Meeting of the Masterminds
Aug 18, 2019 17:34:33 GMT -6
Post by Snick on Aug 18, 2019 17:34:33 GMT -6
This was the first meeting of the group since the events of the previous month... and it was not a pleasant recounting of their success and mostly failures. After each of the members were seated, the accounting began:
“The disappearance and drowning of one of our main recruits was disappointing, but we can use it in our favor,” the voice rumbled across the darkened room and over the tinkle of ice cubes in glasses. “We have put out the word that Cameron Finley has transferred to another school, closer to her grandparents, at their insistence. Her grandparents are silenced, of course, along with her parents; no one is the wiser.” Again the clink, tinkle, clink of ice cubes. “We will find another one full of fury and rage to use as our missile. They are easy enough to find and manipulate when they see what everyone else has that they don’t.”
“You poor thing, losing so many prospects,” an androgynous voice joined the first. “Magryta, you sexy thing, be a dear and fetch me a drink.” A cackle then the sound of a palm smacking a tight rump through denim followed the command. Footsteps. A door opening and closing. “A screaming orgasm!” the voice called louder, as if to breach a wall. “At least one of us got lucky,” the sickening and sinister grin could almost be heard in the words. “Jealous?”
“Yes. You all keep blaming me for botching the kidnapping. It was the damned lighthouse that botched it, and you know it.” She yawned and stretched out, taking a sip of her drink and spilling a little on her breasts as she drank. “Besides, we were never going to keep her . . . just use her kidnapping to divide them from depending on each other so we could recruit him. She is all that is keeping me from making him one of ours. But no--fatso here had to get all obsessed with the prophecy and forget the main reason we chose her instead of the other keepers. Of course, if we killed her, that would split them up too, and make him easy to recruit, so that was always an option, but the main objective was to get her mistrusting him and thinking she couldn’t depend on him. We didn’t even get to that part. Chubba Wubba Tubba there messed up that part, not me.”
A man cleared his throat. “That no longer matters. She is already drifting from him,” he sighed. “It would appear she is in a new symbiotic relationship with her fellow keeper, Phrixos.” The voice sounded slightly muffled as if the man talked through clenched teeth. Paper crumpled. The man half-groaned, half-growled. “The only positive in this is that he has kicked his draft habit and is always on the precipice of another breakdown. When he inevitably has his episode, their relationship will be no more and she will be alone.”
“That will send her right back to her brother then . . . unless she is so attached to Pratt she’s suicidal . . . that could play into my hand to turn her brother . . . or we could make it look like a suicide.” She grinned maliciously.
“She will be good bait. For either boy,” the man’s muffled voice interjected.
“For her brother, of course. But she’s far below her boyfriend’s social class, has nothing to offer him,” there was a pause, ice clinking. “Except her body. Obviously, she’s giving him a little somethin’ somethin’. Why else would he even bother?” A slurp. Ice against glass. Lips smacking. “Perfecto, Mags.”
“She wouldn’t, she’s a devout Catholic,” the man was clearly angry, interrupting again. “And he’s too chickensh-”
“She is a bar brat. As is her brother. But he is useful to us. To me. His dabbling into dark magic to try to be better at something than his sister--excellent.” His look was menacing. “She is useful to gain him. And since You,” he directed this at the woman dribbling Jack down her bosom, “failed thus far to gain his allegiance, I will take leadership in this matter We have others we wish to use as well. Miss Miller--she is one who knows almost as much of resentment as Cameron did.”
A heavy hand clunked his empty glass on the table . “I need a refill. And something to eat. Green I can work with --little book piggy.” He snorted. “Maybe Black too. So skinny. Hah, Hah, Hah," he chortled. “She must be hungry hah, hah... NAH.” He laughed stupidly. “More interested in Anton anyway. That’s my kind of hunger. . .”
“I want a report on the virus we manufactured. We just tested it at Salem. We needed an effective tool for temporarily incapacitating large segments of the magical population to get them out of our way and us away from their notice. But one we could vaccinate ourselves from.” He nodded to someone across the table. “You were quite proud of having developed it. How successful was it?” he asked the man across from him who had thus far remained silent.
The silent man in glasses now leaned forward to speak. “It was not as wide-spread as we hoped. Furthermore, it may be fatal in the elderly or those with severely compromised immune systems.” He steepled his fingers. “The vaccine however, worked perfectly. We are also perfectly lined up to put another set of eyes and ears into the school. We shall have our recruits all the faster.’’ He removed his glasses and cleaned them carefully. “The problem was not the virus. It was the delivery method. Perhaps we should try the ventilation system next time.”
“Our mistake was not making it lethal!” a fist slammed on the table. “One lousy casualty? And an old woman that wasn’t even a threat, at that.” Chair legs hitting the floor created an almost thunderous crack. “No, the next time we won’t bother with this piddly mad scientist shit!” growled the man. “We’ll charge in, take what we want, then level the fuckin’ place. The first one I’m grabbing is Lively. Bet she’s got a score to two to settle, and I can help with that.”
“These are our children, our own kind! Our objective is not to kill them! It is to convert them, use them, make a better world for them! Make a better world for them than we had. If we lose a few, so be it. But we are not wasting the whole school. You will take Lively? I still want O’Brien--the male O’Brien. And Miller. Maybe the younger Miller as well.”
“Our children?” the clean cut man was incredulous. “But, of course, no, we do not want to kill them. We need them.” He drummed his fingers on the table, then stopped abruptly. “Woah, slow down. I’d like first pick, if I may. Laudbaum and Patrick. All three Pratts, actually. Phrixos will be difficult, but I believe I can win him over. Iris is in the palm of dear daddy’s hand, there is no question she will join us.”
“Despite your foolish mumbling,” said the man in the glasses, arching his fingers carefully as he looked at the huge man down the table from him, “I believe I can develop Esther Black. She is more motivated by perfection than your sort of desire. Elizabeta Romani-Nicoli will be my own special project as well. She will make the perfect puppet for our cause.” He looked over his list. “I might be able to make use of the Rotheri twins as well. But it remains to be seen if I can turn them.”
“I nearly had Ryan Drake. He was so close to joining us. His mother must have suspected. I can think of no other reason for her suddenly withdrawing her boys from the school. He would have been such an excellent tool in my hands . . . “ she let the words roll off her tongue, like honey dripping from a hive, then reached for her glass of Jack, spilling it. “Ooops.” She idly reached for her wand, then cleaned up the mess.
“A shame that such... talent went to waste,” the smokey, genderless voice agreed. “The way Miss O’Brien feels toward Pratt, I’d like to collect her - but she is much too... Catholic. Makepeace would be an acceptable compromise; he yearns for Black. I’d also like to keep an eye on Vogel. She is confused; I can help her figure herself out. That handsome Walker should be mine as well . . . he’d look so fine riding a horse.”
“Like hell you’re taking Makepeace. He’s mine, you fruity little shit!” another fist banged against the tabletop. “You can have Matthews. And, before anyone else claims him, Johnson is mine, too.”
The quiet man with the glasses rose. “Then I suggest you all get to work. I have other matters to attend to. We have another incident to stage soon. Our next meeting will convene in one month. You know what you need to do. Magryta, I am pleased to see you among our number. You, too, have work to do. Get your little sister under control so she can still be of use to us. With that, our meeting is adjourned.”
“The disappearance and drowning of one of our main recruits was disappointing, but we can use it in our favor,” the voice rumbled across the darkened room and over the tinkle of ice cubes in glasses. “We have put out the word that Cameron Finley has transferred to another school, closer to her grandparents, at their insistence. Her grandparents are silenced, of course, along with her parents; no one is the wiser.” Again the clink, tinkle, clink of ice cubes. “We will find another one full of fury and rage to use as our missile. They are easy enough to find and manipulate when they see what everyone else has that they don’t.”
“You poor thing, losing so many prospects,” an androgynous voice joined the first. “Magryta, you sexy thing, be a dear and fetch me a drink.” A cackle then the sound of a palm smacking a tight rump through denim followed the command. Footsteps. A door opening and closing. “A screaming orgasm!” the voice called louder, as if to breach a wall. “At least one of us got lucky,” the sickening and sinister grin could almost be heard in the words. “Jealous?”
“Yes. You all keep blaming me for botching the kidnapping. It was the damned lighthouse that botched it, and you know it.” She yawned and stretched out, taking a sip of her drink and spilling a little on her breasts as she drank. “Besides, we were never going to keep her . . . just use her kidnapping to divide them from depending on each other so we could recruit him. She is all that is keeping me from making him one of ours. But no--fatso here had to get all obsessed with the prophecy and forget the main reason we chose her instead of the other keepers. Of course, if we killed her, that would split them up too, and make him easy to recruit, so that was always an option, but the main objective was to get her mistrusting him and thinking she couldn’t depend on him. We didn’t even get to that part. Chubba Wubba Tubba there messed up that part, not me.”
A man cleared his throat. “That no longer matters. She is already drifting from him,” he sighed. “It would appear she is in a new symbiotic relationship with her fellow keeper, Phrixos.” The voice sounded slightly muffled as if the man talked through clenched teeth. Paper crumpled. The man half-groaned, half-growled. “The only positive in this is that he has kicked his draft habit and is always on the precipice of another breakdown. When he inevitably has his episode, their relationship will be no more and she will be alone.”
“That will send her right back to her brother then . . . unless she is so attached to Pratt she’s suicidal . . . that could play into my hand to turn her brother . . . or we could make it look like a suicide.” She grinned maliciously.
“She will be good bait. For either boy,” the man’s muffled voice interjected.
“For her brother, of course. But she’s far below her boyfriend’s social class, has nothing to offer him,” there was a pause, ice clinking. “Except her body. Obviously, she’s giving him a little somethin’ somethin’. Why else would he even bother?” A slurp. Ice against glass. Lips smacking. “Perfecto, Mags.”
“She wouldn’t, she’s a devout Catholic,” the man was clearly angry, interrupting again. “And he’s too chickensh-”
“She is a bar brat. As is her brother. But he is useful to us. To me. His dabbling into dark magic to try to be better at something than his sister--excellent.” His look was menacing. “She is useful to gain him. And since You,” he directed this at the woman dribbling Jack down her bosom, “failed thus far to gain his allegiance, I will take leadership in this matter We have others we wish to use as well. Miss Miller--she is one who knows almost as much of resentment as Cameron did.”
A heavy hand clunked his empty glass on the table . “I need a refill. And something to eat. Green I can work with --little book piggy.” He snorted. “Maybe Black too. So skinny. Hah, Hah, Hah," he chortled. “She must be hungry hah, hah... NAH.” He laughed stupidly. “More interested in Anton anyway. That’s my kind of hunger. . .”
“I want a report on the virus we manufactured. We just tested it at Salem. We needed an effective tool for temporarily incapacitating large segments of the magical population to get them out of our way and us away from their notice. But one we could vaccinate ourselves from.” He nodded to someone across the table. “You were quite proud of having developed it. How successful was it?” he asked the man across from him who had thus far remained silent.
The silent man in glasses now leaned forward to speak. “It was not as wide-spread as we hoped. Furthermore, it may be fatal in the elderly or those with severely compromised immune systems.” He steepled his fingers. “The vaccine however, worked perfectly. We are also perfectly lined up to put another set of eyes and ears into the school. We shall have our recruits all the faster.’’ He removed his glasses and cleaned them carefully. “The problem was not the virus. It was the delivery method. Perhaps we should try the ventilation system next time.”
“Our mistake was not making it lethal!” a fist slammed on the table. “One lousy casualty? And an old woman that wasn’t even a threat, at that.” Chair legs hitting the floor created an almost thunderous crack. “No, the next time we won’t bother with this piddly mad scientist shit!” growled the man. “We’ll charge in, take what we want, then level the fuckin’ place. The first one I’m grabbing is Lively. Bet she’s got a score to two to settle, and I can help with that.”
“These are our children, our own kind! Our objective is not to kill them! It is to convert them, use them, make a better world for them! Make a better world for them than we had. If we lose a few, so be it. But we are not wasting the whole school. You will take Lively? I still want O’Brien--the male O’Brien. And Miller. Maybe the younger Miller as well.”
“Our children?” the clean cut man was incredulous. “But, of course, no, we do not want to kill them. We need them.” He drummed his fingers on the table, then stopped abruptly. “Woah, slow down. I’d like first pick, if I may. Laudbaum and Patrick. All three Pratts, actually. Phrixos will be difficult, but I believe I can win him over. Iris is in the palm of dear daddy’s hand, there is no question she will join us.”
“Despite your foolish mumbling,” said the man in the glasses, arching his fingers carefully as he looked at the huge man down the table from him, “I believe I can develop Esther Black. She is more motivated by perfection than your sort of desire. Elizabeta Romani-Nicoli will be my own special project as well. She will make the perfect puppet for our cause.” He looked over his list. “I might be able to make use of the Rotheri twins as well. But it remains to be seen if I can turn them.”
“I nearly had Ryan Drake. He was so close to joining us. His mother must have suspected. I can think of no other reason for her suddenly withdrawing her boys from the school. He would have been such an excellent tool in my hands . . . “ she let the words roll off her tongue, like honey dripping from a hive, then reached for her glass of Jack, spilling it. “Ooops.” She idly reached for her wand, then cleaned up the mess.
“A shame that such... talent went to waste,” the smokey, genderless voice agreed. “The way Miss O’Brien feels toward Pratt, I’d like to collect her - but she is much too... Catholic. Makepeace would be an acceptable compromise; he yearns for Black. I’d also like to keep an eye on Vogel. She is confused; I can help her figure herself out. That handsome Walker should be mine as well . . . he’d look so fine riding a horse.”
“Like hell you’re taking Makepeace. He’s mine, you fruity little shit!” another fist banged against the tabletop. “You can have Matthews. And, before anyone else claims him, Johnson is mine, too.”
The quiet man with the glasses rose. “Then I suggest you all get to work. I have other matters to attend to. We have another incident to stage soon. Our next meeting will convene in one month. You know what you need to do. Magryta, I am pleased to see you among our number. You, too, have work to do. Get your little sister under control so she can still be of use to us. With that, our meeting is adjourned.”
