The Walk Home

Stumbling from the pain of so many bullet wounds, she had to use a hand on the wall to steady herself. For the past hundred feet, blood from the torn white glove had left a red and jagged smear. Blurred vision and the creaking of a bone in her right leg, possibly from a lodged bullet, caused Saki to grit her unnaturally sharp teeth with such force that her gums began to bleed. Rage was all she had left: rage at failure, rage at those in the way, and rage at herself. And now, she was fading in and out of consciousness.

Naked, she stood in the serpentine circle drawn on the basement floor of Miranda’s private home, as Miranda readied a multitude of occult materials. Though not young and possessing only a mere slip of a figure, she was not embarrassed at her body nor at Miranda’s presence for she had just given her a reassuring kiss. It was second thoughts.

"You had said you wanted to be able to protect me. That you were tired of feeling helpless in some of those unpleasant situations we’ve gotten ourselves into," Miranda reminded her.

"You’re a master at martial arts. I’m just a scientist and sometimes engineer. This will really give me a fighting spirit and the strength to stand with you in a fight?"

"Not just any scientist. The best of J’hana Group. Perhaps the world. Your Cradle of Thorns was pure brilliance. I don’t have to worry about Reimi ever being a problem now."

"You’re joking again?"

"Quite, I wouldn’t actually use that on a person. As for what this will give you, maybe more strength than I have."

"It won’t take anything away from me?"

"Only your weaknesses and fear." Miranda gave her another lover’s kiss. "Now stand still."

Miranda stepped out of the circle and began the ritual. Saki remembered chanting and the lights dimming on their own. Black specters swirled around her vulnerable body. Miranda’s black robe parted, dressed (or not)  underneath the same as Saki. She held out a hand with a fresh slash mark to give Saki a goblet. "Drink." And she did, the blood of an innocent heart, not that she knew that yet.

The black specters immediately began piercing into her. It was not physical pain, but still she cried out. "I’m scared!"

"Not for long," Miranda said, reassuringly as far as Saki could remember.

Doubling over, Saki vomited forth bright and dull wisps of white light, the last traces of anything good, and then the physical changes began. Specters of rage and hatred flowed into her in a vortex and new found strength as well – while anything she’d eaten in the last day left as well. But the strength! The fear and hesitation was no longer there. In fact, she couldn’t remember what that felt like, only remembered that it had made her act strangely in the past. And that strength, the power to crush a man’s skull with one hand . . .

Saki’s hand smashed the technician’s head into the concrete floor again. The skull had long since given way, brains were leaking from every opening. It was nothing now but a loose collection of plates held together in a fleshy sack. On the next impact, it flattened entirely, spilling most of the contents. But she was lost, screaming without thought. And so she continued.

"Saki! Ms. Saki!" Damian Katoon shouted, the eyes behind the sunglasses unreadable.

Saki regained her senses and realized that scraps of flesh were all that remained of the man’s head in her hand. She’d gotten here all the way from Mt. Fuji? Her memory was a haze.

"I’m sorry," Saki said. "The operation was a failure. They were there somehow. Again. I lost control."

"Don’t worry. As long as we have this facility, we can create another Goddess Chamber ."

"Good, I’d rather avoid anything to do with that bunch again. I don’t look forward to explaining this to Shen." Looking down. "Or that."

With a reassuring hand on her shoulder, Damian encouraged her to walk with him. "Don’t worry. I’ll get someone to clean it up, and no one will be the wiser. It is too bad about the operation though. Siritaki has gone to a lot of trouble collating all that Hino Corp. data."

"Well, waste not, want not."

To Page 17 (The Long Road begins, Act III, really, I mean it this time)

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