by Lee Winter
The needle pushing into his flesh from her ring was so fine it was highly unlikely he felt it. She exhaled slowly as Busch merely smiled benevolently at her and started to talk.
“Your favourite composer,” Busch asked, pinning her with a stare. “Who is this? Why is he this?”
She carefully lowered both hands, acutely aware of the position of the lethal needle nib, and studied his white sleeve. There was about a thirty percent chance of a tell-tale pinprick of blood being left behind as the needle withdrew.
No red spot appeared.
“Arvo Pärt,” Requiem replied, satisfied. “A modern composer who fills the soul that is empty, and empties the soul that is full.”
He looked at her, clearly startled by her answer. She gave him another smile, mentally ticking away how many seconds the toxin had been pumping around his system, doing its damage. It was the most fast-acting poison known to man. It was completely natural, but unlike a snake or spider bite, there was no cure. A single drop could kill ten men.
Very soon, Uli Busch’s breathing would become impaired. A little after that, the mere act of inhaling would start to feel impossible.
By the time he fell to the floor, twitching in what might look like a seizure, his entire diaphragm would stop rising and falling with a paralysis that forced a person to hold his breath forever.
That’s when the terror would strike—and, if she calculated correctly, it would be exactly what a young farmer on a wheat station felt when he, too, discovered he could no longer draw breath. The panic at not knowing what was happening. The horror of wondering if this was his last moment. BioChem’s CEO was moments away from becoming intimately acquainted with his victims’ pain.
Busch turned, barking for his men to provide him more wine. He turned back, mouth opening, most likely to offer her a drink, but Requiem was already slipping away. Steadily she walked, ignoring the greetings of other orchestra members as she disappeared into the remote fire exit passage.
Requiem gingerly reattached the pearl bauble over the deadly needle, then slid the ring off, put it in the container, and sealed it. Under the light of the neon green exit sign, she dropped it in her bag, and then rapidly dressed herself in leathers, boots, and gloves.
She had tested the fire exit two nights ago for an alarm. There wasn’t one. She eased the door open, slung her bag over her shoulder, and slipped out into the darkness.
Halfway down the fire escape, she heard the first shout for an ambulance. Good luck. Busch would be dead before it arrived; possibly before they even placed the call.
When they examined his body, they would see no entry wounds.
She navigated the twists and turns of the back alley to find her Ninja H2 waiting for her, crouched beneath a lone security light. The moths darting all around provided a mottled lighting effect to the area—nature’s own mirror ball.
She’d planned ahead with her Ninja. If Busch’s rottweilers actually got a clue, she would need a demon of a machine which topped 400 km/h. Even if they didn’t catch on, Requiem, unlike Natalya, travelled no other way.
She stowed her bag in a small custom compartment at the rear of the motorbike, slid onto the seat, and settled. By rote, she reached for her MP3 player. Her maestro would strip any mess from her mind, tucking away unschooled thoughts like errant hairs behind an ear, and ground her.
As she lifted her helmet, she saw it. The faintest movement glinted in the shine of the helmet’s glossy black paint. Requiem reacted instantly, diving from her bike and rolling away just as a figure in freefall dropped from a drainpipe and landed lightly a foot away.
How the hell had the rottweilers worked it out? This particular quartet’s skills lay in torture and knife-work, not in grasping the complexities of a brilliantly conceived plan. Requiem was irritated that somehow she’d given herself away. She must have made a mistake somewhere. That did not happen.
At least there was only one of them to contend with. The other three were likely still trying to save their dying master.
She twisted away from the shadowy form just as it lunged at her, and Requiem kicked out blindly. Her foot connected, and she pushed back, the force of her powerful thigh flipping the attacker’s body over. There was a startled “oomph” as he landed on his back and the air whooshed from his lungs.
Requiem threw herself onto the figure, and flipped her wrist up, positioning the base of her hand to break the attacker’s nose and ram the bone fragments up into the brain. Just as she was about to strike, her attacker’s head rolled to one side and light fell on the face. Short black hair, dark, narrow eyes, a flat nose, and curling, mean lips greeted her.
She stopped.
Mean, sensuous lips.
Her hand froze. Sonja bloody Kim. The best bodyguard of Ken Lee’s gang, not to mention his enforcer and occasional assassin.
The Korean was lethal at close range and slippery as hell to pin down. She was a champion wrestler who had an ability to twist men’s bones like pipe cleaners. And that was before you got to her skills with concealed weapons. She loved to play with kunai throwing knives.
“You!” Requiem spat. “Tell me you’re not freelancing for Busch now?” She grabbed a fistful of Sonja’s shirt, wrenched it up, and then slammed her head into the ground. “You do pick the bottom feeders.”
“Says the great Requiem who has no loyalty to any family,” Sonja shot back.
She bucked beneath Requiem who, despite being almost twice her size, struggled to contain her. In the middle of it all, Sonja inched her left hand toward her waistband.
“Why the hell can’t the families stay in-house?” Sonja complained, scowling. Her hand suddenly flew to her waist but Requiem snatched it and pinned it by Sonja’s ear.
As though her sneaky move hadn’t just been interrupted, Sonja continued, “But no, they choose you for the dirtiest work. A freelancer! You, who’d kill any of them for the highest price. It’s so stupid. They are weak!”
“They like my creative touch.” Requiem smashed Sonja’s head into the road again. “I send a message. Sometimes all they want is the message. But you? You’re about as subtle as a two-by-four, with the brains to match.”
She slipped her hand under Sonja’s T-shirt, searching for whatever Sonja’s fingers had been creeping towards, and pulled out the knife tucked in her waistband.
Requiem held it up to the light and examined it.
“How many others?” she asked, indicating the weapon.
Sonja shook her head, refusing to answer.
Requiem placed it at her throat. “How many others?”
“Shi bai kepu seck yi!”
“Even if I had an Oedipal complex, my mother is dead,” Requiem said coolly. “So no, I can’t.”
“You speak Korean?” Sonja started.
“Just the essentials,” Requiem said. “Last chance.” She scraped the edge of the knife lightly down Sonja’s jaw. The fine hairs on her cheek bent under the blade and then sprang up again. “How many more of these are you hiding? Or shall I strip you naked to find them?”
“Bite me.”
“You’d probably like that,” Requiem said. She offered a dangerous smile. She took the blade and slashed from the top of the T-shirt to the hem.
Pale brown skin, criss-crossed with scars, greeted her. She moved the knife to Sonja’s white sports bra and sliced it in one motion. Each half fell to the side.
Sonja stared up at her pugnaciously, but there was something odd about her expression.
Requiem considered Sonja for a moment, and then her gaze dropped. She took in the muscled, flat stomach, and slid her attention higher to soft mounds tipped with brown nipples, hardening in the night air.
“Like what you see?” Sonja asked, her voice teasing and provocative. Requiem didn’t bother to respond. Pleased as she was with the view, this was just business.
She returned the knife to Sonja’s throat and slid her other hand around and then shoved it under Sonja’s shredded T-shirt between her
body and the road. Skidding her fingers over the imperfections of scars and softness in the spaces between, Requiem checked her back. She found nothing taped or hidden there. Then, she brought her hand around, slid it up to her skull, and expertly ran it through Sonja’s hair. Clean. Behind the ears was also nothing.
Requiem shifted her knife hand down to the jeans. The change in Requiem’s centre of gravity was all it took. No longer properly pinned down, despite Requiem’s weight across her hips, Sonja’s hand shot out, grabbed Requiem’s wrist, and jerked it back—hard. The knife flew into the distance and clattered against the road when it landed.
Sonja’s left leg flew straight up behind Requiem, and the steel toe of her boot impacted the back of Requiem’s head. Pain lanced through her. She fell forward, collapsing onto Sonja’s chest, dazed. Sonja wrapped her legs around Requiem’s waist, then moved her knees higher to her ribcage, and locked them in place. With a malicious glint in her eyes, she clapped her hands around Requiem’s throat and squeezed.
“How smart are you now, huh?” Her breath dusted across Requiem’s lips. “Stupid gae saeki.”
Requiem, her brain still jangling, tried to shake off the vice-like grip around her ribs, but it only tightened. Christ. She should have known better. You never let Sonja Kim within wrestling distance. She’d simply been biding her time to strike.
Requiem’s entire body creaked with the pressure, her breath shortening. It was like going up against an anaconda.
“Mr Lee heard there’s a hit out for him,” Sonja said, pulsing her thighs in crushing squeezes. “He knows they’ll hire you to come for him. Consider this a pre-emptive strike.”
The hands at her throat tightened. Requiem’s consciousness flirted with the darkness, and she couldn’t believe the power Sonja held in her compact body. Poor judgment on her part, clearly, as she knew Kim had once snapped a man’s shin bone in two when he’d laughed at her diminutive stature.
Requiem wasn’t laughing.
She tried shifting her arms, but they were firmly locked against her sides by Sonja’s thighs. Requiem stared down into Sonja’s eyes, black and piercing.
She was reminded of a vision from years ago. A man in a workshop, a wide-eyed little girl at his side.
She smiled at the memory, and Sonja blinked uncertainly.
“What the fuck are you smiling at? You’ll be dead in seconds. The Great Requiem dead. The end!”
“Nabi,” she said with dawning recognition.
The fingers at her throat slackened. “What?”
“I was just remembering the day we met. You as a girl. So adorable.”
The hands unclasped and fell to Requiem’s shoulders.
“At your father’s workshop,” Requiem continued, sucking in a lungful of air. “Carrying his tools while he maintained the Lee family’s equipment. Years ago. Before the Lees got into the flesh trade.”
Requiem smiled. “If I recall, Nabi means butterfly. Or kitten or something?”
Sonja flushed. “Fuck you.”
“You wish,” Requiem purred softly. “Don’t you?”
She recalled the young girl, barely in her teens, following her around for weeks when she’d first returned from Vienna after completing her cello scholarship at a top conservatorium. Natalya had been what? Nineteen? Twenty?
Some of Lee’s associates had sponsored her after one of their ambitious wives had taken an interest in the young Natalya—in both her prodigious talent and the possibilities she presented.
Natalya had been doing the rounds, thanking the appropriate men. They, in turn, expected her to fulfil her end of the bargain. Shortly afterwards, she resumed her secret tutelage for an apprenticeship of a most unusual kind.
Requiem’s weapons training over the next few years had been unmatched, which wasn’t surprising because Lee’s weapons expert, Dimitri, was the best there had ever been.
This had been before the crime family wars, before Dimitri had left to create a rival house and everything had gone to hell. And in this relatively peaceful window of her life, a Korean girl, eyes wide with adoration, had followed Requiem everywhere.
“My shadow,” Requiem said, slowly. “I called you my shadow.”
“I’m not her anymore.” Sonja’s eyes flared.
“Aren’t you?” Requiem taunted. She leaned closer. “You did what you said you would do. Do you remember?”
“No.” Sonja’s face turned darker. The lie was obvious. Her legs, finally, began to loosen around Requiem’s ribs.
“You said you wanted to be just like me.” Requiem chuckled. “And look at you now. A killer, a lethal body for hire.”
Sonja looked at her, clearly confused by this turn of conversation.
“I’m curious, Nabi, why you chose to jump me here. There are much more private places. My own home, for instance. Your boss knows exactly where I live. But no—here we are, in a dark alley, in public. How curious.”
“Not curious. Convenient.” Sonja looked away.
“I have never seen anyone better at knives than you, Nabi, not in all my life. Not even Popov,” she continued conversationally, “and that man was a master of the blade.” Requiem leaned forward. “So, my question is, why am I not lying in that gutter with your gleaming little ninja knives poking out of my back already?”
“In the back? That’s such bullshit. I’m no coward.”
“Or my front, then?”
Sonja glared at her but had no answer.
“Anyone would think you, or at least a part of you, are desperately hoping to be interrupted by choosing a city street. The problem is, you don’t know what I do. You don’t know how deserted this particular area is.”
“You’re making no sense.”
“No? Because I think, deep down, you don’t actually want to kill me at all. After all, it’s hard to kill a woman you’re in love with.”
The slap came lightning fast, but Requiem had slithered an arm free and was prepared. She caught Sonja’s hand and then forced the arm back to the ground.
She leaned forward until her lips were in line with Sonja’s, inches apart. “Am I really wrong?”
She noted dispassionately the quickening rise and fall in Sonja’s breathing. She smiled. Oh, Requiem knew arousal when she saw it. Her own pulse picked up at the promise of what lay ahead. Of showing Sonja that she didn’t rule the game, that the game was Requiem’s, balanced eternally in her favour.
A part of her was vastly irritated at how close she’d come to being throttled at the hands of this slip of a woman. She grabbed Sonja’s other hand and angrily slapped that into the ground, too, and shot her a glare.
For Requiem, the sex act itself held little appeal. It was hot and sweaty and chaotic and left a mess. Worse, she lost control at one pivotal moment, no matter how hard she tried to maintain it. But power? Requiem was addicted to its sweet taste. It was a high that had no peer, so she would tolerate one to indulge in the other. Even if it involved a public alley and— she wrinkled her nose in distaste—dirt.
“A fucking lie!” Sonja spat in protest. “Kuh-juh!”
Requiem lowered her head until it was just inches above Sonja’s. “Is it a lie?” she goaded. She released one wrist and ran a fingertip over a nipple, circling it until it puckered into a hard knot.
A blush rose on Sonja’s cheeks, and her eyes narrowed into a glower. Requiem gave a low laugh.
“So conflicted. You want to tell me to fuck off, but you’re so aroused at the thought that I might finally give you what you’ve always wanted—what poor little Nabi wanted—that you can barely see straight.”
Requiem rolled her hips against her, and Sonja’s crushing grip fell away completely. Requiem’s diaphragm gratefully expanded properly for the first time in seven minutes. Her relief was enormous.
She should probably kill Sonja now. Or flee. Or both. But she wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. No, no. It comes along so rarely, the chance to show another person who really holds the power. The chance to cru
sh the pitiful idea that Sonja had any control at all when playing in Requiem’s arena was truly delicious. Teach this lesson right the first time, and it would last a lifetime.
Sonja was about to become an apt pupil. She would walk away tonight and never again doubt who was in charge.
“You’ve wanted me for how long?” Requiem demanded, lips curling.
Sonja gritted her teeth.
“No need to be shy. Tell me, and I might even let you have a taste.” She gave her a lingering, dark look filled with every illicit promise.
A tremor ran through Sonja’s body, and Requiem offered a knowing smile. Then she struck, her teeth latching onto Sonja’s neck, biting hard. To her satisfaction, Sonja actually mewed. Requiem pulled back and laughed that Sonja looked appalled by her own response.
“Oh my dear, little Nabi, you liked that. Didn’t you?” Requiem taunted.
Sonja scowled and shook her head.
“I don’t believe you,” Requiem said. “Last chance—nod for me if you want this, or I’ll just stop right now and leave you all hot and bothered.”
Sonja glared at her, but there was hunger in her eyes. Slowly, with a reluctant jerking motion as if it physically pained her, Sonja gave the smallest of nods. A heady rush of power surged through Requiem, and she smiled triumphantly.
She bent over Sonja and latched onto a plump brown nipple, viciously attacking it. Sonja squirmed beneath her. Knowing her strength when it was unleashed excited Requiem all the more.
Something clawed at Requiem’s pants. She looked down to discover Sonja’s hand worming its way up her leathers, towards her centre. She growled, snatched it back, and flattened Sonja’s wrist to the ground. “You want to play with me, you want me to allow this, then you play my way.”
Sonja tossed her an irritated look but complied. Moments later, Requiem unbuttoned Sonja’s jeans, shoved her gloved hand inside, and pushed past the flimsy cotton to find a slickness. She rubbed fiercely as Sonja wriggled and gasped.
Requiem paused, looked her directly in the eye, and positioned her gloved fingers at Sonja’s entrance. In the strange, dappled light, she wondered what this looked like, this frantic coupling of a towering woman engulfing her smaller, willing prey.