Running Shoes (The Shades of Northwood) (33 page)

I didn’t mean
to, Lady Katie. I only tried to buy you time.

Jack was still
thinking. Thinking strange thoughts, things that were vague and
meaningless but he was thinking and he remembered her name. That
had to be good.

“Stop!” she
shouted. “He’s had enough! You want to kill me. I’m standing right
here.”

The bad man
spared her a glance and them appeared to dismiss her, curving his
arm back.

“NO! Jack’s
dead. What’s the point in killing a guy with no defences, huh? You
want me. You want the challenge, right? And I’m a screamer.” The
two of hem started circling each other around Jack. “If you can
catch me.” Katie bent her knees ever so slightly and took off at a
gentle backwards run luring him into following. If she could wear
him down just a tiny bit… okay, that was as far as the plan went
but there was the distinct possibility she wouldn’t live past Phase
One. Developing a Phase Two was a moot point. “Come on, I’m a
distance runner. I can do this dance all day.”

“Same here,” he
growled. “I’ve had 200 years to get ready for you little girl.”

“200 years? You
should be better at this then. Death at the hands of an
incompetent. It’s embarrassing really.” Frightening was a better
word but showing fear just seemed like a bad idea. Katie reached
into her pocket and found two things; her phone, a bit scratched
and the screen was cracked but otherwise fine, and her house keys.
She tossed them between her hands, thinking. She didn’t want to
lose her keys but her phone had already taken a battering. A sudden
close encounter with the ground might absolutely bust it. Oh well.
She took aim and chucked it at the bad man, kind of amazed that her
throw was on target for once. Unfortunately, accuracy didn’t make
much difference. He didn’t even flinch as the missile hurtled
towards his head, just side-stepped at the last second and let the
phone sail right on
through
his chest. And it was gone.
Useless. Her only weapon was floating somewhere inside the bad man.
She watched as the man started moving her way, inching back but
wanting so badly to turn tail and run as far and as fast as she
could. Especially when he gave that low chuckle that started deep
in his chest and then went lower, aiming for the lower levels of
hell. There was evil in that laugh but a degree of humour too. As
if he knew the bravado was just a front. Katie dropped to a crouch
as the bad man started running for her and thrust her arm out to
dislodge his legs. It always worked in the movies. The plucky
heroine swept her opponents legs and his momentum – it was always a
him – carried him into a sprawling forward roll, putting him on the
losing side. Shame, then, that this was real.

Oh God, was
this real.

He stopped
inches before Katie. There was an instant before she realised he
should have tripped over her and hadn’t where she didn’t move. She
pulled herself up and, “I’m not living in fear of you.”

“Smells like
you are.”

“I’ve had
enough of running away. I used to run for fun. So, can we just stop
this game and get to the fighting?”

“Fighting,
killing. It’s all fun for me.”

Katie had
basically just challenged this man to a hands-down dogfight. The
paper-thin power of these – what had Jaye called herself, a Shade?
– against twisted justice and a weapon that had killed a thousand
times or more. How the bloody hell was she meant to win that? She
threw her hands up as the man charged at her. If the bad man had
been completely solid then she might have been able to protect
herself from s fraction of the pain she suddenly felt tearing
through her abdomen. He had faded his leg to pass right through her
arms and then willed it back into flesh to connect firmly with her
stomach. A boot in the belly was one of the most painful things
Katie had ever experienced. It made her angry.

“Gonna cry,
little girl? Gonna curl up and cry for your momma?”

“You’re not
worth the tears,” she bit off. “I cry for love, loss, joy and pain.
Not for pathetic little freaks with nothing better to do than
terrorise teenagers.” But Katie felt like crying. It was hard to
squeeze back the hot sting behind her eyes. It did match the hot
sting of blood in her mouth.

The rain
stopped for a brief second and a streak of lightning split the sky
in two. The man took advantage of the instant to crack the whip at
her. Something warned her a millisecond before and Katie jerked
back and the leather strip missed her by an eighth of an inch. Too
close.

The dark power
swirled around Katie, and she tried to wrap it around herself
tighter. The wind and rain still didn’t touch her. But the life the
dead things had sent her was beginning to trickle out – dodging the
whip cracks and advances, trying to keep out of reach, was not
helping. Much longer and nervous exhaustion would come knocking –
the Shades had only suppressed her tiredness, not taken it away
like they had her cuts and scratches – it was still there, pushing
the edges of her brain, biding it’s time before it could take her
over once more. This had to be over before then.

He was
definitely getting the closer. Katie thought fast. There had to be
some weakness.

“Your family,
friends, any of them left? Bet this is making them proud. Hey
Daddy, what did you do today? Well son, I killed a kid.”

“No-one’s left.
Just you, me and right and wrong.”

“I killed a kid
because she saw me murder some other kid.”

“Got no-one to
be ashamed of me. I’m already dead, little girl. Ain’t nothin’
no-one can do to stop me.”

So, what was he
waiting for then? He was playing with her. The sicko was enjoying
this! “What would your superiors think?” It was loud and dark but
Katie was positive he paused for just a second; shadows blacker
than the night flickered to life.
Yes! Got him!
“I mean,
that’s why you’re hellbent on finishing me off, isn’t it? You
killed a kid for stealing – and from the sheriff, of all people!
You thought you were fireproof. And then you realised you had a
witness. Which would be me.” Her mouth was working faster than her
mind but these words seemed to be hitting all the right nerves so
she was more than happy to let her mouth continue. She just wished
she had known what she was about to do next before she did it.
Because it was monumentally stupid.

Her arm shot
out, grabbed something cold and uneven and yanked, risking him
probably breaking her fingers if his reactions were quick enough.
They were but some reflex of her own overrode the dark crackling
energy and used whatever she had had grabbed to slice upwards
feeling a satisfying resistance as the points of the sheriff’s
badge caught on and carved through flesh.

“Bitch!”

So I’m
told.
“Yeah, that’s me. Anyway, you decided to find me and kill
me because you couldn’t risk
this.
I might have told your
boss and I’m guessing the murder of a minor, whatever his crime,
was frowned on.”

“Give that
back. It’s
mine!
” he bellowed.

“Hmm…”

He made a grab
for it. Katie held it tight to her chest with both hands,
understanding on some level far below her consciousness that things
were going to plan.
Some
one’s plan, anyway. Still holding
tight, Katie felt his hand brush her cheek gently, almost tenderly.
She closed her eyes against the touch, her mind rushing back almost
four months to when another man had touched her that way… and how
violent/intimate that touch had turned.
It’s happening
again,,
she had time to panic, as rough fingers turned into
claws, held her chin in a vice-like grip and forced her to her
knees.

“Say
please.”

Katie held the
badge towards him but the bad man just glared at it like the
inanimate object was responsible for all this trouble. To give it
its due, the badge probably had been.

“You
first.”

A weak moan cut
through the howling storm. Jack. It hurt to admit it but Katie had
forgotten about him. She glanced over. He sounded kind of pathetic.
A kicked puppy had more fight in it and that moan had sounded
suspiciously close to his last breath. The bad man used the
distraction to walk up until he had forced the girl back onto her
elbows and was straddling her chest. He flexed his strong hands
around the handle of his whip and readied himself to deliver the
killing.

“I said, scream
for me!”

So she did.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

Into that
scream, Katie poured everything she had left. All that pent-up
anger, every drop of fear, every ounce of hate, every last scrap of
fight. She prayed – still unsure who to – that it would be enough
to kill him and knew it wouldn’t.

They didn’t
give me energy, give me life,
she realised as she wailed longer
and louder than she thought physically possible. There was so much
power in that alien, animal sound that she had to wonder if it was
really coming from her.
They filled me with death.
The
possible consequences of that were too many to even think about
right now but
I don’t wanna die
strobed through her head
like a driving dance beat.

A broken red
line folded out into the night, but slowly, so slowly. Katie fixed
her gaze on the crimson line inching towards her and knew she had
roughly half a second to react. It felt like an eternity though.
She carried on screaming – time had either slowed down to less than
a crawl or some kind of magic was constantly filling her lungs with
the air she needed. The mundane physics of time, the basic biology
behind respiration, none of it mattered. It was all working and
that was all she cared about. The man grinned down at her, face
contorted with effort and hate. She remembered how that whip
carving a crimson slash through the night had drawn is’ own bright
red streak in her flesh. It made her scream harder, pouring out
fire. Purple-black fire but fire nonetheless. Katie raised a hand
and felt time try to re-assert itself. She was running dangerously
low on fuel. Crying now, but she didn’t even realise it, focussing
instead on the haunted look in the killers eyes and how he was
fading. Angry as hell and looking utterly homicidal, he was
starting to blur at the edges.

Katie stopped
screaming as a leather ribbon, jumping with red sparks, arc down
and burnt an angry red line into her palm. It tingled, she could
feel it, but there was o pain. Natural anaesthetic rushed down her
arm and made her hand pleasantly numb. Where the whip broke the
skin, it suddenly went limp and powerless. No matter how hard the
man tried to shake the object back into lethal life, it was dead.
Katie held onto it and, after an instant of searing white-hot pain,
everywhere she touched lost power.

Katie used it
like a pulley rope between her and the man with hate in his eyes to
pull herself up. She turned her face to the ground and saw through
tear-fogged eyes splatters of blood on her running shoes. Just that
one chance moment of seeing a boys lifeblood on her feet and she
knew what to do. He was weak now. Well, so was she. However, the
adrenaline was pumping, her brain was whirling but not really
moving, the end of every nerve was frazzled – sensitive as God knew
what. He stalked after her, throwing the whip away in frustration.
It wouldn’t do any good now. Once, it held the fury of ages. No
more. He didn’t need the whip to silence this little girl. His
hands, these hands that had dealt a thousand blows and pulled a
hundred triggers, were the only weapons he needed. Katie turned on
her heel and ran. She started the rhythmic jog she used when she
wanted to lose herself on a training run.

It’s not fast
enough. Put the speed on girl. Speed!

The bad man
stomped behind her, the rage audible in his step, reached out and
clamped down on her shoulder. Katie bit hard on the instinct to
scream out. The time for screaming was done. The
life/death/whatever that had filled her up had all drained away.
Just a strand or two was clinging to her skin now, just enough to
keep the rain from making her job harder. Like it was going to make
any difference in a few minutes.
At least I
‘
ll die dry.
Oh, Christ, I don’t wanna die.

It’s not
time for you to join us.
Where was
yet
? They had to say
yet!
Order must be restored, child.

If anyone
wanted Katie to be a kid, it might help if they backed off with all
this shit! Uh-oh, she’d not only thought that but she’d said it
too. Which would probably give this man a bit more sick pleasure.
Maybe he already knew he was terrorising a broken-inside girl.
Maybe that made it more fun.

In one fluid
movement,, she gripped his hand, twisted under it and brought her
other hand underneath, making a bizarre hand sandwich. If this
didn’t work then she had just placed herself in the hands of a
psychopath. He was fading, only a tiny bit, still solid enough to
kill if he wanted to.

“You won’t get
the chance,” she promised him and searched out his angry blue eyes.
Something close to confusion and terror tinged his face. Their
gazes locked down. Katie concentrated and pulled together the
remaining scraps of dark power, feeling as though she was scraping
vital membranes and linings from her organs. She imagined it
coalescing into an uncomfortable ball deep in her stomach and then
forced it up through her chest, down both her arms and through her
hands into him. There wasn’t much of the darkness left. But it was
so concentrated it might just be enough. No, it
would
be
enough.

Of course it
wasn’t. He stepped back, stumbled actually. Good sign? Bad sign?
Did it mean anything? Purple-black wisps crept over the man and
stopped sparking as Katie watched. The sparks throbbed, grew,
multiplied until his face was barely visible inside a web of dead
black energy. All semblance of life long gone.