Lucina Cobbs/Benjamin Daniels/Jackdawl/Carson Maxtor
Luci’s breath was coming out in short quick gasps, she was hyperventilating. ‘So this is what a panic attack feels like. ..’ She felt like her chest was going to explode, she was breathing but it was like no oxygen was coming into her body just burning a burning emptiness that was making her head swim. Luci had always thought they were bullshit excuses people made like her friend Katie from the second grade she had panic attacks all the time and would practically…The image on Jackdawls screens changed to Luci and Katie surrounded by their classmates, Luci trying to get Katie to breathe into a paper bag. Her hair was in braids wrapped in blue ribbons, that was the year her dad had showed her the Wizard of Oz and she was obsessed with….the screens changed again with Luci and a younger happier version of her father sitting watching the movie in the mansion they’d just lost to the bank….screen changes to Luci a few days after her high school graduation watching as the bank takes all the furniture and her father arguing with the movers.
“Stop it…STOP IT STOP IT!!” She screamed facing away from him clutching her aching head. She sobbed and bent over to try and stop the images of her past from coming up and onto the screen, they were all happy memories but now they were just a painful reminder of what was. Jackdawl chuckled and came close to her taking her gently by the shoulder. “You should sit down…you’re a little pale.” He led her over to a plush chair and sat her down. She curled up into it letting its strange warmth ingulf her still seizing body. He laughed again,
“Heated closed spaces are known to relief stress and panic something about the womb apparently our inner infant taking comfort in it.” Luci tried to ignore that comment, she never was in a heated warm space she couldn’t stand being wrapped up in blankets as a baby nor did she want to remember being a baby. “Well isn’t this a lovely image…” His screen showed her father looking younger than she’d ever seen him in a dirty shirt and what looked like her screaming in his arms. “Sulci I can’t do this…please…” Luci’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in shock, before Jackdawl could even open his mouth water formed around her hands as she shot an ice ball at his screen “I said STOP!” It exploded against the screen and the image went blank again. Luci shrank inside the seat in fear of what repercussions she was going to face for doing that, except he was silent until a sharp shrill of laughter echoed from across the room.
The man made his way over to them carting many worn out books behind him, trying to contain his excitement as he pulled to a stop right in front of her. He was breathing heavily as he pulled out a little stool from the cart placing it on the floor and he sat down in it taking out a paper and pad adjusting his glasses looking egerly at her,
“Incredible! Water formation and your only a Halfling? And you have a lot of control of your ice! Amazing. Do you have a tail?”
“No…I-”
“So no underwater breathing? Hm. Shame. How long can you hold your breath though?”
“…Last time I checked maybe five minutes?” He jotted something down on the pad nodding profusely.
“Astounding. To think how adaptable supernatural genes can just mold with humanoidic anatomy and adjust to their body structures to create…something so wonderful.”
Luci did not like the way this man was staring at her, it was like Daniels but it was something similar…a hunger but not for what Daniels wanted something eviler. Luci glanced up at Jackdawl as he had been completely silent this entire time as he settled into a plush chair of his own.
“What do you want from me?”
“What I want will be reviled in good time but for now, I want to know something else. What are you most afraid of, Lucina Cobbs?”
Benjamin paced his room as the green smoke started to clear. Hey took her from him liars liars liars liars liars liars their all liars. They said he could have her! So warm…so young…so sweet he hadn’t tasted her yet it wasn’t fair! Delicious…pure…MINE She was his not theirs yet they took her away from him just like that. To ravish her probably, to defile her, bet she’d like it too. Little whore, she needed to be taught a lesson. They would die for separating them from each other, he would make them pay. “Fuck…FUCK FUCK FUCK!!” He’d already destroyed his room, all his clothes lay on the floor, and the little gifts he had sent for her from Paris were ripped open out of the expensive silk wrapping paper and tossed all over the floor. Don’t even get him started on the furniture. They deserved it. He turned to the wall and banged his head against it releasing sighs of relief. When he did that the pain stopped and the annoying buzzing seized as well but only for a moment, it was a sign that he needed to get back to her.
Walking to his suitcase about to pack a few things and go to collect Luci he stepped over a vanilla envelope, he remembered that it fell from his sweet Lucina’s cleavage as he was about to ravish her. He took it into his hands and smelled it, her amazing scent was still on it. Operation Freedom he had no idea why his darling had that with her but from the way she was grabbing at it once he threw it away from her meant that she really cared about it. Ben’s mouth twisted into a statistic smile, what an amazing make up gift this will be! To say that he was sorry about being a rough with her, but still he wanted revenge. He had been holding out on Jack about his…talents he had a few tucked away for emergencies and this was one of them. He reached under his bed and pulled out a silver briefcase opening it as the plan began to form in his sick mind.
“…Well little nymph, everything I’ve read about you kind is true! So exciting..” The man was now flipping through book after book stopping to read a few pages and putting slips of paper in to bookmark them. Luci was in disbelief, she looked up at Jackdawl in confusion, “
“Who is he and why is he here?”
“This is Dr. Maxtor the latest and up and coming researcher in supernatural beings.”
Maxtor snorts and looks up at Jackdawl, “This guy right here just scoops me up at Harvard and plops me here with all the toys I can think of to play with he’s a godsend.” Luci scoffed.
Jackdawl just smiles, “So Dr. Maxtor what are we looking at?”
Maxtor shuffles through his tablet and starts to read off of it, “She is a perfect specimen of a sup and human genetic product. She possesses all the abilities of a Nymph, given that they don’t all come as naturally as they do her kin. But training from another Halfling or full Nymph would fix that…now about the pheromones? Oh boy that is 100% Nymph right there.
The little blob got her attention there, “Pheromones? What is he talking about?!”
“Now now don’t get your little nonexistent fins in a twist. I can’t believe you haven’t noticed already…” Jack smiled and looked down at the man, “Perhaps she needs some education Doctor.”
“If you say so Boss. So I like to think that water Nymphs are basically mermaids on crack. They are faster, smarter, more civilized, and more cunning. Every creature whether human or sup secretes a scent, now usually that scent is only noticed by another of their kind but when it comes to mermaids their singing and pheromones lure sailors and regular men to their deaths, as you probably know from folklore, boring. But Nymphs they don’t have to sing. They don’t even have to try it just starts comes off of them by the time they reach sexual maturity and it’s noticeable to humans AND sups. Which is why I call them mermaids on crack. Haven’t you noticed that boys were always more attracted to you than other girls at first sight? That they tried to date you repeatedly?”
“…Well yes but it was never to the extreme they’d get over it after a while.”
Maxtor laughed, “Which meant they were all human, humans adapt well to Sup kind and once they've smelled your pheromones enough it wears off. Which is the difference between you and a mermaid, a mermaid can control humans forever. But never sups and humans.” Jack sighed and looked bored
“Get on with it Carson.”
“Right right. So your pheromones actually give off an actual smell to supernatural creatures, usually to the opposite gender, and they can’t get enough of it. It’s like an addiction that they can never sate or get rid of soon it starts to drive them a little nutty and then full on crazy and a hazard. Take Benjamin for example, that man lost his damn mind the moment he captured you and just keeps getting worse and worse the more he’s away from you. I’m curious as to how he’s acting right now after 10 minutes of separation.”
“What does this got to do with anything?” It was Jackdawl’s turn to speak,
“Well nothing at first but now we know that Carson’s hypothesis was correct your pheromones affect most supernatural creatures the same. We've scratched out women and homosexual men however as your scent has no affect whatsoever. ” His screens lit up again showing his goons as they fought with each other and banged their heads against the walls. “This is the screen of the men who were in th truck with you from the mission for only five minutes and this is fifteen minutes away from you.” His screen switched to something more horrifying and disturbing. Goons were another room masturbating profusely and fucking any female they could get their hands on, “We found your clothes next to our officers you knocked out and hid them in the room getting these results after ten minutes.”
Maxtor was looking at her with a sick look of pride on his face, “Now we test my next hypothesis. Do you have control over them?”
Luci stared at the screen in silent fear. This was not going to end well at all. “What are you going to do with me?”