Crimson Flare: The Threat of Pitchblende
by marat

Chapter Six

It didn’t take long for silence to overtake the crowd swirling around Crimson Flare. As the three gods approached, the only thing she still felt were the hands of her captors fondling, squeezing, brushing her body. Unable to budge, the contact with her writhing body continuously stimulated her captors. They enjoyed the tactile stimulation as they beheld the heroine twisting sensuously in her restraints. In this situation, her sequined costume seemed out of place, marking her for unwelcome attention. She looked around her and saw a throng of purple leather. She saw a multitude of faces staring at her, some actually licking their lips at the prospect of having her. She felt fear now.

‘Crimson Flare!’ Cos called to her. ‘You have intruded into my affairs for the last time.’ The young heroine tried to draw herself up to full height, but could not because of her bondage and the weight of the ropes wrapped around her, and this only drew attention to her ludicrous effort.

A heavy rope crushed her small breasts at the same time it secured her bare upper arms to her sequined chest. The same rope was then wrapped around her waist and continued to her wrists, holding them tightly together and tightly to her waist, the soft skin under her crimson gloves joined in an ‘X’ in front of her. Still more ropes wrapped around her thighs, the unshielded lights reflecting from the translucent tights which encased them with a sheen that did full justice to the round, hard muscles there. Still another rope held the black leather of her boots together at the ankles. The champion of Mitropoulos was absolutely unable to move.

‘Take her to the storeroom.’

*****

The next hours were a nightmare made real for Crimson Flare. She had been physically carried to a small room at the entrance to the subway tunnel, a room filled with pallets and wooden and cardboard boxes. Unceremoniously dumped there, she was closely observed by two members of the Normans, whose job it was to ensure that she did not escape her bonds. Because of the way in which her wrists were joined, it was not yet possible to bring the claw into use. She looked at the leather belt at her waist and saw her baton still in its holster, equally useless. Nevertheless, she began to twist her wrists, in order to free her claw. The tightness of the ropes made this a daunting task.

She had not been in the room for twenty minutes when Cos and Justin entered the storeroom with two other gang members.

‘Crimson Flare, I have been given complete independence to remove you as a thorn in the side of certain elements of Mitropoulos,’ Cos said quietly, the sweetness of his voice belying the malevolence of his intent. ‘You have had your way for too long, and you have limited our options in too many ways. I want your end not only to be painful, but also humiliating.’ He smiled wickedly, and a shudder ran through America’s Darling.

‘I have come up with something that satisfies all of those requirements.’

He nodded at the two men who accompanied him. They stepped forward and roughly grabbed the powerless heroine, standing her up. While one held her securely from behind, his large arms in a bear hug around her, the other took her right arm and gently rolled her satin glove toward her wrist. He pulled a small black leather case from inside his jacket and opened it. Crimson Flare started and struggled to pull away when she saw what he now held in his hand.

It was a hypodermic needle.

‘Nnnnnoooo,’ she whimpered. ‘NNNooooo… don’t… please.’

‘Jarvis here will be shooting you up with heroin over the next several days. Enough to give you a clear dependence. At that point, you will satisfy your habit by serving the sexual needs of the Normans. That will make my gang very happy.’ He smiled again.

‘In about a week or ten days-at some point when it becomes clear that we have tired of you and your currently evident charms are fading-you will be found by the police in a… compromising situation, shall we say? We even have the partner for you. You know, I understand, Miss Stacy Randle.’

‘St-Stacy?’

‘Even as we speak, half-a-dozen of my most trusted assistants are abducting the wealthy Miss Randle from her home. You will be rejoined with her in a few days, but, if all goes according to plan, you, my dear Crimson Flare, will be little cognizant of that reunion. I’ll leave the rest of the story of your demise, and that of the wealthy Miss Randle, to your imagination, Crimson Flare.’

With that, the man holding her dropped down a bit so that her forearms were secured against her hips. Justin, moving with a speed that contradicted his size, moved to her side and smoothly wrapped a rubber tube around her arm just above her elbow. A vein appeared. The strength of the man holding her kept Crimson Flare in check despite her efforts to twist away. In a moment, the injection was complete and the heroine’s struggles gradually became slow and uncoordinated.

As the heroine now slid from the arms of the large man who had restrained her, she felt the warm glow of the rush as it enveloped her. It would become the feeling that she would spend the next days trying to recapture, without success. The glow soothed her in her distress, swallowed her. Her mouth was dry and her mind lost focus. But all she knew was the comforting kindliness that the drug offered.

As the soles of her boots touched the floor, they slid out from under her and she fell clumsily, her right hip and shoulder striking the floor very hard, but she barely noticed. She lay uncomprehending as her body was rolled onto its back and Justin undid the ropes around her legs. Those at her wrists were to be a permanent fixture, Cos had dictated, and the rope around her chest and upper arms would remain for the next few days.

She lay on her back, her upper body slowly, rhythmically, turning with an internal cadence. As the first wash of ecstasy slowly faded, her body more aggressively sought the return of the feeling. Her mind could focus on nothing other than the missing part of that recent placidness as her mouth now curved downward and her lower lip protruded poutingly. How could so large a sensation have gone so quickly? What had happened to the soothing warmth that had just been filling her?

Yet, somewhere within the mind of the superheroine she knew what was happening and tears formed at the corners of her eyes at her body’s inability to respond to her desire to set aside the lost, fleeting moment of rapture and her mind’s inability to focus on anything other than the immediate sensation. Why was her body resisting her commands? She continued to sinuously curl, unconsciously looking for the sensation.

This would be the heroine’s condition for the next two days, as the momentary highs got progressively lower each time her captors ‘refreshed’ her. She failed to notice that she rarely ate and what sleep she endured was not from fatigue but from the drug. It was a sleep filled with monsters from the hell of her current world, images of JoJo and Vas, Cos and Justin, and other nameless faces, faces of the dead. Waking did not free her from this hell. Punctually, every two-and-a-half hours, a purple-leather-clad figure entered her prison, tied the rubber tube around her arm, and gave the captive Princess a prepared ‘stew’, sending her back to her painless, painful oblivion. After a day of this, the heavy rope was removed from her upper arms and she was allowed out of her storeroom prison.

By the time two days had passed, two and a half hours were insufficient for the duration of her high, and she walked the subway platform, nervously awaiting her next fix. Sometimes she stumbled against a pillar or fell to her knees on the filthy, faux-mosaic floor. There were always gang members there who watched her, some stared at her, awaiting the gift that Cos had promised. Sweat soaked her body, which twitched, giving evidence of the earliest symptoms of withdrawal. Just as her sweats became cold, a fresh mixture would arrive and her body retreated into bliss.

After two days, Cos had decided, the heroine would have to pay for her fixes. It was the moment that the Normans had been waiting for.

*****

Crimson Flare’s face already reflected the dependency she had developed. Beneath her vinyl mask her eyes were sunken a little deeper into her face, and dark circles, hidden beneath the vinyl, told volumes about her. Beneath the vinyl cowl, her matted hair smelled of days of sweat and dirt. Her cheeks were hollowed and her lips cracked. Perspiration made her exposed skin shine, and her bound hands quivered constantly. She walked with unsteady steps, her boots scraping along the floor. Her head hung low; when she left her storeroom and she shuffled as if sleepwalking, bumping into walls and the metal stairwell that led to the surface, thirty feet above. With her wrists tied, she frequently lost her balance, falling to her knees, then struggling for long minutes to regain her feet. The fixes had actually increased in frequency in the last twelve hours, now taking place every hour-and-a-half. The world she saw was a coloured haze, populated with grey figures moving lazily about her field of vision. The heroine was no longer able to tell which figures were real and which were not.

This time the hour and a half came, and went, and there was no fresh stew.

Her throat dry, the former champion sought out the only recognisable figure. ‘Please, Cos, sir,’ she croaked pitiably. ‘I need a hit.’

‘Well, what do you want me to do about that?’

Bewildered, the masked avenger repeated, ‘I need a fix.’ There were tears in her voice.

‘Can you pay for it?’

‘How…?’ she gasped, thoroughly confused.

‘The same way women who need money have always got it,’ Cos told her, laughter and acid fairly dripping from his words.

Crimson Flare looked helplessly around. A few gang members were approaching, smiling at her predicament. As much as she was able, she ran toward one of the shapes she saw. ‘Pl…’ she gasped, ‘please, help m-me. I-I… I nee-d some money.’

‘What’ll you do?’ came the answer.

Crimson Flare stared at the floor. She saw her costume mocking her, and the eyeholes of her mask were sitting awkwardly over her face so that she could see them at the edges of her vision. ‘Any-thing… you want.’

‘“Anything you want,” what?’

After a pause, Flare whispered, ‘Anything you want, sir.’

‘All right, my little Crimson Slut. Let’s go talk about it.’ He led the weaving, bound superheroine back to her storeroom.

*****

The first man didn’t take long. Many who watched were angry with that. They wanted the humiliation of Crimson Slut to be painful, to last many long minutes. When she reappeared, the zipper up the back of her costume only rose slightly above the small of her back. Her tights were gone, though her black leather boots were on her feet and the zippers on the boots pulled all the way to the top, just below her knees. She no longer wore her cowl and her hair showed debris from the pallets and boxes that filled the storeroom. Her thighs showed evidence of the speed, and of the excitement and enthusiasm, of her ‘lover’.

Crimson Flare crossed to Cos, and showed him the twenty dollars. ‘Cos, sir. I need a hit.’

Cos thin arm flashed outward and the back of his bony hand whacked against her jaw. In her weakened state, she dropped to the floor like she had been coldcocked by a blackjack. She looked up to the gang boss uncomprehendingly.

‘Your fixes are fifty dollars, bitch. Don’t come ‘round here asking for a discount!’

Tears welled up in the fallen champion’s eyes. She looked around desperately for someone else to help her. There were plenty of offers, it seemed.

In a moment, a second purple-leather jacket had disappeared behind the closing door of the storeroom.

So it went.

*****

Three days later, Stacy was brought to the station platform. She was not bound, but her face showed the signs of the beating that had been administered during her kidnapping four days ago. Dried blood was still clotted on her broken lip, but the purple bruises and swelling were fading.

Cos was upset about that. ‘Why did you boys have to go and beat her like that?’ he ranted. ‘Now we have to keep her around here until all of that fades. We can’t leave her and the super-bitch in no motel room with her showing those bruises. Damn! What’s wrong with you? Were you born stupid or have you gone that way since the Savoyards left?’

Stacy was taken to Crimson Flare’s storeroom to recuperate.

Inside the closed storeroom, Stacy examined her prison, for although the door was not locked, it was truly a prison. The area was well lighted, and she quickly found Crimson Flare’s discarded vinyl cowl. Tossed carelessly aside into a corner, Stacy immediately recognised it when she picked it up. She feared what it signified.

Carrying the cowl, she drifted toward a small stack of crates where she could sit. As she did so, she heard the door behind her open.

In stepped the masked Crimson Flare, her hands still tightly bound in front of her. Stacy caught her breath as she saw her satin glove pulled down almost to her wrist, and track marks on her forearm. Dear god, Karen, what did I get you into? Stacy thought to herself. The avenger’s mask was askew, and the eyes beneath seemed almost sightless. Her costume hung loosely on her tiny body.

A man wearing a purple leather jacket was with her. She shuffled as she moved to a corner near the door where a blanket had been spread on the floor. Stacy struggled to hear as Crimson Flare turned to speak softly to the man.

‘Pull down my zipper, please.’ She turned her back to the gang member.

Her costume was already half-undone, the zipper closed only to a point just above the small of her back. He reached out and pulled the fastener all the way down, so that the crack of her ass was peeking out above the seat of the crimson uniform.

With an ease that indicated that she had practiced this a great deal, she let the shoulders of the sequined costume fall to her wrists, and then by simply stooping, she left its lower extremes at her ankles. She placed her hands on the floor and stepped from the costume. Her naked body looked emaciated. Already, the effects of the days without food, hours of scrounging for money to support her habit, were visible.

Shocked did not even come close to describe Stacy’s reaction.

‘Now you pull down my zipper,’ she heard the man say.

As he stood in front of her, the naked Crimson Flare knelt. With bound hands, she pulled the zipper of his jeans down, then reached into his pants, pulling his prick into view. She immediately began licking the head, moving her head so as to stimulate all parts of the organ. Soon it extended its full nine-inch length.

Having achieved erection, the desperate heroine took full length of the cock into her mouth. Her cheeks worked to maintain the stimulation, and her tongue aroused other sensations throughout the being of the gang member. She even called her teeth into service, using them to combine pleasure and small pain in an effort to please her customer.

Stacy felt tears roll down her cheeks as she watched.

The powerless heroine’s hands crawled underneath the man’s jacket and t-shirt, running up and down his abdomen. She hooked them onto his belt and pulled him closer to her, ramming his cock all the way to the top of her throat. Her tongue maintained stimulation, and her cheeks worked to push him closer to the edge. Finally, she released him, his erect penis looking somewhat absurd as it literally sprang from her mouth. Its upward curve glistened in the bright lights of the room. Again, Crimson Flare attacked the organ, twisting her head beneath it as her tongue again licked the underside all the way from tip to balls. In the past two days, the desperate heroine had learned many ways to please her customers.

Her hands felt the now-familiar shudder push its way through the gang member’s body, and Crimson Flare again enveloped his member with her dry, cracked lips, taking it into her again. He grunted, spasmed, moaned, then grunted again, and again. The white fluid crept out of the corner of the kneeling champion’s mouth and rolled down her jaw. At her chin it gathered, then dropped off, the white line stretching from the floor back to its origin.

As he pulled his flaccid member from her mouth, the man in the purple leather jacket reached into the pocket of his jeans. Crimson Flare smiled up at him in what she evidently hoped was a sexy way. He tossed two bills toward the edge of the blanket and turned to walk away, stuffing his penis back into his pants, and pulling up the zipper. Crimson Flare saw almost none of his departure as she fairly darted across the blanket, falling on the money with both hands as if it were likely to race away from her.

Holding tight to the bills, she stepped back into her costume and, simply by rising to her feet, she pulled it back into place around her hips. By raising her hands over her head, the shoulders likewise fell back into place. But now, because the zipper was fully open, it hung loosely over her spare body, wrinkled and sagging.

After the man had closed the door, Stacy moved forward. ‘Karen?’ she said softly.

Crimson Flare didn’t hear her. She was already heading toward the door to seek out yet another patron for her rapidly decaying wares. ‘Karen,’ Stacy said again, louder this time.

The superheroine turned at the sound, but she didn’t recognise the name. When she saw Stacy, she showed no sign of recognition. Stacy looked at the eyes behind the mask. She saw that her friend had no idea who it was she faced.

Stacy approached Crimson Flare. ‘Dear god, what have they done to you?’

‘Do you have any money?’ Crimson Flare asked, her dry voice cracking.

The door to the storeroom slammed open. Justin stood in the doorway. ‘Don’t you even think about untying her, you slut. She stays the way she is, and you live a little longer. Got it?’

Stacy looked at him with a mixture of fear and disgust. She nodded her head, then turned back to her friend. She heard the door close again.

Crimson showed almost no sign that she had heard the intrusion. ‘Do you have any money?’ she asked again.

‘Come with me, Karen,’ Stacy told her friend softly, as she led her back toward the dirty, wrinkled blanket.

Crimson Flare smiled and her eyes seemed to brighten a little. ‘Do you want to have a good time?’ She smiled that same hazy smile she had flashed at the gang member earlier. She took Stacy’s hand and walked with her.

Stacy walked the short distance with the drugged heroine. When Crimson started to remove her costume, Stacy stopped her. She stepped around behind the hapless champion and pulled the zipper to the back of her neck. Before doing this, Stacy saw with shock the ribs evident in her back. She then sat her friend down on the blanket.

Moving to a position in front of the helpless, crimson-clad figure, Stacy rolled the elbow-length glove up her arm, covering the needle marks now discolouring her forearm. She then sat in front of the sweaty masked heroine.

Without saying a word, she hugged her friend.

She heard a weak moan emerge from the defender’s lips. ‘I want to help you, Karen,’ Stacy whispered. She didn’t know whether the room was bugged or whether there were any cameras to surveille the storeroom. Justin’s entrance earlier had led her to believe that it was the case.

Releasing the vulnerable heroine, Stacy sat back and saw tears rolling down her face.

‘Ohhhh, god, please help me.’ Crimson Flare raised her bound wrists toward Stacy’s face. ‘Please.’

Stacy placed her hand over the ropes and wrists of her friend and pushed them back toward her lap. ‘Karen,’ Stacy said softly, ‘we have to get out of here. They’re going to kill us. Do you understand?’

Crimson Flare nodded weakly, seemingly resigned.

‘Do you have any strength?’

Crimson Flare shook her head.

Under her hand, Stacy felt the weakness and trembling of her friend’s hands, bound as they were.

Crimson Flare sighed. ‘I need… a… fix. Desperately.’ Stacy saw that she was sweating and that the trembling in her hands was spreading to her whole body. Crimson Flare’s tongue licked at her cracked lips but failed to bring any moisture. White flecks collected at the corners of her mouth and settled at the edges of her lips. Stacy saw that she breathing irregularly and that her draughts of air were sometimes very shallow, sometimes deep.

‘Would you have your strength if you were untied?’

Crimson seemed to be thinking more clearly. But the desire for drugs was foremost, and the effects of this need affected her. ‘Yes, I would. But… I don’t… know if… I could use it.’

‘We have to get out of here. I’m going to cut the ropes. Karen, it’ll be up to you to get us out of here.’

With that, she pulled her hand away from the superheroine’s wrists. The rope had been neatly severed. ‘Keep your wrists together until we get near the steps up to the surface. All we’ll have to do is run.’

‘I… don’t think… I can fight.’

‘You won’t have to.’ Stacy stood up, and then reached her hands down to assist her masked friend to her feet. When Crimson Flare was again standing, Stacy placed the form-fitting cowl over the short dark brown hair, completing the costume of the crimefighter. ‘You just have to get us out of here.’

They walked to the door. Stacy knew that the Normans would not hesitate to kill either of them, since that was their end in any case. She looked at her friend and knew that Crimson Flare was not a superheroine right now. She just needed a fix.

Crimson Flare had stopped shaking when the ropes had been cut. She felt the immense power flow back into her. She realised that she had stopped sweating. But she also realised that she still needed her drugs. Even she was not strong enough to overrule that. ‘We have to avoid a fight,’ she told Stacy. ‘I couldn’t win.’ A steady diet of heroin for the last few days had destroyed her confidence and left her dizzy and unsteady, even in her superpowered state.

The two young women looked at one another. Stacy saw fear in Crimson Flare’s eyes and knew that her spirit had been broken. Suddenly, she was very nervous about this enterprise she had undertaken. She did not have her usual confidence in Crimson Flare.

But she had no choice.

Stacy led her friend to the door, making sure to continue holding the heroine’s hand. Casting one last long, hard look into the terrified face of the champion, Stacy said simply, ‘Let’s go.’

Stacy led the way onto the subway platform. From the door of the storeroom, she could see the stairway leading to the upper world about thirty yards away. Keeping her hand over the now-freed wrists of Crimson Flare, she and the heroine stumbled toward the goal. In Stacy’s case, the instability was an act; in the case of her friend, Stacy didn’t know how much of it was authentic.

They had made it almost halfway when one of the purple-clad gang members shouted after the still-sexually inviting heroine, ‘Hey, Crimson Slut. Come here. How’d you like to earn a little something to support your habit?’ A couple of the men near him chuckled.

Crimson Flare looked into Stacy’s face, and Stacy saw the panic in her eyes. ‘Let’s go over to him. Remember that I’m with you.’

The two terrified young women moved away from their goal toward the small group of men. The men remained sitting on the floor of the platform as the two women stopped near them. ‘How much for the two?’ one of the gang members asked.

The women looked at each other again, and, surprised, said nothing. This seemed to incense the men. They immediately stood up and turned to confront the women. ‘Hey, superheroine. How come you’re holding hands with your rich-bitch girlfriend? You two got something goin’ on that we should know about?’

The volume of their voices was attracting other gang members sitting around the platform. Stacy was now genuinely frightened. This was not going at all as she had hoped. Everything had depended on their getting to the stairs quickly and with as little notice as possible. Now that was not going to happen.

One of the Normans approached Crimson and placed his arm around her shoulders. The heroine visibly shuddered. ‘Please,’ she said quietly, ‘don’t… please… leave me alone.’

‘Awww, what’s the matter, babe? You weren’t so particular a few hours ago. What say you and me go back to your little room and try to recapture the magic?’ he laughed.

‘Please. N-no.’

Another group of Normans approached, and Stacy noticed that walking slowly behind this group was the diminutive figure of Chan, the warlord. Observing events through narrow eyes, Chan’s face was an unemotional mask. He seemed not so much an observer as a critic.

A Norman grabbed Stacy. ‘Hey, Fresh Meat, how about we take your girlfriend and one of my friends back there for a foursome?’ He started to pull the blonde by the arm back to the storeroom.

‘No. No.’

Crimson Flare sighed. She stared at her feet for a long moment, then looked at the gang member standing next to her. ‘Do you have any money?’ she asked.

He smiled. ‘I got all you need, superheroine.’ She smiled the smile that Stacy recognised.

Seeing what happened, Stacy pulled vigourously to free herself, all the while yelling, ‘No, don’t, you can’t. You have to fight them.’

All of the gang members laughed at that. All except Chan.

‘Yeah, let’s see her fight,’ one of the Normans chuckled. He put his fists up in a mockery of the classic boxing stance, then hopped around on his toes, flicking a jab at the masked heroine. ‘C’mon, Crimson Slut, let’s see what you got.’

Each time the Normans heaped more ridicule on her, Stacy saw, Crimson’s shoulders drooped a little more, her head hung a little lower. The gang member dancing in front of her slapped her face. Then again. She took a step away from him. She turned her face toward the shoulder of the man standing next to her. Whimpering, she mumbled, ‘Please. S-stop. I just want a fi-fix.’

‘Aaawwww,’ he said loudly. ‘Well, you know you have to pay.’

‘I have money.’

‘NNOOO!!’ screamed Stacy. She tore herself from the grip of the man holding her. Covering the few yards to her friend in no time, she looked directly into her face. ‘My god, Crimson, what are you doing? You have to be strong. You have to fight them, fight….’ She was cut off by a blow from a gun butt to the back of the head. She fell to the floor, and twitched just once. Blood began to puddle around the base of her skull.

‘What the hell-!’ It was Cos.

The gang moved back immediately. Cos may have been slight of stature but he was a stone killer. The fear was palpable. Chan watched from his place in the rear of the crowd as Cos stepped quickly to the place where Stacy lay.

‘Who the fuck did this?’ He looked past the crowd to Chan. Chan indicated a bearded man to Cos’s left with a flick of his head. Only if you had been looking at Chan would you have seen the very quick movement.

Infuriated, Cos turned to the man. He pulled a .45 and shot him in the kneecap. The thunder of the explosion reverberated down the tunnels. It was quickly followed by a gut-wrenching scream. Chan stepped out of sight behind a pillar. On the ground, the purple-jacketed figure writhed, and screamed in pain.

Cos bent toward the unmoving body of Stacy Randle. He felt for a pulse at the base of her neck and, feeling none, he quickly stood. Looking down at the bearded gang member, he said evenly, ‘You fucked up, Pudge. You know what happens to fuck-ups.’

Two gang members followed Justin from the crowd. They grabbed Pudge under the arms and dragged him away. Even as he continued screaming in pain and shouting for friends to help him, no one looked in his direction. Cos had a reputation: Pudge would not be killed; rather, he would be turned loose, probably with his other knee shattered as well. The permanent disability would remind him, and alert any gang members, of the cost of failure. Any future he had in the gang was over.

Cos then turned toward the superheroine, who was at this point only absorbing the death of Stacy. ‘And what do I do with you now, Superfuck?’ He pushed her shoulder, as he attempted to walk past her.

She didn’t budge as she stared directly into his face. Her own face had taken on a hard demeanor. Through slightly open lips, she gritted her teeth, and her jaw muscles tightened. For the first time in days her eyes were wide open behind her vinyl mask.

‘What is it, Slut?’ Cos smiled a half-smile. ‘You going to try something?’ He raised the gun toward her face.

Faster than the eye could see, Crimson Flare pulled her hands free of the ropes which Stacy had cut. With one powerful hand, she grabbed Cos’s, and swung the .45 outward toward the Normans watching the drama. Cos began pulling the trigger, firing a series of rounds into the crowd. This stopped when Crimson Flare broke his hand.

She followed this up by grabbing the gang chieftain with her other hand. He screamed as his balls were crushed by this maneuver. She lifted him over her head and angrily threw his body against the nearest wall. As he slid down the wall, it seemed, in slow motion, Crimson Flare turned her attention to the Normans.

End of Chapter Six