"HE DID WHAT!?"

-Her voice was shrill as she struggled to control her abundant rage.  The next morning, after Geller's call to the hospital, Angie had shown up to check on him as usual.  Finding no one at home she went to the hospital to speak with Doctor MacFarland about their "patient".  The news that Geller had flown the coop instantly enraged the djavo.  Not really caring what Jessica thought of her little pique of temper she turned on her heel and walked right out of the hospital.  Cell phone in hand she dialed Mr. Ishmael Goldman's direct line.-

"Mr. Goldman.  Angie Harmon.  I need to speak with you immediately." -The sound of his voice irritated her and raked against her like he was shoving needles into a raw nerve.  He was a pompous arrogant asshole.  Fuming she tried to keep he tone even as she spoke to her 'boss'.- "Yes, I can be right there."

-Shutting the phone with her hand she used her other hand to pull open the drivers side door of her tiny red convertible.  Shoving the key into the ignition she revved the engine and peeled out of the parking lot.  She was going to kill that mangy tigress if it was the last thing she did.  Having no idea why Geller was going to New York she would lay bets on the fact that it was Jenna Fosters fault.  She would be wrong, but don't try telling her that.  With murder in her eyes she drove like a literal bat out of hell towards the Garden District and the home of Mr. Ishmael Goldman.-

Ishmael hung up the phone once he was finished speaking to Angie.  The djavo's thoughts reverberated through his head like gunshots.  The anger from the woman soaked into him and suffused his body with a heady and familiar sensation.  Only one species could feel such pure and sudden rage.  It was a part of their passion and it reminded him very much of his beloved sister.  He was instinctively drawn to those who reminded him of Rashel, treasured those minds he could peer into which mimicked hers. 

"We'll take our coffee in the living room." He spoke calmly to one of the house servants, talking as though the man actually had a thought in his head.  In reality Ishmael knew that he was little more than a husk, something being used at the moment to fulfill a purpose.  When Ishmael was done with him he would be returned to his previous state of awareness but until then, a mindless servant was worth his weight in gold. "

Sitting back at his desk he let his eyes close part way and concentrated on the wolf known as Charles Geller.  Just like sorting through a bag of candy for the piece you desired most he sorted through the multicolored multidimensional minds of those around him and stretched the tether of his powers towards that beacon growing farther and farther away.  Home was not the place to test such experiments, they needed room to spread their wings.  He had known that Angie wouldn't be pleased but his concern was not with pleasing the female djavo.

"Manhattan. Mafia. Giovanni....Romero .....Tony --- "

He heard the words that moved through the wolfs mind and it made him smile.  Ishmael had nothing to do with the events taking place in New York, but the fact that they fit into his plans so perfectly was not lost on him.  When opportunity knocked a smart man did well to answer. 

In his mind he could feel the wolf: the sweet musk of lust, the heat of anger, each thought for his companions filtering through Ishmael's mind like the brush of silk across his mind’s eye.  Leaning back against the cushions of the heavy rattan garden chair his finely boned hands gripped the arms of the chair as though it was a lifeline to his true body.  There were times when his power was intoxicating, when it was easy to imagine that he could slip from his own body and inhabit the bodies of the minds which he so freely controlled.  Yet that was not a pleasant thought for him.  Ishmael Goldman was a man who very much enjoyed control and the measure of knowledgeable comfort that control brought to his life.  His very humanity railed against the thought of leaving his body, of taking that kind of risk with no control over what might happen in his absence.  Simply, it was fear that kept him from pushing his powers to that next level, though some might note that his idea of bodily possession might be a bit of a stretch from the acceptable normative.

Angie's appearance was expected as were the sweeping heat of her thoughts.  That raging tempest of internal desire was given only the briefest flicker of his attention.  The woman was a broken record about this Nico, her thoughts all purely focused on the desired acquisition of the djavo who now possessed the wolf.  That was the kind of purpose Ishmael could understand because it mirrored his own so precisely.  If he were a man who believed at all in destiny he might suspect that some particular god or devil had seen fit to put them together.  But in all that he had learned in life, the existence of God was one thing he had found no scrap of proof for, and so he did not waste time on the idea of destiny; except that destiny which man provides himself through raw drive and ambition.

"To the contrary my dear.  It seems our little experiment is more heavily connected than we might have liked and has his own affairs to tend to." They had suspected such a problem might exist.  After exhaustively testing on paranormals and strange legendary creatures they realized that what they needed was something with human DNA (which left off most of what was legendary), but that they needed a compatible strength of DNA to what could be found in a djavo (which left off paranormals whose physical bodies were still entirely human in composition).  Vampires had posed more serious problems and the deadly results of those experiments were better left forgotten.  Lycanthropes were targeted through several avenues and then they had only had to find one strong enough to imbibe the spirit - strong enough and yet, he had to be captured.  It was not an easy duality to satisfy.  Their eventual conquest had not so much been the culmination of their efforts as what had been happening in the wolfs life at the time of his capture.  Of course, only Ishmael would know these pieces of the puzzle, plucked directly from the mind of Charles Geller.

"Yet I think that in the end it is the best thing that could have happened........the perfect time to set him to task and see what he can do." That self satisfied smile curving his lips didn't reach his eyes for an instant.  In fact even as he spoke his lids were lowering, long gray lashes fluttering down as he sank comfortably into the long distance connection between himself and the wolf.  He let all the other minds in the hive sink like stones away from his consciousness.  Angie's thoughts held ballast, buoying closer to the surface than the others since he wanted to maintain an awareness of her; he had learned long ago never to give a djavo an opportunity to surprise you.  "Our arrangement will be satisfied, once I am convinced that the experiment works in the long term.  I cannot take any risks on this matter.  It must be a maintainable sever.  Otherwise it is useless to me."

That was probably the most that Ishmael had revealed of his needs to the summoner.  When you were the one in control you did not need to waste time with explaining yourself to your underlings.  From the slits of his eyes he looked at the tiny blonde across from him and saw the image of her like a photo overlaying the scene which played out in his mind.  He could see what Geller saw through the optic nerve pathways in the brain, as Geller's mind translated his surroundings into pictures Ishmael could play that information through his own head like a running film loop.  It flickered through his consciousness overlaying the world in front of him.  From the olfactory nerve centers in the brain he could catch the scent of the wolves, the New York traffic and smog, the tigress clinging to the wolfs back as their motorcycles roared through the streets, and at the same time he could smell the muggy air of New Orleans, the blooming jasmine in the garden, and the soft feminine essence of Angie Harmon's perfume.

"Shhhh..." He held up one of those fine boned hands to stop Angie from speaking anymore as she tried to interrupt.  Ishmael had the ability to hyper focus on at least four realities at once before his consciousness would begin to splinter but at the moment he preferred to give as much mental faculty to the wolf as possible.  What he was about to do was something.....different.  It required a new kind of focus.  "This is perfect.  They intend an invasion, the rescue of some friend of his; it suits my purposes perfectly......"

He could see the wolves and tigress in the alleyway, the buildings around them, making note of the surroundings and buildings for later review.  If there was an opportunity to use any of this information for other ventures of either himself or his company then he would not hesitate.  When Angie began to complain again he glared at her tiny furious face from between the slits of his eyelids.  "Have it your way my dear......."

Sitting up in the rattan chair he reached his arms across the table towards her, the rolled cuffs of his dress shirt riding up to hug the firmness of his forearms.  Long fingers clasped her wrists and he secured the press of her palms to the table.  Where his fingers circled her wrists his fingertips were pressed firmly to her pulse point, feeling the beating of her heart.  This time he did not merely flick through her thoughts as he had before.  Instead he invaded her mind like an advancing army.  Surging through her neuropathways he scrambled her signals and sank her deep into the mind of the tigress that was there with Geller.  Angie would have no control over Jenna, but as long as Ishmael maintained their connection she could see through the other woman’s eyes, smell what she smelled, hear what she heard, it would literally be for Angie as if she was trapped in the prison of Jenna's head with no control over the body and no idea where her own body had gone.  What he was doing might seem like an amazing gift to share this preternatural sight with someone but most did not find the shock of it so pleasant, after all most people were only used to having to contend with one mind and one body at a time.

"I will wait for them to engage....then I will begin.  Just enough to test him, but not enough to give him away." The mechanism that had been placed in the wolfs brain was an experiment in control.  The kind of control that was of supreme interest to Ishmael Goldman.  It was meant to separate the dual natures of a person, separating them in the mind and body so that it could be controlled.  Imagine if all that is evil in a person could be deserted like separating the wheat from the chaff.  If the experiment was successful it could make his ultimate dream come true, but as a capitalist of course he realized the stunning applications of such capabilities and would not hesitate to turn a profit on the device once it had secured his hearts true desire.

"Hmmm....this is almost too simple......wait...." He had watched as Vex shot the guard at the front and then pulverized his head beneath his boot.  When the three lycans exited the elevator and Vex shot through another human Ishmael was beginning to believe that this was not quite the sterling opportunity that he had hoped for.  Then power had rushed through his awareness and he could taste it on the back of his tongue like the tingling of a battery.  Telekinesis was a sideline ability of his own power, something that had come much sooner than his true abilities because of its relative simplicity.  Telekinesis could be a powerful defensive ability yet it was also one of the most elementary when it came to mastering it, thereby making it easy for someone to maintain a strong hold on their gifts without much in the way of true knowledge.  This was just such a person, brute force as he attacked and then more power flooded the room as further guards entered and an ancient sickly vampire stalked towards the wolf.  "Now...."

He didn't have to say anything out loud; Angie would only be able to hear the vaguest whisper anyway, lost as she was inside the head of Jenna Foster.  Now he narrowed his intended range down to the microscopic level, focusing on the most intricate sub-level of the man’s primitive nature.  For a moment in his mind’s eye he saw the silver eyes of the wolf flash at him, saw teeth gnashing at his invading presence, and then he found what he was looking for.  So delicate and complex, technology in its finest form.  Exerting just the slightest pressure he triggered the device that had been surgically implanted in the wolfs medulla oblongata. The pathways seemed to stop dead for a moment and then rush through newly focused pathways, brain chemistry rapidly shifting as endorphin and chemical outputs changed.  A swift mutation occurred, something facilitated by both science and the power of the creature that rose to take possession of the body.  For Ishmael it was a bit like opening a tiny ring box and having a whale sized entity suddenly expand out from within.  Once Nico had possession Ishmael focused on the djavo's thoughts, reading him clearly for the very first time.  This was the opportunity that he had waited for.