The face of the main building of many that dominated numerous city blocks bowed inwards at its lowest levels, but beyond that, it bowed outwards, trying to look proud and tall as it stood dominating an entire oddly shaped block. Even surrounded by lesser structures that made up individual wings of service to the many patrons of mankind that would suffer injury and disease, Swedish was not proud to the elves at all.
This also mildly amused Deh Leccend. It had been likely countless centuries since any elf had ever been so much as injured –not even by accident. Why were humans such a bumbling collection of fools?
He couldn’t understand it, even if the answer was lit up before his eyes in the fact of their mortality alone. It was part of their nature to be clumsy, and have a high mortality rate at increasingly earlier years in their lives. If they didn’t have such a rate of death, they likely would have overpopulated decades into centuries ago. Some places in the world were already beginning to show signs of such environmental stress despite mankind’s astounding mortality. And that was only part of the reason the elves were delivering their destructive messages.
Deh stuffed his thoughts down inside. He didn’t need to be thinking on these things now. He had a soul to reclaim.
He didn’t slow his approach, walking silently through the main doors, which opened for their presences. Both stopped abruptly, each giving the other a strange look. From within the Veil they were not capable of being seen or heard or detected by anything beyond, and they wondered simultaneously if perhaps the humans had unwittingly devised a way to see through the Veil. If they had and it was unwitting, then the Elves had little to fear. If not, this matter needed addressing.
Athaem made quick note to inform his father at a later time that a thorough study would be enacted against doors that open at their presence, and the two passed into the bright lights and pale colors as reapers in black, stalking a house of life and death to claim a prize whose knowledge could be dangerous if handed to the rest of human kind.
“Where is she?” Athaem questioned quickly. Deh’Leccend paused, glancing left, right, and then up.
“Six levels, straight up and to the west.” The Black Leaf answered simply.
* * *
Shannon Hunter rested propped up in bed, her belly an uneasy ball of nerves, fears, and injury. The bullet wound itched a great deal on the surface, but ached beneath, though she managed to refrain from touching it much. She’d been taken off the heart monitor, but her IV still dripped steadily, giving her pain relief and muscle relaxers.
If not for the constant fear of the F.B.I.’s inevitable return, she couldn’t have complained about her condition. She was being well taken care of, fed and drugged, and had her own television and restroom with a shower if she felt the need.
She didn’t.
Shannon was far too worried to immerse herself in the cleansing of a hot shower -too exposed. Her television was on. It only got one channel, and up until recently she hadn’t paid it much attention. King 5 news was running presently, familiar local reporter faces running through mostly meaningless stories. However, they’d promised in the opening to get to the serious bombing of a regional company’s properties by local terrorists.
Shannon left it on, eager to see what reaction had been brought. Would ELF be given credit? Would anyone’s minds be changed about global abuse and the ruin of nature? Would anyone even care? Would information of her personal involvement reach the public? Had the Agents released a statement to the reporters? She felt sick to her stomach at the prospects of it all.
Her father liked to watch the news. He would likely find out about it, if he hadn’t already been subjected to questioning as the Agents had hinted he might be a suspect in conspiracy and sabotage against his corporate competitors.
Would they have released her name?
She gritted her teeth as they returned from commercial. The promised story was upon her before she could ready herself for it, and she found herself scrambling to turn up the dial, holding the remote aloft and pushing volume frantically.
~Fire and explosions rocked the Cascade foothills east of Bellingham two nights ago at Murton and Norton Industrial in what authorities are calling the largest and single most costly Eco-terrorism attack in history.~ The gentlemanly lead anchor announced.
~The attackers used rudimentary incendiary devices to set fire to and destroy more than seven trucks in the company’s newly purchased fleet totaling more than 500,000 dollars in damages.~ He gave the camera a serious look. ~The owners of Murton and Norton Industrial have yet to be reached for questioning, and all employees of the lumber mill present at the time of the attack are being sequestered from giving any eye witness accounts until the FBI’s local counter-terrorism department has completed its investigation.~
~However, the greatest toll came at a cost of lives. ~ He hesitated, and Shannon’s belly went cold with dread. ~An entire federal swat force has disappeared in the blazes, which fire fighters only succeeded in extinguishing twelve hours after the incident, and a federal special agent who had been working with local authorities for more than ten years in the monitoring and difficult process of undermining the organization claiming responsibility for the act, calling themselves the E.L.F. or Earth Liberation Front, was mortally shot and killed in the chaos of what is presumed to be a firefight. ~ He paused somberly.
~Officials have not released information on the Agent’s name, and the F.B.I. has not made a statement, pending the investigation’s completion. Authorities did however manage to capture one of the E.L.F. operatives shot in defense during the assaulting of a second federal agent. She has been taken into custody for questioning on the whereabouts of her co-operatives, Jason Brooke, William ‘willie’ Bentley and Devin Lock. Her condition is stable. ~ He shifted slightly in a manner he often did when telling a particularly bad story, making room for three pictures of the suspects -her friends and lover.
~Authorities are asking anyone with any information on the suspects seen here to come forward to help bring them to justice.~ He trailed off, ending his part, segueing into an on-site female reporter, who wasn’t allowed any closer than the gates at the foot of the drive that led into the company’s property. Yellow tape and police vehicles barred all entrance in either case. But, Shannon didn’t listen to the lady’s dramatic, albeit vague account of what she couldn’t possibly know for sure without having been there at the time nor seeing first hand the devastation of the parking lot. She was too relieved to listen, yet very apprehensive.
Jason, Willie and Devin were okay. They hadn’t been captured yet. She could have sighed as a weight was lifted off her slim shoulders, but an odd fact touched upon her that hinted worries were not over. They were fugitives now, and they would be running. But there was another tinge of fear within her. It was the matter of an entire federal swat team, disappeared within the flames, as the anchor had said. It could be possible that Willie and Devin had gone the same route.
She didn’t think Jason could have suffered the same, but the thought of Willie and Devin burning up during what invariably amounted to an attack that was not their own, left her scared for them. She couldn’t help but bite her lip as her eyes watched the television without seeing and her ears heard the reporter’s words without listening. She only caught the end of the lady’s report.
~…the offender in question, I’m told, was taken to Swedish Medical Center in Seattle to undergo emergency treatment to ensure her arrest and questioning could be of use in finding the gunman responsible for the confirmed death of at least one federal agent, the whereabouts of her co-conspirators, and any information on the infrastructure of the E.L.F.’s seemingly hierarchy-lacking organization.~ She paused before stating her name.
The lead anchor, who thanked the reporter, organized his papers and went on in brief summation. ~Our hopes go out to the families of the unknown missing officers and agents, and we ask once again if anyone has any information that might lead to the capture of the three pictured suspec
ts to not hesitate to call or email us here at the number and address on your screens, or the F.B.I. directly at the following numbers. And as always, King 5 will keep you posted as this story progresses. ~ And then it was over as they broke for commercial. Shannon promptly slumped. Things were looking bad –very bad. She wondered just how anything could possibly make it any worse.
Firstly, no one’s mind was going to be changed by a pointless attack on industries when they were too focused on the deaths and disappearances of an untold number of federal authorities. She looked down from the television, fine brow furrowing as a doctor or nurse or random patron went walking by her door’s police detail. It took an eternity for the light to break out of the corner of her eye and return again with the person’s passage. Presuming someone was standing there talking to the officer, she turned to look.
However, the pencil-necked doctor of short, well-kept, but receding blonde hair and glasses wasn’t talking with the officer. He was just walking past. Only, he wasn’t going anywhere. The world beyond her room was trickling away at a snail’s pace. She watched doctor’s white coat fluttered in a dream of motion, a movement that should have been swift and snappy beneath his sure, busy strides.
Beyond the officer she spotted a familiar but dreadful face. Special Agent Arthur Black was in route to her door. Behind him followed Agent Connelly. Their offset steps dragged by in the slowest nightmare she ever could have imagined before the incident the other night.
At once, her mind froze, and her heart may have stopped.
Oh no! She panicked.
Chapter 6
The police officer was only just beginning to step aside to admit the federal agents for what could only be another round of questioning, but for Shannon it may as well have been many long minutes before they even drew close enough to see her frightened features through the window.
Her thoughts ran like wildfire. It only served to slow things further into a crawl. She experienced a sinking sort of sensation. By the time she realized she was now almost buried in her bedding by her sulking, sunk down to laying prone by fear, things barely moved. She turned back to the television, lifting the remote to turn it off and hide what she’d been watching.
But the screen had frozen as well. A commercial for some local carpet company was on, but it was between frames. An actor knelt on a sample with one knee, elbow on the other as he touched the fabric. Smiling obnoxiously, his eyelids were closed amidst blinking. Slower than molasses and odd looking, the frame rose for the next where his blink was only beginning to unfurl, letting his glazed gaze return to the viewers.
Shannon wasn’t much of an audience for any advertisement, much less this sort, but especially not at a moment like this. She really hated local commercials even more than national ones. Something about the lack of budget attributed them always left them looking more fraudulent than corporate commercials with better actors, high-priced ad-wizards, and expensive graphic animations, logos, or whatever else they could devise.
Sneering and fearful at once, she frantically pushed the power button, but the television responded in the dream that everything else suffered. The screen went black almost instantly, but the closing of the horizontal and vertical was slowed terribly in winding down with a bright spot at the center of the screen.
Shannon’s breath was already trapped in her throat, so there was little else she could do but face the terrifying realization that she’d seen this sort of dream once before. She knew it immediately. It had happened during the attack two nights ago. It had happened when she had laid eyes on the elf on the hill.
No matter her misgivings on the matter of what to call what she had seen, she couldn’t help calling it an elf in her head. She had no other terms to describe such a sight.
She glanced around frantically to ensure she was safe, but she suddenly found herself staring blankly into terror-stricken space. A sense of awe washed over her, and she tried to reason through an abrupt tickling in her chest that could only be described as her very soul lurching forth from within her core.
A figure, black and forbidding, emerged from nothingness right before her bewildered dark eyes. It was the very same figure. She knew it instantly.
As if it had come straight out of thin air, it simply stepped into being with all the cool grace of fantasy and legend and more. It came to an immediate walking halt just short of the foot of her bed, an utterly silent little image of the reaper himself. At this vantage she had a much better look at it, but it seemed a different being than she’d witnessed before.
Covered head-to-toe in a draping cloak and hood, it was mostly indescribable as before. But where it had seemed so prominent on the rocky hill, this figure was surprisingly small. No bigger than a young teen boy who hadn’t gotten the better shake at the genetic sticks that would let him play sports alongside the bigger boys, it didn’t appear all that terrifying or powerful. But despite that size the shape of it screamed to her instincts it could play any game much better than those more visibly suitable for athletic feats.
Buried in the blackness it wore, with the fading light in the room lingering from the television’s slow refusal to shut down, she could see its features now. It was fairly short, yes. It had pale flawless skin that almost radiated a soft hazy glow, and long, streamlined and delicately poised ears spread wide to either side of its dome -somewhat like the misshapen wings of a strange plane. Dominating its almost childlike face, were a pair of large, depthless, entirely obsidian eyes.
The one on the hill had eyes that glowed in the night and fire for a second. Though this little guy’s eyes did not flare, Shannon was positive this was unquestionably the same figure. Not because she could recognize it from the distance she’d previously witnessed, but because she could feel it in her bones.
No, deeper still, she amended. She could feel it in the very fibers of her core. Its gaze, though almost looking blind, held the same penetrating weight -as if she lay stripped bare before its immutable spirit.
Trapped by sheer levels of awe and fear, Shannon could do nothing but study agape, and wait trembling to see what might happen. She refused to move, couldn’t, in fact. She just held her breath and trembled before it, while the Elf did nothing more than regard her -as if letting her see him for what he was. So she studied, and noted above all else, all miracle, awe, and wonder, this being’s face was utterly expressionless. He, she, it, whichever it was, may as well have been a cadaver, illegible in its alien presence.
Disbelief slowly settled in, uprooting fear and awe. In all honesty, she had to admit, she had to be hallucinating, or dreaming. No. It was a nightmare! It had to be. A dream, or a flashback to previous nights. The past was mingling with what she was experiencing now. She knew it because she didn’t think she could take her eyes off of it.
Whilst it did mostly nothing, staring down upon her for these uncomfortably long moments, disbelief began to subside. She began to get the impression she was being weighed. It felt like she was some sort of prey for a predator she couldn’t even begin to imagine. As her thoughts cleared, she recalled the federal agents. Fearing for her life out of the instinctual part of her animal being, she proved herself wrong. She could move, and she used that freedom, hastily looking toward the door.
A way out, or a way to prison -either way was better than being confronted by the sheer horrifying realization that was beginning to scratch its way up her spine like the claws of a rabidly plague riddled rodents. We are not alone as a species. She was not alone as a prisoner. Shannon wanted to scream and run, and keep running and screaming until she died.
The agents were closer, she saw, but still in route and still slower than molasses in winter. The police officer still had yet to get fully out of their way in either case. Time was so slow they almost didn’t move at all. They would never reach the door in time to help her, she sensed, as subtle movement caught the corner of her eye. Dread alone brought her eyes back.
The little Shadow at the foot of her bed was moving, an
d she dared not miss a moment.
It peeled back its cloak like a veil of midnight parting before the brilliance of a swollen moon, revealing glittering whiteness and silver light. It seemed its garments below were construed of diamonds and utterly beautiful silk, but she was deceived. It was darkly garbed beneath as well. Her eyes had simply locked onto the light that bounced off the rather long handle of what looked to be a weapon similar to a katana like Jason kept in a rack on the wall at the side of his bed.
However, she couldn’t see much more than a handle. She didn’t need to see more. This weapon’s make was clearly fine by comparison to Jason’s store-bought Japanese katana. And it wasn’t quite the same. The handling length was far greater and slightly reversely curved. It wasn’t like Jason’s at all, Shannon realized. Worse, this one was actually useful in combat. She simply knew it.
Her dread increased as the alien little man lifted one hand of incredibly nimble, almost pointy fingers, and fastened them into an unbelievably iron fist upon what could have been a scabbard hidden in the shadows of his cloak behind the elaborate silver workings of a circular, but sweeping hilt that was only now coming into being –its intricate knots growing into being like living vines of white gold, twisting turning and eventually joining and running a swoop nearly half way up the grip where it then gained purchase and solidified.
E.L.F. - White Leaves Page 6
