The evening went off without a hitch. Once she got to the main dinning/reception room of the yacht. She was expecting underworld bosses and cronnies, drug dealers, pimps, warlords... not the Home Secretary, the head of MI6, and the head of the CIA foreign relations branch; all individualy introduced to her by Rene.
"I may be an arms dealer... but I'm not a foolish one. The British and my family go back to the war. The Americans came in when I gave them the wearabouts of a few 'former', shall we say, unsavoury clients. I don't do business with rapists or sex slave trafficers. once I learned who these slime were... so did MI6, and the CIA. Having my Madeline fine tuned my tolernce from little... to none. They were so grateful for my assistance... they kept me on, and in business. THEY are watching Pierre. I have little tolerence for a man who indulges such trash... even if he is my son. I hope their scrutiny will force him to seek a more savoury group mof friends... or a cell, long enough to sobber up."
Lara smiled sadly, "I'm sorry things are that way between you two."
"I loved my boy... I just despise the choices he made, and the fact he does nothing to change it. I am forced to have him tethered." He took a deep breath, "enough sad stories. Tonight is about you, and your accomplishments. Come... your friends await."
She was ushered to a massive buffet table, flanked by tuxedoed members of her expeditiary team that brouht down the giant Oni.
Carter took her arm and guided her to the food trays.
She covered her face and stiffled a laugh, "Your choices?" she chidded her lover.
"Bwah?," he gasped in feighned disbelief as she lifted a barbeque chicken leg from one of the many trays of assorted chicken dishes, "Are you kidding? If it were me... we'd be having chicken patte... by the tub full," he joked.
She turned to him, shoving the leg in his mouth, "Eat up," she sighed, "You might need your strength."
"In case he needs a little 'pick him up'," Jean whispered, droping a blue pill in Evan's breast pocket.
"Can never be too prepaired," Serge added and dropped a second in the Brit's pants pocket.
"Gute nacht... schlieblich" a German member of the team added, handing Carter a bag of blue pills, and winking at Lara.
"He said," Lara began to explain.
Carter just shook his head in embarassment, "'Eventualy'... KOMIKER!." he shouted at the retreating, laughing German. as the rest joined in in the revelry.
Lara touched her lover's face, "Poor baby. Whatever can I do to make you feel better?"
"I'm sure you'll think of something... Steel Fingers."
"Ahem," Rene coughed, "time to eat and talk of business, and what we have found... I'm sure you two can... hold back. I need to go over the finer points of the arrangements made. Fret not Lara; We have been looking ino everything. I regret to say you might not like what we found. I know I don't. But regardless of what you may be feeling about this world I live in... you are going to need ALL my assets. I only pray they are enough."
...
The police sent in a well armed CO19 Force Fire Unit less than five minutes after a witnes reported the dead body of bouncer.
Five minutes after that, they found, along with the horribly mutilated body of Derek Johnson, a message, in blood on the mirror behind the bar."Hello England - long time no see. Have you missed me? To the fine men in blue, I offer this sad revelation: you had me - TWICE - once before I killed Mary, and let me go. Mary's blood, and that of her unborn child, is on your forebearer's hands as much as mine. But fret not ladies... I want only one whore this time - gentlemen... on you it is open season...
The messge was still dripping, as if it had been made seconds before.
They were frozen to the spot.
Then HE cleared this throat.
They turned as one.
HE grinned, twirling his 12 inch katana blades, and sighed dejectedly. "Only seven?," he said, "I'm insulted."
The ensuing 'fight' lasted moments.
He had materialized in the midst of them, covered in blood... for affect. It worked.
The youngest opened fire... hitting two unit members as the Ripper effortlessly brushed aside the barel of his HK MP5 sub-machine gun at the moment of discharge, and cut his throat, and inner arm as he ducked under his victim, and spun him as he lifted him up from a squat, striking two other police, knocking one to the ground, and causing the other to shoot another member of the unit in the face as his gun went off.
He was elated. It had been well over a century since he had carved his way through a group like this. And yet it wasn't the same. Guns. They had changed the game, making it almost too easy at this distance for him. Panic ensued, shadows moved, blood spraying in your face drew untrained responses... and gore, gore ALWAYS threw you. the anguished screams and moans moans of slowly, horribly dying comrades... it never changed: you felt dread, hopeless, unfocused... terror; and he lived by that emotion, lived for it.
They never had a chance. Well, all but one.
The first bullet struck him in the right arm, the next... in the head.
He went down hard.
The officer, a woman of some five years on the force, had been sent in as crowd control, handed the gun by a unit member... just in case.
She stepped to the body cautiously, gun at the ready. Seeing him laying still in a pool of blood, she closed her eyes for a second as she took a deep breath, opened them, and almost screamed.
The blade cut through her uniform, and just berely missed her abdomen by a hairs breadth.
"You are a very good shot," the Ripper whispered into her ear. One hand secured around her throat, the other holding the blade at her belly. "I have no interest in seeing a good woman die... just one poor, sad, lost child... not one girl more. Don't make me change my mind."
She nodded, and dropped her gun.
"Good girl," He took her badge, "Alice," he sighed as he read her name, "you have just fell down the rabbit hole and sadly - though alive and well - here you shall stay... forever."
Inside, he was elated... and more than a little scared. She almost did it. Had it been a hollow point, it would have done enough damage to require him to go into a death like state as his diamond did it's work and rebuilt him. However, In that time, they would have removed his watch, and he would be a slave to the elemental in the diamond forever, feeding it as it trapped him in a perpetual nightmare, feeding off his darkest, most intense emotions for all time... but it had been a standard blunt force bullet, and mearly passed through.
The fear, as he was pulled into the blackness, was overwhelming in it's intensity; then, the adrenaline rush as IT pulled him back into his still healing mind, and saw the woman above him, gun lowered, eyes closed. He admired her courage, and soon was made whole by her terror.
"Please...," she gasped, "I have a daughter."
"I'm sure she's loveley. Let us keep her so... and her mother as well, shall we?"
She nodded.
"VERY good Alice. Now, call your friends...ALL OF THEM. Tell them 'Smiling Jack'... is back. They won't understand, or believe you... all the more to pity them. I need to go now... Alice. I've got blood all over me, and forgot my apron. Pick up your gun - officer."
The blade vanished from her abdomen, then the hand from her throat.
She slowly picked up the gun as she heard the bell above the door ring. Back-up had arrived. Too late. The killer was gone; but not before he left a little note to Alice on the mirror.
'Sleep well Alice.'