She pulled her katana free – slowly and deliberately, like an artist picking up a brush before creating a masterpiece – and flashed a ferocious sneer at the Beasts.
“Okay, boys,” she muttered through her teeth, “now you’ve really pissed me off.”
And as they lunged at her in a squalling, roaring mob, the blade swished through the air, cutting someone’s head off and then another and one more. The battle continued with even more intensity while Jane was sweating outside, her hands already growing numb.
“I understand that you’re having the best of fun in there, but you gotta give me a hand here EVENTUALLY!” she shouted, hoping that her sister would hear.
“Just give me a sec, I gotta finish here!” Pain shouted back.
“No, you don’t! Knock them out, get out here, now!”
The answer was an ear-splitting clatter from the inside along with the sound of more glass breaking, and then someone screamed, and Pain laughed ecstatically. Jane rolled her eyes, wondering if anybody actually lived in this building, since no one had yet shown from the windows or called the police.
“Is there more glass left in that room?!” she asked loudly.
“It was THE TABLE!” Pain exclaimed triumphantly, and right after that, another scream resounded through the walls. “Hang on one more second!”
“Hang on?? Easy to say! What am I, a goddamn helicopter??” Jane yelled, breathing raggedly. “It was a stupid, stupid idea, and we’re all gonna- ”
Her speech broke off with a scream suddenly when the three of them went down, as if they broke off some invisible hook, rushing to the shimmering streets below. Their screams mixed together, and there was one more, laughing with dark satisfaction: one of the Beasts clutched Chad’s feet, pulling them all down. He was big, and they were falling along the skyscraper’s side swiftly, windows flashing behind them. A searing pain shot through Jane’s leg as Dave grasped it in panic, his eyes the biggest ones she had ever seen.
“Do something, do something, Jane!!” he shrieked, jerking her wildly.
She shot him a glare that was half-fury, half-despair.
“Stop humping my leg! It’s not helping!” she barked out, “Chad, get the hell rid of him!!”
She could feel sweat beading on her forehead as she tried to give them more time before they would hit the ground. Chad kicked at the Beast obediently, but he only grabbed his foot and twisted it, making him cry out. An angry snarl escaped his mouth then; he put his foot on the attacker’s head and pushed off of it, leaping upward. His fingers closed on a knife that protruded from Jane’s belt, and a moment later he brought it down, sinking it in the Beast’s throat up to the hilt.
For a moment Jane’s breath caught in her lungs. This was so not what she had expected him to do. But then she realized they were halfway to the ground, so she focused on regaining their position in the air once the Beast unclasped his hands and tumbled toward a parking lot. They were still lowering, though. Too much effort was spent on slowing the fall with their attacker tagging along. Now that his body had probably attracted people’s attention, there was no way they could go down. Dave was silent, just gripping her leg with his face pressed against her hip. Chad, on the contrary, got panicked more and more with each second.
“Jane, dammit!!” he screamed, as if it could help the situation.
She looked up, seeing only the empty black sky above, and disappointment knotted in her chest.
“Pain!!!” she shouted, hoping that her sister was done with the Beasts already, but there was no answer. They had no more than a few seconds before they would hit the ground, and her mind was torn between yelling at her and being scared into silence. So she shut it all out and did the only thing that she knew to do.
She closed her eyes, releasing the air in a slow exhalation, and let it all go.
She got back to the time when she was only learning to control her flight, unsure of her moves, senses, and power. She could only be sure of one thing then, what her parents had told her, that to guide her body meant to set it free, first of all. That she needed to feel the wind, the speed, the gravity before she could use them. And this was what she did now.
They began to rise slowly, and somewhere in the background she heard Chad groan,
“Jane, don’t! Leave it the way it is!”
She didn’t listen to him, blocking it all out as floor after floor disappeared below them. To focus in a situation like this one was almost impossible. The adrenaline rush was too strong, the enormousness of consequences of her failure too overwhelming, so she couldn’t afford thinking about it. She immersed into the flight instead, and was actually surprised when it did help, because to be honest, she didn’t believe she would be able to carry both Dave and Chad.
Somewhere above them, Pain’s voice cut through the night:
“Jane!!”
“Down here!” she responded, gathering all her strength for these two words.
In a second Pain was beside her and grabbed Chad’s sweatshirt. Jane looked at her in surprise.
“He’s heavier, I’ll carry him,” Pain explained.
“What’s with the Beasts?”
“All done, but we gotta go! There can be more any moment. Let’s get to the nearest tunnel, follow me!” And she disappeared in the darkness in a flash with Jane following her a little slower.
After just a couple of minutes they landed in a narrow alley not far from a manhole. Pain headed straight to it, tearing off the cover on the run and pushing Dave to the hole.
“Get inside!”
He tried to protest, catching hold of her jacket, “What if someone’s down there?”
“There ain’t nobody! Go!” She practically shoved him into the hole, and they heard him land with a thump.
Chad stopped a little away from them, breathing heavily and trying to calm down after the awful flight. He just stared at the girls, feeling drained. In a dim light of a street lamp that shone far from them, he could make out their pale faces, their hair pasted to the temples with sweat. Their gear was tattered, especially, Pain’s. He could see their skin through it, covered in blood. The sight brought a rush of bitter sorrow, and he frowned and shook his head slightly. The sisters were looking at him with troubled eyes now, as if sensing what he was thinking about. Wearily, he came up to Jane and handed her the knife, earning a surprised look from Pain. Jane took it without a word and slipped down the manhole, smooth as a cat.
Pain waved for him to go next. Feeling like a blind kitten, he landed softly beside Jane and Dave. Pain moved the cover closer to the hole and got in, pausing to bar it with a metal bolt to block the entrance.
“What the hell just happened?” Dave inquired right away. “Is it always like this??”
Pain sighed before the answer.
“No, usually there’s no blood hunt on our clients,” she said coldly.
Jane shot an irritated glare to where her voice came from. Hearing how Dave’s voice shook, his breath fast and heavy, she stepped closer to him and gripped his shoulder reassuringly.
“Don’t think about it, think of something else,” she said, “What were you doing two weeks from this day, where have you been?” she tried to distract him.
For a few seconds he just breathed, gathering his thoughts, but then his uneven voice sounded again,
“Thai. I was on Walking Street,” he said unsurely.
“And what did you see there? Think of what you saw there,” Jane suggested.
“Eww, I don’t wanna think about THAT! Oh God, I think I’m gonna throw up, oh God,” he sounded even worse now, and Jane actually panicked this time. She didn’t know how to deal with hysterics, because usually Pain just knocked out their wards before they would get the chance to see anything. She couldn’t even imagine how Dave must have been feeling after getting a nice front row view of the whole gore-fest. Belatedly, she remembered that Chad must have been in shock, too. She paused for a moment, trying to hear him near, but there was nothing. Did he pass
out?
Meanwhile, Dave seemed to be unable to keep quiet.
“You closed the manhole, why did you close the manhole??” He turned to where Pain was standing. “What if it was closed when we got here?”
“Then we’d have to find another one,” Jane answered for her sister. “Usually they’re open, Beasts don’t get in. We’ll open this one later, but now we need to take precautions.” She couldn’t stop herself from peering around, trying to see at least something, but they were in a complete darkness now.
“What are we gonna do next?” Dave’s desperate voice shot a couple of octaves higher as he said it. “We don’t even have a map! We’re gonna wander here till we starve to death!”
Jane sighed, giving up. Instead of answering him, she turned to her sister.
“Do you still have your flashlight? I must have dropped mine somewhere.”
“Nope…” Pain shook her head. “My pocket was sliced through.”
She looked down mechanically, finding with her trembling fingers a gap in her gear and idly poking through it. Then she turned to the wall, running her hands across the cool metal surface. Her fingers ran against something warm and soft – Chad’s shoulder – and she jerked her hand back, surprised.
“Sorry,” he murmured, and she heard him move to where Jane and Dave were standing.
“There is a secret locker by every entrance into the tunnels. There must be a map and flashlights,” Pain answered Dave’s question, finding a slot in the wall and picking at it with her fingertips. It was a small door of a locker, which opened with a squeak. “Here it is. Don’t freak out, although it’s odd that you’ve got any energy left after what we’ve just been through. Shouldn’t you black out or something?” she said to him in a remote voice, engaged in rummaging inside the locker.
“Do you have to be so mean to everybody? Is there a club for bitchiness management, like Alcoholics Anonymous? ‘Hi, I’m Pain, and I kill shit’ – ‘Hi, Pain!’ Because, seriously, I think you should visit it,” Dave snapped back with resentment.
She ignored his tone and replied in a distracted voice,
“I’m not mean to everybody. I’m only mean to people whose intellectual level is awfully lower than mine…” She took a flashlight and pointed it at Dave, pressing the button. A blinding ray shot across the tunnel, making him wince and duck away from it. However, in the next second it died, and she cursed.
“Here it is, your wonderful miracle-box with non-working flashlights!” Dave gloated beside her.
“It’s okay, we’ve got one more.”
She illuminated the locker’s contents with another flashlight. There was only a rolled up map left inside.
She was frighteningly calm, Dave thought. Her voice was uncommonly flat, and for a moment he even tensed, ready to hear the katana swish as his head would separate from the body. Was she always so calm after killing a few dozen men? Maybe he should bring her sacrifices every now and then so it would be bearable to be around her. He smirked at the thought – actually, the idea seemed worth trying.
Pain handed the flashlight to Jane, unrolling the map and spreading it up against the wall.
“We’re at the sixteenth,” she announced loudly, though it only made sense to Jane, who nodded with understanding.
For a few minutes they conferred in low voices, looking at the map this way and that, and then Pain rolled it up and tucked it under her belt.
“We’ve got two news: one good and one bad.”
“We’re all gonna die here,” Dave drawled, continuing for her.
“Shut up, or for you it’ll be true.” She gave him an angelic smile before continuing. “We’re very far from the Headquarters, but at least we’re in Brooklyn, and the route is simple. Let’s go.” She took the flashlight and started along the tunnel that disappeared in the blackness before them. Chad was walking after her, so he was the only one who could make out her next words. “Filthy thugs… tracked us down… left my book there, dammit…”
Silently, he followed her, lost deep in thought. The place was depressing, and its cold metal walls and chilly air made him ache for a fresh breeze and sunlight. They moved in a gloomy procession through the maze, and the repeating sound of their shoes beating against the metal only made it more dismal. They had been wandering in the tunnels for almost two hours, through which Pain had checked with the map twice, when a metal-padded door showed up before them at last.
“Finally!” Pain exhaled and darted to it, hammering her fist against the metal. “Open up, it’s us!”
A few seconds passed in nervous anticipation and muttering, and then the lock clicked and the door opened slightly, a frowned face of a guard showing up from behind it.
“Pain?” he asked with surprise and opened the door wider. Behind it was a room that looked almost the same as the one they had passed when leaving the building.
“Hi, Greg,” she greeted him.
“Hi,” Jane said.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were out on an assignment.” He looked them over with a frown.
Pain grunted.
“You see, we decided to take a pleasant night stroll through the tunnels instead,” she responded and slipped inside, pushing him back into the room. Greg only pursed his lips, watching her come up to the ladder.
“Should I call Peter?” He jerked his head toward an ancient phone on one of the walls.
“Oh, don’t bother. Peter just lo-o-o-o-ves surprises,” she answered and leaped through the hole, landing somewhere on the ground floor with an angry thump. The others went after her, followed by Greg’s worried look.
In a few minutes they were already in the waiting room, and Jane had a strong feeling of déjà vu. This week they had already come here twice in the middle of the night, and she tried to get rid of the feeling that there would be a third time, too. This time Jerry was on duty once again, and as they walked in, he jumped to his feet, as if they scared him somehow.
“What are you doing here?”
Pain froze in surprise, and Dave bumped into her. She didn’t even notice, her small figure like a stone statue glued to the floor.
“Why do I hear this question again?”
“I mean, you’re supposed to be at the corporate apartment, aren’t you?” Jerry seemed to be putting his thoughts in order, his watery gray eyes darting from one of them to another.
“Well, we were,” she drawled as if he were retarded and came up to him, getting seated in a chair. “Call Peter.”
He gave her only one worried look before dialing Peter’s number and asking him to come outside. They waited for a minute in anxiety, feet tapping on the floor, eyes flashing at each other, until Peter showed up in the vinous robe again.
“What the hell happened this time?” he boomed with annoyance and worry.
Pain raised her head, taking in his appearance – weary look, stubbly chin, sleepy eyes. He didn’t seem to have got much sleep this night either.
“So, you think Eugene doesn’t know about the apartment, huh?” she asked, her voice low and thoughtful. Even speaking was hard now, with all of her energy spent in the battle. But the blood was still singing in her veins, and she felt the need to do something at the same time as she felt a huge weight of tiredness press on her shoulders. So she just sat there and twiddled with a pencil from the desk.
Peter looked her over, then Jane and the guys, his lips pursed in frustrated concentration, and then pulled up another chair with a sigh and seated himself in front of Pain. The others were still standing by the doors, eager to leave as soon as possible, apparently.
“Let me guess… You got attacked there?” he asked without much surprise.
“Hell, yeah,” she replied with a meaningful nod.
“Was it bad?”
She mused for a moment.
“Well, it depends… Were you particularly fond of that luxurious white couch? The TV and the ceiling? Oh, the coffee table? Because if you weren’t, I’d be inclined to answer
positively. And by the way, I think there’s someone’s head wedged in the window frame… But if you were…”
“Okay, okay, enough. I get it. Jerry, send the clean-up team. Here’s the address,” Peter said, snatching the pencil from out of Pain’s hand and scrabbling something on a Post-it. He handed it to the guard without looking at him and returned the pencil to her with his face as somber as a November cloud. “Did they follow you?” he asked, and when Pain shook her head, added, “Good.” He scratched the back of his head, looking down at the floor. “I think we should make a countermove, but now we all should get some sleep. I’ll think about it tomorrow.”
With a lazy look in his direction, Pain got up and stretched, wincing as her wounds reminded of themselves.
“Okay…” was all she said.
“And I did like the couch,” Peter noted, pointing a finger at her. She only smirked and went to the doors. He watched her go, his half-gray eyebrows arched at something. She was almost in the doorway when his voice sounded again. “What’s with your gear again?”
She paused, suppressing a sigh.
“Peter, there was a bloodbath, what do you think I should have been saving, the others or my gear?” she complained, annoyed.
“How many times do I have to say that you won’t be much of help if you get shredded to pieces? You should be more careful,” he pressed. Her face contorted in irritation, and he must have seen it, because he quickly added, “Okay, whatever. Good night.”
She gave him an irritated snort.
“Yeah, whatever.”
And then she left, with the others already at the elevator.
They crowded inside it and Pain pressed the button, leaving a brown fingerprint on its metal surface. Chad followed her hand with a frowned look. A question was spinning around in his head, over and over, and he turned to the sisters.
Sky Ghosts: All for One (Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure) (Sky Ghosts Series Book 1) Page 13
