“Never too busy for some romance, huh, traitor?” Shi’mon smirked.
“Maybe if you weren’t spending all your precious time basking in your new-found glory, you could have had the time for a little bit of love yourself,” replied Yehuda and he instantly regretted his words.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized.
“You two can kill each other later!” Andrew scolded. “Do I have to remind you that we are on a mission? For the Master’s sake, act like bimillennial men, damn it!”
Shi’mon and Yehuda averted their eyes to the ground like two scolded school boys. Andrew then turned around and faced the facility.
“And just out of curiosity,” Andrew said. “Why did she catch a flight when it would have been a lot faster if she just zipped her way here?”
“Because the three of us were running behind,” Yehuda replied with pride.
“I like her even more now,” Andrew said and hi-fived Yehuda. “Good catch, brother!”
Yehuda grinned and Shi’mon rolled his eyes. When it was time for Andrew to go, he turned around and winked at his brothers, who nodded sharply at him.
“I’ll see you two later,” Andrew said with a broad grin. “Assuming you two don’t kill each other when I’m gone.”
They all laughed a little and Andrew separately hugged both men and zipped towards the facility. Five minutes later, Yehuda and Shi’mon rose to their feet.
“Ready?” Shi’mon asked.
“Right behind you, brother,” Yehuda replied.
Shi’mon hesitated at the mention of ‘brother.’ But now was not time.
“Let’s take this place down!” said Shi’mon.
Sasha halted in front of the gate and whistled at one of the guards. He saw her, naked and bloodied, and understood she was one of the creatures in the facility. The soldiers had been given strict orders not to interfere with the affairs of the Bright Eyes; unless, of course, they wanted to end up as dinner. The soldier ran and opened the gate for Sasha.
“Shirt!!” she ordered, gesturing at his shirt.
The guard readily complied. He moved to drape his shirt over Sasha’s body. But as soon as he held the shirt out, it vanished from his hands along with Sasha. A few seconds later, she walked into The Scientist’s lab, as if the lab was hers. The elevators were too slow for her. The Scientist, however, did not take his eyes off the microscope; nor did he even flinch from her sudden intrusion.
“So,” he said, still peering down into the microscope, “I take it you’re the only one who survived?”
Sasha did not reply.
Instead, she stretched out her arm that held out the bloodied piece of cloth. The Scientist took the piece of cloth from her hand and stood up straight. He had thick black hair, a beard that was neat and evenly trimmed to about half an inch, and unless one had known him for a while, he could easily have passed for someone in his late thirties. But he prided himself on being more than half-a-century old. He thought saying his age like that made him sound as cool as a Bright Eye. He was of average build with dangerously seductive eyes; but right now, Sasha was more focused on getting a message across. He studied the bloodied cloth, holding it with latex-gloved hands and gave a slight nod of approval after a few moments.
“You did it!” The Scientist finally said.
“At a huge cost!” she hissed.
“A small price to pay for the greater good!” he rebutted without taking his attention from the piece of bloodied cloth.
“To you, this may just be an experiment! A game!” she glared at him, faking all the anger she could fake. “But to us, this is about living and surviving!”
“And that is exactly what I’m trying to do, Sasha!” he barked at her. “You think I just enjoy watching your kind getting slaughtered? Everything I do is to try to help you out! To erase your weaknesses and give you more joy and peace!”
He paused and breathed in deeply to calm down.
“Wouldn’t you love to walk in the sun once again?”
She averted her eyes to avoid his. He placed the piece of cloth on the table and took a step towards her.
“No, stop!” she said, without backing away.
The Scientist took her in his arms and held her close.
“You could lose the hunger and thirst,” he continued. “Become human again.”
He pulled her gently away from his bosom and looked into her eyes.
“We could finally get to be together, Sasha! You and I, we could-”
“Ahem!” Andrew cleared his throat. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked.
Sasha was grateful for the interruption. She thought she was going to slap The Scientist’s head right off his neck if he kept up his childishness. But that would have spelt her death because The Scientist was under the protection of The Twins.
“No, you are not, Andrew,” replied The Scientist and released Sasha. “I take it you are also the sole survivor?”
“You were right about your predictions on his actions,” Andrew said. “Even though I am no longer human, he was too guilt-ridden to kill me. But even in his weakness, I couldn’t kill him.” He then walked into the lab. “Not for sentimental reasons though. He is just too good!”
“I see,” said The Scientist. “Well, Sasha was successful.” He held up the bloodied piece of cloth. “She brought us a present. I can work with this for now and-”
The Scientist was interrupted by a deafening explosion, and alarms going off throughout the building. The phone in the lab started ringing, and he snatched it off the receiver. After a few seconds, all the color drained from his face as he slammed down the phone started heading for the elevator.
“What’s going on?” Sasha asked, putting on a perfect show of ignorance.
“Two men just breached the facility moving at ‘incredible speed,’” The Scientist said. “The guards are being taken out one-by-one.”
“They’re here then!” said Andrew.
“I must get The Twins,” said The Scientist stepping into the elevator. “Only they can stop these two now.”
The elevator doors closed and began its ascent.
“They’re on their own now,” Andrew said quietly.
“I know they’re your brothers, Andrew,” she whispered. “But if you interfere, then we will compromise our positions.”
“You’re right,” Andrew agreed. “I guess we’ll have to fight them twice in one night huh…” he smiled weakly.
“And no pretense this time around,” she smiled back.
“Agreed,” he replied and then sighed. “Let’s go hunt them down then!” he said, and the two of them zipped away from the lab and towards the sounds of ensuing chaos.
***
The Nazi guards stood no chance against Shi’mon and Yehuda. Heads rolled, and lifeless bodies fell as the two men zipped around the periphery of the facility, leaving nothing but death and destruction in their dance. One of the guards had been able to set off an alarm, but that was alright. They both wanted The Twins to know they were coming and that they did not plan on leaving until the unholy pair had been reduced to piles of ash. Andrew had told them about the prisoners being held up five floors underground in some special chamber. On the ground floor, Shi’mon and Yehuda laid all but one guard to waste. The guard peed himself when Shi’mon lifted him off the ground as if the guard was weightless.
“Where are the prisoners?” Shi’mon asked sternly.
The guard shook his head rapidly.
“Sorry, mein herr,” he managed to say after Shi’mon eased his grip on the guard’s neck just enough for him to talk, but still holding the guard off the ground. “No, understand!”
Shi’mon asked in German. The guard told him. They let the guard go on purpose and watched him scurry away along the corridor. Shi’mon and Yehuda continued down to the fifth floor underground to initiate the prisoners’ liberation, while the guard they had let go ran to alert The Twins; just as Shi’mon and Yehuda hoped the guard would.
***
The Twins stormed past The Scientist without caring to put some clothes on. The anger was so intense that it could knock down the facility itself. As they were about to make a turn down the stairs, the elevator chimed open and a terrified guard stumbled out of it. He smelled of fresh urine, and the front part of his pants was proof of this.
“Your highnesses!” he called out in German
The Twins ignored the soldier. But just when they were about to zip away, they heard him say something about knowing where the intruders were headed. They turned around, walked slowly towards him and ordered for him to repeat himself. The soldier obliged.
“And how do you know this?” asked Dreyko.
The guard knew his end was inevitable. It did not matter whether he was scared speechless or not, The Twins were pissed and someone had to die. Danka moved first. She punched his chest and ripped his heart out, devouring it with such savage gusto that The Scientist smiled wryly. Then, Dreyko picked the guard off the ground and bit into his neck. In a few seconds, the guard looked a very dried out Egyptian mummy, with his uniform hanging loosely from his desiccated remains. The Twin then stared at each other; hatred, anger, and fury mounting between them like a geyser about to explode.
“We’ll meet you in Switzerland,” Dreyko said without looking at The Scientist.
“Go now!” Danka ordered, and they both zipped away.
The Scientist rushed away as fast as he could.
***
“Hurry!” Shi’mon was yelling in various languages to the frightened prisoners.
Yehuda was directing traffic to freedom at the door. The explosives he and Shi’mon had planted at different locations in the facility started going off one-by-one. A prisoner took a moment to express his thanks to Yehuda and Yehuda nodded in affirmation. Just when the last prisoner was leaving the chamber, Shi’mon called out to Yehuda and pointed upwards towards the glass window of the top platform. Yehuda glanced one more time towards the exit to ensure the last prisoner was free before closing the door and stepping into the room to join his brother.
The Twins stood at the window. Danka grinned evilly and Dreyko took a step back. His sister followed suit. Dreyko then began clattering his teeth, and a very high-frequency sound emanated from his throat. Within seconds, the glass partition started moving in a slow, wavy manner as the glass molecules started resonating to the frequency of Dreyko’s clattering teeth. Finally, the glass partition shattered into a million china pieces and Shi’mon and Yehuda shielded their faces from an onslaught of broken glass pieces that hurled towards them. The Twins leaped through the open space and landed at about six meters away from the Shi’mon and Yehuda. Both parties had a brief stare-down, until Yehuda broke the silence.
“So,” he said calmly, “is it really true that you two can’t get your hands off each other?”
He chuckled and continued.
“I’m curious; how do you two do it? Like does he hang upside down and you just turn into the dog that you are and then the sick Kama Sutra begins?”
“I’ll take the one with the big mouth,” Danka said.
“Time to teach them a lesson,” Dreyko said
And then The Twins began their transformation.
Dreyko’s feet expanded and became larger. His toe-nails extended into four inches of curving claws and his calves grew to three times its regular size and become more muscular. His thighs also tripled in size and his musculature stood out as if it had a mind of its own. His stomach and lower ribcage caved inwards. His arms extended past his knees and ended in fingers that had doubled in length, with each finger culminating in a four-inch claw. The rest of his ribs stuck out like those of a badly starved prehistoric creature. His mouth became circular, and his teeth had turned to fangs. Both his lower and upper canines were visibly longer. His nose melted into what looked like a snout. His ears collapsed backward and quadrupled in size. His entire skin turned white and leathery and he collapsed on his hands and knees, arching his back in a hyperbolic curve, as huge, six-foot-long wings burst out from his scapulae.
Meanwhile, Danka was jerking her body randomly as her skeletal structure broke down and rebuilt itself. Her feet shrank and became smaller, and so did her calves. But her knees cracked backward, and her thighs tripled in size and became more muscular. Her stomach collapsed inwards, and her ribs stretched her skin to the point that they threatened to tear through her flesh. Her hands grew larger and longer, and her fingers ended in three-inch claws; her feet and toe-nails did the same. Her lower jaw came apart and extended forward. Her top three vertebrae cracked and realigned themselves so that she appeared to have a longer neck than usual. She collapsed on the ground at the same time as her brother and tens of thousands of thick, white hairs sprang across her body.
When their transformations were complete, they both stood on their hind legs. Danka was completely covered in pure, white fur and stood at eight feet tall. As incredibly terrifying as the sight was, there was a very strange and hypnotic beauty about her physical form. She looked like a most beautiful wolf-like creature on hind legs. Dreyko was also about eight feet tall, but he was both a very frightening and grotesque sight to see. He had a bat-like face, and when he spread his wings, he looked like a cross between a prehistoric bat and a Neanderthal. In a grotesque warm up fashion, Dreyko flapped his wings once, completely covered up his body after the second flap, before spreading them and letting them hang idly in the air. He then let out a very high-frequency shrill and his sister roared, instead of howl. The chamber seemed to reverberate with their bestial cry. Shi’mon and Yehuda opened their right fists and pale, blue light coalesced in them to form swords with four-foot long silver blades. And then, both parties charged at each other.
Danka zipped towards Yehuda, and even though he did side step out of her line of zip, he forgot that she was eight feet tall. Her outstretched paw slapped him dead on the chest and sent him flying some twenty-plus feet across the room. His chest hurt more than his back crashing into the wall. He still maintained a grip on his sword, and before he could regain his bearings, Danka was lunging straight at him again, with jaws open, aiming for his neck, going for the kill. Yehuda shot both his feet in the air just in time to divert her trajectory past him. She crashed headlong into the wall behind him, breaking off pieces of tile and concrete from the wall; but quickly shook off the impact as she rose to her feet and towered over Yehuda. Yehuda was also on his feet, and the two enemies stared at each other. Danka bared her fangs, and Yehuda narrowed his eyes. Then a mischievous smile crept from the right corner of his lips.
“What are you waiting for, bitch?!” he taunted. “Is that all you’ve got?!”
“No,” Danka growled evilly. “I was just sizing you up.”
She roared and charged again. Yehuda did another side-step to the right, but this time around, he turned his entire body a hundred and eighty degrees to the left and brought down his sword hard on and fast. His sword sliced right through a part of her left scapula and shoulder. Her entire left arm and part of her left shoulder were detached from her body. It hit the ground and burst into flames as Danka let out a sickening howl of pain and rolled several times on the ground, under the momentum of her zip, until she crashed into the wall. Her right arm reached out towards the exposed stump that used to be her left shoulder and arm. Her howling was erratic and non-stop. Yehuda started walking slowly towards her to finish her off.
Shi’mon did not wait for Dreyko to attack. He zipped towards Dreyko and swung his blade in a fiery, light-blue arc when he got close enough to Dreyko. Unfortunately, Shi’mon underestimated Dreyko. To his shock, Dreyko zipped upwards and, while in mid-air, he zipped back down with equal speed as if the earth’s gravity had a special liking for him. He eight-foot form landed right behind Shi’mon as Shi’mon’s sword sliced through nothing but air. Before Shi’mon could execute an evasive forward roll, the claws of Dreyko’s right hand dug into the flesh of his shoulder and breast. Shi’mon felt himself flying hel
plessly through the air to the right until he slammed into the walk, leaving erratic cracks spreading from the point of impact.
But before Shi’mon’s body hit the ground, Dreyko zipped towards him and landed an uppercut in his solar plexus. Shi’mon’s body flew fifteen feet in the air as he let go of his sword, which evaporated in a pale blue smoke as it hit the floor with a clang. He never had the time to process the excruciating pain that radiated across his body from Dreyko’s punch and his loss of breath. In a blink, Dreyko zipped into the air and waited for Shi’mon’s body to reach maximum height. Then, he zipped downwards once again and brought both his hands together on Shi’mon’s back. Shi’mon hit the floor so hard that the concrete cracked around his body in zigzag patterns. The entire assault had lasted no more than three seconds. Shi’mon turned over and lay on his back in time to see Dreyko walk slowly towards him, with red glowing eyes filled with the excitement of a kill.
Yehuda heard the crash behind him and turned around. He saw Shi’mon on the ground and Dreyko moving towards him for the kill. He immediately opened both fists. His sword vanished in pale, blue smoke and guns formed in both fists. He fired more than eighteen shots in rapid succession at Dreyko, but none of them hit Dreyko. Dreyko had angled, twisted and turned his body just enough for the bullets to zip past him. The wall behind Dreyko were riddled with bullet holes. Dreyko’s attention shifted to his sister, and he went from furious to cataclysmic rage. He lunged towards Yehuda and threw a right hook at Yehuda. Yehuda let go of both guns, which evaporated in pale, blue smoke and leaped straight upwards, ignoring the Dreyko’s punch. He connected his left knee with Dreyko’s chin.
The impact lifted Dreyko’s body off the ground and slowed Yehuda’s leap, giving Yehuda the split second he needed to connect a solid, direct, right punch with Dreyko’s left temple, or what looked like his temple. Dreyko spread out his wings to slow down his acceleration towards the concrete floor, but it was too late. He crashed with full force into the concrete floor. Yehuda landed in a genuflecting posture and summoned his sword. He stood up and walked towards Dreyko. He raised his sword in the air, ready for a kill. But then he heard Danka roar and turned around to see her zipping towards him with BOTH paws outstretched, and fangs exposed.
The Bright Eyes (The Soulless Ones Book 1) Page 11
