Lynn walked as quickly as her clothing allowed along the dark street, away from the brilliant lights along the McLeod-Slaughter driveway. The wet street shone in the lights and the cool air eased her exertions. When she got to the blue van that now sat alone along the curb, she quickly slid into the driver’s seat. The van started as soon as she turned the key and she pulled out heading for the new Mitropoulos City Centre and City Hall. Flicking on the lights, she fought the confusion that seized her mind. Right now, she had to beat Crimson Flare to Police Headquarters. She would eventually have to do something about Maria Blakeman.
Red streaks had begun colouring the sky in the east as she drove downtown. ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky at dawning, sailor take warning,’ she thought. After last night’s terrific storm, what did the new day have in store?
She drove rapidly down the Theodore Franklin Parkway, gazing at the site where she had first encountered Crimson Flare, tied to the roadway barrier after her encounter with Ape and Nancy. Once that site was behind her, she determinedly punched the accelerator.
She had to get to the City Hall before Crimson.
Exiting a little too fast for her van’s good, she crushed the break, screeching the tires, fishtailing the rear of her vehicle. When she got it again under control, she turned from New Street onto Wall Street toward the City Centre.
The four-storey building that was the Mitropoulos City Hall was well lit and fairly glowed in the damp pre-dawn. Everyone knew the details of the layout of the building. The Police Department was on the top two floors, with the most secured areas on the top floor. She parked the van on the street less than twenty meters from the entrance. Pushing the door open, she slammed it shut behind her and rushed toward the marble façade.
‘Oh, shit,’ she thought, as two police officers came around the corner and into view. She slowed to a walk.
As they approached one another, she saw the eyes of one of Mitropoulos’ ‘finest’ widen and almost seem to glow as he took in the spandex-clad body of the blonde athlete. But it was the other who challenged her.
‘What are you doing here, miss?’ he asked roughly.
‘I’ve… come to lodge a complaint,’ she said. ‘Do I see the desk sergeant?’
‘If you’ve been rousted by the police, it won’t do any good. You know the mayor is trying to clean up downtown,’ the ogling officer remarked.
‘No, actually it’s about someone else who’s in trouble.’
‘See Sergeant Anderson. Take the elevator to the third floor and then straight ahead,’ the first officer said.
‘Thank you.’
As she walked away from the policemen, she heard a gruff mumbled conversation behind her, followed by suppressed laughter between the two officers. She felt a chill run down her spine and she was intensely conscious of her dress clinging to her hips as she turned toward the entrance to the lobby.
Once in the elevator, she punched the button marked ‘Roof’ and settled back in the corner directly beneath the surveillance camera. It was only a matter of seconds, though it seemed interminable, before the doors opened onto the roof of City Hall.
As she stepped out into the night air, Lynn said to herself, ‘She’ll be coming soon.’
Crimson Flare had routinely used her great strength and speed to make her way toward the Mitropoulos City Hall. She had strength that allowed her to race high-powered automobiles and to leap from rooftop to rooftop across the city; but this time the effects of the drugs on her system gave her less control over her body than she normally enjoyed. As she moved rapidly from the mansion toward downtown, a moment of pain caused her to wilt under its intensity and delay, just a moment, in her progress. In the downtown area, as she leapt across the roofs toward her goal, her judgment might be affected, and her leaps might be just short enough to require her to grab at a ledge and pull herself up.
Eventually, however, she saw the well-lit City Centre a few blocks in front of her. She knew that when she had secured the bags her master required, he would relieve her pain. He would remove the torments that gripped and overpowered her.
At that moment her body was convulsed by a violent spasm that seemed to twist her internal organs. Standing only two rooftops away from City Hall, she moaned and dropped to her knees. ‘Oh, god,’ she thought, as she leaned forward, doubling over. ‘Just a few moments more.’
This wish was not granted immediately, as her insides seemed to be ripped asunder. She moaned again, louder this time.
Then it was gone. Only the residue of the pain remained with her.
She stood and leapt the final couple of streets and landed safely on the City Hall roof.
She walked purposefully toward the stairwell. She had traversed this stretch of concrete many times previously. She had often visited Police Headquarters to provide information or to coordinate and cooperate with the authorities on any number of cases. As she did so now, she did not remember what she had recently learned about the attitude of the Department itself. All she knew was that her master required her to remove some materials from the high security areas on the top floor. If she did so, he would reward her.
‘Karen.’
She stopped.
Lynn stepped out from the shadows. She saw before her her closest friend. In the crisp early morning air, Crimson Flare looked like the heroine that so many knew her to be. Behind her long red streaks of dawn cut across a blue sky, giving an atmospheric appearance whose colours could be likened to the stripes on the flag that the heroine so often invoked in her public statements. The high-intensity lights surrounding the City Centre reflected off the sequins of her costume, so that as she moved the glittering effect emphasised the exquisite curves of her feminine form. Her feminine form was clearly outlined by the brilliantly lit background, a singularity of line this time not broken by her black belt, which usually so clearly defined her round hips. That belt had been left behind at the mansion. The highly polished leather of her boots, mask, and cowl glimmered in that light, and it was not possible to see the ripped portions of that cowl through which her matted dark brown hair protruded.
Crimson Flare turned to face Lynn. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’
‘Don’t you know who I am?’ Lynn asked as she stepped slowly toward the Champion of Mitropoulos.
‘Don’t you know who I am?’ Crimson retorted, and adopted a defensive posture.
Lynn continued to walk slowly, determinedly, toward the masked figure. ‘Yes, you’re Karen Perry. You’re my friend.’
‘I’m Crimson Flare, and I’m on a mission to fulfill the orders of my master. No one may question me or challenge my right….’ Her words were cut off when she felt another violent twisting of her insides.
She cried out softly, pitifully, and dropped to her knees before she rolled onto her hip. She sat on the roof quietly sobbing.
Lynn raced to her side. Her own voice cracked as she reached her. ‘Karen, oh, Karen, what do you want me to do?’
As Lynn placed her arms around the helpless avenger, she caressed her face and embraced her around her shoulders, drawing the girl to her.
‘Lynn?’ There was pain in her voice.
‘Yes, it’s me, Karen.’ Lynn felt tears welling up in her eyes.
‘Help me, please… help… me.’ There was a soft expulsion of air, as a crushing force seemed to grip Crimson Flare’s body. She briefly sobbed out something that sounded like Lynn’s name, and then the pain disappeared from her face as she slipped into peaceful unconsciousness.
‘I have to get you home.’
Lynn feared taking the senseless heroine down in the elevator, where the police or even the custodian might be encountered. She knew the stairwell ended at a fire exit, but she also knew that she had, luckily, parked her van only a short distance from that door. Slipping off her heels, the athletic blonde hefted the unconscious Champion of Women onto her shoulders in a fireman’s carry and entered the stairwell.
Five flights! she thought as she look into the chasm.
Well, nobody said this would be easy.
All went well until she reached the last landing before the ground level exit. As she stood, nearly totally exhausted, looking down the final flight of stairs, above her she heard the heavy door crash open and someone raced into the shaft. Lynn held her breath for a moment, until she realised that the intruder was going up the stairs, from the third to the fourth floor. When she heard a door slam a second time above her, she again made her way down the final flight of stairs. Standing on the cement floor, she gently placed her burden on the steps, resting Crimson’s weight against the wall.
She tried to picture what it looked like outside: the location of the door on the wall, whether it was on Wall Street itself or an alleyway that led to the street, how great the distance to be covered to her van. Would there be any pedestrians? Once she opened the door, the fire alarm would sound and she would have to move quickly. The only thing she was absolutely sure of was that her van was to the right once she exited the building.
She breathed deeply, trying to get her complaining lungs to accept one more exertion. She felt her heart hammering inside her chest. Only now did she realise how profusely she was sweating and how painful her breathing had become. As she stood, her legs seemed to give out under her, and Lynn had to grab to handrail to steady herself. Multicoloured spots appeared before her eyes and her head spun.
Come on, girl! It’s barely twenty yards! You’ve already done five flights of stairs!
But her body resisted any more.
By an act of sheer will, Lynn took up her friend one last time in that same fireman’s carry and leaned against the door.
Fuck it! I’ve got to do this.
She took three deep draughts of air, holding the last one before easing it out, and crushed the bar opening the door.
Immediately behind her she heard the raucous alarm. And as soon as she stepped into the street, she saw her van, barely twenty yards away.
Fear energized her, and she ran as fast as she could. Pulling open the sliding rear door, she unceremoniously dumped her costumed friend onto the tattered flooring. Slamming the door behind her, she then stepped to the driver’s door and climbed into the vehicle.
Her van started as she turned the key. She pulled away from the curb as the first denizens of City Hall wandered groggily onto the street. No one seemed to notice the Ford as it sped past the plaza in front of City Hall.
Later, they would find her discarded shoes on the rooftop, but no one would connect them with the false alarm.
The van pulled up next to the apartment building that housed the operations centre for Karen and Lynn. It was still too early for much foot traffic in a residential neighbourhood, so Lynn climbed into the rear of the van and looked down at the still-unconscious avenger. She would have to carry her inside.
Fortunately, the elevator would get them upstairs.
She didn’t care whether the two prisoners saw Crimson Flare carried into the apartment. They would be dealt with. They were in part responsible for Crimson’s condition.
In a short while, Crimson Flare had been deposited on the bed in her room, the van had been moved from the illegal parking spot to the nearby parking lot, and Lynn had collapsed into the cushioned chair in front of her computer.
She fingered the heroine’s baton as she considered the fates of her prisoners, one of whom had stared with undisguised fury at her as she carried the inert form on the Champion of Women through the living room.
They would have to wait. Karen had to be tended to first.
Lynn stretched Crimson Flare’s form out on the bed, and then gently turned her onto her stomach. Undoing the zipper from the back of her neck, she slowly opened her glittering skintight uniform exposing her flawless flesh and petite form. A reason for Crimson Flare’s first successes was her small stature: she took on criminals who were easily many times her size and dealt with them with ease, in no small part because they often underestimated the tiny heroine. Ape had been her first opponent whose strength nearly matched the Champion’s, and Nancy’s intelligence had provided a warning for the brute about the heroine’s strength.
The girl’s skin glistened with perspiration as the easily identifiable uniform was pulled from her. When Lynn released Karen’s arms from her costume and then rolled her onto her back, the lithe blonde athlete noticed how clammy Crimson’s flesh was under the form-fitting bodysuit. Pulling the costume down, revealing her small but magnificent feminine figure, Lynn again noticed how her soaked skin shone in the light of the bedroom. She gingerly spread the unconscious Maid of Mitropoulos’ legs slightly, allowing her to remove the famed sequined attire. Once again, Lynn noticed Crimson’s most commented-upon attribute: Her legs, now shining bare, were glorious to behold. The thighs were perfectly round with hard muscle beneath the utterly flawless skin. The calves, covered by the brilliant leather of her black boots, still showed their musculature any time she moved, for the trademark footwear looked to be veritably painted on. The straight line up the front of each leg from ankle to hip bespoke her physical fitness and provided the focus of many a criminal’s admiration. Around her waist, the band of her tights still cinched tightly. The tattered synthetic material left nothing to the imagination and the now faint bruising at her sex told the story of what had happened in the ballroom.
Lynn took the elastic in her hands and ripped the colourless material away with seeming ease. The perfect isosceles of her dark brown pubic hair indicated what had emerged as one of the heroine’s vulnerabilities. In addition to the bruising, Lynn noticed the pale grey crust that lay at her entrance. The course of what had been a rivulet was still visible on the inside of her left thigh.
Having noted the stains and fading purple contusions around her vagina, Lynn next looked at Crimson Flare’s face and, as she expected, she saw similar encrustations around her mouth and mask. She rose from the bed and in a matter of a few steps she reached the bathroom. A moment later, she returned carrying a bowl of warm water and some washcloths and towels. Patiently, gently, she removed the detritus from the Champion of Women.
She returned the basin and cloths to the bathroom. When she stepped back into the bedchamber, she stopped and stared, struck by the naked figure that rested on the bed. Crimson Flare’s physical form had long been praised by friend and foe alike. Those who admired her gloried in her attributes: the strength hidden by her small and delicate frame, the mystery of her mask and the implied virtue created by the costume that Karen and Stacy had contrived, her grand and glorious physicality, and, certainly not least, her success in bringing down Mitropoulos’ gang leaders. Those who sought to impugn the vigilante condemned her overt sexuality and put a great deal of stock in unconfirmed reports from some surviving gang members about the sexual attacks which the heroine had undergone and, apparently, both survived and relished.
Crimson Flare’s tanned body lay supine and unmoving on the bright yellow sheets. Her mask, cowl, gloves and boots were still in place; her crimson-sequined costume lay, casually tossed, next to her.
Lynn sat herself next to the masked Maiden’s head, and then reached down and pulled off her mask. Dropping it on a pillow at the head of the bed, the lissome blonde stretched out next to her friend. Lynn gently caressed Karen’s cheek and jaw with her left hand, moving her hand along the outline of Karen’s lovely face, barely touching the surface of the flesh.
‘What do you want me to do?’
Lynn embraced her friend, wrapping both her arms around the naked shoulders of the unconscious avenger, pressing her own chest against her friend’s torso. The spandex dress that Lynn still wore allowed for a high sensitivity, as Lynn’s own petite breasts embraced the perfect hemisphere of Karen’s right breast.
The blonde girl felt her nipples tingle as the contact continued. She pressed her face to that of her friend, finally giving her a small kiss on the cheekbone. Sweat still gleamed on the unmoving form of the Maid of Mitropoulos, and Lynn noticed a small rivulet seeking escape from under the tattered cowl. She reached up and gently pulled off the formfitting leather helmet. Karen’s short locks were matted crosswise with occasional spikes darting this way and that over the perspiring landscape. The action revived the Champion, who, still disoriented, seemed to seek protection from her friend, her green eyes fearful.
Lynn pulled Karen’s head to her chest and cooed soothing sounds, trying to relax her friend. She ran her hands up and down the bare back of her friend, her fingernails lightly touching the smooth, sweat-soaked flesh.
Karen’s breathing was rapid and irregular. But something in her told her that she was, at least for the moment, safe from the terrors that had stalked her earlier this night. It took much of her remaining strength as she turned her face toward her friend. Her dry tongue swept across dry lips, providing no relief to the poor girl.
Lynn reached to the nightstand next to the bed and plucked up the bottle of water that usually sat there. With one hand she undid the light blue cap, and then tilted the container, splashing some of the refreshing liquid into and around Karen parched mouth. The brunette turned toward the source and found the revitalising fluid, allowing it to pour into her.
Finally, her thirst assuaged, Karen turned to her friend. Her green eyes opened and she seemed to try to smile. ‘Wh- where… are we?’ The fear in her eyes was presently diminished.
‘We’re safe, Karen. We’re home.’
Just then another spasm seized the hapless girl. She drew her knees up to her torso and twisted her body to try to relieve the pain that seemed to spring from deep inside her. When it had passed, those green eyes opened again, pain this time evident in their stare. ‘Make it… stop, please… Lynn.’
‘Where is it coming from?’
‘There,’ she whispered, indicating her belly. Lynn could see that her abdominal muscles had tightened across her stomach. Through gentle coaxing, the petite blonde athlete convinced Karen to lower her legs. With one hand she gently stroked the smooth skin of the heroine’s lower torso.
‘What does it feel like?’ Lynn asked.
‘Like…’ Karen sighed. ‘Like… something empty… what was there has been torn out. It… it burns.’ Tears welled up in Karen’s eyes.
After all of the effort to end Karen’s dependence to drugs and vulnerability to Chan’s concoction, after all that Professor Brayfield had tried to do, Crimson Flare had been battered back into this weakness again. Lynn thought, what do we have to do to free her? Confused and angry, she pushed herself up and stared down at her friend.
‘What do you need, Karen?’ she asked.
‘I need… someone… to… fuck me.’
Stunned, Lynn looked at her friend. How could she say that? What does it mean? Does she mean that sex could replace her body’s need for drugs? What if she were wrong? It had always been the assumption that the problem was the drugs, that the desire for sex could be a substitute for that craving. But what if Chan’s goal had been to eliminate Crimson Flare as a threat to gang activity not by making her dependent on drugs, but on sex. Didn’t he move in with her right after her initial rapes? Didn’t he try to force sex on her, even after Stacy’s funeral? Maybe he was more motivated by personal desire than by gang;and concerns.
The silence from her partner caused Karen to open her eyes. Sweat rolled down her forehead and she weakly tossed her head to try to keep it out of her eyes. Lynn reached out her hand and tenderly brushed the droplets aside. She was showing signs of withdrawal. When Karen convulsed again, Lynn leapt to the floor and began pacing. She looked at the dresser, where they kept some of their ‘toys’. But Karen’s physical reaction continued to escalate, sweat pouring from her body, the muscles clearly quivering, her extremities shaking.
Lynn turned toward the living room.
The athletic blonde girl walked slowly through the door from the bedroom, glaring at the two prisoners who were still tied there. One man’s face was a mass of blood. He appeared to still be unconscious. The other, who had watched with something approaching fury as Lynn had carried the unmoving form of Crimson Flare to the bedroom, now watched her closely, fear mixed with the anger just behind his eyes.
From behind her back she pulled Crimson Flare’s baton and jabbed at the young man. He shouted in surprise and pain. The anger in his eyes was gone; the fear remained. Then she untied the prisoner. She used the baton as a prod to direct the man toward the bedroom.
‘And if thou gaze into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee,’ she said softly to herself.
End of Chapter Six