She must have thought we were judging her, because she was still stuck on our previous conversation. ‘I’m not evil, you know. I’ve been…mostly…humane, for the last handful of centuries.’
We both glanced at her, all three of us hovering in the air high in the sky, those icy blue eyes only meeting our gazes for a moment before darting away, as if ashamed.
Miriam spoke up. ‘It’s fine, Jericho. I’m used to being the only one who cares.’
‘Well, I can start caring too,’ she offered, only to make a face. ‘Or I can at least knock them out or something. And those blood bags weren’t so bad. I’d be fine with doing that too, if you want.’
Miriam’s crimson eyes widened in surprise. She seemed like she was about to ask what brought that comment on, but I stopped her by silently suggesting that it was probably because she really needed friends right now, and would bend over backwards to avoid being rejected and alone.
Miriam wasn’t sure if that was the case, but agreed it might be best to not make her admit that, if it was true – it would be too vulnerable of a confession to make for most, and she didn’t want to subject Jericho to that kind of humiliation at a time like this. After all, it could be very difficult to admit you needed others.
‘Sure,’ Miriam replied. ‘But you just ate, so we shouldn’t have to worry about it for a long time now.’
‘R-Right,’ Jericho agreed.
I wasn’t focusing on them anymore though, instead having discovered my sister.
‘Amelia, are you okay?’
‘Michael?’ she replied, sounding surprised. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. They have mom and dad somewhere else. They’ve told our parents that you might have seen something you weren’t supposed to, and that our whole family might be in danger. Basically, like you got mixed up in a terrorist attack or something.’
‘Do you know which building our parents are in?’ I asked, glancing at the phone again. All three signals were in the same spot, with Amelia being in a different building entirely.
‘I asked a guy a few hours ago, and he lied of course, but in his head he knew they were at a different location a few miles south of here.’
Thanks to the GPS map, I had an idea of which way that was. But, when I looked, I didn’t see anything in the distance. When I didn’t respond right away, Amelia spoke up again.
‘Michael, how did you even find me?’
‘My phone. It was on the porch. You didn’t leave it there?’
She sounded even more confused. ‘Umm, no. I didn’t.’
So then, it must have been the future version of herself who did it. Honestly, I shouldn’t have been too surprised considering what we’d seen so far from my sister already, but I wasn’t about to point it out now. For all I knew, they might have her in a room with a camera, ready to witness something strange happen to her, even if they weren’t necessarily anticipating it.
Unexpectedly, Amelia’s tone was urgent. ‘Michael…the police never gave your phone back.’
Miriam’s head immediately snapped towards me, the two of us staring at each other with wide eyes in disbelief.
If what my sister just said was true, then that could only mean…
Sensing something behind me, I twisted around in the air, just in time to see a shaft of metal slam into my chest, the world around us exploding with fire.
Chapter 12: Rescue
Well…
Sending a missile our way wasn’t the friendliest greeting that I could think of. But at least that confirmed one thing – the military had set us up. They planted my phone – or a replica of it – in an easily spotted location, and led us here.
And, although the phone in my hand was now destroyed thanks to the explosion, the GPS would have allowed them to know exactly where we were, giving them information on our speed of travel. Not that they had any idea what we were fully capable of.
I had no doubt I could outfly a missile, or even a bullet. The only problem was acceleration – going from a stationary position to a faster-than-a-bullet speed took a few seconds.
I glanced down to see one of Miriam’s midnight bony wings sticking in front of me, her body instinctively trying to protect mine even though she knew it wouldn’t have harmed me.
I then met her gaze, seeing a hint of frustration in her crimson eyes.
‘No point in getting upset at ants,’ I said to calm her down.
Her eyes narrowed just slightly before she nodded, letting out an exasperated breath, beginning to drop her altitude in the sky. Jericho and I both followed, with the angelic demon not even being phased by the explosion, instead just being confused at first by what hit us, not knowing what a missile was – at least, until I explained the basics.
I didn’t get far though, since Amelia interrupted my thoughts.
‘Michael?!’ my sister’s frantic voice called out to me. ‘Are you alright? It sounded like a bomb just went off!’
‘Yeah, we’re fine,’ I reassured her, giving my attention back to Miriam. ‘So, what’s the plan?’
She was focusing on the base still far below. ‘There are soldiers inside, and now we know they’re probably ready for war. I say we just walk in and get your sister. They can shoot us all they want – it’s not going to do any harm. And on the way, I can try to find whoever is in charge and tell them how it is.’
Jericho unexpectedly interjected. ‘I…I think I’ll wait on you two,’ she said, her mental tone nervous. When be both looked at her, she quickly continued. ‘It’s just that you’re about to break the law by showing yourselves to a lot of humans, and maybe the two of you won’t get in trouble if the other Rulers disagree, but…’ Her voice trailed off.
‘It’s fine,’ Miriam quickly replied. ‘We’d protect you of course. But after what you’ve been through, I completely understand. And we really don’t need the extra help anyway.’
Jericho nodded, her icy eyes tight.
‘It really is okay,’ I added reassuringly, only to direct my attention to Miriam again. ‘But Jericho might have a point. Should we consider asking your father at least?’
Miriam shook her head. ‘No, because we don’t have time. Sure, with your warping ability we could get there fast enough, but let’s say he disagrees – then what? We still need to speak with your sister privately as soon as possible. We don’t have the luxury of waiting for the military to release her on their own. We have no idea when the world is ending – it might be tomorrow, maybe today. For all we know, the universe might be a ticking time bomb – and we only have an hour left.’
‘Well,’ I replied uncomfortably. ‘When you put it like that…’
Jericho began to climb higher in the atmosphere at the same time that Miriam and I stopped slowing our descent. The two of us began plummeting straight down, freefalling for almost half a minute before landing hard in the middle of one of the parking lots, the concrete rupturing into a web of fractures.
Our bodies had no difficulties handling the impact.
Of course, we could have slowed down first, but the problem was the means by which we reduced our speed – radiation.
And if we were going to do this without harming these humans, then that also meant we’d have to be conscientious of how much radiation we were releasing from our bodies. Otherwise, we’d end up killing everyone without lifting a finger.
I kept pace with Miriam as she began heading towards our objective a couple of buildings away, walking at a brisk pace, rather than running. While we certainly weren’t going to bend to the whims of the humans, we also didn’t want to appear overly threatening. Though that wasn’t to say we were going to hide either.
Both of us were on full display, our horns and wings clearly visible for all to see – no illusion to mask our appearance.
On the way, I gave Amelia a rundown of what we were doing.
Of course, she had her reservations, concerned that us revealing ourselves like this was a bad idea, but I just laid out the facts – they already knew about us, they
already thought we were enough of a threat to attack without warning, and they needed to be made aware that they were powerless against us.
That was just how it was.
She still complained, but I ignored her after that, not wanting to provoke her future-self into saying something.
The moment we walked up a set of concrete steps, with Miriam yanking open a pair of locked metal doors, gunfire filled our ears as bullets pelted us like someone had sprayed us with a hose. One bullet even hit me in the eye right away, the crushed metal not even provoking an urge to blink in response. Honestly, a human taking an actual shower was probably more harmful than this meager assault.
But damn, the military must sincerely believe we were a threat, because they weren’t even stopping to ask questions. It made me wonder if they were hoping to kill one of us for study, rather than attempt to negotiate or something.
Granted, I supposed we’d know soon enough, once we found whoever was in charge.
We continued to walk down the hall at a steady pace, forcing the men in the hallway to begin backing up as they continued to fire without cease. Miriam was scanning their minds, locating the highest person in charge at this particular facility, deciding she’d go for him while I went for my sister.
Not wanting to waste any more time, I abruptly dodged forward, using only my physical strength to propel myself twenty feet down the hall, while my massive hand-like wings jerked around me, meticulously slicing through their guns.
I was a little concerned I might actually hurt one of them, but they moved so slow in comparison that it wasn’t a problem.
Shrieks and curses filled the small space as I stood right in the middle of them, with one idiot grabbing a grenade and tossing it at me, prompting another wave of harsh curses from everyone else who understood just how lethal of a mistake that had been.
As fast as lightning, I snatched the grenade out of the air, and held it in my hands in front of my chest, leaving a small opening facing away from me – away from them – the explosion firing down the hall like a cannon.
All of them fell to the floor, half deaf from the noise, but no one seemed truly injured.
As I rubbed my hands together to get the debris off, Miriam strode up behind me and we were on our way again.
Through the next doorway, we then went separate directions, with me taking another hallway on the left, while she headed straight.
Amelia could hear the noise from the room they had her in, being relieved when I reassured her that no one was hurt, including myself.
I stopped in front of the metal door concealing her and tried the handle. Of course, it was locked, so I decided to make a show of it by slamming my fingers into the crack at the top, breaking the concrete wall and bending the metal, hoping those who saw the damage later would get the hint.
Peeling away the door partially before the bolt broke through the wall, I effortlessly yanked it open to see Amelia sitting upright on a black leather couch, with the only other furniture in the room being a low coffee table full of magazines. There was also a bottle of water and a bag of uneaten chips sitting next to an empty paper tray with two bites of a sandwich left.
“Wow, you look comfy,” I commented.
She grimaced. “Are you sure about this?”
“Very. Now, let’s get going. I might be bulletproof, but you’re not, so I’d rather get you out of here before any more soldiers show up.”
Amelia automatically grabbed the gold ring on her pinkie finger, her fingertips just barely lingering on it like she was ready to pull it off. I knew the normal piece of jewelry bottled up her psychic power for some reason, but even she didn’t know why. And she always got a headache when she tried to remember who had given it to her.
‘I could be bulletproof,’ she said in her thoughts.
‘You don’t know that for sure,’ I countered, though I knew it was an assumption. ‘Either way, let’s not risk it. We don’t want them to find out you’re special too.’
“Okay,” she obliged out loud, dropping her hands and walking up to my side.
We both then headed back into the hallway, with me placing my hand on her shoulder to keep her a little in front of me, though still off to the side.
She complained after a moment. “Umm, that kind of hurts.”
I looked down at her in surprise. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize I was squeezing.” Honestly, I wasn’t squeezing. At least, not in my perception. I supposed I really needed to be careful – even more so than I would have initially assumed.
“That’s better,” she added when I relaxed my hand more.
I didn’t really want to remain inside the building for long, having zero desire for another confrontation with humans, so when we came to a point where we’d have to go left or right, I chose neither. Instead, I had my sister wait for a moment while I just walked through the concrete wall. She then followed me into an office, as I walked through another wall, followed by one more, breaking out into the parking lot again.
This side of the building had nicer landscape compared to where we had entered, with a nice lush strip of grass and bushes going in each direction.
Miriam was just finishing up as well, having gotten the information she wanted from the person in charge at this location, so she took my lead in busting through the walls, coming out on a different side and running around the corner to meet us.
She hadn’t messed around with the guy, just barging into the area he was holed up, dropping him to the floor as she peered harshly into his mind while a few others shot her, and then checked a few additional soldiers’ heads before leaving.
I gently used my grip on my sister to turn her around to face me as Miriam came into sight.
“I need you to close your eyes,” I said, having already considered possible travel options with Miriam. We couldn’t just fly out of here, because even if my sister appeared to be immune to the effects of radiation, thanks to her abilities, we didn’t know that for absolute certainty. And even if she would be fine, there was also the chance we could be hit with another missile while airborne, which meant the safest getaway from here was the fastest one we had available.
One that would change our scenery in the blink of an eye.
“Wait. What?” Amelia said in surprise.
“Just trust me,” I replied, gently grabbing her underneath the armpits and lifting her off her feet.
“Michael,” she complained. “I trust you, but nothing good ever happens when someone says, ‘Close your eyes.’ What are you going to do?”
I gave her a look as Miriam stepped behind me and reached up to wrap her arms around my neck, pulling herself off her feet with ease.
‘Want me to hold her so you can concentrate?’ she asked, easily being capable of clinging to me with her extra appendages while using her hands to hold the fragile human like I was.
‘Nah, I’ll be fine.’
‘We need to hurry. Some soldiers are coming around the side.’
‘Right,’ I agreed.
I knew my sister was waiting for a response, but I just continued to give her a look instead, knowing it would be ironically faster than repeating myself.
“Okay, fine, fine!” she grumbled, closing her eyes as I’d asked.
I chuckled as I pulled her right up to my chest, still holding underneath her armpits, her forehead resting against my chin.
“There they are!” someone called out from my right.
Instantly, the space around us became warped, the world becoming concave as our surroundings disappeared in less than a second. We arced upwards at first, with no sensation of movement, only for me to bring us back down, reappearing just above the ground in some random forest far away.
Part of the grass and pavement from where we had been was below my feet, indicating I’d taken a chunk of it with me. And, considering I was expanding space to move, I also wondered what the ground I’d left behind would look like – had it exploded from the expansion?
Jericho was still back where we left her, but she was far too high to see our departure. She knew I’d be coming to get her in a moment though…because I had sort of told her…even despite the distance…
So she stayed where she was.
Miriam also knew I’d be going back for her, since Jericho’s involvement was possibly an aspect of the plan we’d formulated – depending on whether she wanted to stay out of this next part, or not. My love would then take care of my sister, while Jericho and I would be taking care of other business, the two of us serving as a show of force. I figured it would also help for the humans to see a less demonic looking Ryujin.
Alternatively, I just wasn’t sure how Miriam was going to react to me letting her know that I could speak to Jericho even though we were more than a mile apart…and more than fifty miles apart at this point…so I decided I’d wait until we had the luxury to discuss things not related to the world ending.
Granted, then again, I had done the same with her father while I was still human, reaching his mind despite an exorbitant distance between us, so maybe this wasn’t as unique as it would have been for a normal Ryujin.
“Okay, you can open your eyes now,” I told my sister.
Amelia did so, only for her emerald gaze to widen in shock as I carefully set her down. “What? Where? How?” she stammered in disbelief.
“I’ll explain later,” I promised, not entirely sure if I was going to keep that one.
I focused on Miriam, quickly exchanging information telepathically with her, as well as confirming the available ideas on what to do from here. It only took a couple of seconds to decide on a more solid plan.
My gaze returned to my sister. “Miriam is going to ‘borrow’ a car and drive you close to Riley’s house. We need to talk with you about something privately, and then you can–”
“Riley?” Amelia interrupted. “Are you sure? I don’t really want to get her involved with this.”
“I don’t either,” I agreed. “But I’m going to go and try to fix this little problem. We know who to talk to now, to get them to leave our family alone.”
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