“Dammit, Jonas,” Flint spat angrily. “We don’t need Mengele. What good will come from an alliance with that creature?”
Talman smiled reassuringly, “Nick, Mengele promises to grant men the ability to use magic. Isn’t that a worthy cause? Can you image the momentum the resistance would gain if word got out that we had magic users in our midst? How long do you think the Seidskati could continue to deny us an equal footing after that?”
Flint shook his head, “Mengele has been trying to perfect that formula of his for over fifty years. You can’t honestly believe that he’ll succeed.”
Talman smiled again. “Trust me, Nick. Mengele will prove to be a boon to our cause. After he’s succeeded in perfecting the formula, men will flock to us in droves and victory will be assured.”
“I guess I’ll just have to trust in you,” Flint said, restraining himself from voicing any more concerns. He didn’t trust Mengele, but clearly Talman knew more than he did. Maybe Mengele could deliver.
Talman nodded, “I need you to watch over things here for a few days. I have some business to take care of in Fairfield. We’ll talk more when I get back. I’ll be leaving after speaking with Mengele.”
“Very well,” Flint said to his fellow revolutionary letting the matter drop.
+ - + - +
“Finally,” a voice said out of the fog as Derek sat up with a loud groan. He found himself within a holding cell, an older man standing over him.
“Easy there,” said the man in a voice that I do not doubt Derek felt reassuring. He had a mane of wild white hair and a long unkempt beard which granted him the appearance of a beggar. “You’re not in any immediate danger.” He smiled down at the younger man and something about the old man made Derek think he could be trusted.
His head was throbbing painfully. As Derek ran his hand through his short-cropped black hair he felt a sharp twinge of pain as his hand passed over the back of his head, “Where am I?” he mumbled warily.
The oldster grinned, “Well, I ain’t too sure about that. I reckon we’re somewhere outside of Epegard.”
“What is this place?” Derek asked.
The oldster frowned and stroked the end of his beard, “Norns if I know! You’d need to ask one of them sumbitch Sons of Odin who locked us up.”
“The Sons of Odin,” Derek breathed warily. “Those two thugs who attacked me after the rally.” Scrambling to his feet he turned to face the oldster. “What do they want with us?”
The old man shrugged, “Who knows? They ain’t said anything. Say, what’s your name?”
“Derek Hines. Yours?”
The old codger gave Derek a toothy grin. “The name is Cletus Montgomery. Most folk just call me Monty. I would say it’s nice to meet you, but these ain’t the most ideal of circumstances are they?”
“No,” Derek agreed.
Derek didn’t particularly feel up to talking. Perhaps Monty sensed this as he soon fell silent. Suddenly feeling very restless, Derek looked about the room, examining his surroundings more closely. The cell had a single barred door and was set within a slightly larger room with a solid steel door leading outside. The only source of light was a single electritorch which didn’t shed nearly as much light as he would have liked. Doubting he would find any means of escape, a deep and pervading hopelessness settled over him. Nevertheless, he tested the cell bars and door, but neither showed any sign of weakness.
Finally giving up, he sank dejectedly to the floor and waited for something, anything, to happen. Hours dragged by and the two prisoners passed time by sharing tales of their pasts. As Derek later related to me, Monty proved to be a far more adept story teller and regaled Derek with tales of his youth spent in North Bannock, and his many travels across the country. He knew how to weave a good story, but Derek doubted that much, if any of his story, was the truth.
After a few hours, a man appeared and gave them each a tray of food. He didn’t say anything and Derek couldn’t get a response out of him, even after issuing a number of insults. He did note the guard waiting outside the door as the man left. Hours crawled by, and as they turned into days, Derek and Monty were joined by three more men, none of whom knew any more than they did.
Finally, something did happen. A man with an odd-looking handgun tucked into his belt appeared from beyond the steel door. He gave them all a slimy smile as he looked them over, “Traitors to the cause, each and every one of you.” His smile shifted into a look of distaste. “That’s why you’ve all been brought here.”
He pulled the handgun from his belt, took aim and pulled the trigger. Something hit Derek right in the shoulder and he had just enough time to recognize the object as a tranquilizer dart before collapsing into a heap and losing consciousness.
+- + - +
“This one shows promise,” said a raspy voice out of the darkness.
Derek resisted the urge to open his eyes and look about. Instead, he kept himself complete immobile, not wishing for his captors to know he was awake. “What about the others, doctor?” asked a booming male voice.
The raspy-voice chortled, “We doubt they will survive the procedure, but even in death they should provide us with useful data.”
“Very well, doctor. Rolph will be outside should you need anything,” the booming voice said. Derek heard footsteps and the sound of a door opening and closing.
A few moments passed then the doctor spoke, “He is gone. You can stop pretending to be asleep.”
He snapped his eyes open and was momentarily blinded by bright light. Once his eyes adjusted to the brightness he was assaulted with the strangest sight he had ever laid his eyes upon. A bizarre amalgamation of man and woman stood before Derek. He looked as if someone had split a man and a woman in half from the head down then joined a half from each into a single person. The male side looked scarred, contorted and twisted out of shape, while the female side was the model of feminine beauty.
The man-woman laughed a wheezing pathetic sort of laugh, and Derek couldn’t escape the feeling that this person wasn’t entirely sane. “You see the results of our experimentation. We are called Doctor Josef Mengele.”
The creature stepped closer to where Derek lay and he noticed than that his female side was shorter than the male side which caused him to walk with a sort of strange hobbling motion. “Good,” Dr. Mengele spoke, smiling blissfully. “Rolph remembered the restraints this time.”
Tilting his head, Derek noted the straps about his wrists. He tried to move his legs, but it seemed they too were strapped to the table atop which he lay. “Exactly what do you intend to do with me?”
The doctor grinned down at Derek with a mad glee, “Fifty years ago we thought we had perfected a formula to grant men the ability to use magic. So anxious were we to see the results of our formula, we tested it on ourselves. We did gain some small use of the magic, but the formula had unforeseen results.” the doctors growled angrily. “We were transformed into this creature you see before you. Neither female nor male, but somehow both.”
Derek gulped nervously and watched as the doctor continued on his mad tirade, “For fifty years we have tried to perfect our formula. Sometime we think we are so close that we can taste it upon the tip of our tongue.”
Derek struggled in his bindings, but to no avail, they were too tight. Chortling madly the doctor picked a syringe up from a nearby table, “Try as you might, you won’t get free.”
He plunged the syringe into Derek’s arm, and once more he drifted into unconsciousness.
A familiar cold hard anger flooded through Flint as he looked over the scene before him. Mengele had gone too far. Flint would not let that creature experiment on innocent civilians. Pulling his P426 from its holster Flint grabbed the doctor by the cuff of his collar. “What do you think you’re doing, Mengele?” Flint growled between clenched teeth.
Mengele threw his head back and started laughing like the madman that Flint new him to be, “We need to test our new formula.”
Trembling with rage, Flint barely managed to keep himself from pulling the trigger, “You’ve got lots of nerve. Talman would never approve of this.”
Mengele smiled, “Talman provided us with the test subjects.”
Throwing Mengele to the floor, Flint aimed his pistol at the Doctor’s head, “Release the captives, now!”
“They have already been injected with the formula,” the doctor shrieked. “We must observe them.”
“Sir,” Rolph interjected. “He’s telling the truth. This has all been done with Talman’s approval.”
Flint re-holstered his gun and turned to Rolph, who had been guarding the room under Talman’s orders, and scowled. “I hope for your sake you’re telling the truth,” he said, then turned his back and swept out of the room without another word to either Mengele or Rolph.
+ - + - +
I could feel the earth magic trickle down my arm and into my fist as she stared down at me angrily. Claramae and I didn’t care for one another. She didn’t particularly like taking orders from someone more than one-hundred years her junior. Since Athilda had fallen ill I had gradually taken on more responsibility as her heir. Whatever I tried to do as acting head of House le Fey was met with stark resistance by my cousins. They saw me as a young interloper who had somehow managed to charm Athilda into naming me heir. I really didn’t want any of it, but I didn’t have much choice. I needed every resource I could use if I were to prevent Ragnarok from becoming a reality.
She swung her fist at me, but I was too fast. I quickly brought my hands up and sent a huge gust of wind magic at the older woman, who soared nearly fifteen feet before landing gracelessly on her ass. Few Spellbinders were as powerful or as skilled with wind magic as I was, and I found it an effective means of defending myself.
Calmly I walked over to where my underling now lay in a rather awkward heap and stared down at her. “When I tell you to do something, Clara, you do it. You got it?” I said coldly.
Her lip twitched angrily, “Yes, Revered Lady.”
“Good,” I said calmly. “Get back in place. You will follow Agent Jensen’s orders explicitly. You got that?”
She scowled up at me as she scrambled to her feet, “Yes,” she said between clenched teeth, then ran off to do as I had ordered.
Claramae’s issue in this particular instance had to do with taking order’s from a man. I found him to be a competent professional, but Claramae saw him as just another worthless man. Agent Alf Jensen had been given command of the Task Force Against Domestic Terrorism for purely political reasons. Most domestic terrorists were affiliates with extremist men’s rights groups, and the Central Investigation Bureau felt that to avoid any backlash or accusations of sexual discrimination, it would be best to put a man in charge.
Of course, I had been named a ‘consultant’ for similar reasons. Obviously I was no man, but as the only known Spellbinder to have been born a man it made sense for me to be involved, or at least the bureaucrats of the CIB thought so. My actual involvement was considerably more than a mere consultant, but it looked better on paper to call me one.
Sighing wearily, I walked over to the edge of the overhang and looked down.. About twenty feet below was a well concealed compound which, if my source was correct, was a major base of operations for the Sons of Odin. Hopefully, we’d even find Jonas Talman, their mysterious leader within it.
I stood silently over the cliff, then, once the signal for attack was given I called upon my wind magic and drifted down the face of the cliff toward the compound.
+ - + - +
“Wake up,” came the raspy voice of Doctor Mengele. Derek’s eyes fluttered open and found the Doctor standing over him, an anxious look on his ghastly face. “They’re attacking the compound,” he said with barely contained rage. “We are so close, and they attack now!”
The doctor loosened the straps on his wrists and Derek looked at him uncertainly, “What’s going on?”
“Did you not hear us!?” he growled at Derek angrily. “The Seidskati have found us. You’ve been injected with the revised formula. We must escape, or all our work will be for naught.”
Extricating his hands and legs from the straps, Derek hopped off the table and advanced on the doctor, “They’ve coming for you, not me.”
The doctor chortled and spoke with an insane gleam in his eyes, “You think they will take kindly to a man who can use magic? Better if you come with us. We can monitor your progress and assure there aren’t any unforeseen side effects.”
Nodding as if what the doctor said was perfectly reasonable Derek moved as if to follow Mengele. “You’re right,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
As the doctor turned to leave, Derek quickly grabbed a tray from a nearby table, swept the instruments off it and slammed it into the back of Mengele’s head, or at least tried too. The doctor ducked just in time to dodge Derek’s attack. Then, with incredible strength Derek did not know the doctor possessed, he forced the tray from his grip. Before Derek could even think to defend himself the doctor raised the tray and once again Derek fell into unconsciousness.
