The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural (4 page)

This on in particular- with its
charcoal grey body out lined with dazzling gold grill and a
matching gold wipers- this one was just drop dead gorgeous.
Especially the way the lights hit it. Not just the city lights, but
Stelters had a thing for inserting small bright lights along the
car’s perimeter just to really make it pop. By the looks of this
one, the driver recently had his car updated because instead of the
usual blinding pearls of white light coming from the rims and
handles, the glow was red and when that color touched the gold, it
set the car on fire. There wasn’t a single flaw on it, and that’s
why Ammon wadded another chunk of spit. This time, it hit the
Stelter crest on the rims.

Why did he hate Stelter’s so much?
Because the reason why his father was dead was because of a
supernatural who drove one- a Stelter Lotus, to be
exact.

The green light sprung up and Ammon
slammed on his gas out of teenage despite. But the Stelter caught
up and easily left him in the dust. Ammon screamed something at the
driver but the angry rock music deafened his profanity.

He had never been one to swear, but
ever since his father died, Ammon hadn’t been himself. Even though
that was well over two months ago, he couldn’t let go. Of course,
he had avenged his father’s death by slaughtering the man
responsible for it. The murderer was a supernatural by the name of
Shadow and he had the power to turn different shades of light into
puppet strings. But who knew a bullet to the chest would be the one
thing to end a supernatural’s life? Ammon should have cried over
his father’s death. He should have wept like a baby for he loved
his father dearly. However, he had found it in himself to turn the
sorrow into rage.

As he turned onto Hollywood Avenue, he
could see the flock of police cars circled around the caution taped
house of 2428. He poorly parked in front of a fire hydrant and
tossed on a baseball cap on his overgrown wavy brown locks. In
several strides if his long athletic legs, he crossed the street
and joined the hullabaloo.

Ammon was a tall character, easily
spotted out in large crowds such as that one. That’s probably why
Cassie Roswell spotted him immediately and hurried across the vast
green lawn, her golden blond hair rippling around her.

“
You look pissed,” she
remarked noticing the scowl on his usually charming, chiseled,
god-like face.

“
Livid,” he corrected. As he
stood there his heavily lashed green eyes scanned the crowd. Vast
lawn, huge three floored North Side mansion, police everywhere,
concerned neighbors…

That’s what anyone would see, but Ammon
O’Connell spotted so much more. An elderly neighbor stood
annoyingly close with a coffee stain on his golf pants and a white
Pomeranian on a leash. The animal had previously laid a land mine,
from which officer Smith stepped in. Along the long driveway,
multiple faded tire stains were laid out by people in the past with
an amazing driving talent. A rotting hunk of jack-o-lantern hid in
the bushes, and some sunflower seed loving fool had once had a
conversation on the sidewalk and left a mess.

“
What happened here?” he
snapped ducking under the yellow tape and striding to the front
door.

“
Don’t know,” Cassie
admitted, her blue eyes scanning the scene. She too had an
observant eye but it wasn’t nearly as well as Ammon’s. She looked
so small hurrying beside him, and she was, but that also meant her
small body contained double the sass. “They only let Josh and
Larissa in since they were the first ones here.”

Just the mentioning of Larissa’s name
should have lightened his spirits. Larissa Reyes was once an
orphan, but now a member of Ammon’s investigation group. She was
added after proving to Ammon she had a scrupulous eye, and still to
that day he didn’t know that had all been a lie and that the person
he had been falling for wasn’t the person he thought she
was.

“
Stop,” ordered a cop on
duty by the front door. Ammon disobeyed and continued
through.

Blood. He smelt before he saw it. There
was lots of blood and debris littering the fancy tile. Paintings
broken, walls caved in, and what appeared to be… metal spikes
lodged everywhere.

“
Ammon,” came Josh McGuire’s
voice.

Josh hurried from a hallway, his wide
wrestlers shoulders blocking the scene from behind. Ammon was tall,
but Josh was huge. Built like an ox and always wearing workout
clothes, with a pair of sunglasses pressed to the top of his bunny
fluff dark hair. “Wow, you look pissed.” He mentioned.

“
Livid,” Ammon corrected
again. “What’s going on?”

“
There was some sort of
fight,” Josh explained pointing to the mess everywhere. “With the
supernatural.”

“
Supernatural?” Ammon
repeated, then looked over Josh’s shoulder, but the cops were
already cleaning things up. All he managed to see was a body bag
with something big inside.

“
We found some pictures,”
Josh explained, “In the living room. It’s our supernatural and that
blonde chick. We’re guessing that they lived here, but that guy...”
He pointed down the hall, “came to attack them. Shortly after our
supernatural killed him, we’re thinking he made the 911 call then
fled.”

“
Can’t you track that
phone?” Ammon asked.

Josh nodded, “We can track where the
call was made, but we can’t follow that phone. It appears he has
some special kind of undetectable technology. It’s probably
illegal.”

“
Hmmm… untouchable and
undetectable.” Ammon mentioned. He looked past Josh at what would
have been a carcass pooled in blood. But the police had already
hauled away the body. “So then what are we doing here?” he
demanded.

“
Your six month term isn’t
over yet, O’Connell.” Marsaun’s voice was so deep it echoed all the
way to the high ceiling.

“
It practically is,” Ammon
grumbled.

By the end of February, Ammon and his
comrades would have finished out their deal. Then, because they had
racked up so much money and Cassie had the connections, they would
finish out the rest of the school year in Hawaii before starting
college with full ride scholarships in the fall.

“
But it isn’t,” the big bald
black commissioner said. He looked so intimidating in his usual
suit and tie, dark shades sat over his eyes giving him an ominous
sinister look as if to say
I can kill you
in under a minute in twenty different ways
.
And he probably could. “In fact, given the circumstances, Mayor
Wessington just might have made you stay in Tarrillian. But the
mayor is a man of his word, and he has already paid for your…
excavation.”

“
But what is there to
investigate?” Ammon asked, “The world already knows supernatural
exist.”

After Ammon saw Ace, the two engaged in
a car chase that ended up on worldwide news. Ammon had thought that
having footage of a human being bounding across rooftops and
disappearing through solid brick walls would be enough to convert
most into believing in the Legend. Instead, news of the chase had
dwindled out rapidly because the city thought it was a viral video.
In time they would realize that even in a world where everything
seems perfect and glamorous, there are still many unsolved
mysteries.

“
What’s going on now?” came
Larissa’s voice. She had just descended from the upstairs after a
detective had told her to make sure there was no evidence of a
brawl beyond the first floor. She was tall for a Latino girl and
slender but full of curves. Her thick radiant auburn hair ran in
waves down her back. In the winter time, she had lost a small
amount of her gold tinted skin, but she was still
glowing.

“
What where were you doing
up there?” Josh asked.

“
Making sure there’s no
evidence of a fight upstairs.” She answered, her hands running
along the railing and stumbling across a spear. “It appears all the
fighting happened down here.” With a swift jerk she pulled out the
spike and examined it closely.

“
How did you do that?” Josh
exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to yank one out all day!”

“
You twist and pull.”
Larissa remarked casually, though that was a lie. In truth, it was
because she had strength that he didn’t. “What are these?” she
asked tossing the heavy spike from hand to hand as she made her way
to her comrades.

“
Not sure,” Marsaun
admitted, “Though we’re pretty sure they came from the dead
supernatural.”

“
So you’re going to take
them back to that lab of yours?” she asked with a sort of sarcastic
care free tone. “Back to the place where you have those other two
bodies? I hope you have fun playing mad scientists.”

Ammon wasn’t the only one to change
after that night at the opera house. The once quiet, slightly
stubborn Larissa was now a sassy wordy soul who didn’t mind making
rude remarks in public. But she had changed even before the opera
house. Shortly after the car chase, she had found out that she had
the potential to become invincible…

Just then a cop hurried up to them with
a photograph zip locked in a plastic bag. “Excuse me,” he said
handing the commissioner the bag. “The mayor wants a conformation.
We found this picture in one of the pockets of the
suspect.”

Marsaun took it and the teens gathered
around him for a closer look.

Larissa was standing the farthest away,
but her eyes were still the sharpest. Over the glossy sheen of the
plastic, she could see the colored picture of a silvery haired girl
with a round face and freckles. A giant red X centered over a
silver and emerald locket around her neck.

“
Is that the girl with the
supernatural?” the officer asked.

Si
,
Larissa thought,
es mi amiga major.

Chapter 2 Meet Lotus Stelter

~The camera man began the countdown
while the crew was still scurrying across the stage. "We are live
in ten!" he shouted and the makeup crew finished powdering the last
of Lotus's beach tanned cheeks. They gave the last of her long
golden hair a fluff then hurried from the set.

"Five... Four..."

Lotus batted her thick black
lashes and rolled her sky blue eyes around.
But
t
here
was still a glop of eyeliner
swimming in her vision when the camera man signaled that they were
live.

The house audience applauded loudly and
the lights on the set illuminated walls of green screen lining the
stage. Lotus modeled one of her mother's crème colored summer dress
as she sat on the set’s plush sofa. She smiled brilliantly showing
off her stainless white teeth and iconic red lips. When she waved
at the audience the bracelets on her wrist clanked
together.

Finally the house died down and Lotus
turned back toward the TV host.

"Welcome back to The Dylan Dade Show."
Dylan announced to the nearest camera. He beamed a brilliant set of
teeth and sat up straight in his seat on the other side of the
coffee table.

This was the third time Lotus had
appeared on The Dylan Dade Show and it seemed like the host hadn't
aged a day. Dylan pushed up the rectangular spectacles from his
nose and turned to Lotus. From her angle Dylan's short brown hair
looked as if it evaporated due to the overhead light. "Welcome
back, I'm here with singer/songwriter, actress, model and
billionaire Lotus Stelter..." the live audience cheered and some
even whistled.

"Thank you for having me." she beamed
when the audience died down. "I haven't been on a TV show in a
while so this is a great pleasure."

"I know!" exclaimed the host, "You, my
darling have not had your fair share of the limelight!"

Lotus shrugged, "There's a ton of other
celebs who would love to be on your show right now."

"Exactly! After all I am Dylan Dade."
he winked at the audience. That was his iconic signature. Every
celebrity seemed to have one. "But we're not here to talk about
them are we?"

"You want to know about my
latest single?" she guessed. After all,
Freedom
had just dropped and was
currently the number one song on the billboards.

Dylan scoffed, "Single?
Honey, from what we've been hearing, you are far from that!"
T
he
audience chuckled
as he went
on.
"We want to know about your love
life!"

Lotus blushed, of course he did. That's
all anyone wanted to know about her ever since Michael Caster had
made it public that they were an item. He was the lead singer of
the Australian rock band Caring Diaz. He had been one of her best
friends for the longest time; ever since he met her at a Grammy
award night. Together they had made the latest album for his band.
Lotus wasn't going to deny the fact that she fancied him, and the
fact that he was Australian added to her attraction. But as their
relationship lengthened, she was staring to realize that she loved
him, but it was so difficult to be in love with him.

He had asked her out when they toured
in Europe not too long ago, but now that they were back, she hardly
ever saw him unless his band was practicing. She couldn’t remember
the last time they went on a legitimate date. Sometimes, she would
text him and wouldn’t get a single response until days later.
Eventually Lotus got used to it, but that was only after after she
realized that they would be better off as friends. Once her
interview was done, she had planned to go surfing with Michael.
With nothing but the waves to sooth her, she knew she wouldn’t feel
an ounce of remorse breaking up with him. Besides, he was still a
great friend and she needed that more than anything.