The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural (53 page)

August cleared his throat before
straightening up and stepping into the costume closet. “You do look
ravishingly wicked.”

Ithaca sighed dreamily as she faced the
mirror once more and glanced at the gap between her legs. “Tell me
then darling,” Ithaca began as she gently whipped the floor with
her stage prop. “How is it that the last time I had a boyfriend was
in high school?”

August stopped a few strides behind her and
glanced anxiously at the way the whip rolled before slapping the
ground. “Because love, you are terrifying.”

Ithaca made no response to August’s remark,
though she always knew it was true. But she would rather have a man
be terrified of her than madly in love with her. “I hope you have
good news.” She finally remarked.

“
Of course,” replied August
as Ithaca caught the victorious gleam in his minty eyes. “Just
outside that door, I have Haileigh Grace slowly bleeding to death.
Do you want me to tie her down and wake her? Or leave her be until
she loses all the blood in her body?”

Ithaca shrugged, “Tie her down.” She remarked
carelessly, “I want her alive when Pele burns this place to the
ground.”

“
As you wish.” August nodded
with a slight bow, “But before I leave, I have one more question.
Where is Michael Caster?”

“
Don’t worry about that
fool.” Ithaca replied, “I’m going to fetch him now. When you’re
done tying up baby Stelter hurry up and join the others. I’ll have
Michael in no time and when I do, the show will begin. I saved a
seat for you in the front. I hope it doesn’t go to
waste.”

August scoffed as he took a step back, “Do
you really think it’s going to be that hard to tie up my own
sleepwalker?”

Ithaca shrugged, “I just really want her to
die today, alright?”

“
Of course,” August replied,
“Before you leave to bring back Caster, there is one thing you
should know.”

“
And what is that?” she
inquired with her brow raised.

“
You truly are ravishingly
wicked.”

Ithaca grinned once more in the evil smile
that usually sent chills down spines. “That’s the sweetest thing
anyone’s ever told me.” And with that remark, Ithaca blew a kiss
and vanished from sight.

~None of Michael’s favorite bars were open in
Sydney Australia at eight o’clock in the morning but that didn’t
stop him from breaking into a bottle of something hard and heavy.
It was almost always a challenge for him to get completely hammered
considering that he was a supernatural and his body was always
fighting to keep him sober. But as he sprawled out over the bar top
with two empty bottles surrounding him, he was pretty confident
this was the most drunk he had been in a long time.

“
This heart’s ben done
broken’ too many times…” he sang as his voice slurred over the
spittle of alcohol flinging from his lips, “… an’ it still hurts
mos’ thah yer doin’ f
iiiiiii
ne wiffout me…
Lozey!”

He wasn’t sure if those were lyrics to a song
he had already published or if he had written then recently on the
back of one of the napkins littering the floor. Either way, it was
time for another swig of alcohol. The moment he lifted the bottle
to his lips, it shattered sending shards of glass cutting into his
fingers and lips.

At first, Michael had figured that in his
drunken state, he had clenched onto the bottle so firmly that it
shattered. But that assumption left him the moment he heard
stilettoes stepping across the bar’s tile floor.

“
Well, well, well,” Michael
sputtered, sitting up on the bar top as Ithaca’s figure emerged
from the darkness. “It’s quite remarkable wha’ chuve don wiff yur
legs.”

Ithaca didn’t stop to make a single remark.
In one swift stride, her long fingers were around his throat.
Before he even knew what was going on, the back of his head was
slammed down on the hard wooden table. Again, and again. In his
drunken state, the pain was the last thing he recognized. All that
existed was the blurry image of Ithaca’s violent snicker as she
slammed his head down repeatedly. Then there was blood. Blood
seeping from the back of his head where his white skull was now
showing. Blood escaping in rivers from his nose and seeping down to
the back of his throat.

She slammed his head once more against the
wood then stopped for a second. Michael gazed dizzily up at her as
the immense pain was beginning to seep above through his alcoholic
fog. The idea of fighting back had just begun to form in his
mind.

“
Goodnight Highness.” Ithaca
beamed down at him with her fingernails still digging into sides of
his throat. “You’re going to take a nap… and never wake
up.”

Before Michael could make sense of what she
was saying, the butt of a pistol slammed down onto his forehead
with supernatural power and speed. Upon impact, Ithaca felt the
bone beneath his flesh crack and instantly Michael’s eyes rolled
into the back of his head. He was dead, and there was no way his
body could regenerate the damage Ithaca had done.

There was no time to glory in another one of
her effortless murders. Back in Hawaii was an audience full of the
most ruthless and powerful gang leaders in the world. It was time
for them to see the show they had been promised. It was time to
make it known to the world that there was no Legend to regulate the
power that should be rightfully given to the leaders of gangs. Now
was the era of Ithaca and the Supremacy. A time for the powerful to
pledge allegiance and the weak to be destroyed.

Effortlessly, Ithaca flung Michael’s dead
body over her shoulder and vanished from Sydney, Australia.

~“What is that?” Lotus muttered to herself
just before pressing a glass of cool water to her lips. As Lotus
swallowed, her eyes never moved from the dark spots along the
living room’s cement wall. Had Lee gotten into the computer and
messed with the computer decorations? Perhaps the projection was
glitching and the dark spots against the cement wall were just cast
by the projector.

Lotus took another sip of water before
setting her surfboard down over the stone island. “Hey, Haills. I
just got home.” She called again, her voice echoing in the empty
space above her. “Were you messing with the projector?”

When no response came, Lotus finished her
glass of water and set it down beside her surfboard. Not once did
she look away from the strange spots along the wall. Even as she
approached them, she didn’t look away. That is, until she stepped
on a broken vase.

“
What happened here?” Lotus
muttered bending down to examine the fine shattering of
china.

As she picked up one of the
larger pieces of glass, a single word seemed to be whispered into
her mind.
Bullets.

There was no way… Even as Lotus ruled out the
possibility she didn’t remember sprinting over to the wall to
examine the spot. Suddenly her heart was banging against her throat
as she tried to reason with what she was seeing. It was impossible…
and yet as she stood inches from the wall, something shiny caught
her eye.

Bullets.
The word came again as she bent down to pick up a flattened
copper shell.

“
Haileigh!” Her sister’s
name ripped through her throat when all impossibility was ruled out
by the sight of the weightless metal in her hand. This was very
real. “
Haileigh!”

How could this have
happened?
Why?
A
billion questions and worries blew around her mind like a blizzard
as she desperately waited for her sister’s voice to call back. Lee
had to be safe. She
had to!
Lotus’s heart was racing like the rhythm of a
hummingbird’s wings as she made the immediate decision to find her
sister. But no matter how quickly she sprinted for the staircase,
Lotus still felt as if she were running through
molasses.

Had someone broken in to rob their things and
Lee tried to stop them? If so then why was nothing taken? Lotus
swallowed hard as a second probability penetrated her mind. What if
Lee was taken? Immediately Lotus tried to comfort herself by
thinking that there would be no reason to kidnap her. Lotus was
more valuable, right? Lee had been out of the loop for years while
Lotus had been making money… right?

“
Haileigh!” Lotus called
once more as she landed at the top of the stairs.

At the sight of Lee’s bedroom door kicked in,
the possibility of her sister being abducted seemed more real.
Lotus’s stomach did a flip as the back of her throat became itchy
and swell up to her eyes. She had just gotten Haileigh back into
her life. How could someone take her away so soon? Why?! How could
someone be so cruel and steal the one thing from her that made her
feel alive?

“
Hails?” Lotus’s voice was
now a whimper. Her hands had begun to tremble as she approached the
broken door. Inch by inch, the hallway seemed to lengthen before
her as she shuffled to the door. Lotus wasn’t sure what to expect,
but the smell of blood indicated what lay inside before she could
see anything.

A scream stopped itself in the back of
Lotus’s throat when she caught sight of the numbers and letters
written on the wall in blood. Suddenly all the questions that had
been tumbling around her mind ceased to exist as the bloody image
became the one thing to petrify her. She couldn’t even see the mess
of shrapnel littering the floor nor wonder why the light scent on
charred wood lingered in the air. The only thing that she could
comprehend was the blood painting before her. Lotus wasn’t sure how
long she stood there staring horrorstruck before she finally
recognized what she was looking at.

It was the address to the
film studio at the base of the mountain. Instantly, it made sense
to her. Lee was kidnapped so she could be used as a ransom for the
money Lotus did have. Before she could reevaluate her assumption,
or even wonder
who
would be wicked enough to kidnap her sister, Lotus had whipped
out her phone and pressed it squarely to her ear.

Kasper picked up on the first ring. “Hey,
Lo-”

“
Haileigh’s been taken.”
Lotus blurted before Kasper could say much more, “I think she’s
being held for ransom.” With each word she spoke, the urge to cry
increased until a tear flooded over her eye. “I’m going to save
her.”

“
Stop,” Kasper exclaimed.
There was so much vigor behind this one word that she could almost
see him standing up from his seat. Wherever he was. “Lotus, slow
down. Tell me everything.”

Lotus swiped a tear from her eye and glanced
once more at the wall of blood. “There’s an address. Think it’s the
address to the studio. It’s written in blood…” Her voice trailed
off as the overwhelming urge to cry sprang up her throat once more.
“There are bullet holes all over the house. Lee’s gone. Someone
took her Kasper. I don’t… I can’t understand…”

“
Listen to me,” Kasper began
to say from the other end of the line. “Do
not
go after her. This could be
dangerous. I’m on a plane. I’ll touch down in Hawaii in two
hours.
Do not go after her.
You could be walking into a trap.”

“
She’s my sister!” Lotus
bellowed her voice cracking as she spoke. “You expect me to just
wait around?”

“
Yes!” Kasper exclaimed.
“Lotus, I need you to listen to me. Do not put your life in danger
as well. Stay put. Do you promise me you will stay?”

Lotus’s eyes never left the blood written
over the wall. Two hours was a long time to wait for Kasper to land
in Hawaii. In two hours she could have driven to Oahu and back
seventy times. In her mind’s eye Lotus could see herself pulling up
to the studio with a credit card in hand ready to pay all the money
she had to get her sister back.

“
No,” Lotus said into the
phone. It was almost as if her body had acted out involuntarily.
Instead of speaking the word out loud, someone with her voice said
it for her.

Kasper had told her to do many things in the
past. A majority of them were things Lotus never wanted to do. But
in all the years she had known him, this was the first time she
chose to act out on her own. “No, Kasper. I’m going to save my
sister.”

Before Kasper could beg her not to, Lotus had
jammed the phone into her pocket and spun on the spot. She was out
the penthouse door before Kasper could even think to call her
back.

~For the longest time, Ace couldn’t even
remember he was. The memories of his past had overwhelmed him to
the extent that he wasn’t sure if he were alive or dead. The
thoughts of his father and Mr.Stelter faded from his memory so
quickly it was as if he had lost them once more. They slipped from
his mind like the way smoke slips through fingers. Suddenly he was
utterly alone. It was as if he had had lost all recognition of
friendship; as if his love had never existed. Suddenly it was
utterly silent. As if voices, and laughter or even Tarillian City’s
everyday hullabaloo had never made sweet music to his ears. But
above all, it was dark. Dark beyond imagination.

Specks of light did not dance behind his
closed eyelids like they normally would. No, this was the darkness
that suffocated. It intoxicated the air he breathed and cocooned
around his skin, caging him so tightly it was a struggle to
breathe. It was the kind of darkness that would extinguish fires,
or continue to blind him even if the sun were an arm’s length away.
Alone, the overwhelming darkness was enough to set the stage for
his next several moments. But it was the combination of dark, and
quiet, and isolation that allowed his mind to be tormented in the
most relentless way he had ever experienced.