Prologue

Michael didn't know if they felt pain, and didn't care. Both of them had struggled at first, but a few extra pins shoved through their cloth limbs into the table had kept them still and made it possible for him to work.

From the first he had taken an eye. He had already mounted the little black button onto an additional arm on his wire frame glasses. When he swung it in front of his eye, he could see perfectly in the dark, with everything around him giving off a soft blue glow. It was a helpful addition and it might make some of his work easier, but it was not what he wanted.

The second one lay on the table, still and silent. It had stopped moving when he had finished cutting the square of cloth from its midsection. This was the one that might help him the most.

Done removing what he needed, Michael slid his chair across the old concrete floor to the far side of his desk, where the gloves waited, still inside out. There was a bare patch on the palm of the right glove and he held the new scrap of cloth up against it. It was a good fit.

The basement room was getting dark and he thumbed the switch on an old metal desk lamp. Before him on the table were his notebooks, which he had spent years compiling, half a dozen pin cushions and a row of wide mouthed, quart sized canning jars. His surgical tools in a pile near the two captive dolls. He knew he should take better care of them, but he didn't need to keep anything sterile for these little things.

He adjusted the light until it fell on the pair of gloves, then rotated the magnifying button down in front of his right eye and looked down at each individual fiber as he slid in the curved needle and thread. It was slow work, getting all the edges to match up, but it was important, and worth the time.

And he had spent time on this; years. Ever since he'd been forced out of school, ever since Sharon had started suffering, he had worked on putting all of this together. And tonight might be the night he was finally ready.

After a final stitch, he knotted the string into the square knot that his father had shown him years ago. Then, he turned the glove right side out, pulling each fingertip gently to its proper position. He slid his fingers in and flexed them. The cloth was rough, but his hands had spent years scrubbing, had handled bleach, ammonia and other cleaners every day. The rough cloth was a welcome sensation.

With his other hand, he pulled the ring out of his pocket. He stared at it a moment. The class ring, with its bright blue stone was the only thing he had left from his father. He ran his thumb over the inscription at the base of the sapphire. MISKATONIC MEDICAL SCHOOL 1952. His father's ring, his father's school, his father's life: all of them had been too big for Michael. But not after tonight. After tonight he would be the one saving people.

He took the ring and held it against the new square of cloth in his right glove and concentrated. He pictured a simpler version of the ring, with only a loop and small, square rectangle of gold where the stone would normally sit.

It took only a moment. With a small "ting" a new ring dropped out of the palm of his hand onto the table. He picked it up and smiled as he held it up to the evening light that angled in through the basement window. Holding himself back from testing it immediately, he put the new ring down and pulled on the left glove and flexed both hands. He started to put his father's class ring away, but stopped. He stared at it, felt his lip curl up as it often did at the memories.

"Oh, why not?" he asked the two dolls on the table. He slipped the ring on over the cloth glove on his right hand. It fit perfectly, finally. He couldn't help but laugh as he showed it to them. Then, he tossed the new ring into the air, caught it. "Who's first?"

He pressed his left palm down on the doll with the missing button eye and pulled out the pins that held it down before picking the thing up. As soon as it was loose, it began to struggle, but his grip was strong: the one thing that was as good as his father's. He pressed the plain ring into the doll's neck and it sank through the fabric, not cutting it, but momentarily displacing the doll's cloth skin until the metal was in place around its neck and was no longer a ring, but a collar.

The doll stopped moving, stopped struggling, and stared up at him with its remaining eye. As Michael relaxed his hand, it didn't protest or try to get away. After a moment, he set it down on the table and it stood there, unmoving.

"Put the other one in a jar," he said and the little doll walked to the other one and began to follow his orders while he lit a candle. When it was done, Michael dripped wax around the rim, sealing the lid on.

As he finished, he looked down at his new servant. He would need many more, and could trap as many of them as he wanted now that he could make the collars. But he might need even more help. He turned away from the table and carried the jar to the supply closet. Except for the occasional furnace inspector, he was the only one that came down to the basement, but Michael had still installed an extra lock on the door. With what he had to do, with how important it was, he had to take every precaution.

Jar in one hand, he unlocked the closet door, opened it and pulled the chain to turn on the overhead light. The bare bulb flickered on and washed the rows of jars with yellow light. He had over twenty jars filled so far, and now he could fill as many as he wanted. He could take the power and abilities from the ones that were useful, like these, and the rest of them...the rest would wear the collars and would do what he wanted them to do.

He set the new prisoner on the second shelf and looked at the top row. There were boxes of empty jars there, waiting to be filled, but at the center of the shelf was his oldest captive, the one he had trapped years ago. All the others were slumped back in their jars, looking like nothing but scraps of cloth formed into little dolls with button eyes. But this one leaned forward, its arms and face always pressed against the glass, as if trying to reach him.

"Worthless," Michael said. As he stepped back, he noticed that his hands were clasped and he was twirling the ring around his finger. It was something his father had done when he wasn't sure about how to treat a patient. It had been the man's one sign of weakness.

For all of his life, Michael had felt weak, without any help or allies. He brought his hands up, flexed them inside the patchwork gloves and knew that he was no longer weak. He would find Sharon. He would finally be able to help her. And, as he had promised, he would be able to protect her daughter.