by Jay Phillips
“What do you think is going on?” Emily asked from beside him. The rain continued to fall through her.
“Smells like a fire,” he said as he walked. “Sounds like a fire. Safe to say, there is probably a fire.”
“Why would they start a fire?”
“I don’t know,” he answered in a sarcastic tone. “Maybe to kill a whole lot of witnesses in one fell swoop.”
“What’s a swoop?”
“No idea,” he said in return as he continued walking toward the burning stench. “Maybe it’s some kind of a bird. Probably a duck.”
“A duck?”
He could see the building, a rundown twenty story apartment house, as he turned the corner. A bright orange and red light illuminated the upper floors, but the tell-tale signs of a twenty story building being engulfed in flames were nowhere to be found. There wasn’t a mass exodus of people trying to get out of the front doors, no alarms blared, and a fire-truck was nowhere in sight. Yet there were screams, lots of screams. He wasn’t sure if they would have been audible to the average, non superhuman hearing enhanced person, but he heard them clear as day, as if the screaming mob was standing directly beside him. Men, women, children, babies, he could hear their voices of terror and pain. There were times when he didn’t enjoy his abilities; this was one of those moments.
“What can we do to help them?” Emily’s still dry image said from beside him.
He broke away from the sounds and turned to look at her. Water dripped from his soaked hat and onto his face. He was so wet he didn’t notice. “You can hear them too?”
“Only cause you can,” she replied. “I only see and hear what you see and hear.”
He started back walking toward the building, and with each step, he silently prayed for a clap of thunder to block out the noise. By the time he reached the front doors, he realized it wasn’t coming. Thunder, it seemed, never came on demand.
The Detective turned and looked at Emily’s disembodied image standing beside him. “I need you to get out of my head.”
“What?” she stammered as a hurt look spread across her face.
“Sorry,” he said, trying his best to muster a half smile. “That came out completely wrong. It’s not that I don’t like having you rattling around in my brain, but you give me a headache.”
“Your apologies need work.”
“Probably a little.”
“A little?” she asked with her own half smile. “That’s the understatement of the day.”
“Again, sorry,” he turned away from her and looked straight up to the top of the building. Despite the rain that fell hard against his face, he could see tongue like darts of fire licking at the windows on the highest floor. He turned back towards her. “Let me try this once more. I am about to walk into certain death, and while I have enjoyed your company, having an extra person in my brain is ever so slightly on the distracting side. And I think I need to have access to my full faculties for what I’m about to do.”
“Okay,” she said. “Now was that so hard?”
“Surprisingly, yes, it was.”
She smiled at him. “What do you want me to do in the meantime?”
“See if you can access some of the residents; try to see what they see. And let me know what they show you.”
“Anything else?”
“Find The Agent’s little duo. Try to get into their heads. Maybe you can work your way into their thoughts, access their memories, take control or something.”
She frowned at him. “I’ve never been able to invade an unwilling subject like that.”
He smiled at her. “First time for everything.”
“If you say so.” She tried to smile at him, but it failed. Her pretty eyes filled with tears. “If you don’t make it, if we never see each other again, I just want to say---”
“That you find me incredibly annoying,” he interrupted. “Can’t blame you; I occasionally get on my own nerves.”
“Not even close, Detective,” she said, but her voice, the one he heard within his mind, had already begun to fade. She sounded so far away. “Good luck.” He could barely hear the last two words as the image from beside him faded away.
His head suddenly felt normal; it felt empty. The irony wasn’t lost on him, but there wasn’t anyone around who could appreciate the joke. With the slightest of smiles on his amused face, he stepped out of the rain and through the building’s front doors.
_______________________________________________
The building’s lobby was dark, desolate, and empty. The smell of blood and death combined with the smoke to make an almost inhuman aroma. The Detective stared into the darkness. It was almost inconceivable to believe this was the same place he and Ice had visited less than twenty-four hours ago. Last night it had been the usual dimly lit, rundown, low budget housing unit that The Seven’s administration liked to use for the normal population. Now, it was more akin to a tomb.
He took a few more steps into the building proper. The screams of pain from the upper floors overwhelmed his senses; after the couple of days he’d just had, the sensation was almost too much. He pulled his gun from the holster inside his coat and held it up against his chest. He wasn’t sure what five bullets would do against the assassin pair, but it at least made him feel better to have it in his hands.
He carefully walked across the lobby. The table and chair set that had once been set neatly inside of the room were now strewn across the floor. A drink machine he had never noticed during his first visit now sat destroyed in the corner; its former content, random sixteen ounce drink bottles, was scattered across the tiled floor.
The Detective crossed the area as silently as he could, watching his feet to avoid every little obstacle. The elevator hadn’t seemed this far away last night. Now, it felt to him like crossing a mine field in pitch black darkness, all while having to check every corner for killers who might jump out and give him a little fright.
He, after what seemed like forever, finally reached the elevator. He pressed the button with the little arrow facing up. To his surprise, it lit up, and he could hear the lift making its way down from the upper floors.
“I know you’re not taking the elevator in a burning building,” Emily said from within his head. He could hear her but not see her. It felt different this way, lighter, clearer, less pressure. “Don’t you read the warning signs?”
“Do I look like someone who reads warning signs?” he asked as the elevator’s sounds grew closer.
“What if it gets stuck?”
“If it does it does,” he said aloud, even as he realized he could probably respond just by thinking. Not that he would though; thinking at this point hurt a hell of a lot more than actually talking. “To be honest, there’s no fucking way that I’m going to walk up twenty flights of stairs just to get killed. If this is my last trip, I’m at least going to be comfortable on the way up.”
A bell dinged, and the elevator doors slid open. The Detective stepped inside. The elevator was lit, but the light was much dimmer than it had been the night before. He reached over and pressed the button for the twentieth floor, all the way to the top. The elevator lurched and sluggishly moved upward. He took his hat off and placed it on the floor. He wasn’t sure what he was walking into, no point in taking a chance on losing it. At least this way, he would know where it was in case he actually had the chance to come back for it.
“What have you got for me?” he said aloud, knowing that Emily was still there.
“I’m sorry,” she answered from within his mind. “I wish I had better news. Most of the tenants are either dead, injured, or freaked out from the fire. They’re terrified; I can’t access any of them in their current state.”
“And The Agent’s duo?”
“They’re here.”
“Where?”
She sighed. “The twentieth floor.”
“Well,” he responded with the slightest of chuckles. “When I send myself on a suicide mission, I do it
right. Could you read them?”
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I couldn’t. They have barriers, some kind of training, or abilities, or something. I couldn’t get through. Maybe, if I just had more time, I might be able to penetrate their shields. Maybe. I don’t know.”
The Detective looked up at the digital reading showing what floor he was on.
Eighteen.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
“Time, beautiful, is something we’re kind of short on.”
The elevator dinged again, and the doors opened.
He stepped out of the lift, clutching his gun firmly against his chest. “Do what you can. Keep trying.”
He heard the word “Okay” as a soft whisper in the back of his mind. And just like that, he was alone with his thoughts again.
As bad as the lobby had been, it was nothing compared to what he found here. Screams filled the narrow corridor. Fire reflected from underneath each apartment door; he could feel the heat all the way from the elevator. The scents, blood, death, but mostly smoke, besieged him.
He shook it off as much as he could. He began walking down the hallway. Inside of the door to his left, he heard voices. A woman and what appeared to be a small child cried for help. Without thinking, he kicked the door open. A back draft of flames rushed toward his face. Instinctively, he threw his hands up, blocking his head from the worst of it.
With the hair on his hands taking the brunt of the flames, he looked inside of the apartment. The woman and a child sat huddled in a corner. The door opening had created the slightest of paths in front of them.
“Run!” The Detective screamed at them.
The woman picked the child up in her arms and ran hard for the door. The smallest of flames ignited on the back of her shirt. The Detective grabbed her as she got to him and patted the flame out with the inside of his coat. For once, being soaking wet from the rain had come in handy.
He pushed her towards the end of the hallway. “Take the stairs,” he yelled as they ran.
The woman looked back and smiled just before she found the door, opened it, and disappeared into the stairwell.
The Detective turned back towards the hallway, and the apartment at the far end: Adam’s apartment. With every few steps, he stopped and listened, scanning the area for other survivors. He couldn’t hear anyone else. The walk to the end was slow and tense, and the heat from the apartments dried out whatever wetness remained from the rain outside. He finally reached the end of the hall and the apartment that had once been Adam’s home. He and The Ice Queen had been here less than twenty-four hours ago. On that visit, there had been a few less flames.
He placed his hand against the door, and it easily opened. The room was free of fire, for now at least. Either it hadn’t spread yet, or no one had taken the time to set the place ablaze as they had the rest. Sitting at the desk where he had left it was Adam’s lifeless corpse, a few days old now and smelling as bad as it looked. So much for the crew coming in to clean the place up. On second thought, it occurred to him that this crew, this duo, must have been what Ice and The Agent had meant.
The Detective looked around the room. Nothing. Everything was the same as he had left it: the body at the desk, the gun in its hand, the bed against the wall. And then he remembered the text Emily had received. It was above the bed. He looked at the bed. There was nothing above it, no shelves, no bookcase, nothing on the walls. The ceiling was the only thing above it.
He climbed onto the bed and reached up, running his fingertips across the ceiling. Part of the white paint felt newer than the rest, as if a hole had been made, covered up, and painted over. He placed his gun back into the holster, and with his hand balled into a tight fist, he rammed it through the ceiling. He opened his hand and began to rip the ceiling apart. A book fell onto the bed, landing beside his feet. It was a journal; it was what he had come here to find.
He stepped off of the bed then reached down to pick up the tome. He thumbed through it. It seemed to be a collection of handwritten journal pages, newspaper and magazine articles, and written texts of private videos and phone conversations. As interesting as it all seemed to be, he didn’t have time to see if it was best seller worthy. The smell of smoke had made its way into the room, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the fire itself came along as well.
The Detective placed the book inside of his coat, pulled the gun from its holster, and started toward the door. He opened it and stopped.
A woman stood outside the apartment in the hallway, the fire raging all around her. She stood there, perfectly still as if she didn’t even notice the flames. She was beautiful; a bright light flowed from every pore of her being, from her blond hair down to her toes. The light was glorious, all encompassing, and for a moment, it was all he could think about. She spoke, and he looked up into her magnificent face.
“Detective,” she said, her voice seeming to exude the same light as the rest of her. “I never thought you would actually come to us.”
_______________________________________________
The Detective tried to say something in return, but the words weren’t there. His mouth sat agape without the accompaniment of sound. He took a couple of steps backwards, then stopped. She was too beautiful, too exquisite to run away from. He wanted to be near her not away. She walked toward him; her left hand was held out in front of her body as if she was reaching for him.
“Don’t run,” she said, the light from her body flowing from every superbly wonderful word she spoke. She touched his hand and the gun held within it. “Put that away, my sweet; we don’t need it. Do we?”
“No,” he answered with a hesitation as he returned the gun to the holster under his coat. In her presence, he felt no pain, no fear, nothing. He was simply numb. “I don’t guess we do.”
She ran her hand across his cheek. “They didn’t tell me how handsome you are. Maybe I should take you home, keep you as a pet. Would you like that? Would you like to be my pet dog?”
Every muscle in his body wanted to run, to get as far away from her as he could, but he didn’t move; he just stood there and answered her. “Yes,” he said. “I would like that.”
“Aren’t you sweet.” She ran her hand down his cheek and across the side of his neck. “Big strong man like you could be fun to have around. I could keep you on a leash, make you sleep at the end of my bed.”
“Yeah,” he replied, his eyes locked onto her glowing face. “A leash, I could wear a leash.”
She lowered her hand across his chest. “Just a leash and nothing else. Would you like that? I know I would.” She rubbed her hand across the bandage on the front of his shoulder. “What’s this? Does my dog have a wound?”
He nodded.
“I bet that hurts. Let’s see.” She smiled at him and raised her right hand. A blade made of light appeared at the end of her hand. She slowly moved it to his shoulder, her smile growing with the anticipation. “It’ll be okay. I’ll just use the tip.” She pushed the blade through the bandage and into the bullet wound on his shoulder, slowly, softly, then harder, and deeper, until he could feel the blade coming out the other side.
Without warning, all of his senses awoke at once. The stench of smoke, the heat from the fire, the touch of her left hand on his face, the feeling of blood dripping down his chest and back, the excruciating pain her blade produced within his shoulder, and the feel of adrenaline pumping throughout his body, it all came at once, rushing through his brain in a twisted kaleidoscope of sensation.
He pushed her away, feeling every inch of the blade as it ripped from his flesh. As he fell to one knee, trying in vain to contain all the different sensations running through him, he pulled his gun from its holster and aimed it at the beautiful creature across from him. “What the hell was that?” he asked as he tried to put pressure on the wound with his free hand, hoping to at least slow down the bleeding.
She smiled at him. “Mmmm, my dog has bite. I like that.”
&n
bsp; “Y-y-you cut off my senses,” he stammered, still not entirely sure how to describe what he had just experienced. “How the hell?”
She walked closer until she was standing directly in front of him. She leaned down and placed her left hand behind his head, giving his hair the slightest of tugs, forcing him to look into her face. Again, he tried to move, but again, he couldn’t.
“I have the ability to remove people from their surroundings, away from their anger, their fear, their pain. It makes them so much easier to kill.” She pulled his head farther back as she lowered herself towards him. “What I want to know is how you managed to break free. Very few have ever managed that particular trick.”
He just stared at her, silently trying to regain whatever composure he’d just had.
“I think I will keep you,” she said as she leaned in to his lips. “A pet with fight could be so much fun.”
Her lips touched his, and he leaned into her, for the briefest of moments, forgetting who he was, where he was, what he was here to do, everything but the splendid sensation of her lips touching his. As the kiss continued, she ran her right hand back to his wounded shoulder, and when she pushed her forefinger into the hole, all of his senses, the smoke, the heat, and the pain, along with the accompanying jolt of adrenaline, returned just as before. He reeled, pushing her as far away as he could even as he fell backward landing at the feet of Adam’s decomposing corpse.
A large smile draped across her glowing face. “Pain,” she said as she examined her blood covered finger, “pain is the key. Pain reawakens you to the world around you.”
“Actually, it’s the adrenaline.” He returned the gun to its previous aim as he struggled to find his feet. “The pain brings the adrenaline, and the adrenaline wakes me up. Pretty simple unless you’re a moron. But if the shoe fits.”
“So much bite.” She walked towards him. “I like that in a pet.”
He pulled the hammer back; he found he could look at her now. The pain in his shoulder was tremendous, and neither it nor the massive amount of adrenaline he had rushing thorough his system were going away any time soon.
