Rage coursing through me, I reached for Lansing.
The handler cursed and grabbed my arm. The moment his skin touched mine, he froze. Thefuriaewanted Lansing, but she would accept the man who’d been willing to give Zyanya to him. Who’d accepted payment for her humiliation and degradation.
“Take her indignity upon yourself.” The words fell from my lips, though I hadn’t felt them form. They were simply there, channeling justice with every syllable.
The handler dropped my arm.
“What are you doing, man?” the groom demanded. “Don’t let her go! That damn collar’s not working!”
Other handlers rushed toward us from both sides of the room, but they had to push their way through a crowd that didn’t yet feel threatened enough to disperse.
The handler who’d taken Lansing’s money pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. He unbuckled his utility belt and let it fall, Taser and all, then pulled his boots off, one by one. By the time the fastest of his coworkers got close enough to see what was going on, he was standing in front of the mesmerized crowd in a stained pair of white underpants and a single ripped athletic sock.
“Murphy!” the approaching handler shouted at his nearly naked coworker. “What the hell are you doing, man?”
“He touched her.” Lansing pointed at me as he backed farther away from us. “She said something, then he just started stripping!”
Murphy bent to pull his remaining sock off, and the soft pooch of an aging belly folded over the band of his underwear.
“Man, put your clothes back on.” Another handler stepped forward, aiming his remote at me, but he didn’t press any of the buttons. I wasn’t an immediate threat, now that my hair had fallen and my nails had receded, and if he paralyzed me, he wouldn’t get any answers. “What did you do to him?” he demanded, as two more handlers pushed back the still-gathering crowd.
Onstage, Lenore had stopped singing, and the string quartet stood behind her, trying to see over the crowd.
“I gave him a dose of his own medicine.”
Murphy hooked both thumbs beneath the waistband of his underwear, and the crowd groaned in unison as he pushed the stained material to the floor. He stepped out of the pile of shed clothing and dropped onto his knees.
“Murphy, get up,” one of the handlers said, while another spoke softly into a handheld radio, calling for backup.
Murphy didn’t get up. He just stood there on his knees, exposed in front of the crowd, while one of the other handlers pulled Zyanya toward the edge of the room, where the other cryptid servers had already been gathered.
And suddenly, the groom burst into laughter. “Is he just going to stay there like that?” He pointed at Murphy, and his amusement seemed to spread through the crowd, now that I no longer seemed dangerous.
The partygoers snickered, and Murphy’s cheeks flushed. He knew what was happening. He knew what he was doing and what they were saying, but he was helpless to make it stop. He was living out the degradation he’d tried to heap upon Zyanya.
“Get up,” one of the handlers said, as the double doors at the front of the room flew open and more handlers poured in, tranquilizer rifles aimed and ready.
“He can’t,” I told them, as Murphy shuffled toward the door on his knees, tears trailing down his scarlet face, loose flesh wobbling. “I don’t think he ever will again.”
* * *
“What thehelldid you do?” Vandekamp paced back and forth in front of his desk, and the drastic change in his demeanor made me nervous. I’d never seen him angry.
“I didn’t do anything,” I insisted, wishing I could pull the stupid mask from my face, but I’d been handcuffed again, still in my costume. “Seriously. Murphy grabbed my arm and it just happened. I was merely a conduit for justice.” My head swiveled as I watched Vandekamp pace past me, while a man stationed to the right of the desk kept his gun aimed at my chest.
“I told you what would happen if you didn’t behave.”
“I’m not in control of thefuriae.” Not always. “I tried to tell you that.”
Vandekamp turned to the pair of handlers stationed by the door. “Where are the others she was serving with?”
“We’re holding them down the hall, sir, waiting for your decision.”
“Isolate each of them. No lights. No windows. No sleep mat. No communication with anyone. No food or water for forty-eight hours.”
“But I couldn’t help it!” I insisted. “Punishing them won’t teach me a lesson, because I didn’t do it on purpose!”
Vandekamp didn’t even seem to hear me.
