Author's Note: The following chapter is not for the feint of heart. It is rated a very strong M for graphic violence, sexual content and some nudity.

Chapter XVII

The Hunt

The music was fast, heavy on the bass and primal; it reminded her of a frantically beating heart. The chaotic flashing lights illuminated the crowd of dancing people on the floor. From her place at the elevated bar area, they looked like a mass of pulsating maggots. The warehouse-like club and bar smelled sharp, tangy and mysterious, an intoxicating mix of smoke, musk and sweat. The sweet burn of alcohol on her tongue and sliding down her throat was sharply contrasted by the cold glass in her hand. All the sensory input overwhelmed her: the sights, the sounds, the promise of every type of dark and seedy sin. Everything the club offered paled in comparison to the intensity of the adrenaline-fuelled typhoon that was trapped inside her mind and body. The thrill of the hunt eclipsed everything else; even the most potent of drugs wouldn't be able to touch this high.

Jackpot! One of Vegas's countless independent clubs was packed, which didn't surprise her. College Night's half price cover and endless Happy Hour was very appealing to the heavy-drinking and tight-fisted crowd of twenty-somethings with a school ID. College students, of course, weren't the only ones who came in. There were tourists, regulars and post-grads who hadn't completely removed themselves from college life. Statistically speaking it would be a 64-36 split, with men being the dominant count. The club had a large capacity, 500 people, which meant that there were 320 men, give or take, in the building. That meant there were 320 predators just waiting for a woman to slip up. Unfortunately for the perverts, she was one of the 180 women who had packed into the club. She had come alone, clad in a short, seductive, slightly slutty, black dress. She didn't intend to leave alone, not by a long shot.

The DJ was spinning a rap song that was the flavor of the week and the crowd on the dance floor responded with a roar of approval. Those who were drinking, gabbing and flirting on the higher level bobbed their heads along with the beat. A quick survey of the crowd gave her a better idea of what sort of people had crammed themselves into Jackpot!

A group of young men, college age, took up the large horseshoe corner booth and spilled over into the couch that had been pushed against the wall. There were even a guy on each end of the coffee table. She recognized the three distinct Greek letters of an on-campus Frat and quickly dismissed the idea of picking one of the young men off. Greeks were well known for sticking together and even though it would be an intense, well-honed message to send, she knew it was too risky to mess with a Fraternity Brother. The long L-shaped bar was a much more fertile hunting ground. She smiled at the phrase. Jackpot was her hunting ground and as one face in particular caught her attention, she decided to move in for the kill.

"Aren't we a little old for college girls, Bryce?" Preston Abernathy raised his hand to his neck to tug at the tie that he had discarded hours ago and frowned at the hand that acted out of ingrained habit. His frown only deepened when he saw the thin white band that marked the place that his wedding band usually took. It felt wrong to go without the gold band that matched his wife's. Of course, as Bryce had reminded him several times, Kim was at home with Jonah, their two-year-old son. He definitely wasn't in Savannah and this definitely wasn't the Claims Adjustment Workshop and Lecture series that work was paying him to attend. Bryce, the bad boy of the office, had convinced him to do this though.

He was in a booming club, surrounded by beautiful young women in Vegas. It almost made him forget that he was pushing thirty, stuck in a paper-pushing middle-management position, the father of a two-year-old hellion and married to a woman that hadn't initiated sex in a year and a half. So when a pretty, barely legal babe in a skimpy uniform brought him his third, or was it fourth, drink of the evening, he smiled and decided maybe what happened in Vegas really stayed here.

Preston and Bryce leaned against the railing that served as a guard against sloppy drunks who stumbled too close to the level's edge.

Bryce, yet another drink in hand, gave Preston a lopsided grin. "All right, Buddy, there's a blonde and a brunette. They're both young, hot and checking us out, which one you want?"

Preston chuckled and motioned with his drink, "She sort of looks like Marisol in Accounts Payable."

Bryce laughed so hard he almost spilled his drink." Go for it, Man."

She picked him out quickly and without regret. He was too old to be ogling college chicks anyway. She started out casually enough, a few looks and a little smile to catch his interest. Then she sent him a quick glance that turned into a second look that eventually connected to a gaze. A long, drawn out and very sexy gaze. He ordered her a drink within five minutes and after one drink of it, she called him over with the universal come-hither finger crook. She could see it in his eyes, he was hooked and she had to smile.

It was too fucking easy.

The next round of drinks, she whispered into his ear and leaned up against him. They were so close he knew her cup size and if they got any closer, he'd be able to tell her how old she'd been when she'd had her appendix removed. It disgusted her. She made sure, though, that when she walked over to the bar in her scandalously short skirt, his eyes were glued to her ass. Pig.

What she made sure he didn't see, what she made sure no one else noticed, was the quick twitch of her wrist that dumped Rohypnol into his drink. She had cut the dose down by more than half; she didn't want this guy to overdose and feel nothing. It completely defeated the purpose of what she was doing.

She was learning -- wouldn't Mother be proud?

They had danced, one quick and fumbling fast dance to a song she'd heard chiming off on a thousand cell phones. Intent on getting lucky, he hailed a cab and whisked them off to his motel. The cabby leaned at the two of them in his rear view mirror. He was just another pervert in a city, a world, full of perverts.

Despite the usual ungodly traffic, the trip back uptown only lasted ten minutes. His motel was far closer to the Strip than she would have guessed. It was also, she observed while he shakily shoved a couple of twenties through the window at the cabbie, much nicer than he looked like he could afford. The four-story motel was actually very nice, four stories with every room sporting a balcony that looked down at a courtyard. His room even had a view of the cerulean blue waters of the pool. He was too discombobulated to slide the card-key through the lock so she had to do it for him.

One quick look in his slightly nicer than standard-grade room told her that her first impression had been right, he couldn't afford the nice room himself, he was bunking with a friend. There were two beds in the room and she would bet big money that his buddy Bruce or Brian or whatever he'd saidhis name was, slept in the other.

The thought that someone might walk in on what was about to happen gave her a moment's pause. It lasted only a single moment, though. Any fear or second thought was quickly washed away by the addictive thrill of what she was doing. When he turned to her, a lopsided grin on his lax face and lust burning dully in his eyes, it was all worth it.

She turned a slow circle, playing her part to the hilt, "Nice digs." She almost laughed as she turned, he had expected to bring company home. There were candles on each side of the bed, held up by large ugly candle holders and a basketful, literally a wicker basket filled to the top with individually packaged ribbed for her pleasure condoms. She tucked the laughter away for a moment and because he was far beyond being able to be trusted with matches, she lit the candles.

Her eyes widened for a moment while she watched the tiny flame eat away at the match between her thumb and forefinger. She licked her dry lips when the spark made the leap from the match to the still-rigid wick of the candle. She didn't shake the match out immediately, but let it burnt down. She killed the flame only after she felt the sharp and sudden pain nip at her fingers. She repeated the ritual with the other candle while he clumsily undressed himself. His words, which had only been a distant drone in her ears when she'd been handling the matches, finally caught her attention. He was promising her a good time.

If he only knew.

Impatient now, she pushed him onto the bed and he fell like a rag doll. For a moment she just lay there, but then he started to crab-crawl towards the head of the bed. The drugs had him woozy enough, but he wasn't quite out for the count yet. If she pointed the way, he would have enough brainpower to understand what came next. They always did. She started to shimmy out of her dress and the skimpy lace panties and let them drop to the floor. It wasn't a sexy strip scene and she didn't even try to entice him. Being a man, he was enticed anyway. She knelt on the bed and felt it sag beneath her weight. He was fighting with his pants and jockies at the head of the bed. She crawled on her hands and knees up the bed. She was slow and methodical, and never took her eyes off of his. She was like a large cat, precise, feral, deadly and he was her unwitting prey.

She crawled over him and put one of her legs across him so she was straddling his naked body. Her legs on each side of his hips, her knees taking most of her weight. She leaned forward and put her hands on his shoulders, partly to help balance herself, but mostly to hold him down. He was mumbling and she couldn't make out what he was saying, not that it mattered. He was hard and ready and she didn't know who Kim was, but when she flexed her hips above him, he whispered the name again, almost reverently. He reached up to touch her face and she turned away from his hand. She angled her hips down to take his penis inside of her and waited for the satisfying sound of his screams. She waited until he was all the way inside of her then jerked her hips up. He howled like a kicked dog. Two more pumps of her hips brought screams and blood gushing between their legs.

He was begging her to stop, pain and drugs slurring his words. She twisted her hips as she pulled back up again and smiled when his screams went up a full octave. She wasn't sure if it was impulse or instinct, but her right hand darted out and grabbed the heavy wooden candleholder. The white scalding liquid wax flew all over her hand and face before the candle fell to the floor and rolled away from the bed. The candle's wick was snuffed out in the fall and a thin curl of smoke listlessly floated towards the scene.

She hit the screaming man across the right side of his face. The sound of wood impacting flesh was more of an aphrodisiac than the booze, the candles or the sight of his erect member had ever thought of being. She brought the square base of the candleholder down on his forehead, and then she reared back and hit his mouth as hard as she could. Pieces of shattered teeth and a spray of fire engine red and bubbling warm splash of his blood splattered across her face. It went inside of her wide open. She gasped at the carnal thrill of what she was doing and raised the candleholder high over her head again to hit him. His body twitched and shook beneath her and then he lay still.

His death, brutal and bloody, had been far more satisfactory than any carnal pleasure he could have given her. She reached between their legs and her fingers found the slick lip of the wonderful weapon inside her and twisted it to release it's teeth. Now free of the dead bastard's penis, she rolled off his body and looked at herself in the mirror over the sink against the far wall. Blood dripped down her pale skin, white wax stood out starkly against her hair and she had a wide grin on her face.

She took a step towards the bathroom, not caring in the least that she was stepping on his clothes, when she felt a hard, round object under the soft pad of her foot. She bent down in the semi-dark room and found the object. It was a simple gold ring. He had been married. She turned the ring over in her hand, smearing his own blood over his wedding ring. She took it with her to the bathroom. It didn't exactly match, but she sure this ring would compliment the State Championship ring she'd taken off of Dedrick Marsh's dead hand. She rubbed her hands together to get the wax coating off her palm and fingers as she walked towards the shower and made a mental note to pick up the blood spattered candleholder on her way out. It would look nice in her room.