Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, except for the ones I've made up myself.
Family Blood
Chapter 15: Nemesis
Jadis Lecter ran at top speed up the steel stairs as she pursued Richard Silversted. She didn't really care where he was going to lead her, she just wanted him dead. The extremely dim lighting made it very hard to see, but she didn't let that deter her. Even as her breath burned in her lungs and throat, still she went on.
A loud slam from just above her alerted Jadis to the presence of a door that Silversted just went through. Forcing herself to speed up despite running the risk of falling down the stairs and breaking a bone, she made it to the gray door and tried to get it opened, only to fond it locked.
"Oh fuck this," she muttered as she aimed her gun to the lock and fired. The remains of the handle and lock fell to the ground as she kicked the door down, impatience getting the best of her.
A cold waft of air greeted her slender for as Jadis stepped out into the night air. Like the staircase, the rooftop of the mall wasn't very well lit, but the full moon in the sky provided just enough light for her to see reasonably well. Her footsteps made very little sound on the concrete below her. To either side of her were large air vents. There were also a few large glass skylights strew about the rooftop, if you looked down them you could see right down into the second floor of the mall.
Gun poised at ready, Jadis walked a little farther out into the air and scanned her surroundings with her darkened maroon eyes. The young Lecter was out for blood.
Tired of waiting, Jadis called out to her nemesis, venom in her tone, "Alright Silversted, show yourself and we'll settle this right here right now. Or are you afraid to?"
The short silence that followed seemed like an eternity to Jadis. Finally a response, "You know that I wouldn't disappoint you when it comes to us two Lecter." That all too familiar voice made Jadis' blood run cold. Stepping out from behind on of the air vents, Richard Silversted revealed himself to Jadis.
Jadis had to force herself not to pull the trigger on her gun just yet. Her eyes almost seemed to glow an eerie blood red in the darkness of the night. She wanted to see him suffer, just like what he had done to her, her mother, and Clarice.
Silversted just stood there with a hand behind his back, a demented grin plastered on his face. "Is that any way to greet an old friend Jade?"
Jadis tried hard not to cringe at the use of her nickname by the poor excuse of flesh before her. "You raped and killed my mother," she responded with a deadly tone in her voice, "you tried to kill my friend and my father, and you raped and destroyed my childhood. I am your enemy forever."
His one real eye seemed to darken slightly at her words. "Could you blame me Lecter?" he countered, a new edge in his voice. "After what I had to endure in my life because of your father?"
"It was your own damned fault Silversted and both you and I know it," Jadis argued, her voice hardening with every syllable. "Like my father had said a few months ago, you're in denial. You're pinning your own faults on others just so that you won't take the blame." Shaking her head, she added, "Do you have any idea at how pathetic that makes you Richard?"
At that moment she truly looked and sounded like her father's daughter. Jadis still held him at gunpoint, her eyes never blinking, her muscles not visibly moving. She was ready to pounce at any second now.
Silversted was at his breaking point. Pulling his hand out from behind his back in his own time, he revealed a shimmering blade to the young woman. Jadis felt her scar sting at the memories that came with the sight of such a blade.
Her nemesis slowly approached her, not seeming to care about the pistol that Jadis still aimed at him. She took a couple steps back to regain a little bit of the distance between them. Even though she did want to kill him, she needed the distance from him for a variety of reasons.
Silversted hummed a chuckle. "Scared of me Lecter? After our last meeting I can't say I blame you."
That infuriated Jadis to the very edge of her sanity. No longer having control of her rage, she lunged at the murderer in a flash.
Silversted didn't anticipate this action and, in result, was met with a hard blow to the jaw which was quickly followed by a powerful kick to the stomach. Lurching back, he could feel his cheap glass eye almost pop out of his eye socket. He lost grip of the knife and lost it to the darkness all around him.
Jadis tried to pistol whip him out of his misery when he grasped hold of her rapidly descending hand and wretched the gun from her grip. He quickly followed up with a powerful uppercut to her jawbone. Falling back, Jadis felt the wind being forced out of her body as she landed hard onto her back.
The next thought that crossed her barely conscious mind was the feel of the surface beneath her. Instead on the rough concrete that she had expected, the surface felt smooth and cold beneath her hand, which was quickly accompanied by a sharp crackling sound of glass breaking.
Above her, Silversted aimed the gun to the side of her head. "Goodbye Lecter," he told her, the sadistic grin still planted on his features. "I'll be sure to give my condolences to your father when I see him."
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"Jadis!" Matthew pointed up to the ceiling above the group. Silhouetted on the skylight was the young woman's form. All around her a spider web of cracking glass was crawling larger by the second.
A single gunshot sounded above them and Jadis went crashing through the glass. As she plummeted to the floor below Dr. Lecter acted on sheer instinct. Ignoring the falling glass the best as he could, he tried to get underneath the falling woman before she met her death.
Luck was on their side that night. Dr. Lecter quickly got out of the shower of glass shards with the lifeless Jadis in his arms. Both of the Lecters had various cuts from the sharp pieces of falling glass.
"We have to get out of here," Ardelia said once she got over the shock. The group nodded their agreement, except one of them.
"Nobody moves," Elaine's voice threatened. A click of the safety of her gun soon followed. She stood there with her gun pointed directly at Dr. Lecter. "Anyone tries to leave, the Doctor is a dead man."
Dr. Lecter remained calm and said, "Wouldn't this look a little suspicious to the back up when they arrive? Or are we right to assume that you didn't really call for them?"
"You're damn right I didn't call for them. I'm not letting this ruin my chance for an advancement. If those two aren't going to kill you, then I will."
Another click of a gun. "Not if I kill you first you backstabbing bitch," an angry voice said before the sound of a gunshot rang through the mall. As Elaine Parker's fresh corpse collapsed to the hard floor, Matthew Krendler slid his still smoking gun back into its holster.
Clarice shook her head. "I should have known," she muttered, "she must have been the third killer. Why didn't we see this before?"
"We'll figure that out later," Dr. Lecter said. "Right now we should leave."
Matthew looked down worriedly at the limp Jadis. "Is she okay?" he asked.
Her father felt her wrist, feeling her pulse. "She's alive," he reported. "Must have just been knocked unconscious. I'll look her over better back at the hotel room."
The group wasted no time in heading back out to the parking lot and made their way back to the hotel. Their night was still far from over.