. The cut on his face dripped blood, soaking the collar of his coat.

  “Not that strong then,” said Patience, breathing hard.

  “Strong enough to finish one low ranking agent,” said the leader with venom. Before he could attack anew, he let out a gurgling wheeze. His swords dropped from his hands as he clutched at his throat where Patience’s balisong protruded.

  Patience watched as the glow about his wounds flickered off and feebly appeared around the knife in this throat. The man fell to his knees as the glow stuttered and winked out. He fell forward, dead.

  “You should have saved the banter for after the fight,” said Patience, tiredly.

  “Good advice,” said Martin, pounding a massive fist into the bloody wound on Patience’s side. The blow sent her careening across the room to slam into the lockers. Her baton dropped from nerveless fingers. Pressing an arm against her injured side, she faced her attacker.

  Martin stood shakily facing her. The front of his suit was blasted away where Patience had shot him. The bulletproof vest underneath his shirt showed a small bloodstain. With his face set in a determined grimace, he stalked toward her, intent on pressing his advantage.

  Patience waited for him to reach
her.

  Martin jackhammered a punch to her head. Patience swayed aside and grabbed his wrist, twisting his arm. Martin staggered, thrown off balance. Patience spun him about before changing her grip and wrenching his shoulder to stop him in his tracks. As he slammed to a stop, arm held at an awkward angle, she smashed her other hand into his elbow. A thunderous cracking sound accompanied his screech of pain.

  Patience let go of Martin and circled left. His arm hanging limply at his side, Martin tried to keep pace with her. She nimbly moved behind him and lashed out with her foot at the side of his leg. His knee shattered and he dropped to the ground, roaring in pain before laying there whimpering in agony.

  Patience strode over and rolled the large man onto his back. Slapping aside his feeble efforts to defend himself, she grabbed him by the front of his suit, lifted him up and locked eyes with him.

  “How did you know I worked for the Observers? Who’s your boss? Where are you located?”

  His mouth opened and closed like a gaffed fish. As he started to answer, his eyes widened. Body stiffening, Martin began to vibrate and thrash.

  “No,” whispered Patience in annoyance as a dark nimbus slowly expanded around his skull. In seconds his head was covered. A moment later, the nimbus imploded along with Martin’s head.

  “Damn,” swore Patience, dropping the corpse to the floor. She stood up and looked around. Her office was littered with the bodies of her attackers. A groan from the corner reminded her of the other survivor of their encounter.

  Patience made her way to where Darwin was sitting on the floor, rubbing the knot on the back of his head. She squatted down and peered at him.

  “You okay?” she asked solicitously.

  “I guess so,” said Darwin, uncertain.

  “Let me see,” she said, turning Darwin so she could get a look at the lump on his head. Gently, she probed the swelling.