“Your friend said he had to leave and to give you this,” Lucy handed a folded note to one of the young men at the pool table.

Opening the note, he quickly read it and then asked, “Did you read this?”

“Nope,” Lucy shook her head, while thinking to herself how easily it was to tell the truth. Of course she didn’t need to read the note since she was the one that had written it.

Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a twenty and handed it to Lucy, “Thanks.”

“Thank you,” Lucy snatched the bill out of his hand as would any other girl working her way through college would have done. Smiling as she walked back toward the bar.

Looking over at his friends, “Doug go get the car and bring it around back.”

“Sure but why Chris?” Chris handed him the note the waitress had passed him so Doug could read it. “Fuckin-A man!” others crowded around to get a glimpse at the note as it was passed around to each of the guys.

“We got to be cool about this,” another spoke up.

“Yeah, me and Curt will slip off to the bathroom and meet the rest of you guys at the side door by the bathrooms.”

“Hey,” Shiki motioned to get Lucy’s attention as Lucy approached the bar. Leaning across the bar as far as she could, “if you’re going to do something you better do it now, those guys are leaving.”

“Already done,” Lucy gave Shiki a devilish grin.

“But they look fine?”

“Taking out the correct foundation stone, ensures the wall will crumble.”

“This is another of your bizarre metaphors about doing indirect things to get what you want?”

“You’re learning Shiki,” Lucy reached across the bar patting Shiki on top the head.

“Wrecking balls bring down walls too,” Shiki grumbled, “And they’re a lot more fun to use than metaphors.”

Several hours later as closing time approached the customers still left in the bar began making their way out the door toward their homes, apartments and college dorms. A couple of cabs had to be called before the last customer left and they were finally left with an empty bar in need of serious cleaning. With all four girls and Jake working on the cleaning, it didn’t take long for them to get tables wiped down, all the chairs turned upside on on them and the floor swept. Jake walked the four girls to the door, letting them out.

Outside the bar Lucy turned to the other two waitresses, “Where’d you guy park?”

“Our apartment is only a few blocks from here. Pam and I walk to work. Dee, the girl you replaced for tonight, usually gives us a ride home after work.”

“Guess Barb and I are walking tonight,” Pam joined in the conversation.

“I’d give you a ride,” Lucy motioned toward the lone red sports car in the small parking lot, “But I don’t think all of us would fit.”

“Wow, that’s yours? It looks expensive,” Pam gasped.

“Wish my dad would buy me a car,” Barb sighed as the memories of the talk her father had given her before she had left to go to college. He had promised to pay her tuition and for any books and materials she needed for her classes, even pay for an apartment. But for him to do all this she had to keep a part time job and she was responsible for her everyday living expenses, such as food, clothing, insurance, car payments, etc. He father had told her it would help build character. Barb wasn’t sure it did anything to help her character, but she did know it kept her from going out partying and spending money like it grew on trees, like so many of the students did.

“My father didn’t buy it,” Lucy stated. “Shiki and I came into a substantial acquisition not long ago, the car was part of it.”

Barb snickered, “You sound like my dad, acquisitions, mergers, hostile takeovers and all that stuff.”

“So which direction is your place?” Lucy asked, “Maybe we could walk with you?”

“What about your car?” Pam’s concern evident in her voice, “Someone could try to steal it or vandalize it?”

“That could be fun,” Shiki grinned.

“What?” Barb’s eyes widened at Shiki’s comment.

“What Shiki means it has a really good alarm system,” Lucy quickly redirected. “One so painful and scary it would make them wish they had never seen the car.”

“Damn right I would,” Shiki mumbled under her breath.

“Anyways my car will probably be safer here with the lights and that security camera from the bar. So which direction?” Lucy asked again.

Pam pointed to their left, “Next corner then down a couple blocks.”

“Perfect,” Lucy smiled, “We’re going that way too.”

“We are? Oh yeah, we are,” Shiki tried to quickly hide her confusion of Lucy’s statement. Shiki had no idea why Lucy would wish to make these two believe they needed to go in the same direction, but then Lucy was not in the habit of telling Shiki all the details of what Lucy saw in her visions. Going with the two waitresses could easily be something to do with the vision that brought them to this town in the first place. It was quite possible that walking with the two would lead to the fun Lucy promised.

Walking with Lucy and the two waitresses down the street, Shiki was comforted by the fact that no matter where she followed Lucy tonight, she could always open a doorway to her uchi, her sanctuary. Her uchi existed outside of the mortal world, it resembled the large multi-generation family walled encloses of feudal japan. It was the one place that she was so strongly connected to that she could create a magical doorway to no matter where she was.

Only able to leave her uchi from existing doorways was how she had become imprisoned by her enemies when they had discovered this vulnerability and destroying all her doors back to the mortal realm had trapped her there. If not for Lucy she would still be trapped in her home turned prison, although that had only expanded her prison as Lucy had been in the same situation, trapped, imprisoned herself by those she once called family. Reaching the corner Shiki was brought out of her thoughts by the flashing lights of multiple police cars and emergency vehicles.

Seeing the flashing blue and red lights, curiosity drove Barb and Pam to hurry across the street so they could get to the next corner and get a look at what was going on. Shiki kept pace beside Lucy, who had sped up slightly to keep barb and Pam from getting too far ahead of them. From the look on her face, Shiki would have sworn Lucy had been expecting this. Turning the corner the four young women spied several police cars and an ambulance parked haphazardly in the front yard and the street of one of the two story homes. Walking up to the small crowd that had begun gathering as the ambulance pulled away, Pam voiced her question to no one in particular, “What happened?”

“One probably OD’ed,” A man who looked old enough to be her father answered Pam’s question. “I knew they were trouble the moment they moved in.”

The woman leaning against him, his arm wrapped protectively around her spoke, “We knew something like this would eventually happen. Gallivanting in and out at all hours of the night, loud music and parties they always had going on.”

“Hey I recognize those guys!” Everyone looked in the direction Barb was looking to see police officers leading several young men, hands cuffed behind their back, out to place them in the back of the several squad cars there. Turning to Lucy, “They were over in your area at the pool table.”

Lucy nodded, “Yes, I believe you’re right, those do look like the same guys that were at the bar tonight.”

“I don’t know about you guys,” Pam interrupted, “But I need to get home, I have a class in the morning”

“Yeah,” Barb nodded, “Nothing really to see here, and I’m pretty tired too. Let’s get going.”

Lucy and Shiki walked with the two waitresses the rest of the way to the apartment building the two girls lived at. Saying their goodbyes at the front door of the building, Lucy and Shiki waited until the two girls could no longer be seen before turning and walking further down the street. Halfway down the next block Lucy turned, walking up the concrete path onto the wide front porch of a single story home. Reaching out to the door handle, which was apparently left unlocked as it turned without objection allowing her to open the door, Lucy walked in.

Shiki closed the door behind her after following Lucy inside, “So now that you got to play with those degenerates, we back on the truck and heading out tomorrow?”

“Yes as my father will eventually notice the shift and send someone to investigate,” Lucy answered as she continued walking across the room into a short hallway. Turning to Shiki as she opened the door of the bedroom she had been using during their short stay, “We want to be long gone by the time anyone does that.”

Inspector Dawson placed his coffee cup down on one of the only spots on his desk not filled with papers before sitting in the accompanying chair in his office. He’d been up since he got the call around 3 AM that there had been yet another suspected gang rape or a young woman. Although this time they got lucky, two uniforms had responded to a noise complaint and the girl had staggered out in the buff and rudely propositioned both uniforms, one of which was a female officer, then collapsed unconscious on the floor. The young men had tried to tell the uniforms she was only drunk, but once some of the young men began attempting to leave the offices suspected more was going on than they were being told and summoned back up and an ambulance.

Dawson truly hoped this was the break in the case he had prayed for, as one of the earlier victims had taken her own life less than a month ago, after discovering the rape had left her pregnant. Right now all he had to link this crime with the others was the toxicology report, although it did show with any doubt that the drug used was the same one used in the earlier rages. This was a relatively new street drug that Dawson figured had to be manufactured in small quantities by someone here in their city as its use had not become widespread, at least not yet. Dawson hoped that one of the guys they had in lockup to roll and give them their source so that narcotics could bust the lab manufacturing the new drug and stop its production.

Taking a sip of his coffee, Dawson spun around in his chair to a filing cabinet behind his desk. Opening one of its drawers he retrieved a thick manila folder that he laid on top of other papers on one side of his desk. Opening the folder a picture of a pretty young blond woman was attached to several pages with a paperclip, the latest prior victim of the gang rapes. Under those pages were sixteen more stacks of pages and pictures, each one a victim of the gang of serial rapists. Logging into his computer, he began typing his report. Dawson knew he should go home and get a little more sleep but he wanted to get this typed out while everything was still fresh in his mind and so that it would be available if anyone began questioning the suspects early that morning.

The shy was beginning to lighten outside when Dawson finished typing out his report. Using a paper clip to attach all the papers along with the pictures taken at the hospital of the girl, Dawson laid the stack of papers and pictures in the now empty manila folder on his desk. Folding over the top half of the folder, he wrote the case number on the tab along with the girl’s name, ‘Willow R. Linares’ before picking it up and turning around to the file cabinet. As he filed the folder away Dawson thought to himself, ‘Toxicology report shows definite signs of Rohypnol in her system. Thank god they caught the guys. Rohypnol being the most common of the date rape drugs without the arrest being made like it was those guys could have gotten away with it.’ Dawson shook the thought out of his head, ‘The last thing we need was for this bunch to get away with it and end up with a string of gang rapes in the city.’ Dawson thought back to the last rape case he had to investigate more than three years ago. ‘Thank god that doesn’t happen often here.’

Before he opened his eyes Will could tell something was wrong. While he wasn’t a stranger to waking up in strange places or having lapses in his memory, those were always accompanied with a throbbing headache and the other symptoms of a hangover that he could attribute to having too much to drink the night before. This was different, his whole body felt off, strangely different to him. He knew he hadn’t drank too much as last night he and his friends were playing pool at this bar they were scoping out.

Will remembered that there has been this one girl that wasn’t paying attention to her drink very well. He had slipped off to the bathroom so he could load the small syringe he used to squirt the correct amount of ‘Easy Lay’, the hottest new date rape drug on the market. A drug that had not only allowed him and his friends to have sex with some of the hottest women around campus, but made him a small fortune since it was his own formula.

Will had never planned on using the drug on anyone himself, only selling it for a hefty profit. That plan lasted until his roommate had bought a dose off the dealer Will supplied it to and brought a girl back to the house he had used it on. The new drug he had developed had two main effects on the one who swallowed it. First it lowered their inhibitions while raising the person’s libido to insatiable levels for a couple of hours. Secondly it blocked short term memory from becoming intermediate or long term memory for up to six hours, which turned even the most prudish of women into a sex starved nymphomaniac that would later not remember anything that they did.

Opening his eyes, will found himself lying on his back in a strange room. Soft pastel blue walls gave way to ceiling tiles that were only broken by an off white curtain hanging from a metal rail that would allow the room to be partitioned into two. From the light coming through the single window in the room Will could see that it was daylight outside. Will also noticed someone was holding on to his hand. “She’s awake,” Will thought the voice sounded like his mother. Turning his head to the other side of the bed, Will saw both his parents there. His mother was sitting in a chair that had been pulled up beside the bed, her hand threaded through the bars on the side that kept one from accidentally falling out of bed, holding on to his hand. His father, dressed immaculately as always in a dark three piece, suit stood behind his mother to one side with his hand on her shoulder.

“Its okay honey we’re here,” Will’s mother reached up with her free hand to brush some hair that had falling across his face when he turned.

“Mom, what happened? Why are you and dad here? Why am I in the hospital?” noticing his voice sounded wrong Will tried to sit up, stopping when he felt a strange weight shift on his chest. Looking down at his chest Will’s eyes grew wide with terror. Freeing his hand from his mother’s grasp he pulled the hospital gown neck opening out looking down at his chest, “What the hell,” Will screamed in a very girlish voice, “I’ve got boobs!”

“Willow!” her mother scolded, “I’ve taught you better than that, that’s no way for a young lady to talk.”

Her father cleared his throat, “I’m sure it’s the drugs those degenerates gave her honey. The doctor said it messes with memories and would leave her disorientated for a few days.” Stepping over to the bed he patted Will’s lower leg, “Don’t worry baby girl, Daddy’s going to take care of everything. Soon as the docs say you can go home, you and your mother are taking the company jet back to LA. I’ll be along in a few days as I want to make sure the DA out here has all his ducks in a row. Those bastards could have killed you with the amount of that drug they gave you, I want to see them rot in prison, not get off on some technicality.”

“Mom, Dad? What is going on? What happened to me?” Will couldn’t understand why he was now a girl and why his parents acted like he had always been one.

His mother took his hand once again, “Honey I know this hard, especially with that nasty drug the doctor says they used on you. Maybe it’s best that you can’t remember what those, those monsters to you.”

“I don’t understand.” Will’s voice became a shrill very feminine scream as the fear of waking up in a girl’s body merged with his mind trying to figure out how something like this could happen to him, “What happened to me!”

“I’ll see if the nurse can give her something to help calm her down,” Will’s father turned and walked quickly out of the room.

“Honey calm down please,” Will’s mother took his hand again.

Looking into his mother’s eyes as tears began running down both his cheeks, “Please mom, tell me what happened to me.”

Choking up herself, Will’s mother squeezed his hand, “Honey you were raped.”