Fareed Gouyannou’s gaze moved slowly between the two police officers tied before him. Around him, his men provided a whirlwind of activity, laying in the ambush he hoped would eliminate Crimson Flare once and for all.
Maria Blakeman and Tim Westbrook were tightly secured to the wooden chairs placed near the centre of the back wall in the now bare ballroom. Their wrists and forearms were bound to the armrests, immobilized; their ankles and calves secured similarly to the thick, heavy legs of their seats. In addition, thick rope had been wrapped a round their torsos, tying them to the upright backs of the chairs; and finally, one final stretch was looped around the neck of each prisoner and dropped to a wooden support that ran crosswise between the rear legs. Tim Westbrook slumped, only slightly conscious of his circumstances, his bruised face hanging low toward his chest. His eyes reduced to narrow slits, it was impossible to tell whether he was even sneaking a glance toward the powerful gang lord who stood only three meters in front of him. Though conscious, he was only vaguely aware of what was going on around him.
Still wearing her clinging, provocative black catsuit, Maria Blakeman’s fury was evident, though tempered by a well-founded fear. She knew the ruthlessness that Gouyannou was capable of, but, as a police officer, she wouldn’t allow him to destroy her dignity. She stared straight ahead, not looking him in the eyes, her jaw set.
‘You should be very pleased with yourself,’ Gouyannou said slowly, mostly to Maria. ‘It’s very difficult for a police officer to get a private audience with me.’ One of Gouyannou’s men finished stretching a thin metallic sheet across the floor in front of the prisoners. He looked up at his boss, who disinterestedly waved him away. He moved quickly from view.
‘I don’t think we’re the only police you’ve met with privately.’ Maria looked around the room for Bruce Sealing, but she didn’t find him.
‘Eh? Oh, that type serves their purpose. They’re small potatoes.’
‘I suspect we’re no different.’
‘That’s true. However, your usefulness is much more immediate, and of much greater import.’ He smiled broadly. ‘You’re going to bring me Crimson Flare.’
Maria wasn’t totally surprised by the criminal’s statement. She had figured that she and Tim served the purpose of baiting a trap. ‘Are you sure she’ll come back for us. After all, aren’t we “small potatoes”, too?’
‘Not to her.’
‘If that’s true, maybe you won’t want to have to deal with Crimson Flare again.’
‘We’ll be ready for her when she arrives.’
Slowly Crimson Flare drew herself out of unconsciousness. She groaned.
‘What happened?’ she heard a familiar voice ask.
She opened her eyes and saw her blonde friend looming over her, sitting on the edge of the bed on which she herself was lying.
‘What happened?’ Lynn asked again.
Oooohhhhh, god. That was terrifying.’ The heroine, her strength now fully restored, pushed herself up.
‘What. Happened?’ Lynn seemed to be getting impatient.
The heroine drew a breath before she spoke. ‘It was like I had no strength whatsoever. A child… an infant.’ She wet her lips and swallowed.
‘Before, when my wrists were tied, it was like I was what I guess was a normal woman. I could walk, even resist my captors. Not well, not very effectively, but I had some strength. But this time! When I realised how weak I was, I… I panicked. I… I got scared, Lynn.’
‘You collapsed and fainted. Was that from your fear and shock or was it…?’ Lynn didn’t want to finish the thought.
Crimson Flare looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know. Maybe both.’
There was silence in the room for a full minute. Then the heroine said what was on their minds. ‘How can I help Maria? If I get captured, I won’t even be able to use the claw.’
‘The extremes are… broadened. The height of your strength and the depth of your weakness have been extended,’ Lynn said slowly.
‘What?’
‘The change that Chan created has broadened the spectrum of your strength. And the lack of it. You are stronger… I saw it when you were getting dressed. It wasn’t just the self-assurance I saw in you; there was more power there. It was in the way you moved; evidence of the containment of potential. It wasn’t just a psychological change. There’s more power contained in that small body of yours. That’s the plus side.
‘But the negative effect is that you’re also weaker than you were, once your wrists are bound.’
‘I was strong enough to bend metal, like the door at Cos’ warehouse. Does this mean that…?’
‘It should be easier for you. But do you remember telling me how they captured you by gradually wearing you down in the fight there—the gas, the blindness, the blows?’
‘Yes.’
‘My guess is, now it’ll take much more of that to bring you down. You’ll be able to withstand much greater punishment before you feel effects from that kind of combat.’
‘But once they capture me, and bind my wrists, I’ll be weaker.’
‘Probably. Much weaker.’
There was some concern in Crimson Flare’s voice as she said, ‘I won’t be able to use the claw. I won’t be able to escape.’
‘Maybe. Your reaction just now may have been to the depth of the weakness you felt, rather than the actual weakness itself. Your lack of strength might have been so much greater than you’ve been used to experiencing that the panic that gripped you wouldn’t let you respond. You may have the strength to do the small act of cutting away the ropes. You probably do. It may take longer; you may have a greater sense of fatigue while you’re doing it. But you’ll probably be able to eventually cut your way free.’
‘Then it’s really important that the claw remain secret.’
‘It’s the only thing about you that hasn’t turned up on CRIMNET,’ Lynn said, referring to the collection of blogs and websites created by Mitropoulos’ underworld. ‘It’s still secret.’
There was a long silence as the two friends considered the significance of what they now believed to be true.
‘All of this is pure speculation, of course,’ Lynn said. ‘We don’t know whether any of it is true. We won’t know anything until we do some testing.’
‘In the meantime, Gouyannou has Maria,’ Crimson said, rising to her feet.
In the early morning light, the McLeod-Slaughter Mansion looked like the crumbling symbol of Mitropoulos gentility that it was: overgrown weeds on the lawn nearest the roadway and clear evidence of peeling paint on its scarred front. But the newly-installed iron fence and steel bars protecting the first- and second-floor windows that Gouyannou had put in place demonstrated that refurbishment had begun.
Crimson Flare stared out at the building from the copse of trees across the street. In her mind she ran through the interior layout of the rooms as well as she could remember, and as well and she and Lynn could reconstruct it. There was no movement around the front of the headquarters of Fareed Gouyannou. But the security cameras, she knew, were operating.
The Champion of Mitropoulos felt an emptiness in the pit of her stomach. Her mouth was dry as she moved quickly along the trees near the edge of the woods.
‘There’s movement in the trees across the street, sir.’
Gouyannou was pacing in hallway on the second floor of the mansion when the security chief told him, matter-of-factly, that his wait was over. He didn’t have to ask for any more information.
Speaking into his walkie-talkie, he ordered, ‘Get ready.’
Crimson Flare sprinted from the woods across the street and leapt easily over the newly installed security fence. As she landed gently on the lawn, she felt a greater confidence in her new power. She was stronger!
The heroine moved quickly to the house, climbing, at last, the short stairway to the patio. Closed French doors and drawn curtains behind the glass faced outward to the bare flagstones that lay open to the brightening sky. Behind those draperies, she knew, was the great house’s ballroom, the site of her earlier humiliation. She moved swiftly and almost soundlessly along the garden façade, gathering assurance with each passing second. She hoped that Lynn’s plan would succeed.
Near the rear of the house was a service entrance that formerly had been mainly used by musicians who provided entertainment at the lavish parties that had been common features of high living in Mitropoulos society. Inside, Lynn had told her, she would find herself in the stairwell at the back of the ballroom, a stairwell that led to the cells on the lower levels.
She eased the door open.
‘Welcome, Crimson Flare.’ Gouyannou’s voice came clearly through the curtain from the ballroom. ‘Please, join us in the ballroom. I hope you remember where it is.’
She strode through the narrow entry and saw the bound figures of Maria Blakeman and Tim Westbrook. The black-garbed policewoman alternately stared defiantly at the gangland chieftain, who stood about halfway across the large dance space in the ballroom, and fearfully at the heroine. By this time, cloth gags had been placed on the prisoners, so that any sounds they offered up were muffled. Maria tried to warn the masked Maiden of the trap she knew was about to be sprung. Westbrook’s head still hung low toward his chest. It was unclear whether he was even conscious.
Behind each of the prisoners stood one of Gouyannou’s henchmen, armed with a large pistol. They did not look at Crimson Flare, but rather their gaze was fixed on their boss, as if awaiting a signal from him.
The Champion of Women stopped a few paces from the curtained entry. With her feet about shoulder-width apart, she settled comfortably into a prepared stance, balled fists resting on top of her hips, staring directly at her nemesis. ‘All right, Gouyannou, you obviously want me here. Now that you have me, you can let them go!’
‘Oh, but my dear, heroine. Nothing is so easy as it seems. When you were last here, I had the clear advantage over you. Now, these two represent the only advantage that remains to me. Why would I give that up?
‘Place that… baton… on the floor. Then take several steps away from it. Leave it lying behind you. If you refuse, I shall have one of the prisoners shot.’
Crimson Flare drew her weapon from its holster. She briefly looked at it, then stooped and almost noiselessly placed the hard metal object on the wooden floor. She straightened up and took three paces toward Gouyannou.
As Crimson Flare faced down the overlord of Mitropoulos crime, another of his thugs slipped from the shadows behind the heroine. He moved quickly, silently, to the baton, and waited.
‘Now, Crimson Flare,’ Gouyannou said, his voice much harsher than it had been, ‘we can talk.’
‘The only thing we have to talk about,’ the Champion of Mitropoulos said evenly, ‘is the release of those prisoners.’ She took another small step toward him.
‘I think we can discuss a great deal more. For instance, where are the materials I sent you for earlier?’
‘They are still safely at police headquarters.’
‘There, you see? That’s what I mean.’ Gouyannou was no longer speaking just to the heroine. ‘I can’t trust anyone to follow orders. Here, I thought this… this vigilante… would follow my directions to the letter, and I find myself bitterly disappointed. If you can’t trust a junkie to follow an order, who can you trust?’
As chuckling emerged from around the room, Crimson Flare recognised the number of Fareed Gouyannou’s thugs who were watching the unfolding drama. She took another, smaller, step toward the drug lord.
‘Your sarcasm is below your usual level of humour, Gouyannou,’ she said. ‘I can remember once when you were being challenged by a new drug supplier—an immigrant from Latin America. You arranged for the police to find his body in a movie theatre. You had Scarface being run when they arrived.’
There was a brief silence in the room, almost as if the room itself had caught its breath. Then, the man said slowly, ‘I… had nothing to do… with that.’ Gouyannou’s lieutenants chuckled again. That was, after all, the official story.
When the masked beauty took another step forward, the tips of her highly polished black boots were now at the edge of a dull metallic sheet that covered the floor directly in front of the seated prisoners. At about three meters square, it neatly filled the space between Gouyannou, the bound policemen, and their rescuer. In the semi-darkness of the ballroom, the smooth, unreflective surface was almost invisible. Crimson Flare was unaware of its presence, and even if she had perceived it, she would not have marked it of any significance. Behind her, the tall muscular hoodlum now bent down and silently picked up her baton. He continued to await his boss’s orders.
‘Obviously, we understand one another perfectly,’ Gouyannou said, his tone once again more friendly. ‘I know that I have lost the control that I had over you. You know that I know that. And I… well, let’s just say that we’re a knowledgeable couple.’
‘Are you going to release your hostages?’ Crimson Flare asked directly, her voice firm. She was wearying of Gouyannou’s games.
‘Since you are so direct,’ said the gangland chieftain, ‘I will oblige in kind: No.’
Crimson Flare immediately strode purposefully forward, toward the bound captives. As soon as her lustrous boots touched the dull sheen of the material covering the floor in front of her, she froze in place, held there by a powerful electromagnetic force generated from the mansion’s auxiliary generators. The massive electrical charge that coursed through her body caused intense pain, and the masked Maiden of Mitropoulos first grunted and then, briefly, shouted out in her agony. Unable to move, the powerful Champion of Women dug down deep for her reserves of strength.
But at almost the same moment, Fareed Gouyannou’s henchman, who stood behind her, holding her baton, suddenly whipped the weapon out to its full length and jammed it into the small of her back. The powerful electric charge generated by Crimson Flare’s greatest weapon shook her to the very core of her being. The combination of these two electrical forces, one pouring from the newly installed turbines housed in the basement, the second a much sharper and more focused pain rolling like a bolt of lightening from her own baton, tortured the heroine unimaginably. She shrieked in her agony, bringing a smile to Fareed Gouyannou. Desperate to reach the prisoners, she struggled to find the strength to pull herself from where the mat held her in place.
Crimson Flare managed a few steps across the fabric, sparks erupting from beneath her glittering boots each time she managed to take a small stride. After she had staggered only a few paces, her step slowed, and finally stopped altogether. The Defender of Mitropoulos groaned loudly as she swayed in agony. She tried in vain to take one more step toward the bound captives.
Maria Blakeman wept as she saw the heroine reach out in blind pain. The policewoman seemed to understand that Crimson Flare’s defeat was imminent.
More of Gouyannou’s men rushed toward the Champion, surrounding the mat that was the source of her pain. All they had to do now was wait.
The hulking figure that held her baton thrust it once again into the small of the masked Maiden’s back. This time she made no sound. The pain that gripped her body was too intense to allow for that.
She swayed for only a brief moment, and then dropped forward onto the dull metallic tarp that had held her in place, defeating even her increased strength. As her body struck the floor, a shower of blue, yellow, and white sparks shot up from beneath her body, which convulsed as the electrical power of two new generators poured through her. The sequins covering her costume reflected the colours brilliantly, if only for the brief seconds that they hung in the air around her form. Eventually, the shuddering ceased and the Champion of Women lay still in the midst of her enemies. Unconsciousness had come as a blessed relief to the masked crimefighter.
Fareed Gouyannou smiled as he walked toward the unmoving figure of his greatest enemy. ‘Lights!’ he ordered. In an instant, the ballroom was flooded with a brilliant electric glow from the chandeliers as well as the wall fixtures that surrounded the open floor. When the current was redirected from the matting beneath Crimson Flare into the ballroom’s main electrical fixtures, the criminals who had remained safely off the tarp strode forward to take control of the city’s greatest heroine.
As they lifted her unconscious form from the sheet, an exultant cheer rose from the throats of the men there assembled. This time the nemesis of Mitropoulos’ crime syndicates had been defeated while at full strength. She had not been brought low by chemicals, or drugs, or even by the mystic arts. In a battle of strength against strength, Crimson Flare had been overcome by the power marshaled against her by Fareed Gouyannou.
Fareed Gouyannou would enjoy the fruits of his victory.
And there would be no police intrusion to rescue either hostages or heroine. As promised, Lynn had made her call to the police regarding the goings-on at the mansion. She indicated that there had been mysterious comings-and-goings in the vicinity of the MacLeod-Slaughter Mansion all through the night, with odd and unexplained noises. The police operator who had taken her call was most attentive and helpful. He had told the ‘concerned citizen’ that the police would deal with whatever was going on there immediately. He had then passed the report to Commissioner Warren, who was standing over him. She, in turn, had taken it to her office and shortly dropped the burning residue in her waste paper basket.
Upon this assurance, Lynn had sent the single ping to notify her friend that the police were on their way. At the mansion, it went unheard, as America’s Darling was undergoing her trial by electricity at that very moment.
Crimson Flare lay unconscious in the centre of the ballroom floor. Two of Gouyannou’s thugs expertly tied her wrists and ankles, then ran a thick single loop between the two ropes that secured the masked maiden, forcing her, still unconscious, into the severe arch of a hogtie. The large group of men stared at the now-powerless Champion of Women. The sequins of her uniform glimmered in the bright light of the ballroom. The red-and-gold spandex clung to her every curve like a second skin. And the ropes that bound the masked maiden held her in a greater mortal danger than she had ever experienced.