Ravenport: Luna's Awakening

by Alistair Jones

  As she fills up the glass, she looks out of the window in the kitchen and towards the street below. A sudden light source catches her attention. She couldn’t quite see what it was, but it was bright, and it flickered, sort of like a flame. Within moments, the light disappears. Just as soon as Luna raises fills her glass and starts to take a drink, a palpable heat rises and crashes into the nearby living room window, shattering it.

  Luna drops her glass and immediately dashes for the living room, only to find that an inferno seems to have claimed it. The large window that was there is gone, the glass of which could be seen twinkling amongst the orange flames. Sakura herself practically slams into Luna coming out of kitchen in a mild panic, grabbing the werewolf strongly by the forearms.

  “Where the hell did all the fire come from!?”

  Luna’s fur bristles outward as she goes stiff with fear. Over Sakura’s shoulder, Luna finally gets a glimpse of the source of the fire. A second white-hot fireball arcs lazily through the window, sings past the two of them and explodes into the back wall, engulfing it in flames. The strong smell of smoke pierces her nose like a needle, forcing her to cover it with a hand. The air starts to get hazy as the fire spreads.

  “We need to get to Mr. Morales and make sure he’s okay!” Luna shouts, lowering her head to breathe slightly clearer air. Some of the smoke emanates from the nearby air vent; more floors than just this one were on fire. The heat was already sweltering thanks to the carpet catching fire; Miguel’s TV sparks for a few seconds and shuts down, the heat forcing it to twist and warp out of its shape.

  Not wasting much more time, the two make a mad dash towards the less-on-fire hallway and through heavy smoke to reach his door. Luna knocks on it hard, nearly putting a hole through the cheap wood. Miguel stumbles his way towards the door and opens it, looking sleepy but cognizant.

  “What the hell happened!?” Shouts Miguel, his eyes widening at the wildly spreading fire.

  Luna picks up Miguel and pushes him inside of his room, ushering Sakura inside before shutting the door behind them. The brightness of the flames forces Miguel’s eyes to widen as he’s put down, stepping back into the room.

  “Fire! S-something threw fire in the front room, and I think it’s in the building too!”

  Sakura instantly makes for her sword resting on the back wall, undoing the sash around her middle where her sword was previously and linking them together again. Miguel’s moving just as quick, throwing on a pair of slacks and a jacket. Luna opens the door back up for a moment and sees that the fire had gotten to the front door; running through there wasn’t happening. Was fur flammable?

  Luna decides now is a terrible time to test that query.

  The werewolf shuts the door back and makes her way towards the window in Miguel’s room, opening it up as wide as it would go. Unfortunately being on the fifth floor and with no fire escape, the only option out of here would likely be to jump. The window leads to the parking lot of this the apartment building, where a few other residents appeared to be fleeing the building. Sakura looks somewhat scared as she joins Luna at the window and looks up and down the window, searching for something.

  “No fire escape!? Are you kidding me!?” The werewolf exclaims, clearly distraught.

  Miguel rushes over towards his closet and quickly opens up his suitcase, pulling out his Magnum pistol again and starting to reach for his other equipment. Luna runs over to grab him, pulling him away from the closet as she feels the floor beneath them stutter and weaken.

  “Mr. Morales, we’ve got to go! The whole building is going to fall apart!”

  Miguel roughly bucks the werewolf off of him, looking at her coldly. Unlike herself or Sakura, he seemed...hurried, but oddly, almost grimly calm. As he walks towards the door to the hall another fireball slams into the same wall, exploding hard enough to take out the wall it had smacked once before. A rush of flames hits the bedroom door, and it too starts to become engulfed in flame.

  Miguel steps away from it and looks towards the window, sprinting for it. His voice is calm.

  “Too far. I can’t make that jump.”

  Sakura chimes in immediately. “I can.”

  Luna looks back towards Miguel and nods quickly. “If she can, I can. Let me catch you.”

  Miguel stares at the werewolf sternly before nodding in agreement. Luna’s eyes begin to water as the smoke filters into the room, the bedroom door crumbling off of its hinges. Sakura quickly climbs out of the window, leaping free of it and disappearing. Luna goes next, simply jumping out of the window and clearing it. The breath of cool air was refreshing as she fell, the flames leaving her back. She looks down and spots Sakura, standing off to the side to let Luna land. The werewolf hits the ground hard, landing on her feet and bending painfully down towards the ground. She gives off a weak whine of discomfort, but she pushes herself back up.

  Miguel looks down towards them and seems to be mildly hesitant about jumping, but he pulls his head back in the window. A few seconds later he reappears, having leaped straight out of the window and not a moment too soon. Just as he got clear, a gout of flame shoots from his window, the building rumbling with the sound of two distinctive explosions. Luna readies herself and catches Miguel in her arms, her knees buckling a bit due to the weight. She grunts but she sets him down on the ground safely, nodding towards him.

  From here, it’s clear the building wasn’t going to last much longer, and the few people who hadn’t escaped likely wouldn’t. Flames burst through various seams in the brick building and smoke billows from the windows. The Miguel, Luna and Sakura all stare up at the burning apartment complex for a few moments in silent awe. Luna holds a hand over her heart as she watched her second home burn up. Just before the anxiety of the situation starts to grip her, Miguel runs a comforting hand to rest on the werewolf’s shoulder.

  “Hey! They jumped out of the window, over here!”

  The unknown voice cutting through the flames immediately causes the party to turn around to look towards the source of it. A young man, likely no older than his late teens and dressed in a cheap brown suit, points towards them from the entrance of the parking lot. He slowly steps out of the way as an older woman walks around him, her gaze locked on the trio. At an immediate first glance, the Luna thought the woman could be someone’s young grandmother. Her hair was grey and silky, and her glasses were thin. She was dressed impeccably well, wearing a formal black jacket, a white corset, and black slacks, along with high heeled boots. Her eyes seemed silver as well, though even through her smile, Luna could see the sharpened canines.

  “Well well well…” The woman muses with a soft but still threatening voice. “I believe we’ve flushed out the problem. You’ve had a look first hand…” She gestures towards the burning apartment building Luna once called home.

  “What do you think of my...handiwork? Think of it as a present, from me to you, courtesy of Mr. Scardino.”

  Miguel steps forward and starts to pull out his gun, but Sakura holds an arm out in front of him, stopping him, shaking her head.

  “Shit...they sent V…”

  Luna raises an ear as she keeps one eye on the enemy vampire and the other towards Sakura.

  “Is that short for something?”

  “Vanille White. Scar’s right-hand man. Woman. Whatever. Remember how I said there were good and bad vampires?”

  Luna turns back towards Vanille and nods slowly. “Yeah?”

  “This one is bad. Very bad.” Sakura remarks, slowly drawing her blade with her free hand.

  Vanille laughs, raising a hand to her mouth to stifle it. “Bad? Me? Oh honey...if you think I’m bad, then you haven’t met me. Clearly. This building is nothing, compared to what I’m about to do to you.” Vanille holds up a hand with her palm facing upwards focuses for a split second. A large ball of fire erupts there, conjured out of seemingly nothing just an inch or two above her hand.

  Miguel takes a step back from Vanille and looks back towards his parked SUV. A
s he starts to turn and make a break for it, a fireball flies just over his shoulder and impacts the car, setting it ablaze almost instantly. The windows shatter all along the sides of the car and the flames lick their way up the interior, twisting it into ruin.

  Vanille tsks, shaking her head. She holds her pointer finger up and blows off it like it was a gun, a small trail of smoke billowing from it. “Now, did I say you could leave?”

  Miguel turns back towards the enemy and grimaces and runs a hand over his gun as he steps back with the others.

  “We need to go.” Miguel quips, his voice lowered so that the other two could hear.

  “I don’t know. Think we can take her?” Luna says, matching his volume.

  Just before Sakura speaks, Vanille throws her hand out with orange flames trailing behind it, throwing a massive fireball at group. Luna and Sakura leap out to the side while Miguel jumps back, the fireball hitting the ground and exploding. The force is nearly enough to throw Miguel off balance, his feet hitting the ground and sliding back in the snow. Eager to get out of her line of sight, Miguel dodges behind an old van, letting the others take over.

  Sakura charges her first, drawing her blade out. Vanille throws another fireball her way but the faster vampire ducks underneath it, swinging her blade up towards Vanille’s head. The older woman takes a step back and evades the sword and points towards Sakura’s feet. In mere milliseconds a geyser of fire shoots up from the ground, instantly melting the snow. Sakura leaps high into the air to avoid this, but as soon as she looks back down towards Vanille, the older woman had already prepared a second fireball. She throws it, this one being faster than the first one, and it connects with Sakura mid-air, tossing her backward. She falls from the sky like a flaming aircraft, crashing into the ground just behind Miguel’s hiding spot.

  Luna tries her hand next, picking up a small, foreign compact car and tossing it at Vanille in a lazy arc. As soon as the older woman picks up on what was happening, her eyes spark with glee. She puts both of her hands together at the wrists and fires off a solid beam of fire so hot that it looked white orange. The flames burn intensely immediately scorching the car and charring it beyond nearly all recognition. The force of the flames slows the car mid-air and much to Luna’s surprise sends it flying back at her. Vanille laughs to herself as the car redirects itself towards its source with nearly the same velocity. Luna manages to sidestep it just in time for the car to explode against the brick wall of the other building, sending the werewolf flying and landing on her back, sliding up towards Miguel and Sakura behind the van.

  Sakura pats the few flames licking at her leather riding gear and looks towards Luna in pure exasperation.

  “Does THAT answer your question!?”

  Luna groans in acceptance.

  Miguel, despite the dire situation, still sounds fairly calm.

  “So, we leave. Gotta get past her first.”

  Sakura pushes herself to her feet and looks down towards the others. “Do you think you can hotwire any cars still here?”

  Miguel stands and looks around. As he does, a buffet of flames slam into the van, pushing it slightly towards him. Miguel leans back against it, keeping the van still.

  “Come out from there! It’s so dreadfully boring without some company, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Miguel stands up and looks over the lot, spotting a car in the very back; an old slimy blue compact car. He points towards it with his metal hand. “There. I can do that one. I’ll need some cover. Can you guys keep her busy?”

  Luna slowly picks herself off of the ground, the excessive noise was a bit of a bother for her ears. “Yeah. We’ll have to. Just hurry though, okay?”

  Miguel nods and takes off for the blue car, his hand reaching inside of his pocket and drawing out...his phone? Why would he need that? Luna dismisses the thought, she had far more important things to do at the moment.

  Sakura leaps out from behind the half immolated van first and throws a solid gust of wind at Vanille. She takes a step back from the burst before bringing her hands together for another stream of laser hot fire. The flames meet the wind dead on, the flames spiraling out and dispersing heat everywhere. The snow evaporates from the front half of the parking lot instantly, leaving it slick and wet. Slowly but surely, the flames bite through the wind as the intense heat starts to reach Sakura’s hands, the smallest outer bits of her hand beginning to bubble with heat.

  Luna takes this chance come around Vanille’s side, and shoulder tackles her, forcing Vanille to shut down her flames or risk losing control of them. The werewolf carries her to a wall and slams her roughly into it. Vanille winces as she brings a hand to Luna’s face and detonates a white explosion of force. Luna gets a moment to raise a hand to block it, but she gets sent flying dozens of feet straight back, slamming into the wall of the apartment building across from them. Luna goes limp for a moment while she’s dealing with the impact of the hit, her arm patting out the flames.

  Vanille starts to take aim with a hand, building up a fireball to finish off the lupine. But just as she does, Vanille rips her arm back, Sakura interrupting the attack with her katana slicing through the spot where her hand once was. Sakura's free hand jabs Vanille in the face and brings it down, hand facing up towards Vanille’s stomach. She turns on her Sanguine Art, forcing a huge torrent of wind to blow Vanille off of her feet and up into the sky, easily clearing the top of the apartment building and disappearing into the smoke rising from the building.

  Sakura takes a moment to admire her handiwork, whistling amusedly before sheathing her sword. The male that was with Vanille is still present, having watched the whole fight from his position, not wanting to step in. He looks towards Sakura with a fearful expression, his hand shakily reaching for a weapon stashed in his pants. Sakura merely passes right by him as he pulls out his gun, his hands almost shuddering too much to hold onto the weapon. As his finger hovered over the trigger, Sakura turns quickly with another burst of wind and sends the poor man flying off of his feet and into a corner of the parking lot. By the looks of it his crumpled body falling off the wall and curling into the fetal position, he was likely a regular human.

  Sakura makes her way over towards Luna who had just patted out the flames on her forearm. Luna lets Sakura pull her back to her feet, nodding in thanks.

  “Got it!” Miguel triumphantly shouts, the churn of the engine accentuating his success.

  Luna and Sakura sprint for the car and dive into it quickly, with Luna taking the backseat and Sakura sliding into the passenger side. The car lurches to life and rips it’s way from the back of the parking lot and speeding towards the entrance. They pull out onto the streets and speed away from the burning building, a sigh of relief passing through the car.

  Just as Luna turns back to look at the burning building, Vanille falls back from the sky, though not uncontrollably. Jets of fire shoot coming from her hands as Vanille eases herself back to the ground. And after a second, a car hidden in an alley near the building pulls out and aligns itself to pick her up.

  Luna whines as she turns back around. “Go go go! They're coming after us!”

  Chapter 14

  Dead Heat

  The barest hints of dawn breaking could be seen through the blurs of buildings and other cars. The traffic this early in the morning was light, but there were plenty of turned heads as the chase continues. Only the barest hints of a fire truck siren could be heard by Luna as their car sped away from the burning husk of Cypress Hill. Miguel presses his foot down as hard as the vehicle allows, the speedometer creeping up near 90 miles per hour. The streets of Ravenport were quickly becoming a blur, with buildings and businesses zipping by. Both Sakura and Luna had their heads turned to see the black SUV that Vanille just entered.

  “This is crazy! This is completely crazy! Where are we going to go now? They just BLEW UP the apartment!” Luna exclaims, the werewolf biting her lip as she slinks down in her seat.

  “Yeah kid, I noticed.” Miguel’s
stern voice replies, the driver taking a moment to reach up and adjust the rearview mirror.

  “Who just blows up an entire apartment building for a few people!? Everyone who lived there might be dead! Oh my god! Is this lady completely insane?”

  “Par for the course for Mrs. V.” Sakura says with a sigh, bringing her sword to rest against her shoulder. “She’s a professional arsonist, assassin, and kind of a badass. If I want to be real about it, she’s not going to give up until we’re dead or she is.”

  Luna watches with fear as the black SUV gives chase and it wasn’t long before it was actively and steadily gaining on them. Miguel’s eyes flash up to the rearview mirror as he curses underneath his breath. Spotting a viable turn, Miguel yanks the steering wheel to the side, banking a hard turn that screeched against the asphalt. Luna’s ears pin back towards her head as she grips the seat tightly, leaning forward to rest her head in the space between the two front seats.

  “Wh-where are we going to? We have no place else...oh god, not again…It’s just like the Oswald house...” Said Luna, her hands fastening around her ears and pulling on them in stress.

  Miguel’s knuckles tighten. “Out.”

  Luna looks up towards the driver’s seat in slight confusion. “Out...to...where?”

  “Out. As in out of town. If we’re going to do this, I’d prefer it if nobody else-”

  In just that short period of time, the black SUV rear ends them, slamming into the back of the car and forcing the entire group to lurch forward uncomfortably. Sakura turns quickly to Miguel, looking over the speedometer accusingly; it was having trouble reaching one-hundred miles per hour.

  “Ugh! Can’t this stupid piece of junk go any faster?”

  A gunshot from the SUV shatters the back windshield, sending a cascade of glass over Luna’s back. She instantly gets down low and curls up, trying to both silence the noise and protect herself.