The Puppet Assassin [TTR sequel]

The Puppet Assassin - Ch 38 [wasn't that all?]

It's the teeniest chapter in the history of teeny chapters but I'm currently in a tough situation and have basically no thought capabilities whatsoever. So I thought I'd give you something.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Wasn’t That All?

____________________________

Liam wasn’t angry. Not exactly. I expect he had raged at Luke when I’d been taken, poor Luke. Still, I could hardly feel guilty. Despite knowing what I’d been through, I would have gone through the same thing again rather than stay behind and wait for the guys to come home. I didn’t have the patience.

And Luke wasn’t exactly being a saint about it either. I would have been a danger to myself and others if left behind. I had been given orders not to enter the room, which I had disobeyed. I should have known my limitations.

But they both couldn’t whale on me as much as they liked. Apparently, there was still work to do. Morse was still at large, charged with kidnapping and the mass of people caught at the warehouse pinned him to the manifestation of the ‘blood-witches’. I didn’t believe it, couldn’t understand it. Where had he found the time to do such things when he’d been so busy at the assassination compound?

And how the hell had he hidden all that intelligence?

Connecting the huge amounts of blood I’d seen to the unnatural movements of the people in the warehouse had cleared a lot of things. Obviously they’d used the blood to manipulate DNA, their own DNA, and it had given them similar abilities to witches. What Liam told me was that they were looking for a gene that allowed them to shift shape, therefore the reason why they’d continuously taken bodies, shape-changers, for experimentation and blood extraction. They’d also tortured them for information while their scientists searched the pints of blood for something that would give them a clue to the shifting ability.

No shape changer had spoken, not even when deaths had occurred. I shuddered every time I thought about it. Shape changers were loyal and their minds were honed from birth to be strong and focused. But they could have saved their own lives if they’d just said that shape shifting took research and an understanding of anatomy.

Twelve had died. Several had been mutilated. Magic couldn’t grow back limbs. The reality of the blood witches made me sick. They were nothing but greedy assassins, bent on owning their own magic and willing to kill to get it.

And I just couldn’t comprehend Morse being the mastermind of it all.

“People aren’t always who they appear to be, Dizelde,” Luke said gravely.

“He’s been with Scythe since I was taken into the compound. He hardly left.”

“He was there when you went to check out the warehouse.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense. He could have communicated over a network or something, sure, but I can’t see him heading such an organisation.”

Luke scratched his chin and frowned, pondering over it for a moment. “Do you know of any of his acquaintances that could have been? It’s highly doubtful that it is Scythe since he is already running one institution so it would’ve been more likely for him to have the warehouse closer to the assassin complex.”

There was no one else I could think of. Everyone I knew could be put into the same box as Morse; spending too much time under the command of Scythe to be planning such things. “There’s no one.”

Luke nodded understandingly. “I didn’t anticipate any revelations from you. I still maintain that it is Morse but, don’t you worry, we’ll investigate thoroughly anyway.”