Don hefted his machine gun, eyes darting around the yard. He didn’t like this set up. They were too exposed, too visible to snipers or vulnerable to an ambush. But Schultz had put this deal together, and they needed the job. No one said being a mercenary was an easy or safe gig. But Don, like many of the others nervously checking their gear around him, didn’t have much of a choice. A dishonorable discharge after a decade in the military doesn’t leave one with many options.
“Royer, get your ass in here,” a voice barked over his comms. With one last look around the courtyard, Don ducked into the barn, and assessed the situation. Schultz looked cool as could be, even while staring down three rifles. The drug dealers, on the other hand, were jumpy. Probably sampling their own product, Don thought, his lip curling slightly.
“What’s happening here, fellas,” he said, keeping his voice light while raising his own gun.
“What’s happening is that you guys are ripping us off,” snarled the leader, the barrel of his gun wavering between Schultz and Don.
“I told them we didn’t, Royer, but they don’t seem to believe me,” Schultz drawled. “I figured they might believe it if it came from your honest face instead of mine.”
“No one’s ripping you off, man,” Don said, calculating their odds. They weren’t too bad.
“You said 40 bricks, and we only count 37,” the leader insisted, kicking one of the bags at his feet.
“Don, why don’t you put down that beauty of your and help these nice men count up the product,” Schultz’s voice was getting sweeter, which Don knew meant he was close to just mowing down these lowlifes, to hell with the job.
Before he could respond, there was a blinding flash, and they all fell to the ground, clutching at their eyes. The light was a brilliant, icy blue, and Don thought he must be crazy. He squinted through the light, and swore he saw a woman standing in the middle of it. But that was crazy, right? There was no way…
Then he saw her move. He watched as she whipped her hands out, watched as more of that piercing light flew from her hands, and just… vaporized the drug dealers before her. He watched as she turned to Schultz, watched as more light cut down his boss. At this point, instinct told him it was time to move. He dove behind a crate, breathing hard. He didn’t want to die, not here, not like that. He closed his eyes briefly, his thoughts racing. What the hell was she?
He couldn’t help himself. He peered around the crate, both fearing the woman and wanting to look at her again. He watched as the blinding light slowly faded, until there seemed to just be a slight shimmer hanging around her. He watched as she spun slowly around, looking at the motes swirling around her. He thought he saw a shimmer slide down her cheek. Was she crying?
He jumped slightly as she moved, watched as she crossed over to the bags of drugs in the middle of the barn. She poked through them, as if confirming their contents. She pulled one up and onto her shoulder, and then as he blinked, she was gone. His jaw twitched. What the hell was happening? How could any of this be possible? Had he inhaled some of the product, and this was all a bad trip?
And in another blink, she was back, and heaving up the second bag. He watched again as she vanished and reappeared, as she bent to pick up the third and final bag. Suddenly, she froze. The shimmering at her back seemed to get brighter, and she spun around, looking directly at him.
He swallowed a yelp, and then she was in front of him. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. He could just look at her. She was terrifying and beautiful. Her white-blonde hair spun down her shoulders, and seemed to flutter in a wind he couldn’t feel. Her eyes were the color of a glacier he had seen once as a child, a pure, light blue. She was like nothing he had ever seen before, and he wanted nothing more than to look at her for the rest of his life. However long that lasted.
She seemed to be sizing him up, evaluating every inch of him, seeing into his very soul. She winced suddenly, and light flared around her ribs. It almost looked like she was hurt, but he couldn’t see an injury.
She opened her mouth, and her voice brushed past him like a cool breeze.
“Help me.”
She leaned forward, pressing her cold lips to his. Images flew through his mind, too many and too fast to truly understand. In another heartbeat, she was gone, and he was left in the dark barn, rooted to the spot. What had just happened?
–
It had been weeks since Isolde met the rough man in the barn, but his eyes still drifted through her mind, watched her in her dreams. She had broken the cardinal rule – she had left a witness. But she had managed to convince her captors that the job had gone perfectly, that no one knew she had been there.
She took a shuddering breath, her lips cracking. She was a being of cold and ice, a being of light and air, and they kept her caged in an artificial desert, dry, dark, and hot. They had captured her years ago, binding her to them. They had chanted ancient words, holding her still as they pulled her hair, collected her blood. They had know, somehow, of the old magics, and had crafted an effigy, sown with her hair, dyed with her blood, and they claimed her power as their own.
She didn’t know what they wanted, what their goals were. She didn’t care. She just wanted to escape, to get back to the wilds of her home, to breath in the crisp, free air. She had fought them, at first, but they pricked and pounded on their little doll, and whatever they did to it, happened to her. She didn’t fight anymore.
Except once. Except to reach out to the clear-eyed man, the man who saw her and held her gaze, the man who still had a heart under his callouses and pain. She had kissed him, and flooded his mind with everything she knew about her captors. Which, she thought with a grimace, wasn’t much. She knew faces, not names. She knew the hallways and offices of the building she was kept in, but not it’s location. She didn’t really expect anything from this man. Maybe, just knowing someone out there knew about her, was enough.
Her head whipped up as she heard shouting outside her cell. That was unusual. Everything here was always quiet, to the point of driving her slightly mad. Pounding boots, the rattle of bullets, screams. She stood, pulling whatever moisture was in this barren room she could to her, feeling power tickle her skin.
The door to her cell burst open, and she saw those eyes, that face, staring at her. Time seemed to stop in her cell. She could still hear shrill yells coming from the hall, could hear the wet sound of metal hitting flesh, but in that moment, it was just her and the man.
“I’m-” he started, and it seemed he was as lost as she was. “I’m Don. I’m here to help you.”
Isolde realized this was it. This was the moment she had been waiting for. She looked down at his extended hand, and gingerly, gently, took it in hers. She could feel his life force pulse against her palm, could feel his energy, his intentions. He was there to help her. To free her. They were alike, the two of them. Seeking freedom from their enemies, their ghosts.
She pulled him from the cell, from that hole she would never enter again. She darted through the halls, dodging bullets and corpses. The man, Don, her mind whispered, had brought men and women with him, and they engaged with her enemies. It wasn’t a fair fight; her new allies were already rounding up the stranglers, grins born of adrenaline spread across their harsh faces.
She slowed as she approached the last office. The one where her jailer hid. She tried the door. Locked.
“Stand back,” Don said, and he carefully aimed, fired, blowing the handle and lock apart.
She swung the door open, and stalked inside. There he was, the man that held her life in his clammy hands. He shrunk back at her fierce smile.
“Stop right there!” his voice quavered. “I’ll do it! You know I will, Isolde, no matter what they say.” One hand contained her effigy, the little doll that held her essence and her will. In the other, a pair of scissors, poised over the neck of the little figure.
She hesitated, but Don didn’t. Two quick shots, and the man fell, crumbling to the ground. She dashed forward, grabbing the doll from limp hands. She murmured the words, as old as time, and she felt the invisible weight of control lifted from her. She threw her head back, and roared in triumph, a small vortex spinning around her, blowing papers from the desk.
She turned back to Don, and his face was illuminated in her icy glow. He wasn’t afraid.
She heard alarms wailing in the halls. “There will be more of them,” she said, her voice ringing clearer than it had in ages. She took his hand in hers, leading him and his people from the dark bunker, into the light. For all the ugly things they had done, their entwined hands looked beautiful together.
Inspired by a writing prompt from The Character Comma’s prompt generator.
© The Lightning Tower, 2020