I took out a dagger and the flashlight from my backpack while I waited for Icestar to get back. He was struggling a bit underneath the weight of the oil, but that would get easier as we went further down stairs. You know, since there would be less oil inside the container.
“Should we do it up here?” I asked.
“Nah, I’m just going to do a light trail for it to ignite from.” I glanced behind him and saw the shiny brown liquid streaming slowly from the back of the container.
“Alright, let’s go.” I took the lead going downstairs. It was pitch dark, and the flashlight didn’t help much. If a demon was down here, we wouldn’t be seeing it.
Luckily, though, we were in hallways mostly. We had gotten to about the middle of the top floor when Ice stopped. “We’ll do this room first,” he said, lightly nudging a door to the right. The door opened easily, and we were greeted by the smell of rotting fruit.
“Someone forgot to take out the garbage,” I muttered as Ice went past me, trailing oil the entire way. He left a giant puddle in the entry room, easy for the demons to access. We also left the door open when we exited.
We proceeded in a similar manner down to the thirty-seventh floor before we felt like we were going to collapse. “How far down do we gotta go?” I asked while I leaned against the wall. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought the huge book with me.
Icestar leaned next to me, letting the container sink to the ground with oil still trickling out. “Far enough so that demons can definitely sniff out the oil, though I’m halfway out. It’s a good thing that Earth’s technology has created hover plates, else we would’ve been out a hell of a long time ago.”
I nodded my head; even with the hover plate, the oil container had to be heavy. I checked my watch that had been programmed to Beijing time. It was nearly five o’clock “Well, we aren’t getting much accomplished just standing here.” I repositioned the straps of my backpack and started back down the hall, my flashlight making zigzagging motions in the dark. I heard Ice laugh behind me before his footsteps started echoing mine.
By the twenty-fifth floor I was starting to wonder why there was a lack of demons. I’d think that they would’ve loved this place; no humans to mess with them, and plenty of exposed metal and gas from the outdated stoves. Neither Ice nor I said much while we continued leaving the toxic path; even if we couldn’t see the demons, it would be foolish to assume that none were there. This wasn’t the time to be idiots and let the adversary know our position from sound.
We were going down another flight of stairs when I heard something thump against a wall. I slightly turned and pressed my arm against Icestar’s chest so that he didn’t run into me. “Wait,” I barely murmured as I continued down the stairs, my boots hardly making a whisper of sound against the worn concrete.
I flicked my flashlight off. My eyes didn’t need to adjust much to the new darkness before I could tell that a door was open toward the end of the hall. I slipped down to it, keeping myself pressed against the wall and checking every door to make sure they weren’t open also. I held my breath once I was next to the doorframe of the opened room. I slowly edged my head around to look inside and saw two demons circling each other, teeth bared and mangy fur hackled. A large, dead rat was tossed to the side and I assumed that was what they were fighting over.
I turned back out of the room and crouched down, switching the dagger to my right hand while flickering the flashlight on and off two times with my left, each burst of light signaling the presence of one demon to my partner.
From the end of the hall I saw a beam of light that went straight up for three counts then turned off, and then it flashed twice. Icestar understood and was coming to meet me down here. I rolled my eyes; guys always thought they needed to be where the action was, especially if a girl might be in trouble.
I waited until Icestar was in my sight before I turned my back to him. One of his knees cracked as he crouched next to me and I winced, but the growling on the other side of the wall didn’t cease. He eased the container down in front of him on the ground.
“Plan?” he whispered.
“Let me handle it.” I turned back to him and reached into his hoodie pocket and pressed the butt of his gun into his free hand. “Only interfere if I need it.” This time Icestar was the one rolling his eyes.
I placed my flashlight on the floor and pulled out the revolved that I had strapped to my ankle with my left hand. I took a breath then stood and spun in front of the door with one fluid motion, releasing two quick rounds into the room. The first struck true and caught a demon in the chest, making it stumble back a few feet before collapsing, but the second soared over the other’s head and broke the window, letting sunlight stream in that had been barricaded by years of dirt and grime on the glass.
The demon turned toward me and smiled. “Thanksss,” it hissed, “you havvve made it easssier for me by killing him, and havvve brought me a tassstier meal than the rat!” It lunged at me and I tried firing off another shot but it too missed and I rolled to the right, coming within inches of the wall.
I spun around and held my dagger back up but I was too slow; the demon had already prepared to jump me again and I had no way to go.
“Water duck!” I vaguely heard Ice shout and I obeyed the command by reflex. I heard shots echo and blood spurted from the demon’s chest as it slumped to the ground.
I glanced up at Ice and saw that he was smirking. I let my features settle into a default glare and shrugged my shoulders. “I had it under control.”
“Right. I’m sure that’s why you were going to let him eat your face.” Ice snickered before going to retrieve the oil container from the hall.
While he was pouring it around the room I leaned back against the wall next to the door, still tense after the fight. “How much further down do you think we should go now that we have spotted demons?”
Icestar shrugged. “We’re on what, the twenty-second floor now? Let’s go down to fifteen just to be safe, and we’ll have Huang dump some oil down the front of the building so that the entrance is definitely smelling of it. If there’s too many demons between here and there, then we’ll turn back sooner, but I want to be on the safe side just in case these two were aberrant.”
“Gotcha,” I pushed off the wall as he turned to leave, proceeding him out the door. We had agreed to stop using the flashlights since they didn’t give much help to our sight and would be a dead giveaway that we were there.
We continued down the hall in silence once again, the padding of Ice’s boots the only noise in the hallway. We poured oil into two more rooms on that floor before we reached another flight of stairs.
“I’ll go down fir-”
“Water, I’m not weak, and I hardly feel the effects from when I was attacked on Calsh. We go down together.”
I turned back to look at him and saw the steel in his eyes, even with them shadowed in darkness. I studied his face for a few more moments before I gave a curt nod. “Together.”
I took the steps slowly, pausing frequently to listen for any noise. There was nothing though, nothing besides the sound of our breathing.
I looked over my shoulder at Ice and he shrugged, slightly nudging me forward. No use just standing in one place when there was stuff to be doing. I shot a glare at him before continuing off of the staircase, still a bit hesitant with the lack of sound.
The first room that we entered on this floor was littered with medical needles and ripped open bags. I glanced at Ice and saw a severe frown on his face as he poured oil over the debris. When he noticed me looking at him he said, “Junkies, they inject the drugs by needle.” I nodded my head curtly. No one used drugs in the Star Rebellion, the terrain and environment were too wild to ever have dulled senses, but I had heard about how it plagued Earth. I never approved of the drug users in the Earth movies.
We continued down the hall and I eventually felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Something wasn’t right. I squinted to try and se
e further down the hall, then shot my arm out to stop Icestar. We both stilled our breathing and that confirmed what my eyes had been telling me.
“I think this might be a good time to go back,” I muttered, my voice pitched higher than I would’ve wanted.
“Yea, I think that’s a good idea… I’ll call Huang while we’re at it.”
We both broke out into a run and I could hear Ice speaking into his headset between puffs of breath. I heard the scraping of claws as the multitude of demons raced after us.
I briefly looked over my shoulder and saw their red eyes winking in the darkness now that they were closer. I stopped and swung around, the revolver already poised to where I wanted to aim. I had placed a new ammo cartridge in after the last fight and shot off a few rounds. I heard plastic cracking and the splash of oil hitting the floor as the bullets found their target; hopefully the oil leakage would stall a few demons.
I only looked back over my shoulder once while running back, and I realized that probably wasn’t the best idea in the world. At the head of the army of demons was a larger, rougher, and more terrifying demon. It had fangs like tusks, wickedly curved claws, and steaming breath that I could see even in the shadowed hallway. Its muzzle was pulled back in what appeared to be a permanent snarl and a scar ran from its left temple to right jaw.
It also possessed two eyes, something I hadn’t seen in any but one demon yet, and that one had almost killed me.
I easily caught back up with Icestar who was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. “Go!” I shouted while pushing him up. Why the hell had he waited for me?
We charged up the stairs, any stiffness in my legs was only a memory as adrenaline pumped through my veins. After the seventh flight of stairs; however, things started getting tougher.
“Water, I don’t think we’re going to make it to the top,” Ice said, gasping for air while I slammed yet another staircase door behind us and shot the lock. I had developed a method that made the metal in the lock puncture the wooden door, jamming it shut. I could hear the demons already making it up the stairs.
I quickly did the math. We should be on the twenty-ninth floor now, which meant that we had over twenty more floors to run up. Yea, that wasn’t a pleasant idea. Too bad this was an abandoned building and the elevators didn’t work.
“Just keep running, I’ll figure something out,” I said and pushed him forward. A demon was already scrabbling against the door, though the broken lock was proving to me more of an issue than previously. I really hoped it wasn’t the intimidating one I had seen in the lead. Maybe it had broken some claws off on the other doors. Damn did I hope so.
By the thirty-second floor I was puffing as much as Ice, and was down to my last pack of ammo. We hadn’t heard the demons in a while, but we still weren’t slowing down.
“Get Huang on the headset.” I suddenly veered to the side and opened a door.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ice asked as he stopped running and tracked back to where I was inside the room.
“Get Huang!” I commanded.
I closed the door behind us and shot a bullet into its lock then fired a few shots into the window. I heard Ice stutter into the headset in surprise.
A few seconds later he handed the headset to me.
“Huang?”
“What’s happened?” The Chinese man’s voice wavered a little.
“Did you see where the bullets shot out of the window?”
“Yes….” I think he realized what I wanted to do.
“Lower ropes there, we’ve had a bit of an issue down here.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll see what I can do.” Before the line got disconnected I could hear him already shouting commands to the copilot.
“Water?”
“Don’t ask.”
Chapter 17: For Mother Russia
FIRESTAR
I stumbled out of the portal and felt Darkstar collide into me; we both tumbled to the ground in a heap of flailing limbs. The sword on my back kept me from being able to maneuver well in the cramped space, and even I was starting to question its practicality. Too late though; Water would skin me alive if I didn’t return we the huge sword. Dark and I eventually managed to sit up and take in our surroundings.
The sun was already making its way into the air, but morning dew still coated the ground. According to what Arctic had told us earlier, it should be about seven in the morning in St. Petersburg, which I am assuming that’s where we were.
In our immediate vicinity there were concrete walls. And the portal we had just come through.
“Nice scenery, eh?” I joked with Darkstar who had already stood up. He looked down at me and rolled his eyes before offering me a hand up.
“Yes, it has a very modern, rugged concrete look to it,” he said with a smile before walking up to the steel door that was the only break among the uniformity of the closed in area. As he knocked on it, I looked to the sky and could see a colored dome peeking over the side of the building that the door belonged to. Well that wasn’t normal.
The door was opened by a man in a suit. He was tall and broad in the chest, someone you wouldn’t want to be on the bad side of. He had pale hair and almost clear, blue eyes along with a short beard that bristled across his chin.
Darkstar put on his political smile. “Hello, I am Darkstar and my companion is Firestar. Commander Arctic has sent us to see Mister Moscow.”
The man glared down at us for a second but Dark’s smile didn’t break. The man eyed the hilt of my sword poking over a shoulder. I could tell that Dark wasn’t using any of his power… yet.
“Come in, then. I will send someone to tell him that you have arrived; is there a specific message that you would like him to be told?” The man’s voice had a thick, burly accent, which made me think the Russian language was coarse and intimidating compared to English.
“We have urgent business, that is all.” Dark and I followed the man into the room and he motioned for us to have a seat before pressing a button near his desk. The room had a couple of comfy couches around a glass table in the center and lots of lamps for lighting, though very few windows. There was a bowl of mixed nuts on the table and I took out a handful to munch on.
A few minutes later a man who looked strikingly similar to the first walked in. They whispered together briefly before he left once again at a brisk pace, never even once glancing at us.
My leg started bouncing in impatience until Dark placed a hand at my shoulder and briefly shook his head before mouthing the word “professional”. I nodded my head and forced myself to appear stoic even though I was racing with energy.
I was left sitting rigid for a few more minutes when the shrill ring of a telephone broke the silence and made me jump. Dark glared at me but it was only halfhearted; I doubt the man who had let us enter the building noticed my surprise.
The man murmured into the phone for less than a minute before he placed it back down on his desk. “President- I mean Mister Moscow is ready to meet with you.”
Dark and I stood simultaneously and followed him out of the room. The man kept his posture straight as a board which made me self consciously straighten mine. I could see Darkstar trying not laugh at me from the corner of my eye and I barely hit him, trying to keep the noise to a minimum.
We were led up three flights of stairs before he stopped at an elevator and pressed the up button. The doors opened automatically and once we were inside, he stood so that his body blocked us from seeing the buttons he pressed on the keypad. Apparently this building was so secure that you needed a pass-code just to use an elevator.
I watched the number display increase until we reached the twelfth floor, and then the elevator stopped with a ding. When the doors opened, our guide stayed inside, though he did briefly nod us in the direction we were supposed to go. Not once had he smiled the entire time we had been there. Damn were the Russians friendly.
A stout man was sitting behind a large, wooden desk with his fingers te
nted on top of it. “You are different,” he said in the same, thick accent as the other man. He also looked at my sword, but with less worry than his secretary. I wondered if there were hidden, armed men in the room.
“Sir, may I inquire to what you mean?” Dark asked, stepping in front of the desk and holding his hands clasped behind his back. I tried to mimic his pose but I doubt it had the same professional air that Darkstar had managed.
“The last person to be sent for me was a young girl named Snowstar, and before her a young man by the name of Foreststar. He I liked. She was as cold as her name, though not lacking in social etiquette. Foreststar liked to have a good political joke every once in awhile. Now, what may your names be?”
“I am Darkstar while my companion is Firestar. We were part of Team Mystic.” I could see Dark’s eyes barely narrow as he said our old team’s name; apparently he was testing this man’s reaction to that.
“Ah yes, I remember now. A few years back, your Commander Arctic had informed us at the council meeting. Tell me, is your world also swarming with demons?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But Arctic has been able to spare you two to come talk to me?”
“Yes, sir. There are important matters that we must attend to before anything… extravagant happens.” Darkstar offered a polite smile at the end of this. Damn did I wish I could tell what the hell he was thinking. I have never really seen Dark in action before; I had always just thought that he turned on his power, gave a command, then poof! People did as he commanded. Apparently the ruffle with the doctor wasn’t how he normally operated.
“By extravagant I am going to guess you mean the bombs?” Moscow smiled and sat back, but I doubted that it was a friendly smile. Seemed more like the type of smile Water gets when she has some devious plan up her sleeve.
“That is precisely what I mean. Now, would you like to conduct the negotiation here, or would you like to bring in some of your advisers and constitute it in a conference room?”
Star Rebellion Page 23
