Author's note: This chapter has been delayed by a lot of things – being busy at work, cleaning up the house in preparation for a parental visit, some writer's block I seem to be struggling with, but…I am nothing if not ornery. Here we go.
Lisa Starling drew her weapon as she approached the front door. Her heart was pounding. Laura Miehns was in front of her, her weapon also drawn and out. Agent Miehns had been reluctant to let Lisa in, feeling that Lisa would be a big fat target for Susana, but facts were facts. The agents inside were not responding to phone calls or knocking. The cops in the cruiser were calling for backup. They'd offered to come in, but the two women had decided to have a look first and see, hoping beyond hope that there might be a reasonable explanation.
Lisa let Laura Miehns open the front door. She covered her carefully as the larger woman opened the door and pointed her weapon to and fro. Carefully, Lisa moved up the driveway and slipped into the house behind her. The bodies of the guards were the first thing she saw. Both corpses were sprawled out on the floor. One sported a small hole in his forehead. The other had one in his shirt. Blood had soaked into the carpeting under each wound. They had been dead long enough for the blood to get sticky. Lisa closed her eyes and swallowed – it was all the gorge she would allow herself.
The house was fairly large, but the floor plan was pretty standard. There was a living room, a bathroom down the hall, and a kitchen. The kitchen door was closed. Lisa was not sure which to check first. Either the hall or the kitchen might contain their prey. Guessing wrong might be fatal. Lisa moved silently as she could and tried to think.
They would have their own weapons, but might want to secure the kitchen, since there were plenty of knives. Lisa knew that Susana knew a fair amount about FBI procedure, and had tended to follow it in her killings. Donald Quincy enjoyed cooking, and there might be devices in his kitchen that Susana might want to employ in his death, too. Images of a hand being forced into the churning blades of a blender rose into her mind and she forced them away. She made herself listen for any sounds of her boss and her cousin. There was nothing.
The most maddening part was the wait. For a moment the urge to run outside and get the cops lolling in the patrol car outside was strong. It would mean more guns. But no, that was out: God forbid what if that was the five minutes Susana needed to kill Quincy? And leaving Miehns alone in the house, HRT commandant or no, was not something Lisa was willing to do. Not with Susana and her accomplice there.
…
"Hold him," Susana said.
Don Quincy was not an easy man to hold. He was as tall as Luke and bulkier. He struggled as Luke tried to force him down. But Luke, too, was quite strong. Getting him held down over the heavy wooden butcher block in the center of the kitchen was possible; it was keeping him there that was the hard part.
Susana sighed and pulled out the skinning knife she had used before. When Quincy saw the knife, he struggled anew, fighting to rise. Very quickly and casually, Susana walked around behind him, slid between Luke and him as neatly as a goldfish swimming between two sharks, and squatted. The wickedly sharp blade whisked through the backs of the legs of Quincy's pants and into the backs of his knees. He grunted in pain and pressed his lips together. But his knees went limp and he was much easier to force onto the butcher block, which was what Susana had intended.
She rose and crossed around to look down at him.
"Well, Chief Quincy," she said, "I understand you've got much less manpower than you did before."
Don Quincy's eyes narrowed at her. "Yes, because of you," he said. "And don't think this is over, Susana. We got you once. We'll get you again."
"Actually," Susana said archly, "you'll have things to do other than catch me, like protect the profilers you have left." Her eyes gleamed. "You won't be around to hear the news, Chief, so I'll enlighten you. We got you again. As you saw, all your guards were no more useful than toy soldiers in stopping me. Three more profilers are dead, and you're the fourth."
She saw the look of shock and grief on his face, even as she prepared his death. Well, it was their own damn fault, really. Had they left her alone, they would all be alive. In fact, had they even played by their own damn rules, they would still be alive.
"Now this is new for me, Chief Quincy," Susana said. "I mean, I've killed FBI agents before. That's nothing new. Do you know the liver and kidneys of a young female FBI agent are quite tasty in cream sauce?"
"Starling. You didn't." Quincy's eyes were rimmed with pain. Susana tilted her head and wondered if he wanted to get in Lisa's pants. He was a fat, jolly man, looking more like a father than a lover, but even a fat, jolly man has his urges, she supposed.
"Not Starling," she confirmed, eyes twinkling with malice. "Now back to the subject, Chief Quincy. I've killed plenty of grunt FBI agents before, and frankly it's easy. Your agents don't defend themselves well, Chief. Frankly, Will Graham did more to try and save himself than most active duty agents did."
Susana slid out of her suit jacket and carefully folded it on the counter. She raised the knife high over her head.
"You're a section chief," she said. "That is new for me, I must say. Killing the boss of Behavioral Sciences…the head, one might say."
Susana brought the long-bladed knife down as hard as she could. Even as the blade bit into the back of Don Quincy's thick bull neck, she knew it wouldn't go through on the first try. The knife was not made for beheading; it was too light. But she felt the shock contact up her arm and she was pleased to note that she had made it through the upper vertebrae of the spine. The rest would simply be chopping through muscle and cartilage.
Only her strength made the second shot power most of the way through the neck. She rubbed her hand tenderly, frowning. Don Quincy's hefty form began to quiver in seizure as his body prepared for its death. He wasn't saying anything, but that didn't surprise Susana – the knife had gone about three-quarters of the way through his neck. Only his trachea was holding his head on.
A third and final chop finally severed his head. Susana stepped sideways gracefully to avoid the jet of blood flowing from the severed stump of his neck. She held the head in her hands, looking in at the glassy eyes. No more plots on how to catch her there, not anymore.
The kitchen door burst open. Two women, one tall, one short, appeared in the doorway, their weapons out and aimed. Susana recognized Lisa with no surprise at all. She'd kept the hair, Susana noticed, and that pleased her to no end. Or perhaps Lisa just didn't know how easy it was to color her hair.
"Freeze," Lisa Starling demanded, aiming the weapon at her. "Put your hands on your head." She reached backwards as she walked forward, left hand reaching for her handcuff case. Her right hand remained on the gun, centered at Susana's head. Behind her, framed in the doorway, Laura Miehns kept a bead in Luke.
"Hands on my head?" Susana asked. "They're already on his." She held up the severed head of Section Chief Don Quincy for his employee's perusal. It had the desired effect. Such a graphic indication that Lisa was, indeed, too late. Lisa stopped and her eyes widened and filled with pain. That was the opening Susana needed.
Her head swiveled over to Laura Miehns for just a fraction of a second to calculate distance and force. She threw the severed head at the taller woman like a basketball, figuring it would get in the way of her aim, at least. Then Susana lunged for her cousin.
She grabbed Lisa's wrist with both hands and twisted. The gun slipped out of her fingers, but there was no audible crack or vibration that would indicate she had broken the bone. Oh well. A soft beating might teach Lisa more, all things considered. Susana grabbed the gun and tossed it into an open pot of tomato sauce bubbling away on the stove. The black Glock sank into the sauce and disappeared. Susana grinned. Scratch one gun, at least for the time being. And now Lisa was disarmed.
She recovered quicker than Susana had thought. Lisa brought her left arm back, and then pistoned it forward. Her hand was not closed into a fist. Instead, her fingers were open and curled. Susana was turning back from having tossed the gun and only had a second to see it coming. Is she trying to cat-fight me? Susana thought.
Then the heel of Lisa Starling's hand smashed into the lens of Susana Alvarez Lecter's sunglasses, as the FBI agent had intended. Lisa smiled tightly as Susana's head rocked backwards, the lens cracked and the sunglasses hanging askew on her face. She could see one of Susana's eyes, maroon and amused, as the pieces of glass fell from the frame.
"Nice, Lisa," Susana said, and shook her head. Then she moved in to close with her cousin. Behind her, Luke had moved in to grapple with Laura Miehns. Cousin vs. cousin, guard against guard.
Lisa Starling had learned unarmed combat in the Academy, but had gotten rusty since. Susana had learned to fight from someone, and she was far stronger than her cousin. Lisa allowed Susana to grapple her to the floor, trying to think of what to do next. Her gun was out; she'd seen it sink into the sauce. She had nothing else handy to fight with. She had to figure out what to do quickly, she knew that.
Susana struck her twice on the ribs, agonizing blows, and Lisa's eyes rolled. Up until now, Lisa had thought that Susana would not kill her, but she had to wonder. And she'd already had a graphic demonstration of the fact that there was plenty Susana would do to her. She scrambled away from Susana and ran across the kitchen, to where she'd seen a knife block. A lot better than nothing. As she ran, she overturned a pot of pasta which Don Quincy had been cooking for his dinner before Susana paid her visit.
She heard a surprised sound from Susana and grinned. Didn't expect that, did you? She reached for the knife block. Then something grabbed her ankle and hauled. Lisa had a moment where the world seemed to whirl and twist, and then she, too, was on her back on the floor. Susana grabbed her and pulled her back. The two women wrestled in the pasta on the floor. It was hardly the cat fight that high schoolers engage in: both Lisa and Susana struck hard, with fists, elbows, and knees in place of hair-pulling and clawing. Lisa was beginning to worry about her ability to get out of this fight in one piece: her punches seemed to have no effect on Susana, and Susana's were beginning to make her eyes cross.
On the other side of the room, Luke and Laura Miehns were fighting an equally pitched and brutal battle. Neither one flinched. Eventually, however, Laura delivered a vicious headbutt to the bridge of the religious killer's nose, sending him sprawling. Laura jumped on him, straddled him, and had him cuffed in a trice. She glanced over and saw one woman atop the other, holding a gun to her subdued foe's head with one hand, handcuffs gleaming in the other as she applied them.
"Cool, Starling, you got her," Laura said, and then froze. Gun? Lisa's gun was marinating in the pot of tomato sauce. Which meant…
"I got her indeed," Susana Alvarez Lecter said, grinning tiredly as she faced her opponent. Her sunglasses were gone, torn off in the melee. Lisa lay under her, handcuffed, her face flushed red with exertion, anger, and humiliation as she lay face-down on the floor. "Playing FBI agent has been a lot of fun. Do I get to read her her rights and take her downtown to book her?" She smiled victoriously and tilted her head at Agent Miehns. "Tell me, do I know you? Your voice sounds familiar but I don't recall your face. Well, before this go-round, at least."
"Laura Miehns, FBI. HRT. We spoke on the radio once," Laura said, her face hard. "Just before you murdered my men. I'm Lisa's bodyguard."
"Bodyguard." Susana rolled the word around her mouth as if it was quite amusing. "Yes, I recall now. You told me I'd signed my own death warrant. Well, Agent Miehns, you'll certainly get to guard Lisa's body, but I presume you want it to be a live body. So unless you want to sign Lisa's death warrant, you'll uncuff my friend there and put down your weapon."
Laura Miehns stared the monster down and said nothing.
"If you're thinking of shooting me, I suppose you can," Susana added. "But this gun has a five-pound trigger pull, and I'd say there's about three on there now." Her eyes gleamed. "I do know my pistolcraft, Agent Miehns. If you shoot me, my last act will be to pull this trigger and take her with me."
"You won't kill me," Lisa muttered from her spot on the floor.
Susana's eyes did not waver off Agent Miehns, but her words were addressed to her cousin.
"I'd prefer not to," she said, "but make no mistake, I'll kill you if the choice is that or go back to prison. Eight profilers are already dead. You would just be number nine. And you are the FBI's resident obsessive on me." Her voice was cold, cruel, and quite serious. A chill ran down Lisa's spine. Susana turned her attention back to Agent Miehns.
"I know you've called backup, dear Agent, so unless you want to see Lisa die right here and right now, take the handcuffs off my colleague and put down your weapon," Susana said. Her tone was thin and deliberate. "Don't try to stall me, Agent Miehns, or you'll be cleaning Lisa's brains off this floor."
Laura Miehns sighed deeply. Obeying this monster seemed inconceivable. Everything in her brain screamed for her not to do it. But if she didn't, Susana would kill Lisa before her very eyes. Her obligation to protect Lisa demanded that she do it. Once, Susana had gotten Lisa away from her; letting it happen again was just as inconceivable. After this, Laura Miehns thought, I am going to place her ass in protective custody at Quantico with as many Marines and guards as I can possibly get, and there she will stay, no matter how much she doesn't like it, until Susana Alvarez is caught. Or maybe a military base in Alaska. Or Nevada. Anywhere where Susana won't go.
"And if I do what you want?" she asked, the words tasting like cinders in her mouth.
Susana grinned, knowing victory was near. "I will…stay my hand."
"Don't bullshit me with fancy talk," Laura hissed.
"Fine. I won't kill her and I'll give her back to you just as she is now. Straight trade, Lisa for…my colleague. She'll be alive and unharmed." Susana pressed the muzzle a bit harder into the base of Lisa's skull.
"Don't do it, Laura, she'll kill me anyway," Lisa said.
Susana looked offended. "Lisa, when have you ever known me to lie?" she asked. Laura Miehns was shocked: the killer actually seemed hurt by the comment. Susana's eyes flared as she looked over her opponent.
"Time is running out, Agent Miehns," Susana said. "If I see anyone burst in that door behind you, my first act will be to shoot." Her mouth curved into a cruel smile. "Now…uncuff my colleague there and put down your weapon. You have ten seconds, Agent Miehns. Ten…nine…eight…,"
"Wait a minute," Laura snapped, galled by what she was about to do. She hated giving anything to criminals. But watching Susana kill Lisa was not something she was prepared to do.
"Seven…six…five," Susana continued.
"All right, all right," Laura said, and put her pistol on the floor and kicked it away. She reached for her pocket to take out her handcuff key. Bitterly, she unlocked Luke's cuffs and watched him stand.
"Good," Susana said. She stood up herself and allowed her captive to stand. Luke favored her with a victorious glance. It was true. God looked after his servants. God had sent Susana to deliver him from the evildoers. Those who would stop his holy work. Their holy work.
Luke crossed the kitchen to stand by his bride to be. He was vaguely troubled by the fact that she had saved him. It was supposed to be the other way around. But what better proof of her loyalty could he ask for?
"Now give me Lisa," Laura Miehns demanded.
"All in good time, Agent," Susana smiled, and backed up with her captive towards a set of sliding glass doors set into the hallway of Don Quincy's kitchen. Lisa looked sick as her cousin dragged her backwards. Laura followed slowly as Susana would allow, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Luke opened the sliding glass doors and glanced at Susana.
When it happened, it happened quickly. One moment Susana held her captive, gun pointed at Laura Miehns from around Lisa's side. Then she stepped quickly backwards, put both hands on Lisa's back, and shifted her weight neatly. As easily as she had once thrown an FBI agent named Tony Braxton out of a Chicago elevator years ago, Susana propelled her cousin headlong towards Laura Miehns.
"Move," she said.
Luke needed no urging; he disappeared pell-mell into the dark night of Quincy's deck. His boots thundered on the wood for a few seconds. Silence reigned as he made the lawn and ran on the silent grass. Susana was after him a moment later.
Laura Miehns caught Lisa without knocking either of them over. She took a moment to look the smaller woman over. She seemed okay. But humiliated anger ruled her face. Lisa's lips twisted in fury as she realized what had happened.
"Goddammit," Lisa hissed. "God DAM it! You let her go."
"Starling, she'd have killed you," Laura said. "We'll get her. Just calm down. Turn around, I'll get you out of those."
She had a moment to realize just how humiliated and angry Lisa must be. Handcuffed with her own cuffs and held as a hostage. She was tempted to leave them on her until she calmed down, but that would be simply cruel after what she had just been through.
Laura Miehns unlocked the handcuffs on Lisa Starling's wrists and unknowingly released a whirling dervish. With strength much like her cousin's, born of her rage, Lisa Starling sprinted across the room the moment the cuffs opened. She grabbed up Miehn's dropped pistol and blew past her out the door, legs pumping with rage-fueled adrenalin.
What the hell? Laura Miehns thought. After only a second to wonder at the smaller woman's speed, she took off in pursuit. Lisa had not gone far.
Out on the deck, it took a moment for Lisa's eyes to adjust to the night. She raised the pistol and pointed it at the two figures fleeing into the next yard. The pistol barked once. A male scream of pain floated back through the night, and the taller figure folded and fell to the ground.
Lisa fully expected Susana to keep running, and so she led her cousin just a bit with the pistol. When Susana cut on her heel and turned back, she was surprised. She watched Susana grab up her accomplice and throw him over her back in a fireman's carry.
Damn, she is strong, Lisa Starling thought. But she was also a big fat target now, clearly outlined in the moonlight. And with the body over her shoulders, she couldn't reach for her gun. Lisa aimed the pistol as she'd been taught at the FBI, aiming center of mass, right where Susana Alvarez Lecter's heart triphammered away in her chest. For just a moment, the two women's eyes met.
Should she shoot? Should she not? Susana had killed people she worked with and liked, and had threatened her life not once but twice. Lisa needed no further illustration as to how dangerous her cousin could be. But she was also effectively unarmed. Bizarrely, shooting Susana would be punishing her for actually caring for her accomplice.
FBI rules demanded a warning shot. Lisa did not think it would be effective. Moreover, she didn't want to. She had one shot, here and now.
Lisa Starling's eyes hardened and her finger began to take up slack on the trigger.