by C. J. Anaya
Chapter Twelve
Tie ran up behind us shouting something to Victor while diving towards Angie, tackling her to the gravelly floor. I didn’t have time to form a single question before Victor yanked me to the ground covering my body with his own. A fireball flew directly over us and pummeled into Angie’s car, causing it to roll backward several times before it came to a stop on its side.
“Are you okay?” Victor asked sounding panicked.
I couldn’t answer. I was too busy spitting gravel out of my mouth.
Honestly, I was just glad I wasn’t the only one seeing bright balls of fire being launched out of nowhere.
“Tie?” Victor shouted in concern.
“We’re good,” he yelled back, “but we need to get out of here before he’s able to work up another fireball.”
“Agreed. Follow me.”
Victor swept me up in his arms and ran without seeming the least bit affected by how much I weighed. I was pretty sure Tie and Angie were following right behind us, but I felt an enormous sense of relief when I heard Angie screaming, “Tie, put me down. I’ve gotta go back and find out who torched my car!”
“That purple monstrosity? Someone just did you a favor, Angie. Besides, what would you do if you actually found the culprit?” Tie shouted.
“I’d kill him slowly with the pointy tips of my fingernails,” she screeched.
Victor’s pace picked up more speed, something I didn’t think was possible. I wasn’t sure where he was headed until I saw the lighted walls of the high school in the distance. I couldn’t believe we’d reached it so fast. It was a good two miles from the café. It wasn’t humanly possible for us to have arrived at the school as fast as we did. We were almost to the front steps when I looked to my left and saw movement from across the street.
“Victor! Down,” Tie yelled.
I shut my eyes and held tight to Victor as he dove on his side with me cradled in his arms. The school’s immaculate lawn erupted into flame a few feet behind us and to the left. I looked for Tie and Angie. They had landed to our right. Victor shot up fast, still managing to carry me, and broke through the front doors with a ridiculous amount of force. Looking back, I saw the front doors barely hanging on their hinges. Tie stepped through them with Angie thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She was still yelling at him to put her down.
We rounded a corner of the hallway and waited for Tie and Angie to catch up.
“Where to now, oh fearless leader?” Tie asked.
It was amazing that in a life or death situation he was still capable of achieving such a mocking attitude.
Victor ignored him and continued forward, racing towards the end of the hall and turning left. I knew where he was headed now, but I couldn’t figure out why. I didn’t see how the cafeteria was going to provide the kind of cover we needed. I heard a loud whooshing noise as Victor threw us both against the wall. Another fireball went sailing down the hallway and crashed into some lockers. We moved forward a few feet then took a left, rushing through the doors of the cafeteria. I really hoped we weren’t going to hide in there. In my mind, a high school kitchen in the middle of the night was the perfect setting for a mass murder.
The kitchen was exactly where Victor went.
“Are these ovens gas or electric?” he asked, setting me down next to him.
“Are you serious? I have no idea.” All I could think about was when the next fireball was going to hit.
He didn’t seem to be listening to me, though. Tie still held Angie over his shoulder while she continued to squawk.
“Electric,” Victor muttered. “That’s not gonna work.”
“Burning it wouldn’t have killed it, Vicky”
“It would have slowed it down.”
“Guys, shut up and listen,” Angie shouted, smacking Tie on the back to emphasize the urgency in her tone. “Do you hear that?”
The immediate silence that followed was deafening. Then…
Click click. Click click.
The sound was directly above us.
“What was that?” she asked.
Click click. Click click.
I had no idea what it was, but it sounded horrifically familiar. I looked up at the ceiling and waited for the sound to come again.
Click cl…
Victor pushed me roughly to the floor while simultaneously pulling out a strange looking crossbow.
Where had he been hiding that thing?
He aimed for the ceiling and shot with practiced precision before the clicking sound had even finished. The arrow ripped through the ceiling, and a loud, pain filled screech erupted immediately afterward. A scorched, mega-sized paw with huge claws reached through the hole above us.
Victor scooped me up again, and we were running back the way we’d come.
“All you did was piss it off, you know,” yelled Tie from behind us.
“And slowed it down. It won’t be able to track us for a while now.”
Claws. That thing had claws, and they were nasty looking. I was freaking out.
We were down the hallway, past the broken high school entrance and across the street before I could blink an eyeball. I wondered where we were headed next when my house suddenly appeared in the distance. We were traveling so fast. How was it even possible?
“How do you know where I live?” I shouted.
Victor ignored my question and raced toward the front door of my house. He kicked it open with his foot and rushed inside with Tie following right behind us. Tie dropped Angie unceremoniously to the ground and slammed the door shut.
“This is insane,” she yelled. She didn’t even bother to stand up.
“Did you really think I was gonna let you go back there and get yourself killed?” he asked in exasperation.
Angie shot up faster than I thought she was capable of.
“Do you have any idea how long it took me to save up enough money to buy that car?” She placed her hands on her hips and jutted out her chin. Full battle mode.
“Oh dear,” I mumbled under my breath.
“What was that?” Victor asked.
I looked at him and felt slightly embarrassed. I was still being held in his arms, and my arms were encircling his very broad shoulders. Victor, this up close and personal, was more than a little mind-numbing. I randomly wondered what it would be like to kiss him, and then I shook my head as I tuned back in to the argument Tie and Angie were having.
“So your daddy bought you a car. He can buy you another one.” Tie already looked bored with the conversation.
He’d just managed to tread on very dangerous ground. I knew I needed to intercede before Angie completely lost it.
“You better put me down,” I said to Victor.
He complied somewhat grudgingly. I tried to put myself between Tie and Angie as fast as I could, but my gold stilettos were impeding my progress.
“Tie, Angie’s father left her when she was three, okay?”
He had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Angie, I’m sorry about your car. I really am, but we have a few pressing problems here that need to be dealt with first,” I insisted.
Angie still looked ready to throw a few good punches, but she finally relaxed her stance and gave me a nod signaling to me she was willing to play nice for now.
“We’ll be safe here,” Victor said in a comforting voice. “I stunned that thing with several thousand volts of electricity. It won’t wake up for at least three hours. Just long enough for us to make our escape.”
“Escape?” I asked.
“Yes, and don’t worry about your home. The nemokata can’t send their fireballs through here.”
“Nekomata? What…?”
“The fireballs can’t penetrate the walls in which living beings dwell,” Victor continued interrupting my question.
“My car begs to differ,” Angie argued.
“Your car is fine,” Tie joined in sounding frustrated. “Their fire only destroys human flesh. We could go
back to the café right now and there would be absolutely nothing wrong with your car, okay? It was just an illusion.”
I thought about the tree in Mrs. Simmons’ yard. That mystery was solved.
The bickering continued on until I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Whoa, wait!” I yelled. “What are nekomata, why are they throwing balls of fire at us, and how in the world do you two even know about them in the first place?”
My little outburst seemed to surprise everyone.
“Who are you really, because you certainly aren’t high school kids, and you definitely didn’t move here with the intention of staying for any real length of time.”
Tie and Victor looked at each other, communicating in that strange way only guys can.
“Do they know this has happened before?” Angie asked breaking the silence.
“What do you mean, this has happened before?” Victor asked sharply.
Angie ignored his tone and continued on.
“When Hope was walking home from the hospital yesterday she thought someone was following her, and then this branch knocked her over and a huge fireball lit up the tree she’d been standing in front of.”
Victor turned to Tie.
“You knew about this?”
“I made sure she got home safely.” Tie raised a placating hand. “She hit the ground before the flames came near her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me there’d already been an attack?” Victor was getting angrier by the second.
“I didn’t think you were even coming, and the assassin wasn’t sure it was her. You weren’t sure it was her,” he said in a defensive tone. “I had it under control, Vicky. Nothing was going to happen to her on my watch.”
“But it isn’t your watch, is it, Tie? It’s mine. She’s my responsibility, and you agreed to that before you were allowed to come here.”
“Someone better tell me what’s going on before I begin screaming at the top of my very operatic lungs,” Angie cried out.
“You were there when I got attacked last night, and you didn’t talk to me or help me up or explain what was going on?” I asked Tie angrily.
“What was I supposed to do? Introduce myself and tell you I was there to find out if you could heal people by connecting with their life force, and oh, by the way, there are other people who aren’t so nice, and they would like to kill you?”
“Heal people? Hope, what on earth is he talking about?” Angie asked.
“I don’t know, Angie.” I tried to sound clueless. “For some reason these two both think I’m some kind of miracle worker.”
“We aren’t the only ones. How do you explain that everyone, good and bad, has managed to zero in on you Ms. Fairmont,” Tie asked driving his point home.
“You still haven’t told me what nekomata are or who you two are for that matter.” I needed to steer the conversation away from my healing powers.
“We’ll talk about what nekomata are later,” Victor said wearily. “Right now we need some kind of game plan. We need to get Hope out of town without ‘you know who’ being the wiser.”
“Who is ‘you know who’?” I fairly screamed.
“We’ll need Chinatsu to help us out with that,” Tie said completely ignoring me.
“Our mythology teacher?” Angie asked. “What in the world does she have to do with any of this?”
“I’m not leaving,” I interrupted before anyone could answer Angie’s questions. “I don’t know who you people are, and I have no idea what’s going on. Do you really think I’d go anywhere with either one of you?”
“You’re not safe here, Hope,” Victor said trying to reason with me.
“I’m not safe because you two are here. None of this started until you two came into town. Am I right?”
Their silence was deafening.
“Tell me what’s going on right now!”
“There’s really only so much we can tell you. The rest you have to remember on your own.” Victor placed a calming hand on my shoulder.
“She should have remembered all the ugly, sordid details by now,” Tie said bitingly, “but I think she’s healing too much. She’s been using her powers to heal everyone but herself.”
I felt like I was going to hyperventilate. I didn’t want Angie finding out like this.
“Crazy,” Angie muttered to no one in particular. “I’m surrounded by good looking guys who are absolutely nuts. I don’t suppose either one of you is up for a really long make-out session?”
Angie threw herself on the living room couch and pulled out a nail file from her monstrous purse. I was surprised she still had her purse.
“I’m going to say this one more time so pay attention,” I said raising my voice. “I don’t know how to heal people. I don’t know what a life force is, and I don’t have magical powers that allow me to fix injuries, seal cuts, or bring people back from the dead. I don’t even own a broomstick.”
“Well, now you’re just being silly,” Tie said sending me a wink.
The sarcastic remark forming in my mind never got past my lips. I heard the back door open and slam and then my father’s concerned voice boomed loudly from the kitchen.
“Hope? Angie? Are you here?” he sounded very frightened.
“Dad, we’re in here,” I shouted. “You got home fast.”
He was also home safe. I felt relieved knowing he hadn’t been attacked by whatever was out there.
I heard my dad stomping down the hallway.
“Someone came into the hospital screaming about a purple PT being set on fire,” he said. “You weren’t answering your phones so I came home to see if everything was okay.” He reached the end of the hallway and came into view. When he caught sight of us he breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
“Thank heavens you guys are all right.” His voice sounded hollow.
“No one should have been able to see any kind of damage to the car,” Victor muttered to himself.
My father opened his arms and walked over to me. He seemed a little unsteady on his feet, and he smelled like he’d been sitting by a campfire.
I hurried forward thinking he’d been injured somehow.
“Hope. No!” Tie screamed just as my father reached behind himself and pulled out the longest, wickedest looking sword I’d ever seen.
He charged at me, yelling something in a language I couldn’t understand and thrust his sword forward aiming for my chest. Everything happened slowly after that. Victor ran toward my father, reaching behind him and unveiling an incredible looking sword of his own. More steel gleamed on my other side as Tie produced another nasty looking weapon out of thin air.
I randomly wondered where everyone had been hiding their swords.
My brain felt a little fuzzy, and the entire moment took on a surreal almost dream-like quality.
My father was going to kill me. I felt a strange sense of loss knowing that my last moments on this earth were so near, and I couldn’t be alone with Tie.
I looked into my father’s eyes as the sharp end of his weapon continued its downward thrust toward my heart. They were cold, black and empty, completely devoid of any human emotion. In the back of my mind, I was able to acknowledge that the man before me really wasn’t my father, but I couldn’t help feeling betrayed all the same. His main goal, at this point, was to end my life.
I saw a streak of gold coming at me from my left and felt myself being shoved backward as Tie threw himself in front of me. I landed roughly on the floor and watched as my fake father’s sword plunged through Tie’s chest and out his back.
Tie screamed in agony and dropped to his knees trying to pull the sword from his chest. Victor let out a deafening battle cry and sailed through the air with his sword raised high above him. He brought it down swiftly, severing my father’s head from his body where it rolled noisily and came to a stop near the front door.
Then there was silence.
Everyone stayed frozen in their various positions until Tie, wi
th one long gut wrenching scream, pulled the gleaming sword from his chest and collapsed the rest of the way to the floor.