Chapter 88

Jane rolled over, feeling the warm sun on her skin. Usually it was a comfortably lazy feeling, but not today. Today was going to be ... difficult. She was thankful that Ken was already off the Mansion grounds, otherwise her task might go from difficult to almost impossible.

“Jane,” smiled Sally, greeting her High Priestess with a hug and a thorough kiss. “You’re up early.”

Jane giggled, “You guys think that all I do is sleep.”

“And fuck,” added Ari, who was actually home for a change.

“Yeah, everyone knows that if you had the choice you’d sleep in the sun until noon, and only get up to get back into another puddle of sun,” said Tina.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” asked Jane.

“I’m going,” replied Tina with a wide smile, “but a girl needs breakfast ya know.”

“Mmm,” added Cindy, “gotta keep your strength up for all those lovers of yours. How many are you up to now?”

“Cindy...”

“Lesse ... there’s a lot, and I’m having trouble counting that high...”

“Cindy...”

“Wow,” added Ari, “your plate must really be full Tina. Cindy tells me she’s half way through the diff-eq book, so that’s gotta be a big number!”

“You guys are just too funny,” said Tina in a dry voice.

Jane smiled as she picked up her coffee and headed out to the back deck. She had some time and it was too nice a day to sit around inside. Besides, maybe the cats were up and about...

“Thanks Jenny,” chirped Cindy at her friend, waving as the older girl drove off. Jenny had a thing for her, but had never pushed it. Cindy had mentioned it to Tina who had smiled in a way that let her know that at some point, Jenny was going to get lucky.

Cindy knew she wasn’t supposed to be at the mall alone. But it was the middle of the day on a Friday in a huge public mall. The chances of one of the Tankers showing up was almost nil. She would have said zero, but she knew better than to tempt fate.

Fate was apparently listening anyway.

Jane sighed to herself as she stepped out of the public bathroom. She’d had hints that this was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. Ken would no-doubt be pissed off, but since it really hadn’t been Jane’s idea, but a ‘suggestion’ of Lea’s, there wasn’t much any of them could do about it. She froze as another man moved close to her, pressing something into her side.

“Say bitch, how ‘bout you come for a ride?” he asked.

She knew she could take him down, even if he shot her. But then another man stepped into view. He had one hand on Cindy’s shoulder and another in his pocket. It was obvious that he had a gun there, and he was holding it in such a way that it would shoot Cindy in the head.

How the fuck had they gotten hold of Cindy? She was supposed to be at school today! This was most certainly not in the plan.

If worse came to worse, Jane could take both of them out and get Cindy free, but there was a pretty big risk. She could handle being shot, but Cindy was a different story. Especially since she was so short, a head shot would be all but inevitable. Well, escaping wasn’t in the original plan and, at the moment, it didn’t appear to be an option in the new one either.

“I’m sorry Jane,” said Cindy, “I didn’t see him until it was too late.”

“Shut up,” said the man holding her. “Make a noise, draw attention to us, and you’re fucking dead.”

“You’re supposed to be in school, Cindy,” said Jane.

“I said shut the fuck up, bitch.”

“We’re not going to give you any trouble,” said Jane, finally acknowledging him.

“You’re fuckin’ right you’re not,” snarled the man next to her, jabbing the muzzle into her side. “You’re gonna come with us, and we’re all gonna have a big party tonight.”

Jane looked at the man and for a second he felt a coil of cold dread settle in his belly. It took him a moment to shake it off.

“Any bullshit and you won’t make it to tonight,” he said, now clearly nervous even though he was the one with the gun.

“As I said,” replied Jane, “we won’t give you any trouble.”

The women were walked out of the mall and into the parking garage. The Tankers had the guns well hidden, but still easily accessible. Not easily accessible enough though, and Cindy knew it. While she couldn’t do much against the man holding her, she knew Jane could. But her High Priestess was doing nothing and Cindy couldn’t figure out why.

They all got into the back of a beat-up panel van where there were two other men waiting in the front.

“You got two?” asked one very surprised.

“Yeah,” said one of the men, roughly pushing Jane face down onto the filthy floor after shutting the back door. He pressed a knee into her back, forcing a grunt out of her and grabbed a set of handcuffs, tightening them on her wrists until they cut into her skin. “Put a gun to their head and they come along nice and quiet. Don’t know what all the fuckin’ fuss was about.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be a second one,” said the man in the front.

“Bonus,” grinned the man.

He kicked Jane with one foot, getting her to roll onto her back, then reached forward and grabbed the neck of her top, pulling her into a sitting position and tearing her top in the process. The van rocked as it pulled slowly out of the parking lot and the man’s grin grew. He got a firmer hold of the material then jerked hard, pulling on it until it completely tore.

“Nice tits!” he exclaimed, pulling to remove more of the ruined top. Grunting, he took out a knife and flicked it open, then used it to cut away the rest of the material. Her bra was next. She winced a bit as the knife nicked her skin when the van hit a bump.

“Awww,” he sneered, “that hurt? Better get used to it, cuz it’s gonna get a lot worse. Shit, she’s pierced!”

Jane said nothing and just looked away, tears forming in her eyes. Cindy, whose hands were now also cuffed behind her, was astonished. She’d seen Jane take a punch that would drop a man twice her size, and barely slow down. Hell, Jane’d been cut more by being caned than that little knife nick, and all she’d done was beg for more. What the hell was going on? Then she felt a hand begin to grab her own top.

“Leave that for now,” said the man with the knife, taking hold of one nipple bar and twisting it. Jane gasped, feeling her body respond.

“What the fuck for?” asked her captor.

“Because she’s one of the young ones, and Bobbie don’t want her touched. At least not yet.”

“Fuck,” muttered the man. That didn’t keep him from running his fingers over Cindy’s slight chest, making her nipples pop. “Bastard’s always gittin’ the best ones.”

“Naaa,” replied his friend. “I think it’s cuz we gets a better price for the virgins.”

The man touching her grinned, watching her nub harden as Cindy shuddered in revulsion.

She wished it wouldn’t, but Cindy couldn’t keep her body from responding to what he was doing. She was repulsed by the man and by what was happening, but her helplessness and the pain pushed buttons she had no control over. She had to get control though, because if she couldn’t, the men would be affected by the pheromones she’d be pumping out as she got excited. Then it wouldn’t matter what they’d been told, they’d be fucking the shit out of her and Jane in short order.

She felt eyes on her, and looked up. The man mauling Jane was concentrating on her tits and didn’t see the look she gave Cindy. To her surprise, Cindy felt something cool and comforting steal the heat that was forming in her body and her arousal dropped enough that she could control it.

Then Jane looked away again, turning her face away from her captor as he started to really get into abusing her tits. He was apparently pleased by their large size and firmness, and showed his pleasure by slapping them hard enough to leave bright red marks and pulling and twisting her nipple piercings.

“Hope you like that bitch,” he smiled, “cuz it’s all yer gettin’ from now on.”

When she looked up at him, tears streaming from her eyes, he finished with an open hand smack to her face.

It was at that point that Cindy began to get really suspicious. Tears? From Jane? No way. Something else was going on here.

Ken was uneasy, but he had no idea why. Restless and unable to focus, which was a rarity. He leaned back in his chair in the study and felt around, wondering if someone had once again tried to sneak onto the mansion grounds. That was unusual nowadays, especially during the day. But no, that wasn’t it. Something else was off, but he couldn’t put his finger on what.

He noticed that Jane wasn’t around. That was unusual, especially on a day like today. She’d be outside either playing with the cats, lounging in the sun or shooting something. He wondered where she was until he spoke to Sally, who told him Jane had gone off to the Mall.

Jane didn’t like malls, but he supposed she might have come up with a burning need to buy something that they sold only there.

He doubted it though.

He picked up the phone and dialed Jane’s cell. It went immediately to voicemail. Unusual, but not alarming, but still.

A few minutes later his phone dinged and he looked at it, thinking that Jane was texting him. They didn’t usually text each other, but they were getting more used to it. Sort of like Yahell messenger or AIM, but on a phone.

He sat straight up. It was only one word and it wasn’t from Jane’s phone, it was from Cindy’s:

Tankers

That could only mean one thing: The Tankers had finally gotten to at least one of his Circle, and it was one of the most vulnerable ones. Cindy wasn’t even a Priestess, she was a Servant. Who knew if she could survive whatever those animals would do to her? Well, he thought as he stood, it was certain that they wouldn’t survive it. When he got finished, there wouldn’t be anyone left.

It didn’t take long for him to gather the people in the mansion. Others would be arriving as soon as they could get there.

“Are you sure they have ‘em?” asked Eric a half hour later.

Ken nodded. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Ellen found the car at the mall a few minutes ago and they aren’t in it. Bill’s working on something to confirm it.”

He’d been getting the occasional fleeting feeling coming from Cindy and Jane, which made him certain they were together. Combine that with Cindy’s text and it was a sure bet the Tankers had both of them. There was a small amount of panic initially, at least from Cindy. That had died down a bit, but both of the women were feeling an odd combination of arousal and disgust. Ken could only guess what that was about, and none of his guesses made him happy. Neither woman could help how their bodies responded to certain stimulus, at least to a point. How they acted on those feelings was another matter entirely.

He looked up as Bill walked in the room, his face grim.

“They got ‘em,” he said.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” Bill nodded. “The mall has a new security set up for their cameras. They’re all hooked up to networked computers, and those computers are monitored through the Internet. Their security isn’t very good.”

“And?”

Bill set the laptop down on Ken’s desk and brought up the feed he’d recorded. Sure enough, it showed two men pushing Jane and Cindy into a van. He wondered if anyone had been monitoring the live feed, and if so, why the hell they hadn’t raised the alarm. The guns being held by the men were clearly visible, at least from the camera angle. Well, that was a problem for another day.

Gary and Annette entered the room, and Ken looked up, his eyes narrowing; they had Knife in tow.

“Gary,” said Ken standing and glancing towards Knife.

“He was there when I got the call,” said Gary. “Insisted on coming with.”

Ken looked at Knife.

“I gotta call out to the club,” said Knife. “Everyone’s comin’ in and then we’ll go and get ‘em back. Tonight we run the Tankers outta town.”

“I don’t think we’re going to wait that long,” said Ken in a deceptively mild voice. He liked Knife, and he liked the club, but they weren’t Circle. Getting the Hawkes involved in this probably wasn’t a good idea.

“You don’t have enough people to take them all on,” replied Knife. “They probably got more than thirty guys there.”

“I’m sure we’ll manage,” replied Ken.

Knife looked, really looked at Ken for the first time in a while. Back when he’d first met the guy, he’d seemed like some yuppy who’d stumbled into a biker bar by accident and was too stupid to leave. But that was before they’d mixed it up with the Tankers all those times. Knife had seen what Ken could do and he’d certainly heard what Sensei could do. Eric, he was sure, could handle himself as could Gary and Annette, although he had his doubts about Bill.