Devil Inside (17 page)

She watched the night outside the truck carefully.  Levi had only been gone a few minutes but her brain had had enough time to start to imagining all sorts of things in the dark.  She didn’t see anything right now but she was still on edge with her gut telling her something was going to happen.  Things never went smoothly when you needed them too.  As if thinking about it willed it to happen, movement suddenly caught her eye.  Something large moved on the side of the house in front of the driveway.  There was no fence that separated the front from the back but there was a large bush against the wall of the house that marked the point where the backyard began.  The movement was a dark shape that just barely peeked from the edge of the bush.  Had she not been looking in that direction at that moment, she would have missed it.  Even though it only lasted for a second she was sure of what she had seen.  It was the edge of someone’s arm and shoulder as they turned and crept towards the back of the house.

Her heart pounded against her in her throat.  There could only be one reason someone would be lurking around the bushes outside of Levi’s house—let alone this time of night.  It had to be an Ignis.  She put her hand on the grip of the shot gun but hesitated.  Levi had told her if she saw any Ignis to run.  She froze, debating her options.  She could honk the horn to warn Levi and leave a layer of rubber as she sped away.  Or she could creep in and be Levi’s backup.  She didn’t want to honk the horn unless she had too.  It would be waving a red cape at the bull for the Ignis to come after her.  And it could also cause the Ignis to spring into action.  They seemed to be on stealth mode at the moment.  They were sneaking up on Levi, maybe she could sneak up on them.  They probably wouldn’t expect her to come for them.

She knew that Levi would be angry with her for not listening to him.  But she just couldn’t make herself drive away.  It just wasn’t in her to leave a friend behind and in trouble.  Even if Levi made it out fine she would feel weak and damsel like.  And she was sure that she would not be OK with that.  It turned her stomach thinking about it.

Making her decision she grabbed the shotgun.  At the last second she thought to turn off the interior light before she opened the door.  There wasn’t any need to shine a spot light on herself.  She eased the door open as quietly as she could.  She left the truck running for a fast get away and stepped down from the vehicle.  It was the softly churning engine that nearly drowned out the sound of something approaching behind her.  It was moving quickly and quietly and there was no mistaking the intent.  Immediately, Harley chastised herself for assuming someone wouldn’t be watching the truck.  It was obvious she had been in it, waiting.  But she didn’t have time to berate herself now, she just hoped for the element of surprise.  She had been holding the gun in front of her and it wouldn’t be easy for someone behind her to tell she carried a weapon.  Taking a deep breath she spun around, raising the gun to chest level as she did so.

Harley came face to face with a woman not much older than she was.  She had long, dirty blonde hair and was waiflike skinny.  Her eyes shone out of her pale face in the street light giving her the sick and creepy look of a possum in the headlights.  Her teeth were bared and she made a growling sound as she lunged at Harley.  Harley didn’t hesitate.  She squeezed the trigger and her sore muscles screamed in protest as fire exploded from the end of the gun.  The woman was only about ten feet from her when she fired and her chest exploded in a cloud of blood.  The Burner stumbled backwards awkwardly looking down at her chest.  She made a garbled “Ugh” sound and met Harley’s eye with a feral glare.

Harley swallowed and waited to see what the Ignis would do.  She still had four rounds in the shotgun and she hoped that more could take the woman down if she had time to fire.  Despite the fact that the woman’s chest showed through her shirt to be shredded and bloody, she didn’t seem as if she would go down anytime soon.  She wobbled slightly and blood dripped out of her mouth and she bared her teeth at Harley.  The men that had attacked Harley and Jamie had seemed less animal-like.  This woman seemed more wild and much more deadly.  The Burner seemed to be considering attacking again, but must have decided to live to fight another day.  With one last angry snarl directed towards Harley, she turned and stumbled away, picking up speed until she was running.

Harley shook herself out of her daze and cursed silently.  She shouldn’t have let the woman get away.  She should have fired again—tried her best to kill the Ignis.  She realized that the loud boom from the gun had caused quite the disturbance in the quiet neighborhood so she stopped lecturing herself and made up her mind to go into the house.  A dog had begun barking and she could see a light come on in the house across the street.  She realized at the same time that Levi and any Ignis inside the house would have heard the sound too.

Sure enough, as Harley turned back towards the house she heard the sound of glass breaking.  Levi fell part of the way through the living room window.  He was struggling with an Ignis that was on top of him and they had both become entangled in the curtain that billowed out the shattered window.  Harley didn’t hesitate as she sprinted towards the house.  She had to help Levi; there was no telling how many were inside.  And they both needed to get out of here before the cops came.  Levi hadn’t latched the door shut behind him and she kicked it open as she burst through.

Levi and the Burner had made their way back inside the living room.  They both had knives which flashed through the air as they slashed and lunged at each other.  The man that Levi fought was huge.  He had no hair and was a solid slab of muscle.  He looked like he belonged on a football field and was a good six inches taller than Levi.  She raised the gun but didn’t fire yet.  She didn’t have a clear shot as long as Levi was in the way.  She tracked the two as they grappled around the room, following closely waiting for her shot.  She had moved so that her back was to the broken window.  The front door was on her left and the hall to the bedrooms was on her right.  The kitchen was directly behind the two fighting men.  There were many directions that needed guarding and she whipped her head and the gun around erratically trying to cover them all.

Levi and the bald Ignis continued to stalk each other in a circle.  They lunged and deflected and kicked and grunted when one would finally score a hit.  Levi fought aggressively and Harley found herself extremely impressed.  His moves were full of power and seemed erratic and unplanned, but the skill with which he fought argued against that.  It was simply the fury behind his movement that made it seem as if he was a bar fighter and not a trained killer.

Suddenly, Harley saw movement to her right, coming from the direction of the bedrooms.  Another Burner, probably the one she saw by the bushes, rushed towards the fight.  She knew she had to stop him before he got too close to Levi for her to fire.  She raised the gun and aimed it in the direction of his chest and fired without hesitation.  But the small, skinny Ignis saw her and ducked away from her shot so that it barely grazed his back.  A growl rumbled from his throat and he charged back towards her.  She barely had time to fire again before he reached her but she pulled the trigger when he was barely five feet from her.

This shot was a good one.  The man must have thought he could get to her before she fired because he came directly for her.  The shot caught him squarely in the face.  The Ignis’ head snapped back and he hit the floor with a thud. 
Two shells left
.  She doubted the man was dead, but he was missing a good portion of his face so he would be down for a while at least.  She forced herself to breath calmly as she turned back to Levi and the monstrous Burner he fought.  As Harley turned, Levi finally got in a good kick that caused the man to stumble backwards a few steps—just enough to give Levi room to raise his knife for a powerful thrust.  It sank home in the man’s stomach and forced a grunt from his throat.  Levi pulled the knife back and kicked the man again, causing the man to fall to his knees.  Levi had finally gained an advantage over the man and leapt on him. 

Before the huge Ignis could recover, Levi circled around behind him and locked his arms around his head.  As Harley watched, Levi bit the man on the neck.  The Ignis began flailing and shouting indecipherably, now sounding more panicked than angry.  Levi stayed locked onto the man for only about a minute, even though it seemed much longer.  Harley wasn’t sure how to react to Levi’s actions.  It was kind of gross but she was also curious about the whole thing.  The man wasn’t too wounded and should have still been able to fight Levi off.  But he seemed partially paralyzed and flailed about stupidly trying blindly to knock Levi from his back.  Harley wasn’t able to look away from the whole process.  She knew that she would have to do this also if she became Nocte and so she watched curiously trying out the idea of her doing the same.

Finally, Levi broke away with a gasp.  His eyes were black and Harley could see that his fangs were still exposed.  He wiped the blood away from his mouth and smiled at Harley.  He seemed to vibrate with energy and power.  His eyes didn’t leave hers as he shoved the dead Ignis whose body fell forward heavily.   She tried not to think of the Ignis as a man.  He hadn’t been human for a while.  He was a part of the Turba and she reminded herself that there wasn’t any going back.  Once you bonded the only release was death.  She reminded herself that if he hadn’t died a lot of humans would have ended up dying and/or suffering as a result of his living.

Harley was, again, surprised to find that Levi’s actions didn’t sour her opinion of him. 
I wonder just how twisted that makes me.
  Something about his strength and the intensity with which he fought gave her chills.  It was the excitement that you felt when you saw gorillas or tigers in the wild.  Pure, raw danger and Levi shared their beautiful power.  Even watching him drink blood didn’t damped this perception.  It was watching a powerful predator take down its prey.  It was the natural order of things and that fact shone through the creepy, grossness of drinking blood.  Levi and Harley continued to study each other.  Levi was gauging her reaction to his feeding and Harley was discovering that she was excited by the prospect of acquiring the same power that Levi held.  She wanted to hum and glow with that power and authority of her own.  The look that they shared was finally broken by movement in the doorway.

Harley felt her stomach drop to her feet.  The blonde man from the bar stood there.  His face twisted in fury.  She wasn’t able to react at first—she was frozen.  Levi had been caught off guard by the man’s sudden appearance as well.  But when the man spoke it broke the spell.  He said one word.

“Harley,” he sneered.  Shock reverberated through her as he said her name and she nearly took a step backwards—away from his words.

Stunned into action, the three of them reacted at the same time.  Harley leapt forward to get a good shot, Levi lunged forward drawing his knife back and the Ignis decided to not try to fight the two of them.  He grabbed the coffee table that separated him from Levi and Harley and slung it in their direction.  They both had to hesitate to not trip over the furniture or each other as the table flew into them both.  Their hesitation was just enough to give the Burner time to dart out the door.

By the time they both made it to the doorway, Harley and Levi saw the Ignis jump into a car that sped away, driven by the blonde female Ignis that Harley had shot earlier.

“Fuck!” Harley exclaimed kicking the wall.

Levi turned to look at her.  His eyes were still black but his fangs had receded once again.  He backed her against the wall.  The look on his face was a deadly one and Harley’s mouth went dry as she looked up at him.

“I told you to leave if you saw any Ignis,” he growled.  His voice was rougher than normal and he sounded as angry as he looked.

Harley swallowed, “You did.  But I couldn’t just run.  It’s just not something that I could make myself do.”  She refused to look away from him and back down.

Levi opened his mouth to argue but Harley interrupted him.  “And besides, once I got out and the blonde woman came at me and I shot it—her—I had to come in.  If I had just left you would have been fighting all three—maybe four if the woman had come back—all by yourself.  AND you would have had to have dealt with the cops….”  She trailed off.  She refused to babble, she felt confident that she had made the right choice.

Levi studied her for a moment.  Finally, he broke into a tight smile and the black faded out of his eyes.  He had apparently decided that she was right enough to not continue to argue about it any further.

“You handled that gun pretty well,” he grudgingly admitted trying to hide his pride.

“Thanks,” she tried to hide her smirk.  She decided to take the victory and not rub in the fact that she had probably saved his life.

“But, seriously, from now on, when I say get out of here—that means get out of here.”

Harley did a poor job of trying not to smile as she ignored his lecturing.  The sirens in the distance reminded them that they needed to get on the move—fast.

“Let’s get out of here,” Levi said and Harley nodded her agreement.  He quickly retrieved the bag he had come for from where it fallen in the fight and they both sprinted towards the truck. 

When Harley tried to climb behind the wheel again Levi wordlessly grabbed her arm and guided her firmly away from the door.  When she sputtered her protest he waved her to the passenger side.

As they both climbed in Harley smirked, “Have I lost my driving privileges?”