Chapter 38:
"I need you to sign these," rumbled the wood-nymph.
Shoko blinked in surprise. That wasn't what she was expecting at all. She was expecting her sister to deliver some sort of horrifying warning or dire threat. She'd been afraid that Star was here to drag her to a safer location because the killers were on their way. "W-what," stammered the pretty blonde? With a grimace of irritation, Star said, "need them signed so I can do my job." Shoko put the papers down and said, "that's not good enough. You may be a year older than me, Star, but you don't get to push me around like that. What's this about?"
Star muttered something about time, but Shoko stood her ground, saying, "you better be quick, then." "These are the names of some of the mid-level players in soda-girl's gang," said the wood-nymph wizard. "Dad wants to snatch them off the street..." "Then why doesn't he just snatch them," retorted Shoko. Rolling her eyes, Star said, "because of your mother, Shoko. You know: This is a kingdom of laws and all that..." Shoko blushed to her hair. It was the reason she couldn't drive yet. In irritated tones, the wizard explained, "in order to arrest somebody, I need a writ. The courts may be under soda-bitch's influence. She is a fucking lawyer after all." And the only other people who could give Finn a writ were the members of the Royal Family.
Shoko turned and began to go through the warrants, further irritating her older sister. "It's not that fucking simple, Star," retorted the princess. "Dad's right. We need to do this the right way." Her mother had already had one nasty incident where the candy-people tried to jettison their ruler. They didn't really need another one. Shoko sifted through every line of every form, checking and rechecking. When she was satisfied that each warrant was in order–listing the charges, the evidence, and the witnesses–the young princess signed each in her ugly, cramped style. Now she knew where that came from. Her writing wasn't anything like her mother and brother's style. It was like Finn's. It was crazy, but, as she handed the warrants back to her sister, Shoko had cause to wonder how she'd never seen that before.
"We need to talk," said Shoko. "When you've executed the warrants, come back. Wake me if you have to." Star glared at her. "Those are my orders," said Shoko. "I'm in charge. Dad's... He's not capable of being in charge right now, and mom's missing. That means I'm in charge, Star." "Ok," sighed the wizard. She turned to the window and stepped over the sill, disappearing into the darkness once more. When Shoko turned around, she found Randy standing there with an approving look on his face. "What," she asked? "You handled that very well," said Randy. "She may be your sister by blood, but she is a lower rank than you. You must be assertive, princess, or you will be controlled. Power is a dangerous thing." Shoko nodded, but her mind was on her sister. She hoped Star understood as well as Randy did.
In reality, her sister's antics were the last thing on Star's mind. The young wizard didn't waste a moment getting down to work. She'd been planning this from the moment her dad had said he was going out of town. Alone as she was, she had her work cut out for her. Fortunately, she had access to resources that she hadn't had before. Top of the list was cash. There was a pile of it in the vault near their door, and she'd borrowed liberally from the supply, reasoning that they couldn't spend it if they were dead, and Bonnie could pay them back when they'd gotten her released. She'd raided the stash and come up with a couple of useful items. On top of that, she had her powers restored. She was a wizard, and that gave her admittance to Wiz City where a little more cash got her the names of people who would do auguries and clairvoyance–no questions asked–for a fee. And that effort gave her insight into the habits of two of the fish on tonight's list.
Brisky was first on the list. He kept an apartment at the center of town in the high-rent district, but he made his money in Candy-Town, running the street-walkers and zombies who sold psychedelic chocolate to the fiends on the north end there. He was a mid-level thug who still had to get his hands dirty doing things that weren't too nice. He knew people who knew people, but he was far enough down that soda-bitch wouldn't notice his disappearance right away. Star hoped to get a lot of information out of him.
The guard at the front desk was oblivious to the heavy truck that pulled up behind the building. Trucks came and went in the downtown area. Somebody was always getting something delivered. Of course few people had things delivered near ten at night. Absorbed in playing endless games of solitaire, the bored rent-a-banana was hardly concerned with what was going on outside. This place had some of the best security in the Kingdom! The door-chime announced a late-evening visitor, and the bored banana buzzed the late-night caller in without even really looking at the screen.
Footsteps announced the visitor before the guard even realized she was there. He saw a flash of green skin out of the corner of his eyes and glanced up to see a woman wearing a black cape there. Her complexion said she was a wood-nymph, and his mind automatically assumed 'ho'. The town was crawling with them, and besides, the rich dudes in this building often paid for it. Why should he care? Continuing his game, he waved the woman on without even asking who she was or why she was here. Shaking her head, Star caught the first elevator that was headed up.
Brisky was expecting a girl tonight. Star knew it because she'd tapped his phone. She'd tapped his phone because one of her hired clairvoyants had told her that he might be lonely tonight. He hadn't disappointed, offering cash for the best girl in town to soda-bitch's business agent. Junior. Star had felt a towering sense of disgust when she heard that too-familiar voice on the phone. Junior. She'd lied and sacrificed herself to protect that bitch, and there Junior was, participating in pimping out women that looked very much like Star herself. Star wished she could be there to slap the cuffs on the bitch at some point. But besides being a dreadful reminder of her naivete, that was business for another day. In the now, a set of slashed tires gave Star the jump on Brisky's visitor, letting Star get here first.
Brisky himself was just getting out of the shower after a long, hard day smashing the faces of fiends who owed him money. He'd had to get a little bloody today. There were a couple of fellows who thought they could negotiate a payment plan. At least there had been. His fists were a little sore, but he thought the message was clear. Now he wanted to relax, and there was nothing more relaxing than a little nymph-cookie.
When the bell rang, he called out, "c'mon in! It's open!" That was a little crazy for a gangster, but then he lived in a guarded building. The guards knew who to let in and who to keep out. As he retrieved liquor from the cabinet, he impulsively decided to grab a small box of the evil product he sold too. Girls got pretty loose after having a few pieces of psychedelic chocolate. When he straightened, he found himself staring at a pretty little wood-nymph hottie who'd come wearing a heavy black cloak.
"Hey, honey," said he. "Whyn't ye get comfortable?!" Without a word, Star strode forward, her eyes measuring him up the way she'd been taught. He was a candy-person–a little more humanoid than most, looking like her dad only made of chocolate blocks. His blocky body showed that he wasn't a small man and nobody to be trifled with. Fresh gouges on his hands showed he didn't mind getting physical, and Star imagined he preferred hand-to-hand. "You gonna' take that stuff off," he asked? The wood nymph had stopped well out of his reach.
Brushing back the right side of her cloak, the wizard displayed the badge her father had given her, done in a mat-black laquer that looked as sinister as her clothes. In a cool, calm, voice, she announced, "you're under arrest for murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, sale of controlled substances, conspiracy to sell controlled substances, assault, battery, resisting arrest, felony fleeing and evading..." Catching her breath, the wizard muttered, "fuck it. You're under arrest. We can talk about the particulars later."
The thug charged her and ran head-first into one of her surprises. She'd bought the grid-person shield in Wiz City the moment she saw it for sale. "Good thing you didn't break your neck," muttered the wizard as the candy-person rolled around on the floor groaning in pain. Gesturing, she caused the forcefield to appear under his body, lifting him from the floor. Without a further word, she turned and headed out, bound for the freight elevator that let out in the back of the building with the injured gangster bobbing in her wake.
Her next stop was Handy's. The Candy Kingdom's Restaurateur to the Mob was a small time player who knew a lot of big-time secrets. He ran and had been running the secret meetings where the gangsters talked turkey since before Finn had been born. He ably kept the gangsters' various secrets, but he was a bit of a drama-queen, known to take sudden trips out of town when he felt slighted or insulted. He was about to take the trip of a lifetime.
The mob associate did business out of a beautiful French restaurant that stood near the edge of Princess Park among palatial homes for the Candy Kingdoms' elite. Finn had dropped in on the restaurant a couple of times, and Billy had worked undercover in the back room washing dishes. They kept tabs on the place, but there were enough normal people who ate there that neither had been comfortable putting pressure on Handy. Now, as she took the back streets and byways with her unpleasant cargo in the back of the heavy cargo truck she'd borrowed from her former employers at the hardware store, Star went over the details in her mind. She needed to get upstairs to Handy's office. She needed to get him alone, and she needed to get him downstairs into the truck. All while over a hundred witnesses filled the restaurant. Fortunately there was one task Handy never left to anyone else.
The young wizard rolled up behind Handy's on 9th and put the heavy truck in park. Slipping out, she picked up Brisky's phone and sent a quick text message. The two men weren't exactly friends, but Handy handled distribution of Brisky's Pixie-Sticks–the evil concoction of Fairy Tears and Fruit-Witch venom that was the new addiction for hundreds of high-rollers. It was time for a delivery. Message sent, the wood-nymph hung out to wait.
She waited there in the darkness, thinking of what her brother was doing. Last she'd seen him, Billy was deep into his happy home-life with Junior, toying around with baby-names and buying all kinds of stuff for the kids. They had individual cribs for the three. They had baby-toys. They had a three-place stroller and car-seats. It was killing Star to think of what he would feel when they told him. The longer this dragged on, the deeper he got. And what were they going to do about the kids? Kids needed a mom! Junior was a career criminal!
Movement announced Handy's appearance at the rear door of the club. He always came out alone to do the deal. Nobody was supposed to know who brought the goods, when they came, or where they came from. Star knew Handy suspected. Calmly, she waited there in the dark, her face hidden in shadows as the mob-associate came up the alley towards her. As he approached, she flicked the lights on, blinding him. That was often the way the mob did business, and the older man, though he might get irritated, expected that. You could expect your fellow gangsters to want to keep you on the defensive. Moments later, she could see him coming around the front of the truck, doing his best to shield his eyes from the glare. That was when she bashed the door into his head, flattening him there in the alley in his thousand-coin suit.
A couple of quick spells and an enchanted rope got him hogtied in the back of the truck. Star didn't wait long before rolling back down the alley from whence she'd come. Backing out onto the street, she barely took the time to check that it was safe before pulling out into traffic. She had a prison to get to. Then she had to get back across town to her sister's digs. As she rode through the darkened streets, her phone–her official one–rang. The pretty nymph slipped it out of her tunic and took a look. It was Billy. Speak of the devil, she thought. Fumbling it on, she called out, "go?"
"Hey, sis," said Billy. "Bill," replied Star. "Hey," he said. "I'm... I was looking for dad, but they tell me he's gone out of town..." "Yeah," said Star. "Moms told me the same thing." There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Star knew what he was going to say before he asked it. They had been ducking hard questions from him since the day Fionna disappeared. Voice showing his distress, the older boy asked, "do you know what's going on?" Now Star found herself in a bind. She'd never lied to Billy before. She'd kept things from him. She'd ducked questions herself. She'd never lied flat-out lied.
"Dad and moms know something," sighed Star. "I think it's bad, but I couldn't tell you what it is." "Is Fionna ok," asked Billy? "She's with Bon and Patrick," Star replied. "That's all I know for sure." Bill asked, "she... She's not in trouble is she...?" "You're asking the wrong person," muttered Star. "It's all a big secret with moms and dad. She could be knocked-up for all I know..." She could almost see him blushing on the other end of the line. "Ok, sis," Billy sighed. "If you hear anything... will you let me know?" "Yeah, Bill," murmured Star. "As soon as I hear from Fi, I'll call." "Thanks, sis," murmured Billy. "You be careful too..." Star promised she would and hung up.
It was an award-worthy performance. She hadn't told him a single lie. She just hadn't told him a lot of the truth either. She didn't really know where Fionna and the others were. Their parents knew, but she didn't. They were keeping the whole thing under wraps, and though she probably could have gotten it out of her father, she knew that Fionna's safety might depend on them keeping the secret. The young wizard felt the first tears fall as she took the corner on Sucrose Street. By the time she got on the main road out of town, the tears were coming down like rain. She felt terrible. It felt like she had set up her family to be destroyed! And what was she going to do now? Fuck it, she thought. Drive on. That was really all she could do–fix what she could.
The Candy-Kingdom jail had been abandoned for five years. When Candy-Town's population began to explode–and the number of gangster and assorted dirt-bags began to rise–her father had pressured Bonnie to do something about it. He'd been insistent on opening a newer prison. That had given them Jellyet, and then when Jellyet's hastily-built structures began to crumble, they'd built Cakeville. The original jail now sat abandoned, making it the perfect place for what Star had to do. Rolling through the entrance and out onto the courtyard, she took a good, long look around. There was nobody in sight, so she backed up to the loading dock. Then it was time to hustle her two new guests inside.
The young wizard went one at a time, hauling each loser down to a separate cell in the basement of the sprawling jail. In the old days, the worst of the worst were down there–including the awful aliens that tried to destroy Ooo. Those guys were now doing hard time in a deep pit near the north pole. Machines that Bonnie and Nadia built saw to feeding them and carrying off their waste, but no-one went there to care for them. Now their former cells made great homes for her prisoners.
Brisky woke up as she was locking him in. "You made a mistake, bitch," howled the angry gangster. "Do you know who I am?" "You're Paul "Brisky" Wallace," she replied. "You ran with Abe "Kid Twist" Rellis. You parted ways when he began whacking guys for money, and you went into the chocolate biz. Currently you're a top earner for "Mad Mallow" Pierce's gang. That cover it?" She turned to leave, and he demanded, "you can't touch me. I work for the Boss of Bosses! The Boss'll fuckin' burn down your house with all your peeps inside!" Turning to face him, her blue-green eyes burning into his, Star growled, "she already did..." As he registered the fact that this woman knew the Boss of Bosses was a woman, Star jabbed her fist at him. A fist-shaped bolt of force hit him in the gut, picking him up off the floor and knocking the wind out of him. Star left him gasping on the floor.
It was past midnight when the wood-nymph drove up to the Royal Observatory. The lights were out inside as Star pulled up to the door. Parking the truck, the little woman slipped around to the back, then scaled the outside wall to reach the laboratory window. Moments later, she was calling out to the woman inside.
A yawning Shoko came to the window in her nightgown and opened it to find her sister's scowling face outside. Star dropped to the floor inside with a light thump and strode to the center of the room. Randy was awake now as well, and he took up position near the door. "So what do you want," asked Star? It was the ragged edge of polite. Frowning, Shoko retorted, "gee, Star. I know the whole 'sisters' thing was a shock, but I thought we were friends before this..." "What does that mean," demanded the prickly wood-nymph? "You're acting like a big jerk-face," Shoko snapped.
Glaring at her, Star growled, "you think this is a game?!" Waving her arms, the wizard shouted, "everybody I know is in danger! My sister's in hiding. My mothers are on the run from that bitch. My brother just married that bitch's errand-girl, and I can't even tell him!" There were tears in Star's eyes, as she said, "this is not some fucking game, Shoko. Every time I come here, it risks your life. Every minute I stay increases the danger. You're a target! You've made yourself a target!"
Shoko was a little bit taken aback. She'd never in her life seen Star this upset. That said something about just how bad things were. Still she squared up to meet the situation head on. "Star, you and dad are fooling yourselves if you really think she doesn't already have a plan to smash me. She just hasn't revealed it," Shoko said. "At most, we just bumped up the time-table. Let's explore how we use this, shall we?" Sniffing back tears, the wizard nodded. Motioning her sister towards the table, the princess sat down.
When Star had sat herself, Shoko opened with, "it's not enough to start busting these people. We need a plan..." Star retorted, "dad has a plan..." "Let's hear it," replied Shoko. The wizard blinked, suggesting that she'd been bluffing. After a moment of collecting her thoughts, the young wood-nymph began to lay out what she knew in a halting voice to Shoko's skeptical ears. Star did her best, but it was clear she didn't really understand Finn's plan. Shaking her head, Shoko opined, "that's an arrest list, not a plan, Star. It's obvious dad has an idea how he wants this to go, but I don't think we can wait for soda-bitch to head out of town so he can plan with us. We're going to have to do this ourselves..."
Star frowned at her, but Shoko didn't bat an eye. "Dad warned me off calling him because his phone's tapped," she said. "How are you talking to him?" "I got us both phones off the books," said Star. Nodding, Shoko said, "get me one." Rising, she said, "you should go. Get me that phone. We'll talk through what we're going to do." "Right," muttered Star. Before she could go, Shoko grabbed her and hugged her, whispering, "we're gonna be ok, Star. You've got my back, and I've got yours." When she let go, Star all but threw herself out the window showing just how distressed she was. Randy was all smiles when Shoko looked his way. "You handled that well, Princess," he said. Shoko nodded, but her mind was on her two best friends–now her sisters–and what they were going through.