Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (Book 4)
Savage Vengeance (Book 5 - this story)
VIOLENCE WARNING: The two stories in the Savage Gang saga, and especially the second story, involve a gang practicing extreme violence toward everyone — women, the elderly, the protagonist, etc. The stories contain mature sexual content and violence as well. I am placing this warning on all chapters, including those without such violence, so you can choose whether to continue.
CHAPTER 32
“It’s not too much farther,” Lockheed said as they turned another corner.
The FBI woman glanced down at the small monitor in her right hand, before looking up at the two tunnels splitting in opposite directions in front of her. She held her smartphone in her left hand, using the device’s flashlight feature to illuminate the path. Sapphire Angel held her cylinder in front of her, shooting a beam of light through the darkness.
Lockheed and Sapphire Angel had been winding through the dark tunnels below the city for almost thirty minutes, after finding a hidden manhole cover in the alley. Sapphire Angel had pried away the cover, revealing a ladder descending into the darkness below.
So far, they hadn’t run into anyone, and Sapphire Angel’s cylinder had detected no electronic signals. Lockheed became more tentative the further they went, though. Sapphire Angel glanced back, noticing Lockheed’s furrowed brow. It was as if the FBI agent were deciding whether to flee. Sapphire Angel couldn’t blame her, given what they might face.
As they passed a graffiti-filled section of the wall, Sapphire Angel stopped and faced Lockheed.
“Listen,” the superheroine said. “You don’t have to go all the way. Just get me to where I can find —”
Sapphire Angel stopped in mid-sentence and held a finger to her lips. She heard the faint sound of footsteps approaching, and motioned for Lockheed to move back around a nearby corner. As Lockheed and the heroine killed the lights on their devices, Sapphire Angel followed the FBI woman, spun, and stood in front of her. She crouched, ready to spring.
The heroine waited, listening. The footsteps were getting louder — just around the corner. It was more than one person. They’d be on her in just a few seconds.
At the first sight of a flickering light and shadow on the ground in front of her, Sapphire Angel moved into action. She whirled around the corner to see three men wearing the masks and armor of the Savage Gang. One of them held a flashlight. Their heads jerked up in surprise.
These men were trained fighters, but Sapphire Angel had the element of surprise. She was on them in a heartbeat, landing a crushing fist to the first man’s face, below the opening of his mask, and spinning and landing a kick to the face of the second men. As the first man’s flashlight clattered to the stone floor, Sapphire Angel flipped back out of the way, avoiding a punch from the third man, whose fist slammed into the stone wall of the tunnel.
His attack and follow through left him open, and Sapphire Angel's cocked leg shot out, hammering his stomach. Even with his armor protecting him, her blow knocked him back and drove the air from his lungs.
The first two men were just getting their bearings. The flashlight lay on the floor, casting enormous shadows on the wall and ceiling, framing the fight in an almost cartoonish collision of shadows.
Sapphire Angel launched a flurry of punches and kicks, alternating between the first two men, sending them sprawling. She followed with a flying kick to the head of the third man, who was bent over and wheezing from her first blow. He slammed to the ground, moaned, and lay still.
Sapphire Angel whirled back to the other two as they pushed themselves to their knees. Two kicks to the head and they were out of the fight.
The tunnels were now silent, save for the sound of flowing water in the distance, and Lockheed’s quiet murmurs.
“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” the FBI agent whispered, her voice quivering with nervous energy.
Sapphire Angel didn’t respond. She listened for thirty seconds until she was sure there were no other sounds, before bending down, sliding flex cuffs from her boot, and securing the men. She tore pieces from one man’s shirt to gag the fallen gangsters. Once finished, she turned to Lockheed. The FBI woman was frozen in place, staring at the heroine. Studying her. Deep in thought. Lockheed spoke in almost a whisper.
“That was unbelievable,” she said. “I guess I forgot what you’re capable of.”
Sapphire Angel shrugged. “It seems we’re on the right track,” she said. “We’ll send someone for these guys after we take care of our business.”
“Maybe we should talk about something, first,” Lockheed said.
The FBI woman’s brow was wrinkled in either thought or worry.
“Talk about what?” Sapphire Angel asked.
Lockheed was silent for a moment, chewing her lip. She exhaled before speaking.
“I'm just wondering if it's smart to keep going,” Lockheed said. “We can still turn back. The first rooms are just ahead, I think. Maybe we should get the hell out of here.”
“You can turn back. I’ll find my way from here.”
Sapphire Angel didn’t tell Lockheed she might only scout the area, and not confront Savage, if she didn’t like what she saw. She didn't want to give Lockheed another reason to question their decision. Despite her words, the heroine privately hoped Lockheed would stick with her, since she might need the FBI agent to show the way out.
Lockheed set her jaw, appearing to wage an inner war with herself, and let out a soft growl.
“Damnit,” she hissed. “Fine. Let’s go. You’re not stealing all the glory.”
Sapphire Angel nodded, and the two women crept forward. Sensing they were close, Sapphire Angel didn’t turn on her light, instead relying on Lockheed to illuminate the way with her flashlight. She held her cylinder down at her side so she could detect any electronic signals.
After another few minutes, Sapphire Angel saw the tunnel open through an archway into a larger area ahead of them. Even from here, she could sense this was not a crag or alcove like they’d encountered so far. She heard the echo of water ahead of her, in the distance. The costumed woman stopped and looked at Lockheed with an arched eyebrow.
“I’m pretty sure it’s the big room,” Lockheed whispered with a nod, turning off her flashlight. “The other rooms should branch off that one. Are you sure about this?”
“Let me take a peek,” Sapphire Angel whispered. “I hear nothing but water. I don’t think anybody is in there. They’re probably out in the city, like we thought. If some of them are here, they’re asleep.”
She slipped her cylinder into her boot and crept ahead toward the opening. She eased forward, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darker conditions.
The tunnel led through a narrow archway, with a room opening on the other side. The sound of flowing water was louder here, but she couldn’t make out anything beyond the archway. She needed to get closer. Sapphire Angel tiptoed through the opening, with Lockheed just behind her.
Just as she cleared the archway, the radiant superheroine felt a hand on her back, giving her a push. With a gasp, Sapphire Angel stumbled forward as a clatter sounded behind her. She whirled, her hair and skirt twirling, and saw a metal gate drop, blocking the archway she had just cleared and separating her from Lockheed.
She looked back to Lockheed, concern in her eyes, thinking the other woman was now alone on the other side, with no help. But then she locked eyes with the FBI agent through the metal gate and saw a grin spread across the woman’s face. Sapphire Angel's eyes narrowed.
“What’s going on?” the superheroine asked, gritting her teeth.
“Don’t you know?” Lockheed said, no longer whispering. Her smile was broad. “I said you needed to learn who was in control. Me. Always. Even — or especially — with you.”
Sapphire Angel sensed movement behind her, and spun back towards the large room, just as light flickered to life. The light came from a dozen thin fixtures hanging from a ceiling at least thirty feet overhead.
The illumination gave her a chance to survey her surroundings. Another metal gate blocked an archway at the opposite end of the room. The area was about two-thirds the size of a high school gymnasium, with a third doorway in the center of the wall to her left.
Damp rock walls were visible at the edge of her vision, with rectangular heaters hanging in the four corners of the large space, providing a dull glow. A channel of water, almost twenty feet wide, ran the length of the wall to her right.
At the edge of the heroine’s vision on the far side of the room, to the left of the other gate, a metal stairwell rose from the stone floor. Her eyes followed the stairs, and she took in a balcony circling the room above her. Several men filled the balcony, looking down at her. There were at least a dozen men. Perhaps over twenty. Savage’s men. Not a skeleton crew, as Lockheed had suggested.
A woman stood in one corner of the balcony amidst the men. Megan Lawlor? So it seemed, from this distance. The woman held what looked like a small video camera. What was she doing? Filming what was to come? Sapphire Angel balled her fists at her side and tensed her jaw as she continued to survey her surroundings. Her heart thumped in her chest.
Scattered objects cast shadows on the floor. As her eyes adjusted to the light, Sapphire Angel realized the room was filled with weights, weight benches, rowing machines, stair climbers, and other exercise equipment. Tight confines. Very tight.
Anger boiled in Sapphire Angel, ready to burst, as she considered the trap. Lockheed had betrayed her. For all the FBI woman’s faults, Sapphire Angel had thought this step — throwing her lot in with the most vile group in the country — was beyond her. Evidently not. The costumed woman clenched her gloved fists at her side.
A huge figure appeared from the doorway along the left wall, casting an ominous shadow across the floor in front of him. The light made it hard to make out his face, but Sapphire Angel didn’t need to see the man’s features to know who it was. Maximus Savage was ready for her.
Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (Book 4)
Savage Vengeance (Book 5 - this story)
Well, uhhh……I had a small feeling this would happen, but I suppose I was too clouded by hope and optimism for Olivia Lockheed that I failed to actually realize it was coming. Unless maybe this is yet another setup from Lockheed towards the Savage Gang.
I get that Sapphire basically had to spring into action against those first few dudes in the labyrinth (before the huge chamber with Maximus Savage, Megan Lawlor, and the other Savage Gang goons), but that basically only enabled Lockheed’s, uhhh….. “habit”…..more, now that I think about it. She’s already overly fascinated with Sapphire, and having the lucky chance to see her in action with her own eyes—and not from behind a camera, on a video, or on a news clipping—must’ve been a dream come true for someone like Lockheed.
I’m guessing(?) Lockheed ultimately didn’t like Sapphire too much, if she really was intent on luring the heroine into such a huge attack. Earlier on, I would’ve half-thought she’d been a crazed Sapphire-obsessed loyalist whose fixation on the heroine would still be overtly weird, but who would still prove herself to be useful because of it. Not anymore, I suppose.
In before Lockheed reveals she booby-trapped the entire gymnasium with high-powered explosives during her time as a prisoner of the Savage Gang and just lured both them AND Sapphire to their very explosive demise. xD
…..Or technically just the Savage Gang, ‘cause Sapphire’s insanely resilient. It would be SUCH an ironic and fitting echo of Rocco Lynch bombing T.L. “Tip” Grim’s gun shop in the previous novel.
When Sapphire gets out of this…..she’ll definitely want to go after Lockheed once this is all over. Then again, she’s still a hero above all else; she’d prioritize the Gang first and foremost, then vent with Lockheed later. I half-wanted Benjamin Drummond and Larry Oberkfell also in this ambush in some capacity, and maybe Augustus Bell could’ve also shown up with a few corrupt guards from his prison, but it looks like Sapphire’s already got enough on her plate as is.
Let’s get it on!