The bedroom was quiet apart from the snoring of the middle-aged man in the bed. There was a faint light in upper one corner of the plush bedroom, indicating the security system was active as this man was sensitive about his own safety, particularly after the unpleasantness of a few month before. He slept peacefully though, knowing that his influence and contacts shielded him from the worst that could happen. The faint light in the corner of the room flickered briefly then faded to darkness. The man continued to snore. The girl on the other side of the bed jerked awake as a hand was placed over her mouth and strong arms held her still.
“Shh, don’t move, don’t make a sound, you are safe, nobody will hurt you” came a quite whisper in her ear. The hand was removed from he mouth and she took a deep breath but before she could scream a warning, blackness descended and she fell unconscious.
“Told you not to trussst her!” came a different, sibilant whisper.
“Had to give her a choice!” the first whisperer replied.
“Security are watching a loop, all the sensors have been intercepted and showing normal” said a male voice, quiet but not a whisper.
“Okay lets wake the git.” the first whisperer spoke, a female voice with an English accent. Kallisti the Friar removed the black hood that concealed her blonde hair and set up a lantern on the side of the bed. Her two companions also removed their hoods to reveal a short female with scales on her face, no hair and a forked tongue that flickered out, tasting the air and a man with cybernetic enhancement on his face and over his bald head. She nodded at them and with a good portion of her strength slapped the man in the bed across the face, causing his head to bounce into and then up from the pillow.
“Wha!” he woke in surprise, hand automatically reaching out for the panic alarm at his bedside. A staff crashed down on the outstretched hand with a bone shattering crunch and the man screamed in pain. Kallisti glanced at Interference, her cybernetically enhanced electric corrupter colleague, who shook his head.
“Surprise!” She smiled at the stunned man who’s grey eyes widened as he realised who he was confronting.
“GUARDS!!!!” he bellowed, nursing his broken hand and trying to crawl up the bed away from her. His free hand collided with the unconscious girl beside him and he glanced at her briefly before trying to push her aside. He was hampered by only having one hand and as he scrabbled at her his nails scratched her face, narrowly missing her eyes. Kallisti grabbed him by the front of his pyjamas and dragged him off the bed to the floor – she wasn’t prepared to let the girl get hurt, enough girls had already been harmed by this man!
“You can’t do this, I’ll have you thrown in jail until you rot!” he blustered, trying to get to his feet. Kallisti’s staff swept his legs from under him and he crashed back to the floor, crying out in pain as his broken hand was caught between his bulky middle-age spread and the floor.
“You can’t threaten me, I’ve seen what you do and I’m going to make sure you never harm another soul – you’ve bought the courts, you’ve bought enough lawyers, but I’m here to dispense real justice!” she spat.
“You can’t – you are supposed to be hero, heroes don’t kill!” he sneered.
“I gave that up after meeting you – your corruption is so pervasive that I had to change. Thankfully that meant I could meet up with some new friends from Grandville!” she gestured to her two companions, who bowed and waved. “Anyway I’m not going to kill you…”
“Hah, spoken like a coward, unwilling to kill – well when this is over I’ll make sure you and all those other Kallisti whores suffer for this – you’ll watch as I have each one of them tortured…”
“Oh shut the hell up you disssgusting excussse for a man, we’re not going to kill you what we will do to you isss ssso much worsse you can’t comprehend…” hissed Kallisti’s companion with the scaly face, the psychic who called herself Psython. She moved over to the man on the floor, her movements sinuous and hypnotic. “I’m going to do things in your mind that you can’t imagine. You’ll wish we’d killed you instead!” her eyes glowed and the man’s face paled. His eyes widened as images started to appear in his mind, images taken from his own memories by the telepath and replayed in front of him but instead of him watching his victims in his memories, they were transformed so he became the victim. Horror overwhelmed him and his body lost control as he soiled himself. As the telepath manipulated his memories, she was shutting down control of his body and he slumped to the floor, locked into his own mind, unable to communicate, unable to move, all he could do was experience the horrific memories that overwhelmed him.
Kallisti stood over the helpless man, her rage still unfulfilled. “Did you get where they are being held?” she asked the telepath.
“Oh yesss and a lot more… there is a ssafe behind the toilet… sssome interessting things in there!”
“Will anyone notice if they go missing?” Psython shook her head.
“Only he knows itsss there!”
Kallisti smiled, “Then this is your paydirt for helping me! I couldn’t have done it without your both.”
Interference shrugged, “What the hell, you are paying me, its not like we are buddies. You wanted shit done, I did it for you. Sounds like this guy was a nasty piece of work, surprised Lord Recluse didn’t take an interest.” he spoke with a hint of a southern drawl.
“There is villain evil and then there is just plain evil. This is plain evil, someone with no morality, too much money and some nasty perversions.”
“Darlin’ I know loads of them… well apart from the money. Its no shit to me, so long as I get paid.”
* * *
The Commander of the Longbow raid team came out of the concrete bunker, his face pale from what he’d seen inside. He looked to Kallisti the Friar dressed in her green and white combat armour, her blonde hair cut much shorter than when he had last seen her. During the raid, she had been kept waiting by the flyer that had brought the raid to this remote hillside in New York State so early in the morning.
“How many?” she demanded angrily. She had not been allowed to take part in the raid, even though she had supplied the location of the hidden bunker, allowed along just as an observer.
“Its hard to say but its more than enough.” he replied grimly. “We’ve got three survivors and five people in custody. One TP’d away but we have a trace on the destination. You can follow that up if you like, it was Sharkhead Isle and you seem to be getting familiar with the territory over there.” He narrowed his eyes at her. Kallisti found herself unable to hold his gaze and looked away. “We also have video evidence… he is easily identifiable on the video. He’d better be paying his lawyers a lot of money for what they will have to watch!”
“This should do it, though, this should be enough to get him.” he nodded. “Its handy you were able to get someone to crack the encryption on his messages…” he let the sentence trail off. Kallisti raised her head and faced him down. She didn’t understand the technological words but Interference had come up with a plausible explanation of the source of the information.
“I had to pay a lot for it and Sharkhead Isle was the only place I could get that sort of help since I got little elsewhere.” she said, throwing his accusation back at him, her face unreadable.
“Boss!” the purple-skinned lieutenant arrived holding a phone up for her Commander, “Apparently they just found him in a coma!”
“Damn!” he cursed, looking back to Kallisti. She frowned, her expression showing shock at the news. Inside however, she wondered why she did not feel content with the justice that had been served.