In the Shadows of the Knight:

Untitled Part 1

(For the sake of this fiction we're combining Bianca Morgan and Adrianne into one person)

Michael's squared jaw grits down sharply. His azure orbs flash with untempered vehemence. There's a palpable spike of adrenaline crashing through his veins like liquefied lightning as he slowly bridges the distance between him and the other.

Cautious, he dare not reveal his hand too quickly. Stealth and the element of surprise were presently on his side. Tension loops his strong fingers tighter about the frigid grip of his pistol and it is raised after some weighty deliberation. This is not a move he makes lightly. He had painstakingly put his trained killer days behind him in the vast, swampy jungles of Nam. Those days had died out long before life as Michael Long had been terminated in that hot Nevada desert.

"I wouldn't, if I were you." Arrives a seething warning. Knight waits a beat, motioning with the barrel of his weapon for the other to cease and desist.

When the requested warning goes ill-heeded, Michael responds once more. "Don't." He clips, curt and half impatient.

"Don't tempt me." The words snarl out from between prisons of his teeth. Michael's present fuse is short, and the other occupant of the room was burning up the rest of the wick quickly.

A wicked, lascivious grin is cast in his direction as a series of porcelain fingers continue to rummage through Devon Miles's desk. "If it isn't Mr. Knightwood in the flesh..." the coy voice answers. "Seems your vision has improved though your disposition certainly leaves much to be desired." Cold gunmetal orbs gift him a longwise glance before returning to her own objective. "You know, I almost didn't recognize you with your clothes on." Her words are steeped in spiteful vindictiveness.

Michael levies the gun closer to her. If he wasn't so irate, he might have been more keen to play along with the goading. "Yeah well, unexpected run ins with murderesses will do that to a man." She's far too dangerous to be given an inch of wiggle room even when it comes to verbal manipulations. Her next remark causes him to bristle hard. It had been a stupid, in character choice he made to continue with an investigation, not an open advance. If she were any other woman, that remark might have been complimentary. He opens his mouth to offer a witty objection, when she brazenly interjects.

"Really? A gun?" The female crooned. "You're not the shoot to kill type." Patronizing and slick, she returns persistently to her work.

"I just might make an exception for you." Michael snaps back with ever darkening eyes narrowed upon her. "You're trespassing." Worse still, she was splintering under his skin with all the force of a massive landslide.

"Not technically," Margeaux counters. "I was given permission to be here by your secretary. A sweet, little old lady about this tall with greying hair..." she proudly boasts as she gesticulates the woman's size. "She seems to be well-liked. Sure would be a shame if something happened to her."

"Permission?" He murmurs in astonishment. Who on the FLAG staff would to dare give a notable enemy entry? Unless--. The conjecture makes his intestines twist into tightening knots. Skeptical eyes linger upon her, daring her to confirm what he already suspects. However, that confirmation does not come immediately. No, she's baiting him.

"What was her name?" Adrianne toyed. "Cecilia Simon?"

The woman she mentioned was in fact a FLAG secretary hired by way of San Diego. A widow with two very protective sons. Private investigators, Michael considers, but he doesn't have time to dwell on that threat. He ignores it, though it is swallowed down with the same difficulty as a plate full of rusted nails and screws.