Sete de Sangue

The sun was lower the sky. Still warming the desert, but only in the areas where its beams hit. In the shadows, when mixed with the soft breeze the evening air was bringing, it remained quite chilly.

And that is where Carli was, in the shadows.

She was hidden between brown-black rock formations tens of millions of years of years in age, that shot skyward at least a hundred feet, straight up from the ragged earth. This was off a dirt trail parallel to another dry arroyo. Their base was now scarred with modern hieroglyphics happily sprayed on in bright neon colors that almost...just almost...glowed with reflections from the sun. Broken glass, crushed cans, cigarette butts and syringes proved this was nothing but a gathering place for the hard-drug crowd, so care had to be taken as to where you walked.

And how long you stayed. 

Don't want to get caught by the night crowd, using their space when those soon-to-be-corpses were jonesing for a needle. 

Here, the Dodge sat, nose facing into the rocks, engine humming, headlights on, the beams cutting into the shadows. Directly above, up a semi-trail, was the spot where Carli had watched Eldora and her crew on that low plateau, starting their investigation into Grady's murder. That tarp was still stretched between the rocks. But this time, Carli didn't feel the need to observe them with the bodies, once they were found. She just wanted to be away.

She stood before the Dodge, naked, washing blood off her body. She had a five-gallon jug of water sitting on a rock at about waist level, and was rubbing herself down with a blood-soaked rag. She worked slowly. Cuts and bruises on her body. Hands shaking. Mind deliberately blank. A second jug was on the ground next to the rock...and she would probably need it. And that was just to get back to the house so she could take a long hot shower. 

With lots of soap to wash away the smell of death. 

Then a nice scented lotion, for good measure. 

Killing these two...Nat and Spit...they were bothering her. Especially Nat. Having complete and total control over him like she had Grady. Staked into the same spot, this time next to the Malibu, with Spit's body on the other side of it. Trying to do to him what she had done to Grady...even as he was bleeding to death...she had actually experienced an orgasm as he died. 

Y'know, for some odd reason, that just did not seem normal. 

What is more? She now had to admit she'd felt a bit of a thrill as Stasi had vanished over the balcony railing. And the thought of sending Mikey after her had brought a tingle to more than just her nipples. Then there was a nearly guttural release at Grady finally giving up the ghost. 

Spit had been a fight for survival, and had taken too physical a toll to be enjoyed. Though now it almost struck her as foreplay. 

Almost. 

After all, he was really a creep. 

But Nat... Nat. Him...what had happened could not be ignored or brushed aside. His death had brought a sense of power and pleasure to her that she had never felt before. It almost reminded her of the overwhelming beauty she had sensed the first time she did coke. The euphoria. The peace. The excitement. Snorting it with a PFc from Georgia, who had also turned her on to the joy of fucking while stoned out of your mind. The orgasm she'd had nearly blinded her with its grace and perfection. Carried her for days. Weeks. Months, and she had been unable to achieve that same exquisite torture, again.

Until now.

She hadn't really come close to it with Grady; he had been too slovenly to affect her sense of need. But Nat? He was the exact opposite. Trim. Tight. Not much hair and that was tightly curled in ways she found odd and playful. And his penis? Of a decent length...and circumcised. Once she had staked him down and stripped him, she had undressed and lain next to him and on him and straddled him for some time as he begged and cajoled and argued and whined and finally drifted into shock and stopped breathing. 

It hadn't mattered that she couldn't get him up like she had Grady, try as she might. He was in too much pain and had lost so much blood. Maybe if she had been able to get him to cum, she might have lost her focus and been happy with only Spit's death. Called an ambulance. Told them where to find him. Maybe. But it was a moot point, now. 

There was no question in her mind that each one of these bastards had deserved to die for what they did to Lara. Callous beasts taking joy in the destruction of another human being should be destroyed in just as callous and cruel a manner. Like mad dogs. They were a danger to others...and she had ended that danger. 

Does that make me Samael? she wondered. 

The fallen angel of death. 

She had wondered this a couple of times near the end of her tour in the 'Stan. Her skill on a target range had brought her to the attention of a Field Captain, who had learned how much the Taliban and ISIS hated even the possibility of being killed by a woman. He had talked with her, checked her out, joined her in her bed...at her instigation...seen she had the eye and the concentration, and arranged for her transfer to his squad.

All on the down-low, of course. 

At this time, the Rangers wasn't ready for a female sniper. But a few words with another captain got it fixed by just using just her initials for his crew and keeping her officially assigned to logistics. No need for any colonel or general to know what they don't need to know. And she. Had. Loved. Every. Minute. Of it. The marches, where she proved she could carry as much weight as the boys. The target practices, where she outshone even the best of them. The camaraderie, where her being just as forward about sex and fun as the guys had made her more like a buddy than just an object of prurient need. For the first time, she felt like she belonged. 

Of course, the Captain hadn't expected her to happily lead more than one of his men into understanding that sex was sex, whether with a man or a woman, or both at the same time. He did get a bit huffy, over that, but her kill ratio was too great to let some antiquated morality fuck things up. And he had to admit, his men were a lot closer and morale much better since she had joined the group. So...if it ain't broke and all that... 

But then Lara had been raped...and died...and something in Carli had shifted. She would not let a man touch her unless she initiated things. She kept off to herself, brooding and easily triggered into a rage. And what was worse? At least, to her conscious mind? She now looked forward to killing the enemy.

Needed to. 

Always male. 

She exalted in it. Felt a near orgasm when the bullet hit home. 

Despite her rejection of her mother's religious nonsense, she knew, deep down, this was wrong. Sociologically. Humanly. Morally, even. But there it was. 

The Captain had noticed the change in her but let it ride. She was still his best gun. Until a dumber-than-dirt Second Lieutenant got drunk and grabbed her breasts from behind and told her she was servicing him, that night...and she'd broken his nose without a thought. 

Unfortunately, he got all pissy about it, which meant she had to be returned to logistics and bound for Courts Martial. No matter how much of an ass a Second Louie was, he was still a superior officer. But this one quickly learned that, first, he'd put his Captain in serious trouble with the brass and, second, the other men in the platoon were angry as hell about it. Now he could expect no backup from anyone, so wound up being rostered back to the states, once everything with Carli was settled.

His attack on her was dismissed, of course. But the Army, in its wisdom for once, let Carli accept a general discharge. The idea of getting another black eye over yet another sexual assault allegation being ignored was the determining factor. Which suited Carli just fine. She had begun to formulate a way to exact a vicious revenge on Lara's rapists, and not being beholden to anyone was perfection, to her. 

And now she was keeping her vow.