“Freya,” I said quickly. “We’re following a flashback of John right now. Can you track us on your phone and follow us?”
“Shit,” she exclaimed. “Yeah, I’ll have to call my secretary and have her finish up some of this stuff. I’ll be on my way in a few minutes.”
“Oh.” I was genuinely surprised. “I thought – turn here Lily – I thought you suggesting that you had work to do was just an excuse to give me and Lily some time alone.”
Freya laughed. “I’d be happy to give you time alone if you want, but no. I really did have work keeping me late. But I need to go now, so I can call my secretary and catch up to you guys.”
“Okay, I love you. Bye.”
“Love you too,” she replied before hanging up.
Lily spoke up then. “Am I still going the right way?”
I nodded in response, reaching my hand out to rest it on her bare thigh. Her pleated skirt was riding up a little, exposing a lot of her smooth skin. I slid my fingers up underneath her skirt slightly, feeling the slick material cover the top of my hand. Her thigh was almost hot enough to burn me from her anxiety. I gently rubbed her, prompting her to speak up again.
“Will it distract you if I ask what’s going on?” She asked in a whisper.
I sighed heavily. “Sorry. No, I think we can talk. I’m just really shocked.” I looked at her with my eyes, while keep my second-sight focused on the black car in front of us. “Camila is the driver.”
“Camila Witt?!” Lily exclaimed, her head lighting on fire. Good thing we were in her car that had fireproof interior. “As in, Nick’s girlfriend?!” She added in shock.
I nodded. “Yes. I don’t know what her involvement is, but – oh, turn here – but clearly we need to be careful with who we trust. This shadow company must have more people involved in our lives than we thought.”
Lily unexpectedly grimaced. “Sam, you know you can trust me, right?”
I looked at her with my eyes again, putting some thought into it. I had never considered Lily to be someone I couldn’t trust. And Freya could read her mind, so I felt like I could, but technically Freya could be in on it too since there was plenty of evidence to suggest they had been friends for fifteen years like they said.
I slumped back in my seat. “Well, I guess it’s either I can trust both of you or neither of you,” I admitted. “I think that might actually be worse than this shadow company killing you, as much as I hate to say it. Finding out you two had betrayed me and were never really mine would be…horrible.”
Lily unexpectedly shifted the car in autopilot and threw herself on me. “I swear to you that I have no affiliation with them.” She was then pensive for a moment. “Besides, it was Freya who dug up this information on them. If she was with them, then she never would have tipped you off to their existence.”
My eyes widened as I thought about it. Of course. “Actually, you’re right – oh, you need to turn up here,” I said urgently.
Lily jumped back in her seat and shifted it to automatic so she should make the turn.
I halfway climbed out of my seat and pressed my forehead against her temple. “I love you,” I whispered. “And I’m sorry.”
She shook her head gently, reach up with one hand to run her fingers through my hair on the back of my head. “You don’t need to be sorry. I know how that might feel to be betrayed like that. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Freya then I might not have a way to convince you that I’m not involved. I was extremely pushy when we first met, even if I had other reasons for wanting to be in your life.”
“True, but like you said. I wouldn’t have even known if Freya hadn’t uncovered it. Not to mention, you almost died a week ago. That’s proof enough.”
She shook her head again. “I mean, it would be proof if I had been killed, but that kind of thing could have been set up.”
I scoffed, pulling away slightly to look at her better. “Lily, they had no way of knowing I could find you. We were at a loss before this astral trailing ability kicked in.”
She nodded somberly in agreement. I sat back in my seat and returned my hand to her smooth thigh, giving out directions more frequently now. We were in the middle of the city, and Camila was taking turns more often.
Finally, we parked next to their car in an empty parking garage five levels below the ground. I had to really stare at their vehicle for a moment to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. The black car was actually there in the present, as well as the past. Which meant either Camila had left and returned, or else the three of them were still here, wherever they went afterwards.
All three of the people in the vehicle next to us began getting out, prompting me to see if I could make them freeze again. They did. All I had to do was want them to freeze and they did. I quickly pulled out my phone and called Freya up.
“How close are you?” I wondered.
“Still about five minutes away. I know you don’t want to lose them, but please don’t risk your lives to follow after them.”
“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “I was able to stop what I was seeing, almost like hitting pause on a movie.”
“Oh,” she said in surprise.
“It happened when we were following Lily’s kidnappers too. It was like they slowed down for us, waiting for us to catch up. I guess I was slowing it down without realizing it.”
“Makes sense. Then just wait for me. I’m almost there.”
“We will. We love you. Drive safe.” I hung up and began looking around to make sure we were alone. I didn’t want to focus too much away from the flashback though, afraid it might disappear if I did. Granted, when my daughter passed away over a century ago, the flashbacks haunted me for several months afterwards.
Suddenly a thought occurred to me when Lily was oddly quiet. I looked at her. “That was okay for me to say, right?”
“What?” She asked, looking confused.
“Me telling Freya ‘we love you’ like that.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, yes that’s fine. I do love Freya, just not in the same way you do. She’s my best friend.”
I sighed in relief. “Good. I was afraid your sudden silence meant you were upset.”
She shook her head. “No, I was just thinking about this situation. We don’t even know exactly what John’s superpower is.” She paused. “I mean, what does shadow manipulation even do? What use does that have?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I admitted. I had looked it up the first night after the kidnapping, and Freya had tried investigating it further during the week, but none of us had idea if his ability was dangerous. Shadow manipulation could mean almost anything. Could he control people if he touched their shadow? Was he physically stronger when he was in shadows? Was he just an expert at shadow puppets? Honestly, we had no idea.
When Freya pulled up beside us in her orange convertible, her GPS giving her information on both our horizontal as well as vertical location, she drank my blood first thing to activate her third-eye.
“I can keep it active for three minutes and thirty-three seconds,” she explained, her cat-like eye already scanning the place independently of her other two eyes. “After my time runs up, I’ll have to drink blood again to reactivate it.”
I nodded in acknowledgement. “Well, this is definitely not the time to worry about politeness. If you need the blood, then just take it. Don’t worry about asking me.” I paused as I glanced at Lily. “Same with you Lily. If your life is in danger, use everything you’ve got. Don’t hold back because you’re worried about hurting either of us.”
She nodded hesitantly, looking at Freya.
“I’ll be fine,” Freya chastised. “I was in a horrible fire once. I wasn’t able to get out in time and turned into a living corpse, but when I got blood on me I reanimated. My body sucked it right up and I came back to life.” She looked at me. “That’s what I meant when I said I had died once.”
I nodded. “So I’ll make sure she gets the blood she needs,” I added
. “In the event you do have to go all out.”
“Okay,” Lily whispered.
Satisfied that we were as ready as we would be, I resumed the flashback and watched Camila lead John through the nearly empty garage to a storage closet. Inside, the man who was with them opened a large manhole and they all climbed down a set of metal stairs.
“What’s down there?” I asked Freya, pointing at the circular piece of metal set in to the floor.
Freya looked up at me in surprise. “You can’t see?” She wondered seriously.
I concentrated on my second-sight, but to no avail. “For some reason it’s hazy down there, as if the entire area is filled with an invisible fog.”
Both Freya and Lily’s eyes widened in surprise. Freya was the one to speak up. “Well that’s not good.”
“Maybe it’s John’s shadow ability?” Lily offered.
I shrugged. “I mean, if that’s all it does then we shouldn’t have much to worry about.” I reached out with an astral limb and lifted off the manhole cover. I was the first to go down.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to find down below, but I was definitely surprised to discover a tunnel with wires running all along the walls. It was like we were suddenly inside an optic fiber cable.
Freya followed behind me as I climbed down the stairs, with Lily coming after that.
“I wished I had dressed better for this,” Lily complained quietly, her pleated skirt revealing her latex panties underneath for both of us to see. I had to admit it was a distracting sight.
I reached up to help her down the rest of the way. “At least you won’t end up naked this time,” I said with a smirk.
“And that’s a good thing?” She teased.
“Wow. Good point.”
“Okay you two,” Freya chimed in. “We need to be serious now. No more talking unless absolutely necessary.”
We both nodded in response. Really, I suspected that both Lily and I were just nervous about this upcoming encounter. We didn’t totally know what we were dealing with, and even with my newfound astral abilities, I had no idea what types of superpowers might render my powers useless. Already I felt vulnerable because my second-sight – an ability I had taken for granted all my life – was being hindered.
After a minute of walking, Freya surprised me by spinning on her heels. I tilted my head up automatically when I saw that her third-eye wasn’t glowing anymore. Despite our discussion earlier, she still kissed me gentle on the neck habitually, as a show of affection, before sinking her teeth in. She only took one gulp to activate her eye and spun back around again.
“See anything?” I finally whispered after a few more minutes of walking.
Freya didn’t respond right away, but finally stopped after a few more seconds. “Huh,” she said simply, looking back at us. Her eye wasn’t glowing anymore, but she didn’t move to feed again. “The other guy is nowhere to be seen, but Camila and John are in an office down here. It looks like they’re working.”
“Working?” I asked in disbelief.
She nodded. “I don’t know what they’re working on obviously, but they are both sitting at separate desks actively doing something on their computers.” She paused. “How do you want to handle them?” She wondered.
“I would just grab them with my astral limbs if I could see them, but I’ll have to wait until I have a direct line of sight.”
She nodded in agreement. “Well, I’d prefer to take them out quick, but we can’t kill them right away. If John dies before I read his memories, then I’ll only be able to pull out some of his most recent thoughts. I won’t be able to see the whole thing unless he’s alive.”
“That’s fine,” I agreed. “Honestly, while I’m definitely set on killing the guy, I’m not feeling the hostility I had last week.”
Freya nodded again. “That’s good. Better to be level-headed. Let’s go, and Lily stick close to Sam.”
I reached out to grab Freya’s shoulder as she turned back around. “Don’t you want to drink my blood again?”
She shook her head. “I’ve memorized the layout. We should be fine. We’ll just go straight there. And, with my range of thirteen feet, I might even be able to read both their thoughts before they even know we’re there.”
“Well that would make things easy,” I agreed. “This might be more simple than we anticipated.”
“Let’s hope,” Lily whispered.
I reached out to grab Lily’s hand, and we all began walking in silence again, following Freya’s lead. The tunnel continued on into the distance, but Freya stopped to take a narrow door on the left leading to what appeared to be an old server room. We continued through a series of rooms, coming out into an empty white space that was well lit up.
I was shocked to recognize it. And shocked it was so large, capable of fitting three or four of Lily’s houses inside.
“Wow,” I exclaimed quietly. “It’s an old subway station.” I knew Freya was old enough to recognize it too, so I turned to Lily to elaborate. “Before the underground highways and sky-metros, it was the exact opposite. The major highways people drove on were aboveground, and the magnetic trains were belowground.”
“Sam,” Freya whispered. “You can continue your history lesson later. They are in that room over there.” She pointed at a closed doorway on the other side of the massive space next to a set of demolished escalators. It was obvious we weren’t in the actual passenger loading area, because the tunnel for the subway train was nowhere in sight. I suspected it might be to our left if we walked far enough and rounded the corner.
“Lily, I think you should wait here,” I suggested.
She quietly agreed. “Just be careful.”
We both nodded and took off silently across the room. I continued to scan the area with my physical eyes, feeling more and more uneasy about not being able to see clearly with my second-sight. The distortion in the air was worse the closer we got to the room, which made me suspect John was responsible after all.
Unexpectedly, Lily screamed behind us, stopping us both in our tracks.
33: An Unexpected Revelation
I shot all nineteen of my astral projections out even before I looked, reaching to stop whatever was after Lily. Much to our surprise, it was John, trying to attack Lily with a knife of all things.
Filled with hatred again, I snagged him around the wrist with an astral tentacle and hoisted him into the air – ready to slice right through him once Freya had done her part.
Lily ran towards us to get away while Freya leapt for my throat to activate her third eye again. One gulp and she unexpectedly pulled away, her expression horrified.
“Sam!” She said urgently. “Let go!”
“What?!” I asked in shock. “Why?!”
“It’s an illusion! That’s not John! You’ve got Lily!”
“Shit!” I had forgotten Camila’s power was creating illusions. Her ability must go beyond just visual hallucinations because everything I was hearing sounded real too. I literally had no way to tell what was real and what wasn’t. Thus, instead of letting go of John, I wrapped my tentacles gently around his body, feeling with my astral limbs.
Sure enough, it really was Lily, and her ribcage was reverberating in my grasp, indicating she was talking. I focused on the sensations in my astral limbs, sending the vibrations directly to my ear. Her voice was panicked.
“It’s me! It’s me! Sam! Freya! It’s me!”
Knowing we didn’t have time to waste, I looked at Freya, seeing that she was focused on the office again. “They aren’t in there,” she hissed urgently, shifted her focus to look around the large open space. “Shit!”
Unexpectedly, just as Freya leapt backwards, I felt something slice right through my body, hitting my spine and clawing around it to continue on through.
I gasped from the unexpected disembowelment, feeling something else slice my leg, only to fail to cut my bone again. I reached out with my astral projections automatically, wildly trying
to capture whatever was attacking me. One by one, I snagged my tentacles around…tentacles, until all but two of mine were occupied, with my other two wrapped around Lily to protect her from whatever was hitting us. I was surprised to discover I could merge them into one massive invisible force, shielding her. Nothing was getting through as long as I kept my focus.
“What is it?!” I shouted at Freya.
“It’s John!” She yelled back from behind me. I could hear her moving quickly, trying to dodge additional assaults that I couldn’t see or hear. “His ability! It’s like yours! I think he’s mimicking you somehow! He has the same number of shadowy tentacles coming out of him!”
“Freya, I’m stuck like this! I can’t risk dropping my protection on Lily to find the other two tentacles!”
Her voice was abruptly deeper than I was expecting. “I can handle it,” she retorted sharply. I glanced back at her when I heard the sound of her clothes tearing, shocked to no longer see the hot vixen I was in love with. Instead, a monster was bursting out of her clothing – a monster with an elongated head, massive mouth, three eyes, and huge boney claws coming out of massive hands and feet. Its black hair merged together into clusters to form hard spikes coming straight out of the back of its head.
The creature had dark gray skin and was a good foot taller than Freya. It had the resemblance of what I imagined a wingless dragon might look like – a true horror to behold.
The moment the monstrosity was done transitioning, it began moving more rapidly, passing me up and moving closer and closer to the unseen target. I watched in horror as the monster – no, as Freya -was sliced repeatedly by seemingly nothing, losing half her arm followed by a serious cut to one of her legs and another serious cut through her torso. She didn’t even flinch or faulter, her prey locked on, her will unbreakable.
She swiped at the air with the arm she still had, and the tentacles I was holding onto instantly vanished. She then ran straight across the room and tackled an invisible object to the ground, her teeth digging in to some unseen flesh.
The Daily Struggles of an Immortal (Immortal Supers Book 1) Page 22