Nos Faux Ratu Ch. 02

This story is a bit wordy and fairly long, so if you are looking for immediate gratification, you might want to look elsewhere.

The following story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between these character and events and any real person or events is strictly coincidental . . . and pretty darn impressive seeing as it is a science fiction story. Do not reproduce or copy this story without the consent of the author.

In my magical, mixed-up world, characters don't worry about STDs or unwanted pregnancies except occasionally as a plot device. The author encourages the practice of safe (and hopefully satisfying) sex.

While this is a science-fiction story, it may at different points contain sexual behavior that might fall into other categories. You can rest assured however that there will be NO depictions of Non-Consent, Mind Control, or Incest for any purpose other than as plot devices, and certainly not for sexual arousal. Anything else is fair game.

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Jenna awoke with a throbbing pain in her head and a crick in her neck that was going to make her life difficult. 'But I'm still alive,' she thought. 'I shouldn't be, but I am.' She steadied her breathing and kept her eyes closed, listening for any sign of life. The world outside her sight was deathly quiet except for the hum of an overhead light sources.

She could feel hard, smooth ground beneath her, and she had been stripped of all her weapons and armor. The only thing she had on was her body stocking, which did not do much by way of protection, and left little to the imagination. Feeling nothing else, she ever-so-slowly inhaled through her nose. 'There it is again,' she thought. She opened her eyes, and she saw the gorgeous redheaded woman perched on top of a chair, staring down at her.

"See," the woman said to someone out of Jenna's visible range, "I told you she wouldn't be out long."

"Damn it, why didn' ya tie her up at least?"

Jenna recognized that voice as belonging to the stocky blond woman who had "screamed" her into a wall.

"I would hardly be a good host if I went tying up my guests, now would I? At least not until they ask nicely."

"Why do I even bother?" Anabella shot back.

"Don't ask me."

Jenna noticed that her would-be captor was not looking directly at her anymore. A quickly glance around showed that she was in a pristine white room with mirror shields along all four walls and a single door in one corner.

"The door has a high-yield mag lock," the redhead said without changing the direction of her gaze, "and you're not breaking through the glass." Finally she looked back down at Jenna. "And you will not win if you try and fight your way out. It is not our intention to hurt you, so instigating more violence is not necessary. What's your name?"

Jenna just stared. She had no official identity anywhere. The name on deed to her home was a fake, and only the Fool and Nigel even knew her real first name. 'Give them no information,' she told herself. 'Eventually, they'll realize that you're missing.'

The woman looked briefly annoyed, but that transitioned quickly over to amusement again. "Playing hard to get? I do LOVE a good challenge."

"Nessa, we ain't got time to be playin' with her. You-know-who hit the station about thirty minutes ago, and he's not lookin' to play nice."

"But play nice he will," Nessa said. "Because we have the only known game piece. And now, oh silent one . . . okay, give me a name or I'll make one up. Hmm, how about Cupcake? Or Sweet Cheeks? Maybe Hot Stuff?"

Jenna did not rise to the bait. She just kept her breathing steady and her stare cold and formal.

Again, the look of amusement on Nessa's face faded and she became deadly serious. "Listen, you can play it cool as long as you want, but you're not leaving here until I get all the information I need. I'd rather you just tell me because, if you don't, I'll rip it right out of your brain. I seriously doubt you would survive the process in full control of your faculties." Nessa detected a hint of a chin-thrust from the other woman. She intended to remain defiant.

"Just get to it," Anabella said. You know that Garon is gonna be here a'fore the night is out, and he ain't gonna take his sweet time."

Nessa ignored her friend for a moment. "Young woman, you have no idea what you and your weird commando buddies have stumbled into. I've been keeping an eye on you for a while and, believe it or not, I don't give a damn if you keep doing whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. The whole vampire schtick has got to stop though."

The fight came back to Jenna in a flash, including this woman saying that there were actual vampires. Her mouth quirked in spite of herself.

"Yeah," Nessa said, noticing the reaction, "there are such things as vampires. I happen to be one," she continued, showing a brief flash of extended fang. "As a rule, we try and stay under everyone's radar, but you and yours are reminding people that we exist, and that's bad for our collective health."

She stood up and vanished into a puff of red mist, which floated around the room. It swirled around Jenna's body, sweeping over her face with it's cool red molecules.

'It's blood,' Jenna realized. 'This mist is made of blood.'

The red substance coalesced back into the familiar woman that it had been created from. "Believe me now?"

'A holographic illusion,' Jenna thought. 'But I could feel it . . . no holograph can pull that off.'

"For thousands of years, the human race has ignored us because it was more convenient to their peace of mind to do so. Now you people, whoever the hell you are, are managing to undo that." Nessa was becoming frustrated. Usually, she got some kind of reaction when she threatened someone, but this woman was giving her nothing.

"I wish you had been willing to talk," Nessa said. "It would have hurt a lot less." She lunged.

Jenna had been waiting for the woman to come close. She pushed up with her legs, sending the redhead flying overhead. The woman landed on her feet, but she was smiling again. She liked the competition.

"If you don't start talking, there's going to be a nasty fight," the woman said. "I'm not the only one who was tapped to end this charade of yours. If you don't listen to me, there's other people who will just start killing and let the morgue sort it all out. I'd be happy if no one died."

Jenna knew she would not win this fight. Her opponent knew too much about her, and she knew nothing about the opponent. And she had seen power that Jenna had not even known existed before.

"You're serious," she said at last, her voice flat as a pond on a windless day. "You really think you're a vampire."

"Baby, I KNOW what I am. I've seen nations rise and fall in my lifetime. You should realize by now that this isn't an illusion."

"She a vampire too?" Jenna asked, nodding her head at the woman in the corner.

"Watch yer tongue!" the woman in question yelled.

"No, Anabella isn't a vampire. She's a banshee."

"Yeah, right. And the other guy? A werewolf? Bogeyman?"

"Avery? He's my chauffeur. Methinks that you're not taking me particularly seriously. That needs to change."

"If you say so."

"I saw you throw that man out of the bank window, and I've seen your people operate. You're the only face I've seen, so I followed you. I suspect the man you had dinner with . . . the dangerous looking one, not the blind date . . . I suspect he's one too. Probably the one who was with you that night. You've got to be military. Avery recognized your fighting style and some of your gear. I peg you as some weird special forces group, though you've hit the government too. You use the vampire gimmick to scare people, like telling bad stories to children to let them know what will happen if they misbehave."

Jenna's breath remained steady, but her mind was racing. This woman was far too close.

"Please, give me a name, even if you have to make it up. I need something to call you besides 'hey you.' I could always go back and check the credit logs from the restaurant and narrow it down --"

"Jenna," Jenna said. As long as she did not give away a last name, she figured it would be safe. It was not an uncommon first name those days.

"Jenna, I'm Nessa McGowan. You've already met Anabella and Avery. I need you to set up a meeting with your boss."

"My boss?"

"Unless you are the boss. Are you?"

Jenna stared at Nessa.

"I'll take that as a 'no.' Listen, the silent treatment is getting old. What's it going to take to convince you to take this seriously?"

"Stop calling yourself a vampire?"

Nessa raised an eyebrow. "I would say the same for you."

'Okay,' Jenna thought, 'point for her.'

"Right, besides turning into mist and the ability to fly without mechanical assistance --"

"I haven't seen you fly," Jenna said. "Just her." She pointed at Anabella.

Nessa rolled her eyes, then she jumped up in the air and stayed there. "Some people call it graceful," she said, spinning in mid-air. "I call flight the art of throwing yourself at the ground and missing."

"Yeah, that joke is still funny," Anabella grumbled.

Jenna was staring intently, looking for grav-tech in her boots or possibly for wires. Nessa caught her staring.

"Oh good grief," the redhead said, then started stripping off her clothes while still floating in the air.

"Can you please stay clothed for just a little while?" Anabella said, trying not to smile. Nessa and the concept of shame existed completely independently of each other.

"Why? I'm hot," Nessa replied absently as she tossed her blouse to the ground. Now she was floating in nothing but her thong and panties.

Jenna took a deep breath. 'No one should look that beautiful,' she thought, then chastised herself for her lapse in judgment. 'Who cares what she looks like?' "That's okay," she said, still trying to stay calm. "I get the point."

Nessa shirked her undergarments. "My mother told me to always finish what I start."

Anabella let out a laugh. "Your mother told you to go outside and leave her the hell alone. You were annoyin' even back then."

'She's flying,' Jenna thought. 'She's actually flying. Nanotechnology? No, there's no way that even the best stuff on the market would be able to generate a potent enough field from inside a body without killing it.'

"Now, are you going to help me set up a meeting with your leader or not?"

About then, the alarm went off.

"What the hell?!" Nessa shouted as Avery ran in.

"Garon and his people came straight here," the man said. "They heard you got a prisoner and Garon plans on taking over the interrogation."

"She's been awake for ten minutes!" Nessa growled and put her thong and bra back on.

"You're going to face him like that?"

"Why not? I move well like this."

Avery held the door open for her, but Nessa turned to look at Jenna. "Stay here. You may not believe me, you may still plan on denying what I said, but you do NOT want to get in the middle of this. Just in case," she said, looking back to Avery, "give her a gun."

"Nessa --"

"This is not one of those times I want you to talk back to me," she said, walking out the door.

Avery took a pistol from behind his back and tossed it to Jenna, who caught it in midair and then pointed it at him. He just shrugged and walked out.

"Just try it," Anabella said, giving Jenna the evil eye as she made her way outside. The door closed behind them, but Jenna did not hear it lock.

'Is this a test of some kind?' she thought. She moved towards the door, testing it slowly. It opened without a fuss. Jenna wondered if she were still in the same building that she had entered earlier . . . Devil's Night. Her mind was still processing the flying woman who could turn into a mist of blood and had fangs . . . the vampire woman. In that moment, she accepted it.

But vampire or not, she had to escape. She had no idea what time it was, but if it had passed time for coffee with Nigel, he would worry and alert the Fool. Jenna never missed coffee. Three-thirty in the afternoon Monday through Friday, with weekend hours somewhat flexible.

She emerged into a long hallway with glass doors, each with powerful mag-locks and one-way glass. She saw costumed people in a few of them, most definitely with the general attitude of prisoners. 'They're not costumes,' she told herself. 'If vampires are real . . . what are the rest of these? Those bouncers? The people in the club?

She saw a set of doors that looked like they led to a grav-lift, possibly even the same one she had seen earlier. But what really caught her attention was the end of the hallway. Instead of a wall, there was a rail. She stepped up to the rail and looked down. Way, way down. The whole floor she was on, the rooms, and the cells were all on a raised platform a hundred feet above the floor below. The only way of going up or down that she could see, besides jumping or flying, was down the lift.

She returned to the lift and stepped inside. There were three buttons; one for the floor she was on, one for the floor below, and one that indicated up, but that last button had a fingerprint pad and eyescan security. 'Not bad.' She hit the button for down, and was quickly and quietly lowered to the next floor. As she suspected she emerged into the waiting room she had been in earlier, but this time it was empty. The door to the spiral staircase was open, and she was hearing voices. She went to one of the windows and looked down.

The club area was empty of revelers, but it was not entirely abandoned. The two sides were easy to distinguish, with one side being twenty or so people, entirely men, in the latest corporate suits and the highest tech in guns. The other side was more of the business casual type, dressed in club clothes or, in Nessa's case, no clothes. How anyone could negotiate anything with nothing but a piece of red silk "covering" one's behind?

"-- and you'll do it now," a large, dark-haired male from the suit side was saying. He was in Nessa's face, and had the unmistakable look of a man who was used to getting his way.

"Ipos," Nessa started, closing her eyes and holding the bridge of her nose like she was fighting a major headache, "did I mention that Fido here has no jurisdiction here?"

The maned red-skinned man who had been guarding the stairs when she arrived was popping his knuckles when he replied, "Yes you did."

"And did I tell shit-for-brains that the Council told him not to come here or to interfere for at least two weeks or until I requested him?"

"I recall you saying that."

"How about me telling him to take his goons, his attitude, and his claim of authority, and shoving them all up his up-tight ass?"

"Actually, you hadn't said that yet."

"Oh." Nessa looked vexed. "Okay, Garon, I want you to take your --"

"I have had enough of this," the man said. "My contacts told me that you know the whereabouts of one of the targets. Give her to me, I'll hunt the rest down, and this problem will actually go away. I refuse to waste any more time waiting for the whore of Babylon to actually do her job."

"This whore's job just started yesterday," Nessa replied. She showed no irritation at the insult that had been leveled against her. "Your job doesn't start for two weeks, as mentioned earlier. Now get your ass out of my club and take your puppies with you. Most of them look like they want to hump my leg anyway, and it's kind of creepy."

"You, the most pathetic slut of all the Night Breed, think you're too good for werewolves?" Garon drew himself up, sneering openly.

"I've gone doggy style more than a time or two in my life," Nessa replied with great cheer, "but anyone who sniffs your ass isn't coming anywhere near mine."

"Insolent --" Garon started to say as he raised his hand to strike her. Nessa's bouncers moved forward, Anabella started to float, Avery leveled his gun, and all other sorts of individuals suddenly faded into view, appearing out of shadows. Jenna had not noticed them at all, and she felt almost like a physical veil was removed from before her eyes.

"Do it," Nessa said, her smile wide but her voice frigid, "and I will consider it an act of war. You, and anyone standing with you, will not leave Devil's Night alive."

Garon stopped his hand. "You will give me what I want," he growled at her. "Sooner or later. The Council should never have let a bitch be in charge of an investigation, much less a city." He turned and stormed towards the door, his men in tow. Right when he was ready to exit --

"Give my regards to your wife," Nessa called after him. Anabella clapped her hand over her face, while the three bouncers snickered.

"You cunt!" Garon said, turning and trying to push his way through the crowd of his own men. Garon's crew were forced to remove him from the building against his will, and several of them paid a painful price for their participation.

"Ya just had to rub it in, didn' ya?" Anabella asked.

"He had it coming." Nessa's face was as serious as anyone had ever seen it, though it only lasted for a second. "No one comes into my club . . . MY sanctuary . . . and challenges me. Not even Garon Pegg." She looked towards the door, but her next words drifted meaningfully upward. "You can come down now," she said, then looked up the spiral stairs toward where Jenna was hiding.

Jenna put her gun away. She was not crazy enough to think that she could fight her way past those in the room below her. "Who was that?"

"Garon Pegg," Nessa said, moving over to the bar and having a seat, completely oblivious to her continuing near-nudity. "Everyone, sweep the whole building. Ipos, take Cresil and Kobal on an exterior patrol. Make yourselves obvious. Once Garon calms down and pulls his paw out of his mouth, he'll back down for a bit. In the meantime, even he'd not stupid enough to attack three demons."

'Demons?' Jenna thought, taking a step back. 'Demons are real?'

"It's okay, they're mostly harmless. Just don't make any deals with them for anything serious until you've had practice. And don't drink anything with rum while they're around. Apparently it leads to a menage a tois and sore thighs."

"Hey, you were kind of rough," Kobal complained on his way out.

"Yeah yeah, make you go for a few hours, and the big bad demon starts complaining about a cramp," Nessa replied, waving him off. Back to Jenna, "Have a seat. Drink?"

"Coffee?" Jenna asked, her voice much calmer than her brain. "Demons?"

"Yeah. Actually, they're pretty good folk. They just got saddled with a lot of humanity's emotional baggage. So, are you willing to take me seriously?"

Jenna looked around and noticed that all of Nessa's backup was fading back into the shadows. "You have a lot of friends."

"Friends, allies, employees, some indentured servants . . . yeah, I know how to pick 'em for a fight." She grabbed a glass of a red liquid from the bartender.

"Should I ask?"

"Red wine. I only drink blood from willing donors."

"Really?"

"Really. It helps that donations tend to equate with getting laid." Nessa blatantly scanned her guest's body. "You actually look kind of yummy."

Jenna sat there for a moment. She felt an unusual need to change the tone of the conversation if not the topic. She did not do "sexual." "I don't understand what you want from me."

Nessa's grin started to return. "What I want from you? Professionally or --"

"Professionally," Jenna interjected. 'What is with this woman?' she wondered. 'Does she think about anything but sex?' The very notion of intimacy sent a wave a nausea through Jenna's body.

The vampire was gauging the fake vampire's reactions. She was a bit offended when she saw an unpleasant grimace flash across that angelic face. 'Hmm, revulsion is not a normal reaction,' she thought. "Okay, here's the issue. You've seen a lot of stuff tonight, and I don't think that it's too much to ask that you extrapolate a bit. Monsters exist, though we prefer the term Night Breed. I, as we have already discussed, am a vampire. More specifically, a Blood Vampire."