About twenty minutes later of walking, we stopped in front of a gated mansion. It had a massive front yard with a round-a-bout and a huge water fountain in the middle. The white mansion was enormous itself, about three stories high with rows of windows and luxurious doors.

"So this is where this guy lives at?" I mutter to Wayne, keeping my eyes on the mansion.

"Yup." I heard Wayne opening the gate with a creek and stepping into the property.

I followed him across the long round-a-bout and up the white steps. We then halted in front of the grand, front doors.

Wayne turned to me. "Hey, I hate to do this, but you're gonna have to go alone."

"Why?" I gave him a concerned look.

"Well, I remembered that I need some food and I saw a really great place to get it." He shrugged while baring his teeth a bit.

I shot him a flat look. "Do you think that this is the right time to do your grocery shopping?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Toosk, it's hard to go to a grocery store from where I live," he yammered, casting his hand out toward the road. "And that I don't have a truck..."

"Oh." I sighed, dipping my head. "Alright, fine, go enjoy your shopping." I whisked him off with my hand.

A relieved smile grows on Wayne's face. "Thanks. I'll see you later." He patted my back, then walked off.

Now I was all alone. With a sigh, I turned to face the intimidating doors. I then picked up the sounds someone playing the piano from inside the mansion. I immediately felt peace and calmness flow through me. With that, I knocked on the door and waited patiently for someone to answer.

The piano didn't cease, but the door still opened.

A blonde lady appeared at the doorway, wearing a crisp, blue dress. "May I help you?"

"Oh yeah, hi." I waved. "I'm here for..." Oh shoot. I didn't even know his name. "Oh wow, I don't know the guy's name I want to meet with!" I chuckled and pressed my hand against my forehead.

"Well, I can't help you find who you are looking for if you don't know the person's name," the lady told me with a shrug.

"Okay, let's do this." I paused for a moment, pointing my index finger into the air, as I attempt word what I am looking for. "Does anyone live here that knows a guy named Pierre very well?"

"Pierre Mustanen?" Her eyebrows raise with interest.

"Yeah..." I nodded my head. "Him."

"Yeah. There's a man here that knows him. You're looking for a "he," right?" She furrowed her eyebrows.

"Yeah."

"Well, he is the only "he" in the house. Come in." The lady walked into the house; I followed her in. "Just go down the hallway to the left and turn right into the last door on the right," she told me, making hand signals according to the directions.

I stared out at the massive, marble-made foyer that was laid out in front of me. "Alright, thank you." I followed her directions down the dark hallway.

When I entered the room this guy was in, I was like... Whoa.

I walked into a huge room. The wall in front of me, which was so far away from me, was just a huge window, including the ceiling. There was a piano next to the window and surrounding the piano were guitars of all sort on their stands, including some woodwinds. On the left was a sofa with a wooden table.

On the piano was a guy playing a nice song. So that was were the piano music was coming from, I concluded in my mind.

The guy played for a few more seconds then stopped with a satisfying ending. He turned around, looking at me. He had nicely groomed, brown hair, blue eyes, and some stubble; he was wearing a white button-up, long-sleeved, collared shirt and dress pants and dress shoes. "Well, hello there."

"Oh, hi," I said a bit nervously.

"Did anyone let you in?" He shot me a skeptical look.

"Yeah."

He narrowed his eyes with a disapproved look. "Theresa," he muttered under his breath. He then looks back up at me. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Uh, yeah..." I stepped a few steps inside the room. "First off, nice music you were playing." I extended my hand toward the piano.

The guy chuckled. "Thanks."

"So, um-- Can we talk?" I shrugged.

"Uh, sure." He got up and sauntered over to the sofa. He grabbed a pitcher of a translucent, brown drink from the table and poured a little bit in a glass cup. "Sit down."

I walked over and sat down next to him.

"You want some?" He held out the pitcher to me.

"No thanks," I told him; I cleared my throat. "So, um, what's your name?"

The guy gave me a suspicious facial expression. "You found me yet you don't know my name?"

I chuckled. "Yeah...I managed to."

"Erik." The guy held out his hand, giving me a goofy look. "Leifsson. You can call me "Lace"-- That's my nickname."

I rose my eyebrows. "Toosk." I held his hand. "Mjalmersson." I gave it a good shake, then letted go.

Lace pulled away from me. "So, what would you like to talk about?" He took a small sip, gazed into his cup, then back at me. "You sure you don't want some? It's pretty good."

I shrugged. "Okay."

He began to pour some into another glass cup. "Don't worry, I didn't poison it or anything." He chuckled, plunking the pitcher on the table. "Here." He handed me the cup.

"Thanks." I took the cup and placed it on the table. "But, is it okay if we talk about Pierre?"

"Pierre..." Lace looked up and thought deeply for a moment. "Pierre?" I looked back at me with his eyes. "Doesn't ring a bell."

My heart dropped. Oh no, please don't tell me that I got the wrong person... "Pierre...Mustanen?"

"Pierre Mustanen--" He stopped and stared into space for a moment. "Ooo..I know who that guy is..." His eyes narrowed with a negative mood.

A wave of relief washed over me. Good. I got the right person. "How do you know about him?"

His facial expression soften as his eyes land back at me. "Well, believe it or not, but he was my roommate in college."

I raised my eyebrows. "Really?" I took a sip. Brandy.

"Yeah." He shrugged. "He was good overall. But there was this one time that got me. Got me bad." He wagged his index finger at me.

"How?"

He began waving his arms according to what he was saying. "Well, he was great at science. Very great. He wanted to do...the impossible. He strived to be better, be famous, well, you get the point, right?"

I nodded my head.

"I remember, almost every night, he would stay up late, making a racket and all that stuff. He would tell me that he was making the formula to make the supernatural real. In other words, to give superpowers to people."

"So, what happened? Did he succeed?" Yes, because if that wasn't the case, I wouldn't have a gun-hand! Duh.

"Well, he would always ask me if I could be his guinea pig, but I was like, 'This could kill me, I am not gonna risk my life for some out-of-school project, so no.' But did he listen? No! Does he ever listen? No! He only thinks about himself, not the others." He flicked his free hand in the air with a frown as he sinks into the sofa.

"He's like that," he told me matter-of-factly.

"He still is?" Lace rose his eyebrows.

I sighed. "Yeah..."

Lace groaned. "Well, any who, he did the experiment on me. In my sleep." He scoffed and shrugged while making a worried look. "Who on earth does that?"

"Pierre."

"Yes! Yes, Toosk, you're right! When I found out, which was about three seconds after it happened since the syringe hurt me, I was like, 'What the hell, dude?! Didn't I clearly tell you that I am out? That I didn't want to be your guinea pig?!' But like what I just said, he doesn't listen."

"Wait...syringe? He-he doesn't use that anymore--"

Lace held his hand out towards me, signaling me to quiet. "I'll explain that right now. I got so mad that I knocked him out and I trashed all his work, all his planning--every single thing. Nothing was able to be recovered. I destroyed everything," he told me, increasing in his seriousness as he finished speaking.

"So, he had to start all over again and he got a different method to transfer powers to another person?" I guessed.

"Yup. That's why you were confused about the syringe thing."

I nodded my head. "Do you know if he has powers?"

"Yeah. He has his light power thing: photokinesis." He made some hand motions, imitating Pierre shooting energy light from his hands. "And he has mentokinesis."

Mentokinesis. "I know about the light, but mentokinesis... He has that?" I tilted my head with confusion.

"Yup. He can control people. That's why he is able to recruit so many people to his side," Lace informed me like as if it was nothing.

My eyes flew open with shock. "He controls people?!"

"Toosk, mentokinesis is the ability to manipulate the mind--that also includes controlling other people as well."

"So he can turn a person evil and murderous?"

"Yup. If he desires to, that is."

My mind then reminded me of one that ties into this: Lance. That is why Lance was the way he was when I last encountered him. I must know how Pierre worked with his mind-controlling powers so that I can save Lance! "How?" was all I asked him.

Lace shrugged. "I'm not him, I don't know how." He took another sip.

"Is there a way to save a person who's under his control?"

"Yeah. There is. But..." He paused for a moment. "It's hard to accomplish. It depends on the person you're saving, not you."

I made a bewildered look. "How? How do you save 'em?"

Lace cleared his throat, adjusting himself so that he is closer to me. "Well, let me first explain how Pierre's mind-controlling works: So, he first goes into the person's mind and opens a door to another, complete different world where everything is perfect just for that person. It's something no one would turn down. So they would go into that realm and BAM! Now that the body is unoccupied since the person is gone into that world, Pierre takes control of it without any worry of the person fighting back for his body. You get it?"

I zoned out for a moment, letting the information he told me seep into my mind. "So he gets the person's soul, puts it in some other world, and he takes over the body. So whoever is under Pierre's control is not actually them! You're actually interacting with Pierre!" My eyes lit up at that connection I made.

Lace snapped his fingers and pointed at me, smirking. "Bingo."

"Whoa. That's crazy." I gaped at him.

"I know." Lace chuckled. "Tell me about it."

"So...do you only know about this other than Pierre?" I interlaced my fingers on my lap.

"If he didn't tell it to someone else, then yeah." He took a sip from his glass cup.

"Okay..." I then paused. "Wait, how do you save the person?"

"It's up to them, not you, like what I said. First off, you need telepathic powers, if the person that is controlled doesn't know how to get out themselves. But let's just say that that person who is under control knows how to get out."

"And what does that person do?" I rolled my hand in the air, signalling him to continue talking.

"What you would do to escape from this life."

I thought for a moment. "You don't mean that...you have to kill yourself...right?"

Lace nodded his head. "Yup. That's what you have to do. Hey, you wanna escape, right?"

I gave him a concerned look, not liking where this was going. "Doesn't it affect your real self, though?"

"No." He frowned, shaking his head.

"Huh." I looked down with a small frown. "What if the person doesn't know how to escape?" I gazed back up at him.

"Well, like what I said, you have to have telepathy. You have to go into that same world he's in and convince him to get out."

"Convince him to kill himself. Okay, I get it," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

Lace raised his eyebrows at me. "Toosk, I'm not kidding about this," he said seriously. "It's the only way to get out."

I sighed. "Okay, okay, but I mean, that method seems a bit too...intense."

He shrugged. "I wasn't the one who made this all up--talk to Pierre about why he did all this."

"Trust me, I would love to know why he's doing all of this," I told him truthfully.

"Wait...why do you want to know about his stuff?" Lace eyed me with an inquiring look.

I took a sip of the strong liquor. "Because...I have a friend who I believe is controlled by Pierre."

"Oh really?" He rose his eyebrows. "How do you know?"

"He has powers and tried to kill me. He wasn't acting like himself."

"Yup. You guessed right." He nods his head with meaning.

I chuckled. "I guess I can't save him now, since I don't have any telepathic powers." I sighed with my eyes casted downward, beginning to accept my defeat.

"Maybe I can save him," I heard Lace piped in.

I froze for a moment. I then snapped my eyes back up at him. "You? Now how can you save him?" I raised my hand toward him.

"You're a good guesser." He nodded toward me. "Guess."

I narrowed my eyes at him in deep thought. "You have mentokinesis..."

"Bingo." Lace snapped and pointed at me with a smirk.

"You got 'em from Pierre, right?" I guessed some more.

"No, Toosk, I got it from the purple cow from outer space," Lace joked around. "Of course I got them from Pierre!" He chortled wheezily, elbowing me. "I still have 'em from when he tried his experiment on me!"

"Purple cow from outer space." I chuckled. "That's the first time I heard that."

Lace laughed a bit. "I'm sorry." He waved his hand at me.

"No, no, it's fine. Must be from that drink."

He letted out a burst of laughter. "Now, that's a good one!" He calmed himself down and still took another sip. "So, all your answers got answered?" He looked at me with a huge grin.

I nodded my head. "Yeah...thanks. I appreciate it."

"That's good..." He paused. "Hey, are you free?"

Am I free...? Wayne can't be done with his grocery shopping this quick. I still have lots of time left. "Yeah." I nodded my head.

"Let's go down to the beach. Clear our heads, talk more--Is that fine?" He adjusted the cuffs of his shirt.

I nodded my head. "Yeah, that sounds cool. Let's go."