Shadows of Angels, part 15

[Daughterof_Evil]

-Sorry about the screwy posts. I just wanted to make sure I could post here, since I've had so much trouble with it. Everybody go do me a huge favor and read "Fire Dance". It was written by my best friend, includes Hollye, and had my slight collaboration. It would have been here sooner (on the old boards), but we lost the notebook it was in for four months. Thanks for your patience.-
***
" And the girl?"

Silence fell upon the line as the Frenchman on the other side considered his options.

" I saw her leave," he said, a little too late.

" Are you sure?" There was a warning tone in Lockhardt's voice. For the twelfth time, he checked out the faux leaded window, seeing nothing but the dark, wet storm bearing down upon Portsmouth.

" I saw her leave, monseiur," he reassured.

" There was no evidence, nothing?"

" Nothing," He reconsidered." But I didn't get there before the witnesses did."

Lockhardt massaged his temple with one hand." But you haven't seen her since?"

" No, sir,"

Again, there was uncomfortable quiet.

" Eh, is something wrong?" asked Armand. Across the city, he plucked at the lapels of his impeccable waiter's uniform self-consciously.

" Nothing is wrong," Lockhardt said hastily." Your obligation to me is over, Armand."

" Thank you, sir." The dead line suddenly bleated its dial tone across the plush sitting room, and Lockhardt went over and snapped off the speaker phone with an impatient jab.

He was again inundated with regret for having brought the girl on in the first place. It had been three hours since the chocolate-creme Bentley had pulled away from the undulating blue lights that blanketed the facade of the Portsmouth Theatre Royal, when the storm had set in and drowned the city in its sweet, alcoholic dream, as if trying to guard Lockhardt from harm. He had escaped any persecution in this first night, yet he was still wrought with worry.

And X had not returned.

" Excuse me, Master Lockhardt?"

He turned, surprised, to the door behind him. There stood a young Indian maid, shy, her face slightly pinked with a girlish blush. She stared at the floor and folded her hands before her respectfully. Lockhardt was suddenly aware of how badly his assassin instincts had deteriorated.

" Dr. Sylvermann has arrived, sir," she said." Shall I see him in?"

" Yes, Radni, thank you,"

She bowed and backed out, shutting the door behind her with a clatter of its brass bolts. Moments later, both dark doors opened again, and in strode a man easily younger than Lockhardt by thirty years. He paused as the doors shut.

He was as tall as Lockhardt, but his back stooped slightly, as if a great weight bore upon him. His clothes were spattered with drops of rain. He looked barely thirty-five, though his face was laced over with fine lines that only a terrible and abrupt trauma cut from immense joy could create. His hair was sparrow-brown, eyes a soft green-grey. As he stared at Lockhardt, he seemed to fall further into despair.

" Lockhardt," he muttered in greeting. His voice was deep and accented with an indescript Western European accent.

" Ernest," his host replied. He quickly turned around and strode toward the sideboard, done in intricately carved dark woods, and took up a cut-crystal decanter. He poured himself a snifter of expensive brandy, then shook the bottle at his guest in offering. He declined it, but accepted the glass gratefully when Lockhardt handed it to him anyway.

" So, you've heard," the elder asked.

Ernest did not move a muscle." Yes. Belladonna is dead."

Lockhardt took a hard gulp of his drink." You don't sound as happy as I imagined,"

" I should be happy," Ernest affirmed." But I'm not. Why am I not?"

Lockhardt, full of answers, still said nothing. They both knew why.

" Marilena will never come back," the younger man murmured.

" No, she won't."

Ernest swirled his brandy around in its glass, watching the brown-amber liquid slosh and dance about the crystalline surface. He finally took a staunch swallow. It burned going down.

" You did it, didn't you?" he asked, voice slurring. His tongue was numb." Did you have someone do it or did you reassume your original role?"

" I had someone do it," Lockhardt said casually.

" Who? Who did you have kill Belladonna?"

" A young person I picked up somewhere."

" A good assassin?"

" Yes, I believe so."

Ernest's lower lip trembled. He was on the verge of completely disintegrating.

" You seem upset that I had someone do it," Lockhardt pointed out.

" This is a family affair," protested Ernest.

" I told you when you entered this group: every assassin on the planet is apart of this family. But I can't expect for you to understand that,"

Ernest swallowed another mouthful of brandy, not seeming to feel the acid burn as it reached his stomach, heating him up like a furnace. He had never really belonged with Lockhardt, with Marilena's set, with the assassins and arsonists. He was a physics professor. Yet he had married into their way of life, had sold himself to be with Marilena. And he had learned things about the way people thought. He knew Lockhardt's mind-set better than he himself did. Family was everything to the old man. He had countless bastard children all over the world, and he collected them like toys and trained them to be killers. Three of his progeny, now four, had died for their profession. He had once sworn to himself that if he and Marilena ever had children, he would never let Lockhardt get ahold of them.

" When am I going to meet this assassin?" Ernest asked.

Lockhardt turned away, towards the window, which shimmered in waves of rain, distorting the cut-out image of the dark streets outside.

" Sooner than you think," he said. He set his glass of brandy down on a mahogany stand-table and went to the window, which had suddenly begun to shake in its frame violently. Ernest stood back as the older man undid the Baroque locks and threw the double windows open outwards, letting in a flush of rain that spattered the carpet and drapes. The next thing that happened was unseen, for an abrupt knife of lightning striking through the sky blinded Ernest for a moment. He could only hear a slight thud sound as something landed upon the plush carpet, and the fwoosh as Lockhardt shut the windows, locking out the storm.

Ernest pried his eyes open. Crouching upon the floor like a panther, was a small figure dressed entirely in sodden black. He blinked a few times before a shudder passed through him like a jolt from an exposed electrical wire.

X surveyed her new surroundings. It was a large room, the wood-paneled walls drawn dramatically inward by volumes of intricate and expensive furniture. Paintings depicting hunts and derbies and scenes of naval war -everything good and British- hung about carelessly, and brass electric candelabras festooned with swooning angels in flowing robes gleamed on low in every corner. The center point of the room was the gigantic fireplace, fit with a granite mantle that featured the intimidating face of a snarling lion, in which a log fire festered, big enough to consume a Buick. Its heat caused tendrils of steam to rise from her soaked-through clothing. A plush, crimson carpet lay beneath her, layered in some places with exotic oriental rugs worn soft by the ages.

And then there was the man. She sized him up quickly. He was in his mid-thirties, approximately one-hundred-ninety pounds, about six-foot-one, well-built but not muscular. His hair was a kind, soft brown, and his eyes a sort of moldy grey. He wore a tweedy-green turtleneck and brown slacks, though his distinctly Irish attire didn't fool her. He was Eastern European in descent, possibly Jewish, though he had probably moved westward early in life and was no longer practicing his religion. He stared at her, in awe, and placed his snifter of brandy down on a table as his hands began to tremble.

She yanked off her mask in one fluid movement, standing at the same time. Her skin was as pale as pearl, her features -especially her unique nose- were sharp. Her ear-length, spiky hair was as black as a cool, heavy midnight, and her eyes were a vivid, electric green, like the eyes of the gods that Ernest imagined the Greeks once worshipped.

" This is Little X," Lockhardt said amiably.

Ernest stepped forward, bravely, and put out a hand in greeting.

" Nice to meet you," he said, forcing a smile.

X looked at his hand, then at Lockhardt, who nodded at her in approval. She took this stranger's warm hand in her own. Her grip was strong, like steel.

" You're trembling," she said to him. Her voice was deep, but sweet and feminine. Her face was reserved, introverted.

Ernest let go of her hand and stood back, watching her.

" She's...a child," he said, his eyes falling on Lockhardt.

The older man looked her up and down." By god, she is."

" You...sent a child to kill Belladonna...?"

" Indeed I did," came the reply.

Ernest's face contorted for a moment. His voice exploded from his throat.

" You sent a child to kill her!? A child!? My God! What the hell is wrong with you!? Are you that messed up!? You are one sick son of a *****, Lockhardt! A sick son of a *****!"

His words died down against the walls, but still the hatred hung in the air like a palpable flavor. His eyes bore into Lockhardt's, his breaths were fast and forced. His heart beat inside him as if it would break.

The next action was almost too fast to see. Like her initial entrance, Ernest expected X's movements to be guarded by a flash of hot lightning, but they were not. In a second, she had flown at him, thrown him to the ground, and sat upon his back, his arms crossed behind him in her vice-like grip. He struggled to regain control, but the girl was too heavy. Much too heavy.

Lockhardt strolled leisurely over, then stopped so that Ernest's nose nearly met the tip of his leather shoe.

" See, she's rather capable. Trained very well." he said. His voice retained that friendly attitude, as if he were only trying to show his wayward son-in-law the right way." But I can't expect for you to understand the difference."

Ernest could feel the girl's breath on the side of his neck as she hunched over his back. Thoughts began to rush through his mind. Her strength, her speed, her agility was impossible. The physical equations piled up against the sides of his brain. She had to have been trained fantastically, fanatically throughout her life. Perhaps she was genetically engineered and taught to kill. Maybe she was a cyborg. Maybe she wasn't human. The idea that she could be all at once bloomed in his mind as coolly as a flower.

" Where did you get her!?" he choked out. The angle in which the girl forced him into the floor constricted his airway, suffocating him.

" Oh, Mullen found her somewhere,"

" Mul-len!" he forced out. The dramatic loss of oxygen to his brain abruptly occurred to him.

" Let him up," he heard Lockhardt say. Another quick rush of movement, and he was on his feet, X at his side, brushing him off kindly.

A sweat quivered on his brow." You said Mullen?" he asked.

" Yes." he said," She worked alongside your wife,"

Ernest started." But Marilena was in Verona,"

" How long had it been since you talked with her?"

The thought was painful. He croaked out a sharp," Two months,"

" A months ago she joined up with Mullen's faction of Intergang as his weapon's manager. Why else do you think she was Belladonna's target?"

Ernest ignored him, turning to X." Did you know Marilena?"

The girl straightened her back and stuck out her thin, boyishly underdeveloped chest. It was apparent now that pain was written quite clearly upon her face.

" Yes. Mistress Sylvermann threw me down a flight of stairs once,"

Inwardly, Ernest smiled. Marilena had had a terrible temper, and was easily provoked.

" I'm sorry she did that," he said to her gently.

" If it means anything, sir, Mistress Sylvermann was an excellent weapon's manager," she said, discounting the vials of lost Macchina.

Only partially listening to her, he turned back to Lockhardt.

" How much do you want for her?" he asked.

" She's not for sale," Lockhardt said staunchly." I have to get her back to Mullen in a few weeks,"

" She's a 'rental'?" he asked, using the uncouth term for a mercenary-for-hire.

" In a matter of speaking, yes,"

Ernest lowered his brow at the old man, whose immaculate stoicism did nothing to hide the fear of eternal damnation in his eyes. Lockhardt lived through his proteges for that exact reason. Once he was due his sentence in the Inferno, he wanted his offspring to carry on his name and mission.

" Are you afraid, Lockhardt?" he asked. His voice was malicious.

His gaze didn't waver." I can't expect someone like you to understand. You have no faith."

Ernest turned and looked to X." And you?"

Once again, she straightened her entire body out, like a well-taught soldier should." What, sir?"

" What do you believe in?"

She swallowed." I believe in destiny, sir."

He tossed his head impetuously." Then what is your destiny?"

She pulled her shoulders back." I'm not sure."

But inside, her thoughts ran away with the idea that her destiny laid with Professor Peterson, wherever he was.

[The_NewCatwoman]

:rolleyes: :p :D :):o How do you put the little pictures under your ID??? Maybe that's a stupid question,.....

[witness]

when i saw your title i was like, well it's about stinkin' time daughter of evil put up the next part! and then i find out that there's nothing there!!!!!!!!! augh!! quit with the suspense already! when's the next chapter coming???????????????

[Daughterof_Evil]

Sorry about that, but every time I create a new part, I can't post it. It's highly aggravating, but I'll try again. I think the problem lies in the fact that I usually write my story from scratch onto the post box, which consumes a great amount of time. My log-in must run out by the time I'm finished.

[witness]

that's how i've written my story so far. that's gonna aggravate me if I can't post the rest of my story that way.

[SilentBob173]

Originally posted by witness
that's how i've written my story so far. that's gonna aggravate me if I can't post the rest of my story that way.


I could never post like that. I always write mine out in Microsoft Word and then post them. I could never work on an entire story within the post box. Yech.
That being said, is anyone gonna post on the new installment of 'Canon' any time soon? Just wondering.
Cheers.
Jason S

[Daughterof_Evil]

-I should mention that by the end this gets a little gory. I was going to post this as a new thread, but since people are campaigning against that, I see that it is less than reasonable for me to. Therefore, this thread will contain the rest of the story, or at least a good portion of it. Enjoy.-
***
It would only be after Master Sylvermann left that X would gain an ounce of rest to reflect on what had happened. Lockhardt dismissed her, and she was ferried down the hall by a cute, thin Indian girl with a thick Bombay accent. She found herself inside a small, dark room, and the little maid turned on a lamp in the corner, flooding every crevice with light. It was obvious at the first glance that this was the chambers of a young girl. The walls were painted a soft, feathery green, covered with framed photos of meadows and lakes in Italy, and the little, child-sized bed against in the wall was dressed up with a green gingham comforter and pillows trimmed in white lace.

The young maid brushed out her white, starched apron and turned to X.

“ Young Miss, your bath I will draw,” she said, nodding her head and turning for a white door to her right. She went inside, and X could hear the rushing sound of water pooling in a bathtub. The maid returned and took up X’s arm, tugging off the wet black glove.

“ I-I can undress myself,” X said, pulling her arm away. Her unreasonable fear of touch suddenly returned, and she was very aware of the fact that this maid was completely unfazed by her wet black ninja suit, her pallid, clammy skin, her bloodshot eyes. The maid nodded and began turning down the sheets on the little bed as X ventured into the hot bathroom and began to pull her clothes off.

Once she had submerged beneath the warm water and turned off the gold-plated tap, she settled back, her head leaning against the porcelein of the tub. The door creaked open, and the maid entered, a length of green folded over her arm. X tugged the shower curtain closed, nearly ripping it from its rod in her haste. Beyond it, she could see the maid laying her parcels -a towel, a robe, and a pair of pajamas- over the electric towel rack.

X did her best to ignore her, and, sure enough, the maid left. She scrunched down until the water lapped past her ears, and the only thing she could hear was the calm, soothing sound of the artificial tide as it swallowed her up. She floated in the bath so just her nose stuck above the water level, her black hair drifting around her head in a dark halo.

The battle with Belladonna had been brief, abrupt, and truly gratifying. The amount of pleasure X took from the snap of the spine against her ankle was frightening to say the least. And her abilities...she had never felt so powerful. The shot of Macchina before the fight had certainly helped, and she could still feel its acidic pull in her veins as she lay there in the bath. She felt wonderfully at peace.

But still another thought was breaking her apart. If Peterson had seen what she had done, her ferocity in combat, he would be disgusted with her. He would hate her. She would be a vicious, heartless monster to him, nothing but a specter of death. The reality was inexorable. Like that maid, like Master Sylvermann, she would fascinate and terrify him.

However, it was very clear to her at this point that she would never see Professor Peterson again. They had burned their proverbial bridges behind them, and now there was nothing but forward.

Perhaps hours later, when the roiling hot water of the bath had become tepid, the maid knocked on the bathroom door and asked if the Young Miss wanted any dinner. Just realizing that the pain in her stomach wasn’t because of any bruising in the fight, X rose her sopping head from the water and replied that she would. Once the maid’s footsteps died away, she took up her towel and got out.

She emerged, minutes later, to find a silver service on a rolling cart positioned before her new bed. A Blue Willow design bud vase sat in its corner, a half-blooming red rose sitting atop a calyx of thorns. Again, it brought the LexCorp base to mind. She opened the tureen and, to get Peterson off her brain, ate thoughtlessly for the next ten minutes.

She didn’t see Lockhardt for the rest of the night, but as she crawled into bed and switched off the lamp, she imagined he was still in his study, brooding over his pipe, the fireplace burning low. Whether he slept anymore was undecided; she figured that his “sense of impending doom” would indeed cause him some insomnia. Maybe he was still worried about his legacy. She couldn’t have helped but notice, as the maid had brought her down the halls hours earlier, that the bergundy walls were lined with gilt paintings of men whose Roman physiques could only concede that they were Lockhardt’s forebearers. Truly he was the last in a line of great males.

It seemed strange that her concern could so easily fall from Professor Peterson to Lockhardt, but she had developed a bizarre type of affection for the old man who had concocted the elaborate charade that she was his bastard granddaughter and not a hired mercenary. And yet she had not even known him for a day. But he had provided her with the means to follow her instincts, and it was enough for him to win her gratitude, if not her trust.

She glanced over at the door, where she had leaned a white folding chair against the base of the knob. Quietly, she turned over on her side and fell into a very abrupt, dark sleep.
***
The landscape was blanketed with white, the barren trees scrambling at the charcoal sky, from which flecks of dirty snow rained down around her. She was running in the thick slush, trying to gain speed in her galoshes, tugging a child-size black cloak up around her now thin shoulders. She had no idea what she was running from, or to, just that this cold, poisonous wasteland seemed to eat away at her bit by bit. She felt her legs go numb as she shed her rain boots and ran ahead, atop the crust of ice, in her stocking feet, leaving the shoes behind her like two black animals felled in a fight.

She was not crying, or even visibly upset, but it wasn’t something that she could easily remember. X, trapped in this dream-body, was not even frightened by her own stoicism. The concept of running away was refreshing, even liberating, and she thought she could feel the sensation of a cool wind on her face as she ran.

This illusion had no sound, like when she had been in the bathtub and let the water flood into her ears, stopping the noise from reaching her brain. The memory was just too distant, too repressed to admit a simple noise. Even the call of a despondant crow in a tree above seemed mute and cold. The feeling of freedom melted away, and was replaced with fear.

A large, dark figure swooped down upon her and took her up in their arms, and the child that X was in this dream clung to the shadow and cried out. The safety, the warmth was indescribable. X went numb all over her body, and slipped from one dream into another. A rooftop, complete with chimneys and antenae, folded out around her, and beyond that, the bloody red sky of a city of hell. Tied to a utility ladder before her was a young, dark-haired boy in red and black kevlar, his face hidden by a black domino mask. He stared at her, afraid, and she smiled at him. She could even feel the pull of her facial muscles as she leaned over and pressed her lips to his in a kiss that he didn’t fight.

So her life hadn’t been hopeless. She hadn’t been damned from the beginning. In the fearful heart of that red clad boy, she found great comfort, and spent the rest of the night dreaming of his terror.
***
Lockhardt didn’t appear in the dining room until half past eleven, far later than a respectable English breakfast allowed. X sat at one end of the table, dressed that day in a short black dress with a pleated skirt and dark tights with calf-length boots. When Lockhardt entered, she stood and bowed to him in the deep, Japanese manner. He waved a distracted hand at her and passed through the room without stopping.

The young Indian maid, whose name turned out to be Radni, cleared away the breakfast dishes without a sound and left the room. The emptiness of the cavernous dining hall then dawned on X. She had been so surrounded by other Intergang members that she had forgotten what it was like to be alone. She leaned back in her seat, suddenly aware that if she were alone, there was nobody to give her direction.

The doors opened again, and Lockhardt re-entered. This time, he stopped before her, hands behind his back. Like always, he was impeccably dressed in a white dress shirt and black vest with a grey silk tie.

“ Little X,” he summoned. She jumped up from her seat and bowed at him again.

He cleared his throat uneasily. His London-inspired Welsh accent was hoarse. “ I appreciate your sense of duty, and the caliber at which you executed your job was admirable,”

“ Thank you, sir,” she murmured.

“ But I have another mission for you,”

She nodded, urging him to continue. Her heart rate increased.

“ Last night you acted as an assassin to terminate one of my enemies. Today you will be my bodyguard. There will surely be backlash for the assassination of Belladonna, which will make our passage to France far more complicated.”

“ Excuse me, sir?” questioned X. “ Passage to France?”

He glanced at her momentarily before turning his back on her. “ Yes. We will be leaving today for Le Havre, France. The plane leaves at two. Radni is packing your bags.”

“ Oh,” was all that came out of her mouth.

He quirked one eyebrow at her. “ Mullen knows where you are. In fact, he’ll be meeting us in France.”

“ That’s not it at all, sir,” she corrected herself, brushing a lock of black hair behind her ear. “ If anything, I would like the honor of serving you forever, but it’s just that-”

“ Yes, you have nothing to pack,” he filled in for her.

Sadly, she nodded.

“ I did think it was strange that Mullen not send ahead your possessions, but I suppose he didn’t think enough of you to allow you private property,” he scoffed. “ However, Ernest Sylvermann was so taken with you he bought you a temporary wardrobe.”

X bowed over in gratitude. “ That was very kind of him.”

Lockhardt laughed shortly. “ Yes, the dog beat me to the punch!”

X stayed hunched over in a bow, a tentative smile gathering on her face.

“ You go get dressed for the journey, my dear,” he advised her. “ I’m going to clear up some loose ends,”

The door opened, and Radni entered. She beckoned to X, and both girls scampered out under the watchful eye of Nevig Lockhardt.
***
It was barely an hour later when they would find themselves at the airport, being taxied across the tarmac on a small cart, their volumes of luggage stashed in the bins behind them. The cool, autumnal air ruffled X’s short hair as she sat beside Lockhardt, decked out in a black dress suit with tights and anklet boots. Radni had insisted she “dress up” for the journey, and once Lockhardt had seen her, he suggested one accessory.

In his hand was a small, white earpiece that resembled a hearing aid. He clipped in into X’s ear.

“ What is it?” she asked as he tugged a lock of hair over her ear to hide it.

“ A two-way transmitter,” he said. “ It will allow you to keep in touch with the men I’ve got around us at all times.”

They passed several commercial jets docked at the terminals, then continued on to the private landing strip, where the personal planes awaited. One, a particularly large jet, bore the insignia of Wayne Enterprises and was waiting for clearance onto the runway.

“ Which one of these is yours!?” X asked over the roar of the engines.

Lockhardt pointed towards a sleek, grey jet with a red stripe down its length.

“ I just rented it,” he confessed with a shrug. “ I wouldn’t be needing it all the time like Wayne needs his,”

X threw a backward glance at the Wayne Enterprises jet, which was steadily falling behind them. According to Lockhardt, Bruce Wayne was an American entrepeneur who had been at the opera the night of Belladonna’s murder, which made him a threat. But as long as he was leaving Europe, they didn’t need to worry about him.

The cart’s driver stopped abruptly, and X and Lockhardt popped out. A butler in a black suit stood at the end of the stairway that led up to the plane’s cabin.

“ Good evening, Master Lockhardt,” he said. His eye fell on X.

“ And the Young Miss,” he said with a gracious tone in his British voice.

Ignoring the butler, Lockhardt pushed his way up the steps, X, his bodyguard, right behind him.
***
Roughly an hour after the coast of Britain had slipped away behind the silky blue expanse of the English Channel, France began to enter upon the pristine illusion. X watched with fascination as it climbed closer and closer, at first a green line surrounded by the milk-white sky, then as a distinct landmass.

She heard Lockhardt approach her to the side.

“ Parlez-vous Francais?” he asked.

“ Oui,” she replied automatically. The built-in features of this body no longer surprised her. She had already proved she was capable of murder.

Lockhardt joined her at the small, ovoid window. “ You know, in the second World War, the English stormed the beach here at Le Havre when the Nazis had begun to occupy France. Despite their efforts, the English were pushed back to the coast, and trapped on the beach.

“ Winston Churchill heard about it, of course, and suggested that anyone in Britain with a boat travel across the Channel to pick up the soldiers. So they did. People with fishing skiffs, motorboats, yachts, anybody with a water-faring vehicle went and rescued the soldiers.”

“ Anybody? Just...civilians...?” X asked.

He nodded curtly. “ People who didn’t know the soldiers, who could have let them die.”

“ So, what you’re saying is that, even in war, compassion is important?”

He swept around, away from her. “ Take what you want from it,” he said. But she knew that wasn’t the message he’d wanted to convey to her.

The butler Russell re-entered, shutting the cabin door behind him. He was a middle-aged man with chestnut hair and lazy eyes, his face clean-shaven and grey. He cocked his head at her.

“ Sir, we will begin to descend any moment,” he said. “ I advise you take a seat.”

Lockhardt obliged, fairly falling into the nearest available seat. He and X were the only passengers other than Russell. Her master had told her that the other bodyguards had stationed themselves in Britain, and more would meet them in Le Havre. Until then, X was Lockhardt’s only protection.

Almost immediately, the plane began a rapid drop in altitude. Out the window, X watched as the right wing tilted dramatically, pointing up into the white sky as the plane went into a steep turn. She could sense Russell’s eyes on her as checked her safety belt. It was unbuckled. She had this feeling she’d need to use the mobility.

When the landing gear finally ground with the hot asphalt of the tarmac, Russell undid his lap belt and went to the cabin. Lockhardt stared out the window at the air strip. It was a small airport, apparently, one more commonly used by normal citizens than by tycoons like him. Still, it suited the indiscretion he wanted to travel with. Everybody around him in the social circles assumed his wealth was acquired by smart choices in the stock market. None of them wanted to know the truth.

The plane stopped at one of the empty docks, and the hatch was opened. X and Lockhardt took up a few scarce bags -mostly filled with weapons- and strolled casually out into the grey terminal. X felt Russell walking behind her by about five feet.

At the customs booth, a pert-looking woman in a dark blue uniform greeted them by taking their passports. Her hands shook as she stamped them. Sweat gathered on her fair face. She looked ill. The moment she brushed a strand of blonde hair behind one ear, the transmitter in X’s ear came back to life with a storm of static and garbled French.

“ Arretez!....Arretez...made! Mademois...X!...Arretez!”

She heard the thunder of rushed footsteps before she saw them. With a savage growl, she turned on Russell and grabbed his chestnut hair. In one movement, she rose her left knee and smashed his head open over it. Blood and brain matter splattered the customs desk. The clerk screamed.

“ X!” shouted Lockhardt. She instinctively grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the terminal and into the open.

A man in plain clothes turned on them, a gun secured in both hands.

“ Arretez!” he yelled. “ Interpol!”

Not seeming to think, X let go of Lockhardt and struck at the agent’s hands. The gun went flying, and X leapt straight into the air. She kicked out viciously with both feet, connecting with his face. She felt every fracture and hemmorhage echo up her legs as the agent’s head split open from chin to skull. Grey matter splashed the ground. It took only a quarter of a second, but X had already landed on the floor, crouching like a cat.

Lockhardt reached into his coat and pulled a 9mm semi-automatic handgun, then began firing off shots in every possible direction. The sting of hot lead reached X’s nostrils as she darted forward, blocking Lockhardt, a smear of blood following her boot. Gunsmoke filled the air. Through the volley of shots, Lockhardt was trailing the unarmed girl. Her earpiece was still spitting frantic French as a bullet tore through her fleshy right shoulder. She felt nothing, only the hot thrill of combat, the scream that flew from her mouth as both she and Lockhardt threw themselves through a plate glass window in their way.

It was then that the monstrous explosion rocked the other side of the airport as Lockhardt’s rented jet exploded in a bloom of fire and smoke. The Interpol agents were taken aback, distracted by the blaze that consumed the terminal. Many of their own were dead, killed by Nevig Lockhardt’s young bodyguard or eliminated by the new explosion. Bloody and burned survivors stumbled from the smoldering wreckage, screaming, swearing. Meanwhile, Lockhardt and the mysterious girl disappeared into the chaos, thriving in their element.

[Daughterof_Evil]

Okay, if you guys don't like the story, you can just tell me. Or is it the fact that it's not posted again, in its own, seperate post? Is that confusing you? Well, here it is, two whole parts of Shadows of Angels, ready to read. Just pull off the little blue tab and jump right in. Enjoy.

(By the way, could somebody please e-mail me? My servers' having problems and I wanted to see if I could still getmail. Thanks.)

[Susie]

Okay, well look at this I finally found out how to long in...Heck must be freezing over...

First off, I seem to have been on a lovely hiatus from these boards, writing, and posting, not because I wanted to, but because of darth-school. Now, I'm graduated and free (much to my mother's worry) and will (hopefully) be able to post more in replies and in my story...**crickets cripping** You know...my story????

Anyways, DoE, I love this story and would have to threaten you if you ever consdiered not posting it. X is becoming such a beautifully tragic character that I can't wait to see where her life takes her.

You've posted so very chilling posts that both amaze and frighten me, and REALLY make me want to read more. Please continue to post.

In a side note, I think the lack of replies has to be because, first off, like you said, people just don't know the story's updated, and second because I, for one, find it a lot harder to remember to post FB because (as lazy as I am) posting here is a lot more work. Before it was easy to navigate and here I feel like I've fallen into a black hole. Okay, maybe that's over-dramtizing it a bit, but that's what I think.

Needless to say, I'm MORE THAN POSITIVE people are reading and enjoying this story as much as I am.

[Daughterof_Evil]

Thanks for the encouragement, Sus. It really makes me happy to think somebody's out there reading this and actually liking it at the same time. Wow. I am so totally enamored.

(And that was NOT sarcasm, thank you very much.)

I am currently waiting for your continuation of Long Road Home. I have been absent from this place for awhile, in lieu of the fact that I can no longer sit here like a merry little leprechaun and write my story directly into the post box for the following reasons: A) my log-in time always runs out and my story gets erased and B) I have limited internet access. Can anybody tell I just had a glass of lemonade, a piece of cake, and a carrot!!???

Thanks again for the lovely comments. You have indeed brightened my day.

[Daughterof_Evil]

-This one isn't gory, but does include the tiniest bit of sexual inuendo, and nuances of sado-masochism.-
***
It felt, now, as if it had taken moments, and in truth, it had.

The French sky, not so different from the British one, was a slate, nothing-colored grey. The air was filled with the scent of the sea as the rolled-open windows caught the heavy breeze and ruffled X’s dark hair.

Lockhardt sat next to her, the picture of gentlemanly perfection despite the rips of his white dress shirt and the smudges of ash upon his face. His white hair was in disarray from their frantic flight. The gun, still clenched in his amazingly cool hand, was lying on the leather seat next to him.

The industrial haven of Le Havre had dissipated behind them ten minutes earlier, giving way to the scrap-littered countryside around it, wrought to the bone like a war-torn battlefield. Houses dotted patches of green lawn, breaking the monotony of the rural atmosphere.

“ Where are we to now?” X asked casually. The left knee of her black tights was splashed with a dark spot of dried blood. The feeling of Russell’s hair clenched in her fist still itched her fingers.

“ Out of here,” Lockhardt replied. His eyes were locked out the portal of the window as the scenery flew by like a newsreel going too fast. The driver, seen through the plate glass partition, turned the wheel and jerked them onto a desolate country road. X knew, from the fountain of information her mind always became after battle, that they were on their way to a safe house.

Lockhardt turned and looked at her. She was remarkably calm, despite everything that had just happened. She had watched him plant the steel suitcase under his seat on the private jet with a cool eye. The initial explosion hadn’t fazed her in the least.

“ I appreciate your assistance,” he said, looking back out the window.

She licked her bottom lip. “ Was Russell with you long?”

“ A month.”

“ Then he knew your plans.”

“ I’m aware of that. I just thought we’d have more time.”

The quiet pervaded again. Lockhardt’s folly would trail him for some time, but it would not earn him a reprimand. He outranked Mullen, even Vale. The very oblivious nature he traveled with was evidence of that.

“ Have you heard from Armand?” he asked her.

“ No.” Her earpiece had abruptly stopped working after the explosion at the airport. The blast had probably disabled the microwave signal, if not taking out the frequency entirely.

Lockhardt stroked his chin, a marker to X to not bother him. She admired the scenery calmly, sitting back in her seat. Outside, the flat plains gave way to a series of grey, metal buildings, like large warehouses. Outside them were lines and lines of white, beige or red vans. She recognized the signs of an Intergang gathering immediately.

Surrounding the grey warehouses was an eight-foot, chain-link fence, its top wound with barb-wire. And before them, on the industrial asphalt road they traveled, a gate sat, a guard’s station next to it. The driver pulled right up, and the guard, a youngish man in a dark blue uniform, emerged. A volley of French was exchanged, and the back windows of the limo were rolled up. X watched through the windshield as the red gate opened, allowing the driver to enter.

By the side of the road, a huge sign read something about shipworks, but the driver was going so fast X couldn’t read anything else from it.

“ Is this our safe house?” X asked as the car stopped. Lockhardt, unanswering, simply popped the door open and exited. She scrambled out, his hand securely on her elbow, and they limped towards the first of the warehouses.

The door opened before they reached it, and both of them were smuggled into the darkness, abandoning the day outside. There was a great deal of whispering, mostly in French but in some English, and a snapping sound. The floodlights that lined the warehouse walls came on, sweeping the space into white as if a gigantic bedsheet had descended upon them all.

As X’s eyes immediately took to the light, she silently analyzed how many were there simply by the smells of sweat and perfume, the sounds of whispers, the feeling of breath on her face. The sudden agoraphobia caused her fall in beside Lockhardt like a permanent fixture of his shirt sleeve as a singular person pushed through the crowd to reach them. Unsurprisingly, it was an unshaven Mullen.

He was dressed in clothes that looked like Irish hand-me-downs, and his hair was still tawny from a rushed bleach job, but it was Mullen in the flesh. He approached Lockhardt and looked him up and down.

“ A little trouble?” he asked. His eyes fell on X, who was trying to hide her bloodied hands behind her back.

“ It was Russell,” Lockhardt said. “ He betrayed me to Interpol,”

“ Do I even ask if he escaped?”

Lockhardt shook his head, shutting his eyes slightly. The embarrassment was clear.

“ And did X serve you well?”

Lockhardt placed a hand, shaking slightly, on the girl’s shoulder. “ A fine assassin, Mullen.”

But the man was already distracted by Annaka Behm, who had rushed to his side abruptly. She was dressed in uncommon attire for her: jeans and a blue t-shirt with a plaid shirt knotted around her waist. The mark from a camera bag strap was incised upon her neck. She and Mullen had apparently traveled together under the guise of touring newlyweds.

She whispered something into his ear, and he turned to them with a lazy smile on his shadowed face.

“ Our benefactoress has arrived, apparently,” he said. With a wave of his hand, the crowd -whose numbers approached fifty or so- split in two, allowing a channel between the unfamiliar faces. X, supporting Lockhardt ever so slightly by one arm, led the older man after Mullen.

“ Were you injured?” Mullen asked backwardly at Lockhardt.

“ A twisted knee, nothing serious,” grunted the latter.

One person materialized from the throngs as X passed, taking up the march directly behind her. It was Asmodeus, a tweedy wool scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face. She could recognize him anywhere due to the smallish shrapnel scars that dotted his forehead because of an accident with a Russian grenade ten years earlier.

Casually, he pulled from under his baggy black sweater his riding crop, which he proceeded to thwack lightly on X’s left hip as she walked.

“ Vacation’s over,” he said, his voice muffled through the scarf.

Lockhardt leaned heavily on the girl’s shoulder and said, without looking anywhere but straight ahead, “ I believe she is still in my employ, Asmodeus. I don’t react well to people beating my assassins.”

The presence of leather promptly removed itself from X’s senses, and Asmodeus melded back into the crowd, silently as a cane snake.

Ahead, Mullen and Annaka had paused. All eyes were on them, and the woman they spoke to. As Lockhardt approached, Mullen and Annaka faded away to either side, allowing X a full view of the mysterious female.

She was barely thirty, that was for sure, with a smooth, mature face. Her skin was a light coco color, perhaps speaking of a diluted Middle Eastern descendence. Her nose was full and her cheekbones jutting out delicately beneath her clear, dark blue eyes, which were rimmed with charcoal smudges. Her hair was very dark brown, like fresh earth, and sat in cylindrical sausage curls that couldn’t have possibly been natural. She had painted her lips a startling, oily black, unlike X herself, whose black lips were natural.

Her buxom, waspish figure was accented by a short, long-sleeved red dress that only a woman as beautiful and confident as she could have executed. Every detail, down to her burgundy-lacquered nails and the diamond pins in her delicate ear lobes, was painstakingly perfect. She surveyed the pair of them -the enigmatic young girl and her enfeebled elderly charge- come closer with growing amusement.

Lockhardt reached out and took her delicate hand, kissing it with the pomp of a bygone era.

“ I am deeply indebted to you for your assistence,” he said.

She smirked at him, taking back her hand. “ Monsieur Lockhardt, you keep your nobility under any circumstances,”

Lockhardt quite abruptly shook X off of his arm, and she stepped away to the left. The woman’s attention then fell to her. Her eyes went wide, like two sapphire orbs.

“ What a unique girl!” she cried. Her voice was heavily inflected with a French accent. She reached out and took X’s chin in one hand, forcing her to look at her.

“ Oui, quite unique,” she continued to say, eyes wandering over her. “ The eyes, the hair, the face...Where is she from? She looks Irish.”

A click came from behind X, and the scent of leather found her nose.

“ We’re not sure, Mademoiselle,” Asmodeus said. The woman let go of the girl’s face and straightened out her back, placing one hand on her hip.

“ Are you?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow. Her expression traveled from child-like wonderment to intrigue in miliseconds.

X looked back at Asmodeus. He had pulled the scarf down to his neck. The immediate attraction between the two was overbearing.

Lockhardt coughed abruptly, dismissing Asmodeus wordlessly.

“ Forgive the condition of my warehouses,” the woman said, turning fully around. “ It was all I really had to offer on such short notice. But, as my forebearers who escaped the Revolution know, sometimes simply to flee with one’s life is enough.”

A murmur ran through the crowd, in both agreement and argument. The sixty or so people present had flocked here from all over the planet, finding along their ways troubles of differing harship, following something inside of them. Whether they really assented to the philosophy of Intergang was not a factor but a dividing line between them. Before Mullen, Intergang had had no priority; it was simply a miscellaneous brigand without direction or decision, and still some of the old hangers-on remained to follow. The ones who truly had hope would withstand anything to see their vision come true.

“ I’d enjoy it if you would prefer to lodge at my home near Rouen,” the woman said, looking back at them. “ The girl is welcome. As is her handler.” Her eyes clicked to Asmodeus with a playful glint.

Lockhardt nodded to her. “ Merci bien,”

X had no choice but to bow. A quaint laugh issued from the woman.

“ Unique indeed,” she said throatily.
***
As quickly as she had arrived in Le Havre, they had stolen her away to a large manor outside the ancient Normandy city of Rouen. The attractive and complex construction of the town, known for its old world charm and its modern conveniance, jutted out above the plains and thready forests that surrounded its quaint suburbs.

The helicopter swept them out over the city in a wide arc, finally coming down to a sudden, gentle landing in a concrete launchpad set in the middle of what could have once been a horse pasture. Far off in the distance, staked in the middle of a group of elderly oaks, X could see the top floor and slate-colored roof of a Province-styled mansion.

Their hostess, now wearing a pair of red plastic sunglasses with lenses so dark one couldn’t watch where her eyes fell, led them up the rough stone pathway. The trees thickened the closer they came to the main house, and as they went along, they passed two separate but smaller houses -grand in their own esteem- that were the servants’ quarters and guests’ residence.

X stayed close to Lockhardt the entire time, aware that her actions were watched by not only Asmodeus, but by Mullen and Annaka as well. Lockhardt was trying to downplay the injury to his knee, but it was obvious that his old body couldn’t bounce back from harm as well as it once could, and X felt partly to blame.

At last, after a good ten minutes of walking, they came to the back of the sprawling manor. A crescent-shaped garden enveloped a blonde-wood deck that supported a well-maintained wooden picnic set, and clay pots glazed in bright Mediteranean colors spilled sprays of chyrsanthemums in each corner. A man in a black suit and a silver silk ascot stood next to the back door, which had a wrought-iron knob and looked like it was made of driftwood.

“ Welcome, welcome,” their hostess cried out, bringing her sunglasses off of her face in a wide sweep. Behind her, the butler dashed inside, returning seconds later with several maids, who all wore identical charcoal uniforms and white monogrammed aprons.

“ The mid-day meal is currently being prepared,” she said to them, “ but I’m sure you would all like to get yourselves a good bath and some new clothes.”

Her eyes fell upon X. “ And you,” she said.

X said nothing, only trembled in slight fear and awe.

“ What is your name, petite fille?” she asked, leaning over the tiniest bit to hear the minuscule answer. She placed her manicured hands on her knees, her sunglasses caught between her fingers.

“ X, Mademoiselle,” she replied, bowing at the waist.

“ X...” she said. “ Yes, you’re quite the Intergang celebrity.”

She reached out a hand and ran it through X’s ear-length gelled hair, then laughed.

“ Yes, now you’re my pet!” she said gleefully.

She stood up straight, wagging the arm of her red sunglasses in Mullen’s direction. “ I like her, Mullen. I’m going to keep her for awhile. Your gift to me, okay?”

Mullen shrugged casually, waving a hand at her distractedly. “ Fine. But I need her in a few days. Business.”

“ The girl is trained as an assassin, not as a ‘pet’,” Annaka protested, folding her arms.

“ Relax, Anni,” the woman in red consoled. “ You heard Mullen. You get her back in a couple days.”

She turned to Lockhardt. “ She’s working for you right now, isn’t she? I’ll get you another bodyguard for your loss.”

Lockhardt nodded at her in understanding as X stared on. This was worse than being auctioned off, she concluded. At least then she had had a tangible price. Now she was just being traded for favors. Again, she felt a flaccid loss of control consume her body, and every muscle tensed as if in anticipation of a battle.

The woman in red strode over and took X’s hand in her own, tugging her across the deck. With a playful laugh, she led the charge inside.
***
It turned out Mademoiselle Cerise La Touga was barely nineteen; it was her cool, sophisticated maturity that led X to believe that she was any older. As the day wore on, and Mlle. La Touga trailed X behind her like a kite on a string, the faded but still present girlish charm glowed through. She was a child tugging at the whiskers of a lion. She was simply playing games with Intergang, disguising them as business dealings, and she would reap the profit when they overthrew the world powers.

Asmodeus quickly set up shop in the sparse wine cellar. Within twenty four hours, the bare concrete of the basement was plastered with laptops, portable cable modems and server wires wreathing in and out of the lattice wine racks. Asmodeus was Mullen’s favorite hacker and a technological genius; it was his compensation for having pulled a short-fused unemployed former terrorist off the grubby streets of London and into the major crime rings. Now all Asmodeus did was plunk down in the crescent-shaped enclave created by his computer screens and tap out long chains of commands, his face lit up by the neon-nuclear glow of the monitors. Most often the bare-bulb lights hanging from the moist, dark ceiling were out, and the only thing circumventing the blackness was the halo of strange light hanging around Asmodeus’ head.

X found herself more than once used as a courier between the Mlle. and Asmodeus, who very sporadically would emerge from the den of the cellar, his eyes blood-shot and face slack. He no longer felt an uncanny urge to torture her, something that both relieved and frightened her. Whenever he did leave the wine cellar, she was obliged to bring him to Mlle. La Touga. The relationship growing between them was sickening and oddly pleasant. He, the cable-weary hacker, would fall into Mlle.’s arms, and she would pet and soothe him with only the promise that he would do the same. Despite the scars that spattered his face and neck, he was still quite beautiful by anyone’s standards, and when X would see him, stretched out on a couch with his head in his Mlle.’s lap and his dark eyes shut so his eyebrows formed happy, perfect arches over his lashes, she could almost see why someone might still want to love him.

The tranquility of the La Touga maison quickly became trite for X, and she wasn’t the only one. She once caught sight of Annaka Behm in the back yard, practicing her knife-throwing on an oak tree. The safety it provided them had outlived its novelty, and she was ready to leap back into the heart of danger again. As prescribed by Mullen, X was doing two shots of Macchina a day to keep withdrawl from setting in, but there was nowhere for her to spend her rapid-fire energy. In the end, she would be in a chair in the Mlle.’s parlor, fidgeting as the acid gushed through her veins, making her skin flame like a rash, teasing her to rip the room to shreds.

After a week of passivity in the Mlle.’s care, X saw Lockhardt again, at the end of a hallway in the main house. He was chatting discreetly with Mullen in dark, private tones, and at first didn’t see her standing there. But once his eye fell upon her, he dismissed himself from Mullen and strode quickly over to her.

“ X, my dear,” he said. “ How are you?”

“ Good, Master Lockhardt,” She bowed respectfully. She could feel Mullen’s cold eyes focused on the top of her head. “ And you?”

“ Fine.” He looked distracted. “ The Mademoiselle is treating you fairly?”

“ Oh, yes, sir.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “ You don’t seem positive.”

She looked past Lockhardt, at Mullen, who still stood twenty feet down the corridor. The window shades were open, bringing in a solid sheet of gilded sunshine. The light caught the slight rift of the scarring on his face, and he smiled at her spasmodically, the way some people blink.

“ X?”

She looked up into Lockhardt’s face. She hadn’t realized he was speaking.

“ What I was going to ask you is if you’d like to get out of the country for a bit, into the city, you know?” he said quickly, aware that she was losing him.

“ That would be very kind of you, sir,” She bent over in a bow again, a habit inbedded in her so deeply that it felt as if she were a toy, wound up with a key in her back and without any will of her own.

He straightened his back out. “ Good. Then I’ll come for you at about eight.”

She nodded numbly. He passed her so swiftly and silently that he could have just been a shadow, a true mark of an assassin. Following straight behind him was Mullen, his hands behind his back. He didn’t look at her as he went, but she could sense his presence with her as she trekked down the hallway, wandering, without destination.

She found herself at the threshold of the kitchen, next to where the doorway of the cellar sat. The door was made of rough, dark wood, slightly inset in the wall, its knob a cold, iron sphere. She took hold of it and opened the door with a barely audible whoosh noise, and then descended into the dark, shutting it behind her.

She knew every step from the countless times she’d journeyed this basement to retrieve Asmodeus for his mistress. Once she had silently found the very last step, like always, she put her hands to the wall, leaning her face up against the cool plaster.

[Daughterof_Evil]

The bubble of light from the semi-circle of computer monitors was a cool blue tonight, reflecting the azure backround of the super-secure screensaver Asmodeus had programmed into them. The shapes within its glow were angular, dark, as if they were simply splatters of ink. X made out the tendonous form of Mlle., stretched out like a feline across Asmodeus’ lap, her face tipped upwards to his, her lips upon his mouth.

Without sound, X turned and ascended the stairs, then shut herself out of the cellar, letting the bolt of the door clatter into place noisily. The light filtering into the hallway was deeper now, at a sharper angle. Lockhardt would be coming for her in an hour, she calculated. Running one claw-like finger along the wall, she began to wander listlessly through the mansion, unthinking, unceasing.
***
The cathedral of Notre Dame passed by them without particular fanfare; though searchlights lit up the lacy Gothic architecture in a flush of beige and shadow, Lockhardt didn’t seem obliged to point it out. It was just another silent prop in this city as the people rushed by it in clusters, all anxious to get home before the dark fell any further.

However, it was obvious that Lockhardt had chosen this route expressly for X. She was his project. She had a disdainful feeling that she was the center of his earlier conversation with Mullen, that she was a particular point of strife in their professional relationship. They saw her in severely different lights.

The limo took a smooth turn into a side street, immediately landing them in a run-down, seedy neighborhood encrusted with filth. The remnants of an industrial age were scribed clearly upon every surface. The chain-link, the crumbling brick, it gave one the image of a prison from which nothing escaped alive or with any hope of life.

The polished black car paused before a tenement house, its broken windows mended with duct tape and lengths of torn bedsheets. A huddled mass of crushed garbage cans spewed trash across the sidewalk and into the gutter.

X got out and took in the scene with a cool eye. Behind her, Lockhardt removed from the trunk of the car a long, wooden box.

“ You don’t seem disturbed,” Lockhardt noted dimly as the limo pulled off.

“ Sometimes we see the dirty side of everything that’s clean,” she muttered.

He grunted. “ Yes, I suppose we do.”

He led the way up the front steps to the doorway, which was peeling red paint. He knocked three times, and the door opened by a mysterious and unseen hand. As they both entered, the door shut behind them, and their host scuttled away.

The inside was as dreary as the facade, with the walls foaming with flowered wallpaper that had unglued itself from the plaster and was forming tight curls on the rough wooden floor. The electric lights didn’t work, and a thin line of dirty water was continuously running down one of the walls. She didn’t ask why they were there, but instead chose to wait for the subtle surprise.

Lockhardt confidently moved through the front hall and into one of the back rooms. There, a fly-spotted yellow bulb cast dingy orange light onto a card table surrounded by four men. They looked up from their cards to give Lockhardt a pensive, “ Bonsoir,” but then refocused on their game. X they didn’t give a second glance.

Moving on, they passed shortly through a small room with a cook stove where a woman rocked a baby in one arm while leafing through a college level calculus book with the other, her back pressed to the wall. She ignored the intruders, stepping back from them slightly when they entered and resuming her routine once they left.

The final room was very small, barely big enough for the washbasin that sat perched in the corner next to the set of enormous double doors that were part of the floor. Lockhardt reached down and pulled one up by its iron ring, ushering X down inside with a nod of his head.

The cool, wet air of the catacombs immediately set X at ease as Lockhardt fell in step beside her after bringing himself down the set of steep stone stairs. Industrial watch lights were fastened to the walls, which were rust-stained white granite. Their hollow footsteps were the only noise accompanying them as they went along, descending deeper and deeper into the underground labyrinths.

Eventually, Lockhardt began to speak.

“ These tunnels were created under the city in the fifties, when France was beginning its trials of nuclear weapons in the South Seas,” he said casually. “ Sort of a bomb shelter, made from the old sewer system, in case anything happened. But nothing did, and the government abandoned them, sealing them up. Of course, if they were ever discovered, it would provide a perfect place for those wishing to remain hidden from public view.”

It was very evident to X at this point that somewhere down the line, voices were creating a great cacophony of noise within the walls. So far, they hadn’t crossed anyone on their underground journey, but as a blinding light rose up ahead of them, she was sure that was about to change.

The tunnels suddenly gave way to a large, ovoid room, seemingly filled to the brim with people. Tables of Black Jack and roulette wheels were sprawled under stained glass tavern lamps that hung suspended from a ceiling so high it couldn’t be seen above the veil of blue cigar smoke. A long bar stretched along one side of the curving wall, five bartenders behind it, their backround a prismic view of liquor bottles lit up by a mercury-white mirror. Men, women, all grouped together in this hell of hedonism, their voices echoing past her in French, English, German, strains of butchered Russian, tangy sweeps of Chinese. A brunette waitress in a purple suede dress with Mojave silver insets came up to them enthusiastically.

“ Hello! Bonjour! Hola! Kon nichi’wa!” she spat off in rapid succession, trying for the right fit.

X felt Lockhardt’s guiding hand on her shoulder, leading her past the inquiring waitress and around a craps table where a passle of men were busily betting.

“ What is this place...?” X asked, stricken.

“ There’s no real name for it, actually,” he confessed. “ It’s just a refuge.”

“ But, what about the police? Aren’t they suspicious?”

“ The walls are solid granite, so not much gets through. And any police who learn of it are bribed or taken out.”

She glanced around busily at the continuous parry of action that enveloped her as Lockhardt leaned over the bar counter and asked for a strong sherry. As the bartender went to work, Lockhardt remembered the case he held and gave it to X to hold. It was quite heavy, though it wasn’t the heaviness that bothered her but the sensation that she knew this case from somewhere.

Lockhardt took his sherry and led X toward the opposite side of the hall, where a high doorway led to another short length of corridors. Again, it widened out into a large room, but this one was far smaller and much quieter. Running up and down the walls like trails of insects were bound computer cables that went right into small holes cut into the granite, disappearing. On the floor, a series of computers sat upon folding tables, their screens a vapid grey color. In the midst of it all, one woman sat, her back arched over, legs in a yoga position, sitting in a rolling chair in the corner.

“ Cervelle,” Lockhardt greeted amiably.

Her head shot up. Her white-blonde hair was cut in a straight, choppy, fashionable style around a pale, freckled face. She wore purple-lensed glasses and a black nylon raincoat, even inside.

“ Pardon?” she asked in squeaky, Parisian French.

Lockhardt pointed at X. “ This is my friend, Mademoiselle X.”

Cervelle waved at her. “ Bonjour,”

She turned back to Lockhardt. “ What is it you want?”

He waved a hand around distractedly. “ You know, the usual. A check up on someone I’m meeting today.”

Cervelle unfolded her long, skinny legs in their purple lycra tights and swung her chair around. She pulled a keyboard from the top of one of the blank grey monitors and let loose a tight series of rapid commands, which turned the grey backround of the screen into a swirling, whirlpool blue design. X recognized the super-secure software as the very thing Asmodeus employed in his own lab, except that this Cervelle’s system seemed to be far more advanced, possibly self-encoded.

She got herself quickly onto the intranet and pulled up a pure white screen.

“ Name?” she requested.

“ Jona Thickwood,”

“ I suppose a social is too much to ask?”

“ He’s Armenian-British, he doesn’t have one,”

She sighed and tapped it in. “ Already searched for him, did you?”

“ Meckley couldn’t find me anything,” Lockhardt conceded. “ Thickwood’s probably operating under a false name, if that already isn’t a false name.”

Cervelle licked her lips as scrolls and scrolls of Chinese code flickered in her glasses. “ We’ve got the best server in the world here. If there’s anything to be had, I’ll most likely find it.”

The scrolling stopped, centered on one minute line of Chinese writing. It automatically flipped into English, and Cervelle picked up on it, bringing it up.

“ Ex-Special Agent Jones McArthur, aka Jona Thickwood, aka Reynold Blythwood,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “ Seventeen years in the U.S. Marines before being given a dishonorable discharge for shooting and killing an unarmed elderly man in Kuwait. Went rogue against the government, and is suspected in the toxic gas attack of a U.S. embassy in Bahrain that killed twelve people. His last known whereabouts were in Saudi Arabia, assumed to be hiding out with a group of militant Islamic extremists.”

Cervelle turned her pale, ready face up to Lockhardt. “ Is that what you wanted to know?”

He nodded curtly, rubbing his chin at the same time. “ I thought he had a hand in some world government, but I couldn’t decide which.”

She propped her left arm behind her head. With one jab of the keyboard, she sent the screen into an aphasiac white, which melded into the concrete grey of its companions.

X turned to Lockhardt, who was still looking pensive and annoyed. “ Sir, what shall we do?” she questioned gently.

He didn’t answer at first, only dropping his hand from his face so it hung limply at his side.

“ There’s no real threat,” he said suddenly. “ If he truly is an expatriate, he won’t be obliged to inform Interpol of my whereabouts.”

Cervelle coughed discreetly. Remembering that she was present, Lockhardt reached inside his jacket and produced a bauble, which he presented to her up-turned hand. She rolled the emerald and diamond ring around between her fingers, letting the gems catch the light.

With a grateful nod, she placed it in the pocket of her black nylon raincoat. “ Merci,”

Lockhardt and X were already exiting the systems room, and had entered back into the main hall. More people had seemed to funnel in while they had been absent, and the din had grown louder.

“ I’m usually disdainful of these sorts of haunts,” Lockhardt informed her over the noise, “ The gambling and drunkenness is especially not of my favor, but it provides somewhat of a haven for those like us.”

Us. The word had been used to include X in many ways since her departure from America, but this seemed to please her the most. She was different from everybody else. She had a place to belong.

Lockhardt led her through the throngs and into another small tunnelway, whose granite walls were damp on one side and pocked with golf-ball sized holes on the other. The flush of noise from the main hall fell behind them as the wall on the right began with a long series of red-painted doors.

“ Storage rooms,” Lockhardt said. “ Mr. Thickwood decided to meet us in one of these.”

They stopped at room number twelve, whose door lay open the tiniest fraction. Lockhardt looked inside before allowing X to follow him.

The room was white-painted granite on all sides, with flat light fixtures inset in the ceiling. A folding table sat in the corner, but there were no chairs.

“ Put that box down here,” he commanded, and she obeyed. He flipped the tiny brass lock and opened its top, removing from inside a nearly three foot scabbard. He placed it in X’s waiting hands, much as he had presented the appreciatory bauble to Cervelle.

“ Mullen said you would know it,” he said.

X ran her finger over the slick surface of the light aluminum sheath, its metal lacquered with an imperial dragon, its four claws imbedded in the universal symbol of eternity, the endless knot. She took the cord-wrapped handle in her palm and pulled, revealing the white sheen of the metallo blade. The black tassle with the jade endless knot bead trembled against the back of her hand.

“ Y-yes,” she said. Again, the feeling of utter completeness entered her mind, like a sadistic nirvana.

Lockhardt took the scabbard from her as X took the katana out to admire the blade. It was light as a feather, all the weight was centered in the handle. He adjusted the black nylon straps attached to the sheath, then went around her back and belted it snugly around her chest.

X was completely speechless. Silently, she replaced the katana in its scabbard. She turned a complete circle and bowed deeply to Lockhardt.

“ Thank you, sir,” she whispered, trying to keep the involuntary quiver out of her voice.

“ Don’t thank me,” he told her. “ Mullen was the one who brought it for you. A gift from him.”

A bead of sweat formed on her forehead, despite the chill atmosphere of the dank room. The memory of the knowledge that he had known her before she had become amnesiac gathered in her mind. What could this gift mean, then? Was it a sign to her lost subconscious? Was he trying to tell her something?

She had no time to think it over, because the next thing she knew, the door had creaked open, and Lockhardt had delivered an enthusiastic, “ Good evening, Jona. Or shall I call you Jones?”

[Sweetdreams]

More please! I can't wait to read the next part!
Cathy

[Susie]

Hey Doe-

First off, glad I could make your day :) I always think that giving FB is so much fun because I know what it's like to get it, and not get it. As for TLRH (nice little acronym) it's sort of in the works. I'm just in a bit of a hole with a lot of the stories I'm working on. I want to finish them, know how I'm going to finish them, but just can't seem to get the words out. It's annoying to say the least. But, don't loose heart (or rather forget about the story) cause hopefully it will be born again.

Enough about that, though. You gave us another set of great posts. I realize the reason why I love this story so much. First off, it's because of how this is so much more of a character study with the depth you give not only the main characters (X, Mullen etc.) but even your minor characters come to life. There's also the fact that with every other post my view of X changes. With some I cannot help but feel sorrow for this poor, lost girl that, so far, has had this life just thrown at her. With another post, I'm reminded of what she used to be and all sorrow floats right out the window. It's a terrific rollercoaster, I'll tell you that. Finally, I love how much more dramatic this is then some things you can read. You fullfill the character depth by putting them in such situtations that you see their true colors; that's amazes me. You explore the violence and horror with such honest pictures that one can almost see what's happening. I bow to you :)

Well, I suppose I best stop before this FB post becomes longer than your story! Thank you for sharing again!

~Susie

[Sable Phoenix]

I've been following this story since it started on the old boards, and I've heard a lot of people referring to X as an acquaintance. Where is the other story you wrote with her in it? I'd be really interested in her past (not that it really has any bearing on THIS story... you've done a superb job of drawing the reader in regardless of wether they know the history or not). I'd actually like to read it AFTER SoA is finished, since I assume you'll be revealing X's past sometime in SoA, and it'll be appropriately shocking if I don't know it ahead of time.

[Daughterof_Evil]

Thanks to all of you guys! It really gives me heart to realize that somebody's reading it!

Susie: I can't wait until you get TLRH (that *is* a nice little acronym) back up again. You're sure to surprise us with some moments of unbelievable tenderness between the Knights, something we don't often see but do know exists. I appreciate the fact that you find my story so appealing plot/character-wise, because I was afraid that both were weakening. But I'm very upset that you've found yourself in a writing rut, tose are most disturbing. Try locking yourself in a room without TV or radio or music, then open the window and listen to the peaceful (or chaotic) noises outside. That usually works for me. That and cutting my fingernails, but I won't get into that.

Sable Phoenix: I'm glad you've been reading this! We haven't really talked much since I quit the comic team, have we? I'll make sure to send or post up the stories that preceeded this one. It really helps one understand her character and those around her, but I was trying to create from her amnesiac experience a new life for X. As Peterson put it, a type of "redemption". How goes the comic team? Are they all sane and happy? Have you gotten any work done? If you have, it would be great to see it! I really admired your work.

Thanks again, guys. Ima wa Sayonara!

[Daughterof_Evil]

-This part includes sexual innuendo and graphic/implied violence.-
***
The man didn’t answer immediately. He was tan from the Arabian sun, the whites of his eyes more brilliant against the brown of his face. His hair was tawny blonde, perhaps an impromtu bleach-job, and his cornflower blue dress shirt was open to reveal a fine mat of light hair on his chest. All in all, he had the bearing of an older man, but wore the scarless features of an adult in his mid-thirties.

He cocked his head to the side slightly, then entered anyway. As X had expected, he was followed by two perfectly identical bodyguards; both in black, both donning mirrored sunglasses, both young and American-looking. She scanned their faces for any type of emotion, but found nothing. Neither wore any kind of visible communication gear. Small timers.

“ I should have expected more from you, Lockhardt,” McArthur said. X noticed for the first time that he was carrying a thin, steel briefcase, the kind art dealers or bankers use in transporting valuble goods.

“ Maybe you should have,” the older man replied.

“ Don’t worry,” remarked McArthur. “ The U.S. government couldn’t catch sight of me without shooting at me, so there’s nothing I could tell them about you.”

“ All that plastic surgery you must have had has probably helped,”

He shrugged. “ So it has.”

He went over and laid his briefcase down on the table. The two amateur toughs flanked the shut doorway.

“ You asked for something from the U.A.E.,” he said. His eyes drifted up to Lockhardt, but then fell suddenly on X. He straightened his back.

“ Your ‘granddaughter’?” he questioned.

“ You could say that for now,” Lockhardt replied impatiently.

McArthur smirked, then went back to the suitcase, decoding the lock and opening it. He threw open the top half, revealing about twenty solid ingotts of gold bullion. He took one up in his hand, balancing it as proof to its weight.

“ Its oil gold,” he explained. “ The United Arab Emirates are rich in gold that they are wary to sell to the West. This gold once belonged to an Abu Dhabi oil tycoon, but it failed to reach his bank holding,”

McArthur passed it to Lockhardt, and the older man hefted it in his palm. It was obvious to X that it weighed a great deal due to the straining of the tendons in the back of Lockhardt’s hand.

“ You need to get rid of it, then?” Lockhardt asked.

“ Indeed,”

A simple glance asked the running price.

“ Four hundred thousand,”

“ I’ll give you three-fifty,”

McArthur shrugged. “ Four hundred was giving you a break, Lockhardt.”

With one sweep, Lockhardt knocked McArthur away from the table. He grabbed another block of bullion in his hand.

“ Wood!” he shouted. “ This is wood, McArthur!”

McArthur staggered to attention, smiling at Lockhardt.

“ See, there you went and spoiled the surpise,”

X saw it before Lockhardt. In a second, she had pushed Lockhardt flat to the floor, leapt over him, tackled McArthur, and was holding him tightly from behind, the blade of her katana winking at his juggular. Her arms were propped under his, forcing his hands into the air. She stood as a blockade between her fallen master and McArthur’s goons, who stared over the barrels of their Eagles in shock at her.

She heard Lockhardt stumble to his feet behind her, then the genteel swoop sound as he brushed off the front of his dark suit.

“ Thank you, my dear,” he acknowlaged.

She didn’t blink. The twin Americans still had their guns pointed at her, though they were quite aware that to get her they’d have to go through their boss, and that would mean a dramatic reduction in salary.

“ I think I’ll keep this,” Lockhardt said, placing the single gold bullion in the inside pocket of his blazer. He leaned over X’s shoulder, his face right next to McArthur’s ear.

“ Your time is up,” he said.

“ I beg to differ,” the hostage replied. His elbow quickly connected with X’s eye, throwing her off. She staggered backwards, one hand flailing at the painful socket in her face, tears streaming from under the black lashes. She was trying to catch her bearings when she heard the scrape of metallo blade against the solid concrete floor and her senses went insane.

She managed to pry open her eyes, her eyesight clouded and grey and dominated by black shapes darting through her line of vision, and brought her katana up in an attack position. From where this knowledge came was a mystery to her, but the moment she heard the first pop of gunfire, she hit the ground, rolled, and slashed out repeatedly with her weapon, in all directions.

Immediately the warm fountain of blood sprayed against her hands, staining the white cuffs of her tight, short black dress. She wiped at her eyes with the inside of her elbow and took a look at the room.

The first thing that she saw was one of McArthur’s goons, slumped against the wall, swearing in a low Gotham accent over the bleeding stump of his left wrist. A bright slash of red ran vertically down his left cheek. The other henchman was nothing more than a pile in the corner, a pool forming under his motionless body. McArthur was sprawled on the floor, eyes wide open, a raw scrape about the size of a silver dollar forming on his brow. He visibly trembled down to the fine chest hair protruding from his dress shirt.

“ I-I...can’t-t,” he stammered. He never finished the sentence fully, he only kept repeating those same two words.

Lockhardt was standing in the far corner, wedged behind the table, calm as ever. He reached up and poked a strand of snowy hair back into place. He glanced over as the now handless croney whimpered and jumped to his feet.

“ *****!” he shouted, then raised his remaining bloody fist and ran at her.

The strike was too fast for her to see or understand. She simply acted on a mechanical reflex, something dragged straight from the core of her. The henchman doubled over, blood dribbling down his chin. X pulled the sword from his gut, and he toppled to the ground, shuddered once, then lay still.

She rose the katana lengthwise to her face, grabbed it near the hilt, and cleaned the blood from the blade with one swipe of her palm. That was when she noticed that the tassle coming from the handle had disappeared, its frayed end brushing the inside of her arm. She looked around the ground and found it, the bead intact, lying against the wall, spattered with blood.

She took it up in her hand and ran her thumb over the grooves in the piece of milky green jade. She could tell, from the burn of the nylon cord, that it had come apart from the impact of a bullet. The granite walls were pocked with ripe gunshot holes, and the acrid, slightly tangy odor of gunpowder still lingered in the air.

She put the tassle and jade bead into the kangaroo pocket of her dress. “ So,” she said casually, “ what shall we do with him?”

McArthur, aware that they meant him, skittered on the floor. His breathing increased to a pant. X could very distinctly smell the sweat of panic.

“ I think we should kill him,” Lockhardt said frankly.

“ But then you’d never learn where he put the rest of the gold,” she pointed out.

“ Smart girl,”

“ I’ll tell you where it is!” shouted McArthur. “ Just let me go!”

“ You’re not going anywhere,” Lockhardt said. “ If you tell me exactly where that Arab gold is, you might leave here with a moderate capacity to eat through a straw,”

McArthur shut his eyes and slowed his breathing; a vain attempt to calm himself. “ The cathedral of Notre Dame,”

Lockhardt was unimpressed. “ You’re coming with us,”

McArthur’s eyes popped open, and he began to stare from face to face as X pulled him up off the ground. She replaced her katana in the sheath strapped to her back.

“ B-But I gave you the location,” he said.

“ The information you gave us isn’t worth anything without colateral to back it up,” Lockhardt informed him, opening the door as X shoved their hostage through it. They regressed down the hallway, towards the enormous main hall, which had seemed to grow more congested and raucous in their absence. X kept a tight hold on McArthur’s bony upper arm.

“ You’ve got to be kidding, Lockhardt!” he yelled through the noise. X knew right away the desperate signs of a man trying to garner help from the crowd. Her grip on his arm tightened significantly, and beads of sweat stood out on his temple.

“ C-Can’t you just gimme a break?” he asked her, under his breath.

“ No,” she said.

McArthur tried to rip his arm from her hold, but she tugged him closer and kicked at his leg, feeling his knee cap shatter and hearing him cry out like a child as she dragged him through the throngs.
***
“ Where is it?”

X was still awed by the sight before her, barely hearing Lockhardt for the rushing of the blood at her temples. The vaulted ceilings rose high above them, giving them a definite feeling of insignifigance, and it seemed as if the entire cathedral were alive, breathing all around them. A circular stained glass window glowed at the far end of the church, illuminating all of the foamy Gothic curves in a dead bouqet of mechanical objects.

“ Where is it?” Lockhardt repeated.

Shaking, McArthur pointed down the aisle. It was after hours, and they had gained access by stealing in the front of the sanctuary. No doubt McArthur was afraid of being caught, and it was obvious to X that Lockhardt, despite his less than sterling reputation, was uneasy about breaking into a House of God.

“ Go to it,” Lockhardt commanded.

Still shaking, McArthur hobbled down the aisle, dragging one leg behind him and trying to make it look as if he weren’t in much pain. One of his hands trailed the line of brassy wooden folding chairs to his right. He seemed to be counting them, as his lips moved involuntarily.

He finally stopped and dropped to the one knee that wasn’t broken. He reached under the chair his hand rested upon, and produced from under its seat a bar, wrapped in blue plastic and striped with one piece of duct tape. He waved it at X.

“ One down,” he said.

They continued down the line, taking bars of blue-wrapped gold from under the seats of church chairs that hadn’t been moved in maybe fifteen years. The last bar of gold was taped under a seat that sat directly before the pulpit, and it was added to the pile in X’s arms.

McArthur, still on one knee, looked up at them as the gold was inspected by Lockhardt.

“ So,” was all he said.

Lockhardt nodded at him. “ So,”

“ What about me?” he blurted.

“ Oh, you’re going to die,” Lockhardt said coolly.

X, sensing a command, removed her katana from the scabbard on her back. Lockhardt laid a gentle hand across its hilt and shook his head at her.

“ No, not here,” he said. Over his shoulder, she could see the Holy Cross glowing golden in the pale light, and nodded in agreement. She had never had the strength of will to understand the piousness with which Lockhardt operated.

McArthur submitted as X pulled him up off the ground by his arm. Within an hour, he would be dead, buried in a grave outside the city that he himself had dug.
***
X was back at the La Touga maison shortly after midnight, when all the servants had gone to the house in the back yard and all the guests were asleep. Before going to her own room, which had once been a large linen closet but now had a cot and a lamp, she stopped by the wine cellar. The bluish glow of Asmodeus’ computers faded into nothing. He had finally found the need to go to bed.

As X passed by the Mlle.’s chambers, she knew why. Asmodeus was in there, asleep with her. She should have known that nothing short of a woman in his arms would keep Asmodeus from just sleeping in the basement with his computers. X turned on heel and went back downstairs.

Silent as a cat, she stole back into the wine cellar the way she had the Notre Dame. She lead herself to the extension bar plugged into the wall. One by one, she pulled the cords of the computers until every screen was black and she had lost herself in the cellar’s darkness. She curled up on the floor and tried to sleep, but found she didn’t have the will to do so.

It was unfair. Even with all of his evil, Asmodeus could still find someone to love him.

[Susie]

That last line was so sad- my heart went out to poor X. Another moving post, DoE, I swear you must get sick of my uncreative FB...sorry about that! :)

It's strange to see this other world that X lives in...with a lot of stories you get it from the heroes POV and so the killing side is barely touched upon. You learn about one or two characters, but with SOA it's the opposite. It's very interesting to say the least- interesting and intriguing.

Oh, question. I happened to look at a Battle Angel Atila (I don't think that's the right last part, but I'm drawing a blank). Anway, is X based off of her? If so, that's so neat! I didn't get the magna, but think I will. Just wondering.

~Susie

[Daughterof_Evil]

Yes!!! Thank you!! I was so waiting for some Battle Angel fan to come up and say, " Hey, ya know, X is a lot like Alita,"

I didn't base her off of Alita at first, but off of the current Batgirl in the mainstream comics, Cassandra. Cassandra was an assassin trained from birth to the age of nine by her father, who deprived her of learning any speech so she could gauge her opponents just by looking at them and without the burden of speech recognition.

Later on, her character subconciously (on my part) evolved into Alita, or as she's known in the Japanese version, Gally. They both are amnesiac, except for their fighting skills, and both were subsequently found damaged and rebuilt by someone who changed their life. However, I think it is quite obvious that both of them have very different paths in life. Gally kills to uphold order (kind of like a homicidal Batman), while X kills because her instincts tell her it isn't wrong.

If you're thinking over buying the manga, I sincerely advise you do! It's not money wasted! While any of the nine manga books are interesting, I suggest getting the first one so you can truly understand the story. Or, if you're more into video, get the anime, which is just called Battle Angel. There's only two episodes (and both are very deviant from the manga storyline), but the fight scenes are awesome and the love story just plain cute.

I'm so glad you know about X's inspiration, but I have to tell you Alita isn't the only one. Like I mentioned before, Cassandra is one, as is Cammy from Steet Fighter II (who was based off of Alita as well...go fig), and so is Lain from Serial Experiments Lain.

[Susie]

It was actually quiet strange cause I just happen to go into a Planet Neo store in the mall by me and look around. Sometimes something will catch my eye and I saw the big row of mangas, so I began to look. I remember you mentioning battle Angel so I looked at it and realize...it's nearly X! I didn't have a long time to look, but hopefully I'll get back and get it since it comes so highly recommended :)

Have you bought any of the new Batgirl comics? I have one or two of them, but that's all I've been able to afford, however I really enjoy Cass. She's such a tragic cahracter with a chance to have a successful life that's slowly coming together for her. Anyway, just wondering.

So, when's the next post? ;)

[The_NewCatwoman]

I'm still so retardly (no offense to anyone) behind, hope to FINALLY catch up soon!

-tNC