The Angry Flame

By Divamercury

Insert standard disclaimer here.

Thoughts are in these ' things.

Enjoy! And please, please review!

Chapter 1

Lately Jake and I had been working a case about dancers at a club called the Angry Flame. Three of them, on separate occasions, had vanished from the club and turned up brutally murdered a few days later. The common denominators in the case were that the three victims had all been stabbed in similar places and then strangled to death.

"So, checking out the Angry Flame murders, huh?" Jake asked as I sat down at my desk to begin the workday.

"Yep. This is the biggest open case we've got right now," I said. "Better get started on it." I opened the file to read the new info, not expecting to find too much, and a memo to me from Dante dropped out. I scanned it, and my eyes widened. I crushed it in an angry fist. This time I was glad I was damaging a worthless piece of paper as opposed to something expensive that would have to come out of my paycheck. Like my office. Although the most I was ever nailed for were a few panes of glass once, but that wasn't the point.

I got out of my seat and stormed to the door, flinging it open and savoring the crash as it banged against the opposite wall. (Hey, if I couldn't break anything, what's the harm in making some noise?) I heard a nervous "Pez?" from Jake behind me as I left the room. I had to get away from him so I wouldn't accidentally kill him.

I practically threw the door to Dante's office open and stormed in. Dante, perched at his desk, acted as if this was completely normal.

"What the hell is this?" I asked, throwing the memo at him. He smoothed it out on his desk and glanced at it.

"Oh, yes, Petzini. This is your assignment."

I winced. He always threw in a "t" in my name whenever he said it, and there was no "t" in "Pezzini." I think he just did it to piss me off.

"You really expect me to do this?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"If you want this case to be solved. But, we don't have to worry about it if you don't want to. We'll just put it in the unsolved file, just like they did with your friend, Maria I think it was?"

My eyes narrowed. Yeah, it was Maria, my best friend, and that really struck a nerve. If I hadn't been in a building swarming with cops, and if I hadn't realized the fact that he wasn't worth getting a life prison term over, the Witchblade would have had him for breakfast for saying that. Speaking of which, the aforementioned weapon was glowing on my wrist in its bracelet form. Thankfully my sleeve was pulled down over it. But because of the situation—

"You have no right to mention that. You have no idea what you're talking about," I snarled. That was all I could do without getting in way too much trouble that was logical to deal with.

"But you can't do that," he mused, ignoring my previous comment. "You have a weakness for helping out poor, destitute prostitutes."

I got up to leave. I couldn't take any more of this shit.

"I'm solving this case, Captain, and I don't care what it takes or what you say." I was almost at the door when Dante said, "Oh, and I wouldn't mention this to McCartey, Petzini. You know how much trouble he'd have digesting it. Let's just keep this between us, shall we? Dismissed."

I ignored him and left, deciding not to tell Jake not because of what Dante said, but that it would be really embarrassing to tell Jake I'd be going undercover at a "gentlemen's club." He'd want to be my bouncer or something, and I couldn't deal with that. I decided not to let anyone know about this. It was just too degrading. Plus, I'd never live it down if the guys at the office got wind of it.

When I arrived back in my office, there was a Batman Pez dispenser lying across the file folder on my desk. I couldn't help smiling.

"Ha ha, Jake."

"Just thought you needed some sugar to brighten your morning, Pez," he said from beyond his own tower of files.

"I think you're right. This has been one crazy morning," I said, grabbing the dispenser and popping two candies in my mouth at once. I stuck Batman in the pocket of my jeans and snagged my helmet off my desk.

"Hey, where're you going?"

"Out."

"Does Dante know? He'll have your hide—again—if you go AWOL."

"He knows. I'll be back in about half an hour."

"Man, he knows, and he's letting you do something? I thought he hated you."

"He does. More like forcing me to do something, though. What I have to do won't exactly go into my book under "Fun."

"You want me to come?"

"No thanks. It's no big deal."

I left the precinct and mounted my motorcycle, speeding out onto the road. I didn't stop until I reached a large, relatively ordinary cement building. The sign over the door read, "The Angry Flame, Gentlemen's Club." A huge—what else—flame was painted over the words, which were lettered in white capitals. I rubbed the Witchblade absently, then took a deep breath and walked inside, furious at Dante for making me do what I was about to do.

The club was enormous, much bigger than it seemed to be from the outside. The bar alone stretched along one entire wall, corner to corner, and was stocked with every kind of alcoholic beverage imaginable. Obviously they were closed, since it was so early in the day, only 9:00 AM, but there was a guy sitting at a table in the corner. He was practically buried in a mound of papers. I approached him.

"We're closed," he said immediately.

"No, really? I hadn't noticed," I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm looking for a job, not a drink."

He finally looked up. I didn't react as I felt his eyes scanning me. He seemed satisfied.

"Name?" he asked.

"Sara Pezzini."

"Stage name?"

"Uh" Damn. I hadn't thought of that. Now I was just standing there like an idiot while my thoughts were buzzing around like angry bees in a hive. Jeez, Jake would go into overdrive if he knew what I was doing, Danny will give me the biggest tongue-lashing, even from beyond the grave, Dad is probably turning over in his gravewait a sec. Overdrive. I guess that'll have to do,' I thought.

"Overdrive," I told him.

"Age?"

I gave him a Look. He shrugged.

"Can't have employees that are underage," he said.

"Do I look underage to you?" I asked. He shrugged. Jeez, I can't believe I'm even answering this,' I thought. I pulled out my driver's license, which stated my age. (Yeah, like I'm going to tell you my age.)

"Okay, Ms. Pezzini. You start tonight. Be here by 9, and be ready to go on at 9:30."

"Sure. And you are?"

"Jack Newman. The talent scout. And your boss."

"Okay, great." We negotiated the pay, both getting what we wanted.

"Well, see you tonight, Overdrive," Jack said. I returned with a smile so phony that the Secret Service would be all over me for counterfeiting if they knew about it.

I left the Angry Flame ready to kill someone. I managed to calm down after I'd snagged another espresso when I got back to the precinct.

"Did ya miss me, Jake?" I asked when I sat back down at my desk.

"Oh, yeah. You bet. Tons," Jake said absently. I shrugged, taking what I could get. That early in the morning Jake was usually in his own little world and didn't leave it until lunch. That, naturally, was when he pounced on the subject of where I'd gone.

"Sorry, Jake, but that's my business."

"Pez, I'm supposed to be your partner. Your backup. How can I do that if I don't know what you're doing half the time?"

"I'd love your help, really I would, but this is my business. I'm sorry, Jake, but you just can't help me with this one."

I finished my lunch and went back to the office, feeling terrible for totally shutting him out. We didn't say much to each other for the rest of the day. Danny Woo, my former partner at the precinct before he was killed—right in front of me—was giving me furious glances from the corner; he was mad about the whole Angry Flame thing and the way I'd treated Jake, which surprised me because he had always seemed to dislike Jake. I just glared back at him with a look that said, "I can't help doing what I'm doing. I have no choice." He didn't seem to believe it, but accepted it as best he could. It wasn't like there was anything he could do about it.