Commissioner Warren stood at the high iron gates that marked the property line of the McLeod-Slaughter mansion. Dressed less fashionably than she was usually seen in newspaper photos, she was still easily recognisable by the crown of dark blonde hair piled atop her head. Her tall, thin frame belied her tenacity and the strength she brought to any brawl, whether political or hidden away in a back alley.
One of the guards approached her. Many among Gouyannou’s mob knew her well and had even spoken with her during her occasional visits to the several headquarters the gangland chieftain had used scattered about the city of Mitropoulos. She smiled as the capo, a no-longer-young man named Mihaliki, approached her whistling a sad theme from a recent popular film.
‘How are you this morning, Jimmy?’ she asked, as he unlocked the gate and let it swing noiselessly open.
‘Well, ma’am, well,’ he said, smiling warmly. ‘What brings you out here this early?’
‘There are momentous events taking place inside. I’ve been invited,’ she said softly as she passed onto the walkway leading toward the mansion. She quickly added, ‘Won’t you be joining us for your boss’s triumph?’
‘Yeah,’ he replied slowly, ‘he wants all of the mid-level management present for the climax. But only the top echelon is invited for the preliminaries.’
‘Well, I’ll see you later, then.’ As she walked toward the entrance, the police commissioner turned back toward the hoodlum and added, ‘Make sure you come by to see me before the session’s over.’ Jimmy was very bright, and she saw a future for him if he would just realise his potential.
Gouyannou apparently also recognised how bright he was. He had frequently talked of grooming him for bigger things.
‘Will do, ma’am.’
As Lynn stepped out of the apartment, she caught herself. Fear for her own safety tugged at the athletic blonde. If Crimson Flare were indeed again in trouble, would she be able to contribute anything at all? Would she accomplish nothing more than putting yet another victim in Gouyannou’s hands? It was even possible that her presence would further endanger the Champion of Mitropoulos.
She paused, holding her key in the lock. This might even be a momentous decision, although it did not seem so right now.
No. She would have to go. If Crimson Flare’s life was being threatened, she had to be there to try to help her friend.
On the main floor of the mansion, Fareed Gouyannou paced triumphantly. All eyes were on the great man as he surveyed his kingdom. He had captured Mitropoulos’ greatest defender. Currently, his prisoner was beginning her humiliation in the depths of the prison beneath his feet in the cells of what would soon be his palace.
Hushed silence followed him around the ballroom. Gouyannou bathed in its luster, exulting in his triumph. With the defeat of Crimson Flare, his victory over the other heroines protecting Mitropoulos was only a matter of time, for was not this Champion of Women nothing more than the greatest of the obstacles to absolute power? Defeat the strongest, and the rest will fall. That was Richelieu’s lesson of La Rochelle. Defeat Crimson Flare; destroy her power; humiliate her before the world. Do this, and the rest of Mitropoulos’ heroine corps will give in to his primacy.
‘Sealing’s half hour will be up in a few more minutes,’ he announced. ‘Who’s next?’
There was a rush of bids, quickly mounting to a stratosphere of thousands of dollars. Crimson Flare’s ‘second honeymoon’ cost the buyer $13,000.
He paid the cash to Gouyannou and impatiently waited for the door to the cells to open.
Maria bit the neck of Bruce Sealing, desperately seeking to distract him long enough for Crimson Flare to free herself from her bonds. At the touch of her lips to the soft, sensitive flesh, the rogue cop inhaled harshly and then groaned. His embrace became much tighter and he pulled her petite, muscular body against his; his heightened senses felt her firm breasts crush against his chest. He plunged again into her, his prick hardening still further, almost to the point of pain. Maria responded with her own moan, and the two embraced even more tightly.
Against his most fervent desire, Sealing felt himself coming inside the lovely Maria Blakeman. Something in his mind told him that he must restrain himself until he could also bring the other hostage into play; he should spread the wealth among both of the lovelies whom he had purchased. But the sensuality of this dark-haired beauty was more than he ever imagined. He searched for the bound Champion, fruitlessly, for he couldn’t focus on the wall where the powerless masked Maiden of Mitropoulos lay. His eyes seemed to be rolling in his head as he searched for her. Then Maria kissed him full on the mouth; a long, lush, wet kiss, and her tongue thrust itself as deeply into his mouth as his manhood had rammed itself into her sopping wet sex. The odours of the grappling couple swam into his nostrils, and his excitement at the sensuality surrounding him escalated still more. He entwined his legs around her long silken legs and he felt his captive stiffen in his grip.
Dizziness enveloped Maria as she fought against the pure desire for carnal pleasure that wrapped the policewoman in its spellbinding embrace. She must not give in to her own desire! Crimson Flare must have the time she needed to escape!
But Maria could not hold off the physical demands of her own body. She slid her legs up to his hips, and she locked her heels against his thighs, just below his ass. Then she pulled him toward her and deeper into her simultaneously. As his engorged prick traveled even that small distance, she felt the raw sensation of sexual stimulation.
‘Ghah!’ she breathed, almost choking in ecstasy. ‘Grrrooouuuughhh!’ she growled, animal-like, and this time when she kissed him, she did so because she wanted to taste his sweat, to tear away at his skin with her nails, to pull his body fully into hers to create a single organism.
Sealing’s mouth slid down from Maria’s and clamped against her throat. His lips, teeth, and tongue played over the soft skin, and he enjoyed an oral satisfaction he had not experienced since infancy. The salty sensation of her perspiration excited him no end, and then he shifted his attention from her neck to her nipple as the irresistible urge overcame his desire for yet another partner. His head pitched awkwardly downward and he wrapped his mouth around the brown, marble-hard aureole. He squeezed her with his teeth, not biting her but rather enjoying the supple firmness of the mammary. Brushing his tongue across the teat he felt the soft and hard contrasts of this amazing woman’s body in that microcosm.
He moaned a long anguished sigh. He knew that his half hour was soon coming to an end.
And he still had to fuck Crimson Flare! The thought flashed across his mind like a bolt of lightening.
Where was she?
Releasing his grip on Maria’s breast, his lifted his head to search for the other captive.
Suddenly… he knew where she was.
The weakness that had gripped Crimson Flare as a result of the bonds at her wrists did not, as she had hoped, gradually diminish as the ropes were cut away. In the earlier manifestation of her weakness, as the ropes had been cut, there was a gradual increase in her strength, so that the cuts became stronger, cleaner, and deeper as she freed herself and the heroine could feel her progress in her own body. As a result of the recent changes in her body and in her weakness, however, now she remained in that same dreadfully weakened condition throughout her bondage, and it was only when the final strand was cut away that Crimson Flare’s immense power returned, all at once.
And, also as a result, dizziness attacked the beautiful masked Maiden with a suddenness and a fierceness for which she was unprepared. She placed her gloved hand back against the wall to steady her swaying body; she closed her eyes as the room swirled.
But that dizziness was only brief.
Her strength came crashing back to her and Crimson Flare, the Champion of Women, quickly rose from the floor. She briefly looked down on the ropes that had stolen her strength, but then she turned her attention to the writhing couple only two meters in front of her. She stepped up behind Bruce Sealing, whose treason had brought her down, and grabbed him by the hair.
Maria skreaked when Bruce Sealing was plucked from her embrace. There is no other word to describe the sound that issued from the throat of the ecstatic young woman as the man was pulled from her arms and from inside her so suddenly. The violent movement had a sensual, sexual, erotic element for Maria Blakeman, and she found, when she returned to awareness, that her own fluids had not yet ceased. Her breathing was ragged and excited and she desperately tried to return a modicum of control over her own body.
It took a few minutes to do so.
When awareness came back to the policewoman, she saw only the results of Crimson Flare’s work. The broken body of Bruce Sealing lay in the corner of the cell, an arm and a leg each bent at an impossible angle; his eyes were closed and his countenance was a fearful grimace, facing straight ahead.
Crimson Flare seemed subdued. She was speaking to Maria, though Maria only now became aware of what the heroine was saying.
‘…I usually do. But what he did, threatening not just me—I could probably take that, understand that—but he also put your life in danger, maybe even killed your partner already…. But, even so, it was just a flick of the wrist…. Lynn and I have learned that my strength is much greater than it was. I didn’t realise…’ She stopped and sighed.
‘Uh, Crimson Flare?’ Maria interrupted, embarrassed. ‘Are you all right?’
‘All right?’ the masked Maiden asked, absently. ‘Yes… yes,’ she went on, ‘yes, finally I am all right.’ Her voice became stronger, her eyes clearer as she spoke. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes. Now.’
‘We need to bring this to an end,’ the heroine said evenly. ‘The police were supposed to be here to handle the arrests, once I had freed you and Tim. They were even supposed to get all the credit for destroying Gouyannou’s gang.’ She paused, her anger evident. ‘Apparently, they’re not coming.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Maria sounded worried. ‘You’re all alone here.’
‘What I should have done about all criminals when I started. Do you know I went for a year before I even injured a criminal? It was months after that before I finally killed one. And that was unintentional.’
She stepped toward the door of the cell, opened it slightly and looked out. The hallway was quiet and empty.
‘This mob must be fought with the same weapons they use.’
Maria didn’t like what she was hearing. ‘Then what will make you different from them? If you use the same weapons and tactics, don’t you see you’ll be the same thing they are? You have to stand for something better, the same thing you’ve always stood for. It was that something better that made me become a cop.’
‘But what they did to you… to Tim… by the way, is he still alive?’ From behind her mask, Crimson Flare looked accusingly at Maria.
‘They beat and…’ her voice dropped, ‘…raped… me. Tim’s life may only be hanging by the slenderest thread. But we’re cops. We signed on to take the chance that we would be putting our lives and safety in danger… that we could make Mitropoulos safer, better.
‘You put on that mask and costume to do the same thing. You must have understood that there was danger in doing so. Or did you assume that your strength and power would save you from that?’
The heroine paused. ‘I…,’ she said softly. ‘I think… we should finish this later.’
Maria looked sharply at the heroine: her heroine. No one had exercised more influence over her in her entire life. Now, Crimson Flare stood before her and the two of them were going to be locked in a desperate battle for their lives. They would be dependent on one another. There was no room for doubt about the actions each would take. One misstep could kill them both.
‘Can I trust you to do the right thing?’ Maria asked, almost hesitantly.
There was a long pause. Finally, Crimson Flare smiled at her friend and said, ‘Hey, if you can’t trust a superheroine, who can you trust?’
In the ballroom, patience as the first half-hour neared its end was starting to wear thin. Sealing should return shortly, in the next few minutes. When the second ‘winner’ would disappear to the cells, Sealing, everyone knew, would regale them with his triumph. Most of it probably would be true, or at least that was the hope.
Gouyannou smiled. Favours dropped from his fingers like fruit from trees in autumn. Even though Sealing would be the centre of attention upon his return, they all knew where the power was, where the opportunity to take so much pleasure in this experience had its source.
And here was another worshipper at the altar! ‘Commissioner Warren! How nice of you to drop by!’
‘Fareed,’ the tall woman smiled.
They clasped hands and embraced, each offering an air-kiss. They were both smiling broadly throughout the conversation.
‘So you’ve finally got that masked slut under control?’ Warren asked softly. ‘It seems she slipped free of you earlier.’ She was thinking of the call received at police headquarters as she was leaving, on which she had prevented any action being taken.
‘She’ll be dead in an hour. What are your plans?’
The Police Commissioner seemed to ponder the question briefly, then spoke quickly. ‘Her body will be found at the scene of this morning’s explosion and fire at the Huddleston Armaments plant. I’ll see to it that she’s blamed for the destruction that has put a serious crimp in our nation’s defense projects.’
‘There’s a fire at Huddleston? No, I would have known about that.’
‘It will occur in about two hours.’
‘Ah,’ replied Gouyannou breathlessly. He didn’t trust Warren. By playing both ends against the middle, serving as both Police Commissioner and a contact for the Mitropoulos underworld, she was taking a measure of risk. But the risk-versus-rewards ratio, for her, was very high. Political power and money! Even Gouyannou did not realise that kind of return.
Lynn pulled up down the block from the mansion. Then she sat in her car, suddenly realising that she didn’t really have a plan. What was she going to do? Rush into the mansion and save Crimson Flare and the others? Even Karen wouldn’t be so reckless.
The high iron gate, the patrolling sentries, the weapons they carried: all militated against any action whatsoever.
But she couldn’t do nothing! She sat back in her seat, staring at the estate. The fence, the gate—those weren’t the way to go. She stepped out of the car and suddenly realised that her casual, pastel-coloured clothing were also not going to help things.
On the other hand, it allowed her to move freely down the street. Dressed as she was, she’d arouse no suspicion from the sentries.
She walked toward MacLeod-Slaughter, on the other side of the street, looking indifferently at the house and the guards. They seemed to pay little attention to her. Once the gate was behind her, and the guards out of sight in front of the house, she sprinted across the street and began to investigate whether there was access to the grounds somewhere along the iron fence and hedges that marked the edge of the property.
Then, from inside the house, came the sound of muffled gunfire.