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Souls of the Night – Vol 3

52.

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I felt myself being lifted up as an unprecedentedly strong, serendipitous wind took hold of my arms and hold me further up where gravity and other laws of nature wanted to pull me down.

I was flailing my arms, kicking my legs against air that seemed almost as hard as a board - and didn't even have to break through the wall of smoke surrounding the building because the smoke parted in front of me like a curtain and I hit the other roof more than clumsily, rolled off and probably only cracked and bruised my shoulder on the hard, coarse gravel.

I groaned croakily, but more from the pain than from the smoke, because as soon as I opened my eyes I saw that I was surrounded by smoke - but it was giving me a wide berth. As if ... an invisible bubble of air was surrounding me. I scrambled to my feet, holding my shoulder, which might have been broken, but Lex wasn't heavy - I could carry him like this. I could feel how hot the gravel on the roof of building C was, but my shoes saved me from getting burned. I had made it! I had made this jump! Not just me, of course. I giggled softly. Despite the pain, I was gripped by a feeling of exhilaration that I didn't know whether it was my own or that of my whisp. No sooner had I thought its new name than it fluttered inside me.

"Let's move on. Let's save Lex," I puffed, happy for my inner partner in crime. Instead of possibly burning myself on the door to the stairwell, I followed an intuition ( just the way I would have done as a gargoyle with full powers) and threw my arm up and the door flew off its hinges. Even the smoke coming towards me - as if an ancient dragon was blowing its deadly breath towards me to protect its lair and hoard - I (we) simply waved away. I just had to believe and I could! I may have been human (sort of) but I wasn't useless. I wasn't a victim of circumstance and I didn't have to stand helplessly on the sidelines. I was Lexington's best hope. Nothing was lost as long as I had hope and faith in myself and Whisp. We ran into the stairwell where the white-gray smoke swallowed us.

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"DID YOU SEE THAT!" Someone shouted and Ali and Lavonne looked at each other in horror. Yes. Everyone had seen it.

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From the sports field, Anthony saw a figure leap more than twenty yards between E and C as if the person had springs under his feet. It wasn't elegant but the wind parting the thick smoke and swallowing the person instantly was another clue. His hair standing up on his arms was a further sign.

"Ohhhh, that's not good," he muttered.

As he was, he couldn't prevent what might come. He was only human and he liked being human. But he could be a witness. Witness the beginning of the end. With an uneasy feeling, he trotted after other people who had spotted the magical jumper carried by air and wind and perhaps unconsciously wanted to experience an even more phenomenal spectacle soon.

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Ares had wanted to take aim when he spotted Sharif on the sports field. His vantage point on building E wasn't ideal - the smoke stung him even with the goggles and smoke mask he'd stolen from one of the fire trucks. But he knew Nathaniel would come if his "not-mate" was in danger. Whether Lexington was already dead didn't matter - self-sacrificing as Sharif was (and it bugged Ares a little that they were similar in that respect) he would still run into the building where he thought Lexington would be. His guess wasn't wrong, but no sooner had he aimed than Sharif, standing near two human women, whirled around and took off running. Into the crowd of onlookers, past all the security and rescue personnel.

Ares had retreated into the "darkness" of the staircase on the roof, but even if he had remained standing in the middle of the roof, Sharif would have hardly noticed him. So Ares could barely believe his luck when the life-weary worm with the potential to wipe out the world stumbled onto the roof. Ares briefly thought he was going to jump - tired of life as he obviously was. And that would have saved him even more work, because a dead Sharif was no longer a threat. His demons would simply move on and lie dormant again in another human somewhere in the world. Just as they had done for more than 1500 years.

But then the idiot had stopped. And had started to communicate with the other in him! Ares had not known that Sharif had developed this ability or whether the other had simply become so strong. It SHOULDN'T be possible for it. Without its fire, the thing shouldn't even have the power. That's why they had been defeated and banished, separate from each other- so that they could NEVER affect anything (or anyone) again. But still Sharif spoke, bargained with it, and Ares cursed himself for not having aimed and shot there. Sharif was only a few yards away from him, no cover, no inkling. One scratch was enough. But Ares had been too horrified when Sharif had taken a running start and then, in a ridiculous stumbling, tumbling, rowing leap, powered by primal magic older than all children, had made the jump and the curtain of smoke had closed behind him again.

That was INCREDIBLE. This brainless, world-weary, weak human had more luck than brains and didn't even know what he was doing with his actual fortune and ongoing existence. What was brewing behind his back if he carried on. Ares didn't know why Lexington's company was burning. He also regretted that someone so important to Alex had probably died in one of the explosions or was dying. But his mission was a different one and not even that difficult, and yet Sharif kept slipping away. Surprised him again and again.

Ares grumbled and lay in wait again, his gaze on the destroyed and smoke-spewing window fronts or the black-colored, still intact panes of glass. At some point, the smoke would clear. At some point, Sharif would no longer escape his fate. Soon.

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The firefighters made their way through heavily smoke-filled corridors. A thin veil of smoke hung everywhere, quickly evanescent but never completely disappearing. It was like being in a misty dreamland. A nightmare land. Their equipment kept them safe against heat and deadly smoke and was very effective as long as they didn't have to go through long stretches of fire. There were occasional drips from the ceiling, evaporating before they even hit the ground, but the sprinkler and venting system was largely inoperable. They had made sure of that.

They could have retreated, disappearing into the cover of dozens of other real firefighters outside just as unnoticed as they had wandered in through the open gates into the chaos. But there was a bonus. For a good photo of Lexington Wyvern's or Nathaniel Sharif's body. Dead or barely alive. Even a bigger reward if someone managed to get a still-living Wyvern to Miller so HE could take him out. But honestly, if he was still in one of the buildings - and according to the timeline they had from Miller (clearly something he had picked up from the assistant's desk on one of his trips to the company) he had to have been in C at the time of the explosions - then he was dead. There were a lot of flammable and toxic liquids in the labs, and even if it rarely burned to the ground here, the corrosive smoke would eat into a lung within seconds. No stone sleep would cure that. So the hope of a photo remained. Miller was so petty. He would probably jerk off to the photos again and again later. But he (or his supporter) paid for them, so they tried to accommodate his wretched needs.

Floyd could use the dough. It didn't give him as much satisfaction as he'd thought to see the place he'd been wrongfully fired from go up. He ... didn't think it would give him too much satisfaction to find Wyvern or that creepy fake human Sharif dead, either. Natasha was a professional mercenary and quite liked to see her work completed with her own eyes - that was why she was here apart from the payment. He could understand that. Floyd also wasn't consumed with burning hatred like this other guy Miller had found online, who was largely a wildcard. What was his name... Alessio something. A guy in his mid to late thirties with a face (somewhat marred by old scars and imperfect surgeries) that spoke of hatred, hurt and loss that had needed years of therapy long ago. He had kept his explanation of why he wanted to join and potentially risk his life or, if caught, his freedom very succinct. Gargoyles and the "whores" who got involved with them had been "fucking" him since he was a kid - aaaall right. Despite the heat dampened by the protective suit, Floyd cringed as he saw Alessio Nameless not only carelessly but gleefully step on the back of a dead person in a white coat who had already died from the smoke or blast of the explosions. That was unnecessary. He simply did it out of a strange impulse. Like a kid kicking the neighbor's dog because another, bigger one had bitten him once. The guy he'd brought with him - his brother Michael- seemed more sensible and level-headed from the start, maybe he'd just come along to keep his brother out of the worst shit. Although Floyd could hardly imagine how the shit could steam any hotter. Literally.

Michael stepped over the corpse with an unnecessarily large stride, somewhat awkward due to his protective equipment, as did Natascha and he - just as ungraceful (they felt like astronauts in those suits). Likewise the beefy guy who had probably worked here until today and had volunteered with enough bribe money and knew his way around well enough to lead them to the labs. This was his second chance - Floyd had heard that he'd almost screwed up tickling the monster out of Sharif at laser tag - instead he'd almost shot him - something that would have alerted all the gargoyles and would have ruined today. This wasn't how Miller had planned it (nor his generous, seemingly omniscient contact) and now he was here with the "recon troops" to redeem himself with better work - and to reap more cash.

He and Beefy (yes Beefy - that was a fitting nickname after all) threw themselves against his rather dented double door, half torn off its hinges, which separated one corridor from the next. And there lay another body. A woman who had perhaps once had silver hair, but large parts of it had been burned away, including her skin. It smelled so intensely of burnt flesh and hair that Floyd even had to gag through his mask.

"Smells like burnt chicken," commented the scar-faced asshole, nudging the corpse with his foot. Then he wanted to continue but tripped over something. Stepped on the thing that had caused him to stumble, got caught in fabric and toppled - and damn it, that wasn't fabric! It was leathery skin. Flying skin.

Alessio made a stunned, stupid face even under the protective shield of the closed helmet - then he grinned manically and sought eye contact with the others.

"Jackpot."

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Thailog was startled when his cell phone rang.

The people who had his number could be counted on one hand. Of course, he had never given it to Miller.

"What?" he asked irritably when he picked up.

"Master!" gasped Enya.

Thailog rolled his eyes. Did the promiscuous maniac want to thank him in the middle of the gang bang for his generosity? For heaven's sake.

"Doctor, I'll see you at home when you've dealt with every cock in New-"

"NO!" barked Enya. Thailog growled and held the phone away from his ear because a car on Enya's side was honking loudly and braking sharply. Enya screamed, he heard a meaty body hit metal, then maybe the cell phone fell to the ground. For a moment he thought the connection would be lost, it creaked and cracked on the line, then Enya screamed into it again.

"No! No home. Intruders! Master Thailog, they have infiltrated our lair."

The (in his own estimation) smartest Gargoyle alive rubbed his temple, grumbling. Was it already that late? He had thought Brentwood and Enya wouldn't notice the "intrusion" into their home until after midnight. But okay - fine. He could work with that.

"What!" he said, feignedly clueless but immediately seething (also fake). "Human intruders in our house?! No! What about Etan?"

He heard Enya groaning on the other end of the line, heard someone shouting for her to stay put, someone calling for an ambulance. Had that stupid cow been run over?

"Intact, according to camera footage," Enya said, still very rushed.

"Intact ... Good," Thailog said, confused. Miller should have destroyed the clone tank. He was that kind of person. Only a dead gargoyle is a good gargoyle and bullshit like that. Thailog even speculated on a burning house- he had the place excellently insured.

"You have to come! Brentwood can't stop them alone. But he'll be there faster than me." She coughed, it sounded wet, like she was spitting up blood. A police siren sounded near her.

The clan leader of what was probably the smallest, most unnatural clan in the world slowly slid off the chair he had been sitting on. The phone in his hand crunched despite him being a "human" child.

"How do you both know about the human vermin?" he asked coldly. The little idiot had gotten enough money to spend half the night-

"I texted him. My additional alert devices went off as soon as they came through the front door. Want me to send you the live feed?"

Why didn't I know about additional devices! Thailog wanted to roar but would have sounded like a choleric idiot and he WASN'T an idiot. Instead, he struggled to stay calm but pretend he was already making plans - which he was - just not in the way Enya or Brent imagined. How did he get out of this on top without giving himself away? Well... unfortunately, there was only one way. He had to fight the humans as best he could, maybe kill one or two of them, so that Brentwood would know he was on his side and see him as his savior - then he would drag the little idiot out of the house. Etan, of course, would be destroyed by then, even if it was only by "an accident".

"Good work with the alarms, Doctor. I'm coming. I will terminate the invaders. You stay away until you get further instructions. Don't put yourself in danger, we need you," he said menacingly, growling in truth at the fucking daywalking bitch who had installed additional surveillance cameras and shit without his knowledge (just further proof that his control over his minions had weakened).

"Thank you, master," Enya sighed, then groaned as something else happened on her side of the line. Again someone shouted something near her, he heard Enya running but also heavy shoes on asphalt. Then the line was hung up. Thailog growled long and low by hatchling standards. Then he flung the coffee cup away, the saucer, the chair, which clattered into the glass counter. His eyes lit up as he looked at Tiffany, who was cowering pale in the corner with her hands pressed over her mouth, looking at him with wide eyes. He was so angry he couldn't even appreciate that.

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"Oh, that's perfect," Alessio whispered, barely audible even over the mic that connected him to the others, as he dragged the gargoyle's body out from under the woman. Both of them must have been thrown through the corridor by one of the explosions that had gone off directly below them, because a few yards in front of them there was a huge hole in the floor from which smoke was still billowing and wafting through the shattered doors of adjacent laboratories. Michael gasped when he saw that one of the gargoyle's arms was burned, skin melted away, muscle and sinew atrophied and charred black. Even if he had still been alive ... unlikely with the smoke here- he would have died from the pain. Or his arm would have had to be taken off up to his shoulder.

"Take the photos, Michael," Alessio ordered, grinning broadly.

"I wish you were having less fun," he muttered as he dug out the cell phone provided by Miller (not so easy with the gloves of the protective suit) and realized that smoke and heat had not affected the embedded hardware so far. He had more problems estimating what would be an acceptable photo due to the smoke and the constantly fogging pane in his helmet.

"You can send us the pictures too," said Natascha.

"And don't think the reward won't be shared," Beefy added.

"Yeah yeah," Alessio purred, placing his foot on the back of the former company boss as if he were a proud huntsman posing with his biggest kill yet. "I'm doing this less for the pay. More for a personal philosophy." Floyd and Michael's eyes found each other and both recognized in the other someone who had split feelings about the situation. But they were in too deep to say or change anything. That was when Alessio quickly stumbled to the side because the carcass beneath him suddenly stirred. It was just a twitch - and a barely perceptible whistling "breath" from poison-filled lungs between the groans of the increasingly boiling building.

"Shit! He's still alive?" shouted Natasha.

"These gargoyles are really not from this world," hissed Beefy and everyone was stunned.

"Not of this world. Yes. But even if they've crawled out of hell and that's why he still has a spark of life left in him - not for long." Alessio took a firearm from one of the numerous pockets of the firefighting equipment.

He pointed the gun at the gargoyle, which was more dead than alive.

"I don't care about that Dust Con pseudo-gargoyle," he growled hatefully. "I couldn't get Nashville back then - but taking out his 'uncle' and hitting him with it one day is good too. I quote the legendary immortal John Castaway: Every dead gargoyle is a good gargoyle."

"Don't make a show of it and do it already," Floyd said, shocked but tired of the whole situation.

The Scarface snarled but was all in all too happy to reply wickedly snappy. "I always have to work with wimps. But if it makes you feel any better, this will be more of a mercy killing."

Alessio cocked the trigger, aimed for Lexington Wyvern's skull, and was yanked aside as a massive fist slammed into his face. A fist that seemed too big to hang on the chief of security of House B's evening shift. Michael screamed as his brother fell to the side with a brocken skull and snapped neck, the gun skidding away. Floyd, Beefy (not the one who ran after Chad earlier) and Natasha were too horrified by the bright yellow eyes of the man who let the rest of his body follow his fist.

His muscles seemed to flex. All at once. They grew, became wider, adapted to the growing, increasingly sturdy bones. The protective suit and breathing mask in his arm seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. Through the smoke, it was a greater nightmare vision to see Chad Kyme's skin turn green, his jaw widen to accommodate wide molars and massive tusks. The monster blasted off parts of its clothing, grew further into a hulk-like stature until it had to bend down to fit into the corridor and then roared. All four remaining humans choked on their own screams before the monster's scream died away. Then it bared teeth made for crushing large bones in a jaw that could fit a human head into a gruesome grin. Its glowing yellow eyes lingered on Floyd, reflecting intelligent recognition.

"Let's see who's going to break whose ribs now. Never have torches and pitchforks to hand, do you, old chum?" it said with Chad's Voice. With that, it (he!) reached for Floyd. This one, however, standing furthest away, was able to whirl around and run away. Chad wanted to follow him, but he had a more important task. He swept Michael, who had grabbed the gun, aside through one of the shattered doors into one of the labs, then Natasha, who was running towards him with a knife. He grabbed her by the arm and threw her backwards like an insect. She skidded across the ground and fell screeching into the smoking hole in the floor. Beefy tried to run away but Chad's huge fingers wrapped around his leg and he fell, apparently hitting his head so hard that he lay motionless.

The green-skinned creature looked around for other opponents - but no one was there or moving. It panted so powerfully that the smoke between it and Lexington was blown away. The creature's gaze softened as it lay on its boss. Its massive shoulders, which would make even a Goliath pale, slumped - only to shrink again as smoothly as they had expanded. Everything shrank and green skin became human pink. Chad - human again but only capable of good fine motor skills as a human - put one of the breathing masks back on, knelt down to Lex and began to at least put the respirator on him, turning the mobile device's oxygen supply to maximum. The gargoyle's eyes fluttered open. Chad knew it was doubtful he would survive. His arm was not salvageable, he felt as he wrapped the gargoyle in the heat resistant suit that more bones were shattered than intact, one of his wing limbs was almost torn away.

"It's going to be okay. Nathaniel is waiting for you out there," he said in case Lexington was able to pick up anything. Which maybe he did, because his cracked lips twitched in a half-comatose smile.

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"I don't need an ambulance!" Enya lashed out at the policeman who had run after her in the alley when she had been hit by a car. It wasn't even bad. Just two or three broken ribs, maybe a contusion to the hip. Even if nothing of that was her preferred pain, she HAD to keep going. The master had told her to stay away from their home, but she had to stay on hold! Although ... it certainly wasn't their home anymore - rather it was useless now that it fell on the humans' radar? She was hatched in this house! She had taken her first steps in this house, spoken her first words! Those humans ruined EVERYTHING!)

The policeman had grabbed her wrists and also stopped her from biting him. Instead of hitting her like a rabid dog, this person was even understanding!

"I know you're scared - that's the shock. But we'll help you! You've just been hit by a car and you're bleeding," said the officer, puzzled because he didn't quite realize how someone could bleed from a car accident on their breasts and between their legs. The needles had been quite thin. Enja had wanted the knitting needles but the woman who had placed them had insisted on starting small. It had even stopped bleeding.

"That's nothing! Lemme go!" Enya shouted.

"Still, you should be checked over. Ma'am, you're clearly in a state of shock. Come on, you can get in my car and I'll accompany you to the hospital."

"NO!"

"Do you need help, Stu?" asked the officer's colleague. He frowned intensely, then let his gaze slide over Enya, over her breasts, which showed that she wasn't wearing a bra, to her bare feet, because she had completely forgotten about her shoes until just now. Then he cracked a hungry smile that only Enya saw and remembered. This was one of the guys who had fucked her in the wild before and hurt her. And he hadn't been good at either of those things, just looking for his own fun. Enya growled at him.

The other policeman holding her sighed. "She's hurt, without shoes and underwear, I'll deal with that. Notify the emergency room and psychiatric ward of the Mercy and-"

"No," Enya shrieked and snapped at the man's throat again. "No! No, go away! I don't want to! I have to go to Brentwood. The master-"

The policeman now grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, one step away from giving her a head-clearing slap, his eyes angrier than his voice.

"That's enough now. I may have you arrested and taken to the hospital for your own safety."

She saw the gun in the officer's holster. She felt her head jerk to the side twice (that also hurt a lot by her standards, probably concussion and whiplash) as electrical signals were transmitted between brain coils she rarely used.

"I think..." she groaned and then slumped against the policeman. "I think I'm hurt after all," she said, trying to sound pitiful. Her father had thought himself an actor by the grace of God - as passionate about the science of genetics as he was about costumed charades. His genes were hers too. The policeman held her, she could feel him becoming less alarmed and more concerned because he thought she was going to faint.

"Bruce, come here, we've got to get her-," he managed to say before Enya perforated his skull with the bullet from the gun she had pulled from his holster and unlocked.

Bruce stopped in the alley, grabbed his hip and then fell to the ground choking on blood because the next bullet had pierced his neck. Enya felt nothing when she saw dying or dead people. That was how she had been designed. Just as the knowledge of a veteran soldier had been put into her before she was "finished". She rarely needed this knowledge - these instinctive automatic patterns of movement and procedures embedded deep in her brain that briefly controlled her muscle memory. But when she needed it, she was deadly. She secured the gun and kept running.

Four confirmed deaths so far if you count the two employees the fake firefighters climbed over... we can do better (and when is that freakin` song I praised so much coming?)

Thanks for reading, Q.T.