by D. N. Hoxa
Seven seconds.
Baldie pushed my head to the side for better access to my neck.
Voices. Screams and voices came from outside the room. Baldie turned his head to look at the door for a second. Then, he continued.
Four seconds.
I flinched in anticipation before the needle pierced my skin. Another scream and the noise of something huge being thrown against a wall. Baldie’s hand shook.
Two seconds.
A growling, scratchy sound right behind the door.
One second.
Someone or something was scratching the metal of the door to my room. Baldie took a step back.
Free.
My body finally came back to life. My toes curled at the unbelievable sensation. I filled my lungs with air as if for the first time. Every inch of me was mine again…
“No…” Baldie whispered.
I stretched my arms and felt my muscles wake up from the lazy sleep. My skin tingled with electricity in the most amazing way. The door to my room broke, literally. It came out of the hinges and fell on the floor.
On top of it, standing on all fours, stood the mightiest, most terrifying and most beautiful beast I had ever seen.
The second my eyes took every inch of him in was inspiring, one I’d never, ever forget. Claws two times the size of my palm, arms thick and long, covered in silky, jet black, glowing fur. And the face. His thick and long whiskers trembled with his low growl, his fangs longer than my longest fingers. His eyes, a pure ocean blue, were the only parts of him that hadn’t changed at all.
Everything inside me jumped, turned and twisted. I held his eyes and let my heart beat like it was a galloping horse for a while. He watched me, his claws still inside the iron of the door. I grinned, and he growled a growl that left lions to shame.
Every hair on my skin stood up. Baldie screamed a screeching sound.
“What the hell took you so long?” I said to Aaron-the-beast and struggled to move my legs off the bed.
He took a few steps closer and took all of me in, his eyes a stormy dark ocean. My smile couldn’t be bigger.
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered and that was an understatement. I’d never seen anything quite like this mighty panther that was Aaron’s animal. When my legs held me and I jumped to my feet, I scratched his chin and he leaned against my hand. Standing on all fours he was exactly as tall as me, and we were eye level.
“Take care of my friend Baldie here while I get dressed, will ya?”
It was time to drop the stupid smile and get the hell out of there. But I didn’t let him go without a kiss on his black nose. He actually purred, which made my toes curl. “You’re such a cat.”
I had less than two minutes to get my necklaces and my pants and shirt, before guards, all shifters and on the potion, entered the room. I couldn’t forget Baldie, though. A promise was a promise, and I liked to keep those whenever I could. So I left my beast to handle the door and the growing crowd, and I approached Victor the bald warlock.
He sat with his back against the wall, head between his knees, shaking and weeping. I kneeled in front of him, a perfectly evil grin on my face.
“Hello, friend.”
He let out another scream and shook. I would’ve grabbed him by the hair if he’d had any but he didn’t, so I had to work with his neck and arms. I grabbed him, and immediately an icy feeling, burnt my hand like acid. I saw his lips move while he chanted whatever spell he used in combat. I should’ve been afraid because that kind of magic could burn me, exactly like acid. Only, I wasn’t. With Samayan’s potion inside my veins, I could literally push the magical power off my body, and I did so proudly.
Victor had his eyes squeezed shut. I grabbed his neck and slammed his head on the wall behind. I slapped him hard, three times. It felt good to hear him cry.
“Didn’t I tell you it was going to hurt? You can't say I’m not a woman of my word, can you?” I said as my fist met his face. Blood exploded from his nose, and since I had no other weapon on me, I had to help myself to the small knives that were on his precious metal table. While I was at it, I saw one of those small flasks Samayan had given to the warlock with the red potion in it. Could be useful, so I put it in my pocket, just in case.
Three minutes later, I was looking down at a very dead baldie.
“This was fun,” I said to his corpse and turned in time to see a werewolf jump on all fours inside my room. I knew Aaron had it, but it wasn’t fair for him to have all the fun, was it?
With a bright smile on my face, I reached out my arms, palms up, and called on air.
Air, ya old bastard. Blow, I thought, and before I even blinked, the wolf fell back and flew out the door again. I didn’t see where he landed. My beast turned to me and nodded his beautiful, giant head at his back. I ran the three steps it took to get to him, jumped and landed on his back.
And I though vampires were fast! As Aaron ran, everything turned to a blur around me. Shifters tried to grab hold of both me and Aaron, but they weren’t so lucky. He jumped down a staircase without actually touching a single stair, and soon we were met with two dozen shifters, their guns pointed at us. Shit. We had to stop.
The windows around were painted black, so I couldn’t see outside, but I was pretty sure that we were on an island somewhere. That was the only explanation as to why there was so much water surrounding us on all four sides.
“Surrender now and you will live,” a shifter said. He was a were-lizard, his voice as dead as Victor-the-bald-warlock a story above us.
The shifter took a step forward. The others prepared themselves.
I patted Aaron on his strong back, and I jumped to my feet at his side. Riding him had its perks, but I needed all of my body to fight if we were going to get out of there.
I looked at the lizard and his sickening green eyes and gave him my wide, evil smile. He knew there was not going to be a happy ending to this. They all did, but that didn’t stop them.
Aaron roared and almost all eyes turned to him. That was all the distraction I needed. I jumped forward, faster than ever before, and I caught the lizard by the throat. His eyes grew wide and his knee connected with my stomach, but not nearly hard enough to make me double over. I threw him against the wall and continued to the others that rained upon me. I didn’t need to look to know that Aaron was breaking jaws with his teeth. I concentrated on my own number.
I got a gun and a dagger, which wasn’t nearly as effective as Bob, and unleashed everything I had on the shifters. Others came from behind us, making both me and Aaron step back to gain enough time and space to try and fight off at least three at a time. I was wounded already, but I didn’t mind. Nothing hurt. I’d been resting for far too long, and this was exactly the comeback I needed.
Shots fired and my thigh felt like it caught fire. It was nothing but a scratch, but it hurt like a mother.
“Do not kill her!” someone shouted from the crowd, and I thought, lucky me, right? Samayan still wanted me alive.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aaron turn around and run behind us. A shifter’s teeth wrapped around my wrists. I looked at him dumbfounded. What the hell was he trying to do? Human teeth were not meant for eating raw human flesh. Either way, my gun was on his forehead that turned red the next second, and I looked back in time to see Aaron jump against two wooden doors that broke under his weight.
I ran after him and the crowd followed. I was truly flattered.
The room behind the doors was wider, the windows open. Blue water reflected the light of the sun everywhere. Three women, all dressed in white robes, stood with their backs against the wall and looked like they were about to pee their pants any second now.
Before I could make it farther inside, someone grabbed me by the hair and pulled me back. Whoever it was fell on his back when I caught him with my elbow in his gut, and I immediately drove the dagger through his heart. Three shifters were already around me.
Fists came at my face, left and ri
ght, until I regained my balance and saw straight again. I grabbed an arm and pulled forward. I pushed the shifter against his two friends before I went down on my knees and sliced through their legs.
Aaron was in front of me, taking on ten shifters—or even more—at a time. That’s my cat, I thought. As I circled around the shifters—or they circled around me—I took in my surroundings and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Bob’s red leather hilt. It was only a tiny bit visible but that dagger had been an extension of my hand for so long, I’d know it anywhere.
Unfortunately, my crowd didn’t want me to get away from them so it took me a while before I got my hands on it. It was above me on a shelf of some kind, wrapped in a black cloth. The hilt only peaked out slightly. When my fingers wrapped around it, I instantly felt more powerful. Even faster.
By the time I turned around again, shifters were on me again, and I had to use air before I saw Aaron, fighting against two dozen of them. Sure, he couldn’t die, but he didn’t like pain. Nobody liked pain.
The water outside hummed my name in the sweetest melody, but when I tried to reach out for it, I couldn’t. It was too much. I didn’t have the time, so I called on air again. Before I could make even half the shifters fall back again, three large knives buried in my left leg. My knee shook as hot blood dripped down my pants.
“Window, now!” I shouted angrily. Those shifters weren’t going to stop. For each one we killed, two others came after us, and I had no doubt that more would just keep on coming. We were going to have to run again, because I didn’t want Samayan to join the party. I wasn’t ready for him yet.
Aaron heard me. With his huge head, he pushed three shifters off him and made for the windows. I did so, too, while I removed the knives from my leg. Only four steps remaining, and every shifter in there was after us.
Aaron turned to look at me and growled. I stepped to the side and jumped as much as I could because of my leg wounds. Thankfully, I managed to land on his back, albeit ungracefully. I didn’t even have time to catch my breath.
Aaron jumped into the window without warning.
Glass breaking. My arms crossed in front of my face instinctively. I felt the sting of cuts all over my body, but we were alive, both of us. Aaron landed on the ground outside the building. He turned to the left and started running again with me still on his back. Behind us, the shifter soldiers were following.
But…there was no place to go. We were on an island, way above water. An island with no bridges. An island with three separate sets of buildings and, strangely, a water reserve tank. Everything looked old and broken. The walls were dirty, and everything seemed old. It smelled funny, too.
“We have to jump!” I shouted, looking back and expecting to already see him. Samayan was coming for us, I had no doubt about that. I didn’t know how, but he was.
Aaron growled in protest. He was right. We were way too high, but we also didn’t have a choice.
“Aaron, we have no time. Jump, now!”
And there he was. I felt the vampire’s eyes on the back of my head even before I turned to look. He was on some sort of a balcony, right above us, under the bright rays of the sun. I hardly believed my eyes. He was out in broad daylight. And he simply smiled before he disappeared from my sight.
“Aaron, please. You have to trust me,” I said to my beast and tried again to connect to the water around us as the giant waves slammed onto the rocks.
Closer. He was closer now. Samayan was right behind me.
“Trust me,” I whispered to Aaron and grabbed two handfuls of his smooth fur. I didn’t dare turn around again because I knew that Samayan was there. I felt his energy as it left him to come after me. My heart was in my throat, my mind racing. I wasn’t even sure if I was still breathing.
And then Aaron jumped.
Catch me, I called to the water. I was falling on it, whether it liked it or not, and it needed to catch me—screw the connection. I held on tightly to Aaron’s body as I watched the huge wave separate itself from others and rise up and up in our direction until Aaron’s paws made contact with it. I had half a second to fill my lungs and hold my breath.
We fell into the freezing water, the outside world, and Samayan, completely vanished. I panicked, just for a second, until I heard the song. The melody that each drop of water sang only for me. No, there was no need to panic. I was safe down there. I was home.
But I also needed to breathe.
My eyes popped open, and at first, all I saw was darkness. The water around me, filling me, caressing my skin, always lured me into giving up and just closing my eyes again. Giving myself to it forever. But I had a beast who was scared shitless, and he was a cat, so I was pretty sure he disliked water as much as he disliked heights.
When I spotted Aaron’s huge body, I swam to him with ease and wrapped my arm around his neck. He was struggling for his life, and not gracefully, either. He began to pedal his legs as I pulled him up towards the surface, but we were slow. Too slow. I was afraid we weren’t going to make it, and even if we did, at that pace, it was going to be a walk in the park for Samayan to catch us again.
The best thing was that I didn’t even have to ask the water around for help. I was so full of it, so one with it, that it knew. It knew what I thought and it knew what I wanted, and it was terribly eager to please me.
A second later, we were both being pushed forward.
I felt like a freaking mermaid, and I loved every second of it. We were both desperate for air now, and when our heads finally breached the surface, we couldn’t fill our lungs fast enough. Even while we were busy trying to get our breathing back to normal, the water pushed us towards the land, just as I wanted it to.
When I heard shots being fired, I realized we were still very close to the island. With a deep breath, Aaron and I went under the surface again, this time a lot more relaxed as the water pushed us.
But just before I lost sight of the world again, I had a split second to look back. A smile spread my lips as I realized where we’d come from. That bloodsucking fucker had kept me locked up in Alcatraz.
5
——————————
Good thing California was warm, even in November, because Aaron and I were dripping wet, sitting on sheets of newspaper in an alley up Russian Hill, waiting for Jack.
When he finally made it, we had to walk another four blocks to get to the helicopter. I still had my clothes on, but Aaron, back to his human form again, wore ridiculous looking green sweatpants he found in the dumpster and a bright pink shirt that I was pretty sure had belonged to a woman once.
I felt ill. My thoughts were blurry, my stomach churning. I felt a need, a craving, but I didn’t know what for.
At some point, I fell asleep on Aaron’s lap, and I didn’t wake until the chopper landed.
We were back in the Alpines, the first out of two Red Rebel Bases I had visited. I dragged my feet to the door behind the giant rock—the perfect hideout. Aaron stood by me through every second of the way, holding my arm around his shoulder and asking me if I was okay, though he looked much worse than I did—and it wasn’t just the clothes. He looked…sucked completely dry somehow.
I kept telling him I was fine, but I wasn’t. I was far from fine. I felt half. Miserable. In need of something. Something big that was turning my head into a football field, and my thoughts were the ball.
I was taken to a room. I could hear voices all around me but understood none. I only recognized Aaron’s voice, but I couldn’t make out his words. All I felt was Illyon’s energy, pulsating under my shirt with power so vast, it made me want to be of it. Surrender to it.
I drank water, ate food, changed my clothes, but nothing worked.
Soon I lost sight of light, and there was only darkness.
***
The sky was all shades of grey, no sign of the sun. The view in front of me was deceiving, reflecting many things at once, as if it was an illusion. A mirror to something I wanted to see but couldn
’t. I looked around, but that was all is saw. I felt light, my head crystal clear. I struggled to remember where I was or how I had gotten there. I knew we were in the Alpines again, but I didn’t remember seeing a room like this, ever before.
It was as if it was there, but it was not there.
At the end or the beginning, right at the corner or in the very middle of this place, stood a single piece of paper—the only object that didn’t move or change with every second.
The reasonable thing to do would be for me to go to it, pick it up, see what it was, but before I could, it moved all by itself.
It was a picture. It was the picture of my mother, the one I kept in the drawer of my nightstand in my room in the Kentucky Base. I didn’t remember taking it with me, but there it was.
I watched her face in the picture, which was far away from my reach, yet close enough for me to see it clearly, and it took my breath away in the worst possible sense. It stabbed me, every time I blinked and my eyes stopped on it. As if the picture didn’t want me to look at it. To look at her. And I knew why. Because she wasn’t my mother.
The cruel reality chilled me to my bones, a reality very well deserved for all the things I had done in my life. Yet, even though I knew that it was wrong, I wasn’t sad. No, I was angry. I was furious. I was on the verge of madness.
Someone had to pay.
“So silly of you to run from me.”
A voice as cold as my heart in that second called my eyes to the other side of the space. Only now, it wasn’t just empty, changing walls. Now it had taken the shape of a face. Samayan’s face.
“You left me no choice. I don’t particularly like to be held prisoner in my own body,” I replied dryly, my voice as sharp and as cold as ever.
“You know, you can still come back if you’d like. All you have to do is call me.” His smile was filled with mischief.
“I thought I made it clear to you before. I don’t want to share with you, Samayan. I’m taking it all for myself.”
I didn’t try to hide my smile.
“How?” he asked, mocking me with his arched brow. “How do you suppose you’ll do that? You know you’re as weak as you were when they brought you to me without my potion.”
