The Vance Venture Ch. 05

When he felt her release his spent sperm thrower, flicking her tongue over the tip in farewell, Jack opened his eyes and stood up straight. Before him, as he knew she would be, was Alicia, shaking out her long blond tresses as she rose from her knees. She smiled sexily as she dabbed his jism from her face and licked it off her finger, eyeing him with her playful green eyes. He wondered if she knew what he had seen.

"Nice shooting, Mr. Action," she teased as she captured a trickle slowly making its way down her breast. She lifted her finger to her mouth and sucked it clean.

Jack laughed, a smile breaking out on his face. His breathing was returning to normal, and he felt clear-headed. He glanced at Alex—the real Alexandra—to see her smiling at him in silence, obviously pleased with herself. Jack's smile broadened as he turned back to the talented Alicia.

"That was wonderful," he breathed. "Thank you."

Alicia only nodded, and then demurely turned back to the elevator's panel and resumed their upward motion with a button press. Jack pulled up his pants and fastened them as both wondrous women watched.

The elevator doors opened once more on the elegant lobby, and the thumping music could once more be heard, as well as felt, from the club beyond. Jack and Alexandra exited the lift, but of course Alicia remained, smiling provocatively as the doors sealed on her, the elevator whisking her away to her next encounter of the evening.

"I shall visit your office tomorrow evening," Alex said before they reached the heavy steel door leading back out to the club proper, "so you can fill me in on your plans."

She stopped at the exit, and Jack took her hand and turned her to him. He leaned in and put his lips to hers, feeling the press of her prominent fangs beneath the cool skin of her lip. She would need little filling in and they both knew it, but Jack was planning the pre-op meeting for tomorrow night, where everyone else would be getting their details. Seemed Alex already knew that.

"Until tomorrow night, then," Jack said after their kiss broke.

"Good evening, Jack."

She smiled before turning to precede him through the door into the club, and though he was right behind her as they passed the threshold, could have caressed her lace-covered ass had he but lifted his hand an inch, could still smell her hair as he followed, when the door shut behind him she was gone. Jack glanced around to be sure, but did not expect to see her anywhere.

He was not disappointed. She pulled shit like that all the time.

The ocean of writhing and dancing people parted briefly before him, so he dove in and allowed it to carry him away on its current. He tried slowly working his way toward the other side of the floor, toward the main entrance, but the flow of people seemed always against him. He had no wish to dance and grind the night away in this intoxicating realm of flesh and leather, inviting though that thought always was, so finally he scanned the nearest wall for an exit and plunged toward it. It was another heavy steel door, and when he finally reached it and threw it open, he found an empty alley outside the old warehouse. He jumped down and threw the door shut behind him, sealing off some of the electronica, but not softening its pulse through the wall.

Jack looked the alley up and down, recognizing it as the opposite side of the massive building from the parking lot where his Porsche was at rest. He sighed, shaking his head, and began the long walk around the front of the building. It would still be faster than fighting his way back through the crowd.

When he turned the corner at the front of the building, he could see, still some distance along the wall, the front door of the place, oddly unmanned. His brows knit together in puzzlement as he continued to approach the main entrance, where always stood sentinel some sort of bouncer. Tonight's version had been a wiry leather-bound fellow toting nightsticks, yet now he saw no sign of the man.

When he was twenty feet away, both heavy steel doors burst open and a flailing young man in dark red leather chaps and vest hurtled through the air and crashed to the ground ten feet clear of the doorway. Following him, walking solidly and sternly, came the muscular Amazon from the coat check, brushing her hands off as though ridding them of some dusty filth. She stopped just outside, glaring with simmering hostility at the bounced fellow as he picked himself up from the asphalt. He was bruised and scratched, but looked otherwise unhurt.

Beside the Amazon emerged the doorman with the nightsticks, his leather mask painted into the horrific face of a demon. His gloved fingers worked his weapons of choice expertly, spinning the black bludgeons with effortless grace as he stepped out past the tall blonde. The sinister visage on his mask glared menacingly at its prey.

Jack stopped and leaned against the wall to watch as the young man picked himself up and looked hotly from the Amazon to Nightsticks.

"What the fuck's wrong with you? I ain't done nothing!"

He took a step back from the curse in black leather as Nightsticks took a step toward him.

"What? You want something fucker?" His words were severe, but even from the shadows twenty feet away Jack could see his eyes lacked the courage of his convictions.

Nightsticks lunged forward, an obvious feint, but the young fellow threw a punch at him anyway. The leather demon was crouched lightning quick, and as the fellow's right arm swung uselessly through the air over his head, Nightsticks spun, delivering a flurry of blows to the poor man's undefended midsection. They fell so fast Jack was unable to count the hits exactly, but the blunt ends of those sticks hammered machine gun quick into the man's stomach and ribs at least a dozen times in a heartbeat. The fool in red buckled under the severity of the blows, crumpling like dead weight to the ground beside his assailant.

"That's enough," came a pleasant, but firm voice, halting Nightsticks as he lifted one of his weapons to strike again. The doorman stood back, his mask lifting, and as Jack followed the demon's gaze he found Alexandra, approaching from the shadows of the street as though she were out for a midnight stroll. She remained clad only in her transparent lace body stocking, her pale skin aglow under the moonlight.

The raven-haired beauty glided to the fallen man as he struggled to stand, catching his throat in her grasp and lifting him erect with ease, as though he were nothing more than a rag doll. He gasped as he looked into her face, and any struggle he might have attempted was stilled.

"I see you know my face," Alexandra purred, no doubt reading more than just the poor guy's expression, "and yet you still presume to peddle your poison in my house."

The young man's lip was quavering in fear. It seemed he did know her.

"I didn't mean—I just wanted—I work for—"

"Shhh," Alexandra cooed soothingly into his ear as she pulled him close, tightening her grip on his windpipe to still his words. "I know. You work for forgetful people. Together, we will remind them. You will be my message." Then her voice turned to ice as she whispered, "They will listen to you."

She held him closer, drawing his head to her shoulder, embracing him consolingly though her hand kept firm clutch on his throat. She looked over the doomed man's shoulder at Jack, her eyes ruthless and eager, and smiled. Her vampiric fangs shone under the light of the nearly full moon, opalescent daggers wreathed in black lipstick.

Then she leapt into the air and vanished into the night, along with her victim in red leather.

Nightsticks and the Amazon surveyed the area before turning back to their work, neither of them taking any interest in Jack. The tall blond stalked back inside, closing the heavy steel doors behind her with a clang, and the man in black resumed his predatory perch beside the door, like a vulture waiting for something else to die. Jack walked stoically past and the rest of the way around the building to find his car.

As he eased the Porsche out onto the street, his foot steady on the pedal, he was reminded of that old adage: take care when you work with monsters, not to yourself become a monster. Some days he wondered how he was doing.