And standing beside the shocked Prosecutor, who was looking at the bloody scene in a daze, was Mistress Bittlebum. She was laughing and stroking her hair, Imani saw. It reminded her of a villain in an old silent movie laughing while he twirled his mustache.
Have to stop her—have to stop this! But how?
At that moment her attention was dragged to the morphid J’are was fighting with again. She felt a surge of pain and rage from the big Nightwalker through their link and saw, with horror, that the alien insect had managed to get its mandibles locked around his throat. In fact, the only thing that was keeping it from cutting off his head was the thick leather pain collar around his neck.
“Yes, the pain collar—use the pain collar! Shock it, Imani—shock it!” J’are shouted to her mentally.
“But I’ll be shocking you, too!” Imani protested. “I don’t know—”
“Do it! Set it on maximum and do it!” he commanded.
Imani fumbled for the pain collar remote, which she still wore on a chain around her neck. It nearly squirted from between her fingers but she finally managed to get a hold on it and press the big red pain button in the middle.
Immediately, J’are stiffened and she felt a wave of pain rolling through him. The morphid was caught in the pain loop too—its body started spasming and a high, unearthly shrieking sound rose from between its parted mandibles, which were still hooked into the pain collar.
Imani started to let up on the button but J’are shouted mentally,
“No! Keep it up—it’s the only way!”
“But I’m afraid the collar will overload your system!”
How long could his heart hold out with so much pain coursing through his big body? How long—
“No! Give me that—I won’t let you harm another one of my children, you little bitch!”
Lady Bittlebum shoved Imani and grabbed for the remote. Imani started to fall and reached out reflexively, grasping for something to hold onto. By chance, her fingers caught in the looping curls of the lemon-yellow wig the other woman was wearing.
The wig came off in her hand and Lady Bittlebum shrieked and grabbed at her head—which was mostly bald, with only a few tufts of mousy brown hair scattered here and there.
“My hair! Give me back my hair, you bitch!” she shrieked at Imani. Forgetting about the pain collar remote, she made a frantic grab for the wig.
Imani almost let it go—she had the impulse to throw it in the other woman’s face to use it as a distraction. But then something made her hold onto it.
“Use it, daughter—you know how!” a warm, feminine voice said in her ear.
Goddess? Imani thought wildly and then images flashed across her mind’s eye—pictures of Lady Bittlebum rubbing one hand over her hair and then over the morphids antennae as she ordered them to do her bidding.
Gripping the wig tighter, she tore it away from the other woman’s grasping hands and started to go to J’are, who was still locked in a rictus of pain with the morphid twitching on top of him.
“Here! Come here, my children and help me!” Lady Bittlebum shouted, distracting her.
Looking up, Imani saw that the two morphids who had been stalking Judge Thoughtgood were coming towards her. They had killed the Horvath guards—the two scaly bodies lay decapitated on the floor in pools of black blood. The judge had dived under her podium and was cowering there with only her tall purple hair sticking out and quivering with fear.
Imani saw all this in a split second and then the two morphids were advancing on her.
Her first impulse was to run but then she remembered the wig. She clutched it tightly in her hands and as the first of the giant insects came at her, she waved it over the morphid’s antennae and shouted,
“Her—get Lady Bittlebum—not me! Get her!”
The morphid stopped for a moment, as though confused, its antennae twitching as its big black compound eyes switched from Imani to Lady Bittlebum and back again.
The second morphid came bounding up as the first one was trying to make up its mind. Now Imani had two huge alien insects looming over her. Her knees felt like jelly, she was so scared, but she knew she couldn’t back down now.
“You fool!” Lady Bittlebum snarled at her, a fierce smile of triumph on her face. “They don’t recognize you as their queen! I raised them from the egg—my children will never turn against me!”
We’ll just see about that! Imani thought grimly.
“I’m your queen now!” she told the morphids, fighting to keep her voice from shaking. “I control you. Now go on—get her! Get Lady Bittlebum!”
As she spoke, she waved the wig over the insects’ antennae again, wafting the musty smell—which she assumed was the pheromone that controlled them—into the air.
For a moment, they still hesitated. Then the two of them turned at the same time and bounded towards the balding Mistress.
Lady Bittlebum’s eyes grew wide with horror.
“Wait, my children!” she exclaimed, waving her hands at them. “Wait, you mustn’t! You can’t hurt me—I’m your mother—your queen! Your—”
Her words were cut off when one of the morphids jerked forward and snapped off her head with a single neat click of its serrated mandibles. Blood fountained from her stump of a neck and sprayed across the courtroom in a gaudy crimson arc.
Imani didn’t stop to watch the gory scene. Turning, she saw to her horror, that J’are’s big body was still spasming in pain. Oh God, how long had he been under the influence of the pain collar? How long could he be shocked by it without the awful device causing permanent nerve damage?
Quickly, she fumbled for the remote, which was thankfully still hanging around her neck on the chain and turned the damn thing off. Running over to J’are, she waved the yellow wig over the morphid’s antenna.
“Get off him—get off him right now!” she commanded.
“It’s…dead. I think.” J’are’s voice was
