by Greg Dragon
James Knight motioned for Isobel and Koko and they joined him to retreat to where Jaime and Tracy stood.
“Now, look, CeeCee’s got this,” he said to them as they came together behind the building. “Let her fight him and kick his ass. We need to find your friend and make sure that she’s okay.”
“How do you know CeeCee will be okay?” Isobel asked, her face a mask of determination and anger.
“I just know that Alysia is a fighter, and we can’t leave your friend’s body in the middle of nowhere,” James said.
“Jasmine is alive and in the big blue building,” Koko said. “I can sense her even now, healing but unable to move. I saw her fall there when he took her, and we can retrieve her while the rest of you keep it distracted.”
They all nodded and Tracy handed James his pulse rifle.
“When you got struck earlier I feared the worst, but I kept it for you, just in case,” she said. He brought her in, kissed her hard on the lips, and then scrambled to the top of a mountain made from rubble. Jaime followed and then Tracy, and they began to fire on the creature once again.
Alysia tore her cloak off and stretched her arms out, one hand holding the sword and the other with her palm open. She walked slowly at the creature as it bounced around, trying in vain to fly and growing more and more frustrated with each failed attempt.
When she got closer, she gripped the hilt with both hands and then circled the creature, looking for an opening in which to get a clean cut in. It seemed frightened of her as she did this, unwilling to swing a claw or rush at her in fear of the Twilight Sword hitting home and taking its life. It kept on circling, the cruel red eyes dimming as it saw that Alysia was more than human.
It looked this way and that, trying to find a path for escape but then a shot from James’s rifle struck its face and distracted it. Alysia dashed in and swung the sword vertically into an arc, cutting off its left arm and another piece of the wing. She ran past him and spun around with the sword in front of her. The fallen arm became even blacker, and then crumbled up like broken charcoal when it hit the ground.
This was enough for the creature when it realized what the sword could do. It had expected their weapons to be mundane, not of the very world it was escaping. With speed that defied its size and weight, it sprinted back into the city. Alysia decided against chasing it into the great unknown, but she had seen what reflected within its eyes. There was a fear that increased once it saw its own arm disintegrate. She wiped the blade and sheathed it smoothly, then brushed the hair from out of her face and looked around.
“Alysia!” Jasmine yelled at her from several floors up, inside of a building. She waved when the warrior looked up at her. Alysia forced a smile and waved back, and then surveyed the city for any signs of more incoming beasts. There was nothing from what she could see, but she kept her wits about her as she regrouped with her father and company.
“Well fought, CeeCee. Your swordplay gave me goose bumps,” James said as he brought her in and kissed the top of her head. “Is your girl okay? I saw her waving, but the way he rag dolled her on the top of that roof, I can’t really tell.”
“Jasmine should be okay once we get her somewhere to rest,” Alysia said, shifting the hug to Tracy and then to James. “We’re in a strange new world now. It’s ours, but it isn’t ours; thirty years is a really long time. We will need shelter, water, food, and heat. From what I’m seeing all around us, I may as well be asking for a million dollars.” She scanned the area again and then shook her head at their luck.
“Let’s split up and do some scouting of the buildings. We can take care of the shelter part at least, and heat can be done,” she said. “We’ll worry about the food and water once we have it, but we need a place first.”
They all agreed and separated to scope out the buildings that sat within a block of where they had fought. Alysia waited for the girls to make it down. She looked over Jasmine and noticed that she had multiple fractures. She would need more time than she’d originally anticipated.
“Almost got you, huh, kid?” she said softly to the tall, brown-skinned girl. She picked out some fragments of wood from her hair, and then sat on the ground to place her head in her lap.
“I fought to—I fought to stay with you, CeeCee,” she said, and tears formed in both girls’ eyes as she held her. “You have become like a big sister to us, and I don’t want you to fight alone.”
“Shh, shh, Jazz,” she said, choosing to abbreviate her name in that tender moment. “I want you to rest, so that you can be healthy. We want our bubbly Jasmine back, good and whole.”
The girl smiled wide, the way she always did when it was genuine, and then closed her eyes to sleep. Isobel sat next to Alysia and hugged her close, and Koko hovered, looking angrier than they had ever seen her before.
“I want to hunt it down and kill it. Let me hunt it down and kill it, CeeCee. It cannot get away with this, not with what it did to you and Jasmine. Flying around to use the unfair odds to beat us. The lost have no honor, so I should be free to find it and kill it where it sleeps,” she said.
“Come here, Koko, come here, sister. Come and sit with us so that Jazz can feel your warmth. I know that you are upset, but we shouldn’t be rash, especially when many people are relying on us.” Koko hesitated and then inhaled and twirled into a fall. It was a masterful move as she ended up in a seated position, close enough to Alysia’s side to make an embrace.
“You girls did well. I know that none of you have fought the lost. You probably didn’t expect to be up against them until Chaos makes the call, but you chose to come with me, to be my arms, to help me save my world. I just want you to know that I won’t take it for granted.”
They hugged each other close while Jasmine slept and before long they began to feel warm; the shared demon blood was doing something from the way they connected.
“How did you know, CeeCee?” Isobel asked, her eyes wide with surprise.
“I—I really didn’t know we could do this. I know that as humans we can use one another to stay warm, but this… this is just wonderful. It’s as if we are recharging one another, just by being so close,” she said. They all smiled, feeling the connection, the energy, and the warmth. After a time it moved from a physical comfort to a mental one, and Alysia felt the stress, the worry, and the nagging memories of her mother fall to the side to be replaced with blessed nothing. It was a small island of peace in a gigantic world of terror, and the girls held onto it, losing track of all space and time.
When Alysia opened her eyes it was getting dark, and Tracy was standing with her rifle at her side, staring at them.
“Tracy?” Alysia asked, groggy and confused as to where she was.
“I didn’t want to wake you girls,” Tracy replied in a hushed tone. “You all looked so peaceful, plus, I didn’t know whether it was some sort of ritual you all had to finish, or if you were doing something to resurrect that poor girl or something.”
“She isn’t dead, it’s okay,” Alysia said as she shifted her weight slightly to try to not wake the other girls. “We all can heal from the blood of the Dra’yr. But it’s a slow process, nothing like that demon we fought.”
“Look CeeCee, I—” she started, and Alysia wondered what she was about to say. “About me and James, I—I know that you don’t approve, and…” She sighed and shook her head. “I…I—”
“My mother’s corpse wasn’t even cold before you two decided to become a thing, Tracy. How in all the world of sense am I ever going to be cool with that? If you were in my place, and I yours … wait, no that’s gross and weird. You know what I mean, though. Not cool, man, not cool. I can’t even freaking look at you, or him, now. You were like a friend of mine, and you screwed me.”
“I know, I know, and Jimmy said—ugh, I don’t know what to say. Can we ever be friends again? Can you ever forgive us for, for, y’know?”
Alysia was about to shrug the girls off and tear into Tra
cy when she saw a light switch on in one of the standing buildings about fifteen floors up. She shook the girls awake and woke up Jasmine. They all stood and looked up in anticipation of something bad.
“We got shelter!” James Knight yelled from across the rubble, and Alysia thanked God for allowing them the good fortune of finding a place.
“That Jaime is annoying but he’s useful,” Tracy said, as if she had forgotten their conversation. She started trudging back towards the building, and the girls supported Jasmine and followed behind her as Alysia stewed.
They climbed the stairs to the floor where the light was showing, and they found Jaime and James, setting up the bed for Jasmine to rest.
“How is there light?” Alysia asked as they lay her down and began treating her open wounds.
“I found some bulb droids in a building downstairs. Most of them were busted up and out of juice, but a lot of them still work. Plus I got us these,” he said, and he held up a fist full of flares and fire-starters. “Some higher power is looking out for us. The only thing missing now out of your list of doom, CeeCee, is some actual food. The way everything looks, people set up here for a time. Some of these rooms are bound to have supplies, things we can use. I feel like there was a whole community surviving here at one time, hiding from the demons. Something drove them out. Maybe it was our demon friend, but they left in a hurry. That’s how I got the bulb droids.”
“Are there any other droids, or battery-operated devices around that are still functional?” Tracy asked.
Jaime shook his head and then shrugged slowly. “I only glanced in the rooms since I was just trying to make sure that we could be safe up here. If we have the time, we can all do some real digging. Kick down a few doors, grab some stores, and see if we can find anything else from the old world that still has power in it. What do you say, Knights? Sound like a plan?” Jaime asked, looking at the two of them as they exchanged glances.
“Where’d that demon go?” James asked. “There’s no point in us getting comfortable up here if he’ll be back looking to finish what he started.”
“As long as I have the Twilight Sword, he will avoid me at all costs,” Alysia said. “We are safe here; he won’t come back to fight us all on the same battleground … not unless he’s stupid, and he didn’t strike me as being stupid. Isobel and Koko are fast, deadly, and resourceful. They can go out tomorrow to see what they can find for food. The rest of us can go from room to room, salvaging what we can.”
They all nodded and then separated to set up camp, supply stashes, and make themselves comfortable. Alysia removed her tattered cloak and her boots, and then lay on the floor next to Jasmine, holding her close to try and generate the heat again. She didn’t know when it was that she passed out, but for the rest of her team and family, she was out the moment she lay down.
~ * ~ * ~
The next day they got up and went door to door, looking for anything that could be used by their group to eat, stay warm, or pass the time. The building was an old bank building, and they were in the offices that stood on the fifteenth floor. They used the cubicle partitions to set up rooms, and James and Tracy began to dismantle the old chairs and couches to set up beds for all of them.
The girls of the Bloody Garot took to the streets to scrounge for food. Isobel was left behind to take care of Jasmine, while Alysia and Koko tore New York apart, looking for hard rations. When they came back, they had cans of beans, salted meat, and a small deer. It took the entire day for them to make the floor into a proper camp, but by the time it was dark again their spirits were up.
“Whoever said that a couple of soft, city-bred Yankees could never survive the apocalypse was out of their mind,” Tracy joked, but half of them didn’t understand it, so they just laughed to make her feel better.
James created a fire inside of a metal bin that he found, and they gathered around it to talk and thaw out their frozen limbs from the day.
“How long do we plan to stay up here?” Tracy asked.
“I dunno,” James said, looking over at Alysia as if to urge her to speak up.
“I think this is it,” she said quietly.
“What do you mean?” Tracy said.
“I think we need to make this place comfy, get situated, and make it into our home base for a while. We drove the demon out that was stationed here, and eventually the girls and I will have to find him and finish him off. If we keep moving around together, traversing into unknown territory and whatnot, then the same thing that happened to Jazz will happen to the rest of us.”
Tracy made to say something but Alysia shot her a glance to keep her quiet. “Hear me out; I’ve given this a lot of thought since we got here. If we can have a home base, we can become hunters instead of the hunted. This building has many floors, and it’s empty and we are high up. If we get attacked, we can defend ourselves here; and if we rescue people, they can be taken care of here too.”
“Yeah with all the tons of food and supplies that we have here, right CeeCee?” Jaime asked sarcastically.
“No, Jaime, I get it. We will have to keep stocking up and preparing for the weeks to come. Once we are good with supplies, living items, and Jasmine is healthy, then we can start working on finding the demons to destroy. We travel out, kill them, and then come back to rest and recuperate. If we’re constantly moving about, camping out in the open, and traveling together, they will seek us out and kill all of you. I couldn’t live with myself if that were to happen.”
They sat around the fire, letting her words sink in. Nobody had any objections. It sounded good to have a place to call home instead of the constant traveling they had been doing.
The next morning, James went with Koko to do the scavenging run, and Isobel assisted Tracy in working on the place. Alysia went up to the rooftop to make sure nothing was camping there, and Jaime began working on what he called a “heater” out of the frozen machinery that stood exposed on the first floor.
When they reconvened for lunch—roasted venison with a side of boiled kidney beans—Alysia walked into one of the offices and found a tall window to start looking out. Jaime got up and followed her inside, as he wanted to try and cheer her up.
“CeeCee, how come you’re so good at fighting? I know that your father put you in martial arts classes and all of that, but you’re ridiculous. How come you aren’t some sort of world champion kendo master or something?” Jaime asked as they stood by the window, watching the snow as it fell.
“I don’t know. I was kind of a natural when I started playing with swords. Dad thought it was some sort of amazing thing, so he got me a real tutor for private lessons. Funny thing is that I hated him for it; the lessons were hard and I thought that it was the most worthless thing to put time into.”
“You turned out pretty good for someone who half-assed her training,” he said with a smirk.
“I never said I half-assed anything. The training was my escape, and I used it to keep my mind off of many other things going on around me. I don’t mean that I hated my dad. Never that. What I mean is that I wished I could be like the other girls… back then. I was a bit of an outcast in my school, and I couldn’t ever share my personal life with them. What was I gonna say? ‘Hey I’m Alysia and I get to go home and punch a heavy bag tonight?’ Yeeeaaah.”
“Does your dad know that you had it hard?” he asked.
Alysia shrugged. “My dad did several tours as a Special Forces soldier. I’m not gonna go tell him that a bunch of little girls not wanting to play with me was hard. Plus, I know now that everything he has done was for my safety. If I hadn’t been trained to fight back when people pushed, I would have been dead that first night when the creatures came.” She stopped and looked at him, which made him uncomfortable since she never was one to give him eye contact. “I’ve noticed something,” she said.
“What, do I have something on my face?” Jaime asked while simultaneously touching his cheeks to see if anything was there.
“We’re always discussing me, and I don’t know the first thing about you. Same goes for Tracy, and my dad. Everyone here is a closed book, except for me. I just whined to you about being an outcast kid. I must be losing my mind.”
Jaime didn’t say anything, just rubbed his head and watched the snow. Alysia was expecting him to start his life story, but he merely stood there, watching the flakes fall.
“Do you not trust me?” she finally said.
He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, of course I trust you. What kind of group would we be if we didn’t have trust? I’m just private is all. Plus, women like to be the ones talking; all men know that. It’s why we shut the hell up and let you all have the microphone.”
Alysia’s brows knit together so hard that they looked like deep fissures in her forehead. She hated the generalization, especially when she wasn’t the standard mold of woman. “Hey, we’re not all like that. Tell me about yourself or I’ll keep on bringing it up until you do.”
“Jesus Christ, Alysia, you can’t ever back down, can you?” he asked and she batted her eyes and smiled at him. The sight of her tiny fangs reminded him of what she had been through and the fight with the demon stood out fresh in his mind. “Okay, fine, what do you want to know?” he finally said, and she pumped her fist happily at having won.
“Where were you born?”
“Jacksonville, Florida,” he said, in a way that indicated that he wasn’t proud of it.
“Where were you when this all began?” she asked.
“Here in New York with my girlfriend. We were at the theater when a giant decided to come through and kill a couple hundred people. What’s funny is that we thought it was part of the movie. Vorlak’s Last Ride. You seen that one?” Alysia shook her head. “Oh well, it was cheesy as hell, but yeah, there’s a scene where the mech pilot decides to land his ship in Centurion form, and it was in full 4DX, so we were confused when he came crashing through.”