Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 17:36:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: Orpha Kreed <orphinity@yahoo.com>
Subject: Avenging Minerva, Chapter 4 by Orpha Creed

		      Avenging Minerva by Orpha Creed
Chapter 4


	"You know the drill Orpha!" Cary yelled through the
door from the lounge. "Either hang around and be nice
or Garth will eat your liver!" she continued
sarcastically as the other women behind her in the
lounge laughed Mockingly.
	Orpha's arms and wrists were aching and numb when she
heard the door close and lock and the noise and
laughter ended abruptly. "Alone at last!" she said
aloud in relief as Garth glanced up at her adoringly
while wagging his tail in a submissive manner.
	Orpha worked her thumbs against the restraints as she
hung. Both thumbs eventually slipped out of their
sockets allowing her hands to slip through the
restraints and she dropped to the floor, crouching
like a cat while surveying the large dark warehouse
space. Garth crawled over toward Orpha with his tail
between his legs, whimpering submissively.
Orpha stood and walked toward the lounge door as Garth
followed close behind. She felt her way along in the
dark until she found the kitchen next to the lounge.
She opened the large refrigerator door, opened a can
of beer and rummaged through the stored food,
selecting mostly the higher protein items. She began
stuffing herself with cold lunchmeat, occasionally
tossing some to Garth who bolted it down with one
gulp. She found a jar of peanut butter in a cabinet.
She scooped out its contents with her fingers and ate
most of it, holding her hand down to Garth who
obligingly licked her hand clean. She found her way
into the lounge. A dim red light over the exit door
illuminated her way over to where she had found the
flashlight the night before.
	"Lets go Garth, we have work to do!" she ordered in a
serious tone as she headed back into the warehouse.
	The signs that hid the door to the lower level were
made of thin metal and plastic making them easy to
slide to one side. There was a padlock on the door but
Orpha remembered seeing one of the women place a key
near the top of the doorframe. She slid her fingers
along the surfaces until she touched the key.
Unlocking the door, she entered and walked down a
steep ramp leading down into the darkness as Garth
pressed close against her legs. The damp chill on
Orpha's naked body felt miserable but she was
determined to explore the secrets that lay hidden
below the building. She entered a room where several
pieces of old rusty equipment were stacked, The walls
were of hand cut stone and appeared to be old but one
wall was of fairly new cinderblock. She noticed that
the tire marks from the forklift and the footprints
all went toward the cinderblock wall and disappeared.
Pushing what appeared to be a loose block, the wall
began to rotate into a large area. Unlike the previous
room, the air was cool and dry, obviously from a large
capacity dehumidifier running at one end of the room.
There were rows of boxes stacked up to the ceiling
containing new computers, stereos, TVs and other
items. At the back of the room was the pallet load of
white powder in small plastic bags, shrink-wrapped to
the pallet. The plastic was tough and she couldn't
drive her fingernail through, so she bit a small slit
with her teeth. Tasting a particle or two, she
discovered it was Cocaine.
	"Street value in the millions!" she said aloud as
Garth responded by cocking his head and gazing
affectionately at Orpha.
	"Well, what have we here?" she thought to herself as
she lifted a loose board on a wooden crate. "Holy
shit! AK-47 Assault Rifles," she said in amazement as
she counted the 36 crates, each containing three
rifles. "I wonder where the hell these are going," she
asked herself as a mental picture of a bearded
terrorist of Arabic decent flashed through her mind.
	Across from the rifles was a stack of wooden boxes
under a tarp. Orpha slid the tarp back and read the
stencil on the box. "Plastic Explosives!" she read
aloud. What in the hell are these bitches up to?"
	Orpha continued to explore the very large space. At
the rear of the room, she found several large planks
placed tightly together covering an opening in the
cement floor. Dragging them to one side, she
discovered a crude stairway leading down to a very old
wooden door with rusted fittings appearing centuries
old. Orpha tugged on an old rusty ring and the door
creaked loudly on three rusted hinges as it swung
open.
	Orpha was now two levels below ground as she stepped
through the ancient doorway.   She directed the
flashlight down a long dark corridor. The ceiling was
made of very old, crudely fabricated bricks that were
laid in such a manner as to form an arch. The arched
ceiling extended beyond the capacity of the light and
disappeared into a curtain of darkness and mist with a
cold, chilling affect. Every ten yards, there were
arched doorways to side rooms. The rooms had no floor,
but had sandy dirt spread unevenly across the rooms.
She shined the beam of her light on some markings in
the brick. The very faint inscription read: "San
Francisco Brick Co, 1813," and bore a faded logo of
the now extinct company.
	Orpha walked forward cautiously with Garth nervously
pressing against her leg. Up ahead, she heard a slight
noise and Garth let out a low menacing growl. A fairly
large rat scampered across the corridor from one of
the rooms and into a hole in the bricks.
	Orpha broke out in chilblains. "Oh shit! Why rats?"
She said aloud as she experienced a flashback of being
in a rat infested prison in El Salvador when on an
assignment during her dark past. "Must be from the
early 1800's," she thought to herself as she directed
the light down the corridor. "They might have stored
root vegetables down here like potatoes and turnips.
Could have been part of an old winery from that period
too," she continued to speculate to herself as she
continued forward, turning abruptly as another rat
scampered across behind her.
	She directed her light into the first room on the
left of the corridor. She was curious about a mound of
dirt at one end of the room so she kicked at it with
her bare foot which eventually touched something hard
about six inches below the surface. Bending down, she
cleared away the soft dirt, exposing a skull. Removing
more dirt, she determined that she had found the
skeletal remains of a woman, probably buried there
about fifty or sixty years ago. Above the shallow
grave, she saw rusted chains dangling from the
ceiling. Faded, colored pictographs and symbols were
just barely visible over the entire surface of the
arched room. Strange grotesque figures painted in
various sexual positions. Some of the figures were of
naked women while other figures wore a hooded robe
with skull-like faces. At one end of the room was a
structure crudely made from brick and cement. The
structure stood about four foot high and was about six
by four foot in length and width. Old rusted chains
were attached to the four corners that were attached
to iron wrist and ankle restraints that had rusted
almost beyond recognition. Around the edge of the top
surface, there was a gutter like formation that led to
the gargoyle like carved, stone head with its mouth
open and a very long tongue extending downward. Below
the open mouth, Orpha saw a large urn adorned with a
monstrous head, it's large, gaping mouth open to catch
the fluids that would drop from the Gargoyle above.
Orpha's eyes gazed intrinsically between the apparent
sacrificial alter and the frightening pictures on the
walls and ceilings. She envisioned in her mind's eye,
the naked women chained to the top of the alter
awaiting whatever fate an insane Cult Priestess had on
her mind. Orpha stretched out on the alter surface,
running her hands and feet under the cold, rusted
chains. As she stared up at the frightening figures
above the alter on the ceiling, she felt herself start
to become wet as she manipulated her vaginal muscles
and rotated her hips against the cold surface. She
reached down and gently touched herself to heighten
the pleasure as she relaxed her bladder, allowing the
hot steaming liquid to drain across the top and into
the gutter. She stretched her head over the side as
the urine began to drip down from the gargoyles open
mouth and into the open mouth of the urn below. As
Orpha felt herself being drawn ever deeper into the
overpowering sensual trance, Garth let out a piercing
series of barks directed at Orpha, jarring Orpha's
consciousness back to reality and she jumped from the
table as though hit with a thousand volts of
electricity.
	Orpha slowly backed out of the room, horrified at the
strange spectacle. Continuing down the corridor, her
light focused on a pile of dirt in one of the rooms.
The dirt appeared to have been disturbed recently and
she began to dig at one end of the oblong pile.
Eventually, her fingers pulled up a lock of hair. She
continued to remove the dirt and was suddenly
overwhelmed by a deep feeling of depression.
	"Oh my God, it's Minerva!" she said aloud in a deep,
unearthly tone of voice. "You're dead meat Cary and
Val, you're dead meat for sure! Get the hell back
Garth!" she ordered as the dog sniffed at the corpse.
"Get out!" she screamed, pointing at the arched
doorway as the dog cowered and backed away.
	The air became repugnant as she continued to clear
away the dirt from Minerva's body. Orpha evaluated the
extent of decomposition, determining that she had been
dead for at least four or five days. The flashlight
revealed the massive welts across her butt and thighs.
Some of the larger welts had even burst open from the
repeated impact of the whipping.
	"Oh my God, my poor baby!" Orpha responded sadly.
"Why, why, why?" She asked aloud as she stood up,
looking down at the atrocity that lay before her. "Why
would anyone do this to such a kind hearted, free
spirited little soul like Minerva," she mourned as she
gazed down at the poor little waif, lying there so
lonely in her crudely constructed grave.
	Orpha turned and gazed at Garth who was crouched in
the archway gazing pitifully back at her. The dog's
ears jumped straight up as a chilling sound came from
the unexplored end of the corridor. Orpha crept over
to the door and peered out toward the dark abyss in
the same direction that Garth was staring so intently.
The sound came again, an unearthly moan that sent
chills through Orpha as she frantically searched the
dark corridor with the beam of her flashlight. One
green eye glowed back at them as they stood petrified.
It was the most ugly, largest tomcat that Orpha had
ever seen. It was a dark gray in color, exhibiting
several large scars, had one ear missing and a
grotesque empty eye socket that caused one side of
it's head to appear withered and grotesque.  It glared
intently at Garth with its one large green eye,
illuminated by Orpha's flashlight. Garth was now
crouched and ready to attack. Confused by this
unearthly sight, the dog whined and curled around
behind Orpha's legs, peering around them at the cat
who was slowly advancing while hissing and moaning
with a deep reverberating sound.
	"You're a big help you silly wuss!" Orpha said
mockingly as she looked down at Garth.
	Orpha picked up a loose brick and hurled it in the
direction of the cat causing a distraction as it
clattered against the wall of the corridor. Garth let
out a string of barks in succession as it lunged
forward toward the cat. Surprised, the cat shot away
into the darkness.
	"There must be another way in and out of here," Orpha
thought to herself as she began to follow the cat's
footprints down the corridor. The prints led her into
a room where the ceiling had caved in, leaving a pile
of bricks, cement and other debris. Slowly working her
way around the pile, she felt a slight draft coming
from an opening that led upward. Carefully working her
way through, she came up into the rubble of an old
building that had burned and collapsed within itself.
Through the rubble, she recognized the lights from the
entrance to the old LeFranz Hotel on the opposite side
of the street. An old derelict hotel used now only by
transients and prostitutes.
	Orpha climbed back down the opening and headed back
toward the old produce warehouse as Garth followed
along behind. She pulled the ancient door closed
behind her and made her way up to the main door,
closing it and pulling the signs back into place.
Entering the lounge, she opened a can of beer from the
refrigerator behind the bar. The clock on the wall
said 2:45 AM.


	Ramona arrived at 3:07AM, let herself in and went
immediately to where she knew Orpha would be hanging
by her wrists. "What in the world? How in the heck did
she get loose from the chains?" she asked aloud as she
looked up at the wrist cuffs in total disbelief.
	"I have ways dear," Orpha replied, peering through
the doorway from the lounge. "What time do you expect
Cary and Val?"
	"I heard Val say that she would be in about 5:30 AM
and she had invited the others to watch her whip you
to death. Cary usually comes in around 6:00 AM but it
might be earlier since the other girls want to be here
when they whip you to shreds."
		Orpha picked up the phone and dialed in the
restricted number of Jane Daniel's home phone. She
covered everything that she had found in the secret
cellars below the warehouse. The information about the
assault rifles and the plastic explosives sent Jane
into ecstasy as she took notes.
	When Orpha was finished, she paused for a moment.
"Jane, I want you to promise that you'll make
arrangements to have Minerva's body transported to a
funeral home in Bakersfield. It would mean a lot to me
if you could keep Minerva's name out of the report.
She wasn't involved in any of the criminal activities
and I would owe you a big one if you could keep her
name clean," Orpha requested in a polite but firm
tone.
	"Orpha, this falls under the FBI jurisdiction more
than the agency, but for providing one of the Senior
FBI agents with a windfall like this which I'm just
about to do, I think I can arrange it." Jane responded
with a sincere tone of voice. "While I have you on the
phone Orpha and being an expert on cults, How do you
perceive what you found in the old brick sub-cellar?"
	"It probably was started in about the 1940's and the
cult's `Alpha Female' or her family probably owned the
warehouse, built over the old brick cellar which
probably came into existence in about 1813. I'd like
to research the history on it myself if it's OK with
you and the Bureau. There might just be a story that
would support a best seller."

	As Orpha hung up the phone, she looked toward Ramona.
"Nobody will be whipping me or anyone else to shreds
ever again around this evil place!" Orpha announced in
her deep intense tone of voice. "In fact my dear, Cary
and Val won't be doing much of anything when I get
through with them!" Orpha continued as she began to
drag the wooden sawhorse across the floor and place it
directly under the hanging wrist restraints.
	Orpha leaped gracefully like a cat, up and on the
crossbeam of the sawhorse, balancing herself as she
slipped her hands back through the restraints.
"Ramona, be a dear and drag this damned thing over to
the side where it was before would you?"
	Ramona did what she was told as Orpha hung suspended
by her wrists.
	"Now here's what I want you to do dear," Orpha
ordered. "Take Garth and get out of here now. I don't
want you anywhere in the vicinity when the shit hits
the fan.
	Orpha continued to instruct Ramona to go the LA
Airport, get her car out of long term parking after
explaining where the keys were hidden under the body
frame and return to the area, remaining out of sight
of the front entrance. She also told her that there
was money in her wallet, locked in the trunk of the
MG.
	"Now listen very carefully dear, I want you to park
the MG in front of the LeFranz Hotel at exactly 5:45AM
this morning, in other words, about two hours & 45
minutes from now. Do you have enough money to take a
cab to the LA Airport?"
	"Uh, yes!" Ramona responded.
	"Ok then, get the hell out of here and take Garth
with you on a leash," Orpha ordered. "Oh by the way
Ramona, I'm putting my trust in you girl." Orpha
hesitated and stared intently into Ramona's eyes. "If
you just take off and leave me holding the bag, I'll
find you," Orpha said softly but with a deep
threatening undertone.
	"Orpha, I promise you that I'll be there. You have no
call to take that tone with me. I've been your friend
through all of this and you know it!"
	Orpha's intense stare softened to a warm, kind gaze
from her pale blue eyes and she smiled affectionately
at Ramona, continuing to hang, suspended by her wrists
from the chains above.
	Ramona gently wrapped her arms around Orpha's long,
sinuous, muscular legs and placed her cheek lovingly
against the soft skin of her inner thigh. Then she
attached a leash to Garth and they both disappeared
through the door leading to the rear loading dock.
                                   Continued in
Chapter 4                             Warm regards,
Orpha Creed