Chapter 60: Several Next Steps

Wallace Wentworth Worthy; father of four, grandfather of seven, upstanding citizen of the community, was a bit of a scumbag. He was also "that other thing" that Lizzy had mentioned me needing to take care of. We hadn't gotten into any details but I had let her know what Jamie had said and that steps needed to be taken to make sure Amber was safe. She whole-heartedly agreed with that part.

In his twenty seven years at the College 'WWW' had been a professor of English Literature, Department Chair, Student Affairs Counselor, advisor to several fraternities, Faculty Affairs Director, enjoyed several other postings of gradually increasing prestige, and was now Dean for the whole damn place. His favorite jobs had been anything with the word 'affairs' in the title. He was fifty-eight years old and had a real thing for hot young women. As far as he was concerned, his present position was as close to heaven as it was possible to get this side of the grave. He had access to detailed information on every student that came through the grand entrance, including personal, academic and financial information, all of which afforded him tremendous power and leverage which he could exert to his benefit. His preferred benefit being a wide assortment of college girls servicing his various sexual needs. Faced with telling mommy and daddy that she was flunking out of the school they had ponied up twenty-five grand per year to send her to there wasn't much most of them wouldn't do. And that was only one of his angles. For students in special circumstances, specifically those that really needed a job to afford school, he liked to put them in security, as he had suggested with Amber, where they were forced to watchdog their fellow students. This ostracized them from most of their peers and left them with few options for someone to turn to because the dirty old goat wanted them to bend over the desk. Especially since he was always careful to wait until he could catch them in some dereliction of their security duties; covering up for some other girl's being naughty for example, then he could threaten them with the loss of their job, that sort of thing.

In truth, scumbag may be a little strong; he wasn't really being horrible about any of it. He didn't video tape or take pictures, he didn't do physical damage any more severe than a spanking, and that he did by hand so he could enjoy the feel of their flesh heating up under his touch. He didn't even share. But rape is rape, whether you're beating them down or blackmailing them. Things like, "Swallow that or else" and "Grab your ankles or start packing." are still non-consensual in my book.

I was considering just making it very clear that Amber would be the last person on the planet he would ever want to even consider messing with. Just scaring him enough to leave her alone, but poking around in his little nocturnal fantasy world showed that, in his dreams at least, he was already getting a little too friendly with his oldest granddaughter and had designs on the other two. Clearly the corrupting influence of power was taking its toll. For his own good, it was time to take grandpa down a peg or two and redraw the lines in his life. Jamie and I put our heads together and came up with a simple series of recurring dreams, very similar to what she had done with Ray Parry. It would start simple and each time it repeated the path would get a little longer and darker. He would start out by trying to extort money from me to guarantee Amber's secret didn't get out, he would then get caught with a student, once that news broke others would start to come forward, the list would quickly grow to include alumni, and then the lawsuits would begin filing. The girl he got caught with would turn out to have a case of vaginal warts which he would then pass on to his granddaughter, which would lead to an examination by her doctor, who would then inquire who or what may have touched her there to infect her. Amidst much sobbing she would then tell mommy all about the new games that grandpa liked to play. They wouldn't press charges but he would quickly find himself shunned by all of his relatives. It would just be a dream, he wasn't actually having sex with the girl yet, but the result would be the same; unemployed, ostracized by his family ... well, you get the picture, and we were pretty sure he would too. If he didn't I would be very disappointed and the dreams would escalate, getting worse with each replay. If that didn't work then I would start taking steps to make sure that reality quickly started resembling the dream. I couldn't do anything with the warts but I could certainly arrange to have him caught with a student. One way or the other I didn't expect it to be long before he changed his ways. The one thing I did right away was to strengthen his resolve about how wrong it was to play doctor with his granddaughter. A little poking around showed that she was a little hell cat and grandpa wasn't her only physician, but that didn't make it right and it would be better for all involved if she stuck to playing naughty nurse with someone her own age, or at least legal.

A quick visit to Mrs. Forester's dream confirmed that she knew of the Dean's activities, with the students that is, but since he had actually caught her in a long term affair with a female student -- and he actually did have pictures for this one, she couldn't say anything or he would expose her. In her case the girl had actually approached her and both had been quite happy during the girl's last two years attending, they even still kept in touch, but Colleen Forester was very married and her husband was a deacon at their church. That was all the leverage Worthy needed to insure that Forester kept quiet, and that was all he was concerned with. He didn't need money; his wife had died some years before and between her life insurance and being single on a Dean's salary he was very well off. Add to this the near endless supply of hard young college bodies to choose from and Colleen Forester had nothing he was interested in beyond her silence. Of course after I put an end to his little private harem that may change so I figured at some point I should arrange for those pictures to go away as well.

I dropped in on my mom as I said I would to assure her that I was safe and everything was okay. I told her I was out of state arranging some things for Angela and she thought that was very sweet of me. As a precaution I put in a hypnotic block that would prevent her from consciously, or even accidentally mentioning anything about Angela still being alive.

While I was with her I got a curious call from Bob.

"Everything okay?" he asked. "Considering, I mean."

"Yeah," I answered. "About as well as can be expected considering the circumstances, why?"

"Just something Susan brought up today when I told her and Mel about your situation with the drug dealers and going into hiding. Seems Roxy woke her up in the middle of the night again. She was desperate that Susan pray with her for your safety. That was right about the time you were rescuing Britney."

"Well that was certainly sweet of her," I said.

"Yes, but what I was getting at..."

"Is that I seem to have yet another person that I'm connected enough to that she's getting ... I don't know, feedback."

"Exactly. Nothing wrong with it, but I was surprised that it went that deep. You haven't really spent that much time with her and as far as I know, never in dreams."

"No, never here," I confirmed, "but Roxy is different. She has a very strong faith; she was the one who saw the angel take Shannon away after all. She sees me as a gift from God sent to save her and avenge her dead family. She's not showy about it, but she prays for me every day. And I was in danger, after all. It's nice to know I have someone like her in my corner."

Then I went to spend some time with Amber and explain what would be happening in a few days. That she would be leaving to go to school and that I was arranging for someone to care for her there. If she was apprehensive at all about my giving her into the long term care of another, she was careful not to let it show in any way. It made me think that much more of the responsibility I had taken on with her. That she would trust me enough to fly across the country and be at the whim of a total stranger simply because I told her to ... Was there anybody in my life I would trust like that? I doubted it. If Rebecca told me I could trust someone in another state I would be inclined to do so, but that would just be a professional setting, perhaps even working to keep me alive. That was nothing compared to what Amber was accepting. She would be trusting a total stranger as if they were me. If they walked her into a crowded dorm room and told her to strip, she would do it, trusting that person to protect her as I would; trusting them to not put her in that situation if they in fact could not guarantee her safety. It was a heady feeling to know someone trusted you that much, and daunting to think about what it would mean if I ever let her down in that way. Just thinking about it I knew that I could never live with myself if I failed her, so I swore once again that I would never let that happen.

Then it was time to drop in on Boris.

According to Rod, Yuri Khvlek, hadn't said two words since he had woken up in the cell. When informed that someone from the Romanian Embassy would be arriving to pick him up he had smiled but that was all. He sat quietly on his bunk and read the newspaper, twice. Oh, correction, he said thank you when they brought him his meals. Eventually he had made himself as comfortable as possible and drifted off to sleep, secure in the knowledge that he would be leaving in the morning. His dreams tended toward martial scenarios from both training and past life experiences. I didn't bother pushing for memories, I simply took over the current dream and very quickly the little scenario he had been commanding went to hell.

He had been leading a small band invading a seafront town to capture or kill the head of a local drug ring that hadn't wanted to play ball. They had been winning of course, after all it was his dream and being the master tactician that he was, no one could stand against them. Until one of his men had opened the wrong door. All Boris heard was the man screaming before the connection went dead. He sent the closest person available to investigate and make sure no alarms were being raised but that individual never made it to the scene. A full two blocks away he too was attacked. This time there was swearing before the screaming, and something else. A growling sound came over the mic just ahead of what sounded like a large knife cutting through cloth and flesh. It was the growl that got Yuri's attention. It was nothing he could pin down, but for some reason it sounded familiar, and he immediately put out a wide band alert to his remaining troops to drop back. The first two reported in with no incident but the third screamed as he was attempting to give his acknowledgment. This time the growl was unmistakable and you could hear what sounded like teeth tearing flesh. Suddenly the air was split by howling in the distance. The sound came from the direction of the suddenly silent man's last known location.

Suddenly people were on the radio wanting to know what the hell was going on. Then came the sound of machine gun fire and more swearing as another of his men ran into something he wasn't ready for. Apparently this one put up more of a fight; Yuri could hear him struggling with his attacker, hear the sound of large jaws snapping shut, the man screamed as one hand was crushed by the massive jaw, suddenly the screaming faded to a burbling moan and Yuri could almost picture the large teeth sinking into the man's throat. Fear gripped him as the vague memories stirred closer to the surface. Grabbing a heavy machine gun and an extra clip he fled from his impromptu command post and quickly started making his way through the twisting streets and dark alleyways, back to where they have left their vehicles.

Even as he ran he heard gunfire break out in another location. In his earpiece the radio again broadcast the sound of a man dying and suddenly he was the last of his team left alive. The radio was useless weight now so he tore it free, cast it away, and sprinted toward the rendezvous point. With one more street to go he heard the howling behind him. Glancing back he saw a huge shadowy shape bounding through the alleyway toward him at incredible speed.

The car was equipped with a remote start system proximity keyed to the transmitter in his pocket, at fifty feet the engine started, at twenty the door unlocked. Yuri was slamming the transmission into drive before he even considered reaching to close the door. Momentum did the job for him as the car roared away from the curb in a cloud of burned rubber. In the mirror all he saw was thick blue-gray smoke and then finally, about a hundred feet behind him a dark shape exploded into view, charging hard toward the fleeing vehicle. It was black as night, stood four feet at the shoulders and, mother of god! It was gaining on him! A quick glance at the speedometer told him he must be wrong, no dog, or wolf, could run 70 kph. As his eyes returned to the mirror the beast leaped, sailing through the air straight at the rear window. Reflexes took over and he swerved the car into the oncoming lane, which was thankfully empty this time of morning, and the dark shape landed hard on the suddenly clear pavement. Apparently the beast had not been prepared for his landing spot to move and the change of venue caused it to stumble and roll across the pavement. In seconds it was up and charging again but it was too late, the car was now over 120 kph and it simply could not be caught. Yuri smiled as the beast stopped and stared at the receding bumper. His mood quickly changed as the thing seemed to hunch down, sniffing for a scent and then started trotting at a more leisurely pace in the direction the car had fled.

Ten year old Yuri Khvlek started awake in the darkness, looking quickly around to confirm where he was and that there was nothing lurking in the dark corners of his bedroom. It had been the same nightmare again. He was used to it, but it still scared him. It was his grandmother's fault. The old tales she told of the darkness. Vampires were scary, but it was the stories of werewolves that truly terrified him. Perhaps because there were wolves in the surrounding hills and he heard them often growing up. His father and grandfather had taught him the meaning of the different howls that they would hear while sitting around the night fires. He knew when one of the pack found prey; the sound that gathered the pack, transforming it from individual hunters to a single-minded killing machine.

Then it came again, the sound that chilled his blood in his darkest dreams; the howling that was not a pack wolf, but something else. But he was awake, and it couldn't possibly be real, could it? Again he tried to relax and take the deep breaths that would calm his racing heart.

The attempt failed as something crashed through the door downstairs and the house shook. He wasn't sure how he knew it was the front door, but somehow he did. Sound erupted as throughout the house others were torn from sleep. He could hear his father swear, his sisters screaming in fear, the sound of his father's bedroom door crashing open, and the sliding crash of his shotgun locking a round into the chamber.

A shot rang out, the sound of pellets impacting the walls, a lamp breaking; more swearing followed by more shots and a roaring sound somewhere between a howl, a scream, and a growl. There was pain mixed into the scream. Then came a sound that could only be his father screaming in pain; pain and fear. He had never known fear in his father, but he had heard it in himself enough to know the sound when he heard it. With a sickening thud the sound cut off, only to be replaced by the sound of his mother screaming his father's name. Then that scream changed and this time he could almost taste the fear. This time the scream didn't so much end as die. He could almost see the massive jaws clutching at his mother's throat, tearing and rending the tender flesh, allowing the air a way out that didn't vibrate the vocal cords to make that screaming sound. The suddenly in-rushing blood foaming as it was forced out the new holes to drip and spit its way to freedom.

He could barely hear the sound of his sisters crying in their room over the sound of his pounding heart. Now the monster was at his door, massive paws clawing furrows in the wood. Then it happened, the door exploded inward and...

"Hello, Boris," I said, striding into the cell. "We need to talk."

On the bunk, Boris, Yuri, whatever you wanted to call him looked frantically around, verifying his surroundings. In his mind he still held the image of a door exploding and a dark shape bursting into his bedroom. I didn't bother to wait for him to get his bearings.

"Who are you working for?"

"What?" he asked, obviously confused.

I snapped my fingers, "Boris! You need to focus here, I asked you a question and I'm not in the mood to play games. Who sent you after me? Who are you working for?"

Suddenly he was focused and in the moment, remembering again who and where he was.

"I tell you nothing."

I shook my head, "Wrong answer, Boris. Whether or not you are going to tell me is not in question. You are going to tell me. It's just a question of what's going to happen before and after you tell me. I don't like you Boris. The fact that you were watching me, that made me mad. But going after Britney? That really pissed me off. Do you even know why you were watching me?"