Chapter 11: Ancient Evil

By the time The Lady Whisper reached the area around Sardinia, Linda had most of the major cities of Europe logged into Kelly and Karen’s teleporting memory. She had the Scandinavian countries covered. Mouse used a Valkyrie disguise there. Eight to ten Valkyries at a time visiting those cold northern cities. She included Germany and Poland in the Valkyrie territory.

In eastern Europe Linda locked in Estonia and Latvia all the way down through Belarus, the Ukraine, and into Turkey. They received visits from the Silver Angel, as did most of Europe.

The cities in Greece, Italy, the islands of the Aegean Sea, Crete, and Cyprus were all paid brief visits by a flying Artemis / Diana; the Greco Roman Goddess of the Hunt. Sometimes she was accompanied by Athena, and Justitia. The Roman Catholic Church was not pleased with Mythological Goddesses flying around above Rome. Not even a tiny bit happy about that. Linda killing a Cardinal, several Bishops, and more than a few priests didn’t improve things. Carving pedophile on their chests didn’t help her relationship with the church either. She knew most priests were good honest men going about their religious duties and beliefs properly. Linda only concentrated on the few bad apples that existed. Now they didn’t exist. Linda paid similar attention to other ‘factions’ of Christianity. Simple Angel mathematics. Addition by subtraction.

For Linda, an unfortunate side effect of her new heroines was the creation of even more cult religions, reviving ancient mythological hierarchies. She decided to ignore it. Let people believe in whatever mind candy made them happy. She had bigger fish to fry.

The European Ancient One’s specialty was sex-slavery. Selling people to rich men and women to use in any way they wished. Men and women, boys and girls. Mostly boys and girls. As long as his customers had the money to buy, he would sell. Linda and the girls decided they didn’t like this particular perversion enough to allow it to continue. Too many innocent people were being hurt. It was time to end this.

The girls all wanted to use tampons again, to seal the mouths of the guilty. Linda vetoed the idea. She didn’t want any potential links of her visit to Istanbul and the massacre at Varna. There was already speculation in the media that an Angel had been involved. Connections to her first visits to Southern California, and Australia already existed if someone or some computer cared to dig deep enough. Linda felt there was no need to add more fuel to that debate.

After getting all the large European cities mapped out in her head, she only had three days left until her scheduled arrival in Australia for the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open. It was being held in Melbourne this year. She was to meet her support team four days before the tournament began. Unfortunately, she would have to fly commercial air instead of Angel Airlines. You need to get that stamp of approval on the passport to keep governments and computer snoops happy.

Three times a day Linda was jumping all over Europe in short, hour long exercises. On these days, she and Jessie also visited tourist attractions. Since Linda was concentrating her vigilante efforts in Europe the girls only visited European sights.

Linda planned to make the Muslim controlled north coast of Africa and the Middle East a separate concern. Europe and those two areas were too vast to try and operate concurrently. For the most part they offered very different challenges for a vigilante, too.

Linda and Jessie visited Monaco and the French Riviera for a day. Laughing, gambling, walking on the beaches and having fun. Lots of boy watching, too. The girls saw plenty of beef-cake, but Linda was not ready to jump back into the deep end of the dating game yet. Once burned, twice shy.

They also enjoyed looking at the ruins of the Roman Empire in Italy, especially the museums and famous churches. It’s impossible to see all of Europe in the five days Linda and Jessie spent sightseeing, but, with teleportation, they tried. Mouse kept the two of them disguised as elderly women from the United States. Old women who giggled like school girls. She still couldn’t change voices.

The Scandinavian countries were fun, too, but the girls decided coming back in the warmer summertime might be a smarter plan. Paris was great. The Eiffel Tower, Arch de Triomphe, and the Notre Dame Cathedral, but the Louvre and the Moulin Rouge had to wait. Castles along the Danube and Rhine rivers. The touristy, fun part of their vacation ended far too soon.

Linda did spend time exercising in the onboard gym. She also hit golf balls off the rear deck into the water, practicing her swing. There was a golf tournament coming up and she needed to be ready.

On the fifth day of her Mediterranean swing Linda visited an office building back in London. The large conference room was filled with businessmen and lawyers. Linda sat in the back, wearing dark sunglasses and a conservative lady’s business suit. The meeting of Waters International Holdings didn’t go well for the Waters family. Linda’s lawyers presented her stock certificates and proxies. She owned controlling interest in the company. George’s relatives were shocked when they were fired. Security escorted them out of the building they used to own, denying and protesting the injustice of losing a company with their family name on it. This couldn’t be happening!

When the dust settled, George was the only member of his family still remaining at the conference table. Linda stood up and walked to the head of the table. She took off her sunglasses, and George gasped!

“You!”

“Yes, George. Me! You should have given us a chance. I have more than enough money to have saved your family’s company. Now I own it.

“Your father didn’t want his eldest son married to an orphan with no ties to old money. Old power. My only question is: Do you feel capable of running the company? If you do, I’ll hire you as CEO. If not, the door is right behind you.”

George hung his head and thought for a full minute before he answered. He looked Linda in the eyes and said, “Yes, I can run this company.”

Linda nodded at him. She motioned to her lawyers, and the group began to leave. “George?”

“Yes, Linda?”

“Best get busy. You have a lot to do.” Linda smiled to herself as she walked out. After leaving in a rented limo she found a safe place in a hotel lounge and teleported back to The Lady Whisper.

The last three days of vacation Linda resolved to kill any terrorists Ret had spotted. She also decided to raid the four holding pens of the sex slavers they’d discovered. Based on the agreement she made with Jessie, Linda had nine hours to spend cleaning up part of Europe. She resolved to spend those nine hours wisely.

Each of the four slave pens would receive an hour of her time. The slavers preferred port cities. It was easier to smuggle the slaves in and out on ships, yachts, and boats of all shapes and sizes. Linda visited Denmark first. Copenhagen had a warehouse with forty-seven slaves being prepared for market. Eight Valkyries descended on the twelve gangsters controlling the slaves.

Mouse’s illusions were perfect. Linda and Tink did the actual killing with Linda holding the slavers immobile while Tink carved them up. Mouse made it appear that they were being chopped up by huge axe wielding, blonde, Viking type Valkyries. Two of the slavers died from sheer fright. Tink never touched them. Ret confirmed they were dead. Heart attacks. The Twins applauded Mouse’s skill.

Linda kicked each of the dead bodies (Hey, if you have steel-toed shoes you might as well get some use out of them!). She made sure the potential slaves saw the Valkyrie women, too. Their legend would spread when the police, summoned by Ret, interrogated the former slaves.

The next hour of Vigilante time that day was spent tracking down and killing terrorists in France, Germany, and Spain. Mouse provided the Angel disguises. Silver Angel along with five of her fellow Angels from America hunted, and killed terrorists. Tink cut their dicks and balls off. Linda held them still while she stuffed the dicks down their throats. Tink carved: ‘No virgins for this dick-less wonder’ into their chests. Linda continued holding them still while they bled out. You can’t put a tourniquet on a missing dick!

The third hour of Vigilante Justice that day was spent killing ex-pat Americans, who had fled the United States seeking a safe haven from Angels. Ret had spotted them while visiting tourist attractions, and marked their locations for the Twins. It was an easy process for Kelly to track them down, and for Karen to jump the Silver Angel to the correct spot. Mouse created illusions of silvery bolts of fire streaking from the fingers of the Silver Angel as Tink killed them. Cell-phone videos immortalized most of the action. You can guess what happened to social media.

The second day of vigilante vacation time was dedicated to two more groups of slavers. It took the full three hours to subdue both of them.

The first group was in Naples. They had seen and heard about the Greco-Roman Goddesses flying around the area and set a trap with explosives to try and protect themselves. The entire building they occupied was crisscrossed with trip wires and pressure plates linked to explosives. The gangsters had no idea Linda could just teleport past everything. When they discovered their mistake, it was too late. Mouse created illusions of Artemis / Diana firing arrows into the thugs. Linda held them still, again, while Tink did the killing imitating arrow wounds, then the arrows flew back into the quiver to be used again. The slaves, chained to rings in the floor, saw the entire confrontation. Later they would tell reporters about the amazing Goddess saving them from a white slavery ring. Six of them started a religion worshiping the Ancient Gods of Rome that very same day. When Linda heard about it on television all she could do was shake her head.

Cleansing of the building the slaves were held in took a lot longer than the rescue. Linda had to painstakingly remove each trap and all the explosives before Ret could contact authorities to come in and free the prisoners. She still had another den of slavers to visit later that day.

Barcelona, Spain was that day’s final destination. This was a much smaller operation than the other two. It was a group that kidnapped specific individuals for pre-arranged sales. The customer told them who he wanted, and the kidnappers delivered. They currently had five prisoners on hand, awaiting pick-up.

This time it was a simple matter for Linda, the Silver Angel, to kill the six kidnappers. She just waded in, holding them with TK while Tink slew them with her illusionary silver bolts of fire, backed up by real dissolving of tissue where the bolts hit. Afterwards Linda talked, mentally, with each of the four girls, and one boy being held in chains. She decided to deliver each of them back to their parents in person.

After dissolving the chains, Linda had the five kids hold onto her arms as her Twins moved them to Hamburg, Germany, home of the first young girl. She was twelve years old. Linda delivered her back to her parents. Her mom collapsed in tears, holding her daughter and sobbing out her relief. The young girl’s father started to say something to Linda, but he was too late. She and the other four kids were already gone with an air-pop.

Next, the Silver Angel brought the young boy back to his parents in Amsterdam. He ran to his mother and father crying out his happiness at being back home. He was eight. The Silver Angel was gone. There was no one for them to thank.

The third delivery was a pair of red-headed twins. They lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The Silver Angel arrived while the girl’s mother was having breakfast. Their father was in Washington, meeting with the President. Their mother fainted, and Linda had to ‘catch’ her to keep her from being hurt. The twins were seventeen years old. They ran to their mom, and Linda teleported away with the last child.

Her final delivery took her back to London. This girl was nine. Her grandparents were friends of the Prime Minister. Ret discovered by snooping in the minds of the kidnappers, that the man who hired them planned to use the girl as leverage against the government. It didn’t work out very well for him. Linda dropped the girl off and hunted down the man responsible for the family’s pain. He died a violent death, hanging upside down out of his fancy office building’s window. His feet were secured to his heavy desk by wiring so he wouldn’t fall. The man had a deep cut running from his sternum to his groin. Tink painstakingly inscribed the crime he was guilty of into the skin of his back. There wasn’t room on the front. A large pool of blood formed on the sidewalk under his body before emergency personnel could arrive to remove him. His intestines were estimated by observers to hang down at least eight feet below his head. The man died screaming in pain before any first responders could arrive. His death was caught on film by the BBC. It was censored. The death was considered too bloody for general viewing. The internet was a different story until censors took the video down there, too.

Linda air-popped back to The Lady Whisper. Cooky was ready to serve supper in the main lounge. Jessie had the television turned on. It seemed like the TV was always on, now that Linda was onboard. CNN, of course.

“Welcome back, Linda. Based on CNN you’ve been a busy little beaver lately,” Jessie said with a smile.

“Hmm, yes. The last couple days have had a few interesting moments,” Linda replied. “What’s for supper? I worked up an appetite today.”

There was one more day of Vigilante vacation left before Linda had to catch a flight to Melbourne, Australia. She planned to finish rescuing one more group of potential slaves, and the rest of the time she’d seek out and kill terrorists. The plan was to finish all three hours of vigilantism first thing in the morning, then spend some time with Jessie exploring the ruins in Athens, Greece where The Lady Whisper was currently docked. That evening she would pack up for her flight out of Athens the next morning.

The next morning her first mission was to a vacant three story office complex near the waterfront in Amsterdam. When she arrived, the building was empty with no clue as to where the slavers or their merchandise had gone. She did find slave rings in the floor of the basement. Linda decided to return when the Australian Open tournament was over. The slavers would be back, of that she was certain. So would the Silver Angel.

Linda spent the remaining two and a half hours of her Jessie negotiated schedule hunting terrorists and hate filled Imams in Greece, Italy, and Turkey. She found fifty-eight terrorists and potential terrorists in training. She also caught eleven Imams qualifying under her personal ethics of hatred. All of them had their dicks and balls amputated. Gone. No virgins for any of them. Not in this life. Not in any after-life either. She made sure they all bled out. Dead.

After a light lunch provided by Cooky, Linda and Jessie caught a taxi to visit the ruins in Athens. Jessie had the rest of the day all planned out. She did her research on the internet.

First the girls visited the Acropolis. Linda and Jessie both enjoyed the ruin and were in awe at what builders in ancient Athens had managed to create.

While they walked around taking pictures Jessie remembered to tell Linda something she saw on the news earlier. “Hey, I saw a news special about your friends in DC earlier. Guess what? The Prez and Congress have worked out a new income tax plan that looks workable. President Fredricks announced huge cuts in IRS personnel. They won’t be needed any longer. The entire department is losing seventy percent of their employees. Most of them are getting moved to other jobs in the government, so they won’t be unemployed. Oh, an amendment tacked onto the law canceled that banking thing that caused you so much trouble, too. They said most American criminals who were using overseas accounts to hide money from the government were no longer Americans! They were dead! The sponsor of the amendment acknowledged the bad will the law had generated between the US and overseas banks.”

“Wow! That’s great! I wonder what Juan and the guys in the Caymans think about all this?”

“Does this mean you can get your money back in your own name now?”

“I’m not sure. I guess I’ll have to visit Juan and find out. I need to see a lawyer while I’m there, too.”

The ladies continued their sightseeing tour, looking at the Parthenon, Temple of Hephaestus and Athena Nike. Next they visited the Theatre of Dionysus, because the brochure said he was the God of Wine. Linda and Jessie decided to call him Dino Moscato!

Their last visit of the day was to the Sanctuary of Artemis. Both of them were shocked to see the grove full of people worshiping the Goddess. There was a booth selling statues and pictures of Artemis. They also had a box setup for donations to have her Sanctuary restored to its former glory.

The two ladies left, trying hard to keep from giggling till they got out of sight. Some things were just too funny. A cult for Artemis was high on that list for both of them.

In the morning Jessie asked Linda, “You still want me to head back to the Caymans?”

“Yes I do. I’m going to skip the next couple tournaments after Australia. They’re in Asia and I have some problems with that area right now. The next tournament I plan to hit is in Phoenix about a month from now. I’ll meet you in the Caymans after Australia is done.”

“Okay, then. I’ll cruise over to Ireland and re-supply. Then I’ll head on southwest.”

Linda left for Melbourne Monday morning. She arrived Tuesday afternoon after a twenty-four hour flight including a three hour stop-over to add fuel and change crew in Calcutta. Linda and the girls were exhausted.

Joyce was waiting at the airport when Linda arrived. After working her way through customs, the girls gathered Linda’s luggage and walked out to the limo Joyce had waiting.

“I’ve got your schedule set for you for the next four days before the tournament starts. Fred and Mike have some things to go over with you, too. Diane and Arch are both here along with a guy from Adidas. All three have good sales numbers to show you. Let’s see ... what else? Oh, your new legal team is here to meet you. Cindy found a couple of former foster kids like you wanted. Jerry Sanders is here too. He needs to go over your taxes, I guess. Fret and Chad are at the hotel, too. From WaD. They want to take a bunch of pics and some video.”

“Where are we staying?”

“I’ve got everyone booked into the Gotham Hotel. It’s a five star place with beach front. Good waves, if you know how to surf.”

“I need sleep. Desperately. No one should spend twenty hours on an airplane, not even in first class. Add in the layover time for refueling too. I can’t imagine how the folks packed into coach lived through it.”

“I know, but it was the best I could do from Athens on short notice. I thought you and George planned to leave from London. I’m really sorry. Where is he, by the way? I don’t see him.”

“George won’t be here. He’s caught up in business back in London.”

“Too bad. He seemed nice enough. Well, you can sleep straight through till tomorrow afternoon. We have a team meeting scheduled then. I’ve already had a snack tray delivered to your room. Fruit, cheese, and sweet rolls. Relax and recharge. No one’s going to bother you. I’ve already put the word out. Don’t worry about your luggage, the driver will make sure its delivered to your room. Here’s your key card. Room fourteen-oh-two. Its a two bedroom suite with separate baths, a lounge, and a balcony. Nice view of the ocean, too.”

“Thanks, Joyce. You’re the best.”

“Get some sleep, and call me if you need anything at all.”

Linda and the girls did sleep. Eleven hours straight. When she woke up Linda felt loggy. She was sure ‘loggy’ wasn’t a word, but it was how she described the feeling before her period started. Bloated, and out-of-sorts with the world. Her monthly was never very regular till she started birth control. Now it seemed to arrive too damned often. Add some serious jet-lag, and it didn’t look like a very good day for Linda and friends. The Posse agreed.

Linda got out of bed and ate some food from the tray Joyce had ordered. Then she took some Midols, showered, and prepared for her day. She still had four hours to kill before time for the team meeting.

With no idea what time it was in the Caymans Linda air-popped out of her hotel room to visit her mansion. A quick check by Ret determined it was seven in the evening, the previous day. Linda started laughing. She had a thought that she could pull a Superman and hop backwards through all the time zones fast enough to travel back in time! What kind of trouble could she get into that way? Instead, she hopped back to her room in Melbourne.

The Twins wanted some time in the warm ocean waters. Linda decided to indulge them. They worked hard moving the team around the world and deserved some play time. Down on the beach Linda let the kids take over, swimming, and splashing in the surf while she kept a close watchful eye out. No more Ms. Mouse in charge!