I dove next to the altar while the two gunmen stood up with fires dancing across their shoulders. I heard their footsteps circle around the table, one was checking left, the other right. The fire didn’t seem to bother them, meaning they had talents like mine, they were possessed. My katana was the only means of killing them. It wasn’t enchanted like Brianna’s stuff however, meaning they might come back in another body, a risk I had to take.
I saw the gunman on the left approach, I pounced on him driving the tip of my blade through his face, splattering blood, bits of flesh and brain tissue out the exit wound. His partner reacted by shooting, I reacted by using my new deceased target as a body shield. I felt his body vibrate violently six times after six bangs.
Click, click, click.
He was out of bullets.
I took hold of his friend’s pistol, kicked his body aside, and aimed at the panicking gunman trying to reload.
Pistol in one hand, katana in the other, flames all around me, and my own blood forming a tiny puddle below me. It didn’t get any more badass than that.
I put two bullets through his fucking skull and laughed as I heard the blood spray across the floor.
I felt my talents increase in power again. Death and destruction makes me stronger.
And it was that realization that caused another person to laugh and applaud my actions. My gunshot wound continued to hemorrhage as I heard footsteps move toward me. Out from the darkness and fires stepped the naked vixen, her goat mask was burning, otherwise she was fine. She too was like me.
She tore the mask off her face and allowed her long, red hair to become free and glide down across her bare bottom.
“Lexi, I should have known,” I said, limping away from her, and applying pressure to my wound.
“It’s time you took your place, Reika.” Lexi smiled as the ceiling above her began to crumble, spraying tiny embers across her body.
I had mixed feelings. Lexi was a threat last time I checked, yet she got me out of the chair and didn’t ambush me when she had the chance. Schubert and his lackeys did mention something about her switching sides. She used me to get rid of her enemies, but the question was, why me? She was stronger and clearly infiltrated this place long before I arrived. Was it a way for her to force me to view her as an ally? Because if that was the case I got news for her, I don’t give a fuck about her or Lucifer, they all had to go.
Ignoring the pain and need for medical attention, I stood quickly, readied my katana with one hand, and held the pistol to her face with the other. Lexi folded her hands together, conjuring lines upon line of streaming water that circled around her body.
I sprinted after her emptying the clip of the pistol before dropping it and using both hands to brandish my katana. I saw the palm of Lexi’s hand aim in my general direction. I was knocked back into the hard walls by an immense water jet that ended whatever flames it touched, including my own. I remained lying face down in a puddle of water, I saw it become murky with the redness of my blood.
In the reflection of the water, I saw Lexi’s body above me, her wings sprouted out from her back as her immaculate red hair waved about. You know it’s time to give up when you get smacked up by a nineteen-year-old woman wearing nothing but high heel shoes.
Chapter Twenty
I awoke to the sight of a white ceiling, mocking me for my failed attempt at being a heroic figure before my distorted vision. My body sank into a sea of puffy blankets on top of a soft bed, way too soft for my liking. It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe at times. Too much energy was plucked away from me as well as my talents. It was like I was back in the hospital before my surgery, when I was still a normal human.
I heard voices blabber off to the side, a man and woman. It took me five minutes to muster up enough strength to tilt my head over to see who else had been in the room with me. It was a blur of two people, one standing next to something that looked like a door, the other was closer to me. One of them had what looked like long red hair—
Lexi.
Okay she was one of them, who was the other?
My vision slowly began to clear up, a dark-skinned man wearing a thick fall coat. Was it Gabe? I couldn’t confirm it as he stepped out of the room and out of sight. I tried to get a better look at the room I was in. It didn’t appear to be a hospital room. I’ve been in those long enough to know what the standard layout was. The bed was something you’d find in someone’s place of residence, there were large windows up front, like the floor to ceiling kind of windows. What was beyond them was a question I’d have to ask later. I ended up passing out when the pain in my body began to flare up. Too much looking around, not enough resting.
I woke up an hour later at least that’s what it felt like. I sat up from the bed and tried to get a better idea of where I was, and holy shit, did that hurt. It was dark, the only source of light came from New York’s skyline that appeared before the windows I was musing about earlier. I was in a bedroom, judging by the nightstand, dressers, mirror, closet door, and such.
I looked down and noticed someone had removed my clothes, replacing them with a long shirt; a blood soaked one at that. Crude bandages dressed my belly and arm which was leaking blood into the once pristine white blanket. I felt a wave of worry in my thoughts. I had been shot and taken to, well, not a doctor or hospital. That’s a good way to make me bleed out and die.
I had escaped a lot of near-death situations as of late, and I couldn’t help but wonder… perhaps this was going to be the one fiasco I wasn’t going to walk away from. Was this really going to be the end of my journey? To bleed out and die on a nice comfy bed, staining it, and everything on it, red.
The door leading into the room creaked open, yellow light from what was beyond shone in, illuminating a slim petite figure. She didn’t give me the heads-up she was going to flick the light switch on after I had been in the darkness for so long.
My fucking eyes!
I waited for my eyes to adjust to the change in light levels before facing the person that sat on the bed next to me, brushing their cold hands across my short, dyed, blonde hair. “Where am I?” I asked.
“My host’s place of residence.” It was Lexi. I took another gaze at the room since the light gave me a better glimpse of it. Its design was consistent with Lexi’s penthouse suite, this was her bedroom, or a spare one, and my insides had made one hell of a mess of the place.
I looked at the demon-possessed girl who looked right back at me with her alluring succubus eyes, a lock of her red hair covering part of her left face. “Of all the places in this city why here?”
“Where else could I have taken you?” Good question, last time I checked there was still an APB on me. And the last time I was admitted to the hospital… well you know. “My return ability will only allow me to travel here anyways.”
I cocked an eyebrow and winced. “Return?”
The hand that had been brushing across my forehead slithered down across the back of my head then down my neck, its icy touch sending subtle trembles through my body, triggering the formation of goose bumps. Her touch slowed once it reached my upper back and gently stroked the grooves where my spine was.
She directed my attention ahead where bolts of purple and black energy danced in a rectangular formation. The long rectangle resembled a door made of magical power in which the living room of her penthouse suite was visible within its center. She cast the portal away and forced it to reappear next to the windows of the bedroom with the exact same results.
“My host’s thoughts felt at peace here,” she said as she continued to stroke my back, sending warming comforting vibes into my spine. “Whenever I use that power it will always carry me here.”
Well that would explain how she was able to escape on the subway without anyone in the city seeing her. She must have used this return portal talent to come back here in an area that lacked decent security camera coverage.
“Handy talent,” I said as she flicked her wrist causing the ne
wly formed doorway to vanish. “What would it take for me to learn it?”
Lexi pointed to the blood-soaked top I wore. “You’re dying; you need to learn how to heal yourself first.”
“I’d say take me to the hospital but both you and I know what happened the last time I went.”
“You possess our magic and therefore can heal your own wounds as long as you are relaxed and uninterrupted.”
“You running your mouth off right now is an interruption, is it not?”
“It is.” Lexi sat up and walked to the door putting an end to the hypnotic vibes her hand on my back was giving me. “Please find it in you to learn the skill… or talent as you call them. I don’t want to have to explain to the authorities why your dead body is in one of my rooms.”
Lexi stopped in front of the door, her hand hovered next to the light switch while she gazed back at me. At first, I thought she had something else to add, but no words emerged from her maroon-colored lips. I couldn’t read her at all, she simply looked at me with a neutral face for a solid six to seven seconds.
My body language made it perfectly clear I had nothing more to say, so it was doubtful she was waiting for me to say something. Her gaze ended three seconds later when she flicked the light switch off and she disappeared into the rest of the suite beyond.
I was once again alone and shrouded in darkness as I lowered my aching and dying body back onto the surface of the bed. Lexi not being around for the time being was, concerning. Like something important to my wellbeing and survival was taken away. She knew about this self-healing talent, a talent that was going to determine whether I lived or died, and she wasn’t there to guide me, teach me, and show me what I had to do to unlock it.
I tried thinking about my wounds, tried to visualize them sealing up magically. Nothing happened. Hours slipped away as more of my blood slipped out of my body, and with the loss of hope came further loss over the control of my talents. I couldn’t even spark a tiny flame to light a cigarette if I wanted to.
Fuck me, I could have gone one. One last puff before I faded away from the world.
After the second hour, I gave up, right as Lexi returned, switching the lights back on, burning my eyes. “I’m… still here,” I groaned with what little life I had left. “If that’s what you’re wondering.”
Lexi’s hand glided down my arms, its comforting aura radiated away sending a warm feeling into my chest. “You’re still injured.”
“And I’m painting this bed red with my insides… sorry about that. Got any… tips?”
Lexi’s icy hands moved across my eyelids, forcing them to shut. “Sleep.” Were the last words I remembered her say.
My eyes opened again.
I wasn’t in Lexi’s room.
Or anywhere on Earth for that matter.
Chapter Twenty-One
I stood on an invisible surface amongst the stars. Ahead of me was the shape of a pentagram with five glittering visions that hovered above the pentagram’s tips. The tip I stood at had a ball of fire, burning calmly like a fireplace while the remaining four tips of the pentagram had other orbs on them. A yellow orb with blowing leaves surrounding it, wind. A green orb covered in jungle vines, earth, a blue orb that looked like water floating in space, water. And the final orb, an emerald sphere. Five tips of the pentagram, five elemental representations.
The lines of the pentagram glowed as I walked across. It was like a bridge taking me to the rest of its shape. Call me crazy, but I was certain I awoke in this realm at the fire element for a reason. That was the only elemental talent I was able to use. The other elements at the tips of the shape… they were of the type Lexi, Lucifer, and other demons had used. This trance, whatever it was, must have been the source of their power, the place where one traveled to tap into other talents.
I continued to walk across the pentagram, leaving the raging fire orb behind, traveling to the wind element. The longer I remained in this area, the more I was able to gain a better sense of the gifts each of the five elements could provide me. My teleportation talents had a link to the emerald orb at the top of the pentagram, the spirit element, while my fire ones obviously linked with fire. I approached the wind orb. It had a number of talents that seemed pretty handy, but none of them were of the healing nature. My search continued.
The water element was next up on my trek across the pentagram. Once again, the lines of it began to glow as I walked across. The blue orb of floating water waved about in the darkness, and I sensed the list of talents that were associated with it as I neared. There was a soothing nature to this element, almost helpful rather than offensive like the wind and fire elements. I approached the water orb where a listing of possible magical talents beamed into my head. I grinned, realizing the self-healing one Lexi had mentioned was there, amongst others.
I reached out and touched the orb and shut my eyes to absorb the self-healing talent from it. That was why I came here, right? Or was I just obtaining something to fulfill the needs of a dream, a dream that wasn’t even real.
I was denied my gift.
“Wind is the link between fire and water,” I heard Lexi’s voice echo in my ears.
And looking back I saw what she had meant.
The glowing path I made when I walked along the pentagram lines from fire to wind remained active, the lines from wind to water vanished. I backtracked to the wind orb to try to solve the puzzle.
“You need to keep going, you are almost there,” I heard her speak again, it startled me.
“Can you not be in my head?”
“You wanted a guide, yes?”
“A guide?”
“You need to keep going, you are almost there.”
The blowing images of leaves in the wind appeared once I approached the wind orb, and I recalled what Lexi said. Wind stood between fire and water, or some shit like that.
The pentagram path from fire to the wind orb was lit. Okay, that was a good thing.
Wind to the blue rippling waves of the water orb wasn’t, however. And I needed to figure out why that was the case.
I embraced the wind orb and saw images play before my eyes. It looked like me using all sorts of wind-based talents, summoning gale force winds, forcing lightning bolts to crash down beside me, shit, this looked badass. The orb gave me knowledge and the skill to use a new talent of the wind element. I wasn’t sure exactly what the talent was, it seemed I didn’t have much of a choice as to which talent I would learn.
“Okay, now what?”
“There’s nothing more I can do,” she said. “I’ve given you everything I can to help you.”
A refreshing breeze of air blew past me, scattering my short hair. I about-faced and saw the line leading to the water orb had begun to shine and glow, the path was unlocked. I needed a wind talent to gain access to the water orb, makes sense. I ran rather than walked back to the orb.
“Reika, you’re close", Lexi's voice said. "Embrace the water element. It’s your only means of survival.”
I held the water orb in my hands as I approached and was given the gift I was denied before attuning to the wind orb.
The ever-elusive self-healing talent.
Suddenly Lexi appeared behind me from a column of glittering sparkles. She was naked as before with the goat’s mask on her head, high heels on her feet, and the urn full of blood in her hands. She lifted the urn up and dumped its contents above her head, coating her body with its shining red contents that showered off her alluring feminine curves. Her hands rested upon my chest, spreading the blood that soaked it onto me. She was painting my whole body with it, stroking my breasts in the process. Our noses pressed against one another, while Lexi teased my body by gliding her finger tips down across my chest moving to my thighs.
"I own you," she whispered.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Long ago when I was a little girl, my grandfather told me stories about the Oni, Japanese demons, and ninjas, some of who had the ability to use ninjutsu to heal the
mselves after combat. Folklore had also claimed that ninjas were descendants of people who were half-human and half-demon. There were even some stories that claimed there were ninjas who were straight-up demons that also had access to ninjutsu.
Given recent events, I was inclined to believe there was some truth to grandfather’s stories. The Oni, Lexi, succubi, Lucifer, Emily… the demonology of the world must all be connected some way or another. The healing talent I recently gained could very well have been the healing ninjutsu those ninjas, hundreds of years ago, had used. I wouldn’t be surprised if Emily was able to use something similar. She was in some way a modern-day demon ninja. I called the talent, healing spring, because that’s exactly how I felt as I used it.
An illusion appeared in which I floated above a shimmering river in the middle of a luscious green forest in the middle of nowhere, and in the middle of spring. Mossy rocks lined the edge of the river, and beyond that was fresh, green grass, devoid of any imperfections. Large leafy trees rose above and blocked out just enough sunlight for me not to have to cover my eyes when I looked up.
There were no signs of civilization or animals for that matter. It was just me and the sound of my arms creating blissful waves around my body in its natural form. I felt my wounds seal up as the hours passed, and my strength return to normal. I could have done this all day. And would have too if the illusion hadn’t disintegrated into nothing, sending my body back into Lexi’s room, where in reality, I was lying on blood-stained blankets.
Morning sunlight began to slip up from the towering buildings of New York and shine upon my awaking face. I lifted my top up and peeled off my bandages, it was as if nothing happened to me at all. Even the scars from my existing gunshot wounds had vanished. I sat up and pulled the top up more to get one last look at my fabulous scar-free tattooed body.
Lexi entered… without knocking.
My hands and arms moved with haste to lower the top and sit cross-legged with my hands buried deep in my lap. It was the only piece of clothing I had on, I was practically flashing her as she waltzed in with a meal tray.
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