Shadowcloud
by L'Espion
Chapter
1 Cat
Trap
“What are you going to do?” the willowy blonde quavered. She trembled as she hung by her wrists from the ceiling of the warehouse.
“Teach you a lesson you stupid bitch,” replied the tall dark-clad figure. “When I say stay out of my territory I mean it.”
“Your territory,” the woman retorted bravely. “This city is as much mine as it is yours.”
“Not if I kill you,” Shadowcloud replied coldly. The way she said the words sent chills down the helpless blonde's spine.
“You can’t do that,” the woman protested. “I have friends. They’ll come looking for me.”
“And they just might find you. But I doubt it. Not if I cut you into little pieces.”
The blonde looked into the eyes of the woman who had captured her. She shuddered. The pupils were vertical slits and yellow-green in colour. They seemed to gleam with an evil malevolence. “Oh God,” she cried. “You’re not human!”
The eyes were about all that the blonde could
see. The woman in front of her
was dressed from head to toe in a costume of
Her chest heaved. She had been hanging from the ceiling of the warehouse for over an hour and the strain on her ligaments and muscles was beginning to tell. Ironically she was inside the very warehouse she had been trying to burgle. She had been up on the roof, cutting through the skylight when everything had gone black. She hadn’t even heard the faintest sound. When she had regained consciousness she had been hanging by her wrists from a ceiling beam.
She swallowed. Her mouth was terribly dry. “How long are you going to keep me like this?” She knew that the warehouse would open soon. If it did she would be discovered by the warehouse staff. It would be embarrassing at the very least, even if no charges were brought against her.
“You’re not listening are you, honey?” Shadowcloud replied. “What makes you think I’m going to let you live?”
“You can’t be serious. I have done nothing to you.”
Shadowcloud’s luminous eyes blinked slowly. “Bitch,” she thought. The woman had been warned and yet here she was. She needed to be taught a lesson, one that would impress on her that ignoring Shadowcloud’s warnings was foolish in the extreme.
There was only room in the city for one cat burglar and Shadowcloud was determined that it would not be the willowy blonde who hung helpless in front of her. She drew her lips back in a sneer. Her rival’s technique was unbelievably awkward. She depended far too much on climbing equipment and not enough on natural ability. Well, she was in for a rude awakening.
“I sent you a clear warning to cease your activities.” Shadowcloud said. “You ignored it. Now you are gong to learn to take me seriously.”
“How was I to know that it was you who sent me the message?” the blonde replied. “I thought it was a joke. One of my friends playing a joke.”
“Friends?” Shadowcloud asked. “You have friend who knows what you do? You are indeed foolish. You deserve this humiliation.”
“My arms hurt. Please let me down.”
“Let you down? You are stupid. So stupid in fact that I’ve tired of this conversation. You need to be taught a lesson and the lesson starts now.” As she spoke Shadowcloud moved behind the helpless blonde.
“What are you…Mmpphh!” The blonde’s question was cut off as Shadowcloud forced a cloth into her mouth and tied it in place. “Oh God no,” the helpless woman thought. “Please don’t let her hurt me.”
“That should keep you from shattering my eardrums,” Shadowcloud said. She moved back to stand in front of the helpless woman and placed her right hand just above the blonde’s left breast.
The blonde shuddered in fear. For the first time she saw that her captor’s fingers did not end in fingers, but in claws. Her sweaty body suddenly went cold. “Mmmpphh!” she attempted to scream, as her guts twisted in fear.
”It’s a damn good thing I gagged you,” Shadowcloud said. Her voice was low, almost like a purr, but filled with menace. She hooked one claw in the neckline of the blonde’s cat suit and drew it slowly down the costume. It cut the thin material like a razor blade sheering through paper.
The blonde tried to pull away as the tip of the claw traced a path over her skin, leaving a long laser thin mark the length of her body. The material of her costume peeled away revealing her small, pink-nippled breasts and the neatly trimmed patch of blonde hair at the apex of her legs.
Shadowcloud licked her lips. She wasn’t partial to women, but her rival’s body was superb. With a quick flick of her wrists she cut away the rest of the costume leaving the helpless blonde dangling nude before her. Slowly she touched tip of the helpless woman’s left nipple, her razor tipped claw resting lightly on the trembling flesh.
“Exquisite,” she said. She increased the pressure slightly and was rewarded with a look of absolute terror. “These are very nice. It would be such a shame if they were damaged.” She curved her finger slightly. From beneath the gag her victim squealed.
A tiny bead of blood bubbled up from the nipple as Shadowcloud’s claw cut into it. It wasn’t much of a cut, just a needle prick. But it got the desired results. The blonde was almost wetting herself in fear. “Mmmpphh! Mmmppphh!” she protested, twisting her body violently.
“Stop complaining, bitch,” Shadowcloud growled. “You deserve this. And it’s going to get much worse before it gets better.”
The blonde rolled her eyes in fear. She appeared close to fainting, but Shadowcloud wasn’t worried about that. Severe pain had a way of rousing most people out of a faint. She retracted her claw, freeing the woman’s nipple, but spread her fingers and completely cupped the blonde’s breast.
“MMMPPPHH!” The blonde jerk wildly as Shadowcloud released her claws, piercing her breast in five places. Brutally she closed her hand, driving the needle sharp claws into the soft flesh.
Shadowcloud held on to the writhing blonde, sinking the claws of her other hand into the woman’s flexing backside. Then, pulling her close she took the woman’s right nipple into her mouth. She sucked hard, pulling the nipple erect and then bit down on the taut bud. Beneath the gag the woman’s screams increased.
For fifteen minutes she played with the blonde’s tits, mauling them painfully without causing any permanent damage. It was the fear of what she might do that created the greatest distress. She could well guess what was going through her prisoner’s mind as she brutalized her perfect body. At the end of a quarter hour her victim’s body shook with sobs.
“Well,” Shadowcloud said, stepping back from the shaking body of her weeping victim, “that’s a good start. Let’s see what else we can do.”
Shadowcloud took a quick look at her watch. She was running out of time. The warehouse likely opened early. She wanted to give the blonde something to really remember her by and then make herself scarce. Fortunately, she had come prepared.
She reached into a slender pack that she had slung over her tight black costume and pulled out what appeared to be a folded camera tripod. She set it up and then moved it over to the helpless blonde.
She adjusted the blonde’s legs, tying a length of rope to each of them and tossing it over the same beam in the roof that she was suspended from. Tightening the ropes she pulled the helpless woman’s legs apart until there was about four feet between each ankle. The captive’s weight was shifted onto her thighs, but she was quite physically fit and easily held the position. For the moment at least. Shadowcloud knew that within five minutes the woman would become distinctly uncomfortable as her thighs began to tire under the strain.
“Now for the piece de resistance,” Shadowcloud said. She moved the tripod directly beneath the apex of the blonde’s legs, cranking it down so that it nestled beneath her.
“What are you going to do?” quavered the blonde. She was breathing heavily, her small high breasts rising and falling rapidly. “Just giving you something to remember me by,” Shadowcloud answered. She took a large dildo out of the same bag the tripod had come in and placed it on top of the tripod.
Shadowcloud had modified the dildo slightly, drilling out a pencil thin shaft in its base and inserting a screw thread so that it could be secured to the top of the tripod. The blonde’s eyes widened as she suddenly understood what Shadowcloud was going to do.
“No!” she protested you can’t do that. That thing will never fit inside me. It’s much too big.”
Shadowcloud ran her hand down the smooth shaft of the dildo. It was a little on the large size, her fingers wouldn’t even close al the way around it. “Don’t worry, bitch,” she smiled. “I’ll make it fit.”
“Aaaagghh! Aaagghh!” The blonde made quite a fuss as Shadowcloud turned the crank on the tripod and slowly elevated the dildo into her. It was a very tight fit, and she could fully appreciate what the blonde was going through, however, she ignored the woman’s screams and continued to insert the dildo until she was sure that it would not come out without some outside help.
The blonde did everything in her power to relieve the pain of the vaginal impalement. Tightening her thighs she boosted her height a good two inches until the ropes around her ankles prevented her from moving her crotch any higher. Shadowcloud made sure that the dildo was secure before making her exit.
“So long,: she said. “It’s been fun. Take this as a mild warning. The next time you trespass on my territory I’ll do more than stick a hunk of plastic up your cunt.”
“Nnooooh!” the agonized woman screamed. “You can’t leave me like this. I can’t hold myself up much longer.”
“That’s just the idea, bitch,” Shadowcloud sneered. With that she turned on her heel and walked away from the tormented woman. Behind her the blonde’s squeals of pain and rage increased as she slowly settled onto the dildo. Shadowcloud smiled. “That’s the last I’ll see of her,” she murmured.
Sigurd Vestry tapped his fingers slowly on his desktop. “We have to do something about this bitch who calls herself Shadowcloud. She’s ruined half a dozen operations this month and frightened off most of my operatives. She even caught Astra this week. Tied her up in a warehouse, tortured her, and left her in an embarrassing and painful position for the warehouse staff to find.”
Gunter Kohl grinned. “Astra hey? I’d have paid to see that.”
“I’ll bet you would,” Vestry replied. He was clearly not amused. “But it’s costing me thousands. A few more weeks of her interference and I’m going to have to shut down operations, and high class burglary and insurance fraud is the biggest part of my business.”
Kohl nodded. Vestry made most of his money by insuring expensive pieces of jewelry and art and then having them stolen. Using a number of go betweens he was able to have the items insured under different names. He then acted as a fence for the stolen items, sometimes having the really expensive jewelry recut and then insuring it again. It had been very profitable until Shadowcloud had showed up. The problem was no one seemed to be able to handle the mysterious cat burglar. A number of people had been sent to bring her in and they had all failed. Several of them had been severely injured. It seemed that they were up against some sort of superhuman freak of nature.
“What are you going to do?” Kohl asked finally.
“I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time and I’ve come up with a plan that I think will work. If it does I’m going to pay back Miss Shadowcloud in full and turn a handsome profit off her.”
“You’re not going to kill her?” asked Kohl.
“Kill her? Perhaps. But I think capturing her is going to be so much more fun. Besides, there is something I think I can use her for. Something that will enable me to make back all of the cash she has cost me.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice as if he feared that the black-clad cat burglar might be listening. “Here’s what I plan to do…”
Shadowcloud swung her lithe body, stretching to the full limit of her five-foot-eleven-inch frame. She just barely hooked her diamond-hard claws into the minute crack in the facing of the building. “What a pain in the ass, stupid place to hold a diamond exhibition,” she muttered. She glanced down at the dizzying depths below her, her yellow green eyes glowing in the light from a thousand windows. It had been a long climb, but it was the only way in to the tightly secured building. “One hundred and forty five stories below and just five to go.” Flexing her powerful muscles she pulled herself up.
The next few feet were relatively routine. Hook her claws into the facing of the building. Pull herself up. Repeat. Finally she was almost at the top. But here there was one final obstacle. A large ornamental frieze jutted out from the observation deck on the very top floor of the building. She rested before attempting this final barrier. It had taken her three hours of intense effort to make it to the top floor and she was a little winded. Finally, drawing a deep breath she took out a piton from a special holder in her utility belt. Loading it into a special gun she held it to the underside of the concrete cornice and pulled the trigger, driving the spike firmly into place. She loaded another piton and repeated the process, eventually creating a chain of pitons toward the edge of the frieze.
Snapping a caribiner to the piton, she swung out into space. Piton by piton she traversed the overhang, finally gaining the outer edge. Below her yawned the 1500 foot abyss, but she paid it no concern as she switched her arm to the top of the cornice and pulled herself level with the edge of the observation deck.
She peered cautiously over the top of the observation deck balcony. It was glassed in, but unguarded. That did not surprise her. The glass was intended to keep people from jumping, not breaking in. Burglars were not supposed to be able to scale the sides of 150 story skyscrapers.
Holding on with one hand, she extended the claw on her index finger and traced a large semicircle in the glass. With any luck there would be no alarm systems monitoring the glass. Her claw cut deep. It had to, the glass was a good 10 mills thick. The cut complete, she held the glass in place with tape from her utility belt and then rapped sharply on the glass with her fist. The glass cracked perfectly along the cut, and removing the tape she carefully lay the glass inside the balcony and followed it through the hole.
She was in, at least so far as the outer defences were concerned. But now she would have to get into the exhibition room itself and that would be a little trickier. Crouched in the thick foliage of the rooftop garden her eyes surveyed the next objective. A large glass wall separated her from the diamond exhibit, and this time there were perimeter guards. There were not many of them. After all, any attempt to break into the diamond exhibit was expected to originate from below, not from the very top of the building. In addition the diamond room itself was heavily monitored with electronic surveillance. Guards were not even thought necessary.
She counted the guards. There were four of them. She crouched down watching their routine. Patiently she waited. Ten minutes. Fifteen. One of the guards went to a wall phone and lifted the receiver. So, the guards reported in every fifteen minutes. That did not give her much time, but she didn’t think she would need it.
She unhooked her dart gun from her utility belt and checked the magazine. Ten rounds. She wouldn’t need that many. She waited until the guard finished his phone call and then swept into action.
Phhtt! The dart caught the guard in the side of his neck. He crumpled without a sound. Before he had even hit the ground she had fired a second dart, dropping the next closest guard. That left just two, both on the far side of the terrace surrounding the exhibition room. It took her less than a minute to take both of them out as well.
Quickly she checked her watch. Two minutes. She had thirteen left before the guard was supposed to phone in, but now the exhibition room was unguarded. Unguarded that is by any human agents. It would almost certainly be guarded electronically.
She moved up to the window. Her golden eyes glowed and the hundreds of lasers slicing the air of the exhibition room gleamed brightly. They wove an intricate and impenetrable barrier between her and the diamond exhibit. Impenetrable – almost. Someone had left the tiniest opening – for anyone who could see it.
Shadowcloud allowed herself a small smile. It took her only seconds to cut through the window of the exhibition room. Stepping inside she wove her way through the lasers with the sinuous grace of a python. “Child’s play,” she thought. She had five minutes left when she reached the glass case containing the diamond collection. And there it was.
“The Daughter of Light,” she breathed. It was huge. It must be almost 250 carats. “And it’s mine,” she murmured. She studied the glass. It was about two inches thick. Too thick for her diamond claws. But that was of little consequence. She had not received the reputation as the world’s foremost cat burglar without reason.
She reached into her utility belt once more and took out a small plastic bottle. With the greatest care she unstopped the bottle and dribbled some clear fluid onto the glass. Holding her breath she watched as the acid ate through the glass. Just a few seconds and The Daughter of Light would be hers. She would not bother with the others. Compared the luminous gem they were nothing but pieces of glass.
Perhaps it was the excitement of possessing the incredible gem. Or maybe it was just plain carelessness. Whatever the cause she forgot her usual caution when she reached for the stone.
“Aahh!” Even as she jerked her finger back she knew it was too late. The tiny needle that was concealed by the brilliance of the diamond had pierced her finger. Eyes wide, she almost fell. Clutching at the display case she felt the soporific drug she had been injected with coursing through her body. “Tricked,” she thought. “It was a trick, but who…” Her thoughts were unfinished as sleep washed over her and she tumbled to the floor.
Sigurd Vestry looked down at the unconscious body of the gorgeous female he had just trapped. The slow rise and fall of her breasts indicated that she was in a deep sleep. Perfect, she would give him very little trouble. He wondered if she would be cooperative as his eyes devoured her sleek figure. With any luck she would not. Breaking her would be most enjoyable. He fervently hoped that she would prove stubborn.
He knelt beside her. First he would remove the skin-tight black and silver costume. It hid very little of her well-endowed body in any case. Her could make out every curve, from the slight indentation of her vulva to the twin thimbles of her erect nipples. He had to be sure that she did not have any more of her wonderful gadgets concealed about her.
First the cowl and mask. They came off easily as one piece, revealing an intelligent and beautiful face framed by chestnut dark hair. A straight nose, inviting mouth, and high cheekbones revealed a woman of youth and vitality. She could not have been more than twenty one, quite young for one so advanced in her profession.
He slid his hands over her shoulders to her back and found the seam hiding
the zipper of her costume. From
behind it was
“Strong,” he murmured, as he pulled her arms behind her back and shackled her wrists. “She is very strong. But the cuffs are of the finest steel. They should hold her.”
He rolled her over. A large silver V ran from her shoulders to her navel. Her costume still covered her breasts but it took him only a moment to peel it down to her narrow waist.
Vestry whistled softly. “Exquisite. Like ripe melons.” Almost reverently his hands cupped the soft flesh, caressing the dark stiff, nipples with his thumbs. “She appears partially aroused,” he thought. “I wonder if she is as ready down below as she is on top.”
Without hurrying he pulled her costume lower, revealing the dark triangle that covered the velvet cleft between her thighs. Gently he parted the lips of her vulva, inserting his fingers into the warm moist place within. Her sexual fissure was warmer and damper than normal, but she was not quite ready for sex. If she had been she would have been very difficult to resist.
“Later, my pet,” he muttered. He removed her boots next. They were of soft leather, but perfect for climbing, enabling maximum flexibility. It took him only seconds to slide the remainder of her costume over her rounded, but powerful thighs and down her tapering legs. He placed a leather belt at the top of her left thigh and strapped it in place. He repeated the process on her left ankle, and then bending her knee padlocked the ankle restraint to her thigh. He did the same with her right leg and then finished the bondage by gagging her with a black ball gag.
Almost effortlessly he lifted the unconscious woman to his shoulder. “Solid weight,” he thought. She must have weighed about 140 pounds, but this in no way detracted from her beauty. As her dark hair brushed against his back he relished his first interview with her. His mission was simple: convert her to the cause and use any methods necessary to achieve it. He knew exactly what methods he preferred to use, and he was looking forward to it.
It was time to go. Building security would want to know what had happened to him. He needed to get his prize to headquarters as quickly as possible. The sooner he got to work on her the better. He licked his lips. Yes, the sooner the better.
Maeve Knight’s consciousness returned slowly. She was immediately aware that something was wrong. Her mouth was dry, but she couldn’t move her jaw or lick her lips. As her cat-like yellow green eyes opened she saw that she was in some sort of cell. For a second the significance of that discovery escaped her, and then it hit her like a hard punch in the stomach. A cell! She had been captured! Arrested! Imprisoned! It was her worst fear. She would be subjected to the degrading humiliation of a sensational trial. She could see the headlines; Shadowcloud Arrested! Cat Burglar Jailed! A wave of panic washed over her.
“Relax,” she thought, fighting for control. Slowly she pushed the fear aside. “I’m Shadowcloud. Not a common criminal. I can get out of this.”
She struggled to sit up. It was only then that she discovered that she was shackled, her ankles bent up to her thighs and locked in place, and her wrists handcuffed behind her.
Strangely, this discovery did not send her back into panic mode. Instead she approached the situation rationally. “Alright, I’m shackled. What do I do about it?’ She checked her restraints. “Hummpph!” she though contemptuously. They should be easy enough to get out of. But did she want to do that right away? Perhaps it might be better to lull the police into a false sense of security. It was most unusual for the police to keep a prisoner shackled after placing her in a cell. No doubt she was being watched. She peered about as much as her confined position would allow. Trying not to be obvious she tried to spot a hidden camera. There it was, concealed in the light fixture in the ceiling. Her enhanced vision picked it out easily. She could get rid of it at any time.
One thing puzzled her. Why was she gagged? That was hardly normal police procedure. There was something very strange about the situation. She suddenly began to have doubts as to whether she was in the hands of the police or whether she had been captured by some other organization. But if so what? In spite of the extreme discomfort of her cramped position and her almost desperate need for water she decided to wait. It was then that one other aspect of her condition pierced the fog that clouded her brain. Where was her costume? She had been stripped and left naked. Almost certainly the police would not have done that. It confirmed her suspicions. She was not a prisoner of the police. Her heart beat a little faster. This was a disturbing revelation. Imprisoned, shackled, and stripped naked she was at the mercy of whomever had captured her. She shuddered with a sudden sense of unease. For the first time since she had awakened she experienced real fear.
She fought down the emotion. She would wait out her captors, not that she had much other choice. She lay her head back down. Sooner or later someone would come. Then she would find out what this was all about.
CRANG! The sound of the cell door being dramatically thrown back jerked her awake. Chagrinned, she realized that she had fallen asleep. “Fucking idiot,” she thought. “What kind of a villain am I that I can’t even stay awake?”
A shadow fell across her as a tall dark-haired man entered the cell. She met his gaze squarely, unafraid, but there was something unsettling about the way he looked at her. “Sit her up,” the dark-haired man ordered. Two men came forward and pulled Maeve into a sitting position. She noted that two others were outside the cell.
“Too many,” she thought, especially with the surveillance camera. She would wait until later.
“Remove the gag,” the dark-haired man ordered. Maeve took a deep breath. It was an immense relief to be rid of the gag. It was not such a relief to be so closely scrutinized by the five men that surrounded her.
“Good afternoon, Miss Knight.”
Maeve’s eyes widened
slightly. “The dark-haired
man smiled. “Yes, I know
who you are. There is very little
I do not know about you. I have
followed your career assiduously.”
He gave her a mock bow.
“My name is Vestry and I have tracked your activities ever since
the spectacular robbery you pulled off at the
Shadowcloud bristled at this attack on her professional competence, but let
it go. Vestry was
talking. Let him shoot his mouth
off. The more she learned about
him the better.
“You are an intriguing young woman. You would have to be for me to devote so much of my time to you. You and I are going to get to know each other well. Very well.”
“What do you want of me?” Maeve asked finally. It was the expected response and she made it.
“Your cooperation.” He sat on the cot near her feet and waited for her reaction.
“My cooperation? You have a strange way of trying to gain it. You trap me, tie me up, and then bring me wherever this is so you and your pervert friends can enjoy the sight of my naked body.” She kept her voice low, projecting her pent up rage.
“Somehow I don’t think you would have responded to an email or a telephone call,” Vestry said, a small smile playing about his lips.
“You think this is funny don’t you, you fucking degenerate asshole?” Maeve regretted losing control, but the smirking bastard who had captured and subjected her to humiliating bondage was getting on her nerves. He was teasing her, drawing out the interview so that he could run his eyes over her defenceless body. No doubt he had a woody the size of a salami.
“I sense this chitchat is getting us nowhere,” Vestry returned, rising from the cot. He turned to the guards. “Escort Miss Knight to the interrogation room. I think you know what to do with her.”
The guards grinned. “Sure do, Mr. Vestry,” one of them replied.
“Good. I’ll be there in half an hour.” With that Vestry left the cell.
The guards closed about Maeve. “Only four now. Perhaps it’s time to make a break for it.” But there was still the surveillance camera. She suspected that there were probably more than four guards in the place. She would wait a little longer. Perhaps on the way to the interrogation room…
“God I’d like to fuck her,” one of the guards said, interrupting Maeve’s ruminations.
“You’re not kidding,” replied another. “I bet she’d be a sweet piece of tail.” Both men spoke as if Maeve was not even there.
“Why don’t you try it assholes?” she said defiantly. “I doubt that you have enough balls between the four of you to manage more than a three inch erection.”
“God damn bitch.” The man who had spoken first replied. He wore a mall insignia that the others did not have. He seemed to be the one in charge. “Let’s take her right here,”
“Vestry said we were supposed to bring her to the interrogation room, not fuck her,” objected one of the other men.
“How’s he gonna find out? Anyway, why should he have all the fun?”
“We’re on camera, you moron,” objected the second speaker. “Vestry will see everything.”
“Easy to fix,” said the head guard. “Just give me a minute.” He darted out of the cell. Five minutes later he was back.
“We’ve got an hour,” he said. “I told Vestry some of the equipment in the interrogation room needed a few minutes to repair. That should be enough time for all of us to have a go at this twat.”
The four men crowded into the cell. “Spread her,” said the head guard.
One of the men pushed Shadowcloud down onto the cot, her shackled wrists beneath her. Two others forced her thighs apart. Since her calves were still bound to her thighs, the job was relatively easy. The head guard unbuckled his belt.
“Stupid bastards,” thought Shadowcloud. She twisted her wrists beneath her, and extended her razor-edged claws. Flexing her fingers she sheered through the links connecting the handcuffs as if they were butter.
The man holding noticed at once what she had done. “Shit, she’s loose!” he exclaimed. He grabbed for her hands.
“So what?” said the head guard. “Just hold her arms.” He had dropped his pants and advanced on Shadowcloud, his erect penis at the ready.
“Why don’t you hold this instead?” Shadowcloud said. Her right arm flashed out.
“Eaaggh!” the head guard screamed as he staggered back, his ruined phallus spurting blood.
“Christ, that was messy,” thought Shadowcloud as the other three guards moved back from her. Her legs were still bound so she remained on the cot, but not for long. It took her only seconds to do to the leather straps what she had done to the handcuffs. She had to move fast in order to prevent the guards from slamming the door shut.
She was a bit stiff from being bound so long and she stumbled as she came off the cot, sprawling full-length across the threshold of the cell. She caught a boot in the face as she scrambled to get up. The pain of the blow transformed her. With an animal-like shriek she struck out at her assailant, ripping his leg from knee to ankle.
With a scream the guard gave way, allowing Shadowcloud time to get to her feet. She moved at blinding speed, giving the remaining two guards no time to recover. Her left hand tore open the throat of one of them, and then whirling she disemboweled the guard who had pinned her to the cot. It took her only a few more seconds to finish off the two guards she had already injured.
“Assholes,” Shadowcloud muttered, curling her lip as she surveyed the carnage in the corridor outside her cell. The floor was slippery with the blood of the dead guards and she was splattered from head to foot with gore. “I’m going to need to shower after this,” she thought. “I wonder where those pricks put my clothes.”
Without any way of knowing whether she was heading toward the outside of the building or the inside, Shadowcloud moved down the corridor. She knew that the head guard had disabled the camera outside the cell, but that did not mean that there were not other cameras in the corridor, so she went fairly slowly, using her enhanced vision to check for any other surveillance devices.
There were none she could detect, nor were there any doors leading off the concrete corridor. She was forced to keep heading down it hoping that it might lead somewhere. Finally up ahead she spotted a T intersection and it was here that she ran into another guard.
Unfortunately the guard spotted her first and he was still a good thirty
feet away. He seemed
bemused. No doubt he knew that
Shadowcloud did not belong where she was, but the sight of her naked and
blood-splattered body seemed to unnerve
him.
”Don’t move,” he said hesitatingly, his pump action shotgun
pointed directly toward her.
“Thirty feet,” Shadowcloud thought. “I could make it. But could I make it before he got off a few rounds?” The guard would not have to be very accurate to hit her with the thing he was pointing at her. She could not afford to take the chance, not when there was one more weapon in her arsenal.
She shifted her stance slightly, almost imperceptibly parting her legs just a bit more. It sent two messages to the guard; one that she was not going to attack him, and two that she was sexually available. She smiled and sent her sexual aura toward him. “Hello,” she purred, her voice dripping sexuality. Her eyes widened, and she increased her breathing sending powerful sexual signals toward him.
“Who…Who are you?” he quavered. “I said don’t move!” Shadowcloud had taken a step toward him.
“What’s the matter?” she said, her voice low and seductive. “Do you not find me beautiful? Am I not attractive to you?”
“Yes, you are,” the guard replied. He took step backward, but his eyes were fixed on Shadowcloud’s gently bouncing breasts.
She took another step toward him. “Why not put down the gun? Wouldn’t you like to get closer to me?”
“I…I…I don’t know,” the man stammered. He tore his gaze away from her breasts and looked her in the eyes. That was his mistake. Shadowcloud drew him into her captivating him completely. He stood helpless while she slowly moved toward him, her body swaying erotically.
It took her only a single precise strike to rip out his throat. With a gurgling gasp, the guard clutched at his throat and then fell dead as his lifeblood ran out of him. “Now,” she murmured, “what was this idiot guarding?”
In front of her was a set of double doors. With nowhere else to go she walked toward them and finding them unlocked, pushed them open. She started. Less than a cat’s leap away stood Vestry. He seemed calm and unafraid, meeting her gaze with his own.
“Nice of you to get here on your own,” said Vestry. “But I didn’t give you permission to kill five of my men.”
Shadowcloud froze. Instead of escaping she had been walking deeper into the building. She was in the interrogation room, a fact made clear by the various chains and other grim devices scattered about the room. But Vestry was the only man in the room, and he was unarmed. With a growl she launched herself at him.
Zzzaapp! A powerful jolt of electricity surged through her body before she had even completed her leap. She somersaulted, pitching face forward onto he concrete floor, only dimly aware of the Taser wires protruding from either side of her rib cage.
“Stupid bitch,” said Vestry as he stood over the fallen woman. Five men dead. He was beginning to wonder whether taming her was worth the effort. Well, he had learned a bit more about her. She was much more dangerous than he had thought. He was going to have to take extra precautions with her. Kneeling beside her he injected a powerful sedative into her gluteus maximus. That should keep her down until she was properly prepared.
He grinned wryly. He was going to have the pleasure of torturing her after all. It was something he was looking forward to. “Get her cleaned up,” he ordered the two men who had Tasered her. “Then bring her back here. It’s about time our little cat was taught a few manners.” He turned an walked toward the storage cupboards where the various instruments of torture were kept. It was time to select his tools.