May 4, 2013
Hot Lead Pursuit

The hunt for Malcolm Jonovich continued this week. Myron and I caught up to him on Wednesday and got our first glimpse. That was all we caught because he was ready for us. It was on a crowded street just after work hours. I had taken off early from my job for the hunt. The entire team was out except for Melvin who was watching from whatever cameras he could access with his considerable talents, back at his home. Malcolm was up the street and I was closing in. He was with a woman with long, curly, blonde hair. They stopped and he whispered something into her ear. She stood still a moment as he began to walk away. Then she turned around back toward me and opened fire into the crowd.

I all but dove into a store tackling a woman who was coming out of it. I managed to keep the two of us upright and spin us with my feet to an only mildly jarring stop. She was about to protest when a shot came through the window right behind us spraying broken glass all over us. The shooter shouted, "Come out, Protector! I haven't hit anyone yet, but that'll change soon."

People were crouched down or lying on the pavement covering their heads with their hands. They all screamed alike and for a crazy moment it almost seemed like they had rehearsed. Myron came over the radio and told me he couldn't get into the shooter's mind. She was calling me out again, not having discerned Myron's existence. I let go of the woman I was clutching and went to the window almost where it met the wall. I could see the shooter. If I could have I would have been gentler, but instead I ripped the gun out of her hand and sent it skidding along the sidewalk.

Myron leapt up and closed the distance between him and her. I came tearing out of the store just in time to see her leveling another gun at him. I spun it around in her hand breaking her trigger finger, but not before she had squeezed one off. It hit Myron in the right flank. The gun was still in the air when I grabbed and slammed the woman into the nearest wall, her feet dragging over people prone on the sidewalk, spinning her enough that she smashed her face against the building's side.

She slid down the wall trailing blood on it. She was out cold. The woman broke two front teeth in the top and cracked one on the bottom. Whatever else Malcolm Jonovich was on the hook for, it now included a spree shooting. It also made me responsible for assault and for Myron Nath laying in a hospital bed with a bullet wound. When I catch up to Malcolm it's no longer going to be just to talk.

Tags: assault, escalation, Malcolm Jonovich, mental domination, Myron Nath, The Protectorate.