This story is a derivative fanwork written by GodandMen for the Toaru Majutsu no Index/とある魔術の禁書目録 franchise.

BAPTISM

III

-x-

Of course it was too late.

He was arrested – or detained, as they kept trying to tell him – on Friday night. They spent the whole of Saturday questioning him.

To Jim's surprise they did not actively try to pin him with something. It seems like Yomikawa did indeed pull some strings and he was let off with nothing but a warning.

But he still needed to spend Saturday night in a cell. They gave him a new backpack, some money, the keys to his dorm, and another map. They also helpfully explained to him that his dorm's address was not Building E, 27th Street, but instead Building E-2, 7th Street before finally letting him out the next morning.

Sunday morning.

Of course it was too late.

He knew that by then the trail had gone cold. It was a long shot to begin with, but at the very least Jim had the advantage of seeing how things unfolded firsthand. He didn't need to scoop around, play the detective to figure out what happened. Now, whatever information he had was already out of date.

Anything could have happened within the two days he was locked up.

But still, he ran out of the Anti-Skill HQ and hopped into a cab. And off he went to the bridge.

"This is a crime scene, you need to stand back."

Jim sighed.

He had not reported to the lieutenant yet, so he had no cadet badge. Even then he would still have no real business being there. But if he had a badge he could at least try to talk his way in. Jim glanced at the wreckage of the van again.

"I heard there was a girl who jumped off the bridge. Did you guys find her?"

The Anti-Skill officer narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"And who are you?"

Jim started to say 'her friend' but common sense kept his mouth shut. It would be one thing to say that if they knew who she was, had her contact details, knew where she went to school. But if they didn't, and a stranger showed up saying that he knew her…then this stranger would not be going anywhere until they got every last piece of information out of him.

Jim's gut told him that if she really was a normal girl then nobody would have sent a capture team after her.

"Well, I heard about it."

The officer slowly looked over Jim. Recognition flashed in his eyes.

"I know you!" the officer exclaimed.

Jim made a long face. Not again.

"You're the cadet who tried to save the girl! I saw you on Friday night."

Jim started to stretch his toes, mentally calculating the fastest routes to run away from him. Strangely enough, he came to the conclusion that the best thing to do would probably be to jump offs the bridge and swim. The irony.

"Why didn't you say so? Come on, I'll show you around the scene."

Jim had trouble hiding his surprise.

The officer gestured at him and eventually he stepped over the barrier tape. They started at the van. The last time Jim had seen it was on Friday night, just before he was handcuffed and led away. Back then it was already burning.

The blinding light and shockwave was still fresh in his mind.

Apparently they had put out the fire before it exploded, leaving only a charred skeleton behind.

"I heard you took on the entire gang, is that true?"

"Um…no, somebody else fought them and I just hid in a corner."

"But still, you went after them, didn't you?"

"…kind of, I guess."

Jim felt a hearty smack on his back.

"That's some fine work, cadet! It takes a lot of balls to go after a gang. You did the right thing. Don't worry, we'll get them, the bastards and the girl."

The only thing Jim could think of was the nasty guard wringing his baton across the bars of his cells. And now here's another Anti-Skill officer congratulating him on being such a hero. Two sides of a coin, eh?

"It's been nothing but bad times around here lately. First the serial killer business, now this. The City is going to the shitter. Back in my day…"

He rubbed his hands across the pavement, feeling the tar and ash on his fingertips. Black. And wet. Moisture? Dew? Did it rain? Jim tried to remember whether or not it rained when he was being detained but quickly realized that all he had seen was one windowless room after another.

He scoffed at his own stupidity.

He wasn't in the woods tracking down a wounded deer. What was he going to do? Track down the tire marks? Amongst the thousands of other cars in Academy City? Go poking around the pavement for footprints?

Old habits are stupid and they certainly die hard.

He shook his head at his own whimsical ideas.

I guess it's true then. You may leave the Woods, but the Woods will never leave you.

"Oh, the girl. Did you guys find her?"

The officer shook his head grimly.

Huh, it's been two days and they still haven't found her.

He walked across the bridge to the same spot where she had jumped. He stood there for a moment as the memory came back him. He remembered the girl, with her ashen hair in the wind, tears in her face, staring him in the eye.

A dull ache pulsed through his left arm.

"Don't worry, we'll find her," the officer consoled him, "we got people searching all along the river."

Jim saw a patrol boat cruising past down below.

"Where does this river end? Does it go out to the sea?"

"Yes, it does, but the water ends at an artificial dam. It's pretty small and there's a metal grate before it. If she…drowned, we would have found her body. So far we haven't, so she must still be alive. Keep your head up, son."

The image of her lifeless body pressed up against the cold metal bars, with her eyes staring lifelessly into the sky, as the water rushed past her…

No, no, Jim thought quickly, she wouldn't be staring up at the sky, would she?

She would be floating with her back up above the water. So when the grate catches her…

He racked his mind, trying to remember how the bodies floating down the Kosar river looked like. Yes, yes, he had always seen them floating face downwards. But didn't he hear somewhere that drowned bodies always face upwards? Something about the stomach and body fat, was it?

But then again, you probably don't have much of a stomach left if you are floating down the Kosar river.

He shook his head again, this time in resignation, and turned away from the railings. The officer patted his back sympathetically. They exchanged some more words before Jim walked away with a heavy heart.

Where to now?

Jim knew that even if he jumped into the river there's nothing he can do that Anti-Skill isn't already doing.

His gut told him that the girl was still alive, somewhere. She had to be. But even if he found her, would she still have the locket? Or did the locket slip out of her hands and into the depths of the river?

The thought of it, resting forever in the depths, never to be found again, gave Jim a terrible shiver. He could feel the guilt rising in him again but he pushed it down. It was no time to indulge in self-pity.

He shakily sat down on a bench and considered his options.

He remembered how he followed the girl down the bridge and into the river. He remembered the cold, icy water cutting through his skin as he broke the surface. And of course, the light; he remembered the light that the girl cupped in her hands and disappeared inside her chest.

What was that?

Jim took a deep breath and sighed. The simple answer was: he did not know.

He can try to guess, but it would be pointless. One cannot guess such matters. The only way to find out is to ask her directly.

He toyed with the idea of reporting to the station and asking for help. They would be able to help, certainly. In fact they may already know who she is, where she is; heck, they could already have her sitting in a rusted folding chair in a basement somewhere, with her eyes blindfolded and her hands cuffed behind her back.

Of course they can help.

After all, it's their job to know.

And they knew a lot.

But Jim also knew that he was nobody. He was just a pawn in the system; no, less than that. And they could not care less about mongrels like him. Even if they did, the last thing he wanted was for them to find the locket. Jim knew very well the things they would do if they understood what it was.

If he had to choose, he would gladly have it rotting down in the riverbed, lost forever.

So that's it then, the thought flashed across his mind.

Is this it?

But…he did have a lead.

He stood up.

Jim had some money. It wasn't much but it will probably be enough. He'll make do. It was still early in the morning; he had some time to prepare. And Jim knew damned well if he was going to bet everything on this lead he was not going in unprepared.

"Helloo? Is anyone home?"

Now that Jim was standing right in front of it, in broad day light, he realized that it did not look like a store. Or any type of store at all. The roller shutters looked like they had not been touched for the better part of a decade. There was no sign or any type of placard. If anything it looked more like a warehouse.

He discreetly checked the surroundings again.

Yes, this is the spot.

The girl was abducted here. Jim's eyes glanced at some of the buildings nearby. They all appeared old and deserted, unlikely to have any witnesses.

The fact that there was no Anti-Skill officer guarding the crime scene probably meant that they didn't know. It didn't help that Jim had given them very vague descriptions of where the girl was kidnapped. It would have been very difficult for them to check all possible paths leading up to the draw bridge.

He pulled his baseball cap further down and knocked again.

"Hello? Is anyone home? I'm here for electrical maintenance! I need to check your fuse box!"

Jim stuffed his hands into the pockets of his electrician's jumpsuit and let out a loud, audible sigh. He turned around with a bored expression and looked around again. He took out a notebook and flipped it open to the middle and scribbled something. Then he scratched his head and looked around again, making sure to swing his head in wide, visible motions.

Then he turned, slowly, hesitantly, into the alleyway adjacent to the warehouse.

It was a narrow alleyway. Jim was not a big person by any means, but his shoulders only had about six inches worth of space on either side. He crept forwards, with his eyes raised upwards, intently looking for…ah, there!

A window.

He checked again. Yes, only one window.

Only one window? What kind of a building is this?

And it was pretty far up at that. He walked directly under it and took off his baseball cap. Jim turned around and placed his back against the opposing building's walls. He stretched his legs outwards.

Hmm…just enough. Barely.

Before he made his decision he wisely chose to explore other options. He circled the entire building and indeed, he found a back door. Unfortunately it was locked from the outside with a rusting but sturdy lock. He banged on the door some more but eventually came back to the window.

Jim had no other choice.

First some fumbling with the backpack; he turned it around so that he was carrying it on his chest as opposed to his back. He tightened the shoulder straps and gave it a couple of test jumps before he was happy. A hammer – brand new – was also hanging on his neck, tied to a rope necklace.

Jim looked up at the window again, then another check of the surroundings; all clear.

Here goes nothing!

He pressed his back hard against the wall of the opposite building. Then, using his legs, he began to slowly and meticulously, work himself upwards. Jim had to make sure to exert enough force that his back simply did not slide down the wall.

He could only shift his step upwards a couple of inches at a time. Each time he silently thanked himself for the thick, hard friction-inducing rubber soles of his newly bought workman boots. If he was wearing sports shoes he would have kept slipping.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity he arrived at the window. By then his thighs were burning with exhaustion.

And of course, Jim should have known better than to think that he would be lucky enough for the window to have a small ledge of some sort. It was flat: an absolutely flat surface with nothing to hold onto.

He groaned and reached for the hammer hanging on his neck.

Dust?

No, no, too white.

Ash?

Maybe…but unlikely.

Too thin.

Too white.

What the fuck?

Jim ran his finger across the top of a cardboard box, feeling the white substance brushing across his skin. He brought it closer to his eyes, but it was too dark inside the building for that to be helpful. Finally, he flicked away.

He had managed to break in alright, but that was only the beginning of his troubles. He came to realize that the building was indeed a warehouse. And it was filled to the brim with strange trash.

Everything seemed to be there just for the sake of filling up space: newspapers, books, scrap metal, vases, empty bottles, cooking pots.

Strangest of all was the random paperwork from everywhere.

In the spam of five minutes Jim managed to find random office documents from at least twenty major commercial entities, all of which were from different industries. And they weren't all congregated in one spot either; they were spread out among everything else.

Then Jim saw him.

Jim caught him near the edges of his vision just as he turned a corner. He was standing behind the shelves, between a tall stack of boxes and a long pipe of some sort. Only a small part of the back of his head was exposed.

The knife went out without a second thought.

Jim whirled around dramatically, sending his deadly blade out flying across the warehouse. It hit its target with expert precision and the figure disappeared. Jim courageously rushed forwards, swinging another knife, ready to bring death upon his enemy…

…and found himself staring down its lifeless, plastic eyes.

It was a mannequin.

It was a full-sized CPR mannequin that had been standing harmlessly behind some boxes. Jim sheepishly pulled out the small kitchen knife from its head.

So much trash!

All very innocent.

Too innocent.

And then there's this strange powder that covered every inch of the surface, literally every inch of it. Its perfect coverage of the area made it unlikely to be a natural phenomenon. Jim took out his flashlight and took a closer look.

It felt so soft.

Could it be…?

He squinted at it apprehensively.

Only one way to find out.

Jim tasted it.

He stood up presently and nodded, impressed.

Smart, really smart, he marveled, whoever did this knows his stuff.

A wonderful, reassuring smile spread across his face. This meant only one thing; Jim was in the right place. There was a reason the girl came here. What exactly he has yet to discover, but that was just a matter of time.

He cracked his knuckles and went to work.

Ouch.

He knew immediately that it was magic the moment he saw the symbol. It was a physical mark that someone had cut into the wall. It was well hidden too, located inconspicuously just a few inches above the ground beside a shelf in the corner.

Jim touched it with his left hand and felt a spark of light flying off.

Then the damn light show turned on.

Well, this makes things a bit complicated.

The thought lazily floated across his mind as the lines of light traced itself across the wall, glowing with a magical essence. He followed the lines as they raced towards an empty section of the warehouse's walls.

Well, not empty anymore.

The previously blank surface was now glowing with a series of magical etchings. Jim couldn't decide whether or not he wished that he hadn't found this. He had secretly been hoping to find something simple: incriminating papers, a photo, some random clue, anything really, anything else.

Anything secular.

He sighed and took out his digital camera. Jim hoped that his cheap ¥3,500 ($35) camera had enough pixels to capture the image properly. Thus he began the slow, methodical process of photographing the magical words on the wall.

Initially, Jim didn't want to use the flash but he found that his flashlight was not bright enough. But when he turned on the camera's flash it was so bright that it outshone the magical glow and resulted in him photographing a blank wall.

Well, well!

Magical enough to have a glowing wall but not enough to be brighter than the flash on a shitty, cheap-ass camera.

I guess magic is not so magical after!

In the end, he just photographed everything without any external light, relying solely on the magical illumination. As he took the pictures he tried to make sense of the etchings on the wall. After some examination, he realized that most of them were drawings of some sort and not lines of writing.

All of them were pointing towards five lines of script in the center. The first three were crossed out. The fourth had a question mark next to it.

ꝽÆænneæænnenigon

PÆnnænnefīf

ÐÆænnefēowe

ÆLloowænnesiextīne?

ꝽÆǷnneuuænneseofon

Jim, of course, had no fucking clue what it meant.

After a long time of painstaking photography, he finally had all of it. He stood back and let out a long, painful stretch. He had been standing in the warehouse for so long that he could no longer smell the musky air.

Wait no, the thought suddenly came to him, the air is clean.

He turned around and sniffed some more. Then, scratching his head, Jim tried to remember.

Yes, yes, the air was already clean when he broke in. There had never been any musk or heavy air. Jim looked around at the surroundings. Indeed, for a building with such a terrible, rusting exterior the inside was surprisingly clean. Discounting, of course, the layer of white substance.

This meant that the place had been recently inhabited.

He nodded his head, impressed by everything he had seen so far. The safe house was well chosen, well disguised and had a strong cover. The only thing missing was a security element. Whoever used this place was probably operating alone and a professional. Jim slung his backpack across his back and began to look for an exit.

That's when he smelled it.

No, not the air.

Not the musk.

No, no, no, no.

Jim froze in his step, a sudden explosive adrenaline shooting through his veins. But he did not understand why. It was not a cognitive reaction. It was instinctive. That was what they had always taught him.

'There's only so much information the brain can process consciously. So we will train your brain to do it subconsciously. It will learn to process the clues and signs of danger on its own. All you have to do is trust it. Trust your instincts! Out there in the field, above all else, you must always trust your instincts.'

Out of conditioned habit, like Pavlov's dog, Jim's body braced for the nasty little electric shock that always followed whenever he made a mistake in training. But there was no shock and he was not in training.

He was in the field, alone, with no backup and no support. His body automatically knelt down and crept behind a shelf for cover. Jim felt his heart pounding in his chest.

Why?

His left arm answered him.

Slowly, quietly, Jim took another deep breath. That's when his brain finally clicked and he understood what his instincts were warning him about. That's when he finally understood the foreign scent in the air.

It was the faint scent of fire.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Malyana swung around with her Beretta pistol and tugged the trigger to within an ounce of its pull weight. But she did not fire; she did not see him. Her days of wildly firing into the dark were long behind her. The long barrel of the suppressor slowly scanned the shelves and boxes, waiting for it to land on a target.

In her right hand a hint of flames licked her fingertips.

"See the white stuff on the ground?"

Malyana's eyes quickly glanced at it.

"It's flour dust. If you use your fire you'll blow both of us up."

She turned again, trying to trace the origin of the voice. It was not an enormous warehouse but it was big enough for echolocation to be difficult. The operative quickly rubbed her finger across the flour and tasted it.

Yes, he was telling the truth.

The esper grunted at her bad luck. With the sheer amount of flour everywhere she could actually cause the entire building to blow up.

She glanced at the flour on the floor and saw a pair of footprints leading down from a broken window.

"Who are you?" she called out.

"Nobody important."

"Well, whoever you are, you're here alone. No support, no team."

"Last time we met, I didn't do too badly alone."

Malyana growled. He chuckled quietly and spoke up again.

"But tell me, why'd you hit your own team? They rubbed you the wrong way?"

"They're a bunch of fucking amateurs. I'm better off without them."

"You know they caught a couple of them. The snakes will be onto you any moment now."

"Snakes, huh? Interesting name for your comrades. Only one group of people in Academy City calls them that."

He answered with silence. She was right.

"Listen kid, you don't even know who you're chasing. I don't know who she is to you, but she is no ordinary girl."

More silence. She followed the footprints further and further into the warehouse.

"That girl is a monster. A dangerous artifact. She needs to be stopped. If she slips away, a lot of innocent people are going to die."

She heard a faint, barely audible chuckle.

"Innocent lives? You should know how much that means to us."

The footsteps were leading towards a faint glow behind the shelves. Malyana methodically made her forwards, her pistol always at the ready.

Finally, she turned the corner on some shelves and saw the glowing etchings on the wall. It was already beginning to fade but she needed just one quick glance to understand everything.

She smiled.

"Kid, I know you're not here on orders. First following us, and then hitting us alone. Jumping after that girl on the bridge. This is personal, isn't it? "

A sigh.

Malyana turned around in a flash. He was close. Very close. There was no one behind her but she knew. Malyana could tell. Her fingers readjusted their grip on her Beretta pistol.

"Yes, it's personal. But not in the way you think."

"And here you are, facing off against me instead of running away. She must really mean a lot to you. Oh sweet, sweet youth. The things we do for young love!"

"She means jack shit to me. But I need her alive. The question is, what is she to you? You took out your own team because you wanted to act alone, do something unsanctioned, right? What do you want with her?"

Malyana hesitated in her answer.

"…I need her alive too."

"For what?"

"It's personal."

"Well, well, strange bedfellows now, are we?"

"Listen kid, we can work together. It'll be easier to track her down together. You with your connections inside the city, me with my skills, we can find her. Together."

Out of the corners of her eye, she saw a small flash of movement and the suppressor hissed with the terrible whip of a subsonic 9x19 Parabellum bullet. She fired, again and again, without hesitation or remorse.

And Malyana did not miss.

Finally, the body fell out of the cover of the shelves and collapsed on the floor. She fired a final shot into its head. A flash light came on and its beam was directed towards her kill.

She found herself staring down at a set of lifeless, plastic eyes.

It was the mannequin.

And the entire world came crashing down.

One toppled shelf began an unstoppable series of chain reactions. An avalanche of debris and dust fell upon her as the shelves began to fall, one after the other. The boxes each hit the ground in rapid succession, landing with a deafening crack and spilling its innumerable contents onto the floor.

The entire warehouse descended into a pandemonium of dust and haze.

Eventually the commotion settled down. For a long time there was no sound or a whisper of life in the entire building. The only movement was the idyllic flour floating across the air. A lonely beam of light shone through from a certain broken window.

Silence reigned supreme.

The first knife shot past within an inch of her right ear. It had missed but she still dodged, reflexively.

Which was what he had expected.

The second knife tasted flesh and embedded itself deeply into her shoulder.

How?

How can he see?

Malyana remembered how the boy had attacked them; he had thrown a brick through the van's window and smashed in the driver's head. She quickly poked her pistol out of cover and fired. And just as she thought, another knife followed quickly in the place where of her pistol had been.

The little fucker's a good thrower.

Malyana took cover behind a wooden crate as more knives shot past her, even though she was sure that she was not giving him any auditory cues about her position.

And he can see in the dark!

Once more…

Jim felt the plastic handle of the kitchen knife dancing on his fingers. This was the last knife. He debated fiercely whether or not he should keep his eyes shut. Eventually, he decided against it and opened them; it was too important to bet the last knife on this…

Man, I wish I could see in the dark.

Jim squinted his eyes and peered through the haze of flour and dust. His heart sunk as he began to realize how badly he had misjudged the state of visibility would be.

He tried to see with his eyes anyways. But yes, it was pointless, he couldn't make out anything. Jim could not see in the dark. Not with his eyes anyway.

Not with these eyes.

An old familiar dread crept into his heart.

Of course, I trusted my soul with it once.

Jim shuddered slightly.

And I'm still here, so…

So once again, he closed his eyes and listened. Just like what he had done many, many years ago in the deep dark woods, Jim listened. Robbed of his vision, all of his other senses came to life, stronger than ever. Jim felt the humid heat, the sweat dripping down his back, the ache in his arm, and his heart beating desperately.

He mustered all of his will and beckoned the darkness to him. Everything faded away as a terrible, suffocating silence descended upon him.

He recited the words once whispered to him:

Forget. You must forget, here in the Woods you must forget.

If you seek to leave this place, you must learn to forget everything.

Your past, your life, your humanity…

She whistled.

And the last knife went out.

Fuck!

She baited him.

Before Jim could curse his own stupidity, the wall behind him exploded in a puff of dust.

This time it was his turn to dodge. And frantically he did dodge – with his eyes closed – the shots were methodically following him. Each one was hitting closer than the last.

He managed to duck behind a crate of wooden boxes just before they found him. There were several more cracks of the wood shattering before the firing stopped. Finally Jim opened his eyes again and saw what was happening.

Red angry flames came pouring out of her free hand and swirled around her like an infernal whirlpool. The entire interior of the warehouse was aglow with its intensity.

Of course, it made perfect sense.

She did not benefit from hiding in the dark as much as he did. She had a real gun while all he had were small kitchen knives. In a straight fight she could easily outshoot him. It was also a lot harder to dodge a bullet than a flying knife.

He peeked out of cover again but another round whizzing past his head reminded him to stay down. The flames were getting stronger and stronger. Jim glanced worriedly at the clouds of dust swirling frantically in the air.

This was not good.

"You'll blow both of us up, you crazy bitch!"

Malyana smiled.

They both knew, of course, that only one of them could leave this place alive. This was the reason Jim had to stay and fight instead of running away. If both of them survived one would inevitably report the other's presence to their respective services. Her superiors most likely didn't know about her betrayal, so to them she was still acting under orders.

If the snakes ever managed to catch her and Jim's station hears about this…

But most importantly, only the two of them knew about the magical script on the wall.

Jim grinded his teeth, a nasty scowl taking hold on his face. He took out his camera and dorm keys and stuffed them in one of his pockets. Then he unslung his backpack and emptied some of its contents.

Steady, steady. Deep breath.

Deep – fuck! He only ended up inhaling a nose full of flour. Just great! Oh well, just his shit luck. He grabbed the hammer in his right hand and readied the backpack in his left.

Catch!

He threw the backpack out into the air. It was the oldest trick in the book; a cheeky schoolboy's trick.

She almost fell for it.

Almost.

It irritated Malyana that she almost wasted a round on it. The sudden jerk of motion caused her hand to automatically aim her pistol at the source; an ingrained reflex trained and practiced over years' worth of experience in the field.

But she did not fire.

Instead, the pistol immediately dropped down again and the muzzle shadowed the figure darting towards her between the boxes and shelves. The proximity of the bright flames close to her eyes made it difficult to track the boy in the dark. But she fired regardless, placing her shots deliberately and forcing him to change directions several times.

She knew, of course, that he was just trying to draw her shots out until the magazine ran dry. The moment the Beretta pistol clicked empty he would be instantly upon her. But she didn't care about hitting him.

All she needed to do was to herd him towards a corner.

Click!

The slide on her pistol threw back and revealed an empty chamber. Malyana checked the boy's position. He was caught in a corner formed by two shelves.

Got you.

The fire swirling around her began to shift direction and concentrate in her hands. Then she stepped forwards and unleashed everything on him.

This time she did not hold back.

A magnificent tsunami of flames came crashing down on him. Malyana cackled madly as she watched the boy's figure disappear beneath the fiery flood enveloping him. He was done for.

No trash can to save you this time!

The flames devoured the entire corner like a gigantic spider web. It's strenght and intensity send the shelves behind flying backwards, hitting the walls behind them with such force that the sound rang out across the entire warehouse. She mustered more of her strength and concentrated them on the flames streaming out of her hands.

But there was movement.

Something was moving in the fire.

Malyana narrowed her eyes…

How long has it been?

Surely it must have been more than a year.

Since the war, right?

No, that was nonsense. It had tasted the same fire just yesterday.

Yes, yes, but that was just a whiff: a little scent of blood.

Nothing like this.

He had taken great care to hide it during his service in Sofia. For a long time he had hoped that he could starve it of its hunger, but the constant aches always reminded him otherwise; that this caution had done nothing to dampen its voracious appetite. And the fiery flood crashing towards him did not kill it.

Instead, the fire had awakened it.

The enchanting taste of her flames overwhelmed him completely. It tasted like a deer's raw liver being crushed in his hands, gushing forwards with its rich, black sap. Wet dirt. Rancid blood.

It devoured everything within its inky depths.

…and finally realized her second mistake.

His arm.

The boy's left arm was extended outwards, his palms facing the incoming onslaught of the flames.

Her fire did nothing to it.

Nothing.

She howled in anger and poured it on with everything she got. She concentrated her entire strength and another fiery flood came shooting out of her left hand.

The inferno completely illuminated the entire interior of the warehouse and the sheer force of its impact whipped the flour into a white storm of dust and haze. The very walls of the warehouse began to shake from the vibrations. Some of the cardboard boxes caught fire began and spreading like a wild fire.

But still, he advanced.

She saw him moving forwards, slowly, shielded by his left hand, unharmed by her power.

That's when she realized her last mistake.

Her strength was beginning to wane, and the vigor of the fire followed suit. If she kept this up and he was still standing at the end of it…

It was her third and final mistake.

The unbearable heat penetrated every pore of Jim's skin. He felt like his skin was being pierced by thousands of tiny needles. He would open his mouth to scream but he knew that it would only expose more of his body to the pain.

He must endure.

He must.

If she kept this up eventually she'll lose her strength. That was his only hope. He could not count on beating her in straight hand-to-hand combat. He must endure. The fire was already weakening.

Then it stopped.

Abruptly.

Jim rushed forward.

For the first time, Malyana managed to get a good proper look at him. He really was a kid, no older than seventeen, with barely a hint of stubble on his face.

But in his eyes there was no innocence.

In them there was only the quiet desperation of hunted men, of men who have brushed shoulders with Death.

She had seen that look many times in her youth; it was the same eyes of cornered wolves, the ones who always threw themselves at the hounds closing in.

Fight or die.

The mongrel lounged at her like a flash of lightning. His left hand shielded his head while his right came swinging forwards with a hammer. Malyana knew that within half a second he would be onto her.

She smiled at his naiveté.

Really?

That was your master plan?

To hit me with a hammer?

Her Beretta pistol's slide moved forwards with a resounding click and chambered a new round from the fresh magazine.

I'm fucked.

Jim saw the empty magazine lying on the floor.

Of course.

Of course, she wouldn't just exhaust herself like an idiot and let him bash her head in.

Of course not.

Of course she would reload the pistol while he was pinned down by the fire.

It's not even that difficult to reload one-handed; even Jim could do it.

He knew it was too late but he went forwards anyways, swinging like a madman. If he managed to tank the first couple of shots maybe he would have a chance. Maybe.

Or maybe she might even miss!

But she would not miss.

He knew that she would not miss.

Malyana looked sadly at Jim.

Goodbye, kid.

Malyana's raised the Beretta's sights up and, through the haze and fading light, rested them squarely on Jim's forehead. Then, just like she had done so a thousand times before, her fingers slid off the trigger guard and –

He sat back in his chair and ran his long bony fingers through his auburn hair. He looked into the crystal ball again. He glanced at the boy. After a moment of internal deliberation, he nodded to himself, having come to a decision.

He snapped his fingers.

– and the flour dust exploded.

-x-

First uploaded: 7/11/2020 (?)

Last modified: 1/8/2021

Word count: 6,270

Changelog:

1/8/2021 – Minor prose edits. Shamelessly swapped in mongrel! (A bit late for shame anyways!)

1/4/2021 – General edits and final cleanup (hopefully).

15/3/2021 – General edits.

7/3/2021 – Shamelessly changed Jim's age again; Jim is 17 now. Shamelessly added hunger.

7/12/2020 (?) – Made Jim look around the back before climbing. Rewrote cornering scene. Changed Jim's age.