Chapter 14:
"I-I'm sorry, baby," the wizard-woman sniffed. It was a side of Emeraude that Simone knew people rarely saw. It was unlike the hardened creature that had been Huntress Wizard to have so much as a sniffle. But then neither of them had ever seen Finn so angry. Stomping around the room, muttering curses under his breath, he looked a lot like he wanted to hit somebody. Indeed, Finn did want to belt someone, but it wasn't his wife. He'd been shocked and intensely, terribly angry when he found out that E had basically been used for bait to smash her mother. There were a hundred different ways that could have gone wrong, and he would have been hard-pressed to get E back from the sick fucks in the Red Palace. That was a place even he would have been afraid to go. After his experience with Teri–and having heard more than a little from E's aunt about what slavers did to their kind–Finn knew more than he ever wanted to know about the sex trade. The thought of his wife in that brought him close to violence.
But there was a second shoe waiting to drop.
Finn had known there was another shoe. Problems came in twos, after all. He'd figured that there was another unpleasant story waiting to drop on him, but he'd guessed that it would be Betty using Simone for something awful or maybe the pair of them going back to Wiz City. The reality was a little hard to bear. He'd met Marjolaine, and he knew what kind of creature she was. If E had a dark streak inside her, she'd gotten it honest. Marjolaine Baudin would gladly sell her soul, your soul, and any other souls she came across for even a temporary gain. It was an absolute certainty that she would be back with a vengeance. If she had that much power, there was a real risk that she'd be back with an army.
"Why didn't you fucking tell me," growled Finn?! "I could have..." "Finn," interrupted Simone. The big man stopped in mid rant. "Finn," growled his wife, "your duties lie here. Do you really think you could have convinced Bonnibel to let you stroll off to the Grey Forest for months on end when somebody's after Sweet-P?" She rarely had to haul her husband up short, but today was one of those days. He wasn't thinking clearly. Neither he nor Emeraude were. Somebody had to pick up the slack. Finn glanced down at her feet. It wasn't Bonnie that would have needed convincing. He very well knew he couldn't go running after his wives right now.
The wizard ran to him and threw herself on him. Finn hugged her tight, as she cried all over him. This was killing them. This was doing terrible harm to their family, and Simone now deeply regretted agreeing to it. She'd done it out of love and gratitude, but she'd never considered just how dangerous love could be. And, honestly, she did sometimes find herself questioning her adoptive mother's motivations. This wasn't a lark for Betty. She had become obsessed with it. "We should go," sighed Simone. They were due at her father's home in a half-hour, and it would take about that long to reach the old windmill where Simon now hung his hat. "Aren't you going to change," asked Finn? Simone was dressed in a sexy black number with lots of lace and transparent panels over her heavy bosom. Usually she wore something like that for date night. With a shrug, the beautiful sorceress replied, "it'll be fine..."
Finn and Emeraude followed Simone out to the truck and climbed inside. It said something about how bad things were that the wizard-woman climbed in back instead of sitting in the middle of the bench the way she usually did. Finn did his best to calm down as they took the long drive out to Simon's place. Taking the familiar turns, Finn found himself slowly marinading in his anger at his wives and at himself. He felt a fool for agreeing to this. And what was he going to say about it? He'd cheated on them! If they had dumped him here and abandoned him, he still had no right to bang Bonnie and Marcy. "Honey," murmured Simone. "I want you to know that we... understand how you feel. Emeraude and I... We're going to make this up." Finn flinched. He wasn't sure there was a way to make up what he'd done. "Ok," he sighed.
They rolled up on Simon's place to find a large number of cars and carriages outside. There were even a number of flying carpets. That's odd, thought Finn. Simone had mentioned nothing about a dinner party. Rolling up, the big man rolled down his window at the first face he saw. It was a yellow-skinned mutant wearing a wizard-cap. "Valet parking," he announced. "Valet parking," babbled Finn? "Yes, sir," said the valet. "I'll park your conveyance over yonder. Here's your ticket." A glance at his wife suggested that Simone's comments about a dinner party were a little dishonest. "Ok," he demanded. "What's going on?" "Uh, we need to get inside, honey," Simone burbled. Her face was bright red, and Finn suddenly knew just what this was about. This was one of Simon's campaign-events.
The angry man tore the key out of the ignition and all but threw it at the valet. By that point, Simone and E had exited the truck. Finn had to force himself to calm down. Shouting had done no good when they were at home. It wasn't going to help now. Forcing himself to smile, he followed his wives up to Simon's place. Simone was deeply grateful for that. He had been justifiably upset, and she hated to draw him up short like that. She knew he had every right to insist they drop this whole business. He was trying to manage, and she was proud of him for that.
At the same time, she was praying to glob that he could keep his temper. Her mother couldn't seem to muster a lick of empathy for him. She was forever treating Finn like the filth that followed a goldfish. Finn and Betty mixed like oil and water, and it was a certainty the older woman would try to provoke him tonight.
The fundraiser was in full swing when Finn and his little family walked in. There were wizards there from across all of Ooo. Elementals rubbed shoulders with wood nymphs. Mutants sat beside goblins. Finn found himself amazed at how many had shown up. "Wow," he opined. "Simon's doing better'n I thought..." "Well we did put in lots of work to get here," muttered Emeraude. Blushing, Finn turned to his wife of nineteen years and apologized for being a butt. With a twinkle in her eye, the wood nymph wonder slipped her arm around his and said, "maybe you can apologize again later..."
"Where have you two been," growled Betty?! Finn turned around and found himself doing a doubletake. He'd been the first to see the 'family resemblance' between his lady and Betty. Now he found himself astounded. She was wearing a tight black dress that, while not as sexy as Simone's, still pressed all the right buttons. The soft silk hugged her curves, and, together with her sassy up-do, made her kind of sexy.
As Simone stammered apologies, Betty snapped, "nevermind that! Why's he dressed so casually?! He can't give a speech like that!" Finn, who'd just turned to glance at his wife to see if she understood what the madwoman meant, now found his headed whipping back and forth between Betty's beautiful face and Simone's. "I-I," stammered the sorceress. "Forget it," muttered Finn. He knew what was going on. Betty was bullying Simone. Again. Still. Glaring at Simon's wife, Finn demanded, "what speech?" The hostile woman thrust a pack of papers in Finn's face. "I know you can read, Finn," she said. "That's all you have to do." Taking the papers, Finn said, "c'mon, guys. Let's find a spot." "Head table," growled Betty. Finn shooed her away.
In short order, the trio found themselves seated very near Simon at the head table. Finn did his best to open a conversation with his old 'bro', but it became clear fairly quickly that Simon was just as trapped in the campaign as Simone and E. A couple of dudes out of Wiz City cornered him, and started bending his ear about his ideas for running the place. Finn returned to his seat and started idly thumbing through the 'speech' that Betty had handed him. Part way through, Betty showed up and dragged Simone off.
When she'd gone, Emeraude said, "I'm sorry I had to interrupt our conversation the other day..." Puzzled, Finn frowned at her. Blushing a little, she added, "the other conversation, donk." It was Finn's turn to blush as he remembered her calling to phone-sex him. Taking his hand, she put it on her thigh and said, "I promise to call more often, baby..." And that was when Betty reappeared. "Need you to talk to Gargath," said the obnoxious housewife. With a sigh, Emeraude got up and went off with Simon's beautiful problem. As they walked into the crowd, Betty glanced back and admonished him to read the speech.
Half of Finn didn't want to be bothered. He wanted to spite her. The other half of him wanted to prove that he was responsible. A sliver of him remembered all the stupid times he'd had with Simon. Simon was his bro. After all they had been through together, right, wrong, and indifferent, the dude deserved whatever help Finn could give him. With a sigh, Finn began to read.
What he found on the page was his worst nightmare. It was a lot like Betty had harvested the dictionary to find every big word there was. Then she'd somehow used some of Bonnie's science to string them together into vast, complicated sentences that he hadn't a prayer of understanding, much less repeating. He did his best, drilling down through the pages and trying to stay focused while his mind tried to wander. In the end, he lost the fight. His mind wandered. He wandered through the madness that was his predicament with Bonnie and Marcy. He wandered over all the great loves of his life.
There were a whole lot of women who'd wanted a piece of him over the years. Bonnie and Marcy were just the two closest. The idea of all of them taking a shot terrified him. Hell, if even a few did, he could well be a dead man. Not only was he unlikely to survive trying to satisfy the whole pile of them, there were a large number of princesses in that list. IF they felt cheated, well, his days would be numbered. Strangely enough in the middle of all that day-dreaming, his mind wandered over P-Bot, and he found himself thinking, she's a machine, dude. P-Bot was literally a sex-machine. Remembering his first encounter with Rattleballs, Finn realized, to his undieing terror, that P-Bot could literally fuck him to death and just not stop. It was another reason to get out of the situation he was in with Bonnie and Marcy.
Just then, Betty got up on the podium and called the gathering to order. All around him, beings scrambled to get to their seats, Simone and E among them. It was then that he realized that he'd made zero progress memorizing Betty's speech. She was going to go on a tear. He knew she absolutely despised him. Which was crazy, when he was the whole reason Simon wasn't nuts. Hell, if not for Finn, she wouldn't even be here to complain. Still, he knew that she'd blame him instead of realizing that she'd written something he was incapable of even reading. Simone never did that. To say Simon had copied Simone from Betty, the two couldn't have been more different in personality. Simone wasn't the jerk Betty was, not even half.
Settling into the seat on his left, Simone took his hand. Emeraude took the seat beside him, looking a little embarrassed. Finn told her, "forget it. It's not you." And he took her hand in his, trying to show that he was above that. He still loved his girls, in spite of the problems. Both women settled in with their heads against either shoulder as Betty gave an impassioned speech on Simon's behalf. The folks in the audience listened with a half-hearted interest. Most were far more interested in the food being doled out.
Finn opined, "her timing's off." Frowning–she knew about Finn's dislike of Betty–Simone asked, "how so?" "Dudes're eatin'," Finn replied. "She should have waited at least until dessert." Simone goggled at him. Emeraude felt they should have seen that coming. Finn had a way of seeing past complications to what really mattered. He was amazing at it. In the end, Betty's speech ended with more of a whimper than a roar, and the proud beauty slunk off stage.
Finn ate his fill, and he was happy to see Simone finish her plate. He'd been shocked to see her ribcage showing when she left the shower earlier in the week. As they ate, the trio talked for what seemed the first time in an age. Things were going well between them until Betty appeared. "Sorry, honey," said Simone. "Not you," muttered Betty. "Him..." Simone frowned. "Looks like they only want to hear he-men today," Betty groused. He briefly thought about pointing out where she'd gone wrong, but it was clear Betty wasn't in a listening mood. Finn rose, collected the tomato-sauce stained speech, and followed Betty to the podium.
The big man opened with, "good evening, everybody..." The crowd–sated by good food and conversation–gave him their undivided attention. Finn stared down at the speech Betty wrote for a minute. Frowning, he put the speech aside. Softly, he said, "I met Simon a lot of years ago... At the time, I was just a kid–just starting my life. I didn't know anything about anything. But, being a kid, I kinda' had a sense about people's character. At the time, Simon was goin' through stuff. It made him act out in some pretty dumb ways. I didn't understand it all at the time, but I could also see underneath the exterior he was really a pretty cool guy..."
Glancing over at his bro, Finn told the crowd, "I don't get asked to speak a lot. I'm not good with words... I just want you all to know... Simon's a pretty awesome dude–one of the nicest people I know. He's a good dad. He's a great friend, and I'd have to say only Princess Bubblegum knows as much stuff as he does. You all could do a lot worse for a leader, and that's the truth. Anyways, thanks for listening." As he left the podium–ignoring a fuming Betty–Finn gave Simon a smile. Blushing a little, Simon thanked him profusely.
The crowd, meanwhile, was going crazy. As Finn headed back to his chair, the man of the hour came stepping up to the podium to thunderous applause. So shocked was Betty, that she utterly failed to quiet the uproar, leaving Simon to do it. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Finn," said Simon. Smiling, the wizard community's elder statesman began to speak. Finn, halfway back to his seat, was only half-listening. His eyes were on the valet coming up the main aisle. There was something odd about him. The little wizard had his wand in his hand, and he was focused with laser precision on Simon.
Finn glanced around him. The valet wasn't alone. While the guests listened and cheered, the folks serving up supper had changed. Some were clutching objects under their sleeves. Some had even hidden their faces under hoods. Finn turned right around and headed for the podium. He was a scant ten feet from Simon when the valet hurled a spell at the older man. The blast splintered the podium. As the valet fired again, Finn covered the distance, drawing his sword as he went. Finn deflected the next shot and the next as two Wiz-Cops snatched Simon off his feet and rushed out of the garden as chaos erupted.
The servants drew weapons and went after anybody they could reach. Simone froze the arm of the servant trying to stab her. Huntress snapped the arm off at the wrist and smashed the frozen limb into the dead man's hand. With Simon gone, the rogue valet now aimed for Betty. Finn tackled her on the fly, knocking her out of the line of fire. Betty struggled beneath Finn, shouting, "let me up!" As the valet continued to try to slag her, Finn held her down. Betty shrieked, as dirt geysered from the ground inches from her face. "E," Finn shouted! "On it," his wife replied!
Finn heard the tell-tale *THUMP* from one of her darts. Then he heard silence. Sitting up, he looked around a moment. All of the assassins were down. Most were dead. Two Wiz Cops were down too. The rest were standing around looking shocked. Rising, Finn bent, took Betty by the arm and pulled her to her feet, asking, "are you ok?" Her face was red hot. Finn hardly noticed. His mind was on the investigation he already knew he needed to conduct. "E," he called? "Check on Simon. I'm'a go see who these guys were..."
The big man waded in, checking the corpses of the former servants and asking questions of anybody still breathing. The Wiz-Cops had turned several into sticks. Many seemed dazed, as if they hadn't any idea what they'd done. Finn began to get a sneaking suspicion that magic was involved in this somehow. Of course, he quickly found himself at loggerheads with the lead wizard-cop. The strange being got in his face, pointing out, "this is an assault against a dignitary of the City of Wizards. That makes it our jurisdiction." Finn calmly replied, "but you're inside the Candy Kingdom, dude." Smiling, he said, "I'm happy to have your help, though. I don't understand wiz-stuff..." The wizard cop grimaced distastefully, but, after a moment's consideration, he agreed.
Together, the two of them questioned the survivors, working their way through the six souls who were actually lucid. That was what brought them to what the wizard called the 'anomaly'. She was a humanoid, with bright orange skin and misty grey eyes that reminded Finn of Simone. Bulky like Susan Strong, she had literally snapped on of the victims in half with her bare hands. Which, to the friend who kept trying to talk to her, was about as weird as weird got. The big woman, it seemed, didn't even like stepping on ants.
Her eyes were glazed as Finn looked her over. "Spell, do you think," he asked? Grimly, the wizard replied, "yeah. I think I know which one, too." Unfortunately said spell wouldn't wear off for many hours. "Maybe we don't need it to," Finn replied. "Maybe we don't even want it too." The wiz-cop frowned at him. Ignoring him, Finn turned his attention to the big woman and asked, "so... uh... what gives?" She turned those grey eyes on him and gave him a baleful stare. "You can't save him," she growled! "It is death to anyone who would shelter Simon Petrikov."
Betty came rushing forward then. Finn signaled one of the wiz-cops to stop her. As she shouted and yelled at the cop, Finn asked, "why ye wanna' hurt Simon?" "He knows too much," growled the woman. "The source needs him dead." Which made absolutely zero sense. The wizard cop had seen enough. "It's a possession," he muttered. "We'll handle this." And he whistled for his men to take charge of her. Finn let them go. He had something to work with, and he knew wizards besides them. In the now, he turned to find his wives. Huntress had just returned with Simon and the wiz-cops who had been protecting him. Now Finn turned to look for Simone. He wanted to get home, get the harsh high-heeled shoes off their feet, and do a little honest wife-worshipping.
As he was thinking those thoughts, a shocking sight struck his eyes from across the garden. Simone was standing there with one of the dudes from the table that had been right in front of the little stage. They were chatting, which was fine by Finn. Problem was, dude had his hand on Simone's butt. And she wasn't doing a thing to stop him. Finn started striding towards the pair, his vision obscured by a nasty red haze. Before he got four feet, Betty was in his way, blocking him. "Get out of my way, Betty," growled the big man. "You'd wreck everything," Betty retorted. "He's got his hand on my wife," Finn growled. "It's harmless flirting," Betty retorted. "He's an impotent little prig. He's not going to spoil your precious wife, Finn. Let it go. You said Simon was your best friend. Let this go."
Finn shoved past her, and he strode across the garden, looking to many as if he might well break the wizard in half or chop him into little pieces. Betty was readying a spell to knock him down or knock him out, but to her utter shock, Finn merely stopped within view of his wife. Simone, face red as a beet, quickly disengaged herself from that conversation. Finn took her by the arm and led her back across the garden to where Emeraude was doing her best to pretend she hadn't seen that. Finn found himself wondering what she had been doing the last few months. How many dudes had given her butt a squeeze? Brushing past Betty, Finn rumbled, "we're leaving." He didn't wait for her response.