Death in a Museum

Part 2: This Gallery Closed for Repairs

Craig ducked down the first gallery to his left at full speed, bag in hand. At the end, kicked the exit door open but dove to the right into the next gallery. He slid across the floor and got up to run back towards the main hall, only to find the far end blocked by iron gates and work equipment. It was the old antique weapons hall being remodeled.

Then he heard running footsteps in the first gallery just as the door he had pushed open, slammed shut. He knew if the robber didn’t fall for that old trick, it was going to be a fight. He tossed the black bag on top of a display case, out of sight, and stripped his jacket and shirt off. He heard the door open, then close. He took a ready stance and waited.

What seemed like hours passed and the robber appeared at the far end, maybe 100 feet away. The figure rounded the corner and stopped, seeing him. Craig heard an odd, lilting laugh from the thief as it started to approach. At about 50 feet the robber stopped.

“Very nice, a very impressive body. You wouldn't be trying to intimidate me, would you?” came the very feminine voice.

The figure pulled the ski mask off to reveal a beautiful young face with bright green eyes and blonde hair in a ponytail. She looked like the girl next door, or a cheerleader. Her smile was dazzling.

“Let me show you intimidation.”

Her face darkened with fury as the loose fitting, baggy jumpsuit seemed to inflate, all over. The cloth became taut, then strained as threads started to break. There was a tearing sound, then a ripping as the cloth shredded and disintegrated. She pulled the remnants off to fully expose a truly massive body. Craig swallowed hard as he looked at her. She was 5’7” or 5’8” but had the muscles of a woman twice, maybe three times her size. They rippled and bulged in places that he didn’t even know a woman had a muscle. Her biceps were basketball sized and her thighs were as big around as a football lineman’s body. She had no breasts but didn’t need them, her pecs were so huge. Her whole body was crisscrossed with an incredible amount of veins, all pulsing in time with her heartbeats. It was then he noticed that she was wearing a familiar stomach baring orange tank top and black spandex shorts. She lifted her arms into a double bicep shot of monumental proportions. Each had to be at least 30 inches in diameter, traversed by a deep cleft defining the inner and outer heads and with several veins the size of a TV cable. She smiled at him.

“This is what I call intimidation.”

She dropped the flex and launched herself at him. He dove under her arc through the air and rolled to his feet behind her. She turned and snarled at him, her angelic face a mask of total fury. She turned and charged at him. Her body slammed into his like a semi and they tumbled to the floor. Her weight was incredible, he guessed about 400 pounds. He rolled her off of him and got to his feet. She did the same but before she made it all the way, he threw a punch at her abs. It was like hitting a side of beef. He immediately hit her again but she tightened her stomach this time. It was like hitting a granite wall. He felt the pain course up his right arm to his shoulder and stumbled back.

“You have to be careful, you’re going to hurt yourself before I get a chance to.”

She grabbed his shoulder and lifted Craig off his feet. She gave him a quick, “rabbit” punch to the abs with her other hand. His stomach muscles barely held but he knew they couldn’t take another. She cocked her arm back but as she threw the punch, the darkness in her face seemed to flicker. When the punch hit, it only took the wind out of him. For some reason she had pulled her punch and dropped him. He landed on the floor in fetal position, gasping for air.

The robber started to search the gallery for the bag, turning over tables, upsetting steel work trolleys, tearing open locked toolboxes with her bare hands. She was oblivious to Craig’s recovery. He stood and looked around for a weapon and found a very large, two handed bastard sword. He picked it up and swung it at her back. She must’ve heard the swish of its movement because she turned and clamped it flat under her arm. She stripped it from him and then casually snapped it in half. Craig back pedaled from her as the fury suddenly returned to her face. She walked over to a wheeled hydraulic scissor lift that must have weighed at least 2 tons. She grabbed it by the lower frame, heaved it over her head and threw it at Craig. He ducked as it flew overhead, landing with a crash behind him. He looked at the cracked and broken concrete and marble floor where it hit. Then he felt her hit him from behind.

She pinned him to the floor, on his back, and reached for his throat. He met her hands, palm to palm, and started to push back with everything he had. His body strained and screamed in pain at the effort but he could see she was barely working. Her thighs began to squeeze his torso from the sides. He could feel his rib cage begin to flex. He let his left arm drop and pushed hard with his right. This rolled her off of him but, as he got up, she back handed him so hard that he flew 20 feet and hit the back wall of the gallery. He slumped to the floor, seemingly unconscious. She went back to searching.

When she reached the other end of the hall, Craig shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He had gotten an idea as he looked up at her huge body. He quietly stood up and moved to a pile of weapons. He found a long steel pike that he hoped would work. He laid it on the floor next to the demolished lift. He then searched around for an appropriately large piece of marble. He picked it up with two hands and tested its weight. Silently, snuck up to about 25 feet behind her and threw the marble chunk.

It hit her square between the shoulder blades with a resounding “thump” and bounced off her huge back. Slowly she turned, her face, a mask of rage. She palmed the large chunk of marble from the floor and walked towards him. Craig backed up toward the lift truck wreckage. When he bumped into it, she stopped and placed the chunk between her hands. His mouth dropped open as her whole upper body started to swell. Her arms, shoulders and chest kept getting bigger and bigger as she increased the pressure. The muscles seemed to start swallowing her head as they flexed. He swore he could see the individual fibers of her muscles contracting. The orange top started to tear along her cleavage, which looked like it was 3 or 4 inches deep because her pectorals had become so massive. Her trapezius and deltoid muscles shredded bulged to unbelievable size.

Suddenly, the marble chunk exploded in a cloud of powder. She ground up a few remaining chunks in her hands and pointed at him.

“I’m going to do that to every….bone…in…your…body.”

She roared at him and launched herself through the air. He reached down and grabbed the pike he had prepositioned. He instantly gauged her arc through the air and planted the bottom of it against a broken piece of flooring. As she began her decent, he aimed the sharp tip of the pike. Too late she realized what he was doing and screamed “Nooooooooo”

The pike tip entered her body at the juncture of her pectorals muscles and abdominals, the only place on the torso that the muscles, no matter how well developed, ever totally cover. It took off the base of the sternum and plunged through the lowest ventricle of her double sized heart. It proceeded on and neatly bisected her spine between the 3rd and 4th dorsal vertebrae. Her inertia carried her down the pike shaft until she hit Craig’s hands.

As he held the pike, he looked her in the face. Her fury was still there, as one of her hands clamped down on his arm. He noticed the veins coursing over body seemed to deflate and recede as her huge heart pumped blood into her body cavities, rather than her arteries.

It was then, the most amazing thing happened. All the fury left her face, back was the dazzling face he had first seen. She looked at herself, at her arms and body, then at him. Her eyes welled up with tears and she smiled. Her lips moved with no sound, but he could have sworn she tried to say “Thank you”.

He let go of the pike and her body dropped to the floor.

Con’t

Part 3: Dancin’ on the Ceiling

The tall robber entered the gallery Lillyia disappeared down. It was another one being remodeled, but the exhibits had been fully removed. Only the showcases remained. She pulled her ski mask off to reveal a long, thin face with sharp features. Her eyes were dark and deep set on either side of a long aquiline nose. Her hair was black and cut short in a boyish style. She moved slowly towards the middle of the gallery scanning and searching.

“Tell Cassandra, Lillyia has her jewels.”

She spun and looked in all directions but saw no one. She listened carefully then looked up, high on the back wall. There was Lillyia, about 25 feet up. She had torn her dress down one side so that her legs could move easily. She clung to the wall, just a few feet from the ceiling.

“Ah, a blood sucker, and the one that killed my friend Miranda, no less. I’ve wanted to test myself against your kind. It’ll be a pleasure to kill you.”

“Who is Miranda?”

“She’s the one that you murdered in that alley a few months ago. You snapped her back in half.”

“I hate to tell you this, but it was my friend that went the other way, that killed her.”

“A human male? I hardly think so. Miranda had the strength of 20 of them, no way he could have killed her. Typical vampire, you can’t even own up to your own killing. In any case, Cheryl will grind him up into hamburger in no time.”

The robber unzipped her jumpsuit and stepped out of. Her body had obviously been augmented, her biceps were enormous and chest and shoulders were thick and heavy. She had 2 small breasts pressed flat by the orange top she wore. Her abs were so prominent and deeply cut, that they looked like they were glued on to her stomach. The unbelievable part of her physique was her legs. They were tremendous in size. So dense, separated and defined were the various sinews, ligaments and tendons, that they looked like 2 unsheathed bundles of cables exiting from her black shorts down to the soft black boots she wore. Her forearms looked the same as she pulled on a pair of gloves that looked to be of the same material as the boots.

She looked at Lillyia and began to run at an amazing speed. Her legs pumped like great pistons, Lillyia almost thought she felt the vibrations in the wall. At about 20 feet from the wall, the robber sprang from the floor and sailed up towards Lillyia. Momentarily shocked at the sight, she almost dove for the other wall too late, the robber just missed grabbing her ankle. Instead, she caught one of the roof girders in one hand and placed her feet on the wall and hung there, smiling at Lillyia.

“This is definitely going to be fun.’ She said.

The Leaper crouched on the wall and let go of the girder. Her powerful legs fired her in Lillyia’s direction. Lillyia leapt downwards to catch a chain for the suspended lights. Her trajectory took her under the Leaper, but too close. She grabbed her ankle, twisted in mid-air and flung Lillyia at the floor. Leaper caught a window frame and hung from it by one hand as she watched her fall.

Lillyia crashed through the top of a huge glass case and fell through it to the hard marble base. She felt the pain of the impact course through her whole body and it dazed her. She shook her head and looked up just in time to see the Leaper swing her feet up to the ceiling and push off in her direction. About halfway down, she somersaulted to put her feet below her. Lillyia dove through the glass side of the case just before she landed on her.

Lillyia was on her feet in a split second and facing the Leaper, who was climbing out of the hole her landing had made. She stepped out on the floor and took a defensive stance and they began to circle each other. Leaper took a swing that Lillyia deflected. Lillyia landed her own blow to her solar plexes. Leaper kicked out with one of those massive legs and connected with her midsection, sending her flying into a bunch of crates that collapsed on her. As the Leaper approached the pile of boxes, it suddenly exploded as Lillyia shot upward towards the rafters. The Leaper followed her, grabbing one of the beams above. She looked around and saw Lillyia perched on an open framework about 30 feet away. The Leaper swung herself into a somersault and grabbed the next girder over, like a trapeze flyer. She hung from one hand looking at Lillyia.

“Why don’t you just give up? I can do this for hours and you are not going to get away. I promise to kill you quickly, if you do.”

“I bet you will.”

With that Liilyia dove from the girder and caught the loose light chain she had aimed for before. She grabbed it with both hands and did a long Tarzan-like swing across to the far side, landing on a window ledge, still holding the chain. Following after her, the Leaper did a series of somersaults and jumps from girder to girder. Lillyia watched the approach and, as the Leaper sailed across the last span, she dove under and snapped the chain like a big lasso and looped it around her body. Their combined weights and inertia pulled it from the ceiling and they both plummeted towards the floor again, landing with another crash. Immediately they were both up and at each other.

They grappled in a hand to hand fight, their titanic power pitted against the other. They landed blows to each other’s bodies that were so hard, the floor vibrated. At one point, Lillyia heaved the Leaper over her head and slammed her to the floor so hard that the marble cracked.  The Leaper got one of her huge arms around Lillyia’s neck and tried to bend her back to snap her spine but Lillyia was too strong and broke the hold.

After several minutes of the slugfest, Lillyia could feel her strength waning. The Leaper was obviously getting tired, also, but seemed to have more reserves than her. In an effort to gain time and think, Lillyia, sprang for the roof again. Once on the girders, she looked down to see where the Leaper was, but couldn’t see her. She leaned further down, to get a clear view of the whole gallery. Suddenly, she saw the the Leaper’s 2 massive legs swing around the girder and clamp around her body, pulling her off.

She looked up, the Leaper was hanging from the girder by her hands, with an evil smile on her face. The pressure on Lillyia’s torso began to increase as the muscles in her legs flexed and hardened.  The Leaper then did a hanging leg raise, holding Lillyia at eye level with her.

“Any last words before I crush you?”

Lillyia’s answer was to extend her claws and rake them across the Leaper’s legs. To her amazement, all she did was lacerate the skin. The muscles were so hard and dense that she couldn’t penetrate them. Those same leg muscles now tightened and grew as they bore down on her. Lillyia felt her rib cage start to bend, a roaring sound filled her head. The Leaper’s legs just kept getting bigger and bigger with every passing second.

It was then that subconscious instinct took over, her feral self emerged. There was only one vulnerable point from where she was, so she morphed her first two fingers into the longest claws she could and plunged them deep between the Leaper’s legs and twisted them. The Leaper screamed and let go of the girder and Lillyia and she grabbed her crotch. They both crashed onto the same pile of crates as before.

Lillyia stood up, gasping for lungs full of air and clutching her throbbing sides. She coughed hard and gagged a couple times before she could take a decent breath. She looked at the shredded remain of her dress, then started to pull the pile of crushed crates apart, looking for the Leaper. She lifted off one huge one and found her underneath, seemingly unconscious. Lillyia leaned closer to listen for a heartbeat when one of the Leaper’s hands shot out and grabbed her neck. The grip started to close off her air as the two eyes that controlled it burned with hate at the sight of her. Lillyia slapped and clawed at the sinuous forearm and huge bicep, but it was like striking at a piece of steel. Her vision was being filled with exploding colors and lights.

Just as she was starting to black out, the grip loosened, then a little more, then let her go completely. When Lillyia’s vision cleared, she saw that the Leaper was dying. The pulsing in her veins had slowed and her skin was losing color. She looked down and saw the inside of her legs covered in blood. Lillyia figured she must have hit the femoral artery. It was then that she noticed the blood had an odd silvery metallic sheen to it. She looked her in the face and slapped her a couple times. The Leaper’s eyes fluttered open.

“Where’s Cassandra?” Lillyia asked.

The Leaper smiled and croaked, “Burn in hell, bitch.” And she died.

A few minutes later, after Lillyia had pulled the Leaper’s body from the pile and laid in the middle of the floor, Craig entered, his jacket and shirt both open. Lillyia ran to him and wrapped her arms around him. Her lips crushed against his in a passionate kiss that he returned. After a few seconds they stopped kissing and just held each other.

“I see we survived another one.” Craig said.

“I guess we have. We have got to stop having dates like this.”

She looked at Craig who just smiled a little at her joke. She could see in his eyes that he was troubled.

“What’s the matter?”

“I think I just killed an innocent girl, I think. Just before she died, she said thank you.”

“She wasn’t innocent. You saw what she did to that security guard.”

“I know, but I don’t think it was “her” doing that.”

Craig explained about the “flickering” he saw in her disposition, her pulled punch and her death. Lillyia asked him to bring her body into this gallery and put it next to the Leaper’s. As he did that, she made a call on his cel phone. By the time she finished, he had done what she asked.

“Give me your pen and one of your business cards.”

He handed them over and she scrawled an address on the back of the card. He recognized it as being about a mile away, in the old warehouse district along the west side of the south branch of the river.

“I want you to meet me at this address in 48 hours.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m taking our 2 “friends” there to be looked at.”

“How are you going to carry them by yourself.”

“I think I can transport them both there by myself. Since they are dead, I can use my ethereal mode. What you like to call “poofing”. It will be pushing the limits, but I think I can do it. Now, go blend in with the other guests and I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”

She kissed him passionately once more, stepped between the two bodies and laid her hands on each. She smiled at him, took a deep breath and all three vanished in a puff of smoke.

Con’t