Chapter 10

It had something to do with the tattoos. What, exactly, he didn't know, but the tattoos were stuck in his mind. The ink, the design, the placement ... what?

He made his way to the weight room, stripping off his shirt and stretching, trying to let his mind wander. He did some of his best thinking in here, barring that whole dark stretch after the mall incident. The concentration on the weights, on his form, his focus on each muscle group and, eventually, each muscle. The feeling of his fists impacting the heavy bag, it all served to calm him, to center him.

He was in his third cycle, hitting each station on today's workout list in order, and repeating that order until he hit his goal number of repetitions. He was on the free weight bench, focused on his breathing, on pushing the weight filled bar all the way up when it came to him.

The ink. It was the ink! Well, he temporized, it was the ink and the bracelet he had made for Zoe.

He pushed one last time, locking his elbows and letting the bar drop back onto its rest, then sitting up and letting his mind wrestle with the problem.

He could make the bracelet accept some of his power, but it they couldn't use it. It was useless, dead weight, dead materials. What if he could infuse the ink, and when it was injected under the skin, when it became part of the person, he may be able to integrate it with the person.

He needed to know more about the ink, how it was made, how it was used. He kept knawing at the problem as he showered, the ladies were out there, but he wasn't really seeing them, his mind working to the exclusion of all else.

Firing up his computer, he began searching for information and found that some inks were made with animal byproducts, but were from charred bones and the like and he didn't think something that long dead would work. Then he found vegan tattoo ink, which he privately thought was kind of silly, he found what he was looking for. They were made with plat material, vegetable base glycerine and naturally occurring pigments. That sounded better to him, though he wouldn't know for sure until he could get his hands on some.

A quick search showed him that there were three tattoo shops in the area that specialized, and one of those three had a notation that they further specialized on spiritual and religious tattoos.

That was it, the final piece of the puzzle. If this worked, it could be the key to everything, the key to giving them all the freedom they needed and the key to any future plans they may make.

He sent a mental call out for Zoe and Stacy, asking Stacy but just summoning Zoe, remembering at the last moment to phrase it as a command.

When he heard giggling behind him, he realized that they had been there, probably for quite a while, and that he had been concentrating so hard that he had ignored them.

He spun in chair and found Zoe on her knees, waiting for him and Stacy lounging on the futon, a big grin on her face.

He couldn't help but grin in return, sending love and apologies to the pair.

"We knew you were busy, Master." Zoe said, a loving grin on her face.

"I think we could have stripped naked and performed the Lambada without you noticing, James. Almost enough to hurt a girl's feelings!" Stacy complained, but her smile, as much as her mental caress, told him she wasn't serious.

He laid out his idea, asking them to poke holes in the plan, asking them to think about it and let him know if they found something, anything wrong. He set a deadline for the following night and then tried to set the idea aside, let his subconscious work on the idea.

There was one little problem with his scheme though, and it came to him over dinner. This was going to cost real money. Not a lot, by his calculations, probably less than a thousand dollars for both girls, but to a penny poor student, that was an almost insurmountable obstacle.

He braced his father that night.

"Dad, I think I might have a workable plan, but there is a problem. I am going to need money to carry it out, and I will need you or mom to come along and give permission." James explained his theory, figuring the worst thing his father could do was say no.

His father was silent, staring off into space for several long minutes, his expression grim.

"Son, I know that you are aware I already have reservations about this whole thing. You are just sixteen and you have two women, both of them living with you, sleeping with you, and they couldn't leave you even if they wanted to. One is your age, the other is technically abusing you, if you look at it from a legal standpoint. You can see where any outside adult would view the situation as odd. Now you want to tattoo them, one of them is underage. You want me or your mother to pay for this and lie to the tattoo artist about Zoe's age. Can you see how many things are wrong here?"

James felt his face go still, his heart dropping. He had been focused on the trees, not seeing the forest. He had just asked his father to facilitate what was basically a crime, and he was a lawyer!

"Dad, I am so sorry. I was focused on the problem, and I just didn't think. I will just have to find some other way to do this. You can't even be involved, you would be disbarred! I can't believe I even asked. Can you forgive me?"

I know you want to do the right thing, to fix this and to ease the restrictions this odd legacy has forced upon you, but you really have to take a longer view. I am not angry with you, I am not even disappointed. You are still a youngster and it is my job to make sure that you don't do things you shouldn't. There is nothing to forgive."

David stood and held his arms out, giving James a big hug. "It will be okay, James, we just have to go about this the right way, minimize the exposure."

The girls were disappointed, of course, but when James laid out his father's points, one by one, they began to see things his way. They didn't want to cause problems for his family, they were too important to all of them.

'If only we had a friendly doctor.' Stacy sent, looking thoughtful. 'Did you know that tattoos can actually be paid for by insurance? There is a girl at college who was in a horrible accident. She had some pretty bad scars on her arm, making the shoulder and her upper arm all pink looking, and on a Jamaican girl, it really stood out. Her psychologist actually got the insurance company to pay for her to see a cosmetic tattoo specialist who tattooed the damaged skin to match the rest. It was pretty cool.'

'I could probably influence a doctor, but I can't influence an insurance company.' James pointed out, but he let her see how proud he was of her suggestion. 'That is the kind of thinking we need. We will find a way, I promise you both.'

'You know that I am only doing it because you wish it, Master.' Zoe chipped in. 'If I could, I would fit myself in your pocket so I could always be with you. It would make blowjobs kind of difficult though.' she giggled, batting her eyes at the pair of them.

James and Stacy, very visibly, rolled their eyes, then burst out laughing.

'You are incorrigible!' Stacy sent, hugging her sister.

'Encourage-able, maybe.' she sent back, giving Stacy a kiss on the cheek.

The next couple of weeks passed in a blur of home school classes, chores and constant moves, back and forth from one house to the other and back again. James, Zoe and Stacy were getting mightily tired of the requirement, and no real answer to the money issue had presented itself though they seemed to spend every evening on the topic.

The solution, in part, presented itself without any help from the trio. Little did they know that this was to set in motion a series of events that would change all of their lives.

It was a Saturday afternoon and the weather outside was crisp, the sun shining after days of rain and James was dying to get out of the house. His running schedule had been permanently disrupted by joining with Zoe and he had been forced to dust off the old treadmill in the garage and use that, not being able to get far enough from Zoe to run outside anymore. Adding Stacy had just exacerbated the problem.

Zoe had been willing to run with James but, after the first aborted attempt, when Zoe's pace had been too slow for him to hit his stride, he had switched to the treadmill. Zoe's heart was in the right place, but it would take months of training for her to be able to run the way James liked to do, and he could tell she was just humoring him, not enjoying the exercise.

When Zoe suggested they take a walk, get some fresh air, James jumped at the chance and the three of them headed for the local park. It was a beautiful morning, and James found himself having a great time walking arm in arm in arm with two beautiful girls.

Stacy and Zoe made a game of sneaking into the heads of other people in the park, and then making the other two guess which person was being peeped.

'I spy, with my inner eye, a nanny who ... oh my, a nanny who is thinking about her employers wife, and with carnal intent!' Stacy chortled, titillated by what she saw.

The rules were simple. One of them would peek inside a stranger, the other two would have to guess which person was being described without peeking.

'I am going to guess it is the older lady in the orange coat. She looks like she could be a secret vixen' James teased, pointing out an aging grandmother feeding the pigeons from a park bench.

Zoe snorted, holding back her laughter. She was looking over the ladies with kids by the play area, and trying to figure out which were mothers and which were nannies or babysitters. When she spied one woman that was staring off in to space, not really paying attention to the action in the sandbox, Zoe though she had a good candidate.

'The brunette in the tan jacket, blue slacks and blue flats!' she guessed, looking over at Stacy.

'Aw! I guess that was too easy. She is the only one not chatting or looking bored. Okay, your turn James.'

James started hopping from mind to mind, just scanning surface thoughts, when something caught his attention. He was feeling nervousness, sexual excitement ... his eyes continued roaming, trying to find, ah, there he was. James saw a man, leaning casually against a tree, and when he focused on the guy's thoughts, he felt sick to his stomach.

The man was a predator. He was fantasizing about a little blond girl, maybe five years old, who was hanging upside down on the monkey bars. The girls little dress was hanging up around her stomach because of her position and her panties were exposed. The man's mind was full of things he wanted to do to the little girl, and all of them involved pain, of torture and humiliation, of rape. He was excited by the thought of the little girls screams, and the image of her crying was making him even more excited.

James stopped walking, his entire body tense. He wanted, more than anything, to run over and pound this guy into the ground, hurt him the way he was dreaming about hurting the girl on the monkey bars. He felt nauseous at the filth he was seeing.

Zoe felt it first, looking at James with concern.

'What is it, Master? Are you okay?'

'Zoe, Stacy, don't look with your eyes, use your senses, but check out the scumbag leaning against the tree over on the other side of the playground. Can you reach him from here?' The distance was further than either of them had ever attempted to scan, but they had been getting stronger over the last few weeks, and James had been encouraging them to stretch their limits.

Zoe, the stronger of the two, probably because she had been working with James the longest, was the first to recoil, a gasp wrenched from her as she turned away, looking anywhere but directly at the man.

'Oh my god, Master! What are we going to do? Should we call the police? Tell the mothers in the playground? We can't let him... '

Stacy was concentrating, just barely able to sense anything from the man, he was on the very fringe of her senses.

'Damn it, I am only getting ... excitement? Maybe some fear? What is he thinking?' She sounded frustrated.

James, already regretting that he had told them to look, wishing he had not exposed Zoe to the predator, simply showed Stacy what they were seeing. She looked sick to her stomach, her face going pale.

'This is what we are going to do. We are going to get closer, and I am going to see if I can force my way inside his head. I can't let him keep this up, but I can't very well run over there and kick his ass if all he is doing to fantasizing. I would end up in jail and that would be extra bad news for the three of us. If he is actually planning something, or if I can see that he has done things already, then maybe we can, I don't know, do something. Get the police involved maybe.'

James kept a firm grip on the arms of his two loves and kept strolling, trying to look relaxed, inconspicuous. He made sure they were guiding him, instead of the other way around, his attention firmly inside the head of his target.

He could feel his anger and disgust, his desperate desire to do something, anything, fueling his probe into the pervert's mind. He swept past the surface fantasy, forcing himself deeper, trying to access his real memory. In a flash of inspiration, he floated a thought into the man, 'Remember last time.'

There! Memories began to float to the surface. A small, black haired girl, she looked like she was of oriental heritage, Korean, Chinese, something along those lines, and she was strapped to a filthy mattress on a steel framed bed. He was ... James fought to keep himself from gagging. He was standing over her, gloating.

He stopped, his mind racing. Spotting an empty park bench, he steered the ladies over and had them all sit down.

'He's done this before, I saw another little girl, strapped to a bed. This man is a monster. What can we do? I can't just go to the cops and say I read his mind, they will think I am a nutcase. I can't just ignore it either.'

Zoe's mental voice was softer than usual, hesitant.

'Master, if it were anything else I would never even bring this up, but you can stop him. NO! Not like that!' she saw James mind bring up images of the guys from the Mall, the guilt floating to the surface. 'No James, you can't do that, don't even think it.' Zoe flooded his mind with her love for him.

'What I meant was that you could make him physically sick at the very thought of a little girl, do that terror thing you did to the quarterback.'

'Maybe, but it wouldn't help the girls he has already hurt.' James was furious, sick at the thought that this guy might get away. He needed to be punished, the families of the children he had hurt needed justice.

'I wasn't along for the ride when those things happened before, James, but you and Zoe have shown me some of it. I have to admit that it thrilled me a little, you being so strong and forceful, making people like that fear you. Makes me feel a little sick to my stomach, now, thinking about it. But you can't let him walk away. Can't you, I don't know, take him over or something? Make him turn himself in?" Stacy's love and her faith in him was like a soothing balm, reinforcing Zoe's love and calming him, centering him.

'I don't know about taking someone over, I think that is beyond me, but maybe I can get him to follow me, follow my orders. Make him dependant on my good will, you know? We can take him to the police or something. I just have to figure out the right kind of push.'

'Let us help. We aren't very strong, especially compared to you, but if we add our strength to yours?' Stacy was determined.

'Let's see... ' James reached out to the girls, holding them close in his mind, letting them ride along as he pushed into the man's mind again. He had stopped fantasizing and was now planning, or trying to anyway. He was watching to see which parents were paying attention, which children were the farthest away, seeing if there was a spot where he could grab a child without being seen.

James pushed deeper again, and he showed Zoe and Stacy what he had done before, how he had evoked the memories and which section of his mind had been triggered.

'I am going to push there, kind of like how we connect, you know? A sharp probe, see if I can get into the other parts of his mind. When you see me push, you push too. Maybe together we can figure this out before it is too late.'

James formed his probe, keeping it needle thin, and imagining it being a strong, unbreakable funnel through which they could travel. He felt Zoe's presence, and then Stacy, lending him their strength. He felt as if his mind was expanding, his senses sharpening. Somehow, the union of the three of them had made him so much stronger that it beggared belief! He could hear the thoughts from thousands of people, a swell of background noise that he squelched with ease, marveling at how very easy it was with their help. He took a breath, centering himself. He could do this.

He thrust his mental deep into the man's mind, ruthlessly shunting aside any resistance, battering down barriers. When he reached the section where he thought the man's memories lay, he focuses all of his strength, all of the anger he was feeling, all of the fear he had that this man would escape them to hurt someone again.

When he felt the probe penetrate, he wanted to cheer, but he had to figure out what they had done, what they had accessed. Swirling around him were ribbons of color, not unlike those of the emotions he saw when doing a surface scan with his empathy, but these were darker, muddy in color. Some changed color even as he watched.

He poured all of his concentration into one stream, watching as it moved and writhed through the man's mind, studying it. He began to perceive something else, something weird. The stream he was watching was pulsing, a regular, metronomic beat, almost like that of a ... it was! It was his heartbeat.

Reaching out with his mind, he gave it the gentlest of touches, and with his regular eyes, he saw the man reach up and rub his chest, a grimace on his face.

It was his heart, it was his actual heart, the impulses that controlled it, that told it to beat. He was in the man's autonomic system, the area of the brain that controlled things like breathing, and digestion. Somehow he had pushed right past his memories and was looking at the flow that kept his body working.

With a gasp, he understood what he had done at the mall. The shock almost caused him to pull away, but Stacy and Zoe were pouring their loving support into him, they were confident that he could do this.

That day in the mall he had, in his fear and anger, punched through to this area and stopped their hearts from beating. He knew, with a cold, sick feeling, that he could do the same thing to this man, just stop his heart and kill him right here, right now. It would solve their immediate problem, but he still didn't know what had caused it to backfire last time. And it wouldn't help if he already had a prisoner, or to find his past victims.