Post by Kingsley on Jan 16, 2014 23:49:46 GMT -6
"Tell Parker he can call me at this number. Tell him a dead friend is back in town and that he better call her soon or she's going to come back here and and spank him."
Kingsley holds up the tanto to the girl in the ball gown.
"You get this back when he calls me."
Adara walks out of the store and drops the knife into the sewer grating on the corner. She hears something over the noise of the traffic. Someone is calling her name. Adara turns around, thinking at first it's one of the girls from Lollipop Dolls, but no one is there. It's a man's voice coming from across the street. She has to shield her damn eyes from the sun, but when she does, she gets a good look at him. It's Parker, not more than fifty feet away.
Parker isn't big. Parker is a Disneyland attraction. Lay some track across his back and shoulders and he could give the kiddies a wild ride. Adara goes for him straight through traffic. Cars are zipping along the street, heading for the green lights at both ends of the block. She hops across the hood of the closest car, drops down, and cuts behind the next. Then she's up on the trunk of another, but slips and ends up on the hood of the car behind it.
Everything is very calm and quiet inside her head. In the distance, halfway across the solar system, she hears squealing tires. Grinding metal. Shattering glass. People are yelling. But she'd back on her feet and moving. Her blood is pumping and she feels a heat spread from her belly to her arms and legs. For the first time since she crawled out of the fire and back onto this rock, she felt like herself. Parker is dead ahead and she knows exactly what she's doing.
On her left, a storefront explodes, knocking her off her feet. She makes a nice dent in the front passenger door of a Cadillac parked at the curb. People are screaming. The store is on fire. She looks up in time to see Parker tossing what looks like a flaming basketball from hand to hand. He throws it in her direction. Adara rolls away from the Caddie, but Parker misses the car and hits a bus stuck in traffic. More broken glass. More screaming.
Adara gets to her feet and runs at him. He backpedals down the street. Something is wrong. No matter how fast she goes, Parker stays ahead or her. When he spins on the balls of his feet and really turns on the speed, she can't come close to keeping up.
By the time she's on the next block, he's gone. She keeps turning around, like a drunken ballet dancer, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.
Something hot explodes against her chest and it feels like a bulldozer is trying to park on top of her lungs. Parker has thrown another one of his plasma balls, but show-off that he is, he missed by an inch and took out a mailbox. It's snowing People magazines and liposuction flyers. The front of her jacket is scorched down to the Kevlar and a little voice in the back of her brain is telling her to let one of the fireballs hit her.
Adara springs forward from a crouch and slam her shoulder into a parking meter. The pavement cracks. Two more slams and the meter is loose enough for her to pry it from the ground. She creeps along the sides of the cars, keeping below window level. Parker has disappeared again. She tries to reach out with those weird, senses that keep telling her people's secrets, but she can't feel him. He's probably too powerful for something as crude as her kindergarten mind-reading experiments. Besides, she's distracted by the smell of burning shops. The sound of crashes and women screaming.
Parker reaches an office building, he doesn't go inside. He doesn't stop running or even break his stride. He takes one big leap and goes from the street up the side of the office building and keeps running. He doesn't crab up the side like Spider-Man. He springs standing straight up, like the Flash.
"Fuck me sideways!"
Suddenly Parker stops running, stand drunkenly on the side of the building for a couple of seconds. Then his body goes limp. He starts to fall. Adara steps far enough away from the building to avoid the splatter when he hits. She has the katana out, ready to drive it into his heart to make sure he's really dead.
As Parker falls, his body seems to drift away like smoke. He becomes transparent. Two floors above the street, the last of him blows away like morning mist. Adara keeps the katana out, ready for a trick. Nothing happens.
Adara steps forward and her bursts into a murder of crows, they dip silently towards the street then take flight once more and pass.
Her sides and chest ache and looking around at the chaos, Kingsley takes an alley and ducks out of sight. She slumps against an alley and sheaths her blade, her whole body aches.
"Fuck. I think I broke a rib."
It jabs into her side, making taking a breath hard.
Finding a shadow within shadows is difficult but the key is attuned to this specific darkness. And when she does Kingsley walks into it; passing into that utter darkness feels like falling through cool air. It always feels that way.
She finds herself in a semicircular room that, surprise, contains thirteen doors. Each door seems to be made from a different material. Wood, water, air, stone, metal. More abstract things, too. The Door of dreams moves and writhes, reshaping itself from second to second. She looks towards the only unmarked door and listens. There's something moving behind the door and it knows they're there. Something growls and scratches to get at them. Then there's a shriek, a long, keening, furious animal sound that hits her like a knife dragged through her skull.
Quickly she steps through the Door of Dreams, and it dumps her out in a darkened room. The lighting is pretty shitty but then again she's standing in the shadow of the main foyer.
Kingsley holds up the tanto to the girl in the ball gown.
"You get this back when he calls me."
Adara walks out of the store and drops the knife into the sewer grating on the corner. She hears something over the noise of the traffic. Someone is calling her name. Adara turns around, thinking at first it's one of the girls from Lollipop Dolls, but no one is there. It's a man's voice coming from across the street. She has to shield her damn eyes from the sun, but when she does, she gets a good look at him. It's Parker, not more than fifty feet away.
Parker isn't big. Parker is a Disneyland attraction. Lay some track across his back and shoulders and he could give the kiddies a wild ride. Adara goes for him straight through traffic. Cars are zipping along the street, heading for the green lights at both ends of the block. She hops across the hood of the closest car, drops down, and cuts behind the next. Then she's up on the trunk of another, but slips and ends up on the hood of the car behind it.
Everything is very calm and quiet inside her head. In the distance, halfway across the solar system, she hears squealing tires. Grinding metal. Shattering glass. People are yelling. But she'd back on her feet and moving. Her blood is pumping and she feels a heat spread from her belly to her arms and legs. For the first time since she crawled out of the fire and back onto this rock, she felt like herself. Parker is dead ahead and she knows exactly what she's doing.
On her left, a storefront explodes, knocking her off her feet. She makes a nice dent in the front passenger door of a Cadillac parked at the curb. People are screaming. The store is on fire. She looks up in time to see Parker tossing what looks like a flaming basketball from hand to hand. He throws it in her direction. Adara rolls away from the Caddie, but Parker misses the car and hits a bus stuck in traffic. More broken glass. More screaming.
Adara gets to her feet and runs at him. He backpedals down the street. Something is wrong. No matter how fast she goes, Parker stays ahead or her. When he spins on the balls of his feet and really turns on the speed, she can't come close to keeping up.
By the time she's on the next block, he's gone. She keeps turning around, like a drunken ballet dancer, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.
Something hot explodes against her chest and it feels like a bulldozer is trying to park on top of her lungs. Parker has thrown another one of his plasma balls, but show-off that he is, he missed by an inch and took out a mailbox. It's snowing People magazines and liposuction flyers. The front of her jacket is scorched down to the Kevlar and a little voice in the back of her brain is telling her to let one of the fireballs hit her.
Adara springs forward from a crouch and slam her shoulder into a parking meter. The pavement cracks. Two more slams and the meter is loose enough for her to pry it from the ground. She creeps along the sides of the cars, keeping below window level. Parker has disappeared again. She tries to reach out with those weird, senses that keep telling her people's secrets, but she can't feel him. He's probably too powerful for something as crude as her kindergarten mind-reading experiments. Besides, she's distracted by the smell of burning shops. The sound of crashes and women screaming.
Parker reaches an office building, he doesn't go inside. He doesn't stop running or even break his stride. He takes one big leap and goes from the street up the side of the office building and keeps running. He doesn't crab up the side like Spider-Man. He springs standing straight up, like the Flash.
"Fuck me sideways!"
Suddenly Parker stops running, stand drunkenly on the side of the building for a couple of seconds. Then his body goes limp. He starts to fall. Adara steps far enough away from the building to avoid the splatter when he hits. She has the katana out, ready to drive it into his heart to make sure he's really dead.
As Parker falls, his body seems to drift away like smoke. He becomes transparent. Two floors above the street, the last of him blows away like morning mist. Adara keeps the katana out, ready for a trick. Nothing happens.
Adara steps forward and her bursts into a murder of crows, they dip silently towards the street then take flight once more and pass.
Her sides and chest ache and looking around at the chaos, Kingsley takes an alley and ducks out of sight. She slumps against an alley and sheaths her blade, her whole body aches.
"Fuck. I think I broke a rib."
It jabs into her side, making taking a breath hard.
Finding a shadow within shadows is difficult but the key is attuned to this specific darkness. And when she does Kingsley walks into it; passing into that utter darkness feels like falling through cool air. It always feels that way.
She finds herself in a semicircular room that, surprise, contains thirteen doors. Each door seems to be made from a different material. Wood, water, air, stone, metal. More abstract things, too. The Door of dreams moves and writhes, reshaping itself from second to second. She looks towards the only unmarked door and listens. There's something moving behind the door and it knows they're there. Something growls and scratches to get at them. Then there's a shriek, a long, keening, furious animal sound that hits her like a knife dragged through her skull.
Quickly she steps through the Door of Dreams, and it dumps her out in a darkened room. The lighting is pretty shitty but then again she's standing in the shadow of the main foyer.
I am so happy to see that