Ren Series Boxed Set

by Sarah Noffke

  ***

  A fortnight after the day I met Chase, he began training me. He was pleased with the progress I’d made with the girl I was assigned to brainwash. So far I’d inserted many messages into her head and according to his investigations, none of the Lucidites were suspicious. I had done as much research as I could on this society. In comparison to the Voyageurs, the Lucidites were bloody saints. Whereas the Voyageurs were corrupted by their powers and abused them at every turn, the Lucidites used their gifts to help the world at large. They stuck their noses into Middlings’ and Dream Travelers’ affairs, trying to find solutions to things that weren’t their bloody business. They were the superheroes of the Dream Traveler world.

  I was completely ambivalent about the idea of a society like theirs. And although I didn’t condone what the Voyageurs did, I also didn’t care much. Usually I ignored it and solely focused on the task assigned to me. It was better that way. What did it matter to me what the Voyageurs did to unknowing Middlings? How was I in a position to judge? And I felt the same about the Lucidites. If they left me alone, then I had no reason to hate them. But it did irk me that Chase was intent on destroying a girl who was aligned with a society that as far as I could tell was harmless.

  “This girl you’re making me brainwash,” I said to Chase during one of our training sessions. “What does she matter to you? Why are you going after her?” We’d been practicing in the main cave room. It was open and provided enough space and light.

  Chase had his hands clasped behind his back. He strolled around me, making a complete circle. When he stopped directly in front of me, he leaned slightly over me and said, “Because she betrayed me. I will go to any length to torture and kill those who betray me.”

  I made a silent, mental note. Don’t mess with this guy. Few people have ever intimidated me. Actually, only ever one. And it was the man who stood before me, Chase Bane.

  Chase stepped back a few paces so there were several feet between us. I made a note that he rarely ever put his back to anyone. “We were supposed to be married and she ran off with another man. Married him,” he said, anger flaring on the last word.

  “You must have really loved her to be going after her like this,” I said.

  “Don’t patronize me, Ren,” Chase said, with a bite to his words. “You know as well as I that life isn’t about love. It’s about conquering and her little stunt cost me greatly. She thought she could ruin my future and I wouldn’t ruin hers, and that’s where she went wrong. That’s where she underestimated me. And she made me look like a fool. I want to be the bigger person in this situation, but she’s left me no choice.”

  Unlike most people, Chase wasn’t motivated by hurt or fear. He was motivated by anger, which was a thousand times worse. And his hostility simmered under the surface, marking his every movement and word. This bird had deceived him. And although most don’t deserve to die, she had known Chase well enough to know what he was capable of when motivated. I made up my mind that she was dumb and therefore deserving of the fate Allouette would deliver to her.

  “Are you ready to continue?” Chase asked, his gaze on me. It was like a beam of sun and burned at times.

  I wasn’t ready to continue our training session, but I couldn’t say that. My brain felt like bread pudding, but I pushed past it and nodded. “Yes,” I said. I’d been trying to create the illusion of a cup of coffee. Something common was apparently easier than a specific projection, like a duplicate of yourself.

  “You will find that when you stop trying to create something that doesn’t yet exist and instead pull from the energy already present, projections happen effortlessly,” he said evenly. “Everything is energy.”

  I couldn’t stop the discouraged grunt that burst out of my mouth. “Will you speak bloody English?”

  “You keep trying to create the illusion from nothing by just focusing on it,” Chase said. “You don’t have to do that. You know how your mind control works, how you go scavenging a mind first and use the tools already present in it to make things happen? You use the mind of a person to manipulate itself. The same theory applies to creating illusions. Try searching this space in the same way and then use the elemental energy here to create the projection.”

  Now the chap was making sense. “Right-o,” I said, closing my eyes and sensing the large cave room around me. Chase was right. I could sense things about it the same way I could with a mind. I actually found that I instantly understood more about the space than I ever thought was possible. I connected with the air and knew it was a steady sixty-five degrees. I felt the life in the room. Mine, Chase’s, and some cave-dwelling bugs. The water in the ponds registered in my mind. The energy of the fire burning in the torches on the wall took shape in my mind on a whole new level. And the cave itself gave me its secrets. I then understood the significance of living in a place like this, which was so simplistic. I was never going to live in a cave, but I still had a new level of knowledge on it.

  I snapped my eyes open. Pulling the energy from these elements I had just explored, I then focused it into a single thought supported by a firm visual. Only briefly a single ceramic cup with saucer and black coffee materialized on the rock in front of me. As soon as I allowed a moment of victory to enter my mind the coffee cup disappeared. I shot my eyes to Chase, waiting for his praise, strangely excited to get his approval.

  “Next time, we will discuss shutting out the ego and desensitizing your emotions. Those two things will squash your ability to focus every time. We are done for today,” Chase said and stalked out of the main room.

  Three months later I successfully created a twin illusion of myself. Unsurprisingly, it was easy for me to shut down my emotions. My ego was a different story.

  Chapter Nineteen

  July 1997

  For six long months I followed Allouette’s every instruction, lacing an extremely real reality in this woman’s mind, Chase’s ex-fiancée. I wondered at times if I even had the choice anymore not to do everything Allouette ordered. I was in my body and then not. My mind was mine, and yet my free choice almost seemed absent at times. Somehow, the influence of the Voyageurs had numbed me more than ever. Dahlia wouldn’t have even recognized me, although I looked the same. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t joke. I was a hollow man. A tool to the mind. I’d never quite felt human, but all of a sudden I was something completely new.

  I hadn’t given myself many opportunities to think about Dahlia since I left her. Because her face was plastered on billboards all over the world, I knew that after our breakup she entered a dark period with her music. It didn’t matter though. She was a star no matter what she did. There was no way she’d ever lose that. She was bigger than the Pope. Dahlia’s dark period didn’t last too long. She was a fighter and would always rally. On a trip to Stockholm, Sweden, to complete the last part of my job with Allouette, I caught sight of a picture of Dahlia on a tabloid. She was signing autographs after a show and looked back to her old self. She’d moved on.

  I stood in my hotel room, enjoying a rare break from Allouette, who was as demanding of my attention as a toddler. For months I didn’t have any real desires. Actually, I was hardly ever hungry or thirsty. But seeing Dahlia’s image had stroked a part of my emotional center I thought had been blotted out. With a keen focus I created a projection of the girl I deserted over six months prior. Dahlia’s form flickered at first and then solidified. The illusion looked exactly as I remembered her to be: strong, beautiful, and full of life. Her dark brown hair was pulled to the side and hung over one shoulder.

  “You’re so perfect,” I said to the girl who was there and also not at all.

  She smiled, as I intended her to do. I didn’t make her speak, because I couldn’t bear to hear her voice.

  “Dahlia,” I said, realizing I was losing my mind as I was speaking to an illusion I created. “I’m not a man. You thought I was, but I fooled you. Real men don’t do the things I do. Real men aren’t cowards.”

  She blin
ked back at me. I had thought that somehow this moment of closure would awaken the life inside of me that had drained out, but it just made me weaker.

  “I’m not sorry for leaving you. And I don’t want you back,” I said, hearing a new strain in my voice. “But I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

  The door behind Dahlia’s illusion opened and I tore the projection down at once. Allouette stood, staring back at me with a devilish glare.

  “Who vas zat?” she said, her hands on her hips.

  “My mum,” I said, turning and focusing my attention out the bank of windows at my back. Our hotel room overlooked the Baltic Sea, which was where I’d finish Chase’s mission. The girl I’d been brainwashing was close and my proximity to her made my controls on her more powerful.

  “You’re lying,” Allouette sang, her voice light. “Zat girl vas too young to be your mummy.”

  I was grateful that Dahlia’s back had been to Allouette or she would have recognized her right away. “It was just a girl,” I said in a tired voice.

  Allouette slid in front of me, partially blocking my view of the sea. “Did you love her?”

  “Of course not,” I said, letting my eyes close for a half beat.

  “But you vere together, veren’t you?” Her eyes tapered into thin lines and I dropped my head with shame. It was ridiculous and yet, Allouette had this effect on me. She could shame me.

  “Yes,” I finally said, my head low.

  She grabbed my chin, her pointy nails piercing my skin. “I’m your girl now, isn’t zat right?”

  I nodded, my face still in her grasp. Throwing my chin to the side, Allouette cackled loudly. “No more illusions of other girlz.”

  I turned away from her, wondering where I’d gone. Where was Ren? Who was this guy? How had I lost myself?

  “Now, it’s party time,” Allouette said. She walked over to her suitcase on the bed and withdrew a case of knives. They were sheathed in a leather satchel. She rolled them out and her eyes dazzled as they ran over the polished hilts. “Zis is going to be zo much fun,” she said, running her fingertips over various knives. Having catalogued her options, she withdrew a serrated blade with a rosewood handle. Yanking up her knee-high skirt, she slipped the knife into a holster strapped around her mid-thigh. I thought that would be it, but then she grabbed two more knives and fitted them into sheaths in her knee-high boots.

  “You don’t need that many knives. It’s only one girl,” I said, and instantly flinched when she whipped around, giving me a punishing stare.

  “I know vhat I’m doing,” she said, a vicious arrogance in her voice. “Send her to zee boat, Ren. Ve’re ready to end zis.”

  ***

  Allouette and I waited in the hold of a ship. It was scheduled to sail out to sea, dispose of its “cargo,” and then return us to Stockholm. As instructed, I’d lured the girl to the ship. She actually thought she’d chartered it for a journey that would save her life. She was, as Allouette warned, fairly difficult to control. That’s why I had to be on the ship to ensure she didn’t change her mind and make the ship return prematurely.

  “It’s time,” Allouette said, gripping my arm and pulling me toward the main cabin where the girl was stationed for the trip.

  “I don’t need to go,” I said, realizing I’d never seen someone killed before.

  “Don’t be such a coward,” Allouette said, probably having read the fear in my eyes. “If zomething goes vrong I vant you zere to help. Ve shouldn’t underestimate zis one.”

  Dutifully I followed Allouette. When we arrived at the cabin door she pressed her ear to it, a curious look on her face. “Oh, merde,” Allouette said in a harsh whisper.

  “What?” I said.

  She didn’t answer but instead busted through the door. My eyes widened. Not because the woman wasn’t alone, but rather because she was in child labor. The first mate swiveled in our direction. His brow was dripping with sweat and in his hands he held a bloody baby covered in a towel. The girl was propped in a chair, her legs up, a blanket partially obscuring her bottom half.

  “You vent into labor early?” Allouette said, shaking a disappointed finger at the woman. “Bad girl.”

  The woman was pregnant! The one I had been brainwashing for six months. I’d lured a pregnant woman to her death. And Allouette was prepared to kill a woman and her baby. I stared disbelieving at the sight in front of me. Too much was going on. Too fast.

  Panting rapidly, the woman yelped. The baby in the towel wailed in the first mate’s frozen arms. The man’s attention was only half on us as he tried over and over again to swaddle the crying bundle. “Good, I could use the help,” he said.

  The woman yelled, “No! Keep her away from me!” And then she screamed out like she’d already been stabbed. She’d recognized Allouette and knew why she was here. And she continued to pant wildly.

  “Oh, I von’t come near you,” Allouette said. “I’ll kill you from here and then your bebe.”

  The first mate’s eyes rose up in disbelief and horror. Allouette withdrew the knife from her thigh. “I’m going to enjoy killing you and your child, Eloise.”

  Again the first mate’s face swiveled around, like he was trying to figure out how to get out of this or was looking for a weapon. He held the now quiet baby against him in a protective stance. “What are you doing?!” he said, shock written on his face.

  “Freeze the boy, Ren,” Allouette ordered me and I did it immediately. He stood like a statue with the bundle pressed to him.

  The woman was still panting, a great deal of blood spilling onto the floor under her and soaking the linens around her.

  “You had everyzing I vould have ever vanted, Eloise, and you threw it away. I’m not killing you just because Chase ordered me to, but because you are zuch a fool. You could have had him. You could have been Mrs. Chase Bane, but you made the vrong decision. I vould have done anyzing to be in your position and now look at you. You and your child are going to die for your foolishness,” Allouette said and the knife in her hand rose into the air, hovering there.

  I didn’t wake from the haze I’d been in. Not then. But I did suddenly realize I’d been seduced into exacting revenge for the man Allouette truly loved. And that man wasn’t me. I’d been played.

  “Please,” the woman said between breaths. “There’s another baby. I’m having another baby.” And again she wheezed in several short breaths.

  And then I realized why the woman was still panting even after her baby lay in the first mate’s arms. She was having twins.

  “Vhat?” Allouette said in sudden alarm. “No!”

  “Yes, a girl,” Eloise said, shaking her head.

  “Vell, she vill die too. I can’t leave any pure bloods alive on this boat. Especially a girl,” Allouette said and then a shrieking laugh erupted from her mouth.

  Eloise’s eyes connected with mine. “Please, sir. Help me. Please,” she said through ragged breaths, and then she groaned loudly.

  I was frozen, unsure what to do. Whom to assist.

  “No one vill help you,” Allouette said and the knife flew through the air faster than I realized was possible. It was a bullet, with force behind it that spoke of Allouette’s vengeful anger. And before my eyes the serrated blade sliced across the laboring woman’s throat, spilling blood all down her front. She hadn’t even taken her last gurgling breath when Allouette spun to face the boy holding a wiggling infant.

  “How about you die first and zen your sister,” Allouette said to the bundle.

  I knew she was crazy from the beginning, but not until that moment did I realize she was a deranged psychopath. People thought I was heartless, but I had nothing on this woman. She, to this day, remains the darkest human being I’ve ever met.

  Allouette slipped one of the blades out of her boot and spun around to face me. “Next time you von’t doubt my preparedness, vill you?” she said to me.

  And she didn’t wait for my answer before she stalked over to the baby in the frozen boy
’s arms.

  “Allouette?” I said.

  She whipped around, an impatient look in her eyes. “Vhat?”

  “There won’t be a next time,” I said, and because she never suspected that I’d turn against her, I was able to dive into her mind at once and take control. She had deluded herself to believe I was her puppet and that I’d never cut the strings. Under my control she stood as frozen as the first mate. I released him at once.

  He shook his head slightly as he came out of the daze. His head swiveled to the baby in his arms. I stalked forward and pulled the child away into my own arms. The first mate was scanning the scene around him with terrified eyes. He shuffled back with urgency when he saw Eloise lying with her throat slit on the other side of the cabin.

  I snapped my fingers at him. “Don’t think about it right now. There’s another child in that woman. You have to get her out right now,” I ordered, a strange sternness in my voice. “The child is half out, but you’re going to have to pull her the rest of the way since her mother can’t push.”

  The boy just stared in a daze.

  “Now!” I yelled, making the thing in my arms squirm. I’d never held a child and the experience was as unenjoyable as I always imagined.

  The first mate rushed forward and I turned my attention to a frozen Allouette. I regarded her dull doll-like eyes for only a second before turning her around and marching her out of the cabin. With the baby still in my arms I walked behind Allouette, who moved like a robot, each movement stiff and of my doing. I had a firm lock on her mind and although she tried to resist, I was properly motivated to fight her. I marched her to the bow of the ship. Then I made her climb over the railing. I paused her as she sat on the edge and I made her head turn to look at me.

  “You, Allouette, are the worst human being,” I said, the disgust in my voice that had been begging to be let out bursting forth. “I consider it a great honor to rid the world of you.” And then I made her spring forth into the Baltic Sea and sink to the bottom.