“And Mika,” Carly added.
“So you’re going to tell us where we can find this shaman and find out how to stop this.”
Andrew still could not understand exactly what was going on, and how it could possibly be considered a bad thing to separate the good from the bad. He still could not get to grips with the idea that there was no real definitive line between untouched and tainted. “Maybe I do rush in and commit myself to a project before I know the whole story. But how did I initiate the apocalypse?”
“That doesn’t matter now. It only matters that you did, and that you tell us how to stop it?”
“Bloody hell, Carly. I don’t know how I started it; how am I supposed to know how to stop it?” Andrew looked over to the window and, for the first time in ages, prayed for some stressed out student to barge in for help on a paper, just so he could break the intensity in the office.
All three could feel the air in the room was tight with tension. Robyn delighted in it, almost gleeful that she, at such an age, could instil such fear and awe in a mortal. Because most of them thought that they could never be scared, or be this frightened, due to the increasing horrors that they had been exposed to, and had become hardened to. Even Robyn had been a little shocked at how much they could take at first. Now she knew there had to be no holding back. But Carly had surprised. Her fear was so real and deep-seated, so tempting, that Robyn could almost taste it. And that was why Carly had come with he. Robyn still had the self-control that Mika had lost – he could easily forget himself and feed off her. And Carly was glad she had come, even though she somehow felt less safe than she had back at the house – exposed, vulnerable, as if she could be really hurt by this now she was in it. She was glad because it was oddly fun to scare people and put the fear of God into them – even more fun when that person was her ex-boss. Maybe that was Robyn and Mika’s influence, maybe she was being affected by the floating anger and it was not really her.
Maybe it was really her. Maybe she was changing.
“I know who you are,” Annie said again. “I know you’re Robyn, and you’re Mika, and that you’re the most infamous and respected of your kind in the whole of the underworld.”
Mika pretended to lower his head in embarrassed pride. He moved his feet and relaxed into the position of one foot in front of the other. Ready to bounce into action at any given moment. “You know quite a lot don’t you? How about you tell us a few more things about us.”
“I know that you prefer to use your fists in a fight rather than weapons.”
Robyn bared her teeth and willed them to elongate, just for a moment, into fangs. “These are our weapons. Death-dealers.” She had not adopted the battle-ready stance that Mika had; old and experienced enough to be able to swing into battle from any position.
“I know something else,” Annie whispered, her voice steadily growing louder and harder with each syllable. “I know that I’m not scared of you.” The three of them had fought before, all over Europe in fact, and she was sure that she knew every move in their repertoire. However, she could not be complacent. She was always wary of either of them trying something new and getting one over on her. Yes, she had to be cautious.
Mika raised an eyebrow, took off the tie he had worn and tossed it to the floor with his jacket, and looked at her. “You’re really not scared, are you.” It was not a question, but a fact. It was never good news when opponents, victims, who-ever, were no longer scared of them. “However, since you will know you’re fate before sunrise, that isn’t a problem.”
“Murder, death, blood. Such pretty, pretty words.”
“Nobody said those words,” Annie pointed out.
Mika smirked, knowingly. Annie didn’t know as much as she thought she did. But Mika knew. He had thought those words, and Robyn, as finely attuned to him as he was, had picked up on them. “They did,” he murmured. “Just you couldn’t hear them.”
Robyn took the grips from her hair and trod them into the ground, carefully marking her territory. Slowly, hypnotically, she rubbed her hand through her hair and felt the tumbling sensation of it falling down around her head in locks of red curls and waves. “Better now. But you –“ she pointed at Annie. “You are a bad girl. Thinking you are a good girl, pretending to be an angel and ridding the world of some of the bad things. Only, you’re a bad thing too. Like us even. Thriving on violence and death and borne of darkness. Except we’re honest about it. Mika, baby, kill the naughty girl. Kill her for your little birdie.”
Mika glanced at her making little flapping movements with her hands as if she were ready to fly away. He smiled, then turned his attention to Annie, who subconsciously curled one hand around the heart pendant but keeping her fighting stance. He knew that Robyn wanted the necklace and Mika would die to get it for her if it would make her happy. He also knew that this Warrior would protect it with her life it cane to it and wondered whose death it would end with. “She wants what you have.”
Mika stepped closer, but Annie did not back away, one eye always drawn to the commanding gaze of Robyn. “The necklace.” She tore her eyes away from Robyn and stared at Mika.
“The power.”
Annie blinked and flashed a hard fist into his face. Mika staggered back a few steps, thinking that she seemed to have learnt to hit harder since their last… meeting. He worked his jaw with his fingers and lashed out with a return punch.
Even in Mika’s reality of – well, reality, he could still feel the strength of the hit, though he had not even touched anything. He wondered if it would bruise. But, he worried mostly about why he could still feel the force of a fight from centuries past. Real or not – he had not decided yet – he moved his chin around and prodded it with an exploratory finger, then turned his gaze in the general direction from which he thought the hit had come from.
“I’m touched.”
Then he felt his side being punched or kicked, thankfully on the other side from his healed BB wound, because although it no longer hurt he was wary about re-opening it. He grunted, a reflexive sound forced up from the pit of his stomach. Out shot his left arm, locked straight, and whirled around, hopefully straight-arming his invisible opponent. “Not nice.”
An invisible foot, probably a foot, kicked into the pressure point behind one denim-clad knee, then the other, and he fell forward letting his momentum roll him over to his back. He stared up towards the ceiling, but seeing something before his eyes got there.
He was laughing because none of this could be real.
He was laughing because none of this could not be real.
Annie stared at the flattened man beneath her. It seemed a little unreal that he would go down so easily, but she knew that this was only the build up to the finale. She had a horrible feeling she knew what Mika and Robyn wanted to happen; she also knew that she would not let them have their own way. She would be there to see their ends.
“Get up!” she spat. Nothing she was doing tonight – most nights, in fact – wouldn’t be considered very ladylike by any stretch of the imagination, though Annie was never much for ladylike. “I believe we have a fight to be settled.”
Mika did a backwards roll and jumped to his feet. He stepped back and delivered a perfectly executed roundhouse spin kick to her middle and she doubled over to protect her muscles from tearing. She looked up at him, hate flashing in her eyes. Of course, she had anticipated this and was not surprised at the injury, but she had found that if she let her anger rise up in her and fill her up, she could feed off the strength of emotion. It fuelled her, and gave her strength. She decided that Robyn would watch Mika die. Mika gave her a second kick in the stomach, not quite so hard but, hard enough that she felt it. He could see that look in her eyes and knew that she would kill him if he did not act quickly. So, Mika acted.
But, it was not quick enough.
Mika stepped backwards and flung himself into a back flip so that he
could allow Robyn to step up and take a shot at the girl. Annie lunged forward and grabbed one of his legs as he went over. His momentum took her over with him and she landed with a yelp inches from his feet. Her eyes took a moment to readjusted but she wasted no time in twisting her arms around one leg and throwing him, aided by a painful foot in the groin, into the tree a few metres away. Annie flicked herself up and immediately reached behind her and lifted Robyn up by her armpits and flipping her onto the leafy mulch underfoot. The sun had not reached the wet patches deeper in the woods and they still squelched at times, when some-one stood there. “You know I can hear you squeaking behind me.”
Mika stood up and looked from one girl to the other. “You hurt her,” he accused, of course knowing the Robyn was no more injured than he. Just playing again. “Now, I feel the need for…”
“Payback.” Robyn sat up and picked a dry leaf from her hair.
Mika grinned and held a hand out to his lady to help her up. Annie eyed him with suspicion, still wary of one who put the safety of another before his own survival. Chivalry was dead.
“Payback,” he echoed. And jumped straight up to grab onto a high tree branch.
He hung there, barely moving or feeling the strain on his muscles. Effortlessly, Robyn leapt up to join him. She let herself swing from her position before slowing to a halt, knowing that the actions were pointless other than to provide her own amusement as Annie tried frantically to grasp one of her legs and pull her down. Annie lacked the supernatural defiance of gravity and could not reach. Realizing this, she just stood beneath the branch and looked up into the darkness of the foliage. She didn’t see them swing upwards to stand on their hands, nor did she hear the rustle of leaves and whistle of air when they swooped down towards her… but she did feel the impact of a foot on the back of her head; a blow which sent her flying into a fall which she neatly turned into a roll, and one which could have caved in the skull of anyone else. Annie knew that a possible fractured skull was the least of her worries right now. Not even waiting to hear some-one behind her, Annie dropped to her hands and knees andshot her left leg out in a wide arc, sweeping out the legs of her attacker.
She wondered if this was it. Was this what it felt like to be totally in tune with yourself, and with your heritage – being able to just know where the next assault was coming from? Her instincts were taking over. Maybe being connected to so much strength was the only thing giving her the courage to face these… these monsters. But, she had no time to ponder this notion, nor the inclination to care.
Yes, she was strong. She could really feel the power in her.
Yes, this had to be it. There could not be any more.
“Warrior. I am a Warrior.” She turned to stare at Robyn, again lying prone on the ground, wearing the tattered blue dress and black velvet boots. “Warriors don’t give up when things get tough.” She kicked Robyn in the stomach before she or Mika had the chance to anticipate her next move. And again she kicked her.
At which point, Mika, fearing for his lover, hopped down and cracked her head against the tree. He knew it might not keep her down for long but, rather than worrying he might not have enough time to run away, he was banking on it. The softly-moaning Robyn had begun to think up a delicious plan for her death. Mika helped her to her feet and grinned. This would be a long, hard fight, one to remember, it would take everything and use it all up. Then nothing would be left but glorious death. The final reward.
And there would not even be the strength to fight it.
Annie was running for her life, running away. Her life could very well depend on getting out of these dangerous woods before Mika and Robyn could get hold of her again. If she could just get into the open where they would have no place to hide and spring on her; where the open space would give her the advantage. In a clearing, they could not jump on her by surprise. Also, it gave her the room she needed to fight effectively. She had done well surrounded by trees, finding many branches and stumps around which she could improvise assaults, but found they were very unforgiving when bested and tossed into one. Foliage like that, thick and usually beautiful as it was, made too much noise and seemed to always give away her position.
The warrior girl did not feel like much of a warrior at the moment. How brave and courageous was it to run away? Running from it was not heroic. Though Annie was tired beyond belief, and injured beyond pain, she knew that she was being cowardly. True Warriors adapted to any situation, but Annie just couldn’t. She wasn’t worthy of her title.
Footsteps sounded behind her, seeming to drag slightly on the ground. Mika was not running to catch the girl, he was just walking up behind her. A bringer of fate that could never be outrun. His head was bleeding a little and his muscles had started to ache. This was unusual – he hardly ever grew weary during battle. He reasoned that this was no ordinary fight, and had lasted much longer already than any previous struggle. Mika thought that he might have dislocated his shoulder, and purposely worked his arm back and forth to let the resulting pain carry him onwards.
Annie ran on, heading for the gap in the trees, glancing back every few steps, hoping against hope that she might have shook him off, but he was always there a few yards away. Breathing hard, Annie blindly pushed her way through the last of the trees, to find her way blocked by Robyn right before her. How had she managed to forget about her? Robyn slapped her across one cheek, and she clamped one hand over the stinging area of flesh.
“You slapped me.” Annie took her hand away and looked at Robyn, just knowing that Mika was standing right behind her. “You never slap a lady.”
“You run around showing copious amounts of flesh, and getting into such rough brawls, and you talk about being ladylike?”
“Robyn,” said Mika. “She wants to be a lady, let her be a lady.”
Robyn broke into another smile that Annie only knew that more pain was on its’ way. The expression told of an untold conversation. “Ladies,” she began scornfully. “Ladies do nothing other than live and die. They are not educated, are not meant to understand things, are not meant to put a foot out of line or they get beaten.”
“Is that the kind of person you want to be?”
Of course it wasn’t. Real ladies could not fight for what was right, they never stooped so low as to face these creatures. But Annie was doing the work of a thousand others by making sure real ladies would never have to know about the monsters that inhabited their world.
“You can’t win this,” she breathed. Her soft Welsh accent showed itself now. “I can’t let you.”
Robyn held her gaze for a moment or two. Annie found that she could not look away and could hear her whispering to her, even though no-one was speaking. There were words in a language she knew was English, she couldn’t hear a syllable, though she understood only that Robyn couldn’t let her live, wouldn’t let her live. While she could not define the words being said in her mind, the meaning was clear as day.
“You don’t know anything,” Robyn spat and slapped the professor. “Nothing.”
“Robyn!” warned Carly. “Stop hitting him.”
Robyn like slapping him though. “But, it’s fun.” She was stronger than him, and that feeling of having power over some-one, being superior, better, never faded. It was just as exciting and warming now as it had been hundreds of years ago. But that reasoning quickly gave way to the cold reality that she simply enjoyed pain. Giving it, receiving it, it was all the same to her. Almost ecstasy, really. To Robyn, pain was an aphrodisiac… one that gave her an incredible high. “Try it,” she offered.
Carly declined the offer and felt bad that she had done so, because it was probably a huge sacrifice for Robyn to allow some-one else to play with her new ‘toy’. “No thanks. See, Prof, I don’t get it. Why can’t you just be happy with the world the way it is… was? We all live here and we don’t try to end it.”
“It’s because
you’re too scared to change things.”
“No.” That really wasn’t the case. Carly was happy with the world the way it was. Well, not happy exactly, who would be when people get killed and scarred and have to fill their arms full of poison just to get through the day? What was her point? Carly couldn’t remember for a second or two. “We’re not scared – just living.” For what would life be without weapons and drugs and hate? It would be nothing – a life not worth living. “See, there’s a really big difference between fearless and clueless. There’s clueless, that would be you for being to afraid to live in a possibly dangerous real world, and trying to change it into a nice safe New World.” She folded her arms and shot a quick look at Robyn, looking like a young child in the way she held herself, but with a wicked, ageless gleam in her eye. “And then there’s fearless, which would be her for being brave enough to risk everything to keep it how it should be.”
Everything? Robyn wasn’t sure about that, no-one had said anything about everything. She couldn’t lose Mika. She loved him and he loved her – they had lived and loved forever. But forever obviously didn’t mean anything any more, it was just another word. “Do you want to see where angels live?”
“Not really,” said Andrew. “I’m not ready.” He knew that was not a strong argument. Who cared about ready? Things just happened and you dealt with them.
“Robyn, I said no killing. Actually, I said no hitting but I meant killing too.”
“So, you’re not going to kill me?”
“No, she’s not sending you to heaven just yet.” Robyn made her sad, whining noise. “You’re going to hell!” A smile now. “Least, that’s where you would be going if your horrible and bloody murder were on the cards.”
“No killing, remember.” Robyn ran her fingers through her hair and began to twist one lock around her fingers. “No. The sun is coming. No more darkness. I’ll get lost in the light.”