Summary:Nicholas Sikorsky liked to deal in trafficking, he had enough money to get away every time. Black Widow decides to go monster hunting, only to find another monster was thinking the same. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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It was a dark and stormy night. But it had been a great day before that.
Nicholas "Old Scratch" Sikorsky had walked out of the courtroom a free man. The case against him had fallen apart when the three women who promised to testify disappeared—Mila (oil drum in the Atlantic), Avona (ditch in upstate New York), and Renee (bathtub in condemned building, probably STILL smoking).
He was here with his friends and they were going to do it up nice. So, two of the boys had gone out to pick up some girl, bring her in, and after the five of tehm were done, feed what was left to the pigs in the farm in Albion.
Nick looked to Boris and Steve. "Where are they?" he asked irritably. He hated not getting what he wanted.
Boris spoke up. "They'll be back soon. Got a text that they found a girl. Tall Greek lady."
"For the next three hours, anyway," Nick said with a smile.
*
Their contact does arrive, if somewhat late, the aformentioned girl in the back seat of the vehicle. Raven haired, green eyes, fancy bracelets around her wrists. She's dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a sports top, clearly she wasn't told to dress to impress.
*
The van stopped, and Heinrich yanked the side door open as Daniel walked to the front door. "Get out, bitch," he said, almost casually, as if talking to her over drinks and bar snacks. He grabbed the girl's right arm, yanking her out. Clearly an impatient fellow.
Research, like humanity, is the same the world over. Searching for scumbags was like searching for the newest nucleotide. You simply had to know where to look.
The trial had been followed closely, and she had drawn all the details she could. When the verdict was read, she had been gluing a GPS tracker to the underside of the bumper, something she had purchased through Amazon, had delivered right to her. Under the circumstances, this part of the modern world was working for her instead of against her. She had been moving around, being quiet. The clothing was black leather bodysuit, black all-terrain boots, black vinyl raincoat. She had purchased these once and never worn them. They hadn't been her style. ut styles, like people, can change.
She watched them escort the woman inside. She didn't seem dressed like a call girl. An innocent? She would have to be careful…
*
"No need to be rude…" the wouldbe call girl says as she's yanked out of the car by Heinrich, "are we going to meet Mr. Sikorsky?" The girl asks, one could almost see stars in her eyes, no doubt she has some aspirations that she'll make a rich guy fall for her hopelessly, and make her way up in life.
She does make sure to keep her purse clinged to her side with her free arm, as she's yanked out by the other. Aside for asking for manners, she doesn't seem to mind the physical contact too much, as if she was more or less expecting that.
*
Heinrich smiled to Daniel as they passed him. "Give the boss about an hour, then I'll relieve you. Everyone gets a turn." The smile was crafty and unpleasant.
Daniel smiled, then closed the door behind them and turned to walk back to the car.
The dark shape took him before he got there.
The woman was walked past large crates in the warehouse area, packed with who-knew-what. Heinrich wasn't very gentle, but he let "Tasha" keep her purse. He hadn't found anything with a cursory search, anyway.
The door to the meeting room opened, and she could see Nicholas and his two bodyguards. Boris was Spetsnaz before he was drummed out for conduct unbecoming. Steve was Green Beret, but was dishonorably discharged after being caught with the 12-year-old daughter of the base commander.
Nick was sitting at the head off the table, smiling broadly. "TASHA! So glad you could join us."
*
The woman looked around, seemingly displeased with the warehouse setting, while Nat was actually trying to spot any potential cameras, routes of escape, any stationed guards she may have not picked on in prep work. All things told, this should be a simple job, she's done wetwork for years. For far lesser causes, against far more formidable foes in much less accessible locations. Then again, that guy has walked out of court more than once, maybe he had friends she was unaware of.
"Gladly…I hear if I impress this could start an acting career for me, right?" She asks hesitantly, as if shrewedly insisting on getting her part of the deal. Her eyes then jump from one guy to the next, before asking Boris, "so is this a performance? Or is everyone joining us?"
*
Nick smiled and nodded. "Oh, yes. In fact, we're going to bring one more in, and then the audition can start." He motioned to Heinrich, who picked up his radio.
"Dan? Come in. Party's starting."
Silence.
Heinrich frowned, then transmitted, "Dan, if you don't respond, you're staying out there."
More silence. Then a click over the walkie-talkie.
"WELCOME TO THE FOOD CHAIN." The voice was harsh, husky, and HUNGRY.
Heinrich looked to Nick, who frowned. "If this is a joke, this isn't very funn-"
The lights of the warehouse went out. The office lights stayed on, but suddenly the warehouse floor was as dark as a tomb.
*
It's situations like this that makes it a good thing to be a very experienced, ever ready, field operative at the level of the Black Widow. Sure, her purse didn't seem to contain anything of importance, just a makeup kit, hygeine essentials, some jewelry, and of course everything unrelated contained in these seemingly ordinary items.
While others may be busy panicing, Natasha went about fishing in her purse, before putting on a pair of sunglasses. Only they weren't sunglasses, they were night vision glasses. Perks of being aligned with top intelligence agencies across the globe at one time or other. Nevermind SHIELD.
"You know, Mr. Sikorsky, I didn't expect this will be an audition in the dark…that's very bold," Natasha coos still in her role, while with the night vision glasses on, she moves quietly about the room to position herself behind Boris first.
Should Boris try to get his bearing from the sudden loss of light, she'll get right to it, pulling the garrote out of her bracelet and moving in to choke the life out of the ex-Spetsnaz.
*
Nick stands up, and suddenly all of them have hauled out pistols, Beretta, Glock, H&K. "Heinrich, Steve, get the car. Drive it around to the door below us. Tasha, I…" Then the office lights go out, too, and the darkness is complete. By the time Steve has his flashlight out, Natasha has already moved.
"Where's the bitch? Heinrich, Steve, GET THE CAR!"
The men move to the office door, and open it as the emergency lighting kicks in, and the orange-yellow light illuminates the figure at the end of the hall.
They raise their wepons and fire.
Boris is bidding oxygen a fond farewell, but Natasha's work means Nick is free to flee, bolting through the rear door and down the stairs.
Boris is still struggling when she sees the SHAPE through the frosted-glass windows. Steve's face is suddenly thrust violently into the glass, and half of his throat is missing. He is unable to breathe or scream. The Shape moved again, and Heinrich utters a strangled yell. And then Natasha hears a sound. It sounds like…someone SUCKING on something. The sound a baby makes when nursing, dialed up to 11. And then Boris is beyond Spetsnaz, New York, and Planet Earth.
*
Natasha makes quick work of Boris, super strength and garotte can be a deadly combination, not that any would suspect a woman like Natasha possesses such strength. Part of what makes the Black Widow so deadly, few are ever aware just what they're facing when they encounter her.
Natasha expected this will be easy, she didn't expect it to be -THIS- easy. Whatever that other creature was, it was attacking the correct target, and so Natasha does nothing about its action. But by the time it has Heinrich dispatched, Natasha has her glasses removed, and instead holds her arms aimed at the Shape, which looks funny to those who have no clue what her bracelets are. "Tell me you're here because Sikorsky was greatly in need of death?"
*
The Shape moves down the hallway and crosses the threshold.
It is a nightmare creature. it is a woman, dressed in a black bodysuit, a black raincoat that flutters behind her, black boots. The black hair is long and hangs free, seeming to sway in some unknown breeze. Eyes of hot crimson look balefully at Natasha, fingerless gloves exposing inch-long talons dripping with blood. Her pale skin, like porcelain, contrasts with the red lips, claret dripping from the lips, the sharp fangs, the sharp chin. A thing of bestial beauty.
It looks at her, and Natasha can see the beast has a brain before it hisses, "WHERE IS SIKORSKY?"
*
Natasha looks unfazed by the monstrosity, for all of its disturbing physical look, this creature was nothing measured against the monster hidden within Dr. Lyudmila Kudrin of the Red Room. "He said to bring the car to the door below us…first place I'd go look, glad to hear we're both after the same scumbag." Giving The Shape a serious look, Natasha asks, "can you track him by scent? Because he was sitting over there," and she points at the now vacant seat.
*
The female creature smiled. "I can SMELL him." She looks from the chair then to the door. "His heart is RACING. I never knew it would sound so…THRILLING."
Then she launched herself towards the rear door, throwing it open before heading down the stairs.
*
Natasha keeps pace, running right after the creature, and proving she's a fair deal faster than one would expect as well. "Nick? Did I pass the audition…?" Natasha calls out if only to try and distract the fleeting Sikorsky, on the off chance confusion would make him think if the call girl is okay, maybe the coast is clear.
*
Nick was currently waiting for the sliding door to open. The rear door was lock, and Boris had the key. But he was not interested in going back up there to the bitch and the beast to try and get them…
"NICHOLAS…"
He whirled, firing into the darkness wildly.
"So much fear you have caused…" The husky female voice crooned. "So many dead, just to satisfy your emptiness."
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Nick kept firing, hoping to hit SOMETHING.
A soft chuckle. "You're more of a human parasite than I could ever deign to be…"
*
Hearing the exchange, Nat slows down her approach, instead, she watches in fascination while providing cover. She has no clue if Nicholas will high tail it out of there or not, and it was best to ensure that whoever this scary woman was, she would get her prey. At least in this instance.
*
Nick fires again, twice more, and then the slide is racked back, the clip empty. He throws it into the darkness. "Look…we can make a DEAL. Up in the office…there's five MILLION dollars. Untraceable. Take it and go. You'll never see me again!"
A pause. Nicholas looked around. He slowly backed up…
And then the creature flew out of the darkness and grabbed him, spinning him around, then forced him to his knees with hands that felt like iron.
"Do you enjoy the helplessness you savored in others? The ones you bought and sold, never thinking of them as anything more than CATTLE?"
Nicholas began whining, "Please…please don't hurt me…please let me go…"
And then Natasha saw the face appear from behind his, the jaws opening wide, teeth gleaming in the dim light of the emergency light near the door…and then she saw them buried in his neck, and she heard those same sucking sounds as the creature drank and drank and drank, a look of some indescribable rapture in her face. There is a look of lassitude in Nick's face…and then the life drains out of it, and she sees what she has seen hundreds of thousands of times—the intelligence making the face droop into dazed idiocy.
The creature rises, and the lifeless slaver drops onto his face with a soft PLOP.
*
While the creature accosting the one who so often ruined the lives of others, likely has no interest in Nick's offered deal, Natasha is very much interested in returning that kind of unmarked cash back to SHIELD. The less of it is out there, the more impeded are the movers and shakers of the criminal world. She goes after it, but she returns with the suitcase full of money just in time to observe the coup de grace. "Judging by how you went after that human trash, I imagine it is safe to count you on the side of the good guys? You got a codename of sorts?"
*
The creature looks at Natasha, suddenly startled. The sight of someone who had mowed through four people looking like a woman who had a stranger walk in on her while in the bathroom is almost comical. "I…do not. I had not expected to have a need for one."
She thinks for a moment. "You may call me…The Living Vampire."
A moment later, she is out through the half-opened sliding door and into the night, a shadow among shadows.
*
Natasha remains very still as the she commits the name Living Vampire to memory, just as the woman makes her quick retreat from the scene. She may not have much to go on, but SHIELD needs to learn of this regardless. The world sure is crazy, it always has been.
*