Voodoo
It was late afternoon when doctor Mohinder Suresh walked into the cafeteria to get himself a coffee. A tiny snack wouldn´t hurt either. Something with sugar in it. He was depressed because he had still no idea how to take over the world and every night that went by without him trying was a wasted night. Not to mention the effect a night in which Sylar couldn´t exercise his favourite hobby, would have on the killer´s mood. Lately it seemed that they both were running out of ideas.
Mohinder grumbled and took his coffee. He noticed Bennet and his partner walking in, and gave them a polite nod. They greeted back, barely acknowledging him, and then went their own way.
"His name is Uru Manulu." Bennet just told the Haitian, holding the folder up just a bit. "He´s supposed to have the power of Voodoo but they´re not sure. His shop is in Downtown. 13th Street."
Mohinder had stopped halfway out of the door, listening very closely now. A Voodoo master? Very interesting.
"Frankly they don´t really believe he´s real." Bennet now said. "Could very well be that he´s just playing tricks on his customers. But they want to give it a shot so to say. We leave in half an hour to pay him a visit. No need to hurry."
Maybe not for them, was all Mohinder could think. He threw his coffee away, even though he´d barely sipped it and ran to the holding cells. Toby the watchman was fast asleep over his comic book already. Mohinder put a piece of cloth with chloroform under his chin anyway, just to make sure. After he´d done that, he rushed into Sylar´s cell.
"Hurry." he urged the prisoner, making him jump up in surprise. "We have to be faster than them."
"For what?" Sylar asked. "What´s the matter?"
Instead of an explanation Mohinder threw him a coat and a baseball cap. "Put that on." he urged. "Quick."
Sylar looked at the cap and smiled. "I knew you´d want to see the play-offs too." he cheered. "Do we have a seat in the front rows?"
"What? No." Mohinder cried. "We´re not going to the Baseball game."
"Then what …?"
"We´ll visit someone that´ll help us to take over the world."
"Who?" Sylar asked, still exited even though he really would have liked to see the play-offs.
"His name is Uru Manulu. He´s a Voodoo-master that lives in Downtown. The Company is on the way to question him but we will be faster than them. We go in, make sure he really has an ability, you take his powers and when we have it …"
"We can make the lab assistants dance for us in the coffee-break." Sylar grinned gleefully.
Mohinder halted, startled for a second. But then he remembered the slim legs of some of the assistants. "I didn´t even see it from that point of view yet." he admitted.
Sylar grinned and wagged his head. See?
But Mohinder shook his head to get rid of this distracting thoughts. "First we have to take care of some other things." he said. "There are lots of secretaries in the White House we can make dance for us too."
"Good point." Sylar agreed. "But please not the Secretary of Defense. The guy´s way over fifty."
Mohinder frowned at him, totally irritated, but Sylar only chuckled and pushed him out of the door.
They had to head for Downtown, after all.
...
The shop of the so called Voodoo-master was a small and weirdly dark place. Maybe it was a must for places like that to look weird and dark, Sylar mused. It was Voodoo after all.
"Hello?" Mohinder called out. "Anybody here?"
A very black and amazingly fat man came out from behind some shelves. At the first sight one might have believed him to be 4´5 high but at least 5´8 broad. He walked like a dug and had a lower lip as thick as a Hot Dog with mustard and ketchup. Sylar shook his head. He had to stop thinking about Baseball and get his head in the game.
"Whud I cun do for gentulmen?" the man who surely had been a football mascot in an early life asked.
"That depends on." Mohinder said. "Are you Uru Manulu?"
"Dut me." the black guy said with a greasy smile.
"I heard you have the ability of Voodoo." Mohinder went on, walking in on the small but in some way so much bigger man. "Is that true?"
"Voodoo be vary dangeruss." Uru said. "Nut fo evrybudy."
"We´re not everybody." Sylar insisted.
Uru raised his thick finger and shook it with a grin. "Evrybudy saying dut." he said.
"We´re not here to get lost in semantics." Mohinder said impatiently. "Are you able to do Voodoo or not?"
"Curse me am." the African said proudly.
"Prove it." the scientist demanded.
"Maybe gentulmen want to see sum uther very interusting things first." Uru suggested smiling. "Are very cheap too."
"You want to kid me?" Mohinder snapped.
"No." Uru assured him smiling. "But first need to buld up sume suspense."
"If you don´t want to get imprisoned very soon, you should skip that."
"You threatun me, gentulmen?" now the smile of the fat salesman faded.
"No." Sylar said. "But there are a few people on the way here, that want to lock you up. We could help you. But we need to know if you are the one we´re looking for."
The black round man looked very pale all the sudden, what was quiet a trick with his natural teint.
"Show us what you can do." Mohinder repeated. "Then we´ll help you. That is if you really can do what you claim. Maybe it´s just a marketing trick after all."
"Is nut." Uru insisted and took a little wooden puppet out of his shelf. "I show."
"Wait a second." Sylar asked. "Is a voodoo doll not supposed to be of cloth? To stick needles in it and all that?"
"Dut be for starters." Uru explained and raised the wooden puppet. "Dis one is uni voodoo doll."
"Uni?" Sylar repeated. "We don´t want to study. We want to see something."
"He means this puppet will work on anyone you name." Mohinder explained and his eyes were fixed on the puppet. He looked like a fox that was fixed on the chicken. "Show me." he demanded. "Sylar stand over there."
"What?" the killer cried. "Why me?"
"Would you stop complaining and just do what I say?" Mohinder cried impatiently. "We don´t have much time."
"Why don´t you stand over there?"
"Never mind." Mohinder waved his hand. "It won´t work anyway. Because Mr. Manulu here is not a real Voodoo-master after all. He thinks he can fool us."
"Me nut fuling." Uru said and raised his finger like a teacher in school who demands attention.
He pointed at Sylar and then took a small stick. He knocked it against the puppet´s side, and Sylar flinched, when he felt a strange pain in his side. What the hell?
Mohinder´s eyes started to glow when he saw that. He immediately took the stick from Manulu, to make sure it hadn´t been some kind of a trick. He watched Sylar and the puppet simultaneously and knocked the stick against the puppet´s stomach. Sylar grunted at the unexpected impact of something he couldn´t see, doubling over. God dammit.
"That´s amazing." Mohinder exclaimed and immediately tried it again, this time hitting the leg. Sylar´s leg flew to the side, as if someone had kicked him, almost making him loose his balance.
"Stop that." he cried. "It works. I think that´s pretty clear."
"Really amazing." Mohinder breathed and raised the stick again, unable to resist the urge to try it again.
Sylar rushed over to the counter and snapped the puppet away from them. In his urgency to get it out of their reach, he knocked the puppet´s head against the shelf and immediately his head started to ring. He dropped the puppet and a moment later he found himself on the ground too. His head was spinning like a wheel of fortune. Where was he?
Mohinder and Uru bowed over the counter to look after him. The scientist turned to Uru for a moment and opened his mouth as if to say something. But in the end he closed it again and asked with a polite gesture to give him a moment.
He hurried around the counter to Sylar and tried to bring him back around.
"Come on, Sylar." he spoke to the groggy man. "Get up."
"I´d like to just lie here for a moment." Sylar slurred in response.
"We don´t have the time for that." Mohinder urged, slightly slapping Sylar´s cheek to bring him back around. It didn´t help much. "Come on, wake up." he hissed.
When he didn´t make any progress by slapping Sylar´s cheek, he took the puppet and tried the same method there.
"Whud de matter?" Uru wanted to know.
But in that moment, the door was opened and a very familiar voice called out: "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Mohinder swirled around and looked into Bennet´s startled face. He immediately hid the puppet behind his back. Sylar, who had just come around again, raised his head and met Bennet´s gaze too. The agent immediately pulled his gun.
"Don´t move, Sylar." he shouted.
Uru flinched violently at the suddenly pulled gun. He screamed and took cover behind his counter.
Mohinder didn´t know what else to do. He knocked the puppet against the counter. Very hard. Sylar was out for the count at once.
"Dut it." Uru cried. "I gu back to Africa. America far too dangeruus." And with that he was out of the room, astoundingly quickly for a fat man like him.
Mohinder stood there and watched Bennet and the Haitian cuffing the unconscious Sylar.
"How did he get out of his cell?" the dark agent wondered, and Bennet glanced up at Mohinder, an expression of surprise on his face.
"You did this?" he asked him.
For a moment, Mohinder was just speechless. "No." he cried. "I just … I came here and found him while he tried to steal the power of this poor …"
"I mean knocking out Sylar." Bennet interrupted him. He raised one eyebrow and cocked his head. "Pretty impressive, Mohinder." he commented.
The scientist needed a few more seconds to digest the fact that he wasn´t suspicious after all. Then he smiled humbly. He even managed it to blush a little.
"Oh, well." he said. "I´m just trying to help."
