Just as the driver wearily climbed out of his taxi and started to open the rear door, four men rushed out of the darkness and began to viciously attack them. The sparse street lighting cast deep shadows between parked cars.
Two men attacked from the left and two from the right. One struck the taxi driver and heaved his unconscious body into the shadows, then ran to help his accomplice, who was lunging towards Carla. The other two men were already punching and struggling with Max. His expensive tailored evening suit hampered him as Max did his best to fight back. Carla, relatively unencumbered after pulling her close fitting white dress to her hips, lashed out with feet and hands. She was inflicting painful but hardly damaging injury on her two brawny attackers.
As Max went down under a torrent of blows, one of his attackers ran to help his two colleagues capture the wildcat in white. Carla knew the best she could hope for was to keep her attackers at bay either until help came or a better opportunity presented itself. One heavy blow to her head from any man could finish her.
The three men stood equidistant around her, just out of range of her high kicks. All but the newcomer were bleeding heavily from nose and mouth. Carla constantly lashed out as each man tried to get closer. With her stockinged feet shredded and bloody, she held her high heeled shoes as weapons, thus extending her reach.
Carla sensed an opportunity. The man who stood between her and the open driver’s door of the taxi was the most heavily built and appeared the slowest. A flying drop kick could disable him sufficiently to allow her to get to the car. She could close and lock the door before the other two could grab her, and then escape.
She also wondered why these men were attacking her and Max. If they wanted to kill them, a single gunman was adequate, so why four oafs? As no knives or guns had been used so far, these men obviously wanted them alive.
The heavily built man pulled out a knife and wielded it menacingly with arm extended, but too far away to thrust or slash, possibly a warning to stop fighting or he would stab her. Carla, who had faced several knife attacks in her past, was unconvinced that this man actually had the authority to stab, which carried the risk of her death. The two men closed in from behind to grab her, believing that the knife was distracting or sapping her will to fight. But they were wrong.
The man closest on Carla’s right received the full force of a pointed heel through his cheek as she swiped him faster than a cornered cat. The other attacker fell on his back as she followed through with her left leg, her foot catching him behind the knees. The man with the knife lurched closer as she spun to face him.
Now she had the opportunity she had been looking for.
In an instant, Carla had grabbed the right wrist of the knife-wielding man. Her right hand bent the knifepoint away from her as she forced herself against him. By curling her left leg behind his knees and using her momentum, the man fell back.
Instinctively, he tried to break his fall with his hands. Trapped by Carla’s firm embrace, his right arm was imprisoned between their torsos, and his grip on the knife relaxed involuntarily. As they fell, Carla turned the knife point to his chest, the blade parallel to his ribs for proper penetration. As they hit the ground, Carla fell on him with her full weight, pressing the knife fully into him. With luck, she thought, the blade might penetrate a lung or other vital organs.
Rolling off his body, Carla pulled the knife out, ready to mercilessly stab her two approaching attackers. She figured, after slicing the first man, the arc of the blade would continue unabated across the second man, meaning three men down. But it was not to be.
A well-built man, lithe as a cat, rushed out of the darkness. With a powerful swing, his fist smashed into the back of Carla’s head, like an enraged man pounding a desk.
Carla’s limp body rolled off the stabbed man and she lay still. The blood-stained knife fell from her hand and rattled across the pavement.
Max’s attack had torn his opponent’s left knee ligaments, causing the man to hobble away. Starting to rise, Max saw their arch enemy Philippe leap from the shadows and strike Carla. Carla’s lifeless body rolled onto her back, the dark bloodstain over the right side of her lower chest contrasting with her white dress, which had risen to her waist. Max knew Carla would hate the indignity of dying with her raised dress exposing the translucent white panties that clung to her like a second skin. She had often joked with him that she hoped she wouldn't die in dirty lingerie.