They walked quickly across the almost empty parking lot. Kane saw that Eplectan was searching though a small shoulder bag searching for something.
"Hey, what are you-"
"Shut up and do exactly as I say if you don't want to die tonight." Epplectan snapped
"What the hell are-"
"I said shut the fuck up!" She snarled in a whisper. She fished a key out of her bag. "First, whatever you do, don't look back."
"Why, what's behind us?" He said while keeping his eyes fixed on a trashcan about twenty feet directly in front of him.
"There are two guys behind us," she said while stopping at the car that was parked at the very corner of the parking lot. It was black and looked expensive, but also bland and indistinctive. It was obviously meant to blend in. "I don't know who they are, could just be a couple of late night drunks driving home," she said as she put the key into the lock and turned it. "But better safe than sorry." She reached to the passenger side door to unlock it. When Kane slipped into the car he chanced a glance behind him. He saw a brief glimpse of two guys wearing business suites and stumbling slightly towards their old, beat up c car. Great, he thought, I'm getting in a car with a paranoid bitch with a road full of drunks. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Epplectan turned the key and the car purred to life. She turned off the radio, which started to play when the car started and was playing some quick techno-like beat. She put it in gear and drove out of the lot, onto a dark and sinister looking back road.
"So," Kane said after a few minutes "would me mind telling me what the hell's going on? You said one of your friends from this 'Association' told you about me, what did they say?"
"Not much, just that when they lived in the Telick District a few years back there was a rumor of a Paladin of fire."
"Sounds about accurate," Kane began "But before we go any farther, I have to tell you something. It's been about 4 years since I last used my abilities. That was when the State really started to amp up there anti-Paladin campaign about why we were not human and needed to be killed for the betterment of Serenthia. But that's not why I quit." He said without explaining further
"So then why did you quit?" she asked inquisitively
"My reasons are my own."
Epplectan knew that she had been dismissed from asking anymore questions on the subject. They continued to drive in silence for about an hour before Kane spoke again.
"So where is this headquarters?" He asked
"It's on the far Eastern edge of the Delent District, pretty much in the idle of nowhere. We had two headquarters until a few years back. The state had somehow found out about it and bombed the whole damn block. Twenty-one died, including my cousin Dakant. Since then, we have only the on headquarters, deep in the Delent forest."
Now Kane understood that she had at least some dim view of what the state did to those who disobeyed. He would have felt sorry for her, but he knew that pity was at best, unnecessary, at worst, deadly.
"There's only one Headquarters, but we have about twenty safe houses throughout Serenthia and about two-thousand…" She stopped and was looking at the review mirror. Kane looked back two and realized why she was quite. There was a car about two blocks behind, the old car that Kane had seen the two drunks get into earlier.
"That's the car from the bar, isn't it?" she said in an annoyed voice. "Fuuuccckkk," she swore "we're being followed"
"That's not very ladylike language." Kane said, still thinking she was paranoid
"Shut up!" She yelled as she pulled out a gun from her bag. It looked like a revolver. She smashed the butt of the gun through the window. She turned around and aimed at the car through the window and shoot at the car. Kane didn't see it hit. Instead, the car swerved to the right and shot forward so it was directly behind them. Epplectan emptied the gun on the car, hitting 4 out of 5 times, but the bullets didn't seem to do any damage, even when the last one hit the windshield.
"TAKE THE WHEEL!" she yelled as she broke the rest of the glass in the window and proceeded to climb out the window.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" Kane yelled at her as she climbed out of the car. He glanced down at the speedometer, which read 94. Kane took the wheel while the car was swerving to the left towards the ditch. He heard he standing on the roof then heard another gunshot. The back windshield broke into a thousand pieces. Kane swore to himself and stuck his head out of the window to yell at Epplectan.
"GET BACK IN HERE NOW!" He yelled through the wind. He heard another shoot and felt a bullet fly past his ears. Kane paid no attention to it. 'GET IN!" he yelled again. He saw that she was down on one knee with her eyes focused on the car. She then made an odd sweeping movement with her arms, as though she was trying to push the wind out of her face. Then Kane saw it, out of the corner of his eye. A jet of water was zooming impossibly through the air. It splashed down on the black ash vault, directly in front of the oncoming car. Epplectan then forced her outstretched hands through the air and swiped them, as though clawing at something that wasn't there. Nothing changed except that the water on the road had started to twinkle innocently. Kane then knew what she did. She had turned the road into an ice rink.
The car hit the ice and slide to the right. The tires turned to the left, but the car only goes further right and hit the ditch. The car only travels about fifteen feet before crashing head on into a tree on the edge of the ditch. The car screamed as it hit, and it seemed to mold itself into the tree. The whole front end collapsed into the cab, most likely crushing the poor bastards inside.
Kane pressed on the breaks until the car came to a stop. Epplectan jumped off the roof of the car and Kane scooted over so that she could drive. Instead of driving forward, she put the car in reverse.
"What are you doing?" he asked, surprised that he could find his voice after what just happened.
"We have to go back to check on them" She said as she stared out the back of the car. When they reached the wreckage, she stopped and got out of the car. Kane followed her as she walked towards the crash. After a little effort she managed to open the driver side door. The driver fell out and hit the ground, then laid there without moving. His face was covered in blood. Epplectan reached down and put two fingers on the side of his neck. She didn't move for a few seconds, and then she got back up.
"Dead." She said to Kane. She looked in the car at the passenger seat, but saw no one there. The door to the passenger side was open. "Where did the other guy go?" She said while looking though the car. Kane just stood there, unmoving and unbelieving. They had just killed someone, this couldn't be happening, it was-
"Ha, gotcha!" she said as she peered around the other side of the car and saw a man in tattered clothes crawling through the grass on his stomach. Kane saw as she yet again reached into her bag and pulled out a bullet. She put it in the revolver and cocked it. She then slowly walked towards the man as he attempted feebly to escape and aimed carefully at his head and pulled the trigger. The gunshot broke the silence of the night like a cannon. The bullet entered his head, creating a small hole in the back of his skull. He laid still and moved no more. Epplectan stowed the gun back into her bag and walked towards the car. It took her a few seconds to realize that Kane hadn't moved.
"You just going to stand there? "She said as she stopped to look at him. After a few seconds he turned his head towards the body to look at Epplectan.
"You killed him as he was trying to crawl away…" he said while looking slightly confused. Epplectan sighed.
"Don't tell me your one of those bleeding heart activists who thinks that violence isn't the answer?"
"No," Kane spoke slowly "but I don't think you should kill someone who's trying to escape. He wasn't a threat to us anymore."
"You really think so? "She said with a small smile. "If he lived he would have given our description to his higher ups, then there would be a price on both our heads. If the situation was reversed, do you think he would have shown us mercy? This is a war Kane, if you can't handle this, let me know now so I don't waste my time." It wasn't an annoyed or angry voice, she said it seriously. Kane continued to stare at her for a few more seconds. Finally he spoke
"If this really is a war, I know what side I'm on." He said simply. It was all he had to say.
"Alright," she said "Get in, we still have a long way to go."
He got in the damaged car and they drove off in silence. Kane thought about what just happened. He thought about the shattered glass, the water, the gunfire, the murder. His eyes stared unfocusedly at the passing trees. He soon fell asleep, dreaming of bombs and a little dead girl who had died an eternity ago.
"Hey, wake up." He heard someone say though his unpleasant dreams. He opened his eyes groggily. When his eyes refocused he saw that they were pulling up to a large, dark, manner that looked as though it had not been lived in for decades. The windows were broken or missing panels, Ivy climbed up the side of the house. The little light that was offered by the moon revealed it was missing shingles.
She pulled up in front of the manor and killed the engine. "Well," she said "We're here."