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This text is (c) 2009,2010 by Melanie. All rights reserved.
 
 
Seventy-Nine

“No,” Stacy yelled, “no, you're not running off to save the world now!”

“But...,” I said, then stopped.

I had spent the evening putting down everything I had found out about the sex slave operation we had stumbled upon. I left out Tanya and her new girlfriend, because they had already been punished and they might do some good in the future by rescuing other victims.

Looking at it, I don't believe the police would take any of it seriously. We had some information, but no evidence that would warrant an investigation, much less hold up in court.

I had wanted to find out more, flesh out the file to the point where the police could make good use of it, but Stacy had really put her foot down. In a way, I could understand it, but I wanted to argue that these people needed to be stopped.

“Honey, I think you need to take a step back,” Stacy said, “I wish it wouldn't happen, but I know that what you did today is going to come back to haunt you and you will have to deal with your feelings about it. You're still running on adrenaline and want to run off in all directions at once, but there is nothing worse you could do right now.

“Let's go to bed, sleep on it and calm down.”

I had to admit to myself that she had a point, and meekly followed her out if the living room. I stopped briefly to look in on Alyssa. She was fast asleep, probably still working on getting the drugs out of her system. I hoped they hadn't given her anything that would cause permanent damage.

I bent down and softly kissed Alyssa's forehead, then quietly left and followed Stacy into bed. I snuggled up to Stacy and exhaustion caught up with me quickly.

Eighty

In the morning, Stacy called her uncle Jack and asked him to come over later in the day, so we could formulate a plan of action.

I still wanted to go after the child traffickers, but Stacy had made a good case for taking care of the survivor first. Although grudgingly, I had to agree that the traffickers, if the police didn't pick them up, would probably keep longer than the new girl could stay sane.

Infuriatingly, I was still unable to cast a vision spell, so we had to go on the scant information we had from my first casting and on plans of the compound we had found on the internet.

Apparently the cell she was kept in was a holding tank of this now closed former woman's jail. The building had, at various times, been the site of movie shootings, for which some remodeling had taken place.

This wasn't going to be an easy job. The building was clearly designed to keep people in, and to keep people outside from getting someone out. Unlike a hospital facility, this place was built with security in mind.

Lacking more information, we had to agree to play it by ear. I would be the one going in by levitating myself across the wall, then approaching the receiving area on foot. I would then decide, by the lay of the land, how to proceed into the building. My skill with locks had improved to the point where I was confident that conventional, mechanical locks would not present any difficulty. I also had the target, which I had prepared, set up in a safe landing zone, in case I had to make a hurried exit.

Jack would be in my car, nearby, but ready to spring into action immediately. Ha had been able to obtain headset equipped radios, the kind bouncers used at events, and we would all wear them.

We had gone back to get the van Tanya had used to abduct Alyssa. It had not been part of the spell I used to clear out Tanya's apartment, so it was still parked where they had left it. Having no key was no problem at all, because the old van was not equipped with an immobilizer. A quick manipulation of the lock made it possible to start it without any key at all. Stacy was going to be parked in the residential neighborhood adjoining the compound with this van.

Jack had been able to come up with a recommendation for a babysitter and Alyssa was to be kept safe at our apartment.

Finally, night had come and with it came the time for action. We had arranged everything as planned and everyone was in position as I approached the gates and silently lifted myself into the air. Floating quietly across the courtyard, I approached the receiving area and softly landed near one of the unlit windows.

Concentrating on making no sound, I moved around the side of the building towards a small steel door, which we had identified as leading into a changing room for the guards.

With a soft click, the lock gave way and I carefully pulled the door open a tiny crack. Inside was darkness and I silently opened the door far enough to slip through. I pulled the door closed, but didn't let it latch, then moved across the room to the door on the other side.

This door was equipped with a peephole, which showed a small, empty room beyond. The room was also dark and empty, the door on the far side closed and locked.

A brief moment of concentration made the huge centerpiece of the lock turn 180 degrees, withdrawing the heavy bolt. I pulled the door open, careful to make no noise.

Elsewhere, a small red light came on.

I squeezed through the door, pulling it shut behind me and locking it. I knew that the door on the far side would not open unless this one was closed, so I had to take the risk of relocking the door to get any further into the building.

The door on the far side was also equipped with a peephole, which showed a wide, brightly lit corridor, terminating at a pink, barred gate a short distance to the left and leading further down to the right.

Again, a soft click, followed by a scratching noise, indicated that the door was now unlocked.

I opened the door carefully and moved through the gap, ducking low. I pulled the door closed behind me, but didn't lock it.

Carefully looking around, I saw that the barred gate led to a room with a guard station, protected by heavy glass panes, while the hallway to the right led around a bend and out of sight.

I had a feeling that something wasn't right. Thinking seemed to be difficult and for a briefly I felt like I was very tired. I leaned against the wall for a moment until I recovered and moved down the hallway and around the bend.

The hallway ended at another gate, just like at the other end, but this one was painted grey and seemed to be in much better repair. Past it was the receiving area, with two windowed holding tanks on the left and a guard booth on the right, and more cells beyond.

I felt the presence of magic, the spell that bound the surviving girl to her form. The spell had the feel of something very familiar, I was certain it was the same spell as the one that bound me.

As I moved closer to the gate, the feeling got stronger, I was almost certain the girl was in one of these cells. I approached the gate, but could not see anything at the angle I was looking from.

This gate was electric, operated from the guard booth. I could not see the control panel, so I could not simply use my powers to push the button.

I extended my magical feelers into the casing above the gate, intent on finding the motor and turning it magically to open the gate. I nudged some of the levers and switches i sensed inside the mechanism, looking for the motor, when suddenly a relay clicked on and the gate began to slowly open.

I smiled, I must have lucked out here and pushed something that caused the gate to open. I looked around, worrying that the noise might have attracted someone, but it seemed like all was quiet. Finally, the gate stopped moving and I let go of whatever it was I had been holding inside the mechanism, listening intently for movement around the room I was about to enter.

Satisfied that I could not sense any movement, I slipped through the gate and approached the cells on the left hand wall. The first one was lit, but empty. Moving forward, I looked into the second one and was rewarded by the image of a young, naked girl sleeping under a prison blanket.

At that moment, the gate started closing, the sound of the motor shattering the silence. I spun around, fearfully looking at the gate and pulling together the energy I would need to jump home from here. I spotted a movement inside the guard booth and turned towards it.

Suddenly, I found myself thrown around and up against the wall, blinding pain seared through my hip as my eyes caught sight of a woman aiming a gun at me. The gun spoke again, causing more pain to wrack my body as I looked, unbelieving, at the red stain spreading across my chest.

Before I could react, a stifling cloud seemed to settle on my mind, my thoughts slow as molasses, I sensed a presence coming out of the cell I had been looking into. I saw a fine featured, young woman with red hair and green eyes, and I felt the crushing power of her magic as she forced my mind into the void of unconsciousness. Weakened and in pain, I could not fight it, and darkness dropped over me like a blanket, blotting out all sensation and giving me blissful respite from the pain.

Eighty-One

I awoke to a dull, pounding ache in my chest and hip and a crushing headache. My view was filled by a beige ceiling with a single, small fluorescent lamp. I moved my head a little and was rewarded with a glimpse of a holding tank's window and a flash of blinding pain, making me close my eyes to wait until it passed.

I moved my arm, feeling pain in my chest, and found that I had not been tied up. My hand moved up to my face and my forehead, and found a headband of some sort, which seemed to be made from metal.

I pressed against it, but was unable to dislodge it.

I pushed myself up off the ground, again pausing to let the headache subside and looked around. I was apparently in the other holding tank, with the door locked. I had been shot twice, once near the hip and once in my chest, I remembered that much. Yet I hadn't died.

The woman. There was another magic user here. I didn't know how she'd hidden her aura so I couldn't sense her until the last moment, but I did know that this was most likely not an official government operation, and that I was in much more danger than I had thought.

It seemed that they had healed me partway. Not enough to take the pain and make me whole, but enough to keep me from dying. Well, I had to remember to thank them for that. Maybe.

I dragged myself to my feet, and I found that, if I kept most of my weight on my left leg, I could move around slowly. I moved up to the window and looked across the room to the guard post. I seemed to be by myself at the moment.

The reflection in the window showed that I was wearing a coppery metal headband, which I was unable to remove. I tried to use magic to remove it, but found that the energy, which felt just beyond my grasp, would not bend itself to my will.

I concluded that the headband was some kind of antimagical device, and probably could only be removed by magic. Any attempt to remove it by hand caused extreme headaches, so strong that I decided to stop trying.

I lowered myself onto the bench that was molded to the wall to wait. From the bench I could not see out of the window, that was probably done intentionally, so the inmates would not watch the guards all the time.

I must have nodded off for a moment, because I was awoken by noise from the room outside. Peeking around the window frame, I saw the woman with the gun and another woman I hadn't seen before drag in an unconscious Jack, and unceremoniously dump him into a cell on the far wall. Moments later, the magic user and yet another woman dragged in Stacy, who was struggling and cursing them as she, also was pushed into a cell and the door locked.

As I eased myself down onto the bench, I heard the sorceress say, “Go to their house. Kill the brat. Then come back”.

End of Part Twenty-One