Agent of S.T.A.L.K. in Los Angeles

"I think you know who I am, but I'm positive I know who you are. Clive Mercer from S.T.A.L.K."

"Sir Clive from the London Times rather."

"Whatever rather," spat Reggie. "Lose the charade, Mercer. People of the night like myself have to protect themselves from people like you. You remember Buenos Aries a few years ago? Some of the Raven Cadre got onto Baroness Ingrid von Schitt, ex-colonel, Vampire Korps. I was there, you were there too, Mercer, but you didn't see me. Not you or Monika Hex or any one in that slew of assassins she brought to Argentina. I shot two rolls of photographs of everyone in your hunting party. They were telephoto, but the developed pictures came out crisp. I've since mailed copies to the important vampire families and circles across the globe. Mercer, you seem like quite an up-and-coming supernatural terminator."

"'Fraid you have me mixed up with someone else."

"And you are mixed up with someone else, aren't you? In this very room. You know who I'm talking about. The naked blonde babe with glasses over on the loveseat, out of it like a zombie. Her name is Molly Mercer, which by coincidence is your last name too."

"It's a common enough name."

"Yes, but I know she happens to be your niece."

"You seem to know a lot of things."

"Knowledge is power. Welcome to Los Angeles, man from S.T.A.L.K." he said sarcastically. To the men pinning his arms: "Does one of you have another pair of handcuffs? Good. Bracelet this fuck and let's get the party started again. We'll throw a helluva Halloween bash Mister Clive Mercer will never forget, for the rest of his life."

He stared into Mercer's eyes as if to hypnotize him, but neglected to remove his dark glasses that somehow had not fallen off when he got tackled. Maybe the clever Reginald Orr didn't have as much intelligence on vampire bounty hunters as he thought: he didn't seem to know of the existence of special lenses treated to resist a vampire's gaze. To better the very slim odds Mercer fell into a docile role, obedient as a somnolent. Cameras rolling, the manhandling of Nova resumed. Onlookers resumed watching. Reggie told the handcuffed Mercer to sit on the loveseat next to his niece then he sat on the other side with Molly in the middle. She stared into space, didn't acknowledge him. Reggie had her in a trance.

If he had Molly in one he probably had Nova too. She looked under the influence of a spell, although not as powerful as the one woven around Molly. Nova seemed more alert, her wits about her, more cognitive of what she was doing and being done to her, and enjoying it. Mercer saw her spot him sitting with Molly and Reggie. Vague recognition flickered on her come splattered face just before one of the naked men plugged a distracting erection into her mouth. Another extracted a blue vibrator from her asshole and replaced it with the real thing. With her bottom filled, Nova had a dick tucked into all three of her orifices. She met Mercer's gaze, crying out at the onset of a fresh series of body-wracking orgasms.

Orr lifted Molly's right leg and drooped it over Mercer's lap, he moved her other leg across his lap to spread-eagle her naked body. She came out of her trance when Reggie kissed her, he massaged her shaven pubes in his hand and Mercer heard the wet sound of Molly getting finger banged. Reggie didn't order him to watch so he didn't. Soon after he withdrew his fingers to hold under Mercer's nostrils. "I promised you a Halloween you'd remember and this is only the beginning. Smell your niece's lust."

Mercer smelt it when Reggie still had his fingers in the girl. He refused to become outraged and kept his eyes forward. Play the game carefully and he might get a lucky break.

Reggie said to him, "Look at Molly. Is this not the greatest piece of ass you ever laid eyes on?"

Mercer needed to appear pliant, suggestible; he looked. For his benefit, Reggie palmed one of Molly's outstanding breasts. He tweaked a nipple until it hardened before running his hand down to her pussy. She moaned. Fortunately she was blissfully ignorant of Mercer's presence, Reggie's was bad enough. By degrees Mercer looked away. What Nova currently engaged in was as unpalatable as watching his niece without a stitch being mauled.

Mercer avoided either girl trying keep up with the location of his double-barreled pistol; he'd need it to get the girls out of this predicament. One of the burly brothers had taken possession of the gun. Mercer saw the man gingerly slide it in his waistband, take a few uncomfortable steps, remove the pistol and set it down on a coffee table pushed into a corner. If Mercer could get out of the handcuffs, if he could make it across the room and if he succeeded in reclaiming his pistol he might be able to turn the tables. A prodigious amount of ifs. He might as well slip off a shoe, a difficult maneuver to execute in a high-topped sneaker, and throw a dagger at the vampire with the toes of his ruddy feet.

The vampire wouldn't let Mercer be, he wanted to play more games, provoke him. "Molly's in a dick-sucking mood. But which one of us will she indulge herself with? Ahh, choices, choices. You're going to do the picking, I leave the choice entirely up to you. Does she suck me? Or does she suck you, Mercer?"

In an effort to maintain his spurious subservience he said languidly, "That's a devil's bargain. Even Bela Lugosi wouldn't have inflicted that on a victim."

"A man of wit, after my own heart," Reggie chuckled. Then, in an unfriendly tone, he commanded: "If you elect not to choose I will be compelled to."

Mercer struggled to keep the dismay off his face. "I did not believe you were being serious?"

"Oh, I'm damned serious, Mercer. I'll make the choice for you." Reggie touched a finger to Molly's face and kissed her. He raised his voice to be heard over Nova's latest declarations of pleasure, "Hey, beautiful, I want you to unzip the man to your right and give him a better blowjob than the one you gave me earlier."

"Sure!" she said brightly.

Not unlike Stormi the starlet, thought Mercer. Molly's fingers skipped across his lap and drew the tab of his zipper down. She wormed a cool hand into his boxers to free an erection to rival the one Nova roused the night before. It thrust upward from his lap, rigid above her fist grasping him at the base. He strived in vain to pull free of the handcuffs binding his wrists. He could no longer disavow what was happening as Molly bent forward over his embarrassing hardness, on the precipice of sucking her own uncle's prick. Mercer had to stop her.

"Let me choose, Reggie, I've changed my mind."

"You'd rather she suck my dick than yours?"

He paused, ashamed. "Yes."

Reggie tapped Molly on the shoulder with her lips an inch from the head of Mercer's dick. She froze in place. He told Mercer, "You tell her, I want her to hear it straight from your lips."

He hesitated as much as he dared. Finally: "Change of plan, sweetheart, suck off Reggie instead."

Molly whispered, eyes faraway, "I can suck you both, if you'd like."

"Not me, please. Only him."

"Your uncle wants to watch you blow me. First, flaunt your deep throat skills on my cock. Oh, that is divine, you little bitch, oh god. You made the wrong decision, Mercer, you're good to go and you turned this down. Keep your eyes on her, don't turn your head to the fucking side!"

He fought in vain against the cuffs between his back and the furniture cushion. Molly's slurping and Nova's vocal outbursts played like an infuriating neverending song in his head, hopping from ear to ear. He closed his eyes but couldn't blot out the sounds the two girls made.

~~~~~~~~~~

Nova wanted to stop, but not because she wasn't enjoying the love and attention. Even with sunglasses on she read the pain in Mercer's eyes. Shame inhibited her then, she hated for him to see her behaving this way, she'd never done anything close to this before in her life, not on her wildest night. Molly burrowed her face in Orr's loins and Nova felt sorry for Mercer, for the first time since meeting him. A strong man defenseless to do anything about the indignities visited upon his niece must have scored ragged scratches on his soul. He was red-faced, angry, and, if Nova remembered right, had his hands cuffed behind him.

That's what surprised her, seeing Mercer with his hands free. His right hand hiked up his pants leg while Orr concentrated on applying himself to Molly's slavering mouth. He took something silver out of his sock and jabbed it into Orr's chest. When he whipped the object back for a second strike, Nova saw a blade coated in blood before it stabbed Orr in the heart again. She'd known about the handcuffs, known about Mercer's pistol, but she'd not known a thing about a knife. It thrust into Orr's chest a third time.

Molly continued to suck, oblivious of the mayhem unfolding inches above her bobbing head. Once Reginald Orr slumped dead Molly made a miraculous recovery. She saw Orr, saw her uncle, glanced down at her nudity and screeched, frantically covering her private parts with her hands. Nova regained a clarity of vision when Orr died, his spell on her dying with him.

Few people in the room noticed Mercer go about his grisly business, he accomplished it in such economical fashion. The various men grouped around Nova reacted when the man in the suit who'd handcuffed her shouted, everyone looked toward the loveseat. The man who cried out rushed Mercer as he distanced Molly from the deceased, another man in a suit hot on his heels, incoming. A pair of handcuffs flashed on Mercer's left wrist as he whirled to meet their attack and a flurry of violence erupted, all three men flailing their arms, punching, kicking, snarling.

The door opened from the corridor. Sammy Baldwin stumbled into the room. Crowding the doorway behind him ranged a group of men with gold badges hanging from their breast pockets or on lanyards around their necks. Nova saw Lieutenant Morris of the S.I.D. first, then several others she knew, some she wished she didn't.

The lieutenant bellowed, "Police!" and let the occupants of the suite know they were under arrest. The men stopped fighting with Mercer and asked on what charges.

"Murder, rape, pandering, to name a few. They'll read you the whole list at the precinct." Morris said to the detectives: "All right, get these scumbags out of here."

Two minutes later the only people in the room besides police officers were Nova, Molly and Mercer. And Orr's corpse, a bright red splotch or two staining his shirt, vampires didn't bleed much. One of the cops had pitched Molly a blanket and she put her clothes on under it, but Nova still crouched handcuffed on the floor.

"'Bout time you got here, lieutenant," she said, come dripping off her cheeks and chin onto her tits. Globs oozed out of Nova's widespread asshole and open-mouthed pussy too, adding to the puddles on the carpet under her.

"Looks like you enjoyed yourself at any rate, Babyface."

"Babyface?" exclaimed Mercer.

"That's right," said Lieutenant Morris said, "Nova 'Babyface' Nobarro, L.A. Vice."

Molly perked up, "She may look like a teenager fresh out of the convent. But she's never set a foot inside one and she's twenty four years old."

Nova yapped at her, "How many times have I asked you not to tell people how old I am? I'm eighteen."

Molly gave a bark of laugher. "Back in 2003 maybe."

"It would never have happened if your uncle hadn't gotten me so hot and bothered last night."

"But you love your job and give it your all," the lieutenant said drolly.

Mercer turned to Molly, "So after I discouraged you from joining S.T.A.L.K. you took another dangerous job, undercover vice."

"But a girl can't make a living writing entertainment features alone, Uncle Clive, she needs a second income." She covered a laugh with her hand.

"What's the gag?" Mercer wanted to know.

"We had to keep it from you, Uncle Clive, that Nova and I are on the vice squad. The L.A.P.D. just stung Sammy Baldwin's ass good. Lieutenant, did you get them on white slavery?"

Morris' face creased like crumpled paper. "White slavery might not hold up, but murder will, and conspiracy to commit. Most of them will lawyer up, but we'll net a few big fish."

Molly asked, "Do the murder charges stem from the hit and run last night?"

"No, but the security men's spontaneous information to your uncle got us a driver's name and a make and model of the car. The D.A.'s office filed suspicion of murder charges on Reginald Orr late today after a citizen reported a dog roaming around a dump with a human head. It used to belong to Nikki Nookie and gave us a reason to finally move on Sammy Baldwin and company. A lot is circumstantial until the DNA results are in."

Babyface groused, "Would you mind getting the keys to these handcuffs from the guys in the hallway before they all get on the elevator?"

A cop wrapped a sheet around Nova to hide her nakedness. She watched Mercer hustle out of the suite and into the corridor. Seconds later he returned with the key to unlock the handcuffs holding her. After he opened the manacles on her wrists he went to collect his chrome pistol off a table by the wall. Not one of the Supernatural Investigation Department detectives hassled him. Nova knew since the operation began they'd wanted an expert like Mercer to deal with any vampires involved, real or imagined. Molly had told the department she could entice her uncle to America, that he was capable of taking down the most dangerous of vampires. And Mercer lived up to Molly's boast. He'd killed a powerful incubus both the local authorities and S.T.A.L.K. wanted dead.

No more Reginald Orr, vampire-at-large.

Nova's hands went to the crucifix Mercer bought her. "The cross didn't repel Orr the way I thought it would, only singed his fingers."

"Reggie was over a hundred years old, quite powerful, and doubtless with a high tolerance to bounty hunters' tools of the trade. S.T.A.L.K. suspected he was an incubus. You two girls confirmed it, Reggie ruled your sexual energy, and Molly's. I compliment you on the way you combated his vampiric trance, well done."

"Orr didn't control me a hundred per cent. Or as much as he did Molly. I got away with a few lies like the convent and my age, but he still controlled too much."

"Seems to me you resisted well," he said, a twinkle in his blue eyes.

She was unsure which way to interpret his double-edged statement, encouraging or facetious. Instead she asked him, "How'd you get out of the handcuffs they had clamped on you anyway?"

"Goes back to my escape artist days. Fortunately Houdini wasn't the only man who could dislocate his bones to shrug off ropes and bracelets. I've kept in practice."

"You mentioned that, Clive, but you didn't mention a damn thing about the knife in your sock."

"Leg sheath actually," he said. "I'm not the only person in this room however who doesn't tell anybody everything."

"That figures, knowing you." She stuck her tongue out at him. "I didn't withhold much from you."

"Neither did I, Nova. What's a dagger or two among friends anyway?"

She knew Mercer acted jocular but wondered what he thought of her after tonight's antics. Did the pleasure she derived from her many partners and her wild abandon, hypnotized or not, appall him or turn him on? Seeing her wallow around like a slut had gotten him hard. She figured Molly had nothing to do with it, Mercer turned his head when Orr displayed his niece's body, and looked ill whenever the man laid a hand on her.

Nova never got to ask him whether he loathed her now or lusted after her with a whole new outlook; most of the night S.I.D. debriefed him in a separate room from Molly and her.

~~~~~~~~~

Early Saturday afternoon at the La Quinta, Mercer said his goodbyes to Molly and Nova. Nova glowed like only a beautiful woman can after a long night of sex. He forced his eyes off her.

"You're leaving, Uncle Clive? All ready?"

"Yes. Got a debriefing in Prague and the mountain of paperwork that comes with it."

"Surely you don't have to fly out today, you were up all night."

"It would be best, I've a lot on me plate with this Reggie kill."

"You know that can wait."

"I don't like unfinished business. My flight's in two hours."

"Well, at least let us drive you to the airport."

"Wouldn't dream of bothering you. The cab'll be right round." He cursed himself for a bastard. Molly's eyes saddened when he told her; he didn't hazard a glance at Nova.

After a protracted pause Molly asked, "Are you disappointed in me, Uncle Clive?"

"For being a vice cop?"

"I don't mean that, I mean what happened last night with that vampire and me. Do you think I'm a . . . . slut?"

"Lord, no, Molly. You were under a spell. I wished I could've prevented it, but reality isn't like a movie. Everyone survived at least, minus some wear and tear. You're all right, aren't you?"

"I'll get over it. My virginity was history years ago so the Kirkbride wasn't that traumatic. I don't remember much anyway."

"You put my mind at ease. I really must be going now."

"What are you rushing off for?"

"Things to do, S.T.A.L.K. begrudges any sleep I get."

"That is so not the reason."

"I love you, Molly," was all he knew to say.

"I love you too," she hugged him and kissed his cheek.

Before she got to the connecting room Mercer saw tears in her eyes. The door slammed. Bastard, he thought.

He said to Nova, "Talk to her for me, would you."

"I'll do what I can. Can't you at least stay for the last night of the Halloween Film Festival?"

"I got what I came for."

"You didn't get everything." Nova stared down at her shoes. "You didn't get me."

"Maybe that's why I'm leaving. Before I do something we both might regret with time." The thought of what he had watched those girls go through pained him. Or was it that? Maybe something he couldn't admit put him in a foul mood. Perhaps what really pained him was how aroused he'd become seeing Nova getting it. Shame burned in his gut and she burned like a bright light. Mercer was a moth to her flame. He could've fallen for her if he'd let himself. But knowing what he knew about her now, and himself, he was glad he hadn't. A horn honked outside. Mercer glanced through the window. "My transportation has arrived. Be seeing you."

Nova asked, "So you're outta here, just like that?"

"Would you want me hanging around?" he asked knowing the answer.

"We could book a room for the weekend, just the two of us. Molly thinks you're leaving anyway. I can keep a secret."

How many other secrets are you keeping, darling, wondered Mercer and immediately felt worse than he already did. He realized he'd never love a woman he couldn't trust, one like Nova Nobarro. He saw it in her eyes, she knew it too.

He looked at the carpet, his teeth chewing the inside of his cheek. After a minute he said, "Maybe our paths will cross one of these days."

"Yeah, maybe one of these days," she said, flippant. "Why not today?"

"One of these days," he repeated. For her sake, hopefully not.

Was he still in denial? Maybe he meant for his sake. He may not be able to respect her, but he had to respect himself. What a laugh riot! What had she called him the other night? Sanctimonious? How right she'd been. Add judgmental to the list. The girl had had a good time with all those men, too good a time. Why should that trouble him? He didn't know the answer and wasn't sure he wanted to.

The cab honked again.

Mercer picked his Halliburtons off the floor and Nova opened the motel door for him. He set the suitcases down and extracted a twenty dollar bill from his wallet, pressed it into her hand.

"What the hell's this for?" she asked.

"Give that to Molly and tell her it came from you. Personally, I say you earned it."