Collide (39 page)

“Akira,” I sobbed, my voice catching on his
name as relief warred with terror.

Akira didn’t give any indication that he had
heard me, and I shifted nervously as I felt the greatly weakened
floor shudder underneath me. I frantically tried to find a way to
escape but came up with absolutely no ideas. The way back to the
stairs was now inaccessible due to the gaping hole that Akira had
caused, and the floor surrounding me was iffy at best, down right
treacherous at worst. I was practically standing on a time bomb
that was just waiting for the right moment to go off and drop me
into the floor below.

There was a harsh cry from the direction of
the stairs and I looked just in time to see Akira spin and slam one
of his out stretched wings into the
Gaki
, lifting it off its
feet where it smashed through the floor a little to my right. I had
just enough time to suck in a lungful of air before the weakened
floor dropped out from beneath my feet. I screamed and managed to
throw my upper body to the left, where I slammed painfully into the
edge of the widening hole. My hands scrabbled for purchase while my
feet kicked at air, but despite my best efforts I began to slide
backwards.

There was a crack and a hand grabbed one of
my wrists and yanked me upwards. An arm wrapped around my waist and
pulled me tight against the warm, hard planes of a living wall.
That strange cracking noise came again and air rushed by my body as
we moved forward with my feet barely skimming the floor.

“Hang on,” Akira said, his voice harsh and
strained in my ears. It was then that I realized that he was flying
across the room towards the windows, both of his arms wrapped
tightly around me and the cracking noise I had heard was his wings
beating against what little air they could find for lift. I wasn’t
sure what to do with my feet, they hung down at an awkward angle
and I could tell that they interfered a little with his ability to
fly, so I quickly wrapped my legs around his waist, crossed my
ankles and squeezed when he wobbled slightly.

“Dangerous move there, Jane,” he said and his
warm breath ghosted by my ear. I was too busy noticing the strange,
warm wetness that was starting to seep through my shirt to retort
with a snappy comeback. I became aware of a strange, thick, coppery
flavor that started to coat the back of my throat when we reached
the far side of the room and Akira swung through the open doors and
over the edge of the balcony. My stomach lodged itself into my
mouth when he folded his wings and dove down towards the
ground.

Akira crashed into the grass, his attempt at
a gentle landing shot to hell when his knees buckled upon impact
and I was smashed between his heavy body and the hardened dirt
beneath me. For a moment all we did was breath as I unlocked my
ankles from behind is back and he lifted himself slightly up to
look down at me. The moon had risen and hung partially full in the
sky, giving off just enough light for me to be able to see details
that had been hidden in the darkness of the house. I planted my
hands on his chest and shoved.

He gave a pained grunt but moved off of me,
and I got a better look at him. He was covered in wounds; scratches
and gouges marred everything from his cheeks all the way down to
his taloned feet. Some of the cuts had closed over, but several of
the deeper ones still bled freely and I realized that they were the
source of the coppery taste in my mouth.

“I’m ok,” Akira said when he saw the
expression on my face and got to his feet. He moved over to
Dellar’s body, where he swiftly knelt down and inspected him as I
climbed to my own feet and checked myself over. I was covered in
Akira’s blood, and my head spun for a moment, but I quickly
regained control and hurried over to him.

“Is he dead?” I asked, fearing the answer and
desperately trying NOT to look at Maria’s body. The
Gaki
was
still a strong threat, and I needed to keep my head. I would
grieve, and grieve hard, later.

“He’s lucky,” Akira said as he pulled the
branch from Dellar’s chest with a sickening squelching noise. I
grimaced and slapped my hand over my mouth. “His heart was missed.
He’ll be unconscious for a while so his body can heal, but no, he’s
not dead in the way most humans would think of it.”

I finally looked at Maria’s body and my eyes
immediately filled with tears.

“What happened?” I choked out as my own knees
buckled and I knelt down next to her and grasped her lax hand. I
wincing at how cold and stiff it felt. I knew we needed to move,
there was no way the
Gaki
was out for the count, but at the
moment I didn’t care. “Where were you?”

“It ambushed us,” he said as he knelt next to
me and reached forward as if to check Maria’s neck for a pulse,
then stopped himself when he seemed to remember that even if she
had been awake, she wouldn’t have had a heartbeat. “It’s my fault,
I didn’t think it would be able to track my energy signature from
my brother’s memories. It was able to get the drop on us, and it
came prepared with containment thread.”

“Containment thread?” I echoed dully. “I
thought that was super rare.”

“It
is
extremely rare. I was lucky
that the
Gaki
only had a small amount of the stuff, though I
have no idea how it could have gotten any in the first place since
G.O.O.P.S. keeps it under lock and key. I was able to escape with
minimal damage, but not before it had attacked you and the
others.”

I stared at the myriad of cuts and slashes
that were all over his body, and thought that I didn’t want to know
what he considered to be major damage if that was minor. He looked
up at me and reached out to cup my cheek, his eyes warm and sad and
ancient. I shifted; the feelings that bubbled up from somewhere in
the vicinity of my heart made me uncomfortable as my skin tingled
where his fingers rested.

“I think Maria can still be saved,” he said,
and my eyes widened. “We need to get her soul back.”

“How do we do that?”

He opened his mouth to answer, and reared
back with a howl, his back arching as a sword blade bloomed from
his chest near his right shoulder in a spray of blood. Warm wetness
splattered my face and I screamed as I scrambled backwards to avoid
the tip as it slid towards me. I tried to get to my feet only to
trip over Dellar’s body. I fell in a sprawled heap.

I rolled and climbed back to my feet in time
to see the
Gaki
plant its foot in the middle of Akira’s back
and shove him face first into the ground while it yanked the sword
out of his back with a vicious slice that almost severed one of
Akira’s wings from his body. It must have somehow grabbed Akira’s
katana
when they had been fighting earlier, and it held it
with calm confidence that spoke of familiarity through years of
sword work.

“You shouldn’t have interfered, little
brother,” the
Gaki
hissed as it pressed down on Akira’s back
even more. Akira screamed when it ground its foot, twisting in such
a way that it hit the edge of the horrible wound it had just
created. “If you had just stayed out of the way like a good little
sibling, then this would have been over and you wouldn’t be covered
in blood. Such a shame you couldn’t keep your nose out of it.”

“You are not my brother,” Akira ground out,
“and do not have permission to address me so informally.”

“Tsk, tsk. I am your brother whether you want
to acknowledge it or not. His soul is part of my very essence,
after all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a very
lovely lady who has been waiting patiently for me all night.”

“No . . . Jane, run!” Akira cried. His voice
broke on a groan as the
Gaki
gave another twist to the foot
it had placed near his wound before it started to walk towards me.
I screamed at myself to run, run,
run
, but my legs refused
to obey, weighted down with terror and exhaustion. Akira struggled
to regain his feet and his wing hung off of his back by what looked
to be just the bare minimum of muscle and sinew as blood gushed
from the hole in his chest and ran in rivulets down his
stomach.

“And where are you looking, hmm?” the
Gaki
asked as it licked its lips when my eyes flew back to
it. “The
Tengu
is out of our way and it’s well beyond past
time we put an end to this game of cat and mouse. I do so look
forward to possessing your body and soul, I grow weary of this
form.”

My teeth started to chatter as it got closer,
and I folded my arms across my chest and grabbed my elbows. I
hunched slightly so that all I could see were its feet as it came
to a stop in front of me. I shuddered as I saw the tip of the
katana come up, and then the blade pressed against me and forced my
head up and back as it scraped across the underside of my chin with
just enough pressure to slightly break the skin. I whimpered at the
small pain and the
Gaki
chuckled.

“I’m so going to savor you,” it said as it
removed the sword and reached out to caress my throat before it
wrapped its hand around it and slowly dragged me towards it. I
pulled back as my fight or flight instinct finally kicked back in,
but it was no use. I was being dragged forwards and the
Gaki
wrapped its free arm around my back, Akira’s
katana
heavy
and stiff against me. It paused long enough to stare into my eyes
and smirk, and then it brought its mouth down and sealed my
own.

Every muscle locked in place and my eyes
widened so far I vaguely wondered how they didn’t just pop out of
my head and roll away. I wanted to shove at it, to get away, but I
was held immobile as it shifted its other hand from my throat and
buried it in my hair as it tilted my head. Slowly, slowly, my body
started to heat up from my toes all the way to the top of my head
and my muscles turned into softened butter. It was as if I could
feel my blood moving underneath my skin as it left my heart and
made it’s way through my veins at a sluggish pace. It wasn’t
painful, quite the opposite, and I sighed as I relaxed and parted
my lips.

The
Gaki
smiled against me before it
began to suck the very air from my lungs as it drew in against the
vacuum of my mouth. My body sagged even more until the
Gaki
held my entire weight in its arms.

It pulled away from me and I slowly lifted my
cemented eyelids. My head had fallen back and exposed my throat
fully, and it took a moment to lean down and lightly bite at the
pulse that beat sluggishly.

I don’t know how I was still standing;
everything was disconnected and slow, like I had just finished
running a marathon and I wondered if this was how Maria had felt
when the thing in front of me had taken her soul. The
Gaki
licked its lips and sighed, a sound that was rendered grotesque by
the sheer satisfaction that oozed through it.

“I knew you would be delicious,” it purred
into my ear, and my stomach roiled as it licked the shell.

It couldn’t stay away from my mouth for long;
its hunger was an almost palpable energy that hummed in the air
between us. It drew from me again, and I couldn’t prevent the groan
that issued from my throat. It laughed against my mouth. I expected
its breath to be cold and tinged with death, but instead warm tea,
dusty books and regret tickled the back of my throat. I reflexively
swallowed and my head swam even more than before.
What was
that?

A moan caught my drifting attention, and I
rolled my eyes in its direction as my head lolled on neck muscles
that refused to work properly. Akira was standing, but it looked
like simply breathing on him would knock him back down. He weaved
drunkenly, one arm wrapped around his torso and clutched the hole
in his chest, while the other wrapped around his middle. I blinked.
My mind was fuzzy and refused to work properly.

“No, Jane,” he said as his knees gave out and
he crashed back down to the ground with a cry of pain. Blood oozed
between his fingers and stained everything in my sight with its
strange, shiny, living darkness. My eyebrows scrunched together and
I pushed weakly against the
Gaki’s
chest. It was so secure
in its triumph that it allowed me to back away a pace as it tilted
its head back and swallowed.

I stared at it, and my vision began to blur
and double as the world itself seemed to narrow down to the focal
point of the
Gaki’s
throat as it moved. I blinked, and
blinked again in an effort to focus properly, and that’s when I saw
Maria. She stood slightly behind the
Gaki
, her eyes sad, yet
determined as she stared at me. My eyes narrowed. She was
transparent, the way ghosts are almost always portrayed as being on
TV, and I could see the woods through her body. As I stared she
seemed to fade a little more as the
Gaki
continued to
swallow.

“Maria,” I whispered, and the fog lifted from
my mind a bit as I straightened up.

She didn’t say a word, just looked at me as
her body continued to fade. I reached out to her, desperate to make
contact. The
Gaki
saw my movement and smiled.

“Already eager for me again, are you?” it
asked and clasped my wrist. Its hand on my skin acted like a spark,
and the world rushed back into sharp focus with loud roar while
Maria continued to fade. I didn’t realize that I had begun
screaming until my throat throbbed. I slung the Gaki’s arm off of
me and lunged forward, my hand reaching for my fading friend who
reached out for me in turn. Taken by surprise by my sudden attack,
the
Gaki
staggered sideways.

“What are you doing?!” it demanded, but I
ignored it. All that mattered was Maria and the fact that my hand
had come into contact with hers
. I jerked backwards when my
fingers clamped over Maria’s and pulled her towards me. The
Gaki
screamed and dropped Akira’s katana. Startled, I let
Maria go and watched as her fading form began to merge once again
with the
Gaki
who clutched its chest.