by Potter, Ryan
The Aruna to my far left raises her outside arm. Something hard collides with the side of my head. A chunk of concrete the size of a baseball falls to the ground in front of me, and I scream from the pain of the impact and drop to one knee. Warm blood trickles down the left side of my face. I’m woozy but manage to squat against the wall as I try to regain my senses.
“Gee, I’m sorry,” the seven Arunas say, followed by that awful laughter. “That must’ve really hurt.”
The Aruna on the far right raises her outside arm, but this time I see the missile coming and raise Blade just in time to use the knife as a shield. A softball-sized lump of concrete explodes into white dust the moment it makes contact with Blade. The Arunas don’t like it. Their screams rattle my bones.
Just as I’m ready to strike, the Aruna in the middle launches a soccer ball–size chunk of concrete straight at my head, but I manage to duck and roll to my left as it slams against the wall and disintegrates into a cloud of fine white dust.
“Enough already!” I yell, mustering the strength to spring to my feet and charge the Aruna on the far left, the one who scored the hit on me.
What I find odd is that she doesn’t attempt to defend herself. That’s what I’m thinking as I scream and launch myself airborne, raising Blade high over my shoulder and driving the weapon downward as fast as possible toward Aruna’s left eye.
My eyes bulge with shock and surprise as I pass directly through her. It’s as if she isn’t there. She’s an illusion, and the momentum of my stabbing motion nearly sends Blade straight into the meat of my right thigh. I stumble forward and fall to my knees three inches from the edge of the jagged floor. I scramble to my feet and turn. The seven Arunas have turned as well. They face me and squeal with earsplitting laughter, all fourteen Aruna arms now holding chunks of concrete the size of bowling balls. They’re laughing because they have me right where they want me—surrounded, on the edge of the precipice and ready to chuck their missiles from hell at me and watch with demonic delight as I fall to my death.
I have no chance.
Amidst the torturous laughter, I tighten my fist around Blade and take a final look at all seven Arunas, searching for any differences between them or any overall signs of weakness. This is obviously not the real Aruna, just another part of Face’s test for me.
Three Arunas on the left. Three Arunas on the right.
One Aruna in the middle.
White light flashes in my head the moment I lock eyes with the center Aruna. And then it’s gone, leaving me in a stare down with the middle Aruna.
She’s the energy source. The light just confirmed it.
My lips curl into a smile. At the same time, identical looks of surprise cross the faces of the Arunas. As if trying to catch up to my white-light vision, they immediately cock their arms back and throw their concrete missiles at me. But they’re too late. I’m already airborne again, screaming like mad as more than a dozen cement boulders whiz past me, a few of them grazing the sides of my face and body as I bring Blade down hard toward the left eye of the center Aruna.
Blade plunges deep into the eye socket like an arrow hitting wet sand, sending a geyser of yellow and red ooze skyward and onto my face and glasses. The middle Aruna shrieks like a wounded animal and falls onto her back, bringing her six phantom likenesses down with her.
I’m straddling her waist now, still screaming from fear and adrenaline as Aruna writhes in agony. Problem is I can’t get Blade out of her eye. The knife is almost completely embedded into the demon’s head. Only a few inches of handle sticks out.
That’s when the floor begins crumbling and shaking from the impact of the Arunas’ fall.
Great.
“Come on!” I yell, feeling increased heat coming from Aruna. I pull on Blade’s handle with both hands. “Get out of there, Blade! Get out of Aruna’s head!”
I pull with all of my strength. The knife finally gives with a loud sucking sound just as Aruna’s pre-Fire heat seems to burn through the stretchy fabric of my yoga pants. I dive forward off her and roll until I hit the back wall. Then I sheathe Blade and look toward the Arunas. They’re convulsing in unison and weakening the floor with every move.
They know what they’re doing. They want the floor to collapse and take me with it.
Breathless, I stand and run toward the staircase. I’m three feet away when the seven Arunas explode into a massive fireball. Flames lick the back of my hair and seem to melt my skin. A loud snapping sound joins the roar of the fire. I feel the floor collapsing beneath me, so I scream and leap toward the stairs.
My hands grasp the weak base of the stair rail as the fifth floor crashes to the ground level with a deafening sound. I’m hanging on for my life to a loose vertical pole of the rail, my legs dangling in empty space beneath me. The whole section of rail is dangerously close to breaking away from the stairs, but I manage to pull myself up and wrap my arms around the pole long enough to raise my legs and roll to safety beneath the bottom opening of the rail.
Furious and in great pain, I stand and dust myself off, wiping demon ooze and my own blood from my face and hair. A massive cloud of dust rises from the crash that just occurred on the ground floor, but the silence is welcome after the demonic Arunas’ wailing laughter.
That’s when I hear William outside, yelling my name and asking if I’m okay.
“It’s all good, William,” I shout. “I’m coming out.”
I cautiously navigate the fragile stairs down to the ground floor and make my way around a small mountain of fresh rubble. Approaching the main entrance, the smell of freshly burned demon energy taints the air, and I ask myself if I just earned one Fire or seven by eliminating the Arunas.
I guess I’ll have to ask Roman and London about that the next time I see them.
Chapter 33
Despite the overcast early afternoon sky, I have to shield my eyes as I leave the tower and hit the natural light. William runs over to me from the Yukon. We share a long hug and even longer kiss.
“Are you okay?” He looks me over. “I was worried sick when I heard that sound. What happened?”
I tell him exactly what happened.
“You’re bleeding and covered in dust.” He runs his fingertips over the cut on the side of my head and shows me the blood. “That gash looks pretty nasty.”
“I’ll live.” I turn toward the tower. The dust from the collapsed floor is just settling, but remnants of grayish-white material drifts out from openings on the first few floors like smoke from chimneys. “All traces of the battles in my house vanished the moment I won the fights, but it’s different out here.” Intense pain ripples through my head wound, and I’m sore all over from the jumping and falling. “I think it has something to do with the underground portal. I don’t think I can heal when I’m on Fire ground.”
William looks me over from head to toe like a worried parent inspecting a child for injuries. “How do you feel right now?”
“Not great,” I confess. “I don’t think I can stay here much longer.” I scan Oval City. The whole place remains eerily silent and deserted. “People must have heard that floor collapse at least a half mile away.” I shake my head and try to make sense of it all. “I don’t think we have much time. Somebody might have already called the police.” I cough and wince from a sharp pain in my ribs. “Where is he, William? Where’s Face?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Let’s go.” I head toward the Yukon. “Maybe we need to try the next tower.”
We’re stepping onto Brewster Loop and approaching the SUV when we hear distant crying. It’s faint and barely audible, but it stops us in our tracks. William and I glance at each other, turn toward the tower and see a sight nobody should see.
Aruna—the real Aruna—stands at the edge of the tower roof fourteen stories above, arms limp at her sides as she stares down at the hard ground she’s about to end her sad life on. I see it in my head before it happens, and it all connects with the vision of
her death I had when we first met behind Zeppelin Coffee.
“Aruna!” William says. “Oh my God. Aruna, no!”
“William!” I grab his arm and manage to prevent him from running toward the tower. “It’s too late. Don’t look!”
Aruna’s distant and pained voice: “I’ve always loved you, William. I’m so sorry I lost it.”
Aruna jumps. I turn away and move in front of William, who closes his eyes, drops to his knees, and screams as I wrap him in my arms. Moments later, a dull thump behind me confirms that it’s over. Aruna is dead.
“Not yet,” William says as if reading my mind. “She’s not dead yet.”
He gets to his feet and bolts. I follow him as he races toward her, Aruna a small, wrecked heap lying a short distance from the entrance to the tower.
It’s hard to look at her. Aruna’s frail body is twisted into impossible angles, arms and legs in places they shouldn’t be, her pelvis pushed way too far to one side. Blood trickles from her mouth, ears, and nose. Her eyes are open and gazing skyward as if taking one final look at the roof she stood on seconds ago.
William kneels over her. I stand beside him and try not to look directly at Aruna as she takes her final breaths in this world.
“You…came…back,” she whispers, shifting her eyes to William’s. “How?”
“Shh,” he says. “Why’d you jump Aruna? Why?”
She closes her eyes and swallows. “Face,” she says through a mouth full of liquid. I notice her right hand ball into a weak fist. Then she extends her index finger as if pointing at something out on Brewster Loop. “Face.” She closes her eyes.
William and I exchange looks. Aruna opens her eyes again.
William says to her, “What did you lose? You said you lost something.”
There’s a silence during which the last smile of Aruna’s life crosses her face. “Your…baby,” she whispers, sending my stomach to my feet. “Our baby.”
“Oh God.” William rubs his eyes and looks at me. “I didn’t know, Alix. I never knew.” He lays a palm on Aruna’s forehead. “How did you lose it? Our baby. What happened?”
She closes her eyes and swallows. “Right after you…died…Face…beat me…bad…lost…the baby.”
Warm tears stream down my cheeks. I kneel and join William.
“We’re here to stop him, Aruna. I’m so sorry. Do you know where Face is?”
Aruna struggles to whisper, “He’s…every…where, Alix…everywhere…Face…is…Sometimes things…looking…for…in…front…of…you.”
She manages one deep inhale, and then she’s gone.
“No!” William says again, standing and turning away from Aruna’s corpse. “I never knew. I never knew!” In tears, he bends forward, with his hands on his knees. “I can’t do this anymore. I never should’ve made the deal. They tricked me, Alix. I need to get out of here.”
I stand, thinking about Aruna’s final words as William and I share a long hug and he cries into my shoulder. I feel awful for both of them, but her last fragmented sentence won’t leave my mind.
“…Sometimes things…looking…for…in…front…of…you.”
Sometimes things you’re looking for are right in front of you.
Was she warning me about William?
I squeeze him close and focus on getting another reading on him. It happens, but all I get are random images of white light and intense fire. Light. Fire. Light. Fire. On and on—a continuous loop of fire and light. William is a good person who died a wrongful death. That explains his light. He’s good at heart. As for the fire, all I can do is write it off to the stupid deal he made with Fire that allowed him to cross over to be with me.
“I didn’t expect this,” he says, ending our embrace. “We need to take care of her, Alix. We need to cover her or hide her or something. We can’t just leave her here for everybody to see. It’s not right.”
He brushes past me on his way to the Yukon. Part of me expects him to drive off and leave me on my own, but that’s not what he does. Instead he hops into the backseat and comes out carrying the blanket we spent four memorable hours together on. I say nothing as William passes me and gently places the blanket over Aruna’s body. He kneels beside her again and looks as if he’s praying. I’ve experienced the awful emotional pain of losing somebody you love, and although William might have long ago lost the romantic love he had for Aruna, I realize that at this moment he’s grieving for the mother of his unborn child and the unborn child itself, a child William never knew about until today.
Poor William! I’m surprised he’s holding himself together at all. Gut-wrenching grief and anger overwhelm me as I watch the heartbreaking scene play out in front of me. Why does life have to involve such tragedy?
Face killed Mr. Watkins, William, Aruna, and Aruna’s baby. The ultimate unfairness is that Face can’t die. He’s a demon. All I can do is destroy his portal and send his evil ass back to the Fire world, meaning Face needs to go back to hell before he kills more humans.
He needs to go back now.
“William, wait.” I walk toward him and take a knee beside him, remembering something that didn’t seem like anything at the time but might be important now. “Show me her right hand.”
“What are you talking about? She’s dead, Alix. Why do you need to see her hand?”
“You couldn’t see it, but I did. She made a fist and pointed. I figured she was pointing at me, but maybe she was trying to tell us something.” I pause. “Or show us something.”
William gives me a reluctant nod and carefully slides the blanket back just enough to see Aruna’s pale, bony hand, still balled into a fist, her frail index finger outstretched toward me.
“It was probably some involuntary action,” William says, lowering the blanket back over her.
I reach under the blanket and grab Aruna’s cold, lifeless hand.
“Stop!” William says. “What are you doing?”
“Just one second.”
I close my eyes and squeeze her fingers. White light floods my field of vision. Then I see an image of an iron circle with the word “Detroit” arcing across the top of it. The white light flares and disappears, leaving me breathless and staring at the blanket.
“That doesn’t make sense.” I release Aruna’s hand and stand, hands on my hips as I turn and study the Yukon.
“What did you see?”
“I don’t know, but we’re so close, William. It’s like I can smell Face.”
William lifts Aruna’s blanket-covered body in his muscular arms, a distraught look on his face as he cradles her and walks toward Brewster Loop.
“I’m sorry.” I lay a hand on his shoulder and walk beside him. “We’ll put her in the back of the Yukon and get her to the hospital as soon as possible.”
William nods. Then I hustle ahead to the SUV, open the unlocked hatch, and raise the lift.
“It’s just not fair,” William says, laying Aruna’s body softly into the back of the vehicle and adjusting the blanket so that she’s completely covered. “I never expected anything like this.”
“I know.”
He closes the lift door and turns toward me. We share another long hug. Then I turn and walk toward the middle of the street to think.
I see it the moment my eyes meet the road beneath me. It’s an old iron manhole cover with the word “Detroit” arcing across the top, the exact one I saw in my head when I held Aruna’s dead hand. This is what she was pointing at.
Sometimes things you’re looking for are right in front of you.
“I’m glad you’re strong, William.” I turn to meet his gaze and place a foot firmly on the manhole cover. “Lock the Yukon. I just found the portal.”
William spots the iron manhole cover and nods. Then he grabs the keys from the front seat and closes the door. The Yukon locks with a high-pitched chirp as he jogs over to help me.
It takes a couple of tries and several grunts, but we manage to team-lift the insanely heavy manhole cov
er and drop it onto the road. It makes a loud metal clang that vibrates through our feet. We kneel and stare down a narrow, dark shaft that looks like a gateway to hell.
For all I know, that might be what it is.
Chapter 34
Rats. I hate rats more than Indiana Jones hates snakes. After climbing at least fifty feet down an old, rusty iron ladder hugging the side of the dark shaft, I drop the five feet from the last rung to the concrete floor of a warm, stinky, hallway-like space, where no fewer than two dozen brown rats emit awful high-pitched screeches as they scatter down the hall before disappearing into blackness. My skin crawls at the sight of the filthy rodents.
William jumps down from the ladder right after me and surveys our new surroundings.
“It’s dark,” he says.
“And dank and dirty and pungent and hellishly hot and at least ten other adjectives I could throw in.” I scrunch my nose and wipe sweat from my brow. “This doesn’t look like a sewer.” I inspect the cinder-block walls and the exposed, leaky pipes and old wiring above us. “It’s like some sort of maintenance tunnel. Maybe it connects to all the towers.”
I look in both directions, but it’s too dark to see either end of the hallway.
“Working phones would come in handy right now,” William says.
“Agreed,” I say. “Listen, I know you can’t help me down here, but if you see any rats, feel free to kill them, because I hate rats, William. I’ll take a fight with a demon over one with a rat any day of the week.”
“Deal.”
Blade begins moving against the small of my back like a vibrating phone. I reach for the knife. The handle seals into my palm and urges me forward in the direction the rats went.
“This way,” I say, moving quickly but groaning at the thought of more rats. “Stay close.”
“How do you know the way?”