Part 2

"Monique?" Tina called through the open door. "You should come and see this."

The TV was on in the lounge room. The news was showing the wreckage of the boat downriver. Monique saw her picture on the screen, one where she was wearing a long black evening gown and was on the arm of Antoine. A burned body had been found at the scene of the explosion, and it had not yet been identified. The police had discussed the possibility that she was dead, but were still asking for anyone with information.

Antoine was heading the search, and Monique felt her heart ache when she saw how distraught he looked as he went through the wreckage.

"Handsome man," Tina commented as Monique took a seat on the couch.

He was an Italian gentleman, with black hair and a short black beard and moustache, and intense dark eyes that seemed to look straight through anyone he spoke to, except Monique. He had declared many times that he was crazy about her, and his eyes always sought her out and focussed on her when she was nearby.

The secretary, Miss Tanka-something, was there too, and she looked as though she was trying to comfort Antoine. Monique felt a stab of jealousy – wasn't a secretary supposed to stay at her desk?

The report was from earlier on in the day, so Monique determined that he'd be back in the city already.

Tina lent her some sandals and Monique gave her some diamond earrings for her trouble, refusing to be swayed on the subject when Tina tried to refuse. Then Monique hired a cab to take her back to the city. She looked a little straggly, but there was going to be a meeting between Antoine and some other less-than-natural or less-than-legal business investors that night, and she planned to be there.

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It was nighttime by the time Monique was dropped off at the building, and the meeting was close to starting. Although she didn't have time to get changed into something more professional, she was clean and she had a change of clothes up in Antoine's private office. She didn't look too bad in her jeans and white buttoned up shirt, and she had managed to pin her hair up into a professional looking bun, with some of her hair hanging down to frame her face.

It was after hours, but she had the card to let herself into the building with. She rode the elevator up to the right floor and stepped out among some of the offices.

She recognised one of the lawyers working late in his office and smiled. He looked at her in astonishment.

She kept walking to the double doors that led to the conference room, but before she got there she could tell that there was no one in there. She could feel that there weren't any minds present in the room. Antoine had a pretty big office, so it was possible they were there.

She was right, she could 'hear' the minds softly buzzing away inside the office, even though she couldn't pick out any thoughts, and she used her card to unlock the door.

Every pair of eyes turned toward her as she opened the door. "Excuse me," she said softly, seeking out every face present in the room and scanning their reactions. A couple of men she didn't know looked very surprised to see her.

She planned to skim their minds when she got a chance, but for now there were too many people thinking different things close by for her poor telepathic power to work properly.

At the head of the conference table sat Antoine, with the secretary off to his right side. Trying not to alert the investors to the fact that something had gone wrong, Monique greeted him with a light kiss on the cheek and let him softly press her hand. She couldn't read his mind; he was too supernatural for that. He knew that contact with her would let her know at least what he was feeling, as long as her mind was open to him. A sense of relief and affection washed over her, and she gently squeezed his hand back in return.

"If you'll excuse me for being late," Monique addressed the others as graciously as she could; "I'll go slip into something more appropriate."

She left the room via a side door and found herself in Antoine's private bathroom. Connected to that was a small at-work bedroom, much like a hotel room. She locked the bathroom door behind her and felt another presence in the bedroom.

She opened her mind and couldn't pick out anything. Human thoughts felt 'warm' to her mind, whether she could read them or not, but this one was cold.

Something supernatural was in the bedroom. No doubt it was another surprise designed to incapacitate Antoine, because she doubted that anyone had expected her to come back so soon, if at all.

Well, it was a good thing she dealt with this sort of thing professionally, and she had the advantage of knowing that it was in there.

She didn't give it any time to prepare for her entrance. She had the Browning in one hand and the key-card in the other, and she quickly unlocked and pushed open the door.

There was a dog on the bed. It was a very large dog with fangs and a feral gaze. "Oh, hell," Monique muttered as it saw her and leaped after her. Werewolves were technically human most of the time; she didn't kill them unless there was no other alternative. She dropped the gun, sidestepped it and landed a solid kick to the head. A few more accurate blows to the head - while dodging its claws and teeth - rendered it unconscious.

For once she was glad that Antoine had been trying to get her to try something different. She used the chains that were stored alongside some weapons under the bed to secure the werewolf. She left it in the corner and retrieved a maroon evening dress and shoes from the wardrobe. A quick touch-up of makeup from the bathroom and a plain gold chain from the dresser drawer and she was set to greet the investors.

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She had switched the gun into a smaller bag to take with her into the office, because she expected more trouble tonight. Like a mask, she put on her demure smile, and opened the door. Things were much as they had been before, and it seemed that no one had heard her short fight with the werewolf. She looked, but couldn't tell if anyone was surprised that she had returned unharmed and apparently unperturbed.

She smiled and acted as though nothing was out of the ordinary. Since meeting Antoine she was used to these games of intrigue and scheming. Even the humans involved in his businesses were often conniving vipers in disguise.

The secretary had strategically moved over to leave an empty seat next to Antoine, and Monique quietly took it and listened in to the talks. She wasn't that late because they were still discussing the normal side of the business: income and expenditure and similar topics.

Monique pretended to be listening with her ears, but she was really trying to scan the room with her mind. She locked onto the two men who had been astonished to see her. One was the boss and the other, a bald man, was a bodyguard disguised as a business associate.

The bodyguard was in trouble. He had arranged for the men to come and get her, so she could then be used against Antoine to make him step down from his position so that the bodyguard's boss could take over. But that didn't explain how they knew where she'd be, or how the werewolf had been manoeuvred into a locked office bedroom. Yes, presumably he had been a man when they had put him there, but they had stillneeded to get him past security to put him into the private room.

Tanager; Monique caught the name Tanager from their minds and linked it with the secretary. It made sense. The secretary was privy to all security arrangements, and she had known where Monique was, but only because she had to organise Monique's travel arrangements.

Monique mentally shook her head but kept her face still and her smile in place. She had wanted to take care of things herself, but Antoine had insisted on trying to take care of her. Well, now she would take care of things herself. She could feel a sliver of tension and anticipation from the bodyguard – he was getting ready to make a move on her so that he could force an ultimatum on Antoine.

At least the secretary hadn't known that she was either telepathic or a demon hunter, so she certainly couldn't have informed Monique's attackers. Antoine was to her right, talking to one of the investors. Miss Tanager sat in the corner behind them and the bodyguard and his boss were to her left.

The bodyguard had barely twitched to reach for her throat when she grabbed his wrist and shoved his face to the floor with one hand, and at the same time she had pointed the gun over his back at his boss. She caught the name from the minds of the men around her who were now focussed on what she was doing.

"Your move, Mr Green," she said coldly.

Miss Tanager got up from her chair and Monique back-kicked her so that she fell back into it. "I wouldn't go anywhere if I were you, Miss Tanager," Monique said without taking her eyes away from Mr Green's. "You'll be lucky if you just get fired and charged for this."

"What do you know, sweetheart?" Antoine whispered in her ear.

"Tanager gave them my location," Monique stated. "Mr Green and his associate here organised to have me kidnapped and used against you to make you give up your holdings."

Mr Green looked dumbfounded, and the other investors moved back out of the way, clearly not wishing to become involved. Monique didn't bother to explain any more, and she decided to let Green wonder about how she had found out about it and stopped the kidnappers.

"Are you partial to your own solution to this problem, bella?" Antoine breathed the last word suggestively, but the rest of his question was clearly hostile. He wanted to know if she'd like to have their enemies permanently erased.

"Witnesses, Antoine," Monique quietly reminded him.

"I suppose I'll have to get security to notify the police then," Antoine said, as though it didn't matter to him one way or another.

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"Did you really have to blow up the boat?" Antoine whispered into her hair early the next morning, while it was still dark. They were back at Antoine's city home, in the bedroom. Antoine was fond of dark blue silk, and they lay beneath the sheets together.

"Don't tell me you were upset about that," Monique said, looking up at him with half a smile. "I know you had it insured against vandalism. We'll call it that and get the lawyers to sort it out. And anyway, it worked; it got the kidnappers to stop chasing me."

"No, my sweet," Antoine assured her, "it was damage to you that I was worried about. You could have called me."

"I had planned on seeing you last night anyway;" Monique reasoned, absently tracing her fingers across his chest,"I wasn't going to let you think that I was dead for long - I couldn't bear it. I also wanted to help you sort this thing out so we could get on with our lives. But you should have known that I was all right - it takes much more than that to kill people like us."

"Oh, it certainly does, my beautiful little warrior," Antoine agreed with her, gathering her up in his arms.

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I did tell you that this was only a short story. There was also some stuff about crocodiles that were really logs in the dream and also a Chinese gang (the kidnappers) chasing through a concrete maze, but I figured that it didn't really match the storyline I wanted.

Well, until the next Angel/Blade chapters, bye for now.

:)Hezza.