‘Should I be?’
He was a bully. The kind of person that got her hackles up just by being in the same room. The main question was, what was he doing here, now?
‘It seems you are in quite a pickle.’
That stiff upper lip, British pompous arrogance was irritating her already. Did they still make people like this? Who the hell did he think he was? James Bond? And what did that make her? She looked at Jack.
‘Sorry Jess, it wasn’t my idea.’ He shrugged, so that was the guilt he felt.
‘I contacted him.’ The walking advertisement for Sloane Street interrupted rudely. ‘If it’s any consolation to you, he had no choice but to bring me here. I have been following you for decades now. You manage to get around a lot.’ Once again, that arrogant smile. ‘I lost you after you cleaned up Easy—you effectively vanished off the grid. Kept yourself quiet for a while. Seems that you moved here—down-under.’ He smiled. ‘But it was just a matter of time before bloody and maimed bodies would start to turn up somewhere. It was a waiting game. So here I am.’ He spread his arms and smiled again. A very irritating and patronising smile.
He needed bringing down a notch. But it wasn’t the right time yet.
It would come.
‘We can sit here and pretend that we don’t know what you are, or what you do, or we can get down to business’ he continued.
She had remained silent up till now. Returning his stare. ‘Who the hell are you?’ She demanded.
‘Who am I? Well we were officially introduced.’ He indicated Jack, who had climbed up on to the third chair. He sat there uncomfortably. She could see and feel it, and empathised. ‘Who am I? Let me enlighten you.’ So smug ‘As our little friend said.’
She could have killed him outright for that.
‘My name is Barkley Smith.’
‘Smith, yeah, right.’
‘Smith may not be my, shall we say, family name. But it will suffice for now. And Barkley, I just like the sound.’
He opened the folder to some bloody photos and laid them out in front of her. ‘These probably look familiar to you. They’re your work.’
She knew exactly where and when the photos must have been taken. It was her work. She had killed this pathetic excuse for a man. Ripped him apart. He was scum. Had deserved it. But the extent of the violence was extreme, even for her. It had been so long since she had killed that she had momentarily lost control, and with that she also lost any hope of covering her tracks. There wasn’t a predator in Australia that could make that kind of impact on a living creature. None that even came close. The killings after this one had been more reserved. More composed. Easier to shove the blame on someone or something else. She had covered her tracks, or so she thought.
But the first had been for her. She had needed to get that out of her system.
‘The scumbag deserved it, there’s no discussion about that.’ The pompous prick continued. ‘Preying on small innocent children is a death sentence in my books, too.’ Pointing to the photos. ‘But did you really need to make such a mess? It cost us a lot of effort and money to make that one disappear. But ... we gladly helped.’ Just as long as we get something in return, was the unspoken ending of his monologue.
She stayed silent. And waited for the inevitable. He would at some point get around to what he wanted from her.
‘As you may have guessed, that’s what I’m here for now.’ He added other photos, of other killings. Ones she had thought would never point to her.
‘You see, you owe us. And now it’s payback time.’
‘I never asked you to step in. So, I don’t owe you anything’.
‘Well our opinions differ on that one, don’t they?’ He was unfazed, enjoying the conversation.
It was almost a let-down, finally coming eye-to-eye with this magnificent creature that he had studied for almost twenty-two years. The assassin supreme. The ideal killer. Her own alibi. Impossible to believe even if you knew the truth. For people of lesser intellect and smaller of mind, that is. He on the other hand had spent decades researching the impossible, only to find that there was no such thing as the impossible. Things were improbable until they happened. Not knowing just meant that it hadn’t happened yet.
‘I have been researching you for two decades. I am the one person on earth that knows you best.’
‘You don’t know me.’
‘Oh, my dear, that is where you are very wrong. I may even know you better than you know yourself.’ He paused for effect. ‘Tell me. Do you have any idea what you really are? Or whether you are the only one?’
Touché.
‘I know that the cat and you are one. That you became aware of your, shall we say “talents”, around your ninetieth birthday, in a small laboratory concealed in a spa in the Americas.’ His gaze never left hers. The smug bastard was so sure of himself.
‘You killed the General and managed to infuriate previous, current and future generations of his spawn.’ He retrieved a piece of paper from the folder and turned it around so she could read it. It was a bounty sheet. Five million on her head, to be paid on delivery: alive, in person or for the golden tip that led to her capture.
The reward was set by someone she knew all too well. The Iron Lady—Salina, and her husband, one of the General’s sons. Jess recognised the hereditary, steel-blue eyes. There was a photo of them pinned to the bounty sheet. She should have known. Salina had a knack for getting herself out of the trouble she had started.
‘She ages well don’t you think? Not as well as you naturally, but well, she’s human.’
Condescending prick.
‘What do you want?’
‘Cut to the chase, shall we?’ this was definitely amusing him. But it was a very dangerous game. He was very aware of the fact that the shackles might not stop her for more than a few minutes. Her strength was enormous. She might not be able to fully change with the shackles constricting her wrists, but with determination and time she may be able to free herself from the table and pounce on him.
He enjoyed pushing her buttons, but he should stay within the boundaries. For now. ‘Ok, let’s do that.’ He leaned back in the chair, pushing it onto the two back legs, rocking slightly. ‘How up to date are you on the current world affairs?’
‘I’ve missed my paper the past few weeks.’
‘Droll, my dear.’ The chair came back on all fours. ‘As you know, I presume,’ that irritating patronising smile again. ‘The world is once again engrossed in a global struggle. You have seen it all before, no doubt, but this time it’s different.’
‘Bharat, formally India and a number of other countries, has declared war on just about every country in the world. That in itself isn’t the big problem. It should have been pure suicide for one such independent and backward country, but they seem to have the upper-hand.’ He became deadly serious. ‘They have devastating biological weapons and are planning to decimate the western countries with them.’
‘The UK in particular’ she remarked.
He paused. Could there be some kind of empathy in this bastard after all, she thought.
‘Yes, my home country in particular. That choice of course has historical roots. India was one of the British Commonwealth countries.’
‘One of the occupied colonies you mean?’
‘Whatever you like. I won’t disagree that mistakes were made in India, but they are not in comparison with what Bharat is doing now.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion. I guess they would disagree.’ Needling him was fun after all.
‘I’ll grant you that.’
‘How civil of you.’ Mocking.
He observed her. She stared him directly in the eye. Her strange ochre eyes were mesmerising, and somehow extremely frightening. He smiled.
‘Anyway, Emperor Bharata has announced that he will continue his expansion and annihilation until all his enemies have been dispatched. Seeing as he is at war with just about the rest of the world, that makes it more than
just a British problem.’
‘It’s not mine.’ She said and turned her head towards Jack, no longer interested in the conversation.
‘I beg to differ.’ Smith continued as though nothing had happened. ‘You see, we have need of your, shall we say “Special talents”. We need you to kill Emperor Bharata.’
She had read about Bharat. It was built up of the former India, Pakistan, Southern China, Nepal, Bhutan and their emperor’s home land of Bangladesh. Bharata himself was the self-proclaimed emperor of the new country. Humble as he was, he had renamed his vast country after himself. Rich beyond compare, especially in his own dilapidated country, he had grown even wealthier over the backs of the same people he now so vehemently ‘protected’. He was on a mission to restore his continent to the grandeur that had been before the UK conquered it, and he was adamant in his hatred for the old colonial masters. This hate stretched to all western countries. So now he was basically at war with the rest of the world.
I was sick of this pompous bastard.
Enough is enough.
‘Frankly, you disappoint me,’ he continued. ‘I had expected more of a reaction from you. At least some form of emotion. You’re supposed to be a monster. But you just sit there.’
He looked at Jack.
‘Why don’t you talk some sense into her? It’s your life that’s on the line after all.’ He laughed. Enjoying the helplessness that he saw on Jack’s face.
‘I know you.’ He turned back to me. ‘I know that you won’t let Jack here pay the bill for you, he wouldn’t survive anyway. You seem to be doing ok here. But what do you think incarceration will do to the midget? He’ll become someone’s pet, we could just put him in a dog crate, no cell needed. They can take him out whenever they need some entertainment.’ That irritating laugh again on top of all the insults.
I could feel the tension nearing the boiling point. This prick needed bringing down a notch… or ten. I let it roll over me, not bothering to suppress the anger. What could they do to me? I was in here already anyway.
‘Getting mad, are you?’ His comment showed his amusement. ‘About time. Not that you can do anything about it. I know what you can do, what your limits are. You’re out of your depth here with me my dear. I own you. Lock, stock, and barrel.’
He leaned over the table to smile in my face, careful to stay out of reach of my teeth. He was so confident of his superiority and safety.
Jack was watching me, not taking any notice of the prick across the table, just patiently waiting for the explosion that was sure to come.
Ok, reality check—for the pompous bastard.
‘You have no idea what I’m capable of.’ I said in a low voice, the intonation so sharp it cut through even Barkley’s arrogance.
The steel of the table buckled up above where my hands were. With a screech that hurt everyone’s ears, my claws ripped through the table top. I watched his face all the time. The colour had drained from his visage. His eyes bulged, he couldn’t keep them off the claws as I cut through the steel, the metal edges of the tear serrated and sharp, yielding like butter from the razor-sharp claws. Suddenly standing up I wrenched the chains out of the confines of the table, breaking them and freeing my hands. I grabbed the table top and with no apparent effort, snapped the bolts that held it to the ground and threw it to the side.
Barkley tried to scuttle away from me, his chair toppling and throwing him hard to the floor.
He was terrified. He whined and cried at the same time. ‘No…No…No.’
I advanced on him, my hands sported the enormous claws, my face slowly phased in and out of the cat features. I let the incisors come down in my mouth, elongated the snout a bit to be able to allow space for them, but kept it human enough that I could speak.
Grabbing him by the tailor-made lapels of his jacket I hauled him up off the floor and shoved his back to the wall, my claws tore through the expensive material. With my face just inches from his, I spoke.
‘I’ll go to Bharat. Not for you, for Jack and for me. You harm one hair on his head, or as much as look at him in a wrong way and I will know.’ He lost control of his bladder, the putrid smell assailing my nostrils.
’Look over your shoulder, you arrogant prick. You will see me again. At payback time.’
I pulled back my lips to emphasise my fangs, it was the final straw. He was terrified beyond belief.
I dropped him with a disgusted look, turned back to Jack, sat down in complete human form before I added ‘get out of here, before I decide that you’re not worth keeping alive.’
Scrambling to the side, he retrieved his folder and almost ran for the door, screaming at the guards to let him out.
‘Well’ Jack commented ‘That was fun’ as Barkley fell through the door into relative safely.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A few days passed since Barkley’s first and very memorable visit. There was a serious edge to it, even though Jack and I had laughed a lot at his reaction to seeing the real me. Jack was in a tough spot. He needed my help. He needed me to go to Bharat so that he could get the medical help from Barkley that he desperately needed to stay alive.
To be honest, it all actually coincided very well with my plans—I wanted to investigate the legends of the woman and her monster that Ca had told me were rife in all of Asia. India, or Bharat as it is now called, seemed like a good enough place to start. Maybe even more important—I needed to get out of here in a hurry. I had been in prison now for more than four weeks and that was stretching my Primal urges to the limit. Frankly I needed to kill someone to stay sane. My emotions were running on overdrive at the moment and it would take only a little spark to set me off. There was no telling what I would do once I started, once I let the rage out.
So we agreed that I would go to Bharat, and that I would kill this Emperor who was very effectively taking on the rest of the world.
Jack contacted Barkley and another meeting was set up for the next day.
The stage was different, but that was to be expected. Barkley had been terrified beyond belief, so now he wasn’t taking any chances. Or so he thought.
I was brought into a small cubicle. The walls were made of some kind of Plexiglas or something like that. It moved a bit when I touched it, there was some give there. The thickness was difficult to see from where I was, but it was definitely substantial. There was a chair in the cubicle, so I sat down. Opposite me, another chair was placed about a meter from the Plexiglas structure. A door opened and two heavily armed guards entered the room. A few paces behind them Barkley made his entrance. He had re-found some of his arrogance and haughtiness after the quite degrading experience of a few days ago. I guess he felt safe.
Making a point of looking relaxed, he sat down across from me, another folder on his lap.
‘Well’ he started the meeting. ‘Here we are again.’
I looked him in the eye and smiled. That riled him a bit. It was so much fun, so easy. And having been in here so long, I appreciated the entertainment value. But more was to come.
‘I’m here to discuss the details.’ I finally said.
‘Yes.’ He was enjoying his perceived security. Completely dependent on the Plexiglas that separated us. Once again, he underestimated me.
‘Well, this is where I tell you what to do. So there will be no discussion. I talk—you listen.’ Cocky. ‘Otherwise I will let you rot in this place. You and Jack.’ I remained silent and just stared at him.
‘You can stop the tough girl look’ he continued. ‘You can’t get at me now.’ Really gloating. ’This,’ he leaned forward and tapped the structure, ‘is state-of-the-art bulletproof glass. It’s a new version of Lexan. Three inches thick and flexible. It can stop a cannon.’ He smiled smugly.
I stood up and walked to the plate of Lexan that separated us. Pushed it a bit.
Despite his tough words, he flinched, but recovered quickly.
I looked him in the eye and placed both of my hands on the Lexan.
&nb
sp; ‘Once again you need bringing down a notch’ he strained to hear, my voice was almost in a whisper. ‘You keep underestimating me.’ Slowly I let the claws emerge at the end of my fingers. Inch by inch they dug into the Lexan.
‘You see’ I continued. ‘I’m not a bullet. I’m much worse than that. And there is probably nothing on this earth that is impenetrable for me and my claws.’ His eyes were once again glued to my claws. The colour drained from his face. The sweat re-appeared. He was close to panic again. The guards mirrored his terror. I drew the fully extended claws through the Lexan so that they penetrated the screens completely and came out the other side. Pulling them down, I made massive rents in the structure, causing Barkley to skid his chair back as far as it would go and the guards to aim their weapons on me. Silly really, as I was behind the bulletproof Lexan.
Smiling, I retracted my claws, turned and sat down again.
‘Luckily for you’ I said, ‘we have a deal.’ My change of character unnerved him almost as much as my claws had. Internally I was laughing my head off. But I needed to rein myself in a bit. I didn’t want to scare him away. He was my ticket out of here.
‘I’ll keep up my side of the deal’ He was listening intently. ‘And when it’s over, I’ll be back to see if you kept up yours.’
It stayed quiet for a few minutes.
’So’ I said amiably. ‘Let’s get down to the details, shall we?’
Slowly inching his chair forward until he was almost at the same place as earlier, Barkley kept his eyes trained on me. He was now acutely aware of his vulnerability, and didn’t trust me for a minute. That was understandable—I wouldn’t have.
‘Emperor Bharata, or Samrat Bharata as he likes to be called, resides in a palace that he built next to the Taj Mahal in Agra. From there he rules his empire that consists of the former India, Pakistan, Southern China, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.’ He explained. ‘He originates from Kolkata. He is the son of a wealthy merchant and a university professor. His mother taught History and Ancient Indian Culture at the Kolkata University. His father traded in oil, precious stones and clandestinely, in ivory and opium.’
The Beast Inside Page 3
