The Adventures of the Jade
Dragon
Episode 7
Chapter 28
Unfinished Business
“They got
away?
They got
away!!?” The Black Leopard’s voice rose
to a high pitched scream.
“They were caged and nursing their
children! How did two postpartum
mothers get past you and fifty
guards?”
The Pussies cringed as Li Mei raged at
them. She and her pride of females
were in an abandoned building across from the rubble that had once been her
lair. It was crawling with
firefighters and police, keeping her from going anywhere near
it. Not that she had any interest
in her hideout any more. There
was nothing in it of value, not now that her two prize captives had
escaped.
She turned her eyes on the cringing
Pussies. Not even Wildcat dared
look her in the eye. What a useless
bunch. The two heroines had
apparently simply walked out of her lair without anyone seeing
them. How could such a thing
be possible? She pointed her
finger at Ocelot.
“You,” she said, “come over
here. Tell me again how the heroines
escaped.”
“Please Blackie, it wasn’t my fault,” cringed the
Pussy.
The Black Leopard spread her claws.
Ocelot backed away quickly.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I meant
Mistress.”
“Never mind,” Li Mei said irritably, “just answer the
question.”
“I don’t know,” replied Ocelot in a tiny
voice. “We were playing
Parcheesi in the common room. And
the next thing we knew they were gone.
And Hughie too. He was
supposed to be watching them.”
“You let a complete moron guard two of the most dangerous heroines in
A sudden chill ran through her. How
had the huge idiot managed to get by all her
security? He wouldn’t have
shown the heroines her secret escape passage, would
he? Because if he
had… “Come on,”
she said to Jahlen.
“I’ve got to check something out.”
She hurried out the back of the building and headed down the
alley. Jahlen and the Pussies
trailed behind her. Skillfully
she threaded her way between the derelict buildings and run down warehouses
that dominated this section of town.
She dreaded what she might find when she reached her destination,
but she had to know.
A growl rose in her throat as she neared her
goal. She sensed the presence
of the police. And they were
there in force. She cursed under
her breath as she moved into the shadows to observe what was going
on. It was as she
feared. Even as she watched,
a large crane hoisted a pallet out of the access tunnel to her treasure
trove. She turned on the Pussies,
her eyes blazing with suppressed fury.
She was as close as she had ever come to ripping into them and tearing
the stupid bitches limb from limb.
The Pussies backed away from her.
Jahlen merely looked curious.
The tall Eurasian had no way of knowing that the Black Leopard had
just lost everything she had worked so hard for in the last two
years. Millions of dollars worth
of plunder were now being reclaimed by the
authorities. She would have to
start all over again. The Pussies
were also confused. Of course
they would be. She had never
told anyone of her secret treasure horde.
No one except Hughie.
Li Mei turned away from Jahlen and the
Pussies. With difficulty she
composed herself. She had nothing
left except a small amount of money in her savings
account. She didn’t trust
banks and so had stowed most of her cash along with her
treasures. If the police didn’t
have it by now they soon would.
There was only one thing she could
do. She turned back to her
companions. “Come,”
she said, “we’ve wasted enough
time.”
“Tell me again,” said Elenah, “I missed it the first
time. You want my help, because
those damned superheroines I told you to kill destroyed everything you
own. And also you and your new
“friend” are knocked up to
boot.”
“Not ‘help’, darling,” answered the Black Leopard, somewhat
put off by her former lover’s
attitude. “Just a place
to stay while I rebuild my
operation.” She had not
expected that the woman who had been her partner in crime and whom she had
made love to for the last few months might actually turn her away.
Elenah was sitting behind her heavy rosewood desk in her
office. Due to the fact that
several of her henchmen were with her she was masked, but her body language,
the set of her jaw, and the tone of her voice were all that of a women who
was far from happy. Li Mei and
her Pussies stood on the other side of the desk, while Jahlen stood near
the door, looking slightly amused.
I should have your ass whipped,” Elenah growled, leaning across her
desk and exposing a generous amount of cleavage, “but you’d probably
enjoy it.”
Li Mei’s dark eyes glared daggers.
“Try it if you want, you Italian
bitch. I’d enjoy the five
minutes it took me to rip your little organization
apart.” She stepped back,
eyeing the distance between her and the nearest of Stiletto’s
goons.
Stiletto noticed the slight change in Li Mei’s
posture. She had seen the Black
Leopard in action before, and realized that she did not have enough hired
guns in the room to be sure she could take out the oriental villainess if
things got rough. Slowly her
hand inched toward the dagger she kept strapped to her thigh.
It was Jahlen who broke the tension.
“I hate to interrupt this lover’s quarrel,” she said,
“but aren’t we attacking the wrong
people? It seems to me that we
have all been victimized by the same enemy;
Zhuang. And now we are fighting
amongst ourselves instead of going after
him.” She moved forward,
interposing herself between the Black Leopard and
Stiletto. She fixed her yellow-green
eyes on Stiletto’s mahogany brown wells and stared deep into
them.
Elenah tried to draw her eyes away from that penetrating stare, but could
not. Her breathing quickened
and she fought to say something, but the words caught in her
throat. Finally after what seemed
like a very long silence she managed to
speak. “Perhaps you’re
right…,” she croaked.
“I…I…may have been too hasty.”
“I see a threesome coming on,” whispered Ocelot
loudly. “Oops, sorry,”
she added as every eye in the room turned toward her.
Elenah blushed. Trying to cover
her confusion she got up from behind her
desk. “I’m sorry Black
Leopard,” she said. “You
must have been through hell.”
Li Mei sensed that she was in control.
“You may leave,” she said, turning to Elenah’s
guards.
If Elenah was bothered by the Black Leopard’s assumption of command,
she did not show it. Instead
she nodded in agreement.
“Yes,” she said.
“Leave us alone. I
wish to confer in private with my
associates.” As her henchmen
left the room she moved to the secret panel connecting her criminal headquarters
with the tunnel that led to her palatial
townhouse. “Let’s go
somewhere a little more private,” she
said. And looking at Jahlen added,
“And more comfortable.”
The Pussies giggled and Elenah flushed
again. She was glad she was wearing
her mask. Leading the way she
moved through the tunnel to the elevator that would take her five floors
up. A minute later the gang of
females entered the secret chamber in her
bedroom. “Just a second,”
Elenah said. “I’ll
just make sure the servants aren’t
around.” She removed her
mask and left the room, returning a minute or so
later. “They’ll leave
us alone now. Come on
in. The room is big enough to
sleep all of us, and there is a dumb
waiter. I can call down to the
kitchen and have anything sent up we need.”
They entered the room. It was
as, Elenah had said, big enough to sleep all of
them. The bed alone would have
held four or five people in comfort, and there were several comfortable couches
and divans spaced about the large room.
The Pussies scattered about the room, checking out everything in
it. They reminded Elenah of a
bunch of naughty schoolgirls.
Cheetah whirled into the centre of the room, her dark ponytail flipping
up and down, and her large breasts
bouncing. “You ought to
see the bathroom,” she exclaimed.
“It’s got a tub big enough to swim in.”
“Perhaps,” said Elenah, “you might like to clean up while
I order something to eat and
drink.” The Pussies squealed
with glee. The idea of frolicking
in the tub appealed strongly to them.
Jahlen merely looked amused, smiling slightly, while the Black Leopard
frowned in annoyance.
“Never know I’ve spent two years training them to be
villainesses,” she hissed. But
she too headed for the bathroom.
She had been through quite a bit, and the idea of a warm relaxing
bath was overwhelmingly appealing.
The Black Leopard and Jahlen were first into the huge
tub. Not because they were quickest,
but because the Asian crime mistress made the Pussies wait their
turn. They stood at the side
of the tub, sulking and trying to look hurt while she and Jahlen
soaked. The Asian villainess
ignored them, only getting out when she was good and
ready. Fortunately for the Pussies,
Li Mei had a raging appetite and left the soothing water earlier than she
would have liked. Dressing in
a slinky green satin robe that Elenah provided, she mad her way into the
bedroom and the banquet that the Italian crime mistress had ordered.
Jahlen, attired in a long black robe that seemed to suit her admirably,
accompanied her. Behind them
the Pussies splashed into the scented water with squeaks of
delight. Li Mei closed the bathroom
door behind her. “Enough
of that nonsense,” she thought.
Elenah had ordered a sumptuous repast.
Apparently her larder was very well
stocked. It took two tables to
hold all of the various dishes. Li
Mei ate ravenously, as did Jahlen.
After being half starved by Zhuang, they had worked up powerful
appetites. As she ate, Li Mei
noticed Elenah looking at her curiously.
She realized that the dark-haired crime mistress was looking at the
food she had chosen. Li Mei looked
at her plate. It was piled high
with pickled eggs that she had covered with lemon
sauce. It was a dish she had
never eaten before. “Strange,” she
thought. “Tastes pretty
good. Who would have thought
that lemon and eggs would go so well together?”
Sun Lin sighed. She could barely
stay awake. She and Melissa had
been through a quite an ordeal. A
few feet away was a cradle containing her
baby. Kyla was rocking it
gently. Melissa was in another
room with Suzi who was helping her.
Natassia had returned home for
a short while. She would return
in a few days to spend the remainder of her pregnancy with her
friends.
Sun Lin sighed again. All of
the heroines had suffered greatly due to the actions of the Black Leopard
and Zhuang Zhijian. And both
criminals were still at large. And
they were likely to remain so unless Suzi and Kyla could handle them by
themselves. Neither she nor Melissa
would be able to help until they had finished nursing their babies, and Natassia
could hardly be expected to hunt them down while she was swollen with
child.
She looked over toward the cradle, wondering how her daughter would turn
out. The Black Leopard had tormented
her with the fear that she was carrying a monster, but the child appeared
normal, even if the father
wasn’t. Hughie still
saw the child on a regular basis.
Sun Lin had put him to work in Master Zhu’s
garden. He seemed quite at home
there, weeding and pruning with the same enthusiasm he had shown for raping
heroines. She was glad she had
not killed him or let Melissa do it.
Hughie really was too stupid to understand what he had
done. He simply liked to please
people and would do anything he was told by an authority
figure.
She closed her eyes and tried to relax.
So, she was now a mother.
That would put a serious crimp in her crimefighting
career. She wondered about
Natassia. What would her child
be like? Zhuang had predicted
a monster for her too. She knew
that Nova was frightfully worried, but there was nothing she could do except
wait.
In the next room Suzi rose silently as Melissa drifted off to
sleep. Her child was snoozing
in its crib and would probably be alright for a few
minutes. In the meantime Suzi
wanted to see how the Jade Dragon was
doing. It was too bad that she
had not been able to capture the Black
Leopard. That film the villainess
had taken of Melissa and Sun Lin being raped and tortured could only be used
for evil purposes. However, some
good had come out of the raid on the Black Leopard’s
lair. She had found an interesting
item in the building. It was
a form of netting . She had since
learned that it had been used to capture the Jade Dragon and
Scorpion. A quick analysis had
shown that it was stronger than steel, but as light as
silk. She would have to explore
it further. She had some ideas
as to how such a substance could be used if she could reproduce
it.
A hundred blocks away, Zhuang Zhijian prepared to retire to his
bed. His temporary HQ was not
up to the standard of the previous one, but it would do until he could find
something better. He smiled as
he thought of the way he had triumphed over the heroines of
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