Qin Zhang, reclining in the leather chair in his study with a glass of calimocho in his right hand, ran the recorded news broadcast back to its beginning again, hitting "play" for the seventh time, studying the images carefully. The name plaque on his desk, reading "Han-Cho Eng, CEO HCE Imports Ltd.," reflected the television’s light in the otherwise shaded room as the events of two days before played out again. His seamed, leathery face was set in concentration as he watched.

Zhang had spent much of his adult life in the service of China’s Ministry of State Security, and one thing he’d learned over the years was that overreliance on clandestine sources of information, the cloak-and-dagger resources of the spy, was a weakness. Very often, especially here in the West, the information you really needed was in plain view, in public sources like everyday news broadcasts. You only had to know how to look for it.

This news broadcast was a case in point. A discerning, correctly-educated eye could pick out the real story in the images of the Newkirk raid.

Start with Boss Angel Rubinetto. Zhang, who was blessed with a gift for languages, could lip-read the man’s Sicilian dialect. He could discern brief but informative snatches of what the man was screaming: ". . . double-crossing bitch, I’ll cut off her fucking hands and shove them up her ass the fucking whore . . ."; ". . . million dollars for the head of that fucking traitor Sonny, rot in hell you . . ."; ". . . how does it feel to be a fucking tool you stupid G-man, you think you’ve won a fucking thing you punk . . ." – and other, similar sentiments.

There was other data to combine with these rantings. A close observer, for example, would notice that of the Operation Freedom agents who came before the camera, only about half of them were joining in the otherwise widespread mood of jubilant celebration. The other half seemed oddly stoic, rarely looking at the cameras or at each other, never looking at the Foxx Force Five who were signing autographs for the crowd of onlookers. Their faces were grim as they hauled their Mafia captives away like garbagemen on a pickup run, like people who had suddenly come to hate their jobs.

Combine this data with a bit of additional context, and a picture emerged. Apparently – and Zhang had been far from sure it would happen, despite all the resources he’d thrown behind her – Siouxsie Sexcrime had actually delivered on her promises. Her operatives inside Operation Freedom were having astonishing success in compromising and turning its agents, a good chunk of whom now guiltily knew that their real boss was the Syndicate, that they were nothing more than the instruments of the Red Queen’s steady ascent to the top of the underworld – and that they were powerless to stop it. She had succeeded in getting Sonny Rubinetto, the Midtown street capo, to persuade his father to call a meeting of the Commission, luring them with the false promise that she would be attending with the enslaved and cowed Foxx Force Five in tow. The Bosses had convened on his advice, waiting eagerly for the proof of their final victory... and found the still-capable Foxxes storming in on them instead, all their Families decapitated in one fell swoop.

And who would replace them? Why, grasping members of the younger generation just like Sonny Rubinetto, of course. A whole slate of new Bosses of the Seven Families, all now beholden to Siouxsie, all willing to do things the older generation had balked at, all now hungry for access to the astonishing technologies she’d demonstrated to them, technologies that could give them the power to profoundly remold the minds of women... or of anyone they liked. As long as she controlled access to those technologies, she would control the Mafia itself, and the awesome potential profits involved would mean the Mafia accepted that control, however much it chafed. What the largely-unknowing world had witnessed today was the rise of a more powerful Boss of Bosses than Island City had ever seen, and her position at the top in this great metropolis would now mean she effectively commanded the resources of the Seven Families and their allies clear across North America. They would all be beholden to her...

... and she would be beholden to Qin Zhang and the MSS!

It was all the more stunning a coup because as unprecedented an asset as this would make her, it was still just a fringe benefit of this operation. Another man would be giddy with triumph and the prospect of greater triumph yet to come. But experience had taught Zhang that moments of apparent victory were the time to exercise the greatest caution – a lesson that Boss Angel had just learned the hard way.

Qin Zhang admired Siouxsie’s ruthless cunning, a necessary trait for a woman in her position. After all, any fool could see that the Rubinettos had planned to kill her once Operation Freedom was out of the way, that they’d blamed her, her unorthodox technologies, her practices and her ambitions for the unprecedented heat that had come down on Island City. She had simply struck first, acting like a woman who would not meekly accept being discarded once her usefulness was at an end. He was impressed by her resolve... and he knew it had implications for his plans, too.

Zhang had been face to face with her. He remembered the air of cold command that had radiated from beneath her winning, glamorous facade at the Soliko Grand, the palpable aura of a warrior Empress. He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that her schemes weren’t at an end, that she would no more willingly accept being a tool of the MSS than she’d accepted being a tool of the Mafia. There had to be something more on its way, something that might well arrive before she ever had to deliver on her primary promise to Zhang, that tantalizing promise that had tempted Mother China to take the apocalyptic risk of operating so brazenly in America’s greatest city.

If this operation ever came to light, the resulting brouhaha would make the Cuban Missile Crisis look like a family squabble. But by the scabby ghost of Mao, he thought, the prize is worth the risk. He would have to deal as ruthlessly now with his Syndicate "allies" as they had just dealt with the Commission. He would have to make it work, whatever the cost.

Zhang set down his glass, turned to his computer, and brought up the reams of strange surveillance data he’d been analyzing as he picked up his phone.

"Yes, sir?" an efficient feminine voice answered immediately.

"Report."

"Agent 54 is tracking the target you identified, sir. They’re headed toward Heartland Park as we speak."

"Very good, Agent 17. Bring the car around, and notify Agent 22 that she is to meet us on-site. We’re going in."

"Right away, sir."

* * * * *

Raven McCoy was in a mood of happy contemplation as she pulled her black Foxx Force Five jumpsuit up over her curvy hips, sliding her arms into the sleeves and shrugging the garment up over her shoulders to zip the front up over her big, creamy, beautiful breasts.

It had been, without a doubt, one of the best weeks of her life. Maybe the best.

Not a flawless week, granted. They hadn’t gotten to fully avenge the failed but still brutal ambush of Keiko in Devil’s Banquet; the Syndicate’s Boss had somehow been warned about their raid, or had failed to show for the meet. As for taking down the overconfident Mafiosi of the Commission – they’d all turned out to be run-down-looking Italian men who’d gaped in blank astonishment at their capture, putting up far less fight than the Bloods or Vladimir Popov’s crew had done – well, it was as sweet a victory as any of them had ever known, their biggest coup ever... but without Johnny Mosley there to congratulate them afterwards, it just wasn’t the same. The ominous words "having some tests done" had appeared in his note to the Foxxes, and worry nagged at all their minds... but ultimately Raven was confident, as she was sure the rest of her friends were, that Johnny would be alright. But they all missed him. Nice a guy as Agent Lonnie James was, he just wasn’t the same, he didn’t have that wonderful ease and inspirational aura that Johnny had, didn’t know just the right things to say at just the right times to all of them.

An awfully subdued-seeming guy, too. He was always pale and wan, and seemed to have trouble meeting the Foxxes’ eyes. Like a lot of people around here these days, she thought with a brief flash of irritation. According to Max, the prospect of the end of Operation Freedom was starting to depress many of the men and women whose lives had revolved around the Foxxes’ Den and its lively heroines for so long, which she had to admit was sort of plausible... but dammit, it just didn’t make sense to her to mope around in times as exciting as these were!

The criminals were on the run! Max had given them the run-down on the morning’s call: the Matrillo Cartel was stone-quiet, obviously keen not to draw fire from the rampaging Foxxes. The Seven Families had been decapitated and were already showing signs of flailing and thrashing in succession struggles that would last for months or years to come. The Syndicate, without its Mafia allies, was isolated and ripe for the picking, a shell of its former self. The media nationwide was undergoing what Garry Bibb of Late Night with Bibb had dubbed "Foxx Force Fever," and there was even whispered talk of the Five getting invited to the White House when it was all over – though Max had cautioned them sternly that these were still just rumours

If the end was near, surely it was going to be a glorious end, something they could all look back on with pride. And the public was even noticing Raven, too!

Not that she had been feeling insecure about that. In fact it had been weeks since she’d felt really insecure. Weeks, for instance, since she’d guiltily seethed with envy at hearing someone call Satin "the Black Bombshell" or Keiko "the Tiger Princess" or Summer "the Number One Foxx." Weeks since she’d wondered why she didn’t have a cool nickname, why the best she’d ever managed was "The Real McCoy" (secondhand from a bad Niki Samberg movie, wasn’t it?) or to be semi-derisively called "Stabby Spice" in a teen magazine article that she’d promptly run through a shredder in mortification. She hadn’t even felt (much of) a spasm of jealousy the day before when Mylene, until now her companion in the cool-nickname wilderness, had been simultaneously christened "the Super-Siren" by Pridefair and "the Enchantress" by none other than Trend, the kind of names you just knew were going to stick. There was a time that would have kept her up two or three nights in a row, but not any more.

For that matter, it had been weeks since she’d dreamed about her... well, not her parents, they had no right to be called parents, but those Certain Awful People who had conceived her. Weeks since she’d dreamed about the horrid thunder of the Blaze Kings’ motorbikes pulling in among the dilapidated tents and trailers of the Jack Rhodes Travelling Circus, since she’d dreamed about her father’s hand falling on her shoulder and his voice saying, "We love you, angel, but this is for the best," and her looking up at him to see the face of Max Fawkes sternly sending her on her way... weeks since she’d dreamed any of that. When Raven had started having those wonderful, mysterious wet dreams every night, started waking as outrageously squirty multiple orgasms took control of her shuddering young body – the same kinds of dreams her fellow Foxxes were apparently having – she hadn’t been at all frightened. She’d welcomed it. It was a decided improvement... and though she could never remember them, she knew there was only one man they could be about.

It had been weeks, too, since she’d looked at her huge collection of wicked knives and felt a pang of regret at not having learned to shoot guns instead. Weeks since she’d wondered whether the others just indulged her because she was sweet and young and made a good novelty act. She had earned her place, dammit, she was starting to really realize it. People respected her! Hell, the Kitts who’d been making such waves, who’d contributed so much to bringing them all to where they were today... that whole program had been her idea! Raven McCoy had a lot to contribute! No way was Max Fawkes going to wake up one morning and decide to leave her to the wolves, like Certain Other People had once done. Max respected her... cared for her... loved her like nobody else in all the universe would ever love her, she was sure of it—

Still, it was nice to have external confirmation once in a while. Nice to have someone go out of their way to say: "You’re special, Raven McCoy, and we want to hear what you think." The invitation to speak today to the senior class at the Connemara Girls’ Prep School – just off Green Boulevard, no less! – was just the thing.

Incredible! she thought. She was going to tell a group of wide-eyed upper-crust high school girls about having been a world-class knife fighter from the age of seventeen, a full-fledged spy from the age of eighteen, a scourge of the underworld today at just shy of twenty. She was going to tell them all that they could do great things, too, that they could be more than spoiled debutantes and socialites, that all they needed to do was believe. Raven McCoy, an orphan and one-time trailer-trash carnie from the Commonwealth of Jefferson – born right across the Little Sandy from West Gloriana, where her ancestors’ enemies had cooked up that infamous feud well over a century ago – was going to be their idol! She knew exactly what she was going to say, she had it all planned out.

Looking at herself in the mirror, Raven wondered if maybe she shouldn’t put some underwear on underneath the skintight jumpsuit. People looking closely would surely see the pronounced camel toe at her crotch, the fabric straining across her stiff nipples... and she was pretty sure it was nuns that ran the school. But no, she thought. This is how we operate, I might as well be authentic. If I can face down a dozen mobsters with a bit of camel toe, a room full of girls should be no problem. Besides, it won’t really show that much.

She buckled her utility belt around her waist, one of her bigger knives around her left thigh – just the one, today – and pulled on her black leather biker boots and fingerless gloves. She gave herself a brilliant smile. You’re ready, Raven, she thought happily. Ready to knock ‘em dead!

* * * * *

Gustavo Caliente was the first to reach the spot that Max Fawkes had picked out for this strange rendezvous, the centre of the sixty-foot span of Cardinal Bridge in Heartland Park. It was a gorgeous summer’s day, really, with rowboats out on the Tarn and a vast scenic view of the skyline rising behind the greenery.

In any other situation this would have made for a pleasant outing, he thought with a humourless smirk.

It had tickled Caliente’s fancy to come disguised as someone rather like his younger self, fully bearded and pony-tailed and swarthy, breezily attired in a white seersucker suit and smoking a pretentious French cigarette. He’d called it his "Florida uniform" when he’d worked for Castro in the early days. He found himself missing those days now. But even amid all the anxieties of what had come to seem an impossible situation, it had been a consolation – if a surprise – to learn that Fawkes was still alive after all. He really hadn’t expected that, had been sure the Syndicate would dispose of him after the first couple of weeks.

The form of Jimmy Beam approaching from the south was unmistakable, the brown-skinned, shaven-headed Syndicate bruiser huge and imposing even in the simple navy-blue tracksuit he wore now. The man had stopped several feet away from him, pretending to be a stretching jogger and clearly waiting for this stranger to move away so he could take up a position for the meet. Caliente had to subtly signal him a couple of times before the man finally realized who he was and approached.

"Caliente?" he said, sounding impressed. "That’s really you?"

"There’s a reason they call me the Man With a Thousand Faces, Jimmy."

Beam nodded and chuckled. "Yeah, I guess there is."

"I was surprised," Caliente went on, "to get the note you left in the last case. That was quite a risk you took. I have to admit I didn’t think you had it in you."

The bruiser shrugged. "Max made a pretty good case for thinking you wouldn’t exactly go running to The Boss. Looks like he was right."

"Yes, I suppose he was." Caliente took a drag of his cigarette. "Now we just have to hope this invitation isn’t a trick by Siouxsie herself."

Beam didn’t reply. His brooding silence seemed to indicate this possibility had occurred to him, too – that it would be just like her, really – but that he was either too desperate or too fatalistic at this point to care.

The figure of Max Fawkes came into view at the bridge’s northern end a few minutes later. The man hesitated for a long moment, as if doing some last-second weighing of his options; Caliente and Beam just stood in semi-companionable silence. Finally, the ex-Operation Freedom commander nodded to himself resolutely and walked onto the bridge, coming alongside to lean on the railing at Caliente’s left as Beam was doing on his right.

"Gustavo Caliente, I presume," he said.

"It’s an honour to finally meet you face to face, Mr. Fawkes," Caliente extended a hand. "I admit I didn’t think it would ever happen."

"The honour’s mine," said Max after a moment, shaking firmly. "If someone was going to take me out of Operation Freedom, I’m glad that at least it had to be the Man With a Thousand Faces himself."

They stood silently again, looking out for a moment at the placid Tarn. Then Caliente said: "You know, I’ve been wondering something ever since I took this job with the Syndicate. Did you ever work Havana for the Company?"

Max smiled. "I am aware of no such missions or operations, and furthermore would not be at liberty to discuss any such missions or operations if they did, in fact—"

Caliente waved off the end of the sentence with a hint of amusement. "Yes, yes, yes. So, did you?"

"Not Havana, no. I didn’t work Latin America too much, except for Peru. Knew some of those poor bastards in Isthmus back in double-ought, though, a couple of them used to be in the shop." Fawkes grimaced and Caliente winced momentarily as both remembered what had befallen that ill-fated group. Max continued after a moment: "If you want a real war story, I once met the guy who planned the exploding cigar gambit back in the Sixties. He was officially a Wise Old Man by the time I scarfed down a few cocktail weenies with him, but I think the honest truth was that he wasn’t any wiser at seventy-five than he was at thirty."

"The exploding cigar, seriously? That wasn’t a decoy, that was an actual plan?" The Man With a Thousand Faces actually found himself laughing out loud, now, as Fawkes nodded ruefully. "Good God, what was he thinking?"

As Max started to reply, Beam suddenly growled: "Look, gents, I hate to break this up, but maybe we ought to get down to it?"

After a bemused moment, the two spies nodded, Max saying: "You’re right, Jimmy. Let me get started. Mind if we walk a bit? I was thinking the Plaza." As the others nodded and the trio started south, he went on: "To simplify things, I’m going to start off with what we can’t do. We can’t, and I want to be absolutely clear about this, stop Operation: Foxx Hunt."

Caliente raised an eyebrow. That hadn’t been what he had hoped to hear. And he said: "Are you so sure about that?"

"Positive."

"And why not?" asked Beam. Oddly, the thug sounded just as put out by this initial revelation as Caliente himself. There was another surprise; he’d thought the man hated the Foxxes.

"Once your Syndicate managed to replace me with our friend here," said Max, nodding at Caliente, "there was never really any prospect of stopping it. Neither of you were inclined yet, nor would be in time to do anything, and if I were inclined," –"If!" Caliente made a mental note— "there was no way off the Sands Estate for me without Siouxsie seeing to it that I was apprehended as a rapist. Supposing I even got that far, all they’d have had to do to keep Gustavo firmly in place was introduce some confusion into the DNA evidence and call me an impostor clearly recruited to discredit the ‘real’ Max Fawkes. It’s the answer everyone would want to believe. It would take." His voice was noticeably matter-of-fact and free of rancor as he said all this. Caliente found his mind flashing back to his last sight of Fawkes before this meeting, the ruined and sobbing form of the girl underneath him, the agent lost utterly in the brutal act of ravishing her tight ass... and despite himself, he shuddered. Max went on: "Now that Siouxsie’s had time to work at infiltrating the Den, reconditioning the Foxxes, subverting the Kitts and now the Agents and getting Johnny Mosley out of the way, there are practically no allies left to work with. Operation Freedom is her instrument now. The only other option is to notify Washington... and if we did so now, there could be only one outcome."

"Which is?" Beam prompted, but he sounded like he already knew.

"We both know," said Max, "the only reason Siouxsie doesn’t kill as often as she could is that she doesn’t like to waste a perfectly good opportunity to make someone suffer. She won’t flinch from killing for a nanosecond if she feels it necessary. And it’s a certainty that she’s put a plan in place to simply kill the Foxxes – and whatever remaining Agents she hasn’t turned yet – if she feels something, anything, going wrong with Foxx Hunt at this stage. Wouldn’t you agree, Jimmy?" After a moment the bruiser nodded sourly. "So that’s half the outcome. The other half is that she steps up the schedule on her other plan, the plan that’s the real reason we’re all here. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Foxx Hunt isn’t just past the point of no return. It’s also our best shot at stopping the bigger threat."

His companions looked at him in surprise. Caliente’s mind started racing: "How so? And what do you have about the... other plan?"

"I’ll come to the ‘how’ in a second," Max said. "As to her plan, I think I have it mostly worked out. There are some pieces you might be able to fill in that I can’t. But if I’m right," he looked grim, "then the really lethal part of it is being rolled into place almost as we speak. And gentlemen... we’re not talking about run-of-the-mill crime, now. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of lives at a minimum. We’re talking about something that has to be stopped... no matter what the cost."

* * * * *

The Connemara Girls’ Prep School was an impressive building over a century old and ten storeys high, a fine old limestone-clad edifice on Luthington Avenue and East 69^th. Raven had looked it up on the web, knew it had started out as a trade school for girls at the turn of the Twentieth Century, had gone further and further upscale in subsequent incarnations. It had actually been the Midtown School for Girls until only three years ago, when one of the Peirce Administration’s new "faith-based" initiatives had made it possible for the Sisters of St. Mary Salome to take over, their aim to run the school for an exclusive, high-paying clientele whose dollars would fund their charitable missions in Newkirk and all across Island City. And an exclusive clientele it was, the privacy of its students roster carefully preserved, the entry fee grown so astronomical and placements so scarce that even families with Green Boulevard addresses were known to complain. Good-naturedly, though; the awe-inspiring status that came with the absurd price tag was part of the school’s attraction.

Raven arrived on her sleek black Futatsu motorbike, her four-strong support team of Agents assigned by Lonnie James – whose partner Mike Shane was among them – pulling up across the street in their blue van. The Foxx had wanted to tell them it wasn’t necessary for them to come along at all, just barely refraining from admitting it would spoil some of the satisfaction of her big day if she was forced to bring an armed security detail with her. But she knew that was foolhardy, and had finally settled on persuading them to wait until she was in before they loitered in the shops on the school’s ground floor, monitoring their trackers in case she needed help. It had taken surprisingly little persuading, really, even for Agent Shane who was usually a talker. All of them had slid their eyes away from hers as they’d nodded in agreement.

Should ask if we can get Dr. Nielson back in to help out the Agents, Raven thought, climbing off her bike, removing her helmet and shaking out her hair. Certainly seems like they could use a pick-me-up.

There was a woman in a long, traditional nun’s habit waiting to greet her. A beautiful young woman, she realized, maybe only a couple of years older than her, standing about five foot seven with pale skin, strong, sculpted features and arresting emerald eyes. Was there something a little familiar about her? There was a faint tinge of old-school Island City Irish in her voice as she said warmly: "You must be Miss McCoy. So kind of you to come down and join us."

The young Foxx shook her proffered hand. "Always happy to give a few words of encouragement to the girls of Island City, Sister."

"Of course." The woman’s eyes wandered for a moment over the tight spandex sheathing the heroine’s petite, outrageously curvy young body, lingering on the perky nipples pushing at the clingy fabric before she guiltily snapped them back up to Raven’s face. Guess she doesn’t see a Foxx every day! thought Raven with some amusement as the nun cleared her throat. "I’m Sister Mary Gabriel. I’ll be taking you up to the lecture hall, if you’ll just follow me?"

"Sure thing!" As the nun led her into the building, past a large deli full of bright-faced, privileged-looking girls in demure school uniforms, she asked: "Are these some of the girls I’ll be talking to?"

"Actually," said Mary Gabriel, "we have a couple of different programs here at the school. Your Operation Freedom has inspired us to do some charitable work not just in our city’s less fortunate neighbourhoods, but right here, in Middleburg."

"Really?" Raven said in puzzlement. "How does that work, exactly?"

The nun looked over her shoulder and gave the Foxx a good-natured laugh as they walked through a gleaming marble-clad lobby toward a bank of elevators. "You sound a little skeptical."

"No, no, not at all." She caught a flash of patent leather under the hem of the nun’s robe, realized the woman seemed to be wearing very cute black strap pumps. Wow, modern nuns sure are different than the old days, aren’t they? Or maybe it’s just Middleburg! "It sounds like a great idea. You mean, like bringing less privileged girls into the school?"

"Exactly! For summer classes!" Mary Gabriel gave her a winning smile. "We’ve been working on the idea since late last year, actually. I can even remember the headline our Headmistress read to us that inspired it. "DOWN GOES THE DEWITT GANG." It was wonderfully dramatic!"

Raven nodded as they stepped into the elevator, the nun pushing the button for the sixth floor. The Foxx remembered the night that had led to those early headlines all too well, a difficult night, the first time she’d ever had to kill a man. "I don’t know about ‘wonderfully,’" she admitted. "I think about poor Joey DeWitt sometimes. He was practically the same age as me. I just wish he hadn’t gone for that gun."

The nun gave her an inscrutable look as the doors slid shut, but then smiled gently. "I’m sure you did only what you had to, Miss McCoy. We all are. Anyway, our Headmistress got to thinking: why don’t we do something for all these poor unfortunate girls that Operation Freedom is setting free from the claws of Satan?" Mary Gabriel punctuated that last sentence with a big grin and some very un-nunlike pow! pow! gestures of her fists. "She set the wheels in motion and lo and behold, today we’re opening a brand new program, very first day. We call it the Bearer of Light Orisons for Opportunities Mission. They’re the girls you’ll be addressing today, I’m sure you’ll even recognize some of them – they’re all girls you helped rescue!"

Raven was surprised, and moved. "Wow," she said, and found herself blinking back tears. "That’s... that’s so great, Sister. Do you know... wow, that really means a lot to me. Do you even know how much that means to me?"

"Oh yes." The Foxx glimpsed that same inscrutable look for a moment, but then Mary Gabriel was giving her a chaste, compassionate hug. "You’ve done a wonderful thing, Miss McCoy. A wonderful, wonderful thing. And I can tell you truly, you mean every bit as much to all those girls as they mean to you."

As the elevator doors opened, Raven wiped her eyes and gave the nun a grateful smile. "I’m going to have to change my speech a bit, you know."

Mary Gabriel grinned back at her as they stepped out into a large foyer, appointed in marble just as the lobby had been. A phalanx of nuns, nine strong, was sweeping toward them, clop-clop-clop-clop across the bright stone floor.

"What a blessing to have you with us, Miss McCoy," the leading nun was saying, and the Foxx was thinking, Wow, this must be the order where models go to get closer to God. All of the women in their long, severe habits were evidently beautiful, all of them surprisingly youthful, a rainbow of serene, statuesque faces and incongruously glamorous, sunny smiles that could easily be selling perfume or lingerie or women’s hygiene products. In the lead was a woman with an angelic face and tits impressive enough to show even through her loose habit, her eyebrows so fair as to be almost invisible. "I’m Sister Mary Jane," she was saying. "The Headmistress here at Connemara. It’s a real honour to meet you!"

"The honour’s all mine," Raven said, clasping hands with her, and the other nuns were introducing themselves in a flurry, their eyes and voices warm and welcoming, their names a gaggle of variations on the "Sister Mary" theme that the young Foxx new she was never going to keep straight... was there a "Sister Mary Blige" in there at one point?

Finally the last Sister, who had been hanging back a bit, stepped forward. Raven immediately noticed something different about her bearing, about her expression. She was a short, very beautiful thirtysomething with a hint of pout in her lips and a sardonic, slightly naughty twist to her smile, like someone getting ready to tell the punchline to an extremely dirty joke. "Ahhh, last but not least," Sister Mary Jane said, "let me introduce Sister Mary Sabrina."

As she shook the woman’s hand, the name Sabrina suddenly caught in Raven’s mind. Sabrina... wait, Sabrina?! No, no, it couldn’t be...

"You’ve no idea what a pleasure it is to meet you at last," said Sister Mary Sabrina affably. And then her smirk expanded into a truly wicked, fiendish grin as she said: "I am the Projector of the Planetarium."

The world went white.

* * * * *

"How," Max asked with a clinical calm as they walked, "did Siouxsie first build the Syndicate here?"

The question was pointed at Jimmy Beam. Caliente could see it was exactly the right question, a question the thug – new to thinking about these things – had clearly been turning over in his mind. "There was a Dominican gang," he said. "Crazy motherfuckers. Chopping off peoples’ heads with machetes or boiling them alive in vats of oil, spooky sort of Tontons Macoutes-type shit. They were called—"

"Los Cabezas-Brillantes," finished Max.

"Yeah, that’s right."

"You Cleanheads dress pretty much like them, from what I can tell."

Beam frowned. "Well, I think we dress a bit better..." he caught himself, then laughed. "But yeah. The first of us to join up was when the last of the Brillantes were on their way out. I guess they sort of borrowed the look and it just stuck."

"I’d heard of the Brillantes when we started up Operation Freedom, but I never made the connection between them and the Syndicate. You know why?" As Beam shook his head, Max said: "Because what little we could glean about the Syndicate—you were just a shadowy group to us, we hadn’t even connected the dots between "Syndicate" and names like "Red Queen" and "Siouxsie Sexcrime"—what little we could glean suggested that the Syndicate’s whole role was focussed on helping the Rubinettos bring some kind of order to the criminal underworld. That their reputation was based on being the opposite of the Brillantes."

"Well," Beam said, scratching his jaw and nodding. "Yeah. That, and it was Siouxsie’s contacts that really put Boss Angel on top three years back. First time in twenty years that they’d really been able to bribe judges and politicians on a big scale, they had to like that. At least," he amended, "until you Operation Freedom guys came along."

"That’s right. She started out low on the criminal food chain, stirred up some shit, then found the people at the top of that food chain and offered to help clean up the mess she was making... and make some of their fondest wishes come true in the bargain. Once she had them on the hook," Max added, "her former allies weren’t just expendable. They were a liability. Is any of this sounding familiar?"

Beam nodded grimly. "Yeah. The Brillantes are mostly dead or on death row, now."

"And I’ve been seeing a lot of new faces at the Sands Estate, how about you?" As the Cleanhead grunted in sour agreement, Max pressed the point a little more: "In fact, it’s a regular hotel for mercs this last ten days or so, lots of South African and Israeli accents. You know, the Goblin is a positive fountain of information once you get him going. He told me—"

"I’m sorry to interrupt," Caliente couldn’t hold the question any longer. It was a subject he had wondered avidly about ever since he got the note that had summoned him to this meeting. "But I really must know. How exactly did you turn this computer genius, this... Goblin?"

"Siouxsie was plying me with the stable of teenaged hookers she keeps at the Estate," replied Max matter-of-factly. "I told him that if he could falsify the surveillance recordings on my rooms to make it look like I was still there fucking them, I’d let him sneak in and take my place any time he wanted. So anyway, if you watch the news, you will have noticed—"

Max broke off, realizing that both of his companions had stopped dead in their tracks. Beam especially was looking appalled.

"You’ve been making those girls," he said, "fuck the Goblin?"

For a split second Max seemed to sport a "what’s-the-big-deal" look of exasperation, but then he seemed to realize that wasn’t going to fly. "Look," he said reasonably. "It wasn’t my first choice either, but extreme situations call for extreme measures. It was the only way to get the leverage I needed on the guy, believe me." As Beam looked at him dubiously, he added: "On the plus side, it’s done wonders for his hygiene. You know he’s showering twice a week, now?"

"Is that right."

"I swear to God. Come on, we should keep moving."

As they started back into motion again, Caliente found himself thinking back to his first conference with Jimmy Beam after they’d taken Max, when he’d been feeling pangs of regret that Max Fawkes—an honourable and an admirable man, or at least as honourable and admirable as a spook could hope to be—would probably not emerge from his ordeal as the same person, if he emerged from it at all. He’d been so glad today to get the news that Fawkes was still alive, that that honourable and admirable man was still, somehow, in the fight... except he wasn’t. The man who’d just offhandedly talked about using teenaged whores as bargaining chits was clearly not the old Max Fawkes.

He’s had to leave the old self behind, Caliente realized, to make himself capable of taking on Siouxsie with a chance of winning. I wonder if the new self truly realizes what he’s lost? Was the sacrifice worth it?

Without any apparent sense of irony, Max was telling Beam: "Siouxsie’s major weakness, as I think you probably know, is that she almost completely lacks empathy. Whatever understanding she has of people, it’s a fading echo from back before whatever event it was that made her," and here he gestured vaguely, "the way she is. A sane person would have taken one look at the Goblin and know he’d never gotten laid in his life. It’s telling that Siouxsie wasn’t using sex as leverage on him, though he’s one of the most important pieces in her whole scheme."

"She wasn’t?"

"Well, she had apparently promised the Goblin whatever sex he wanted—even with her—when Foxx Hunt was complete. But even a guy as hard up as him knew enough not to believe the part about sex with her. And it turns out that coordinating a massive digital sabotage effort for eighteen hours a day for weeks on end put him in the market for some more... immediate gratification." Max paused for a second as though briefly lost in reverie, and then said: "Where was I?"

"South Africans and Israelis," supplied Caliente.

"Right. It was the Goblin who told me the Hound’s real name, Cornelius van Rooyen the Third."

"Yeah, yeah," said Beam impatiently. "Most of us know the Hound’s real name."

"But most of you don’t watch the news. Your South African and Israeli mercs? They’re all working for a private military firm that announced a couple of days ago that it’s relocating to Island City. Executive Results International Security. The CEO’s name is Thys van Rooyen."

"Ahhhh, Siouxsie’s new gang," said Caliente in sudden understanding. I wonder if they know their acronym spells ERIS, he thought wryly. But it’s kind of a propos, they’ll be serving a real-life goddess of strife.

Max nodded. "Which means," he said, "she’s going to have to do something to get the old gang out of the way. And make herself indispensable to her new partners."

* * * * *

M- Max...? she tried to say. Her lips wouldn’t move.

"I thought you might at least please me by showing me, night after night, what a whore you could be," the voice went on, openly dripping with mockery now. "I thought at least you could show me if there was a real nasty little fuck pig underneath all your childish romantic fantasies about candlelit dinners and white horses and satin sheets. I thought at least you could show me you could be a filthy bitch, that you could be worthy to service my hard cock with your holes. But I find you inadequate, Raven. I find you pitiful and tame. You knelt before me and promised to prove yourself, but you so-called promise was as worthless as everything else about you. You still wail and blubber like a child while you are whipped, while you are forced to take hard cock or lick a man’s spunk off a dirty floor... as though it were not the highest honour I have left to give you. Even as a mere slip of a fuckslut, YOU HAVE FAILED!"

Suddenly she found she could speak. Her heart was thumping in her chest, she was bawling frantically: Yes oh YES master PLEASE my lord and master, I’ll do anything for you ANYTHING I’ll be the best little bitch you ever had I swear it! I’m sorry I’ve been so worthless and incompetent and stupid just let me be your slut PLEASE my lord and master I love you I’ll show you how much I love being your whore just PLEASE don’t leave me—

Yes, she sobbed. Yes, lord and master!

Raven grovelled face down on the ground. My lord and master is merciful and just! she wailed in pitiful gratitude. Thank you, master! I love you, master! I love only you!

* * * * *

Raven jerked back into normal consciousness, her mind whirling in horror and grief and despair, the memory of every vicious word and cold command delivered by the voice of Max coursing through her blood like poison. Worthless... her mind repeated numbly. I really am worthless... I’ve always known it... how did I ever manage to fool myself... why did anyone ever trust me...

She was kneeling on the marble floor of the lecture hall foyer in just the spot where "Sister Mary Sabrina" had spoken to her. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, and the awful emotions overwhelming her were mingling with strange, intense, erotic sensations pulsing through her body. She felt a stinging pain in her left buttock, as if it had been pierced with something, and her tits were hot, hard and tingling, somehow heavier than usual. She could feel that two objects, small and round and hard, had been pushed into her tight little pussy – which was already a dripping, hot pool of shameful lust – and up her ass. She was still wearing her skintight catsuit, and could feel her skin tingling all over against the clinging spandex, but the front had been zipped right down to her navel to bare her soft skin and her mouth-watering cleavage. They’d left her knife buckled to her thigh, useless to the helpless Foxx’s bound hands.

Arrayed around her in a circle, their beautiful faces cold and mocking and cruel, were the nuns who’d greeted her before, now utterly transformed. They still wore their head scarves, but the rest of their loose habits were gone, and they were all clad in Satanic, porny mockeries of the nun’s dress. They wore tiny see-through, flare-sleeved mesh minidresses that showed off their pert, bare tits, their fantastic bodies, with white chokers decorated with inverted crosses and tiny white thongs bearing the same decoration, their glorious legs clad in fishnet stockings and all sporting black patent-leather strap pumps.

The Sisters of St. Lilith Andras, thought Raven, her blood curdling with horror and panic, her pussy heating up as their hard gazes roamed over her, a horny, tingling sensation pulsing in her hot, heavy breasts. God, she realized, my tits, they feel so...

She looked down, and gasped in shock.

Her tits were huge! They’d been smeared with gel, her now even more massive cleavage glistening wetly as her augmented tits strained mightily against the spandex, one of her nipples peeking stiffly out around the fabric – she’d gone up from a 34D to at least a 36DD! It could only be—

"Yes, little Raven McWhore," said playful voice from behind her. "Now that we own so many of the agents of your pathetic Operation Freedom, we’ve gotten our hands on some of your wonderful toys, too."

The Foxx turned her head in fright to see "Sister Mary Sabrina," the woman who could only be Sabrina Lockhart herself. She was the only one not wearing a mock nun’s outfit, her long sandy hair tumbling free and her slender, sexy form sheathed in a black PVC bikini, her legs glad in PVC thigh-high boots. She sauntered around to stand in front of Raven, then crouched fluidly before her, coming face to face with the terrified girl as she traced a finger saucily up the bared flesh of her belly and between her hot, heavy, swollen tits.

"Ever since I learned about it, I’ve been fascinated," the dominatrix went on, "by your breast-enhancement serum. A tool of disguise that also makes your tits so very sensitive, so sensually vulnerable, so easily used against you. What kind of women would sign up to use a technology like that?" She flicked Raven’s exposed nipple with her fingernail, drawing a miserable moan of helpless arousal from her captive. "It’s almost as though you want to be captured and abused, isn’t it?"

Raven wanted to babble a desperate denial, but Max’s cruel commands echoed in her mind. Please them, he’d said. Amuse them. It was her only chance to finally belong to him, to escape the terrible fate he’d promised her and become the degraded sex slave whore that was all she truly deserved to be. She licked her lips, her ears burning with shame and her voice quavering pathetically as she tried to sound sexy: "Y–yes, oh yes, I only want to be captured and treated like a, like a slut. All I am is a filthy slut who, who loves to f-fuck..."

Sabrina smiled wickedly. "Nice try, Raven," she said. "But I think we’re going to have to really convince you of that." She stood up again. "Which is fine by us, believe me. Isn’t that right, ladies?"

"Blessed be," intoned the Satanic nuns in throaty, erotic unison, some of them smirking as they said it. Raven recognized the one who’d called herself "Sister Mary Gabriel," her emerald eyes focussed keenly on the Foxx and flashing with a hatred that sent cold terror thrilling through the captive heroine’s flesh.

"You know, there really was an order of St. Mary Salome," went on Sabrina conversationally. "But a funny thing happened to them since they took over this school. One by one their nuns found themselves embroiled in scandalous situations that forced them to leave the sisterhood. The Syndicate hated to see this fine organization under-strength, so we... suggested replacements whenever they were needed, and in exchange we stopped the Archbishop from finding out about their shame and shutting them down. Luckily, thanks to you, there was a ready supply of women looking for a new vocation." She indicated the women in the circle around her. "Every one of these lovely Sisters, you see, and all the other Sisters running this school, lost a husband or a boyfriend or a brother or a father or a pimp to Operation Freedom, either dead or in jail. Some lost practically their whole families, like Sister Lilith D’Aquino over there, who you may remember as Alexandra DeWitt. I think she’s especially going to enjoy today’s activities."

Lockhart indicated the girl she’d met as "Sister Mary Gabriel" – Gabriel, in honour of her imprisoned father! – and she felt a jolt of recognition, remembered the inscrutable look the girl had flashed when the teen Foxx had mentioned her slain little brother... and a new plummet into guilt and shame and self-loathing began as Raven realized she could have escaped this situation before it started if she’d only been smart enough to put two and two together sooner. God, I’m every bit the stupid, useless bitch Max told me I am, he’s right, right about everything...

"Of course, as we got more and more of our appointees into the Sisterhood, the original Sisters started to drop out at a faster and faster pace. Until finally we had our very own order running the school, and doing the kind of ‘charity’ work with defenseless teen girls that we like to see done." Lockhart smiled as she said these ominous words, clack-clack-clack-ing slowly in a circle around her cringing, quivering prey. "The Syndicate, you see, is going on to bigger things, thanks to all the fine work you Foxxes have done for us. But we certainly don’t want the industrious men of Island City to stop having their fun, and all those innocent girls aren’t going to just break and tame and enslave themselves, now are they?"

Raven felt an even deeper pit of despair and failure suddenly yawning open beneath her, and despite herself a tear trickled down her cheek. She had an awful premonition about where this was headed, and made a vain attempt to deflect it: "Are you going to fuh-fuck me? I really want, want to be—"

"Oh, you’ll be getting a good, hard fucking alright, little Raven McWhore, don’t worry about that," Sabrina cut her off with amusement. "But all in good time. We’re going to play a little game, first. You see, Sister Lilith D’Aquino was telling you the truth earlier. We really have started a program specially for all those wonderful girls that Operation Freedom has set free, at least those that we could find and get our hands on, and there are an even hundred of them sitting in that lecture hall right now. What you might call a captive audience." Raven felt her breathing start to accelerate as she unconsciously began to rock in place, a quiet moan of utter horror starting to build in her throat. "The Sisters have a whole curriculum lined up for them – Deepthroating 101, Bootlicking for Beginners, Learning to Love Anal, a phys ed course on our special pony track up on the top floor... the works.Useful skills for when they sell the bitches to the highest bidder, wouldn’t you agree?"

Raven just whimpered, her tears flowing freely now.

"Oh, you don’t like that? Well, here’s your chance to save them, Raven. Here’s the game." Sabrina had circled back around and crouched in front of her again, gripping her by the chin and bringing her eyes up to the meet the dominatrix’s cold, sardonic gaze. "You know what happens to you if you fail to please us, right? Say the words."

The Foxx nodded, and snivelled out: "Ti- Tijuanita... to die... to die on a... on a donkey’s..."

"To get fucked by a stinking beast until your insides rupture and you die the most agonizing, ignominious death imaginable in front of a watching crowd, correct." Lockhart smiled, as though proud of a student who’d found the right answer. "Well, to please us, you’re going to have to give up one hundred of your very wettest, sluttiest orgasms today. You’re going to have to surrender to the hot lust in your body one hundred times. Trust me, it won’t be too hard for a whore like you... if you don’t pass out from exhaustion first. But here’s the thing." Sabrina released her chin and stood again. "You’re going to have to choose between pleasing us, and saving those girls you claim to care so much about. Their fate isn’t written in stone, yet. You’re going to go in there, and deliver that inspirational, heartwarming speech you had planned. We’re going to... have a little fun with you while you do it. And for every time you get off, one of those girls will be taken out of her seat and led off to her dorm room, never to live a free life again. But if you manage to make it to the end of that speech... well then, you have our word that the girls remaining will be set free. They’ll have to be flown to a foreign jurisdiction where they can’t make trouble for us, of course, but they’ll be spared a life of sexual slavery. Your choice, Raven, is between your life... or their lives."

Raven was rocking in place again, overwhelmed by failure and horror and terror and despair blacker, more paralyzing, then anything she could have believed existed. No... her mind babbled hopelessly, No no no... And she felt the round, solid objects lodged in her nether orifices moving and shifting as she rocked, felt the aching heat in her snatch and the lustful throbbing in her greased, glistening, super-sensitive tits. I don’t, I don’t deserve to live, I’m worthless, worthless, worthless, but how can I save those poor girls I’m too weak... I’m such a weak, stupid, worthless little slut...

"Of course," Sabrina continued, "if you do choose to get off, the good news is we’ve recruited some men who are more than willing to help you."

A high tone sounded from the elevator at that moment, and four men stepped out as the elevator doors opened.

"Ah, gentlemen," said Lockhart in welcome. "So good of you to join us. I’ve just told Raven you’ll be using her holes with your hard cocks today, isn’t that lovely?"

Raven looked over and saw who it was... and as horror mounted on horror, the bound, sobbing teen Foxx finally leaned forward and retched noisily, the mocking laughter of the Satanic Sisters echoing around her.

* * * * *

"So she’s using," said Max, "the same strategy she used the first time. Create a problem that only she can solve, swoop in to ‘solve’ it, then rake in the profits while building for the next escapade, to move to the next level. And the problem she’s creating this time is going to be, I’m fairly certain, a terrorist attack on Island City’s water supply."

"With something like the drug they used on you?" asked Caliente.

Max shook his head. "They call it Alethex. No, I don’t think they’re going to use Alethex. You see, it’s an impressive drug," the clinical tone dropped away from his voice for a moment, was there something like... warmth replacing it? The sound of an addict talking about a fix he’s still in love with, realized Caliente with a sudden chill. "But it’s only part of a picture. This isn’t something you’d know, Gustavo, you haven’t been here long enough, but I realized something the other day about all the designer drug activity we’ve seen in Island City. The drugs all target specific areas of the brain, different kinds of human experience. There’s Seraf-X, which ties in with religious experience; Psephex, most annoying drug of all time, which generates an endorphin high from constant talking and whose users make baseheads sound sane; Seiocin which generates joy through movement, like Ecstasy without the side-effects; Alethex which surfaces secret desires for submission or dominance; and so on."

He paused as if expecting the others to see the obvious. Finally Jimmy Beam grated, "Yeah? So?"

"So if you line them all up, what you have isn’t just an exercise in commerce... that’s just a disguise it’s wearing, another ruse. What you really have is someone experimenting, methodically mapping out, section-by-section, the brain’s responses to various drug cocktails. What we’ve been seeing in the last three years is Siouxsie using all of Island City as a laboratory."

"With what goal?" asked Caliente... but then he noticed a sudden understanding dawning in Jimmy Bean’s eyes.

"To make a drug," the thug said, "that can attack the whole brain at the same time, totally wipe out everything but the brain stem. Holy fuck," he breathed, almost to himself.

Max was nodding. "That was my guess. I’m right, aren’t I? They’ve made it, haven’t they?"

Beam nodded. "Kenocil. They call it Kenocil. Lockhart’s already started using it on Pony Girls who attempt escape, it turns them into utter vegetables. I’ve seen it."

"But that makes no sense," insisted Caliente. "What would be the point of that? Vegetables can’t buy more drugs."

"That part of the plan I’m not too sure about," admitted Max. "But I’d guess the idea involves the Hound’s neurotherapy technology somehow, or at least some version of it. I’m guessing the Kenocil would create a blank slate, a still-functional and totally receptive brain that you can recondition any way you like. I’ll be meeting someone soon who I think will be able to tell me more. Anyway," he went on, looking into the distance as the Victory Arch in front of General Flagg Plaza came into view. "The specifics of the business model may not matter that much. What we’re looking at, bottom line, is a plan to poison Islanders en masse with a mind-destroying drug. The Syndicate has direct access to the Rubinettos’ Teamster freight contacts, now, God bless Hoffa the Second, so moving massive amounts of it out to the reservoirs won’t be a problem."

"Poison the city," Beam finished the thought, "and dump the crime entirely in the laps of Siouxsie’s former chums in the Syndicate. Especially its mastermind, uhhhh... the Mistress, Sabrina Lockhart?"

"Who probably mistakenly thinks she’s going to be taken along with Siouxsie to the next land of milk, honey and profit," Max agreed, nodding. "And of course we can’t forget the Mistress’ gang, the Cleanheads, and her accomplice, one Max Fawkes, traitor to Operation Freedom and to America... and the double, one Gustavo Caliente, who Max hired to cover for him while he was busy helping set up the sabotage. I’ll bet you any money that Siouxsie has a plausible-sounding story already worked out."

The water supply of the country’s greatest metropolis poisoned with a mind-destroying agent. It was sobering, terrifying, a prospect more dreadful even than the 10/10 attacks. Island City would never be the same again, America would never be the same again. And anyone known to be involved, Caliente realized, would never see the light of day again. No American administration could do anything less than utterly destroy an organization that conceived such a horror.

"So I hope," he said to Max, "that we’re coming to the part where you tell us how Operation: Foxx Hunt gets us out of this mess." They were emerging into the Plaza now, the famous Spitzer Fountain in front of them and the notorious pedestrian death trap of the Plaza’s traffic circle beyond.

Max nodded, glancing at his watch and gesturing to a bench in front of the fountain, the three men sitting as he said: "Siouxsie is keeping me alive, as I’ve said, because I’m a useful patsy and because she thinks I’m neutralized. She’s promised me the opportunity to tame the Foxxes myself, to claim them for my own. She believes I’m focused on that goal."

"And are you?" asked Beam, looking at him levelly.

Max didn’t notice the look. "Oh yes," he nodded matter-of-factly, his eyes lost in thought. There was an unmistakably blood-chilling glitter of anticipation in them, and a faint, predatory smile on his lips, the grin of a cheshire cat. "Absolutely. But not for the reasons she thinks."

Just what the hell has he become? Caliente wondered to himself, but all he said aloud was: "Then what are your reasons?"

"Once the Foxxes are captured and broken, supposedly under ‘my’ care, Siouxsie won’t be expecting any further trouble from them. Plus, she believes she has an ace in the hole – the Hound’s deep conditioning which I’m not supposed to know about. I’m to have the illusion of having broken them, while in truth any Syndicate agent can neutralize a threat from them at any time. She’s not banking on my becoming their true master. I’ve got a few... surprises for her on that score."

"I don’t see what that gets us," the ex-Cuban spy persisted. "Supposing your surprises, whatever they are, actually work. Are you proposing that the Foxxes will be in any condition to stop Siouxsie with an army of battle-hardened mercs behind her?"

"Given the right direction, following the commands of a master to whose will they’re truly broken, devoted and enslaved, ultra-submissives can be surprisingly effective operatives," said Max detachedly. "They acquire a kind of clarity of purpose, a strength, through unquestioning obedience – just look at what the Kitts have been able to accomplish for the Syndicate. But they won’t be alone. While the last stage of Foxx Hunt is in process, you, Gustavo, will be signalling Washington with a message from me; I can craft it so contacts who know me there will know it’s authentic. The full force of the National Guard will be coming down on those reservoirs, there will be no terrorist attack. We’ll have the Goblin covering for us, Jimmy here helping us with any Cleanheads he can muster." He gestured out into the milling crowds in front of them as he went on, "And if we play our cards right, we’re going to have one more ally in our little conspiracy. A very important one."

The words broken, devoted and enslaved were still echoing in Caliente’s mind. He had been about to ask who this further accomplice was, but instead he found himself saying, almost bitterly: "And all this breaking and devotion and enslavement of yours, when does it begin?"

Max looked at his watch. "About a half hour ago," he said. "I selected Raven as the first subject, they’re acquiring her at the Connemara school in Middleburg. I told them to invite her out to speak to a group of girls about self-empowerment, that would hook her for sure. Lockhart’s handling it personally, she won’t be able to resist having a little fun with her before they drive her out to the Estate for delivery to me, so I’d give it four, maybe five hours."

There was a long, long silence as Max’s companions absorbed this information along with Fawkes’ frighteningly bland reportage of it, as though he were talking about the weather. Nobody could think of anything to say.

Then abruptly, Max indicated a man stepping toward them out of the crowd. "Here’s our guest, gents," he said, drawing puzzled looks as the short, soberly-suited figure came forward...

... and then Caliente recognized the small, leather-faced Chinese man in front of them, and he went utterly cold.

* * * * *

Raven stood, bleary-eyed behind a podium, gazing out in despair at the tear-stained faces of the captive girls of the Sisters of St. Lilith Andras, their slender, naked young bodies shackled into their chairs and drool dripping down around their ball gags as they watched, helpless, praying for their heroine of the Foxx Force Five to find the strength to save them. The teen Foxx’s hands were still cuffed behind her, her big tits were hot and hard and throbbing in pain and pleasure, her cleavage still bared and glistening, her full round ass stinging and smarting and her nether holes spasming in anticipation around the momentarily quiescent egg vibrators that filled them, her pussy unbelievably hot and wet and pulsing and dripping and the crotch and thighs of her spandex catsuit already liberally soaked with her girl-come, the sweet taste of cunt nectar and the tangy, pungent taste of ass lingering on her tongue.

She had paid the price for her momentary loss of control in the foyer, for retching up the contents of her stomach on discovering that it was her own security detail, led by Agent Mike Shane, that had been chosen to rape her with their hard hunks of man-meat. It was too surreal, too unbelievable... but plainly true, as the men had stood, shamefaced, resolutely avoiding meeting her eyes as the Sisters had a good laugh at her expense. But when the women were done laughing, their eyes had hardened.

"Hardly a respectful way to treat our property," said the gloriously big-titted Headmistress – Sister Lilith Crowley, formerly "Sister Mary Jane" – as she’d looked at the mess Raven had made on the floor. The woman strode over to her, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her, mewling in pain and humiliation, over to a drink fountain to wash out her mouth. As she did so, she said: "You’re going to have to show us some gratitude for this wonderful opportunity we’re giving you, girl, before we let you onstage. Now," she’d thrown Raven down at her feet. "Clean my shoes, you filthy little bitch."

Sobbing disconsolately, Raven had fought the urge to balk and shrink away, miserably putting her lips to the bright patent leather, kissing it, then licking it with long strokes of her little pink tongue while her fabulous ass wriggled in the air. And suddenly, Smack! someone’s hand was cracking down over her spandex-clad ass! "Ahhhhhahhhhhh," she’d moaned as the spanking began, the first of many, and she’d found her mind torn between desperately trying to kiss and lick and spit-shine every square inch of Sister Crowley’s shoes while her ass stung and writhed and her pussy, getting off on the helplessness and degradation of her situation, pulsed hotter and wetter with every spank that landed, Raven desperately trying to hold orgasm at bay, knowing every orgasm would mean a life of slavery for one of the poor girls in that auditorium. But it was so hard, the spanks were turning her pussy into a bubbling vortex of hot, wet lust, her screams echoing, surely audible to the waiting captives in the lecture hall: "AHHHHHH! AHHHHHHAA! AAAAHHHHOWWWWW! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" her mind whirling with shame and failure as the freight-train of a powerfrul climax roared toward her, as she kissed her away up Sister Crowley’s gloriously long, fishnet-clad legs, as she saw the little white thong pulled aside to reveal a perfectly waxed blonde pussy, as her head was yanked up and her face forced rudely into the snatch, forced to lick and suck the sweet wet cunt-flesh as the spanking went on, and on, and on.... "MMMMMMPHHHHH! MMMMHHHHMMMMPHHHHH! MMMMMMMPHHHHHHHHHH! MMMMPHHH!"

It was bad enough as the spanking and her forced act of lesbian lust drove her into that first wet orgasm, but just as it was ebbing something far worse happened: the vibrators in her ass and pussy had buzzed into life! "MMMMMMMMMMMMMM-HHHHMMPPPPPPPHHHH!" she’d squealed as the powerful vibrations claimed and climaxed her instantly, sending her pulsing, quivering, clutching fuckhole messily over the edge, the teen Foxx flopping to the floor to twitch and writhe in helpless ecstasy: "AWWWGAWWDDD AWWWWHAWWWWW I’M CUMMING I CAN’T HELP FUCKING CUMMING AWWWWWW!"

She’d been forced to service all of the nine Sisters as those vibrators periodically buzzed into evil life, breaking her will a little more with each orgasm they ripped from her slutty holes as her ass was spanked or her hot, super-vulnerable tits mauled, slapped, pinched, raked with sharp fingernails...

... as she was forced to stick her tongue into Sister Lilith Ryouko’s sweet, tight hole, the blindly hot ex-Yakuza whore mocking her mercilessly while her cunt-muscles clenched and her juices washed over her humiliated victim’s tastebuds, "You don’t tongue-fuck like a good little whore, yet, Raven, we’ll have to fix that, ahhhhh, but it’s so erotic to watch you kneel and service me like the slave you are, ahhhhhh," and then the demonic buzzing tore into Raven’s holes and she came...

... as the sexy coffee-skinned Sister Lilith Minx threw her prone on the cold marble and ground her juicy mound insultingly all over her captive’s face, saying "You remember the Kingpins bitch, oh yeahhhh I’m gonna love watching Li’l Snake use all your fucking holes when he gets out, his snake ain’t little trust me ahhhh," poor Raven had mewled and then spasmed helplessly as the bitch-taming vibrations slammed into her and made her come...

... as she’d sobbed desperately while Sisters Lilith Anya and Lilith Katya had worked her over, one taking a turn sucking the sweet milk out of her hot, spurting, super-sensitive tits while the other sat on her face and spat Russian insults at her and closed off her nose, making her head swim with the lack of air as she’d licked and sucked desperately and come hard from the merciless stimulation of her breasts, then even harder when the terrible vibrations claimed her holes again...

... as the fiery Latina Sister Lilith Diabla had made her slither on her belly to her feet and then beg for the privilege of licking her pussy, "Promise me you’ll use your tongue like real fucking slut, no holding back, no self-respect, promise you’ll swallow down anything I decide to give you, puta," Raven’s face burning with humiliation as she’d begged to be allowed to submit her tongue and her body for use as Diabla’s personal sex toy before Diabla had done just that, shoving the Foxx’s face roughly into her wet squack, periodically pulling her gasping victim’s head back to spit at her and slap her and call her "the most worthless fucking slut puta who ever crawled like a worm," and the last time she’d said it the terrible vibrations had begun and the Foxx had come with those words ringing in her ears...

... as she’d writhed in agony and ecstasy under the slashing hands of the coolly elegant Corsican Sisters Lilith Deville and Lilith Telfer – an odd corner of her mind had remembered they were really Emmanuelle and Brigitte Venturi – as they’d commented mildly to each other in French while they watched her body writhe and buck to one orgasm under their punishing slaps alone, then another, then screaming and mewling as the vibrators powered up again and she came ...

... it had been relentless, punishing, thoroughly debasing. The orgasms came over, and over, and over, the teen Foxx sobbing and wailing at her utter inability to even begin to resist them, and as she came to the last Sister, Lilith D’Aquino – Alexandra DeWitt, who’d cruelly forced her to stick out her tongue and rim her tight, tangy asshole – she knew with every fibre of her quivering flesh that the outcome of this "game" belonged completely to the Satanic nuns from hell who had her in their grip. She could do nothing, she was nothing, a puppet, a toy, she could only numbly play the part they told her to play.

They drove her to twenty-four orgasms before she even set foot in the lecture hall. As they’d taken off her belt, wrapped and buckled it tight around her neck and led her into the auditorium using it as a leash, she’d had to watch the last of those twenty-four girls being led away by a big shaven-headed goon – they were at all the hall’s entrances – bawling and sobbing in despair and disbelief. A girl she recognized, thin and blonde and ethereally beautiful, one of the girls they’d rescued from Vladimir Popov in what had seemed such a great triumph, what seemed so long ago.

I’m sorry, Raven snivelled inwardly. I’m sorry I’m so worthless. I’m so sorry...

But she had no choice but to try. She owed the girls that much.

She took a breath and forced her eyes to focus on the words on the page in front of her. The speech she’d written that very morning, her mind alive with stupid hope and idiotic happiness. She sniffled, holding back tears, then took another breath and quaveringly started to read:

"Hel – hello, girls of the Connemara, of the Connemara Girls’ Prep Sch – School..." she could feel her knees shaking, her whole body aching with shame. "I – I’m so happy... so happy to be, to be here today, to celebrate with you," she could feel herself choking up and forced the words out: "To celebrate with you all the wonder – wonderful things that we girls can, can do..."

As Raven read the words, bound, sweaty, dishevelled, her gleaming cleavage rising and falling, the leather leash of her belt was being held by the statuesque Sister Lilith Crowley and there were tears running down the faces of the bound, naked, ball-gagged teens who were her audience. Teens she’d thought she had freed, had saved from the hell of sexual slavery. Every word was a cruel mockery, like she was being forced to cut her flesh with the broken pieces of her own hopes and dreams and imagined triumphs.

"That we g – girls can do when we put our minds to it... I’m living, uhhh, living proof that you can make your dreams, your uhhhh dreams come true if you ohhhhhh...."

A pair of dark hands, Sister Lilith Minx, had come around from behind her, pulling her bodysuit further open and freeing her gloriously enhanced, glistening double-D mams to bounce and jiggle, the nipples stiffening even more. Raven felt as if the top of her head was coming off as the evil Sister started to play insultingly with her tits, stroking them, pinching the nipples, lifting and squeezing them together and letting them bounce free, slapping them gently, showing her terrified audience the spectacle of a bound, helpless slut being used as a toy as she woodenly tried to keep her place in the "inspirational" speech, tried to keep reading while the fantastic sensations produced by the humiliating play on her tits made her writhe unconsciously and put her hot, wet fuckhole on the boil.

"All uhhhhh all you h – have to do is believe uhhhhh just believe in your, in your, uhhhhh in your own inner strength and uhhhhhhh ohhhhhhhhhh you c – can, you can uhhhhhhhh," she found herself babbling mechanically a third of the way down the page, mortified by the throaty moans of pleasure that turned her words into even more of a farce but unable to stop them. "Do, do anything, you can do anything, anything uhhhhhh... ahhhhh.... I – I was b-born in Jeff, in uhhhhhh Jefferson and I was just, I was just a poor ohhhhhhhhh fuuuhhhhuuck..."

Minx was stepping up the relentless play on her tits, firmly stroking and kneading her swollen mammaries as the nun leaned in to whisper in her ear: "I’m not distracting you, am I? Am I distracting you, slut? Wonder how long before your milk starts spurting out, huh? We both know you’re gonna CUM when that happens, don’t we, whore? You’re about to give up another slave, aren’t you, bitch?"

"AHHHHHAHHHH," Raven moaned helplessly, the words on the page in front of her forgotten, closing her eyes as she wriggled in erotic abandon, grinding back against her abuser, tears of shame rolling down her cheeks while the play on her tits intensified, and they were tingling, feeling full and heavy and ready to burst, and Sister Minx was pumping her slick, greasy tits now, her thumbs flickering expertly over the stiff nipples that sent powerful washes of sensation through her writhing, shuddering body. Oh God oh God oh GOD, she thought dizzily, it’s like having two little clits on my chest... it feels so GOOD I’m so sorry girls I’m such WEAK little whore it just FEELS so GOOD...

"I’m guh – " she heard herself panting, sobbing into the echoing microphone. "I’m gonna cummmm.... please don’t MAKE me UHHHHHHHhhhhh I’m gonna CUUUHHHHUUUMMMMM..."

Then she felt the warm jets of milk begin to shoot out of her tits as Sister Minx slid a warm, wet, wicked tongue into her ear, and it was too late to resist, the awful moment had come, the lust in her snatch was bubbling over...

"I-CAN’T-STOP-IT-AWWWWWWWHAWWWWWWWW! GAWWWWWD I’M FUCKING OOOHHHOHHHHHH FUHHUUCK! UHHHHHHHHUHHHHHHHHH!" the teen Foxx squealed despairingly as she utterly debased herself in front of the doomed eyes of the teen captives, the tight camel-toe crotch of her bodysuit getting a fresh soaking as she squirted messily and helplessly inside it again and again, the milk spurting from her tits in perfect time with the ruinous, soul-searing spasms in her hot fuckhole. She could hear mewling sounds of gagged distress and horror coming from the girls as her amplified, orgasmic wails of surrender and failure and defeat echoed in their ears. "AWWWWWFUUUUUUHHUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

There was no mercy, no reprieve. As Sister Minx kept relentlessly milking her spurting tits, drawing her orgasm out into another, and then another... someone, somewhere hit a button on a remote control, and the vibrating eggs in her pussy and ass suddenly slammed another bitch-taming climax into her shuddering body with the force of a gut punch. Oh God NO I FORGOT ABOUT – "AAAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE! AHHHHAHHHHHHAHH FUUUUCK-I’M-CUMMING-I’M-CUMMING-I’M-CUMMING-I’M-CUMMING-I’M-CUHHHHHUHHHUUUUUMMMIIIIINNNNNG AHHHHAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The world spun... Sister Minx was now just holding her up by the tits to keep her from collapsing and writhing on the floor as the twin vibrators turned her into a spectacle of wriggling teen fuck-meat for her captive teen audience. She came again... again... again...

Finally, the vibrators deactivated. She shuddered in the wake of the powerful sensations, her knees trembling weakly, and gave a little whimper of distress as she opened her eyes, realizing what had just happened, watching sobbing girls being led out of the audience by the huge goons, their wet eyes cast back at her in accusation and revulsion as if to say: How could you do this to us? Those gazes were like stones hitting her flesh, she flinched pathetically away from them, her tears running afresh.

"Seven for the price of one," said Sister Minx mockingly in her ear, finally releasing her naked tits. "Not bad. I think you’ll give us every one of those girls if you can, won’t you? If you don’t pass out before you reach a hundred..."

Minx gave a low laugh as she stepped away, and looking after her, Raven was suddenly transfixed.

Down on stage right, near the entrance, stood her supposed "cover team," Mike Shane and his three agents. They were trying not to look aroused by the spectacle of Raven being forced to climax after humiliating, public climax on what was going to be a day of triumph... but there was a nun kneeling beside each one of them, the Russian sisters and the Corsican sisters, and they had the men’s cocks out and were stroking and sucking them. And every one of those big cocks was hard, throbbing, veiny, obviously ready to crudely penetrate and annihilate Raven’s tight teenaged holes.

Her mind whirled in disgust and horror... and arousal. Looking at those stiff cocks, she knew her pussy wanted them, her tight little asshole wanted them, the crevice between her vulnerable titties wanted them, her watering mouth wanted them. If she took those cocks, there would be no going back. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself from bucking and writhing on them, clutching them, milking them, draining them dry, the world and every slave girl in it be damned.

Not all the Agents were looking entirely guilty, come to think of it. In the eyes of one or two, there was a sly glint of satisfaction as the Satanic nuns fluffed them while they watched Raven’s plight. We paraded our bodies in front of them for so long, Raven thought in terrified comprehension. Some of them must have been yearning to see us all... like this... treated like this... like whores... like sluts... like dirty bitches who deserve nothing but to get fucked...

"You want those cocks, don’t you, slut?" said Sister Crowley from beside her, sounding amused.

Raven shook her head. "N – no..." But she wasn’t fooling anyone, and she knew it.

"Suit yourself," said the Sister. "But if you change your mind, all you have to do to get reamed out by those dicks is to shout into the microphone, ‘Fuck you bitches, I want some cock.’ Do you understand?"

Raven nodded miserably. "I w – won’t, I won’t do it..."

"Sure you won’t. Now, time to get on with the speech, Miss McWhore."

The Foxx looked blankly down at the page in front of her, now spattered and splotched with her copious breast-milk. "I don’t... I don’t remember where I was..." she admitted after an agonized moment of indecision.

"Well then, you’d better start from the beginning, hadn’t you?"

A tear rolled down Raven’s cheek as she nodded again. A sense of utter doom filled her as she stammered: "Hello, g-girls of the Connemara Girls’ Prep School..."

* * * * *

Qin Zhang noted the way that Fawkes’ companions went immediately still and wary as they saw him approach, like carnivores at a water hole suddenly spying the approach of a bigger predator. He recognized the Cleanhead Jimmy Beam at once. The other he didn’t recognize, but he hadn’t expected to: it could only be the Man With a Thousand Faces, who he’d remembered meeting once before in Cuba. "Agent Caliente," he nodded cordially. The man favoured him with a curt nod in return, clearly on edge; he must have known something of Zhang’s reputation. Good, that would save a bit of time.

He turned, finally, to Fawkes. The only one of the three who showed no fear of him, he noticed, and he also showed a marked lack of surprise, as if he was greeting an expected guest. That was a surprise in itself. "Mister Fawkes," he said, extending a hand. "Forgive me for interrupting your meeting like this, but I felt it’s time we should meet. My name is—"

"Mister Zhang," Fawkes was saying already as he shook the proferred hand. "You scarcely need any introduction, sir. Thank you for joining us."

Interesting. "You live up to your reputation," he said with an appreciative nod. "Out of professional curiosity, may I ask how you knew to expect me?"

"The Syndicate’s hacker-in-chief told me you were furnishing the networked manpower that’s the backbone of his cyber-espionage campaign," replied Fawkes frankly. "I’ve been hoping to meet you ever since, so I’ll admit I was pleased to see your agent trailing me when I left the Estate. She’s quite lovely, by the way." The former Company man was ignoring the startled and none-too-pleased glances his two companions were giving him; apparently he’d left the little detail of his knowing he’d been followed out of their conversation so far.

Zhang raised an eyebrow despite himself. Remarkable, he thought. Agent 54 won’t be pleased to learn she’s been made. I don’t believe that has ever happened to her before. "Well then," he said reasonably. "I suppose there’s no harm in asking my assistants to join us." He lifted his right hand in a coded signal.

Moments later, a pair of classically beautiful and unusually tall Chinese women – their skin and features flawless, dressed like sexy coeds in low rise jeans, fashionable sneakers, tight spaghetti string tops and shrugs – materialized out of the crowd behind him. Apart from their beauty they’d look unremarkable to untrained eyes, but he could see Fawkes and Caliente instantly sizing up the martial poise underlying their movements, and that even Beam had guessed there was something more to them than met the eye. Agent 54 appeared from behind the three men, a gorgeous green-eyed Eurasian girl with her hair in a short bob, clad in the same sexy-young-girl fashion as her colleagues. Her face was expressionless except for a certain tightness in her jaw.

Zhang said: "If there need to be any further dealings between us, you’ll be dealing through one of my three assistants here. Ladies," and despite himself he suppressed an inward wince: "Please introduce yourselves." All of the girls – even the more American-looking Agent 54 – had been raised in mainland China. As such they’d been swept up in the modern fashion among young Chinese for taking English names... but the people taking them didn’t fully understand how English naming conventions worked, and the results could be unfortunate. Makes them all the more convincing as exchange students, I suppose, thought Zhang to himself as Agent 17 stepped forward.

"Hello," she said in a shy but firm voice. "I am Symbol."

To their credit, the three men didn’t do anything more than blink once in puzzlement before they each nodded a cordial greeting.

Agent 22 stepped forward to introduce herself as "Apple," and Agent 54 as "Elect Kitty." Beam betrayed a hint of amusement at the last but wisely, probably more wisely than he knew, quickly masked it.

"Well," said Zhang. "With the introductions out of the way, I suppose you’ll be telling me why I should not disclose your conspiracy immediately to my asset The Red Queen, or kill you myself."

The looks of trepidation returned quickly to his companions’ faces as Fawkes nodded amiably. "I will. For starters, as you’ve probably already guessed, because there could be no other reason for your coming here, Siouxsie is not your asset and has no plans to be."

Zhang nodded.

"Had you perhaps also guessed that she plans to blackmail you with implication in the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 10/10?"

Zhang found himself raising an eyebrow again. Even more ruthlessness than I gave her credit for, if that’s true, he thought admiringly. But we can’t be having that, naturally.

"I shall let you tell me about your suspicions presently," the Butcher of Mandroling said quietly after a moment. "First, let me outline my conditions for helping you, or at least deciding not to interfere with you, if that’s what I ultimately choose. I’m here with a specific objective, with which I will brook no interference..."

* * * * *

Raven had lost track of how long the devilish vibrators had been forcing her holes to spasm, forcing the spurting juices out of her cunt as Sister Mary D’Aquino raped her mercilessly with the ribbed rubber hilt of her own hunting knife. The satanic sister had used the blade to cut away most of Raven’s jumpsuit – leaving only her legs and arms covered in the spandex – and was now holding her by the hair and taunting her as she pounded the captive teen Foxx’s fuckhole with the hilt of the sheathed weapon, pushing the vibrating egg deeper into her, making its mindless manipulation of her body even more powerful and destructive. "Ohhhh, yeahhh, you’re one dumb little slut, aren’t you, Raven? Didn’t see this coming, did you, bitch? You’re my stupid little McWhore, aren’t you? Dumb as a fucking mall-rat, huh? And you love to get fucked so much... I bet you’re gonna be screaming for those hard cocks soon, aren’t you... you want those hard fucking cocks, huh, you dumb bitch? You’re gonna beg them to use you like a stupid, drunken skank at a frat party, aren’t you?"

"AHHHHAHHHHHHHH! AWWWWGAWWWWWWD!" Raven wailed as she came again, writhing like a well-trained porno slut, her ass-flesh and her glistening tits jiggling as her body surrendered to the lustful, degrading abuse and ravishment, as the lurid taunts and the helplessness made her cum even harder. The worst part was, she knew the absolute truth of the Sister’s last words. The hilt of the knife was only making her pussy yearn to feel a man’s cockflesh whispering sinfully inside it, making her want to feel a set of big hairy balls slap up against her clit as she was used like a fuck toy, like the only thing she deserved to be, by the male sex. She could hear the notes of despair, the knowledge of what had to come, in her own voice as she squealed and squealed in hellish bliss: "AAAAWWWWWHAWWWWW FUUUUCKYEEEEAHHHHHH AUUUHAA-AAUUUUUGHHHHHHH!"

At last the vibrations died away and Sister D’Aquino pulled the knife hilt out of her. But the girl kept her hand twined in Raven’s short, sweaty hair as the teen Foxx shuddered and sobbed quietly in her grip. "Were you keeping count?" Raven heard her devilish tormentor ask Sister Crowley, who answered: "About fifteen, as near as I can tell."

Raven’s heart sank even further. The next two Sisters after Minx had forced eight orgasms out of her apiece with breast punishment alone, another sixteen girls gone down to slavery and ruination because of her abject weakness, her captors’ utter mastery of her holes and her body and her mind and her throbbing, milk-spurting tits. D’Aquino had been the first to bare and fuck her and she’d nearly equalled the combined total of her two predecessors. The Foxx opened her eyes and watched naked, nubile chained forms being hauled out of their chairs and off into obscurity; she could hear muffled sounds of wailing, weeping and distress from the doomed teenagers being led away, none of them able to even look at their weak whore of a betrayer any more, and the whines and sobs of terror from the thirty-six girls who remained were growing even louder as they realized there would be no escape from their fate, that Raven was useless to them, useless to anyone.

The speech was gone now, she’d splattered too much milk on it to even be able to read the splotched and running text. Sister D’Aquino hadn’t even engaged in a pretense of letting her try to start reading again before she’d cut the last of Raven’s modesty away and started using her like a little bitch. There was no chance left to save any of the girls; all that was left to Raven now was proving to Max that she was worth more on his cock than on a donkey’s. Her mind whirled with hopelessness that that was the last option her life would come to, the last thing in her world she could hope to affect.

"Look down," said D’Aquino into her ear. "Your cocks are waiting for you."

Raven looked to where the four Agents were being kept expertly on the boil by the Sisters, their cocks ready to burst from constant stroking and sucking but clearly kept painfully just on the edge of cumming. To a man, their eyes told the story: watching Raven debase and degrade herself over and over again, moaning and squirting and wriggling in submission, had stripped any lingering respect or remorse from all of them. Lust had overwhelmed their morality, their sense of shame. To every one of them, even Mike Shane, she was just a whore now, a whore who’d pranced teasingly around the Foxxes’ Den in next to nothing day after day, a whore about to get what she deserved.

A moan of shame caught in her throat as her snatch ached and pulsed in anticipation. D’Aquino said into her ear: "You know it’s time, don’t you? Time to give in completely? Time to become the one thing you’re good for... if you’re woman enough to take it?"

A miserable Raven nodded, shame and arousal warring across her tear-stained face, unable to look at the bound girls who were going to have to hear the horrible words of abandonment from her mouth. "Y-yes..." she said pitifully, her words echoing across the increasingly empty auditorium. "I kn-knowww...."

Sister Crowley said: "And you know what you have to give us?" Raven nodded again dejectedly, and then Crowley gave an evil laugh that sent a chill down her spine. "Oh, but you don’t. I came to a decision watching Sister D’Aquino make you writhe and squeal like a bimbo cheerleader just now. A hundred orgasms isn’t enough of a test for a gutter-skank as depraved and filthy as you are. I’ve decided you’re going to have to give us one hundred and fifty."

Raven hadn’t thought she was capable of further horror, but she was wrong. "N – noooo, please, you can’t—OWWWWW!" A sharp spank from Sister D’Aquino cut off her snivelling complaint, but her mind still spun. A hundred and fifty! I just about passed out from Sister D’Aquino’s fucking! I couldn’t possibly... they just want to ship me to Tijuanita, to that... that donkey... they’ll never let me... never let me go to Max... Despair swelled up in her as fresh tears slid down her face.

"We can do anything we want," said Sister Crowley sweetly. "Now... say the words."

She had no hope... and no choice. And despite everything, her pussy was still throbbing, pulsing, dripping, exquisitely ready, hungry for hard man-meat. Forgive me, oh please forgive me, she silently asked the girls chained in their chairs as she said: "F – fuck," and her voice stalled until another sharp smack rang out across her ripe, juicy ass. "Ahhhhhh! Fuck you bitches I want some cock!"

"Say it again!" demanded D’Aquino with another hard spank.

"Ahhhhh! FUCK YOU BITCHES I WANT SOME COCK!"

"Scream it!" came the command with another spank, and then another: "Fucking beg for that cockmeat, bitch!"

And with that, the first two Agents were surging up onto the stage, wresting her from the grip of D’Aquino’s hands and Crowley’s leash and yanking her down to her knees. One of them was Agent Shane, his cock veiny and red as he grabbed her by the hair and shoved his salty meat into her mouth furiously – and at the same time she could feel a thick member ram balls deep into her tight teenaged snatch!

"UUUGGHHHHLCKKKKHHHHHHH!" she choked out as Agent Shane started to crudely fuck her throat while her cunt spurted its juices around its violator, the handcuffed and degraded slut cumming already as she was used at both ends. Oh God, her mind babbled, God it feels so good to take dick so fucking intense, and she could feel the egg vibrator being pressed up against her cervix and knew the worst was yet to come as she was pounded relentlessly. "UUUUGGHLCKKHHHHGLCKHHHHH-GLCKHHHHHH!"

"I used to think you Foxxes were such hot shit," panted Agent Shane thickly as he rammed his cock into her face. "I was feeling so guilty about selling you out... but you’re nothing but a bunch of bitch whores, aren’t you? This is your real fucking calling, huh, ‘Agent’ McCoy? All those months watching you bitches prance around practically naked... we could’ve just bent you over and fucked you stupid anytime we wanted, huh?"

She could only gag and choke by way of reply as she looked up at him with wide and horrified eyes, seeing his face transfigured with uncaring, bestial lust as he raped her mouth-hole, as her spit ran down his rod and dripped off her chin while the man behind her slapped his big, hanging balls against his clit as he gave the teenaged Foxx the monster fuck of her young life. "GLUGHHHHCKHHHH! GLUGHHHHCKHHHH! GLUGHHHHCKHHHH! GLUGHHHHCKHHHH!" came her choking squeals around the cock as her pussy seized up and her eyes rolled back in her head as she gripped and squirted again and again around the big dick that skewered into her.

"FUCK that’s good!" shouted the Agent behind her as he pumped his scalding spunk into her pussy, making her come hard as Shane drove his man-meat to the back of her throat, holding her still and virtually smothering her as he blew his wad down her gullet.

"Uchhhhhhhh," she gasped for air as they finally released her, her head spinning, freshly humiliated at how quickly and completely her lust for cock had overcome her, reeling with shame at Agent Shane’s cruel taunts. But there was no time to recover, they were swiftly repositioning her, the second Agent – she could remember his face now, Agent Dickson – was sliding her velvety snatch down his still-hard rod as Mike Shane took up station behind her. She moaned loudly as she could feel her snatch stretch around the big cock and pulse in anticipation as a second huge member, wet with her own spit, pushed at the entrance to her tight teen asshole. God I’m gonna take it in both holes I can’t believe I WANT it so bad... GOD I want it SO BAD...

Agent Shane was gripping her by the hair, pulling her head back. "Beg," he grated into her ear. "Beg me to fuck your ass, you little fucking slut bitch. Beg."

Frantically, she began to babble without hesitation: "Oh please Mister Shane I need your hard cock in my ass! PLEASE teach me how to get ass-fucked like a good little whore! PLEASE show me how a REAL man breaks in a nasty little BUTT-SLUT! It’s ALL YOURS just FUCK that tight little ASS Mister Shane FUCK IT HAAAHAAAARRRRD!" Her last word broke off into a helpless squeal of delight as his cock rammed deep into her ass, both her holes now filled with man-meat and crudely distended as she could feel the second egg vibrator being driven deeper inside her. As both men powered into her holes, Mike Shane reached around her chest and took a firm grip of her breasts, the combination of the demeaning double-fucking and the merciless squeezing of her super-sensitive tits driving her instantly over the edge. "UGHHHHHH! UGHHHHHHH! UHHH-UGHHHHH! AWWWWHAWWWWWWYYEAAAAHHHHH FUCK-ME-FUCK-ME-FUCK-ME-YEEEAHHHHHHH I FUCKING LOVE THOSE COCKS IN BOTH MY FUCKING-HOLES-AUUUHHH-HAUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHH!" Her greedily little snatch milked the man beneath her, her tight little ass bucked up against the ravisher above her, she came and came and came...

... and then, as the milk started squirting out of her tits and the multiple orgasms started to come even harder, the vibrators deep inside both her holes buzzed abruptly to life again.

OHHHHH... MYYYYYYYYYY... GOOOOODDDDDD... her mind wailed as her eyes rolled back and her mouth opened in a silent scream, the girl bucking and writhing as her body seemed to transcend mere lust into a hell of pure, ego-obliterating, demonically-controlled climax. Her whole world was the pummelling man-meat annihilating her young holes, the irresistible buzzing inside her, the agonizing delight in her tits, the fact of her rapists’ complete domination and degradation and mastery of her jerking, puppet-like body, the pure truth of her new life as tamed, worthless fuck meat... she writhed and came and came and writhed and nearly swooned, unable even to squeal like the mindless fuck pig she was being turned into, thrust by thrust by brutal thrust.

She barely even realized what was happening when a third cock shoved into her defenseless mouth and another round of crude throatfucking began, not even conscious that she was bobbing and twisting her head like a well-trained whore.

The vibrators and the endless stream of obliterating orgams they caused didn’t let up for what seemed like an eternity. It became an endless sperm-drenched nightmare of cocks switching off on all her holes over and over again, seeming determined to destroy her throat and pussy and ass as they vented months of pent-up lust on her teenaged body, shoving their cocks between her big wet tits and turning the valley between them into another excruciatingly sensitive fuck-channel, their ball-batter oozing out of her holes and jetting all over her skin and sliding down into her gullet and slopping down her chin onto her heaving breasts, and at one point she felt two cocks ram into her pussy at the same time and then the little fuck pig did squeal: "NNNNNNG-GHLLLCKKHHHHHHH! NNNGHHHHNGGGHLLLCKKKHHH!" But consumed with hot lust, she didn’t, couldn’t, stop licking and sucking the salty cock that was violating her mouth and twitching as it prepared to blast another pungent wad of spunk down her throat.

On and on it went, the teen Foxx unable to focus on anything around her as the cocks somehow gradually started to feel bigger and bigger inside her, the hands gripping and mauling her flesh growing somehow stronger and larger, the amount of spunk they shot into her and all over her seeming, incredibly, to increase... and the intensity of her climaxes, the desperate desire in her stifled mewling wails, grew along with it.

Finally she found herself lying face down on the ground, shuddering and convulsing as the vibrators powered down once more. But she was still moaning with helpless, aching lust; the need in her holes hadn’t gone away.

"Fuck, how many was that?" said a woman above her.

Another female voice replied: "At least fifty consecutive. I can’t believe she’s still conscious."

"Guess she really is a born whore," said the first with a laugh.

Raven opened her eyes and looked around. The auditorium, she realized, was empty now, the last of the teen captives had been led away. There was a circle of people gathered around her on the stage; the four Agents, sweaty and naked, their limp cocks glistening wetly, were looking like men emerging from a dream, as if they couldn’t quite believe what they’d just done to her... but couldn’t quite regret it either. There were four huge shaven-headed men standing with them, Syndicate guards, equally naked and their mammoth cocks evidently soaked with her spit and juices; after leading away the rest of the girls they must have joined the fun, must have been among the anonymous cocks that had rocked the teen heroine and made her into their submissive little bitch. A stab of humiliation accompanied the pulse of aroused memory that seized her hot twat.

But the nuns were gathered around too, looking fresh and bright-eyed, all resplendent now in nothing but their headscarves and thongs and fishnets as they happily buckled huge strap-ons around their waists. Raven registered the mulish size of those black rubber toys with a jolt of fear and arousal... and then another jolt as she realized they were all holding riding crops. She was lying, she realized, in a big, viscous puddle of questionable liquids, spunk and spit and sweat and pussy juice and milk all mixing together. There was still jism oozing out of both her nether holes and dripping down her chin.

"I’ve got good news for you, Raven," said a voice beside her, a woman crouching beside her, and she turned to see Sister Crowley. "Very good news."

Raven panted silently, afraid to ask.

Sister Crowley gave her a quirking smile and said: "Not curious? You should be. You see... the truth is, you’ve made believers out of us, Raven. We no longer doubt that you’ll give up every squirt and spurt you’ve been told to give up, and then some. We no longer doubt that you value being Max’s slave whore above all else, even above the lives and freedom of a hundred helpless teens. We no longer doubt that you’re a truly soulless and despicable gutter slut, dedicated in the depths of her being to the way of our Great Lord Satan. And so, soon, we’re going to take you to Max."

The teen Foxx felt intenses wave of anguish and humiliation and despair and relief and joy and pulsating lust roll through her all at once, the cocktail of conflicting emotions almost making her head spin as she felt Sister Crowley’s fingers dallying at the entrance of her abused, sopping snatch. She gave a slutty moan and moved her hips as the Sister’s fingers started to push in, and in, and in... reaching, she realized, for the egg vibrator now wedged deep inside her. "Thank you Sister..." she was moaning in pathetic gratitude. "Thank you for making me my lord and master’s little slut, Sister... thank you..."

"It was our pleasure, believe me," Crowley chuckled as she hooked a little strap on the egg and began to pull it out. "But there’s one little thing we need you to do for us before we send you to him."

"Anything, anything," Raven panted as she felt the little oblong vibrator leave her pussy, felt the Sister’s fingers probing and starting to slide into her gaping ass.

"Well, your enthusiasm has made a bit of a mess of our nice stage here, Raven." Again two fingers had to go deep, deeper, deeper yet to retrieve the second egg vibrator. The teen Foxx moaned again as Sister Crowley caught it and started to pull it back out. "We’re going to need you to clean this disgusting puddle up for us. You won’t mind doing that, will you?"

Raven shook her head a bit numbly. "How..." she started to ask, but she already knew. "H-how do you want me... to..."

The egg popped out of her ass as she broke off in another groan. "Why," said Crowley brightly, "with that nasty little tongue of yours, of course. You’re going to lick up every last drop and swallow it." As Raven hesitated, she felt a riding crop slash across her already-punished ass, making her arch up and cry out exhaustedly. "Well? Better start crawling and licking, slut. Don’t make us change our minds now."

The depraved teen heroine knew what she wanted. She had no choice but to get to her knees, bend over with her ripe ass and her vulnerable holes in the air, lower her head, stick out her tongue and begin to lap at the puddle beneath her, like a cat licking up spilled milk. As she did so she saw Sister Mary D’Aquino move to take up a position behind her with a vicious smile.

Before the Sister’s big black dildo drove deep into her cunt, before the whipping and the taunting and the multiple climaxes started again, before she was driven around the stage like a beast and plumbed the lowest depths of degradation she would reach that day... Raven knew a moment of something like peace. I’m coming to you, Max, she thought almost contentedly. I’m coming to you, my lord and master. I’m coming...

And then the dildo slammed home brutally, stretching her out and pounding her as she squealed and tried desperately to keep licking, to keep swallowing, to keep obeying as the riding crop came down on her jiggling ass-flesh again and again and again. "AWWWWW! AWWWWWW! AAAAHHHAWWWW! AWWWWWW! AWWWWW GAWWWD AWWWWWW! AWWWWHHHAWWWWWW..."

* * * * *

Gustavo Caliente sat in the study of Max Fawkes’ house, quietly smoking a cigarette, his mind working over the long, surreal day.

He’d just finished delivering the news to the outraged Foxxes that Raven had been kidnapped by the Syndicate – along with her four-agent cover team – on her outing to the Connemara Girls’ Prep School. It was a situation that had always been possible but that the lovely heroines had never faced, and they were fired up as they’d never been before, itching to save their friend, now eagerly waiting for the fake intelligence he’d be providing them in a few days that would supposedly lead them storming to her rescue.

It had been a bizarre sensation to sit conspiring in the pleasant summer sun with a Syndicate goon, the most brutal MSS agent alive and his team of coolly efficient female bodyguards, and the eerily transformed Max Fawkes... all the while knowing that not far from them, the brave, youthful, inspirational heroine Raven McCoy was being brutalized and degraded in preparation for yet more torment at the hands of one of his new "allies."

"I selected Raven as the first subject," Max had reported casually of the young, good-natured, fragile girl his older self had once saved from being used and sold as chattel by a biker gang. And the idea of using the teen Foxx’s hopes for the young girls of Island City – her noble and winningly innocent dedication to their safety and their futures – to ensnare her... that had been his idea. Giving her up to the mercies of a depraved, amoral dominatrix for hour upon hour of sexual torture, and that just a prelude to the tortures he himself planned to inflict... that had been his idea. It would be wrong to say the man had admitted it; rather, he’d simply stated it, the same way a normal person would state that they were going to buy a pastrami sandwich.

And that... thing that used to be Max Fawkes, thought Caliente to himself bitterly, is now my best chance of getting out of this mess. I have no choice but to play along with his insanity. In all this, the truth is he’s the lesser evil. And that was to say nothing of playing along with the notorious Butcher of Mandroling into the bargain.

It had been a mistake to ever come to Island City. A dreadful mistake.

But there was nothing for it now. The die is cast, the Man With a Thousand Faces thought to himself. Three days from now, the endgame begins in earnest whether I like it or not. We’ll all do what we have to do.