A/N: some serious ugly ahead so be warned. Let me introduce you to the antagonist of the series that's in my head. Allow me to introduce you to The Raven.

Columbia.

She stood staring out of the large picturesque window at the vast flower garden in the courtyard below. Bright red geraniums surrounded a large patch of standing roses of various colors. Both were slowly dying beneath the hot sun of Columbia despite the breeze coming from the ocean a mere two miles away. She stared at the roses with a new smile on her beautiful face. Her wavy black hair brushing gently against her cheek as she admired the garden she had so meticulously kept watered and fed over the last few months while her husband had tended his massive cocaine fields with a small army of workers who were little better than slaves.

Her roses needed to be fed and watered and she smiled at what was to come. The geraniums, she actually couldn't care less about. The bright crimson flowers were merely a buffer for her roses which was why there was a small walkway through the geraniums that lead to the patch of thorns. On occasion, when she needed one, she herself would walk the path and carefully snip one off at the root. They were called 'blood roses' in Columbia and Venezuela and to receive one was a message to put your affairs in order.

She chuckled softly at the thought but she was interrupted by heavy boots walking into the room. She turned around to find the massive muscle of her most trusted friend. He looked to the body on the floor and around the huge, luxurious office she was occupying in the massive South American hacienda.

"The machine has been brought up." his voice was all southern California.

She nodded, "Have them point the chute over the roses with a wide an opening as possible." Her mid-western accent was from her Wyoming upbringing. "Tell Mango that if he overloads it again, you'll run him through it at the correct speed."

He grinned widely, "And your husband?"

She looked down at the dark skinned body on the floor, "Take him out to the fields when were done here."

He nodded and snapped his fingers. Two men came in and each grabbed a foot and dragged him out of the office.

"Have Maria brought to the bedroom balcony and drag the other one up as well."

He nodded and took a radio off his belt and spoke into it in Spanish, a reply was quick.

"She's awaiting your arrival." He said with a grin again. "He'll be brought up shortly."

She nodded, her dark eyes revealing nothing as she walked across the hall and into her bedroom. She heard a female voice whimpering as several men taunted the poor girl. They fell silent as she walked onto the balcony.

Maria was a young, beautiful girl around the age of twenty. She had hired the girl a year ago to be a maid and her husband had taken a fancy to the little tramp. As soon as she seen her mistress she tried to fall to her knees but was held by two men. Her hands were bound together as were her feet. The lovely floral dress was plastered to her skin from both the breeze and from sweating.

"Please, Mistress." She pleaded in Portuguese, "he forced himself on me. I couldn't tell him not too. I am just a servant and he would have beaten me. I never welcomed him in to my body. Please have mercy."

She smiled warmly at the girl. It was well known that although she was fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, she never spoke anything but English. Which was why everyone in the house was required to learn English.

"Oh Maria," She said seductively as she approached the girl with a predator's lope, "I'm not angry at you for screwing my husband. Hell, if you could have satisfied him enough to keep him out of my bed. I'd have rewarded you greatly."

She nuzzled the girl's neck causing her to cringe, "You could have shared my bed and been given all of the things you dream of."

She grabbed Maria's chin in a rough grip and turned her face to hers sharply. With her lips nearly kissably close she whispered, "I'm angry with you because you talk too much."

She placed a feather light kiss on Maria's trembling lips as two men dragged a third man onto the balcony. The men dropped him on the floor and she turned to look at him. Like Maria, his arms and legs were tied together. But he had been savagely beaten and tortured. Every part of his skin that was visible had cuts and a white powder she knew to be salt. He was blindfolded and gagged.

It was one of her partner's favorite tools for interrogation. The walking mass of muscles pulled out a straight razor and handed it to her.

She fingered the edge and came away with a drop of blood. "Maria, did you know that Carlos here is actually an American?" She looked over her shoulder at the girl, "He's an Agent of the DEA."

Her eyes went wide but it was forced, "I did not know, Please, I did not know."

She looked at her partner, "Take him out and set him on fire."

Carlos started jerking violently and her partner slammed a massive fist into the man's face before the guards dragged him out.

Maria started crying then as Mango caught a rope that was suspended from the truss of the roof. He made a loop and hooked it around her wrists and two men pulled on the other end of the rope. Maria's hands were pulled up painfully.

"Please Mistress. I will do whatever you wish, please. I will please you in every way, even in your bed, though I am not worthy." She pleaded again and again.

She considered it briefly, Maria was certainly attractive but the trust was already broken and it was something she could not let pass. She came over to her and used the blade to cut away the dress and Maria's underwear. Maria whimpered at the close contact of the razor but her mistress did not cut her.

She looked over the tanned body of the maid in appreciation. Full breasts with cute nipples, just the kind of perkiness she liked, Shapely legs and a great butt. It was quite a shame.

She leaned over the rail and signaled the man below.

Maria heard a diesel engine start and wind up to a set RPM.

Her mistress looked at her then and the cold eyes caused her to scream. She waved a hand at Mango and he pulled the rope, hoisting the girl in the air over the railing. Maria screamed louder as she finally saw what was making the engine sounds. She was being lowered slowly into the maw of a massive wood chipper.

The mistress leaned over the railing, "Once upon a time, you asked me why their called Blood Roses. Now you know."

She walked away from the rail and headed back to the office. Once there she opened the massive window wider as Maria's panicked screams turned into agonizing streaks of pain as the chipper ripped apart flesh and pulverized bone. Sending blood and body parts shooting into the flower bed no larger than a pencil eraser. She listened with a wide smile as the screams gurgled and silenced as the chipper tore at her lungs.

As Maria's screams echoed across the mountainside, she smiled warmly. "Sweet music. She sang so sweetly to me in her final moments."

She knew when Maria's head had entered because the machine's hum dipped slightly and the spray stopped. Several bits of black hair were sent flying but lost momentum and drifted to the ground as if weighing no more than feathers. She smiled at the sight of her beautiful roses covered in the girl's blood and body fluids.

She looked down to find Manuel looking up at her, a misting hose in his hands. "Not too much this time, please. I don't want them to lose the color."

He nodded nervously and set across the stone walkway to moisten his mistress' roses.

Others started washing down the brick walkway where Maria had been over sprayed by the breeze. She nodded as everyone was busy either cleaning up or preparing for their next task. She headed out of the office and down the grand stairway to the front door. Once out in the driveway she called to Mango.

"Take my husband out to the fields and run him through the machine so he can become part of his favorite treasure." He nodded at her words as he began to hitch the now bloody chipper to the truck. Her husband's body was already in the back of the pickup.

She walked over to the circular driveway and found that her partner had staked the fed into a kneeling position in a tub of lamp oil.

"Going for a slow burn?" She asked him.

"Well since gas tends to blow up, I thought I'd try something new." He said, as if he was talking about mowing the grass or playing cards. "Figure a fed would be a good guinea pig."

She nodded and he handed her a bottle of lamp oil. She walked over to the fed and poured some over his head before she let the bottle down. She looked to her partner and then pulled the blindfold off.

He blinked at the sunlight that shined in his eyes until she leaned into the light and stared at him.

He blinked the spots way from his vision and settled on her. His eyes went wide as he recognized her.

He jerked violently and muttered through the gag.

"No I don't even want to hear your voice Carlos." She said as she began to pour the oil on him again.

He bucked and he jerked but she kept pouring the oil until the bottle was empty.

"You got greedy, my old friend." She said, "You should have stayed in Bogota. Arboletes isn't safe for Feds and you knew that. Now you know why."

She dropped the empty bottle and her partner handed her a grille lighter. "You have gas incase this doesn't work, right?"

"You want me to hose him now?"

She leaned down with the lighter and flicked the trigger. A flame came out about an inch and she held it to the edge of the oil in the tub. It didn't light immediately and she was tempted to order the gas thrown on him but it caught and the flames slowly eased across the tub. The Fed's splashing around only increased the rate the flames consumed the oil. Within a minute he was screaming as his body was slowly eaten over by the flames.

She stood back and watched as he screamed a writhed from being on fire. His voice changed pitch as the hot air was sucked into his lungs, scorching them and as he screamed out again, the same heated air fused his vocal cords together. He screamed again and again but no sound came out and eventually he suffocated from the irreparable damage to his lungs before he had a chance to burn to death.

"Well, that was certainly interesting." She said in a nonchalant voice.

He rubbed his chin between his thumb and index finger, "I wonder if we can prolong the sensation." She looked up at him, "Maybe some kind of mask over his face to prevent him from sucking in the hot air."

"Then I can't her him scream." She said.

He nodded then snapped his fingers. "Satellite dish."

She looked at him blankly.

"When a dog starts digging in his ears too much, vets put that satellite dish thing around their head so they can't get at their ears."

"Oh." She said, "That could work. Might even make a nice echo."

He nodded as they headed back to the House.

"So what have you heard from our good Senator?" She said as she led the way.

"He's become remarkably quiet since Christmas." He groaned, "I think someone reported that his wife is leaving him over a couple of hookers or some such."

"Men," she groaned, "They just can't keep it in their pants."

"Hey." He barked, "I don't have that problem."

"You're not fucking me." She said, "So I don't care who you fuck around with."

He raised his eyebrows and nodded his head in a "good point" way.

"And what about his problem." She swiped a loose strand of Maria's hair up from the driveway. "Did he ever get that thing handled with those cops?"

"Don't know." He said honestly. "Like I said, he's been remarkably quiet and not very forthcoming with answers. I haven't had the chance to get back with him because of our takeover of your husband's cartel."

"Yes." She said, "It has taken up the bulk of the last week."

He nodded as the pickup drove passed them with the wood chipper in tow.

They reached the door and he stopped short. "What do you want to do about him?"

She leaned against the door and unbuttoned her blouse. He knew it wasn't sexual, just giving in to the high temperatures of Columbia. She thought about it for a few.

"I think it's time to remind him of his obligations to our money. He has an assistant named James something or another." She looked at him pointedly. "Arrange for him to get mugged and make sure it goes bad." She said sharply.

"Do we want to interrogate him at all?" he asked and there was no joy or remorse in his voice. It was just a job to him.

"No." she said. "Just make sure he dies and Bracken understands that it was the Raven."

He nodded. "Very good. I'll see you at dinner." He nodded and walked off with a light hearted whistle.

She stepped into the house and spied two servants mopping up the blood. She headed upstairs and as she passed them, she tore off her shirt and tossed it to the blood trailed floor. Her lacy black bra soon hung on the rail.

"I need a bath." She said to the two women, "Get undressed and bathe me."

She continued up the stairs as the maids looked at each other before bustling up the stairs after her, shedding their clothes as they went. Maria's screams had echoed through the house and everyone heard it. No one wanted to be next one to feed the roses.