WARNING: RATED 'S' for the soap your momma would make you wash your mouth out with if she caught you using the same language some of the characters do in this issue. :)

....and now, back to PENGUIN$

********************

At first Valeria returned to consciousness slowly, like someone underwater,
floating gently towards the surface. The world around her was a jumble of
muffled, echoing sounds. Then, without warning, her senses were assaulted by
a wall of white noise that hit her like a freight train as she broke the
barrier of consciousness.

A shudder ran through her body, and though a sickening ache was splitting
her skull in two she forced her head up and her eyes to open. She found
herself tied to a chair, surrounded by several other human beings in the
same predicament. Wincing in pain, she suspected that there was probably a
lump, sticky with gooey wet blood on the back on her head. Otherwise she was
gloriously alive. Being alive was more than she'd hoped for. Now she was
hoping that she'd be allowed to stay that way. She could take a little pain.
After all she'd had hangovers worse than this.

Sitting across from her was a lean older man in an expensive yet wrinkled
linen suit, tied to a chair and staring at her with aristocratic disdain.
His gray hair, which had probably been once slicked with some men's styling
product and combed back neatly, hung in greasy strands around a gaunt face
that was covered in several days growth of peppery stubble.

"Look, she's awake," a woman's voice said.

"Indeed," replied the man. His winter-gray eyes were clear and burning with
intelligence even though the bags beneath them implied fatigue.

Valeria decided that the moment was ripe for a cliché. "Where am I?" She
asked.

The man studied her for a moment before replying. "Young woman, we are in
the penthouse of Cathedral Tower about to be experimented upon by a madman
and quite possibly meet our deaths in the process. I sincerely hope that
explanation satisfies your useless curiosity and will keep you from asking
any further stupid questions."

"Probably not," Valeria said, amused by the authoritative tone of voice
coming from a man tied to a chair with nylon rope. "I'm Valeria Orbus, who
the hell are you?"

The man sighed. "Sebastian Crowley, President of Tarot Industries and
Hostage, pleased to meet you," he said in a bored tone of voice. "Perhaps
you could enlighten me as to the identity of your friend. She looks vaguely
familiar."

"My friend?" Valeria asked, cranking her head around hard to look in the
direction of his nod. She could see now that she and her fellow hostages had
been shoved into a small alcove beneath a wide cement staircase. The rest of
the penthouse was a massive open space with a high ceiling lined with
fluorescent lights that had been left off in favor of more discreet
lighting. The entire area was a frothing mass of bustling penguins and blank
eyed humans. An immense machine loomed in the center of the room. It reached
up to the ceiling and continued onwards through a large opening.

Valeria could see Anita Blake some distance away, standing beside Byron
Pisces. The two were surrounded by a bank of computer equipment and cables.
Pisces was proudly attempting to show the young necromancer something that
she remained completely disinterested in. Her full attention was on a large
glass booth nearby. Inside the booth, Valeria could barely make out the
purple squirming bodies of Anita's penguins. They were held fast by nylon
straps and bars much like the restraining devices used on amusement park
rides. On their heads were fastened tiny helmets from which flowed bundles
of cabling. The cables ran into a piece of machinery suspended above them
that was covered with blinking controls and digital displays. A single thick
cable ran from the unit, out of the glass case and into the main machine
that towered above.

Valeria took a deep breath and turned back to Crowley. "That's Anita Blake,"
she said.

"Ah!" Crowley's eyebrows shot up. "The human servant of that Jean-Claude
fellow; the now truly dead Nosferatu who was the Master of St. Louis,
Missouri. How very curious. The good Dr. Pisces seems to have taken a shine
to her."

"Curious isn't the word I would have used. This is par for the course with
her," Valeria muttered, testing her bonds. "You said something about us
being experimented on. Any ideas when this is supposed to happen?"

Six heavily armed Emperor Penguins chose that moment to waddle into view.

"About now would be my guess," Crowley said dryly.

"Just great," Valeria replied to no one in particular. "Just fucking great."

********************

Due to the strong link she shared with the purple penguins, their combined
distress was causing a maelstrom of emotions to shriek through Anita's mind.
In their panic, the Penguins had literally dragged her mentally, against her
will, into the glass booth with them. She could feel the restraints against
her own skin and hear the ear-splitting sound of their fear. The helmets
that had been placed on their small heads covered their eyes and sharp
things were piercing their scalps. Swallowing hard, Anita felt a single tear
roll down her cheek and reached a hand up to dash it away before Pisces
noticed.

All of this was making it very hard for her to think. She'd won countless
battles against powerful preternatural adversaries in the past, pitting her
attitude and her anger, her own amazing powers and the powers of her
tri-mates against them. Unfortunately, she had traded most of those powers
when she chose to join with Sigmund, thinking she'd done the right thing for
herself. She had distanced herself from almost all things preternatural and
without this influence, even her own powers had faded noticeably.

The undeniable fact was that her current adversary was a master of
technological power. As an opponent she was the equivalent of a technophobe.
Her guns had been taken from her and her survival instincts were telling
her to do some really stupid things.  She realized that for the first time
in a very long time she was feeling helpless and afraid.  She wasn't used to
feeling that way.

"Come Anita, it is time."

An involuntary gasp escaped her lips. Pisces was now standing immediately
before her where a moment ago he'd been a short distance away conversing
with one of his penguin generals. She hadn't been paying attention.  From
somewhere deep inside her a cold, dispassionate anger cut through her like a
quick frozen blast of arctic wind. The wind carried the thought that
allowing a human to sneak up on her in that manner was unacceptable.

A human?

Anita blinked in shock. The thought had not been her own. A creeping sense
of unease ran through her as she realized that the amputated remains of the
tri-link inside her had sparked again momentarily. This time she paid more
attention. Even a ghostly echo of Jean-Claude's power gave her more strength
than she could summon on her own at the moment.

Gathering herself up, she schooled her features into a replica of the dead
vampire's emotionless mask, looked directly into Byron Pisces eyes and spoke
one word imperiously: "No."

"Now love," he said, frowning, "don't be difficult."

"Fuck you," she said, and this time a different anger, hot and wild flared
deep in the core of her being. She recognized Richard's power as it mingled
with Jean-Claude's.  There was no mistaking what was happening, but no time
to figure out why because as quickly as the powers had risen, they
dissipated like smoke, leaving only echoes in their wake.  Anita shuddered.

"You've got nothing to bargain with," Pisces said softly. "One less
participant in my experiment will not make a difference. As much as it would
pain me to have to do it, your friend could just as easily be killed as
punishment for your hesitation. I refuse to let anything or anyone stand in
the way of this test. The empress is watching."  He pointed to a camera,
aimed directly at the hostages.

"Now you can either walk with some dignity, or I can have one my people drag
you," Pisces said. "You'll thank me, darling. You'll see that you were
fighting the greatest gift a man could ever give a woman...clarity of
purpose and thought."

"Oh that is just so much bullshit and you know it Pisces," Anita snapped,
deciding that even though mouthing off wouldn't get her anywhere, it would
sure feel good.

Pisces shook his head ruefully, smiling at her like an indulgent parent at a
sulking child. "Somehow, your words don't surprise me."

He motioned to one of the foo-ed human supporters; the largest human man
she'd ever seen. He was muscular in a way that only years of heavy labor
could result in. He nodded solemnly and approached Anita.

"Shit," she said and started to back away until she walked into, what she
thought, was a wall. Cautiously she looked behind her and realized that she
had been badly mistaken.

************************

Christi had hoped that the shuffling line of foo-ed humans would end up at
the center of the action, and she was definitely far from disappointed.
After a few short flights of stairs and a trip down a barren fluorescent-lit
hallway, the group she and Forrester had attached themselves to emerged
through a door into a scene of controlled chaos.

"Holeeee Moses," Forrester murmured behind her. His eyes scanned the wide
expanse of the penthouse taking in the sight of the lights, machinery and
scurrying bodies. Large troops of penguins and humans were falling into
formation before a stage that had been erected beside a massive screen. On
the stage was a formally decorated podium and a row of metal chairs.

Christi simply cleared her throat, trying not to let the hard lump of frozen
fear in her stomach spread through her body. The air had turned frigid and
she rubbed her arms while her eyes roved restlessly, searching for Valeria
and Anita in the crowd. The long rows of black and white bodies, flanked by
rag-tag silent lines of foo-ed human slaves, seemed to go on forever.

"There," Forrester said, tuned in to her line of thought, "over by that big
machine."

The 'machine' wasn't hard to pick out. Alive with lights and intermittent
bursts of steam, it was easily the largest thing in the room. Directly in
front of it, dwarfed by it's bulk, was a glass case filled with the same
purple penguins that the team had encountered earlier. Anita's penguins. It
meant that the necromancer couldn't be very far away.

A commotion nearby tore her attention away from the glass case. Christi's
eyes focused on Anita just as a particularly large emperor penguin lifted
the sruggling young woman off the ground and slung her like a sack of
potatoes over it's shoulder, coating her with the glistening residue of it's
skin. The implications of that simple act made Christi's stomach drop to her
knees.

"We've got to do something right now," Forrester said tersely from behind
her. "You got any of that antidote stuff on you?"

"Yeah." Christi patted the belly bag. "I just hope it's enough."

With ponderous steps in the direction of the stage the penguin carried Anita
slowly up the aisles between the long rows of troops. The noise level went
up noticeably as many of the penguins began to mutter amongst themselves,
confused by the sight of the Mighty Sigmund's human woman being treated in
this fashion.

On the stage itself, a group of humans were being strapped into the metal
chairs. One of the humans in particular was immediately recognizable.

"Valeria," Christi breathed a moment before she slammed into the person
directly in front of her and then felt herself bounce back into Forrester.

"Heads up, Darlin'," he said, grinning as she scrambled to regain her
composure. Their small group had come to an abrupt stop at the end of a long
line of other human supporters. They were now totally surrounded. Christi
thought wistfully of the guns that had been left at the top of the stairs in
the cleaning cart. Forrester had somehow managed to snag the white cotton
sack without being detected, keeping it low by his feet.

"Valeria's up there," Christi said, shaking her head. "This whole thing is
bigger than I thought. What the hell are we gonna do Winston? I'm beginning
to think this was a mistake."

"'We' ma'am?" Forrester placed a hand or her shoulder and pulled her back
towards him until his breath was tickling her right ear. "There's no 'we'
about this. You did fine Darlin'. I'm exactly where I need to be."

Christi turned to face him. "Winston, don't do this to me now. It's gonna
take both of us to do this. This is no time to pull macho shit. We've got to
make it to that stage somehow and..."

Forrester shook his head. "You said it yourself Darlin'. It's time for me to
make my own successes. I'm gonna do that right here, right now, even if it's
the only success I ever have. It's time to be a hero."

Christi squeezed her eyes shut while she listened. "Dammit Winston, cut the
bullshit and just spell it out for me."

Forrester pointed to the sack at his feet. "This, Darlin'. This is gonna buy
us all the time we need. You, woman, are staying right here until I call for
you." He raised himself to his full height and assumed a look of such
arrogant, comic nobility that Christi was torn between breaking out into
laughter or losing her lunch on his feet. She opened her mouth to tell him
exactly what he could do with the thing in the sack when a new look on his
face told her that saying anything out loud would be a bad idea.

A lone emperor penguin, doing what appeared to be an inspection of the line
of humans, had stopped less than ten feet from where she and Forrester
stood. Christi forced herself to stand very still, begging herself silently
not to blink. She felt the glossy black eyes of the web-footed officer
burning into her and tried to relax her body to match the odd, near boneless
stance of the foo-ed humans around her.

Time stood still. The noise around her faded and her line of vision narrowed
to a point. The penguin, glistening with residue, waddled heavily in her
direction until it was standing directly in front of her, it's scent filling
her nostrils. It inspected every inch of her with it's eyes, even bringing
one of it's flippers close to her face to see if she would react. When it
had satisfied itself it brought it's beak close to her face and snorted
loudly, the blast of expelled fish-scented air ruffling her bangs. A moment
later it had lumbered out of view.

Christi remained in the same pose until she felt it was safe enough to turn
her head to see if the coast was clear, then she took a deep breath.

"Whoa," she said softly, the word carried on the air rushing out of her
lungs. "Winston. You okay?"

There was no reply.

"Winston?" She turned her head and nearly jumped when her mind registered
the fact that the man standing next to her was one of the human slaves and
not Winston Forrester.  Her mind raced. What the hell was going on? Anger
and worry flared through her. There was only one reason why Forrester would
be missing and that was to make good on his threat to be a hero and save the
day.

Still steaming, she carefully looked up and down the aisle in front of her
and raised herself up on tip-toe to see if she could spot the hapless
ex-assassin. Shifting her body to stare behind her, her foot came into
contact with something hard that made an odd hallow sound. She looked down
and immediately recognized the object that her foot had connected with.

"Oh you idiot!"

Though she had only known the man for less than a day, she had no problem
believing that Forrester was capable of this level of stupidity. In his
haste to save the world, he had managed to leave behind the one thing he'd
boasted would help him do it.

Angrily snatching up the sack containing the Penguin Pacifier, Christi took
a last quick look around her before leaving the line of foo-ed humans behind
in search of Forrester.

Continued in  Issue 12  of PENGUIN$...

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