Interrogation
Digging through the recycling, I managed to find a glass jug formerly filled with cider, still around from Christmas. Not for the first time, I was glad I rarely threw things away. You really never knew when you were going to need it.
Magnetically manipulating a dust pan, I scooped up Motrim’s oozing remains and poured them into the waiting container. I’d dealt with slimers before, and knew that he’d be hard pressed to get out of it as he was. He’d need time to regather his strength. Time which I wasn’t going to give him, so I didn’t have any to waste. His words about the ‘Princess’ were not encouraging. I checked my phone again. Still no response from Glacia. That wasn’t good. Not good at all.
Lifting the jug, I gathered up what few items from the apartment I wanted to keep. It wasn’t a lot. Some clothes, my phone, my laptop, and the toaster would do me until I found another place. It was kind of sad. I did like that apartment, but I’d gotten used to moving around by now, so didn’t let it hold me.
Walking out, I saw a number of my neighbours peek out their doors, then vanish inside again with the clicks of locks and bolts. Well, couldn’t blame them. Everyone hears about what happens to civvies who get between villains and heroes, and I didn’t have time to reassure them.
I rushed out of the building and into my waiting car, throwing what I’d salvaged into the back and tossing Mortrim’s sloshing jug into the seat beside me. I peeled out of the parking lot with a squeal of rubber and hit the highway.
No more fucking around. It was time to see Glacia.
Halfway there, Mortrim started to wake up. I could feel it by the way his ooze within the keg slopped against the sides, testing the glass. Well, let him. He wasn’t going anywhere. Without enough space to really expand himself, he didn’t have a prayer of breaking out. This wasn’t my first rodeo. While he was doing that, I tried Glacia’s phone again.
“Come on. Come on! Pick up…” I muttered as it rang.
No answer. I turned it off as I reached her building and parked right on the sidewalk in front of it, alarming more than a few people. But I was in a rush. Throwing open the door I got out and marched up towards the entrance. The doorman saw me coming and drew himself up, putting out an arm to block my way.
“Excuse me, sir? I’m afraid only residents may enter."
I didn’t even spare him a glance, too busy scanning the building. There. The penthouse. That had to be hers.
“Sir?” the doorman said, reaching for me. “I-“
I magnetically pushed my armour off the sewer pipes below the streets, sending me flying into the air, the doorman jerking back in shock. I ignored him, floating over to the top floor and towards the suite. I landed on the balcony just outside.
Fucking hell it was cold!
I could actually feel my skin tighten at the dryness in the air. Steam seeped from the doorway, rolling across the frost-encrusted railing, but it wasn’t the presence of the ice that made my heart pound in fear. It was that the it was starting to melt.
I tried to look through the windows but frost coated them utterly. I grabbed the handles but they were stuck fast. The hell with that! I thrust my arm at it, a blast of magnetic force ripping the doors out by the hinges. With a cracking sound the ice broke off, rotten like spring’s thawing. I hurled the door aside and stepped into Glacia’s home.
Ice coated everything. A sea of mirror shining over tables, counters and walls. It was like walking into a glacier carved into a palace. I had to step carefully as the ice on the floor had begun forming thin melted puddles over the surface.
I took in every room, but the strangest thing was that it was all very… bland. There were no paintings on the walls. No furniture other than the basics. No photos. No knickknacks that your relatives picked up for you and you didn’t want to get rid of in case they stopped by. There wasn’t even anything on the fridge. If not for the coating of ice, there was nothing to show Glacia had ever lived between those walls.
Carter’s words suddenly reoccurred to me. Did she know something about this? Was this the real reason that Glacia was dropped from Razer’s business? I didn’t like it. Not at all. I didn’t have enough information.
But I had someone who did.
I flipped out my phone and dialed a number. Barely two rings and it was picked up.
“Helloooooo handsome!” Dolly sang. “How’s it going?”
“Could be better,” I said as I walked back outside and onto the balcony, lifting off and floating back down towards the ground. “Listen, are any of the paint mixers in the factory still working?”
“Sure! Getting ready to paint the town red, Victor?”
“Something like that. And I’ll be bringing a guest if that’s alright.”
“A guest? Oh you naughty boy! But I’m willing to experiment if you are.”
“Not like that. I’ll be along in a bit. Talk to you soon.”
“See ya soon, handsome!”
I hung up and dialed again, listening to the ring as I landed. The doorman had regained his feet and looked shakily my way. “H-hey!” he shouted, pointing at me and showing an almost Darwinian lack of survival instinct. “You’re the-“
With barely a thought I yanked his feet out from under him, sending him crashing to the pavement with a groan. As I slid back into my car, the call was picked up.
“Hey hey! How’s it hanging, boss?” Psyren’s voice chimed over the phone.
“Fine. Listen,” I said. “Can you to meet me at Dolly’s? Your brother knows the way. I could use a hand.”
“Absolutely bossman! Anything for you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate this. Really.”
I hung up the phone and pocketed it before starting the car and pulling off the sidewalk. I realized as I rejoined traffic that I was tapping my finger on the wheel and forced myself to stop.
Don’t panic.
Number one rule of villainy. Seriously. The moment a villain panics is the moment he is absolutely fucked. You see it every time. Things start slipping from his control and he starts to freak out. He makes worse and worse decisions as everything becomes increasingly fubar. He throws a tantrum, executes his best minions, falls into a trap, and then his second in command throws an octogenarian down a bottomless pit.
Every time.
I forced myself to breathe slower. That’s right. Remain calm. There’s no need to panic. I had a plan. Things would follow through, and I’d move on with that. That’s the plan.
So I said, but I as I drove up into the old industrial sector, feeling the rusting metal like ash grating on my skin, I realized I was tapping my fingers again. The factory where Dolly made her shop under loomed ahead and I stopped the car and got out, dragging the jug beside me.
“I bet you think you’ll never talk,” I said idly as I headed towards the factory’s main doors.
I felt the contents of the jug swirl.
“Yeah. Silent treatment. But I know you can hear me. And I know you think you’re too good to ever talk. That you’re the smartest person in the room. But look at you. You’re the genie in the jug. And I’m going to get my fucking wish if I have to melt you down.”
“Better men than you have tried,” hissed a muted voice.
“Probably,” I said. “But I’m not a better man. I’m the worst around. And it’s time I showed you what that means.”
Dolly was waiting for me inside. She looked oddly out of place amid the ruins of the factory. Like a smartphone in a junkheap. She beamed as I approached, bouncing on her heels as I drew nearer.
“Hey Victor! Oooh, whatcha got there?” she said, looking at the jug and its swirling black contents.
I hefted it. “A prisoner. Got the machine ready?”
“You betcha!” she chirped, curiosity burning in her eyes as she directed me to follow.
I did so, dragging the jug with me and deeper into the factory. Most of the machinery was layered in dust and neglect, like relics of a forgotten age of industry, but some of the equipment had been fixed up by Dolly. Not too much of course. She wasn’t going to risk revealing her hidden base to any rando who walked through the doors, but enough to get them working.
One of which was the pneumatic paint mixer.
I looked at it in approval. It resembled a massive claw attached to an engine. One of those heavy-duty industrial machines that were the true workhorses of the modern era, made to be abused and run long after there was any actual worth keeping it around. Well, it was going to be earn its keep today, that was for damn sure. I grabbed the handle at the top and cranked open the claw to the limit, then shoved the jug between, tightening the claw with another spin.
“Last chance,” I said.
“Do your worst,” Mortrim replied, his face swirling against the glass, glaring daggers at me.
“Sounds fun,” I said, and turned on the machine.
The mixer began to shake, the thrumming whirr of the machinery shuddering, the vibrations working from the engine, up the claw until it started to shake the jug. The contents within sloshed noisily, the little space inside shaking Mortrim’s black essence loudly.
“That sounds painful!” I shouted over the whirr of the machine and swilling of the jug.
“Th-th-this i-i-is n-n-noth-th-th-ing!”
“Just tell me what I want to know and I’ll stop!” I said, slowing down the mixer with a turn of the crank. “Where is Glacia? What did you do with her? What did you mean by calling her princess?”
“You’ll n-n-never learn!”
“Don’t be so sure about that!” I said, and cranked up the mixer again.
The machine thrummed, the sound like an earthquake, the very building shaking as Mortrim was abused within the jug.
“I-I-I-I w-w-w-will n-n-n-n-not t-t-t-talk!”
“He’s a stubborn one, huh?” Dolly said as she leaned in, examining the white fragments of Mortrim’s face as they splattered about the inside of the glass. “Say?” she said, giving me a grin that was likely the last thing many lab mice ever saw. “How about we break out some of my fun stuff, huh? I bet we could get something interesting out of him with some electrodes!”
“Tempting,” I said, raising my voice over the thrumming of the mixer. “But I had something else in mind.”
Dolly tilted her woolly head. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” I said, looking back to the entrance of the factory, feeling the familiar much abused metal of a certain van coming to a halt. “And here she is.”
Seconds later Psyren strolled through the open doors with all the confidence of a born bitch on the town. The chains and buckles she wore rang like bells, her neon pink hair a crazy mane about her head, her grin a Cheshire smile of serious superiority complex. Beside her stumped Steve, his slouching gait rolling him towards us like an old tomcat on the prowl.
I slowed down the mixer as they got close, letting it rumble low, keeping Mortrim nice and stirred up.
“Glad you found the place,” I said.
“My bro knows his way around,” Psyren said, elbowing Steve, who chuckled and swatted her shoulder. “So whatcha need, bossman?” Psyren said eagerly, pressing forward and right into my personal space, arms wrapping around my neck and her face leaning in close. “Got a job for your favourite psychic? Want me to hurt someone for ya, boss? Want me to make somebody scream?”
“Something like that,” I said, glancing towards the jug.
Psyren followed my gaze and her face lit up with malicious eagerness. “Ooooh, what’s that?”
“Your subject. I hate to be a bother, but he has some info I need, and is being… difficult.”
“Aw, that’s no good!” Psyren said, releasing me and sidling up towards the jug. “We can’t have that. When the boss asks a question, it’s gotta be answered. That’s what makes him the boss.”
“She calls you boss?” Dolly said, cocking her head at me.
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“The boss is taking me on as an apprentice,” Psyren said, tapping the slowly vibrating jug.
“Alright, not too long a story,” I admitted. “Do you think you can get anything out of him?” I asked.
“Psh! Please. Of course I can, bossman,” Psyren said languidly, her fingers dancing over the glass of the jug. Her luminous eyes wandered towards me as she smiled. “Everyone just loves talking to me. Telling me things. All their dirty little secrets. The naughty little tidbits they thought they’d take to the grave. Oh baby,” she hummed, her voice taking that peculiar reverb of psychic potency. “We’re gonna have some nice… deep chats. But people don’t always react well to a deep dive,” she added with a glance over her shoulder. “That going to be okay, boss?”
As if I cared what happened to Mortrim after the shit he pulled. “This idiot broke into my apartment and tried to kill me, and knows something about where Glacia is,” I said. “As long as I get that info, I don’t care if you lobotomize him.”
Psyren squealed with delight, clapping her small hands excitedly. “Oh boss! You don’t know what that means to me. Bro never lets me mindwipe. He says it’s not ethical and other boring junk.”
Steve nodded wisely. “Yeah, man. It’s no good. Nice girls shouldn’t be doing that kinda stuff. Nope. Not at all.”
I could appreciate Steve’s sentiment, but knew it wasn’t the whole reason. Steve knew this business too well to have that as his sole reason. Truth was, psychics who abused their powers didn’t exactly last long. Nobody wanted someone who could read their mind hanging around, not even other villains. Think about it? You put all that time and effort into conspiring a villainous 4D chessgame, only for some psychic to come along and blow the top off after two seconds of rummaging around in your head? No way. Nobody liked spoilers, but guys whose surnames are things like Doom and The Eviscerator doubly so. It’s a really bad precedent when you’re up to no good. Psychic villains were always top dogs, never lower-level players for that reason. They got offed far too quick. And Psyren was more ‘manic sidekick’ then evil mastermind.
“Get it out of his head one way or another,” I said. “If he dies, he dies.”
“Oooh, I just got chills, boss,” Psyren giggled. “You’re bringing out the bad girl in me. Okay, ink-boy. Let’s hear it.”
I killed the mixer, letting it die down to nothing. As soon as the sloshing had halted, Psyren locked her hands onto the glass of the jug, and her eyes began to glow a pink light.
“Hey inky,” Psyren cooed, her voice dropping, reverberating like she was talking through a long tunnel. “How’s it going?”
“Wh-wh-who a-a-are y-y-y-you?” Mortrim said, still addled from the mixing. Which could only make Glacia’s job easier, really.
“I’m your beeeeest friend,” Psyren said, her voice so playfully cruel I actually felt a shiver.
“Wh-what?” Mortrim said, his face slowly resolving against the glass side, his eyes staring at Psyren dully.
“That’s right. I’m your bestest, most wonderful, most special friend ever,” Psyren said, her pupils throbbing, the pink glow becoming glowing hearts, her voice gaining that lyrical smoothness I recalled from her show. “And you’re my biggest fan. And you wanna tell me everything, don’t you?”
Mortrim’s face was splashed against the glass like a Rorschach Test gone terribly wrong, his mouth slowly going slack, practically melting in the darkness of his ooze. No doubt the shaking of the jug was part of why he was so easily falling under Psyren’s sway, but I gave credit where it’s due, that girl knew how to use her powers.
“I… I…” Mortrim gaped.
“C’mon,” she crooned, her voice echoing with its seductive compulsion, her hands stroking the glass as tender as a lover. “You can tell me. Don’t you wanna make me happy? I know you’ve been just obsessed with me. Just in love with me. Just adoring me. I’m just soooo sexy. Soooo cute. Soooo hot that you can’t resist my pretty voice. Don’t you wanna be my good boy? My good friend? Don’t you wanna make me happy?” she said, her voice smooth as wine, and just as intoxicating, her fingers tapping on the glass, the sound pinging like rain on metal. “Don’t you want to tell me absolutely everything I wanna know?”
“Kn… know?” Mortrim said, his voice beginning to drone, flat as a pancake. “But… I like… girls with big… tits…”
Psyren’s smile grew sharper. “What’s that?” she said sweetly, her voice no longer thrumming with sensuous compulsion, instead crackling with obvious menace. “I don’t think I heard you. I think you meant to say you love small tits. That you’re obsessed with them. Right?”
“I…”
“Right?” Psyren hissed, the glass of the jug creaking with the intensity of her psychic force.
Well, that was going nowhere good. “Can we please focus?” I said. “Besides, who cares what he thinks? He’s a sentient puddle!”
Psyren pouted. “Fine,” she sighed, then resumed stroked the surface of the jug, caressing it again, her voice dropping to that smooth droning. “Come on. You wanna tell me everything you know,” she purred.
“Want to… tell…” Mortrim groaned, features once more melting into slack obedience.
“Goooood. Now, what happened to Glacia?” Psyren said.
“The… princess?”
“Princess? Ooooh, what a cute nickname. Why do you call her that?” Psyren asked, a question quite high in my mind as well. “C’mon. Tell. You know how much I love gossip. You know it’d make me soooo happy to hear. And you want to make me happy, don’t you?”
“Want to… make you… happy…” Mortrim slurred.
“Goooood boy. Now spill those beans.”
“Call her… Princess Because she… she is the princess…” Mortrim said dully. “Daughter of… of the master…”
“Master?” I said.
“Master?” Psyren echoed, giggled again. “How wonderful! Won’t you tell your sexy friend who your master is?”
“Master…” Mortrim moaned. “Master… is… General Winter…”
I stared at the face in the glass, that name echoing in my mind. A cold swept over me. The sort of cold only felt at the highest poles of the world. Like I’d just stepped outside and found that winter had not only come, but came with all the fury it usually reserved for people trying to invade Russia.
General Winter.
Holy fuck.
I could see from the way Dolly had straightened and Psyren’s eyes widened they were having an entirely appropriate reaction to that name. Even Steve had stiffened up, his glasses slipping down his nose as he stared at the face in the jar.
General Winter.
There were names that were legends. Villains whose deeds have gone down through history and newspapers with body counts in the tens of thousands. Names that are generally reserved only for natural disasters, and General Winter was one of them. He was one of the highest brass of the Guild. A member of the Council of Nine itself. One of its oldest members, in fact, and in an organization whose membership tended to die young, that was a triumph all on its own. But outliving his enemies wasn’t his only skill. He’d once wrapped half of Europe in an unseasonably cold winter, and killed almost two million in the process. He was the reason that the Arctic remained unclaimed by every nation, and where his icy palace stood in a challenge to the world. Armies had tried to take him down and been buried in an ice age. He was a monster not even the biggest named heroes would pick a fight with unless they had an entire league, friends, or society at their backs. It was a name not to be fucked with.
And apparently, he also went by ‘daddy’.
Steve turned to me. “Wooooah man. Did you know about this?” he asked.
“N-no. Of course not,” I said, and that was the damn truth. There were plenty of ice powered people around. It was one of the most common elemental power sets, not to mention the domain of any cold-themed jackass who could build a freeze ray. Glacia could have been sired by one of them, or even come upon her powers through a more mundane way like almost freezing to death, meeting a spirit of winter, or cryogenic lab experiment gone hideously awry.
But suddenly it all made sense. Her lack of common knowledge, her big ass apartment, the fact that Carter had been taking her on right off the bat without me ever hearing about her. I looked at Mortrim’s slack face. God that expression was creepy. “Why did the General take her?” I asked.
“Had to…” Mortrim said dimly. “Magneron didn’t… join the Guild. So we couldn’t… get her back… easily. Then the heroes… failed. Were supposed to… incapacitate her… and the Master would… retrieve her.”
Oh, well, wasn’t that just fucking perfect. He was behind those heroes crashing the museum as well? I suddenly recalled the old man I’d seen inside. The one whose icy stare now took on a very literal definition. Shit!
“Why does he want her?” I demanded.
Mortrim’s face wavered on the interior of the glass. “I…”
“Go on,” Psyren cooed. “Tell the boss. For me…”
Mortrim’s face relaxed once more, his pupils vibrating with the hearts of Psyren’s compulsion. “Yes… Yes, mistress,” he breathed, which made Psyren smirk in a worrying way. “The Master didn’t want to… to cross Razer, but felt… felt he had to. The Princess ran to them… and got taken on as a villain… behind his back. But the heroes failed. So he went to retrieve her… and told Razer if they interfered…” Mortrim smiled then. The familiar, oily smirk of someone who enjoys seeing the weak being squeezed. “If they interfered… the master would make them pay.”
Well, that certainly explained a lot about Carter’s behaviour when I spoke to her. She must have been ecstatic at first to get a legacy villain like Glacia. The marketing would write itself. But I also wasn’t surprised at how fast she caved. Painting a target on Razer’s back for General Winter wasn’t going to profit anyone, and profits were all Carter worked in.
“What are you gonna do?”
Dolly’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “Me?” I said.
“Yeah,” Dolly said with a smile. “You.”
That was a good question. What was I going to do? Now that I knew what happened to Glacia, the most obvious choice would be to drop the whole thing and get on with my life. Taking on one of the leaders of the Guild was not something I should do if I wanted a peaceful existence of villainy and getting foiled by heroes. This wasn’t at all like when I’d dealt with other villains. Usually, those had been no-name thugs or petty vengeful twits who just needed a good beating to get it in their heads I wasn’t easy prey.
But taking on General Winter wasn’t going to be fun or easy. Only an absolute lunatic would do that. And that was before considering doing so might bring down the wrath of the entire Guild on my head.
I sighed, rubbing my forehead, a migraine coming on. I really shouldn’t. But well… if you’re going to make a career fighting superpowered people who threw around lightning bolts and magic fire, you gotta be a bit crazy sometimes.
“Where did he take her?” I asked.
Steve gave me a dumbfounded look. “What?” he said, drawing out the first syllable. “Eyyy, Victor, I can’t be hearing this, right? You’re gonna take on the Guild? That’s nuts, my man!”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But she came to me and was counting on me. I can’t just abandon her.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Dolly said, elbowing me in the side with a playful grin.
“Yeah, well… the General already sent this dumbass after me. What’s to stop him from sending another assassin? One that’s actually good?” I said.
“Sure,” Psyren said with a knowing, playful look I didn’t much appreciate. “That’s the real reason, boss. And certainly not because you hate it when people touch your women.”
“Watch it,” I warned her. “Just make him spill where she’s being kept.”
“You got it, bossman,” the psychic giggled, turning her glowing eyes back to the face inside the jar. “How about it? Won’t you tell us where they are?”
Mortrim’s face wavered on the other side of the glass. “I… n-no. I mustn’t betray… the Master…”
“But you wanna,” Psyren cooed, her voice thrumming in the air, vibrating with the power she was drilling into the slimer’s mind. “Do it for me, sweet thing. Do it for Psyren. Your queen. Your obsession. Your sexy… sexy goddess. Tell me...”
His features shuddered behind the glass, terror and loyalty warring with psionic induced obsession. “I… I can’t… I…”
Psyren’s hair began to glow, rising as she compelled her power into Mortrim’s mind. “Tell me,” she said, her voice vibrating, the air around us tinting pink as if being tainted by her influence. Dolly staggered and even Steve was swaying where he stood. My own headache was telling me that she was really laying it on thick right now. “Tell me,” she repeated, fingers stroking the glass in slow, spiralling patterns. “You know you want to. You need to. You got to. Talk to me, baby. Tell your mistress what you know. Tell me everything.”
Mortrim’s face blotched, warping like someone were flaying him with an egg beater. His eyes were the only things that stayed constant, still wrapped in the heart of Psyren’s compulsion.
“I… I… I…”
“Tell me,” Psyren said, her voice a hiss as she abandoned the coaxing and went full on needle-to-the-brain brutal.
“They… They… They are in… in… in the old… old hotel! R- Roue Devaaaaard!” Mortrim wailed, a sound like something breaking.
Roue Devard? I raised a brow. Now that was interesting. I’d heard that the old hotel up near the mountains had been sold. I tended to try and keep appraised of those sorts of purchases. It was usually either bought by some CEO or a supervillain, and often the same. And a pricy palatial building up in the mountains was right up the General’s alley.
“Good boy!” Psyren cooed, her voice dropping, her hands stroking the glass more playfully. “Now, how about that address?”
He gave it over without much more fuss. Broken as he was, Mortrim didn’t have a shred of resistance left. We grilled him about the defences of the manor, and it wasn’t good. Cameras, automated turrets, security with orders to shoot on sight, as well as a number of Guild defences that would no doubt be a fucking delight to deal with, but that Mortrim didn’t know much of. He had only visited the place a few times to get instructions from the General before annoying me.
“Where will she be held?” I demanded.
“The main room,” Mortrim droned. “She will be with the Master. They will be preparing to depart back to the Palace of Ice tomorrow.”
Things just kept getting better and better. So I had less than a day to break into the fortified lair of one of the Council of 9 before Glacia was well out of my reach, even if I decided to take a vacation to the arctic. The Palace of Ice was no Fortress of Solitude, but a stronghold whose surroundings were littered with the frozen remains of armies who’d assailed it. I was pretty confident in my abilities, but I know my limits, and I wouldn’t have a prayer of storming a lair like that.
“Great,” I said grimly.
“Looks that way, boss,” Psyren said as her fingers traced soothing motions over the glass, Mortrim whimpering in psychic ecstasy. “How can we help?”
“We?” I said.
“Sure!” Dolly said, sidling suddenly up beside me. “Did you think we were going to let our favorite villain get himself killed just like that? No way! I can still milk you for plenty of cash. Among other things,” she said with a teasing wink.
“And you’ve only just started training me,” Psyren said with an impish smile. “I’m not letting you get away from me that easy.”
I didn’t mind admitting I was touched, and a little confused. That two superpowered bombshells were willing to risk life, limb, and freedom on me was more than I had any reason to expect. But I also knew I’d need every asset I could get to survive taking on the General. However, I wasn’t about to have them join me in storming the place. If I failed, and it was quite likely I would given who I was taking on, I refused to drag down Psyren and Dolly.
“You two can help me prepare,” I said. “But I’m going in alone. This is going to be a fight like hell, and I won’t risk you two.”
Psyren pouted. “Aw, come on, boss,” she said, sliding towards me, wrapping her arms around me neck, her breasts pressed against my chest as she pouted up at my face. “I can take care of myself. And anybody who tries to hurt my man,” she added with a vicious grin, psychic power crackling around her like a field of electric pink, “clearly aren’t using all of their brains. So why not let me introduce them to the wonders of amateur lobotomy?”
Well, that was both flattering, and terrifying. But as I was beginning to fully appreciate, that was pretty much her brand, and all the more reason I didn’t want Psyren coming.
“Thanks,” I said. “But the best thing you can do for me is getting more info out of Mortrim. Anything else. I’d love to take you, but this isn’t going to be like training. This is going to be a brawl, and I’d hate to think you might get hurt because of me.”
Psyren pouted. “Fine,” she said, then pulled herself further up against me. “But you owe me, boss.”
She kissed me suddely, the buzz of it making me start, my hands instinctively moving around her waist and grasping her ass. A soft moan escaped her, her tongue teasing my lips, but when I went to deepen the kiss she slipped from my grasp, her eyes twinkling merrily.
“Little something to make sure you come back,” she said with a wink, sliding over to Mortrim’s jar to get anything else she could out of him.
I exhaled heavily and looked to Dolly, who was smirking at me. “What?” I said.
“Oh, nothing, boss,” she said with teasing emphasis. “So how’s that solo career working out?”
“Listen,” I said, raising a warning finger, looking at it as I tried to think of something to say, then giving up. “Whatever,” I said instead. “I’ll be needing some gear.”
“Sure, Victor,” Dolly said with a wink. “Anything for my favorite villain.”