I approached the front door, it was locked, but I had a key. In my crystallized hands appeared a single ice missile. Rather than using it as a projectile, I held onto it and swung it, smashing it against the window. My gigantic icicle became a baseball bat which I used to beat the glass until it shattered, pouring hundreds of glass shards before my feet. I went through, pulling Jim’s body, trying not to think of the cuts and scrapes I was adding to his body thanks to the broken window, I didn’t have much choice.
We were out in the main parking lot. Freedom was just a stone’s throw away. I saw four cars parked next to each other, their hoods were warm as I brushed my hands across them, property of the Russian mobsters behind. I went to smash in a window to one of the cars, wouldn’t be the first time I stole one of their vehicles. I stopped myself when I realized how stupid an idea that was. I knew fuck-all about hotwiring a car, and even if I did, the penguin-walking mobsters were close to clearing the ice field. I needed a car that was already on.
I looked to the nighttime streets and noted the random cars that drove by. Cops were allowed to commandeer vehicles, and I did kind of help them with work here and there. That kind of makes me a cop, right? I ran to the streets, leaping in front of a car, waving my hands to get their attention. Their forward headlights illuminated my body with its blinding white light. They didn’t stop. I leaped away before they had the chance to turn me into a street pancake. People these days.
A second car appeared in the distance. I readied my talents this time, as it was clear I’d have to be aggressive to take what I needed to survive. I stood in the middle of the road, looked the driver straight in the eyes before their headlights rendered my vision a blur of brilliant light. The car approached, speeding almost. My hands lifted up and with that, a frozen vortex slowly accelerated away from the street below. It was the beginnings of a glacial shield forming, one that would protect me and force the car to crash into it.
The car came to a sudden stop, its wheels grinding their screeching noise into the air. I got their attention alright, all for the wrong reasons. Three men stepped out of the car, all of them brandishing pistols at my frostily encrusted body.
They yelled at me in Russian.
Of all the cars I could stop, I had to pick the one carrying backup for my attackers.
Chapter Twelve
A storm of bullets chipped away at the glacial shield that I had arched away from the street to protect me. Survival was everything. Keeping my powers a secret was something I couldn’t give two shits about at that point. Besides, there was a 90 percent chance none of these men would live to see tomorrow once I was done with them.
I rested my back against the side of the ice wall I created and returned fire with bolt after bolt of frozen razor-sharp ice missiles. I heard each one crash into the street after losing their forward momentum. None of them hit the three attackers. The rate of gunfire, however, decreased, my talents obviously gave them something else to consider.
Peeking my head around the corner, I saw they had taken cover behind their car. Shattered slabs of ice littered the darkened streets before their feet. Switching to fire talents came to mind, torch them all with my flamethrower talent while they hid. Problem was, I needed this car intact, and burning it, along with them, would do me no good.
I needed to think outside the box.
I returned to my cover behind the glacial shield and focused. A pillar of water appeared before me, and its surface crackled and froze solid by my command, turning it into an ice missile. I forced the newly created projectile to launch up to the skies, and watched as it came pluming down, shattering into a million fragments when it hit the street, sharp end first.
An evil smirk graced my face.
I repeated the task, this time forging hundreds of smaller jagged icicles. A quick peek around my cover confirmed the three mobsters were still hiding behind their car. One of them thought he’d be slick and take a shot at my face. I pulled my head back, narrowly avoiding the bullet that raced past, and then unleashed my rage.
My swarm of icicles rose up and angled themselves to fly above the heads of the three behind their car. What goes up must come down, and what came down upon them was their first, and last, experience in a deadly hailstorm of razor icicles. I laughed hysterically at their shrieks of pain, the sound of their flesh being impaled multiple times, and their bodies tumbling onto the streets as the last of my projectiles continued to perforate them.
I examined their bodies coating the streets with blood while I received my reward for taking their lives, absorbing fragments of their combat experience and trace amounts of their souls. Their car was still running. I leaped into the driver seat and pulled it into reverse, giggling at the sudden bumps I felt as I inevitably backed up over their bodies. I pulled the car into the parking lot where I left Jim to make a quick and complex recovery of his body, while the mobsters inside the office were nearing the end of my icy maze.
I sped away with Jim’s body slouched over in the passenger’s chair as AK-47 bullets shattered the rear window during my escape. My getaway car returned to the road once again, driving over the three icicle-covered bodies. I’m pretty sure at least one head was cracked open like a watermelon getting stomped on during the process, zero fucks were given. I fought with the Russian mafia and killed some of their men. The point of no return was long gone, just like the car dealership shrinking in size via the cracked rearview mirror.
A minute after our escape, four cars appeared behind. All were turning on the same roads I did, all were doing at least thirty over the speed limit, much like I was. Game on, motherfuckers.
My foot stomped the pedal hard as I swerved dangerously close to other cars on the road, oftentimes driving on the wrong side to get ahead. Brakes screeched, horns honked, as cars spun out and crashed, none of it my problem as long as I was able to control this car and my escape. My driver’s side window shattered filling my lap with glass, while bullets grazed the side of my head. Ignoring the pain in my body and my blood ruining my outfit, I visualized the roads in my wake freezing over with a sheet of black ice.
The element of water obeyed my command like the loyal servant it became. I watched in my fractured rearview mirror, and held my breath, awaiting the results. Car number one lost control, hit the curb, and plunged into the frontside window of a store, upside down. The remaining cars swayed away from the ice, repeated attempts to freeze the streets netted the same results.
I pulled a sharp righthand turn into the next intersection amongst the unison music of honking horns. Not sure what pissed these people off more, my reckless driving, or my lack of signaling? I continued to bolt down the new road. Stores, businesses, bars, other cars on the road, all merged into one continuous blur, one that could come to a sudden and fatal end should I lose control, as my jacked car hit its maximum speed.
The three cars were relentless in their pursuit. I wasn’t going to lose them anytime soon. I summoned a glacial shield to arise from the streets behind me, car number two crashed right into it, so did the face of the driver. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, sucker.
Easy, right? That’s what I thought until I noted the luster of my frost coat melt away, I had been consuming too much Umbral energy with little downtime for rest. Glacial shields consumed the bulk of my power, given the size, mass, and speed in which they formed. That talent was officially off the menu until I got some rest. Ice missiles were dicey as I would need one strong enough to break the windshield and kill the driver. Had my supply of Umbral energy been topped up, that might have been an option, but now? No way in hell. Umbral energy was the fuel for my powers, and I was running low.
Two cars and limited Umbral power to fuel my talents. I needed a trick that was going to take them both out—
My forward windshield went out, ripped apart from bullet fire from behind. I quickly ducked my head from the bullets and desperately tried to keep the car still, while my eyes looked at the floor rather than what was before me. The d
istraction cost me my advantage and the car rolled over. The sky, the street, the sky, and buildings. Fuck me we were twirling, we were airborne. We were fucked.
And Jim, oh no.
I saw stars for a moment, and not those in the night skies, before I brushed away the glass that stuck to my bloodied body. The car was on its side with the driver’s side facing down. Jim’s body fell next to me. The damage he received was a hell of a lot worse than what the Russians had done to him. I undid my seat belt the best I could, given the dazed and confused state I was in. I continued to tell myself the pain wasn’t real, that the blood oozing out of me was just part of my imagination as I stepped outside via the shattered windshield.
I looked on at the two remaining cars accelerating toward us at full speed. My hands were still covered in what remained of my frost coat, though it looked more like a coat of slush that was slowly evaporating into blue miasma. I had one shot left to end this. I defiantly limped into the middle of the road, a trail of my own blood following.
Two sets of bright headlights zeroed in on me, I could make out the faint silhouette of a pistol-wielding mobster aiming their piece at me from the passenger-side window. My hands cupped together, my eyes shut, and my brain focused. The streets began to freeze, downward that was. I felt my talents touch the water mains below and demanded the flowing water inside them snap freeze.
The streets beneath the two cars ruptured like a volcano made of ice water, flinging them both onto their sides like my getaway car. Water from the broken mains below lifted into the air like a dazzling water fountain, one that solidified instantly, along with everything else it touched, chasing cars included. I looked on, grinning with amazement on how I turned this summertime community into a frozen winter wonderland. The glacier of water from the broken main now resembled a gigantic frozen sculpture of ice.
My elemental coat looked more like I had been drenched with water, as opposed to the frosty vixen I was earlier. I commanded my talents to take five, ending the fading coat that had enveloped my body. With what little energy I had left, I limped over to Jim’s body and pulled him out of the mangled car. Using my phone’s GPS, I located where we were in the city, and then searched for the nearest safe house Jim had. He provided me with a long list of addresses that belonged to him a few months ago, which I saved on my phone for emergencies, like now.
According to Google Maps, we were right in the middle of the Brighton Beach neighborhood, well that explained the Russian mafia. I used its navigation tool to plot us a course to the closest safe house he had, painstakingly carrying his body along for the ride, all while remaining in the shadows.
Going to the hospital made sense. Going to the hospital would have also drawn the police toward it, given what just happen. I needed the police to stay out of this until we sorted out what the fuck was going on. Besides, Jim was no saint, the further away from the police, the better he was.
Gaining access to the safe house was more stressful than I had imagined. It was a decent condo and so, we had to enter discreetly via the underground parking. Before I could do that, I had to search through Jim’s pockets to find the card, keys, and what not. He owned a lot of these places throughout New York, and therefore had a sizeable amount of keys and cards to search through. Eventually, we made it in as I used the last lingering waves of my Umbral energy to blind all surveillance cameras I approached with ice.
The suite was pretty fancy, wooden floors with patterned carpets to walk on. Fake plants in every corner, pictures hanging off the walls, giving the false impression to anyone that walked in, this was nothing more than someone’s home.
I dragged Jim into the bed of the first bedroom, then collapsed onto the floor, my body still sore and drained from the earlier ordeal. I stood a minute or so later and checked out Jim’s wounds. He wasn’t as banged up as I thought, it was a combination of lacerations across his face and chest that gave the impression he had been bleeding severely.
I dragged myself into the shower, stripping out of the ripped, glass-filled, and bloody clothes I had been wearing. The shower water felt amazing, I left it on a cooler setting to offset my body’s warmer-than-usual temperature due to the workout and lack of A/C running in this suite. Looking down, I saw murky red water pour down the drain. I’d have to use my healing spring talent tonight to patch up my body in time for the morning. It’s a shame Jim was a regular human, as he too could have made a full recovery by sunrise—
My eyes shot wide open, as my heart raced wildly. Panic, fear, and worry formed together creating a debilitating cocktail that was injected into my thoughts. I quickly shut the shower off and dried myself in a half-ass manner, racing toward Jim wearing nothing but the towel around me.
I fucked-up, royally. Jim and I were both bleeding. My body and soul were contaminated, and all it took was one drop of my blood to contaminate his soul and allow a new demon from the Umbral to possess him. My attempts to save Jim might have killed him, just like I killed Ryan.
I snatched a first aid kit from the closet and dressed my hands with plastic gloves. It was something I should have done from the start, not that it was an option. My hands shook as I tried to retrace the events of the night. I held him a bunch of times during our escape from the car dealership, I wasn’t bleeding back then . . . at least I don’t think I was. He should have been safe then, I didn’t bleed until we made our getaway drive, when the bullets began to take out the windows, and glass cuts began to form all over me.
Still, I never touched him then. Okay good.
Then we crashed, he got banged up, I got banged up, we both bled a lot. Then I pulled his ass out of the car, forgetting about the death sentence my blood can issue without warning. Jim was heavy, and I had to drag him by the arms. I gave his arms a detailed look. There were no cuts that I could see, just my bloodied hand prints. I wasn’t convinced and tore his top off, as I knew there were times I did touch his upper body, like when I shoved him onto the bed. I saw no signs of my hand prints, only his blood. I exhaled in relief, and then went to clean him up and apply bandages.
I stood gazing down at his chest. For a man that crushed burgers and beers every other day, he had sexy-as-sin abs. It was a tempting thought to run my finger across them. It’s been a while since I saw a bare-chested man. I had almost forgotten what it was like. Me wearing nothing but a towel didn’t help, as I was naked under that and my skin still damp from the shower.
Get a grip.
I shook off the random thoughts of lust. We nearly died, and he’s injured, now wasn’t the time to fantasize or remind myself that seven months had passed since I got laid. Now was the time to focus and apply bandages to his exposed arms and upper body. Easier said than done when my hands inevitably came into contact with him, I started to sweat a little.
“Reika?” Jim’s voice moaned.
I looked down at his swollen face. His eyes looked up at me. “Hold on, Jim.”
“Holy shit, I died, didn’t I? We’re in heaven.”
“My passport to that place has been revoked for a long time.”
“You’re dead . . . they said they killed you. I saw the car go up in flames.”
“I’m fine, Jim, you on the other hand . . .” I looked down at his bandaged chest and awkwardly yanked my hand away, it had been resting on his abs, don’t ask me how it got there. “Let’s get you to a—”
“Hospital? Fuck that, I’m done with those places.”
I knew he was going to say that.
He went to sit up, my hands pressed against his chest forcing him back down. I cringed, wondering if that was the right thing to do. He now felt my hands on him, and the half-smile that appeared on him told me what might have been going through his head. “Where are we?”
“I checked us into your safe house near Brighton Beach. We’re alone and safe for the time being.” That’s when I pulled away from his chest. We were alone, and I was touching him.
“Ah, shit,” Jim said, leaning back down. “Reika, we need
to talk.”
I stood up, discarding the gloves I had on. “I’m sure we do.” I retrieved Jim’s phone and tossed it to him, after confirming it didn’t have my blood on it. “Tell all your contacts you’re out of town.”
“What? Why?”
“You’re the one that needs protection now, Jim. The Russians are going to be searching the city day and night looking for us.”
“Which is why we need to talk.”
I crossed my arms, while his face looked at my tattoo-clad legs, men. “Yeah, I got you in trouble, go on say it.”
“You’re searching for a missing Russian girl, aren’t you?”
My lips twisted. “. . . Yeah.”
“The same one that fled from the washroom in that club, right? I told you she’d be trouble.”
“What’s this gotta do with her?”
“The Russians know she was there in the washroom, that brute you killed was sent to snatch her. They also know her mother hired you to find her.”
And that brute was possessed by a demon that in turn joined the Russian mafia. “I suppose that nice chat with your ‘client’ revealed that?”
“Client,” Jim murmured, looking down. “Fuck, Vladimir played me good, acting like he had a job for me.”
“He probably used you to lure us out so his men could follow us around all day.” I rolled my eyes. I got followed a lot seven months ago and caught wind of it all. I was losing my touch.
I made my way to the closet as I needed new clothing. Can’t continue the search for Belyana with the torn up bloodstained stuff I had.
“Where are you going?” he called out to me.
Wrath of the Demon Girl Page 8