Chapter 3

Three years earlier

Tenderloin District

San Francisco California

The old warehouse stank. It smelled of stale cigars, cheap vodka, and even cheaper perfume, probably left behind by the previous entertainment.

Dardenys knew that to the men who surrounded her in a sneering mob, she was just the latest inconsequential distraction. Two of them shoved her forward to face their leader across an oversized wooden desk. Her Russian was a little rusty and these illiterate peasants spoke with difficult-to-understand gutter accents, but she understood one thing clearly- there had been no real reason to bring her here.

They could easily have just dispatched her out on the street (or so they thought). No, it was the sheer novelty of discovering that a mere woman had been systematically stripping their group of its livelihood and then killing the street crews with impunity. She had gone through their chop shops, brothels, and drug operations like a hot knife through putrid butter, stealing their money and slaughtering whoever got in her way. She felt not even the slightest bit of sympathy for those she slew.

They were worse than the dregs of humanity. They preyed on their own kind spreading pain and misery everywhere they existed. In her own world she had killed her own kind to survive but that was only as a last resort and her people never would stoop to the depravities that these soulless sycophants inflicted on the powerless. And there was no reason for it. This was a world of near infinite plenty.

Now she had finally worked her way to the top of the dung heap. It was interesting to her, clinically, that none of this inner circle wondered at the fact that they could achieve what none of their other enforcers had managed. They were simply too stupid and ego centric to understand who was the spider and who was the fly in this scenario.

“She’s a cool one isn’t she,” said the local Bratva head as he sat toad-like behind his desk.

“She hasn’t said a word boss,” said the henchman standing to her left.

“Hmmm. She’s a looker though!” said the boss with a leer as he took in her finely chiseled features and haunting cold gray eyes. He continued “She’s skinny and barely has any tits, but we shouldn’t waste pussy, should we boys?”

The two next to her and the three stooges arrayed against the wall behind her howled at that bit of erudite humor. Dardenys noted that all had one or more pistols arrayed about them but none had them in their hands. Good, they couldn’t really hurt her, but she had discovered that if she didn’t react in time, direct hits stung like hades.

“Sergei, I believe our guest is wearing too many clothes,” said the boss with a gesture.

The smell of boiled cabbage and unwashed crotch nearly overwhelmed her hyper-sensitive sense of smell as the bald golem on her left stepped into her and grasped the neck of her cheap cotton dress ripping it off of her in one move.

It was immediately clear to all that Dardenys didn’t believe in underwear of any kind as she stood there proudly on display. She couldn’t help but smirk as she crossed her arms over her small but impossibly perky breasts. These idiots probably thought she was trying to hide her nakedness from them.

“What are you smiling at sweet tits?” growled the boss.

“I am just grateful to your associates for bringing me directly to you. I was getting weary of killing your serfs to get your attention,” she replied in classic Russian.

“Let’s see how grateful you are when we are finished taking our turns with you. Be nice and we might even consider a painless death,” said the boss as he stood and undid his tracksuit bottoms.

Little did he know that his rather unimpressive package would remain forever undelivered.

“Bring her to me, boys.”

As the thugs on either side reached for her, Dardenys snapped her crossed arms apart far too quickly for human eyes to follow. Foot-long blades of preternaturally sharp bone had somehow replaced her index fingers on both hands. Each blade struck with such velocity that they passed through spinal columns with barely a snick. Before greeting eternity the last thing each man experienced was watching their bodies from the outside as their heads tumbled to the hardwood floor.

Bright arterial blood gushed in hot fountains from the stumps where their heads used to be as the bodies hesitated slightly then fell much like a tree crashing to the forest floor after the final axe cut. Dardenys then leaned slightly forward across the desk and reaching a long elegant arm out in a deceptively languid motion, sliced the stunned boss man from testicles to sternum nearly splitting him in half.