The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

“Vladimir, but how does that –”

“Okay Vlad –”

“It’s Vladimir, not –”

“Vlad, don’t interrupt me. It’s rude. Anyway, give me the skinny on the local layout and what you had in mind, and we’ll catch us some meanies!”

Officer Koloff turned away, and Sadie could hear him grinding his teeth. He waved to a couple of people as he approached a car that had a laptop sitting on it. Someone had Google Earth loaded up and it was zoomed in on the neighborhood.

“Okay everyone,” Koloff growled, this is Arbiter Hewitt, and she’s . . . taking over this team for the foreseeable future. She’s been gracious enough to let those of use who have been here for a while to run THIS particular operation –”

“No sweat!” she added cheerfully, giving him a slap on the ass.

Koloff cocked his neck in one direction until it made a cracking noise, then he did the other side. “As I was saying, we’ve got three perps in one of these three buildings.” He used some kind of device to circle the buildings on the screen.

“Cool! A Madden pen! Can I –”

“No! It’s my pen!” Koloff growled, then realized he sounded like a five-year-old screaming for his favorite toy. “All three perps are armed with low-grade semi-automatic assault rifles. We’ve cleared the area of civilians, and I’d like to handle this before the press gets here.” He looked at Sadie. “Normally they’d be here already, but no one likes to come into the Gravestones. They’re probably still drawing straws to see who gets stuck with the job.”

Sadie looked around, and noticed that the onlooking crowd of “civilians” had a very seedy atmosphere to them. “Got it. So how are we handling containment?”

Koloff’s visage softened for just a moment. ‘Maybe the girl knows her business after all.’ He should have expected that she would, being an Arbiter and all. They didn’t let just anyone in to that particular club and he should know: he’d applied three times and been rejected. “Got snipers on the rooftops here, here, here, and here. Blocks off the area. We’ve got sniffer units with backup in the park and over at the Quick Stop if they break containment. I . . . we were planning on doing a sweep from here to here, driving them to the boulevard where they’ll be out in the open.”

Sadie decided that she and Vlad were going to be friends. The man knew his business.

“Sounds good,” she said, nodding her approval. “Just to be safe, double up the snipers at that end of containment in case they outright bolt when they run out of places to hide. Who can see this manhole cover? I really don’t want these guys going to ground on us. Gunfights in tunnels make my skin edgy.”

Koloff begrudgingly admitted to himself that it wasn’t a bad addition to the plan. He got on his walkie-talkie. “I need to more sets of eyes on the northern and eastern positions. And get me some blue-suiters in the alley next to the pharmacy and tell them to keep their eyes on anyone trying to get into the sewers.”

“When do I get my walkie talkie?” Sadie asked, almost petulantly. She didn’t have her own Madden pen, she didn’t have a walkie talkie . . . It just wasn’t fair.

“You’ll get your equipment when we get to the station,” Koloff replied, rolling his eyes. ‘I will not like her,’ he thought. ‘I will not, I will not, I will not!’

“Fine. You seem to have things handled from the ground level. I’m going to go topside in case they go high. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason these guys sometimes go up where they have nowhere to run just because they’ve seen bad guys do it in movies and it looked cool.” She looked around. “Would one of you big strong men lend me your walkie talkie?” She’d used her best Marilyn Monroe voice, and it worked. Nearby officers fumbled all over themselves trying to get her to use their equipment. She picked one out of the crowd. “Thanks babe,” she said, then hooked it onto her belt.

Officer Koloff was gritting his teeth again. The girl was all over the place. “Don’t you want a vest?” he asked. “They DO have guns. I’m pretty sure I mentioned it.”

“Oh Vlad, you worry too much. Besides, those things really don’t flatter my figure.” She beamed a smile at him. “So, let’s get it started, ha! Let’s get it started in here,” she sang, dancing her way over to a gutter drainage pipe on the closest building. She was swaying her hips quite provocatively, making many officers completely forget why they were there.

“She has a nice singing voice,” Officer Devlin muttered.

“Oh shut up,” Koloff said. ‘He’s right though.’ He watched as she grabbed the pipe and scurried up the side of the building, disappearing over the ledge with amazing speed. He’d actually almost forgotten that she was a vampire.

*Little Bo Peep to Big Bad Wold. I’m in position. Over. (click) *

Several officers snickered as Koloff just stared at his walkie talkie.

*I said . . . Is this thing on? Little Bo Peep to Big Bad Wolf. Are you ready to roll? Over. (click)*

Dead silence.

*Vlad? What the hell frequency are people on? (tap tap tap) (click)*

More silence.

*Vladimir? (click)*

“Yes?” Koloff asked smoothly.

*Are we ready to get started? (click)*

“We’ll bust down the first door in sixty seconds. Please stand by.”

Sadie watched the assault team approach the door from a hidden location on the rooftop. The roof was littered with ledges, air conditioning units, fireplaces, piping, and miscellaneous odds and ends that people had brought up over the years rather than throw away. It was a mess which, in Sadie’s mind, made it fun.

‘I don’t care how hard he tries to deny it,’ she thought. ‘he WILL like me!’ As soon as the boots hit the door, she took off running across the rooftops, looking for points of egress. She located the top of the fire escape and the access door for maintenance, then found a good spot of cover to watch both of them from until she got the all-clear from the people down below. So she ran towards the second building, jumping across a ten-foot divide as easy as walking. The second building had multiple methods into the building, so she stood on top of one of them, pointing the shotgun at one and her pistol at the other. She hoped she didn’t have to use the shotgun, since silver shot was expensive.

*Nothing here, but we heard some doors slamming the next building over. All personnel except the snipers converge on building number three. (click)*

Sadie would normally have recommended caution on the off chance that the quarry had hidden well and could sneak out after being passed over, but she chose not to. This was Koloff’s gig, so she’d let him sink or swim. Besides, it was hard to hide from a werewolf’s nose, even in human form. So she headed towards the third roof. The gap wasn’t as far this time, so she decided to put on a show for the snipers. She stowed both guns again, then did a cartwheel into a back springboard complete with a half-pike roll, landing on the edge of building three with perfect grace. She saw the glint off of one of the sniper’s scopes and blew him or her a kiss. Then her own guns came out and she got back to work.

“I love my job!” she said to a fleeing rooftop pigeon who realized that a dangerous predator had just invaded its nesting area.

Gunshots erupted from the building below her.

“Someone talk to me!” she shouted into her walkie-talkie.

*We’re taking fire! (click)*

“No shit!”

*We got one pinned at the end of the hallway, and a second just shot out the back door. No idea where the third one is. (click)*

*Sir,* came an unknown voice, *we caught the squirter who came out back. (click)*

*Careful Arbiter Hewitt. Devlin heard footstep going upstairs!”

Sadie hurried along the rooftop. She wasn’t worrying about the fire-escapes yet. The guy would probably head up hear and then try to climb down. She spotted the access door about the time it opened, and the third gunmen came charging out.

“Damn,” she whispered. The young man in front of her couldn’t be more than eighteen, and he had a look of panic in his young eyes. She wondered briefly how a kid like this could have got caught up in something so stupid and trivial as holding up a liquor store. ‘He should be more concerned with getting a prom date,’ she thought. But young or no, he had a gun and was terrified, making him very dangerous.Content from NôvelDr(a)ma.Org.

*Arbiter, I have a shot. Please –*

“No! He’s just a kid. I’ll take him. Stand down unless he kills me. Then you have my permission to kill him right back. Over.”

*Arbiter, let the shooter –*

“Negative!” she said, diving behind a hulking rusted out air-conditioner as the startled young man squeezed the trigger, spreading lead all over the rooftop.

Sadie had to think fast. “If I haven’t subdued him in ten seconds, take the shot!” she shouted into her walkie-talkie. ‘Well,’ she thought, ‘here goes nothing.’ Her heart was pounding and she took a deep breath. I wasn’t that she needed to breathe, but she found the act relaxing.

One . . .

Sadie stowed her rifle and pistol and whipped out her handcuffs.

. . . two . . .

She took off at breakneck speed, her eyes seeking out cover.

. . . three . . .

The young man swung his rifle to Sadie’s new position, so Sadie did a diving roll forward, placing her behind a brick chimney.

. . . four . . .