Hollow Dolls, The (32 page)

Kim Li was holding a glass of dark liquid which she drank back.

“Alejandra is sort of a voodoo sorceress,” whispered Jack.

“I know,” said Mel, “First hand.” She wanted to say that she’d
fallen in love with her in some strange way, like a blood connection.

“You know. That deep old Russian blood. Ex military. Plus she
plays with a lot of entheogenic drugs now too. She’s a mitt full.”

“Kim Li and Winnie are so lost,” said Mel. “She did it to me too,
just for a few nights though.”

Georgy was  playing with drug concoctions too. His own. He had
been a lab rat and a torture expert back in the day. Another aha moment. Drug
concoctions, Georgy. Somehow the connection was made. She remembered the white
cap and the little hole in it she’d noticed in the Sandman elevator and the
time she squirted it at Winnie’s boobs. Why was everything suddenly so clear? The
stream of water. Fuck! She ran downstairs and chucked the flat of water out the
back door.  “Fuuuuck Youuuuuu Georgy!!”  Mel went back in, slammed the door and
cracked the window in the process.

“Melanie, what’s wrong?”

“Later Dad.”

Back upstairs Mel joined Jack watching the monitor.

Alejandra sat between Winnie and Kim Li. Mel was mortified.

“You have a Russian accent, no?” asked Kim Li being cute.

Alejandra laughed.

“You are a Princess, no?”

 “What will you do with me?”

“You’re not afraid, are you?” said Alejandra.

“Should I be?”

Alejandra laughed so hard, Mel could see Alejandra even had tears
in her eyes.

“I won’t hurt you. Not anything you can’t handle.”

Mel almost smashed the screen when Alejandra slipped one hand in
between Winnie’s legs and stroked Kim Li’s thigh at the same time.

“My little heiress,” said Alejandra.

“I can’t understand what happened to Kim Li. We had plans,” said
Mel.

“She’s under the influence,” said Jack.

“Years ago, Alejandra and Georgy both worked for the Russian
Secret Service,” said Jack. “They were top assassins and torture experts until
they went private.”

“He was my shrink.” said Mel. “I... We...”

“That was a cover,” said Jack.

Mel jumped on the bed shouting. “Brain...dump! Brain...dump!”

Each time she sprung back up again she yelled it then she jumped
off the bed.

“C’mon, I’ll introduce you to my dad.”

Mel ran down the stairs. “Hey dad, I want you to meet Jack.”

“I know Jack,” said Walter.

 “Jack?” She felt her face go plain like vanilla.

“Yes dear,
Your
 Jack—the one upstairs.”

“Um Dad, what’s going on?”

 “I met Jack about six weeks ago,” he said. “Before you came back
he approached me and explained everything.”

“Peter?”

“Yes...” Walter looked embarrassed.

“Just talk. Tell me!”

“When Jack informed me you were actually my daughter and living in
England...” Walter trailed off. He smiled and wiped the corner of his eye. “And
Peter. He sold you to the Russians Mel. Through Alejandra.”

Walter didn’t want to say ‘slave’ and especially not ‘sex slave’.

“Why didn’t you tell me before today?”

She heard footsteps and turned to see Jack coming off the stairs.
Before Walter could answer, Mel was at the counter drinking down a shot of
scotch. Then she tucked the bottle under her arm like a football and ran
upstairs.

Mel fished through her underwear drawer and pulled out the Libbys.
She poured another shot, started crushing and chopping.

Peter sold you to the Russians. Okay.

Chop-chop-chop.

She said it over and over in her mind.

Slave. Sold to the Russians.

Chop chop chop.

Sold to the Russians.

Slave.

Chop chop chop.

She snorted an elephant dose and fell back on the bed.

The word didn’t fit. Peter was a moron.

How could he commandeer such a thing?

She couldn’t even remember Talia from her childhood. They’d both
been sold.

But where had she been? How had she never seen her own sister? She
felt an emptiness inside, knowing that she was with Talia at The Ball and
didn’t think to ask anything about her. The whole evening was like a dream now.

Mel heard someone coming up the stairs. She jumped up, slammed the
door and locked it. Sitting against the headboard on her bed she drifted out on
the oxy boat to a different island. She had the blade in her hand making new
red lines on the white comb. Then she touched the blood and tasted it. Folded
the blade closed. Leaned back again.

In Greece when she was with Jack...her mind spun through image
after image. A creaky door swung open. Mel’s eyes went to little slivers. She saw
their hotel room. The Man-Rabbit. Jack the CIA man playing his costumed game
and herself laughing and having fun sex with him in their hotel—and then even
in the bushes by the beach. Naughty. Then Jack had been sent away. She was alone
at the hotel waiting for Lilly’s contact to take her home. Only the contact who
arrived had been Peter. She remembered him raping and beating her in that hotel
room in Greece. Mel came out of it and sat up. That was why she’d blocked it
out! Jack’s memory had been lost to her. Someone must have sent Peter there
purposely. Lilly loved her. She knew that deep inside Lilly would never do such
a thing. So how the hell? She was lost again.

In the world of
Club Lick
back at that time, Lilly
only knew Jack as Evan Piedmont. Jack’s cover was as a high-end grifter from
Boston who’d fed on Thirteen-Colonies blue bloods for most of his criminal
career. He’d  been brought into the Russian mob in London through Lilly’s
brother Phillip. Lilly knew Jack as a wheel man and someone with good USA
connections for the underworld business of her father. It was something Lilly
paid little attention to. Her business was
the club
, a gift from her
father. Phillip handled all the dirty deeds. Jack may have been a valuable
asset to her father, but still Lilly wanted her Melanie away from Jack, to keep
Melanie for herself at
 the
club
. Being up against the wall, Lilly couldn’t trust her brother
Phillip and she was forced to ask him for help. To get Jack back to the States
in their father’s USA interests safely away from Melanie. She knew he’d become
involved in trafficking girls and the slave trade. He’d threatened Lilly
already with taking Melanie away from her if she were to breathe a word of his
slave secrets to their father. Phillip would be disowned by the patriarch who
was dead set against trafficking in little girls so he promised his sister
Lilly he’d arrange to have Jack sent to work in their operations back in the US.
And he’d get Melanie safely back to Lilly in London from Greece.

Lilly didn’t know what a sociopath Phillip was, and how he cared
more about his niece Alejandra’s likewise sociopathic plots. He’d lied to Lilly
and left Melanie’s welfare in Alejandra’s hands at her request. He didn’t care
a hoot about Melanie, a dancer. Alejandra fed Melanie to Peter the bad wolf
instead.

When Melanie returned home that summer all was fine. No it wasn’t.
She’d been terrorized once again and blocked out the entire Greek episode with
CIA Jack and even their most fun and precious little game they played with him
dressed as the Man-Rabbit.

Melanie and Mel in a subconscious haze bolted upright in bed and
sucked in a lungful of air. It was the truth. A huge dose. They dropped back
down.

~*~

Mel walked with Jack along their beach. She resisted the enjoyment
the sand offered her feet. It told her she wanted to let loose again with Jack
and beg him to reconsider. She wanted him to somehow change things and be
together with her here forever. She gripped the rabbit crystal in her palm and
focussed her mind on one thing: finding Kim Li. Her mind went dark.

“I want to find that fucking bitch Alejandra and cut her—.”

Jack’s admonishing look interrupted her. “Remember the balance
Mel.”

“Sorry, she’s a lot faster and stronger than I am. I don’t know
what to do.”

“We are going to change that now,” said Jack.  “Come, take my
hand.”

“No, wait,” said Mel. “Tell me why this is happening to me—you say
I have to learn to love, and I know I do, I mean, I did and it still it isn’t
good enough.”

“You already know Mel. You’ve seen it in The Record; you and Kim
Li are equal halves, the balance of power for the survival of light energy. That
is what  humans call love. There is little time Mel, we must move.”

“Stop it, you always say that! There’s no time. And I know, yes,
I’ve seen lots of things in The Record, only how did this all begin?”

She looked at Jack, making her sweet and innocent face. He had no
choice.

“It’s already begun Mel, you know that too. The underground have
been lying in wait ever since the mutations began three thousand years ago. You
remember the experiments?”

“Yes, after the ships came from Mars,” said Mel as obediently as a
schoolgirl.

“They only used Mars as a transfer point,” continued Jack. “They
came from a planet near our central sun, Alcyone, and divided the light energy
in our galaxy. Earth has been degrading with the dark bloodlines ever since. And
now they want to inhabit the entire planet as a power point. It was a long term
plan.”

Mel suddenly felt ill.

“After The Division, back when the mutation experiments began, it
took the Lians all these generations to achieve the right mutation, and now
they have their lineage of evil families strong in place on Earth. That’s who
we’ve been after. These are your prime targets.”

“I get that! But Kim Li and I were supposed to go after them
together. We were planning to take down Li International—now what will happen?”

“Changes have occurred because of Alejandra. Since she’s been in
control of her, Kim Li is sparking The Awakening even more quickly. The forces
below the earth have been dormant, living in hives. Now that they are being
activated and we are going to have to activate you both sooner than we
planned.”

“Activate?”

“Our fighting on this planet—the fighting between all the light
and dark humans in history—that has been a trifle compared to what is about to
happen. You will see the whole thing clearly once you’ve been activated at the
Ix Crystal.”

“Ix?”

“It’s pronounced
eesh
,” said Jack.

They joined hands and in an instant she felt her feet on a warm
smooth surface. The vibration tickled and she wiggled her toes. Around her the
surfaces were all crystal structured. The walls a pale turquoise, the ceiling a
dim dark yellow, and under her feet the crystal was teal—a combination of the
other two. Deep in the floor crystal, fractal light patterns danced and
disappeared into the deep teal-black depths.

“It is Ix,” said Jack. “A quantum processor which descends to the
earth’s core. It’s the power source. Ix can never be understood. Not by myself,
not by demons, nor God or Goddess. It is a continually morphing crystal formed
of the earth’s morphic field.

“Not even Ixchel?”

Jack shook his head.

“The light circuits can be seen as representing the changes that
are occurring on earth. Each energy of each quantum event in the earth realm is
being recorded in this crystal structure as part of the great Akashic Record.”

“Can Ix show us Kim Li?”

“No. Alejandra has her cloaked. Right now I need what you have in
your hand.”

“My rabbit? My father gave me that I don’t want anything to happen
to it.”

“Yes, I understand,” said Jack. “This is why we are here.”

She handed it over and Jack set the rabbit on the crystal floor.

“Ok, let’s go,” he said.

Jack and Mel walked toward the turquoise wall and they
reintegrated on the other side. Mel looked back through the turquoise crystal
wall to her tiny white rabbit on the teal crystal floor inside the Ix Crystal
chamber.

“Hold on to these, and whatever happens—do not let go,” said Jack.
He placed Mel’s hands onto two small teal crystal globes. Jack’s hands felt
warm and strong on top of hers. Mel looked up to him to say ok and she suddenly
felt warmth all over. There was this man standing beside her. It was Jack. She seemed
to be looking upon him for the first time—falling in love with him again. And
then he vanished.

Inside the chamber her rabbit crystal disappeared and reappeared
rapidly. Inside it flashed thousands of hues of crystal light. Mel’s gaze
became transfixed on the  flashing light within the rabbit crystal and her body
trembled more and more until she shook uncontrollably. She was falling faster
and faster through a bending space time continuum.