Chapter 10

"What do you think of our establishment?"

Angela had to think quickly if she was going to avoid being kicked out or worse. She replied, "It is interesting. I've never been in a place like this but I have seen boxing matches." It was weak but it was something.

"Boxing is nothing. Surely you have seen the previous fights?" Radomski looked quizzically at Angela as he handed her a glass of champagne.

Angela held the drink and wished that she didn't have it. She didn't want a drink but it was rude not to accept. Luckily Edward cut in, "It's her first time."

"Most definitely," Angela replied latching onto that. "I've never seen a fight like this before. Are those talents real?"

"Most assuredly my dear," Jade replied with a slow smile as she took a sip of her champagne. "These combatants have talents that are very well hidden from the world." She motioned for them to look through the viewing window. "Come and be prepared to see what I mean."

Edward tugged gently on Angela's hand and led her towards the viewing window. Angela allowed herself to be led even though she wasn't sure she wanted to see it with an unobstructed view. She had seen such brutally before and that was in the name of survival. Granted that the things she tore apart were not human, it still wreaked havoc on her moral sensibility.

It wasn't too bad in terms of the height. If it involved a contact sport like football, she would have been more receptive. Skybox views were often pretty impressive. As if were, she had a full unobstructed view of the ring. The blood had been cleaned up and fresh sand had been laid down on the ground to absorb and spilled body fluids. "Very impressive. You can see the whole room from up here," she commented.

Jade made a hum as she took a sip of her champagne. "It's one of my guilty pleasures. I love having to look down on the world and see everything."

"So nothing gets by you," Angela replied. She pretended to take a sip of champagne. The mojito had been enough and it was a bad one. Then again once you went Cuban on the drinks, it was no contest. "You can see the whole world and then determine if someone is misbehaving like that fellow who is trying to skim your bidding box." She motioned to a portion of the room.

Jade moved over to take a look. She made a look that indicated that she was impressed. "You're very good. Radomski, you know what to do."

Radomski nodded and put down his flute and went towards the door. Jade smiled at Angela and Edward. "Edward, darling, you truly have found a treasure. Beauty as well as intelligence as far as I can tell."

Angela didn't like the look that she was getting from Jade. She looked over at Edward who replied, "I have good taste." He gave a slight smile to indicate that he had some pride in his abilities.

Jade smiled back at Edward, "You most certainly do." She then directed her attention towards Angela, "So tell me dear, how is it that you are interested in this particular sport?"

Angela figured that she was being sized up. There was something about this Jade that made her feel on edge and it just wasn't the fact that she was in charge of this thing. She could have lied but decided to put a bit of truth in it, "I actually am an art student. I do mostly paintings and I have a fascination of humanoid forms. Once I painted something for an eccentric who wanted aliens and allowed me to be creative."

"An artist?" Jade raised her brow. "That sounds like an interesting profession. What do you hope to see in this venue?"

"The human body is art in of itself. To see the intricacies that musculature makes under pressure of different stimuli, it is a work of art." Angela knew she was bullshitting her way through this. Yet she was expressing her thoughts on the human body when it came to performing the feats it could do with a bit of training and the like.

"Fascinating," Jade replied. "I take it that you know a few things about what can cause certain things to stop functioning?"

"I took life drawing," Angela replied as she studied Jade. She had the most perfect poker face she had ever used as she looked at Jade. "Mostly it was the female figure and there were certain things about modesty."

"I would think so," Jade replied with a smile. She turned towards the window. "Ah it looks like they are just about to get started." She gave a slight look, "At least the Hunter put up a good show though I will have to make sure Lizard Man remembers what he is doing."

Edward said, "Well he can handle it. He has what? Eighteen kills?"

"Eighteen," Jade verified. "Then he is free from his contract. That is fine though since I have two new acquisitions. The first is fighting tonight. The second may be on tomorrow and this is a first: it is a woman."

"Really?" Edward was intrigued by that. "You found a woman willing to go against these guys?"

Jade smiled that seductive smile of hers. "Oh she will be." She then looked at Angela who had been looking around. She then shouted off in the distance.

Suddenly there burst in Radomski with another guy. Angela took in the situation and saw that Jade and Edward were looking at her like the cat that caught the canary. She narrowed her eyes and looked at Jade, "Very clever in using a human."

Jade gave a hum and a laugh, "Of course. I use all available resources. You are rather a hard catch."

Angela gave a slight grin as her muscles tensed. This was like being back at the Old Man's compound when she went on a food strike for a couple of days knowing that her energy would be flagging but it was part of an escape attempt. "Well I have a lot of people say that about me. They even say that I am hard to kill."

"Good then your time here will make us all the more profit," Jade replied. She glanced at her men. "Take her."

The first one to try and grab her got a fist in the face that was lightning fast. It allowed for Angela to back away into a slightly more advantageous position. Her escape route though was severely limited. It was either go out the window or through the door. The window would bring unwanted attention and the door was blocked by Radomski and his now nose bleeding henchmen.

The next attempt was from Radomski as he lunged at her. She side stepped and slapped her hands on his back to push him into the wall. That left her free to fend off the other guy who led off with trying to get a punch or two in. She blocked with her limbs and her body to bring the guy in close for her to deliver a hard kick that sent him flying into a lacquered table that was probably very expensive. Angela didn't care since Radomski was on his feet and she dispatched him like the other. That left her free to get away after countering Jade's little throwing trick that demons liked to do.

Jade got herself up and marveled at the dhampir's ability to counter her move. She had heard rumors of a hunter who could resist the demon's power and currently is on the watch list but that hunter was human. This was different. She looked at Edward who was dusting himself off and said, "Do what you have to and restrain her. Make sure that she's alive and relatively unharmed."

Edward nodded before exiting the room. It had been a perfect plan and it was working so perfectly when he spotted her. Now he had to go on a chase. That was just perfect.

Meanwhile Angela followed the way they took until her way was blocked by one of the guards. His eyes flickered black. Great, a demon and probably that Jade bitch is one too. Angela made a slight face as she looked forward and behind her. She had Radomski and his goons at her back and this guy at her front. It was a classic pincer movement but not taking into account the target… at least that was what it looked like.

Angela glanced back and forth and making a decision, she charged forward and gave a slight yell. With momentum, she ran up the side of the wall and pushed off to land a hard kick to the goon in front of her. As she landed, she sprinted forward and through the door and into the crowd. She only had a few seconds and the most she would have was a minute. She pulled out her cell phone and started typing a message.

At that moment, Jade was at the view window. While it did give an unobstructed view of the ring, it gave her a good view of the crowd. She figured that the dhampir would try to hide and make her way out. She scanned the crowd, ignoring the potential meat suits as well as patrons of the venue and focused on looking for the girl. She finally found her pretending to look at something and said into the microphone, "She's over by betting table 4."

Angela had finished what she was doing and was making her way through the crowd. She ended up near one of the tables to place a bet. In a deft move, she picked up a slip pretending to be interested in reading about the fighters as she made her way to a door. It wasn't the door she came in and it wasn't back to Jade so it could be a back door. It had a sign that said 'exit' on it.

It wasn't hard to spot Radomski making a beeline towards her. Angela moved faster and ducked into a crowd of people by pretending she dropped something and started moving. She came back up when she was closer to the door and noticed people coming in and some leaving. So it was a back door. She headed for it.

It was almost too easy to slip by and she was out the door after giving a polite smile to the guy at the door. It was too much to hope that he didn't get the message. Apparently he did and once the other patrons were in, he made a move to grab her. She prevented it by blocking his meaty arms and pushed him back with her palms with all her strength.

He slammed into the door with a thud but that didn't mean that he was down. He gave an inhuman growl and morphed a little, showing an interesting set of teeth and a spiny fin face. Okay, that was something never seen before. It was gone instantly as he moved forward to take a swing at her with a meaty fist.

Angela blocked with an open palm and grabbed the wrist and bent it at an odd angle and twisted. With her other hand she gave a hard punch to the face that brought him to his knees in combination with the arm twist. She then delivered a kick to his unprotected side and released. He was down and she took off down the alley but she wasn't home free yet.

"You know when they said you reacted I didn't have much faith since you're a woman. Now that little display…" Radomski looked at Angela with a smile of anticipation and his eyes changed to black. "Show me what you're made of."

Angela stared at Radomski with a slightly raised brow. It had dawned on her that she was what they had been after in the alleyway earlier. They used Dana to track her. She didn't move until Radomski made the first move and tried to hit her with a punch. She countered but he was good. It was an exchange of blows and both sides came away with a few good hits. The last one had Angela pushing Radomski away with a hard palm thrust and he was rammed into the wall. Angela wiped the blood that had flowed from the cut on her lip and wiped it on her pants.

"Very good. What else have you got?" Radomski grinned as he let loose his power and attempted to shove her back.

Angela countered by using her own abilities and it overpowered the demon's and it pinned him to the wall. She looked at him and said, "You are poison." Raising her hand, she channeled her healing abilities and began to draw out the demon. Her hand was glowing like it did when she healed the abrasions on Dean's hands and she made a pulling motion as if to pull the demon out.

Radomski was choking or it felt like he was choking as he was being pulled from his meat. This bitch was trying to exorcise him. He was saved though when she collapsed with a dart sticking out of her neck. He turned to see Edward coming out of the shadows with a small tranquilizer gun as he slid to the ground. "Nice timing meat."

Edward looked at the unconscious woman on the ground with a bland expression. "Pity. She is a beauty."

"I'm blaming you for this."

"What did I do?" Sam looked at his brother incredulously as they walked through the streets trying to find their missing profiler.

"For shoving her out the door and back on her own," Dean replied knowing that he was being unreasonable with this. "I warned you she was a baby."

Sam resisted the eye roll that threatened. "Dean, she can handle herself and as she has pointed out hundreds of times, she's been hunting since before we were born."

Dean really couldn't say anything about that since it was true. Even Bobby knew that but that didn't mean that he still didn't try to boss her around. He still managed to say, "It's still your fault."

Sam gave up. Dean was going to be like this no matter what and he did have to agree that it was warranted. He admitted he could have done better in keeping an eye out for her for those two months but she was a hunter. "Dean, you meant more along the lines of emotions," he finally said.

"House rules change Sam," Dean replied as he looked around at the joint they were at.

"What? You make her rule number whatever?"

"Hey don't diss the rules," Dean replied with a warning finger.

They had gotten the phone call from Angela telling them about a lead and it was surprise that it was the girl who filed the missing person's report. It really shouldn't have been a surprise since they both knew that she was good at playing detective and she seemed to actually like pounding the pavement for answers on this case. It was surprising since they happened to be discussing it at the time. The other surprise was the fact that their girl was a witch and she was dating one of those wolf people.

Angela told them that they were going back to where they had been attacked just to see if she could pick up anything. Even Dean had been somewhat agreeable to that since they were still trying to narrow it down by going over all the locations and looking into possible places nearby.

It turned out that their witch Dana knew how to do a locator spell and did it for them but it was still a big area. Like other times, they went over to her apartment only to find that the girl Dana was there pacing in worry with her access ways lined with salt and no Angela. That had Dean ready to cuss that she had taken off to chase a lead.

Now they were following the list of places that Dana said might be a place. It was a surprise to Sam that they were popular places for people to hang out of and it made him wonder if that was how they chose their targets. Most things had a meat suit and could blend in. So it had to be something that made them stand out that was more obvious than a retina flare. Sam may not be showing it as readily as Dean's agitation indicated but he was worried.

The fact that they had missed her at the apartment gave rise to a warning tick that just wouldn't go away. Sam had learned to trust his gut instinct from Dean and he had a bad feeling about this whole thing. He had the nagging feeling that she could be walking into trouble.

"Why are all these places douche clubs?" Dean looked around in agitation.

Sam looked at the list that they had. So far the list of places they had gone to were those places that would be ideal for Dean to pick up women. "They're good places for you to pick up your usual," he muttered as he studied the list.

Dean looked at his brother and replied, "I prefer real women."

"You like anything that responds to your idea of flirting." Sam didn't pay too much attention to what he was saying since he had a thought and he wondered if that was what Angela saw too when Dana gave her the area to search.

"Oh and I'm sure walks on the beach and kittens are your idea of flirting." Dean looked around annoyed and shot a death look to a guy that was obviously drunk and had bumped into him. He wasn't in the mood for douchebags. He did notice though that a lot of the places they went to had a back alleyway.

"I think I figured it out."

"Figured out what?"

"Why all the clubs and places people hang out," Sam replied prompting his brother. "Look we thought that maybe a place like this would be in a dump like an old warehouse and they usually are right?"

"Yeah. What are you getting at?"

"Those kinds of places are obvious. Angie figured out that it could be in a not so obvious place."

Dean gave a look that said his brother was crazy but he was willing to buy what he just said. "Thinking outside the box thing she does when she wants to see us look like idiots?"

Sam made a slight face since that was true when she was amusing herself. "Yeah that kind of thinking. The point is a club would be a perfect place to hide a racket like this."

"I hate to break it to ya Sam but I would think someone would have noticed if a couple of monsters were duking it out in public."

"Not if the club is used as a front," Sam countered. "Think about it Dean. A fighting ring costs money like everything else even if it is underground. The club provides a legitimate front and a place, probably a back room or something like that as well as funds. The rest like the betting is gravy."

Dean did think about it some. "Sounds like a mob thing."

"It's not just a mob thing. Basic white collar crime," Sam replied. "Angie figured that the reason the usual didn't work was because of well the unusual." He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders feeling that his ending was lame.

"I see your point Sam but we're still left with a problem. Which one the hell is it?" Dean almost shouted the last part mostly out of frustration. He had the why on the addresses that they were given but that still didn't give them the where.

"I'm guessing that's why she left to pound the pavement," Sam offered.

Dean made a snort. "Wish we had the mutt. He would find her."

"Then call for him if you can," Sam replied, "Since you need something to do."

"Sam."

"No Dean, you've been acting like an ass since we started looking for her. I get that you're worried. I am too. Just shouting at everybody doesn't help a damn bit," Sam countered.

Dean was about to answer when he heard his cell phone beep. He looked at Sam and Sam frowned as his beeped too. They both pulled out their cell phones to find a text message. Sam looked at Dean and said, "See? She's careful."

Dean would have answered right away but he had opened the text message and read what she had sent. He then said, "Oh yeah?"

Sam took that to mean that he was look at what had been sent to him. He frowned at it as Dean read out loud, "Found the place." He looked up at Sam and asked, "That's it? Nothing else?"

Sam peered at his message, "Um I think she sent it to me. FC3?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Can't you send a damn text right?"

"She knows how. Something must have happened and she wrote what she could but on the run. She probably didn't even realize what she was doing," Sam reasoned out even though it sounded feeble in his ears.

Dean had started walking trying hard not to shout or anything. Sam was probably right. She more likely was scouting out the place and someone got suspicious. Looking at Sam though, he could tell that it wasn't completely all right. He looked up her number and dialed.

The phone rang and Dean tried not to lose his patience since it was almost time for it to go to voicemail. It was when they were passing an alley that Sam heard it ring. He stopped when he heard it… at least he thought he heard it and paused. When it didn't ring again Sam looked up to see Dean make a face indicating he got her voicemail. An idea occurred to him. "Dean, call her again."

"Sam, she's not answering and I'm not leaving a voicemail," Dean replied in a near exasperated tone.

"Just humor me Dean," Sam replied motioning with his hand to ease the tension. He turned to look down the alleyway.

Dean made an 'oh well' look and muttered, "Fine." He dialed her number again.

Sam listened as he watched Dean dial. He then heard the ring and raised his head. He knew he heard it and started following the sound into the alleyway. He walked slowly and stopped when he couldn't hear it anymore. "Dean, do it again."

Dean gave a puzzled frown when Sam went into the alley and followed. He got the voicemail again and said to Sam's request, "What for?"

The bitch face was enough and Dean dialed again after rolling his eyes. This time he heard the ring and he looked a Sam who was already moving towards the sound. He made a slight face at the fact that Sam was moving a couple of garbage bags aside but that was a moot point when Sam came up victorious with the phone. He had to ask, "That it?"

"Yeah." Sam flipped it open to take a look at anything that might have been left behind. He found what he was looking for and motioned for Dean to come over. "Dean, check this out."

Dean leaned over to peer at the phone. He then gave a slight grin, "Clever girl… but you're still in big trouble."

A/N: Uh oh looks like Angie got caught and Sam and Dean are on her trail. Good thing she left a clue. Stay tuned for more on The Caged Dhampir Sings...