Bloodrage: Chapter 7

7

            The four men were masked. The longest of them had the face of the American President Richard Nixon, the second, you could consider corpulent, had chosen for Donald Duck. The two other men in the back seat of the car had respectively the face of Stan Laurel and the other was Oliver Hardy. Their trained movements didn’t look at all as the bungling of the legendary film duo. With practiced hands, they controlled their fire weapons. The darkness of the night was the perfect scene for their illegal activities. The heavy SUV stopped before the shop of Shimshon Reichman, a jeweler of Jewish origin. The fat driver, Donald Duck, drove the car backward in such a way he stood far enough, but right in front of the shop window. At the moment, long Nixon nodded, Donald drove with the reinforced bumper bar through the window the shop. Now they had exactly five minutes to grab everything and then two minutes to get away. It had taken them some money to receive this information, but everyone has his price. Somebody who had helped with the security of the shop had gladly earned some money on the side. Not really ethical, but one man’s loss is another man’s gain. That was the opinion of the four masked gangsters.

            Laurel and Hardy jumped in a supple way out of the car. However, they didn’t move forward into the shop. At the right side, Stan Laurel looked in the gray eyes of a black haired woman dressed fully in leather. Oliver Hardy on the other side had made his acquaintances with her companion who wore a tailor-made suit, which fitted like a hand in a glove. Julius and Diana hadn’t any problem with the comic duo. Before they could aim their weapons, the nightwalkers had already pushed their teeth through the skin of the neck of their victims and tasted the blood of Laurel and Hardy.

            After Nixon and Donald Duck had watched a short moment at the bizarre scene, all happened very fast.  Donald forgot they were here for the diamonds and put the SUV in reverse while he pushed the gas pedal. With whistling tires, the car made a short turn and both of the masked men left, took to their heels. They hadn’t counted, however, on the quickness of Julius and Diana.

            It was a child’s play to catch the vehicle at a speed the human eye couldn’t follow. Julius jumped with one big step on the roof of the driving SUV while Diana a long leap grasped herself at the back door of the car. Donald Duck tried to let the car sway to throw them off in this manner. Without any effort, both nightwalkers stayed upon the car as if they attached to it. Julius broke the side window with one heavy punch of his fist and grabbed the surprised Nixon by the scruff of the neck. Julius pulled the man who was squeaking as a suckling pig through the side window of the runaway car and jumped with him from the car. Without being hurt, he landed with his victim in his power on both his feet. The thrill of the hunt had made him hungry. It had been a good idea of Diana. With a fierce force, he drove his teeth into the neck of his prey and feasted upon his blood, which flowed abundantly.

            Diana, meanwhile, had opened the back door of the car and to dodge a bullet Donald Duck was firing at her. Not that he could kill her in this way, but her time was precious and could delay her so that her meal could escape her. With a few passes, she landed on the passenger seat and squeezed the pistol out of the hand of the panicking Donald. She pushed the weapon against the temple of the head of the burglar. ‘Stop!’

            ‘Then you will kill me,’ the cartoon character shouted back. He had seen how Laurel and Hardy were killed and knew his leader Nixon also suffered the same fate. They wouldn’t make an exception for him. He wouldn’t stop driving, he decided in his agony. The only mistake he made was to look in the eyes of Diana.

            ‘I said, stop and do it now.’

            The compelling force of Diana’s eyes made his last willpower fade away as snow for the sun and nonetheless his mind told him to keep pushing the gas pedal, his body reacted otherwise. The car stopped at the side of the road and Donald Duck got goose bumps on his arms, seeing the predator glance in the eyes of Diana.

            ‘Just lucky I love ducks.’ Those were the last words the driver heard. Diana pushed her white teeth in the neck of the man and didn’t stop drinking before she heard the last beat of his heart in the pulsating open artery.

            All this had just taken no more than five minutes. Meanwhile, Julius, who had heard already far away the police approaching, walked to the SUV. ‘Maybe you can proceed with your meal from the back seat of the car, honey. Otherwise, we should have to take some policemen as dessert. I don’t like this kind of beverage, it always gives me gastric acid.’

            Diana looked at him and through the back window of the car at the oncoming police cars. With a sway, she dumped the cadaver out of the vehicle. ‘Just push the pedal, Julius, we are going to let them earn their salary. Later on, after a good race, we can lose the car and go home.’ She looked at him from aside and smiled. ‘It was exquisite, dear, mmm, really delicious, I feel reborn. And I just have a passionate desire for sex, you too?’ Julius kicked the pedal so hard with his foot, it almost pushed through the bottom of the car, while the vehicle swaying and whistling raced away.   

  

……….

            Markus had announced her by her human name Elisa Thompson. Dragosj his secretary had looked very surprised the moment she came walking in the hall of their nest. It was impossible for a simple human to force the entry of it. You had to push a door of about a few hundred kilos if you already had the key code for the elevator which brings you to the hall. Markus knew for sure she didn’t possess the key, otherwise he would have had a message in the log of the elevator procedure. When she arrived, he automatically had checked at the counter and had seen it wasn’t the case. He also knew for sure she didn’t have the muscle power to push this door open. The heaviest such women with this fine waistline carried was a glass of champagne or maybe their loyal poodle.

            Mercedes had no trouble in finding the address where Dragosj lived. She didn’t even weave a searching spell. It was the 21^st century and with an expensive computer program she had run a query where she had put in some known fact with as a variable and an unknown quantity a common place. The ingenious software, the magician of nowadays, had not left her in the lurch. She got five results of which she picked the most obvious favorite. This was the place she would have the best chance of meeting Count Dragosj. His signature during the last century had left a digital track. Nothing was invisible on the internet highway if you pushed the right buttons.

            The card she had given Markus mentioned her umpteenth alias. It was interesting to change now and then of identity, certainly for a wolf witch, who through the centuries, had made many enemies. There was a high price on her head and she loved to keep that head still for some time at the place it normally belonged. Elisa Thompson was an attorney. Not that Mercedes knew a lot about law and justice, but she had always thought these kind of people worked in odd places and in the strangest conditions. She also knew people had either an immense respect for this profession or a holy fear, at least for them who had made it. That’s why she had fabricated a digital track, which made her one of the best criminal lawyers. No magical trick, just a bit juggling with websites and false credentials. You didn’t have to throw your good name to the dogs.

            Markus had wanted to do her the lip service when she had uttered her wish to see Dragosj. His compelling force didn’t work on her, so much he knew. This was not a simple human and that’s why he gave a second chance. ‘How did you meet Lord Dragosj?’ he had asked because he had to have something to come with before his master.

            ‘Tell him the daughter of Pandora is here. Count Dragosj,’ she emphasized, ‘has still a debt to pay. I’ll wait here in the meanwhile… but my patience is not endless.’

            Markus had looked at her with a lifted eyebrow. The name didn’t ring a bell and it was obvious from her remark about his title she knew who she was talking about.

            Count Dragosj hadn’t looked back, when he heard Elisa Thompson would like to see him. He was of an age, you didn’t startle or wandered about some events. However, the additional information she was the daughter of Pandora made him grasp his walking cane a bit harder in such a way his already white knuckles had become even whiter. ‘Let her in, Markus… and… be respectful to her. She’s the daughter of an old acquaintance.’

            Markus was still more astonished. He thought he knew everybody in the circle of acquaintances of his Master. It was his job to know. It was the fundament of the security around his employer. He had to know everybody to guarantee his safety. He didn’t know anyone who listened to the name Pandora, the only Pandora he ever heard of had… No, he pushed the idea aside as pure nonsense.

            ‘Hello, young lady,’ Dragosj greeted the women with the auburn hair. ‘I didn’t know Pandora had daughters who were still alive. As far as my memory recalls my history lessons, she had only three daughters, Phrophasis, Metamelea and Pyrrha. They’re all dead already a while. Maybe I can advise you a doctor? He would certainly help you with your problem.’ Dragosj stopped talking, but he hadn’t turned himself. It was as if he waited for something before he would go further.

            ‘Count Dragosj, I have to give you the best regards from Pandora, beyond the death and… no, I’m not insane. My mother has, a long time ago, given you your freedom in her youthful curiosity. She tried everything to repair her mistakes, but unfortunately she has not succeeded. I know what was in the box, because I’m the fourth daughter of Pandora, the daughter history has forgotten about. My mother, at that time, has let you escape from that box, just as all the other evils she let escape into the world. It is time you reciprocate the favor… in case you want to survive as a... species!’

            Now, Dragosj turned himself at an incredible speed and in one flash towered above the woman. ‘I don’t like to be threatened, certainly not by a mortal and less by someone who talks gibberish.’  He wanted to cut the throat of this woman with one slice of his dead sharp fingernails. The next second he had been thrown away in the corner of the room.

            The woman stood there in the room with the palm of her hand pointed at him. Her long hair waved apart as a flaming aura while in her eyes glowed a dangerous fire. ‘Nobody will come to help you if you’re expecting that. I’ve protected the room for sounds with a spell. My real name is Mercedes and I’m almost as old as you, Count Dragosj. I don’t want to hurt you, I swear this on the head of my beloved mother, the first wolf witch in history, as true that I’m her daughter. We all have a new enemy and we have to unite ourselves or it will be a certain death for us all. Mother has allowed you to live while she could lock you again in the box, I want to collect this debt today.’

            Dragosj stood upright again and removed the dust from his clothes with his hands. The tension was away, he knew who he had in front of him. Nobody knew his origin. No one except Pandora and her offspring. ‘Welcome, Mercedes, you have a particular way to make your point. I think we could agree on a cooperation. What interest me the most is what you know about our new enemy?’

            ‘I will explain this very minutely, highly esteemed Count Dragosj.’

© Rudi J.P. Lejaeghere

09/02/2015