Author's note: This story is primarily a continuation of "Paradise Obtained", but also includes characters from "The New Neighbours/The Good Master" and "The Friday Night Games Club".
This is the culmination of my 'Haller universe' stories, so is not the best place to begin. I would recommend reading the other stories first; doing so will add depth of character background and make various things clearer.
All characters are over 18.
A Serpent in Paradise: Chapter 05
The journey of Matthew Mitchell and his small party, comprising Katya, Millie Parsons and Delilah, to Romania could not have gone more smoothly. Albrecht Haller had been as good as his word. His private Learjet had flown them from the UK to Germany, where they had dropped off Georgia Harding and Carly Stone, and then taken them on to a small airfield near Cluj-Napoca.
Conveniently, but not coincidently, one of Haller's many business interests had a stake in the ownership of the place, which assisted in swift passage through customs and quarantine requirements. More importantly, when Katya took delivery of the car she had hired and asked to be delivered to the airfield -- a four by four SUV -- she discovered, as arranged with Albrecht Haller, its luggage compartment contained an assortment of highly illegal weaponry.
Millie picked up an assault rifle with glee, "An F88 Austeyr," she said. "It's what I trained on in the army. Beautiful." She stroked it like a long-lost lover.
Katya grinned, "Yeah, I asked for it especially for you. Bit crude in my opinion. Ok for a soldier I suppose, but just have a look at this. An SSG 69, one of the best sniper rifles in the world, Austrian made. With this I could kill you before you even knew there was any danger, never mind got in range with that thing."
"Will you two stop drooling over those horrible guns," cut in Matt unhappily. "Remember nobody is shooting anybody with anything unless it's absolutely unavoidable. The aim is to get Svetlana, Nikki and Ilse out safely and, if possible, capture Mills and do it all by having a good plan not starting a war."
"Sorry Boss," said Millie, although she was still cradling the assault rifle.
Katya merely said, "Agreed Matt, but some backup is always nice. Do you want a handgun? There's enough for all of us."
Matt looked disgusted. "No, I don't. I know zip about guns. I'd be more danger to myself than Mills with one."
"I'll take it," said Delilah, "and if I get Mills in my sights I might just pull the trigger."
"Let's just all put the guns away until we get nearer Hawk Castle," said Matt, starting to get alarmed by this display of feminine militancy. "We don't want any accidents or run-ins with the local police." The others conceded the point and returned the weapons to the holders they had come in, somewhat reluctantly in Millie's case.
After that, things went better. The drive to Hawk Castle was actually quite pleasant. They shared the driving duties although, much to her disgust, Matt banned Millie from taking the wheel. Her high speed, high risk, high skill approach to cars was not what they needed given they were trying not to attract attention. It was about 350 kilometres to Hawk Castle and while that was only about a seven hour drive, they chose to stop overnight on the way as Katya wanted to get to the castle around dawn.
Matt shared a room with Millie, making out they were a couple. He chose her because he knew she would not pressurise him for sex, which Delilah certainly would have tried, and he was too tense for that. Katya and Delilah also shared, although they were clear with the hotel receptionist that they were just friends and, oddly enough, this was true. For some reason neither seemed to feel any great desire for the other although given a submissive man or woman they would happily have shared.
They were up very early the next day, before the sun was in fact, so they could arrive at the castle at the time Katya had selected as most tactically advantageous. As they passed through the last stretch the Carpathian Mountains, Katya, who was driving, gave a sigh of something like contentment and said to Matt in the front passenger seat, "Part of me loves it here; almost like I've come home."
"Part of you?" Matt queried. It was an odd turn of phrase. He knew Katya's backstory was strange, but he had not heard the details.
"Yes, I have these three separate personalities inside me, but don't worry, they've worked out their differences and we all get along well now. The part of me that's a vampire -- Natalia she's called -- feels right at home here. Its Dracula country you know."
Matt, who had been struggling with the split-personality thing, was hit with this new revelation and said in surprise, "Vampire?"
Katya laughed at the look on his face. "Not a real vampire of course," she explained, "they don't exist. But Natalia believes she's one and very useful that is too. My combat skills and will to succeed largely come from her. I just need to rein in her cruelty and malice, but I've got that sussed now. Katie helps, she's is so sweet and nice."
"How did you get like this?" Matt asked.
"One of your lot; a mind-controlling bastard called Bradley Gilmour. He purchased Geoff Mills' method from him and used it to turn the original me -- Katie Wade -- into his sex-slave. That, I suppose, would have been the end of my liberty but for the fact that Gilmour decided to get clever; a little too clever for his own good as it turned out. He used mind-control to make me think I was a vampire -- Brad likes his little games -- but it turned out in the process he had created a new personality, one he wasn't in control of. To cut a long story short, that enabled me to free myself."
Matt's speciality as a scientist had been the functioning of the human mind and he knew that Katya was glossing over how difficult that must have been. "That's extraordinary. It can't have been easy to reconcile two personalities."
She grimaced, "It wasn't, but I've managed it. Katya is an amalgam of Katie and Natalia, both and neither of them at the same time. It was awful but I'm stronger for it, and it has its benefits as well. For one thing I'm totally immune to mind control."
"What?" said Matt, surprised once more, "how can that be? I'm sorry Katya, but I'm something of an expert on the subject and that's impossible."
Katya gave a small grunt, which might have meant anything, and then suddenly turned the car off the road into a small layby. She parked, switched off the engine, turned in her seat toward him and said, "Go on then Matt. Use that clever device of yours to make me your slave. I'll leave it up to your whether you want to add me to your harem, although I've seen you looking so I guess you'd enjoy that."
"Stop it Katya," said Matt, intensely uncomfortable with this and conscious that Delilah and Millie were now watching intently from the back. Like all his girls they knew that they had been mind-controlled because he had -- eventually -- told them so and they had no problem with it, again because he had told them not to.
