Kathy Intercepted, Part 2 By Merz Kathy in the dark When the door slammed shut behind me I was swallowed by the deepest darkness I have ever experienced. There were no light sources, no distant glimmering, not the faintest glow from beneath the door or anywhere else. I felt back to the knob to see if retreat were even a possibility. The utter darkness disoriented me so much that just finding the doorknob took several seconds, even though I stood within two feet of it. Of course it was securely locked from the outside, the door massive and impregnable so far as I was concerned. I turned to begin my slow, fumbling passage forward, feeling with my feet for the first step down. "For God's sake, Kathie, you don't have time for this. You have to get to Ernie before they do. Ernie and Julie need you." Betty grazed her elbow past my hand so I could grab it and let her lead my way. I held her thick, bare arm a moment, savoring it with both hands as the biceps stirred provocatively beneath my fingers. It felt as if her enormous strength was recharging my own body, revitalizing me and replacing the oppressiveness of the darkness around me with a feeling of familiarity and belonging. She moved off and began murmuring a staccato, "Step, step, step," as she led the way down a flight of twenty stairs to the flag stoned floor below. In the pitch-blackness I stumbled at the bottom, expecting another step down, and tumbled forward, scraping a knee on the rough flooring. Betty's strong hands caught me and set me upright, and then she moved briskly forward. I nearly had to jog to keep contact down what seemed a long tunnel, around a corner and down another straight stretch. As we moved I kept one hand on Betty's bulging biceps and brushed the other over the unseen wall at my side. After several minutes navigating twists and turns in total darkness Betty stopped and guided my hand to a corner of the wall on our right. "You turn here. There's another set of stairs and then a ladder leading to a manhole under a warehouse. That's where they're keeping Ernie and where they'll bring Julie if they catch her. They won't have gotten there yet." I stroked her unseen hair and felt her hands come to rest on my hips. We stood like that for a space of several breaths before her voice drifted softly to me through the dark and silence. "Back in the cafˇ, I shouldn't have said anything before you did what you had to. It happens when we're feeling safe and close, and then suddenly a danger looms up in front of us. I knew we'd get out of it okay, but in the past there's been so much destruction in all directions around us, and it takes away my pleasure in the moment with you. Besides, I know it's irrational, but I like being the one to solve problems. Back there I couldn't even really tell what it was, how many of them there were. Those men were going to spoil our time together and I just wanted them to leave us alone, to send them away like you did. You were magnificent, weren't you?" "If I could have told you there were three, two showing pistols, you would have figured out the right thing to do. I didn't need to make all that fuss, but I couldn't help myself." I drew myself up a little straighter as I reviewed and began to savor the memory of our morning together. "Yes, in my own gaudy way I was magnificent. Similar to shoving a billiards stick up some fellow's arse and snapping it off. Effective but possibly over the top. Still, nobody died and I was careful with the knife around the one man's throat, and I didn't stab for his brain. So now it's your turn to solve a problem, and it's been just as magnificent." "You need to go another twenty steps straight ahead, then turn left for a dozen and there's a stairway leading to the ladder. Be careful after the turn. There's some wreckage on the ground by the stairs you could trip over." "You aren't coming?" "No, after you get up the ladder and back into the light I'd be in your way. It really is up to you." She pulled away, leaving me to move forward alone. I stepped more carefully than she had when she led me this far but still briskly for the circumstances. A few steps after that last turning my foot encountered a yielding mass. I stooped to confirm it was a man, breathing but who made no response to my contact. The next man I came to began a soft groaning when I prodded him with my toe. Near his hand I found a revolver that I unloaded carefully by feel, pocketing the shells before moving on. He moaned again as I stepped over him. A flashlight lanced through the darkness a moment after I stepped back to the wall, the beam searching the area around the moaning man. I moved silently along the wall, following it to a point behind the source of the light. The outline of a flight of metal stairs came into view between me and the man swinging the light. Approaching slowly and low to the ground I came up behind him and got an arm around his neck before he knew I was there. His scream of shock brought a smile to my lips. "Naughty fellow. Is that a broken leg I see you sitting on? Wasn't that lesson enough that misbehaving can only bring you trouble." I gave his neck a quick twist a few degrees clockwise. This one would definitely yield to my exertions and I made sure its owner was aware of the fact. "I suppose you three were all set to ambush someone, and you didn't see who sent you flying down the stairs." He forced a mumbled reply past the jaws I was using to torque his head to its maximum range of motion. "Don' know what happened. Shifty just kinda flew, and then T-Bone ran into me and we both went down the stairs. He's just laying there. You gotta help us." "And did the word 'magnificent' occur to you, when three armed men ended here, beaten and unable to defend yourselves? It certainly comes to my mind." I eased the pressure on him for a moment, then snapped his neck back to its breaking point. "I'm the one Marlow wanted you to kill, but I'm in a forgiving mood. Should I survive I will send somebody down to gather you all up. Meanwhile, rest here in the dark and reflect upon the errors in judgment that brought your life to this point. If you are not a very good boy, my friend is apt to finish what she started. She'll be watching you." I snatched the light from his unsteady hand and snapped it off as I moved quickly away, before he could start shooting blindly around him. I might have taken the gun as well, or left him unarmed but with a light. This way he was more likely to do harm to himself and I frankly thought that the desirable outcome. With the torch tucked into my waistband it felt perfectly natural to move smoothly in darkness to the stairway I had glimpsed. Up the steps, a bit of a grope to find the ladder then up to the top. Only when I was halfway up the ladder did I see light coming through half a dozen small holes in the heavy iron disk covering the opening. Perhaps Betty could have simply lifted it up, but I needed to maneuver so my back was against the cover and then lift with my legs to raise it up and shift it aside. It made a fearsome racket when I slid it the rest of way off so I could emerge into the light. Before easing the cover back over the hole I stuck my head back down the pit. "Remember what we discussed. You need to behave yourself down there if you want me to send you any help." I believe the injured gunman was showing his self control by cursing only softly in response. After my time in the tunnels the fluorescent lamps of the warehouse seemed harsh. It felt as if they bleached away layers of fear and uncertainty that might have rubbed off on me from the darkness below. Scanning a room similar to the one with the portal to the tunnels I recognized Ernie easily enough as he sat in a stout wooden chair with his wrists shackled behind his back. I nearly whooped with the joy of victory in this race. His head drooped to his powerful chest, but his shoulders rose and fell rhythmically so I figured he would be all right once released. His face had taken some battering and I assumed his captors had lavished punishment on the fine body under his shirt, but his eyes flicked open as he turned in my direction. I dashed to him and began hissing into his ear and shaking him awake. In a few moments his bleary eyes opened again and focused on me. "Kathy? What's happening? Are the one who hurt me?" Instantly on guard lest he was testing me, I composed a carefully honest answer. "Not this time, Ernie. You're being held captive. I'm going to take you out of here." "No, you get out!" he hissed. "You don't know these bastards, or what you're getting yourself into!" Fear replaced his initial confusion. I had started digging out the paperclips concealed under my belt when we heard keys rattling in the exterior door of the next room. I pressed myself behind the door to Ernie's cell and looked through the crack as Marlowe entered along with two of his assistants. "Where did those other lazy" huff, puff "bastards go?" he asked when he looked back. He stood in the doorway another moment before closing it. "They'll be along. Oughta take it out of their cut." He pulled Julie's envelope from his coat pocket and hefted it. Let's see what we got so far." Pant, swallow. "Then I'll figure how much more to go for, and we still got the blind bitch to squeeze dry." He had taken a couple more steps into the room when the door behind burst open and Julie leaped in, a pistol clutched in each meaty fist. I wouldn't have credited the two remaining gunmen with the speed they showed in whipping out their own weapons and leveling them at Julie. I had been so close to the prize and now it looked to be slipping away. "You think you're better than the four idiots I already stacked up, go ahead and try me." While her grip on her guns tightened to the point that I thought she must crush them, her aim on the two men never wavered, while they repeatedly exchanged nervous glances and were much less steady. "Standoff," gasped Marlowe. "Except we got you outnumbered." He pulled open his overcoat and began drawing forth his own gun. I glanced back at Ernie, gave him a wink of encouragement, and stepped into the room. "No, I don't think you have any advantage here at all." I spoke in even, measured tones. Jaws dropped at my appearance so far from where they thought they had left me lost or imprisoned. I avoided sudden movements that might startle any of them into rash action and just let the impossibility of my presence play upon their minds. A dozen measured steps brought me in front of Marlowe who finally fumbled out the gun he hoped might save him or win him some measure of vengeance. He had no hope. "Poor rat. Poor frightened beast." I spoke softly and in easy cadences to avoid breaking the bubble of suspense the entire scene trembled upon. I put my hand on his as he pulled his revolver from under his coat. "It's such a big world and you're so weak. Betty sees you wherever you go. She sees you in the shadows and can reach for you whenever she chooses. You don't know when she will come to you in the night or send someone like me to hurt you again, do you? Poor rat, you can end all that fear, you can leave it behind once and for all." I didn't touch the gun itself, I just guided his hand gently as he drew it out, pressed it under his own chin, and pulled the trigger. "There has been enough damage today, don't you all agree? Put down your pistols and I will place you with Shifty and T-Bone and the third one who didn't introduce himself. They're hurt down in the tunnel. If you two will go help them now, I will phone for an ambulance and rescue workers, with no details of your part in this affair. I give you a light I picked up down there. Julie, after these gentlemen set aside their guns if you would be so kind as to lift off that cover we can send them down where they will be safe. You boys do want to be safe, don't you? We can keep you safe." It took only one more exchange of glances between the two before they warily lowered their pistols and set them on the ground. "Now you," I prompted Julie. First she slid her pistols into the waistband of her pants, but the weight threatened to pull them down so with a shrug she warily placed them on the ground as well. We quickly got the duo herded over to the access point to the tunnels and Julie made lifting off the heavy steel cover look at once easy and incredibly erotic as her arms bulged under its weight. Our guests took notice and quickly took to the ladder down into the darkness. I handed over the torch as the last one disappeared into the darkness, and then impulsively gripped Julie's stonelike bicep. "Joseph was afraid of something like this." He looked at my hand gripping the bulging muscle. "That you'd turn me into a wild animal if you got the chance." "Turn you into? Haven't you felt the urge to roar since we saw the first of our prey this morning? Don't you feel the lion inside yourself every day? You built this muscle because you've been so intimate with the animal." "I've felt it. Sometimes when I get home after my crew has had a tough day at fires and car wrecks and stuff, my muscles hurt so much I want to scream, and then it changes to wanting to feel them hurt even more because I'm so proud at what I was able to do. Joseph talks me past that. He's so soft and loving, he doesn't like to see the wild part and helps me get past it. That isn't my biceps anymore." "No, that's a lusciously large pectoral that you've just tensed to be just as hard. And a nipple so hard it could etch glass." I gave her chest a caress and pulled my hand from under her shirt. She took a deep breath and replaced the cover. "You weren't meant to be leashed by someone weaker than you." "Would you like to see me break the handcuff chain on Ernie? I know I could do it." "Let's not waste time. Did you see any empty buildings or a room we could go to? I'll handle the handcuffs, you get the envelope of loot from Marlowe." I didn't waste a moment for a stolen kiss but practically leaped at Ernie and got out my paperclips. Selecting the one I had bent to a size anticipating a small lock like handcuffs I quickly opened them, assured him I would be back as soon as I could to get him away from this, and returned to the front room. "Yes, honey, we're done. I've called an ambulance for Ernie, but he'll be okay," Julie spoke into a cell phone she had obviously filched from Marlowe's body. The fat ransom envelope was clutched under her imposing arm. I froze, horrified. "What have you done? You told your husband?" I strode to her in half the time it had taken me to cover the same distance when I had approached Marlowe. "And you called and ambulance for Ernie? Tighten up." My mind was spinning at this absurd turn of events. I didn't wait so much as a second to see that Julie would understand my last command, but threw the hardest punch I could directly into her midsection. It landed with a satisfying thud and a delicious shock from my knuckles to my elbow. From triumph with the prize in reach I suddenly saw my reward being swept away. "Now you," I directed, and pulled up my shirt to expose washboard abs as she dropped the envelope and promptly punched at least as hard as I had. "You don't really think you can go back on the leash without at least a few moments to shout your triumph, do you? We need to move quickly." I gripped the forearm she was staring at as she appreciated the electric thrill she would have received when she hit my solid midsection. Without further discussion she turned and led the way out to an adjoining building. The trussed up criminal she had previously dumped there still slumbered, but we went to an inner room and carefully shut the door before simultaneously jerking off our shirts. Precious seconds were wasted in admiring stares, and I indulged in a needless tensing of my arms and chest to demonstrate that my muscles were more ripped than her thicker, bulkier physique. Then I abruptly shoved her hard with both arms to her chest, knocking her back two steps. As she coiled in response I held up a delaying hand so that I might quickly peel off my slacks and knickers while stepping out of my shoes. Having only her sweatpants to shed she trembled in bare expectation before she followed that impulse to pile into me, ducking under my defensive hands and slamming in her shoulder to lift effortlessly before dumping me onto the dirty concrete floor. I was braced for the bruising landing, but she was on me before I could move. Three hard shots landed on my abs with a delicious thudding as she further indulged herself in appreciation of solid female development. Then I surprised her by rolling up and catching her between my legs. I poured on every ounce of power, squeezing her ribs and driving the air from her lungs. For a moment she luxuriated in the agony my muscles inflicted, and then she began to struggle. Her broad back tensed so her thick lats fought against the strength of my quads. She dug steel fingers into my thighs and stained to pull them open. Through our separate mists of pain we exchanged a smile of appreciation. She won that contest when concern for permanent injury forced me to give up my hold and spin away, trying to gain my feet before she could. Again, there was no clear victor as we collided with shattering force. Shattering to me, at any rate, as the impact sent a seismic shock through my entire body and would have sent me recoiling backward if Julie hadn't crushed my upper arms in her hands. "You gained, what, must be ten pounds since we met. Good pounds," she gritted out as we began a desperate scramble for a hold or an advantage. The next moments blurred into a sweaty, filthy fury until we simultaneously froze at the sound of sirens and tires squealing to a halt outside. Wordlessly we dressed as fast as humanly possible and stepped out of our room. Julie's captive was by now awake and staring wide eyed at the doorway we stepped through. She made a show of flexing her beautiful right biceps and issuing a low, throaty growl that elicited a look of even more terror from the man. Amused, I licked my indecently spiced fingers and gave him a wink as I passed through the room and into a melee of ambulances and police cars. I drew secret glee to see that now Julie walked with a noticeable limp while I could maintain a normal gait despite a dozen muscle aches and pains from our encounter. Julie stepped up to the emergency worker who seemed to be least in a quandary at responding to a call and finding only a seemingly vacant industrial derelict. She identified herself and crisply described the scenes he would find in the two rooms of the building. That quickly she had established her bona fides sufficiently to carry on about the criminals down in the tunnel who might be regarded as dangerous, and where she had beaten and left four others along the way back to where she had parked what seemed like ages before. The medic motioned for a police officer to join the conversation at that point so that Julie could repeat the parts of the story that might bear on law enforcement matters. She led him to the doorway and pointed at Marlowe's remains lying where he had fallen, pistol still in his hand. As the officer stooped for a closer look Julie picked up her fat envelope and tucked it under her shirt. "Retrieving the swag, eh? Might it not provide some support to the story of ransoming Ernie with your credit cards and bank accounts?" She cocked and eyebrow at me. "This envelope? There aren't any credit cards or anything in it. I'm not going to pay a bunch of crooks to grab a member of my family and hurt him until he'd talk the way he did on the phone to prove they really had him. If they wanted my library card and the rest of the plastic that's in here, fine. That's all they'd get. Couple gift cards, couple useless bank statements, couple official looking things that wouldn't get them anything. But I'm not paying somebody to attack my family, no matter what it might cost me." "Or cost me, apparently. And that's why you happened to think of including me." My mind reeled at how hard she had seemed ready to fight for a packet full of nothing. My next caustic comment was cut off before I could say something that might bring Julie and me back to full combat. A car identical to the one Julie and I had arrived in braked to halt in front of us. Julie's husband tumbled out of the driver's side with Betty emerging in a more dignified manner from the other. "Julie, darling, are you alright? You look like you've been through a war." I smiled inwardly as I surveyed the outward signs of my recent engagement with Julie. "Was it the kidnappers? Or maybe someone else made you do things..." He hadn't got out half that sentence when Julie grabbed his shirt front and jerked him down to stare eye to eye with her. Her thick fist twisted the fabric causing his face to go purple as air and blood were choked off. "Joey, shut up. This woman just laid her life on the line for your family, so I don't want to hear any of your shit. And if she so much as thinks 'suck my dick' in your direction, I don't want to hear a why out of you, I don't want to hear how. All I want to hear are your knees hitting the deck in front of her. You got that? Now get in the car. We're staying over tonight at the first motel we find. We need to talk about some new arrangements in our life." She shoved him rudely away, cast a final up and down look at me, and barefoot walked barefoot to the driver side of the car. "She is really going to kick the shit out of my baby brother, isn't she," Betty commented matter-of-factly as she laced her arm through mine. "For his own good." "I expect so. She will likely explain that while the lion may be grateful to the mouse for doing her a good turn, one remains a predator and the other remains prey. Somehow that obvious truth got lost in their relationship." "Trust you to set her right in her thinking. I guess I need a ride now. Can you find the other car?" "I could, but I need to run a quick errand. Can I get you a cab, or maybe pick you up here a little later? This really is quite pressing." She laughed. "You're still thinking about the big prize in all of this aren't you? I'm sorry, it's gone. I called Ernie's girlfriend and told her what hospital the EMTs said they were taking him to. She'll be there to collect him and start nursing him back to health. Frankly, I don't understand what he sees in that marshmallow, but that isn't my business." She hugged me closer to her as I absorbed this latest bit of bleak news. "If you had got him back to your loft, would you have let him go again?" I jerked free and faced her. "Damn you! How can a blind person always see two steps ahead of my every move? I suppose I would have let him go. I did before, didn't I, with no lasting damage? After just a few months?" "And there's no five thousand dollars for you, is there? How about if you bring me home instead of Ernie? Joseph - hell, let's all go back to calling him Joey - and I had time to do some cleaning at you loft. We can discuss lions and mice and any other wild creatures that come to mind. I'll bet you make me cry first." "There's no five thousand unless you have an undiscovered genius for reassembling shredded documents. You never thought I'd take a nickel for giving Julie a hand, even if it didn't turn out that I got to do a little therapy with her did you? And you never cry first." I shoved my fists into my pockets and started the long walk back to the car. "And your story is that you spent the whole morning at my loft and haven't been with me in this neighborhood before?" Her hand was on my elbow within two steps, pretending to be guided along. "You know that anytime you need me with you, I'm there. Like now when you really need to take a bath. And I always cry when you sing Wagner."