The Quarter Moon (Afterlife saga) (16 page)

I took one look at the massive hooded giant coming towards me and turned to bolt in the other direction. If I could just make it back to the balcony, then maybe I would have a slim chance at getting away from this new nightmare. My heart was pounding with the surge of adrenaline pumping through my system and I thanked
God for it, for without it, it would be times like this that I would have just curled into a frightened ball and shook. But no, not thanks to this natural drug that was a driving force.

I circled round and just before I came close to the railings of the staircase I was grabbed from behind. An arm that felt like it could have belonged to the Terminator snaked around
my waist and slammed me back into a wall of chest. Another hand quickly grabbed my throat and his hand was so large it spanned the entire column of my neck. He held me still and when I tried to break free he applied a little pressure as a warning. I then felt slight movement behind me as he lowered his head, closer to my ear.

“Ssshh lille øjesten
.” That incredibly deep voice vibrated through me once again and as I shivered I felt his thumb create little soothing circles along my skin.

“Down
!” He ordered then he moved quickly and I found myself being pushed down to the floor by heavy hands at my shoulders. He pushed so hard that if I hadn’t bent my knees my legs would have snapped. This being the case he also gripped my jacket so that my knees didn’t bang too hard on impact as he lowered me until I was tucked below his leg.

My last thought before the sounds of destruction erupted around us was…

Thick black boots were back. 

Chapter 16

Black Ink

I looked up to find myself in between the legs of giant, one who was clearly getting ready to kick some ass! He widened his stance and I saw him start to shrug one arm out of his long dark grey jacket. It came down to the back of his knees and its heavy hood remained hiding his face. I wondered how he even saw anything with only his square chin being exposed.

Underneath this massive cloak-
like jacket, I could see black leather trousers, black t-shirt and some kind of leather straps across his huge chest. Every single thing about this guy screamed dangerous and colossal and this was coming from someone who knew a Ragnar!

He was so tall I could have easily lived in between his legs and still had room to spare…of course not in a rude way. That thought alone terrified me, one hug and you would be crushed, let alone wha
t a night with a man like this could do. One thing was for sure, he would roll over and you would lose weight pretty quickly!

Once he had freed his arm
, I sucked in a quick breath when I saw it was practically covered in tattoos. Only these were unlike any I had ever seen before, as it wasn’t like a sleeve tattoo as there were spaces in between each one. They were thick black bands, each one different in design and they all got thicker the further up his arm they went. I noticed one as he brought his arm to the railing by my head and it was then I noticed they were all snakes ringed around strong muscle eating their own tails.

The commotion downstairs was getting louder and three of the men had started to c
ome up the staircase at us. I sank down lower and gave a startled little moan when I saw that the snakes had all started to move, each one circling round his arm in opposite directions.

The very last one was the smallest on his middle finger
, about an inch thick and just past the first joint closer to the tip, this moved clockwise. The next was a banded snake that had little spikes and was slightly thicker running across the back of his hand and palm, this one moved anti-clockwise. This was the theme running up until I couldn’t see past the sleeve of his t-shirt.

The closer the men got, the faster they a
ll spun and soon I watched wide-eyed as they started to move down and join together creating an entire arm of black ink. Then I gave a surprised cry as the ink shot from his arm like black tar and ran down the length of the banister towards all three men. It was like thick glue and I couldn’t hold in the scream when it reached the men and whipped out like elasticated webbing and latched onto their necks. Once there, it became hard, setting like cooling lava rock and all three branches that had necks in their grasp, all twisted at the same time and the sound of bone snapping echoed in the vast space.

After seeing the life leave the eyes of three men
, the branches uncurled like a sticky vine and all bodies dropped to the steps, two of which rolled backwards down until they finally came to rest at the club’s floor. The other two watched this, as it all happened in seconds and then after a quick nod to each other, they pulled two guns each from behind their backs. That’s when I got my first encounter with flying bullets.

I thought I would see the flash or something coming from the end of a gun
, but the only sensory encounter was sound, because before I knew it the world around us had gone black. The man above me had literally sucked the rooms shadows tight to our bodies and then I felt myself being hauled up into solid arms and carried off to only he knew where.

The shadows followed us and the sound of shots still filled in the gaps as to what was happening. Added to this was the sound of something whipping out like a tension wire had snapped, which was quickly followed by a scream. Then I felt the man carrying me rea
r back a bit before it felt as though he kicked forward. Glass exploded in front of us, this I could barely see in the cloud a dark grey but the shards got so far and then dropped to the ground before they could touch us.

I saw the shadows around us disperse with one step and it didn’t take a genius to guess why. The blinding sun was beaming down at us and I had to blink over and over to try and gather that sense back into working. As soon as I got my bearings I saw we were now on the balcony and the last man left was just coming through the space where sliding glass doors used to be. He held the gun up and pointed at us both.

“Give me the girl Sigurd and I won’t put a bullet through your Snake Eye.” It was the leader who was left, as I recognised the crackled voice that was making me shudder. He was wearing all black like the rest and he had a thick belt with some serious weaponry attached all the way round. His face was like mahogany, red with thick scarred skin that looked like someone had taken a searing hot blade to leather. His hair slicked back into a ponytail and two small eyes pierced me with a sneer that also made his thin lips curve up on one side.  

“That bullet won’t kill me.” The man holding me stated and I felt the vibrations of that deep voice all the way through my jacket. The combat thug shrugged his shoulder
s before cocking the hammer and raising the barrel higher.

“That maybe so, but it will slow you down enough to get the girl and deliver her to my boss.” He said and without fail my skin crawled. He sounded like he had been kicked in the larynx recently after being made to swallow nails.

“Gastian.”
Mr Deep Voice at my back snarled the name and surprise flashed for a second on the thug.

“This is for my men
.” He said before pulling on his trigger finger. Now, if this had happened in slow motion I might have seen a flash or spark simultaneously as I saw the smoke, considering I was staring down the barrel of a gun. But the only thing I did see was the man behind me when his hand shot up and black ink moved as though it was oil under water from his palm. It caught the bullet before it hit, in a fist of three black fingered claws and held it up for the guy behind me to see.

“My turn
.” He thundered and then the ink hand threw it up in the air and when it caught it again, it had formed the spiked shape of a crude hellish gun and fired the bullet right back at the thug’s head.

It hit him dead centre in the forehead and the man dropped with a frozen look of shock on his weathered face.

“That was for me, dickhead!” He snapped back at the dead body and I had to hold in the vomit at seeing a man on the ground with a hole in his head and a pool of blood quickly forming. I think I at least screamed at all this or at least my mouth was still open ready for it.

In my utter disbelief
, I was still in stunned mode when he pulled me tighter to his chest, which I could imagine was very similar to being held against a brick wall. He turned calmly to face the balustrades and he ran a few steps before jumping up onto the ledge. This was when I finally found my nerve to speak…heights will do that to you!

“Put me down!” I shouted and when he led me over the edge I fisted my hands in his jacket.

“I doubt you really want me to do that right now.” He said as he leaned forward slightly to emphasise his point. When my grip got tighter, I heard the grunt of a short laugh escape.

“Who are you?” I asked for the first time
, looking up and seeing him in the light of day. All I got was a square chin covered in dark stubble and full lips that curved on one side as my answer…then he jumped.

“AAARRRHHH!” I screamed and by the time I had to inhale he had landed us both on his heavy booted feet and was walking round to the front of a building.

“I really wish people would stop doing shit like that while holding me.” I muttered and thought I heard the light rumbling of his deep laughter, only I couldn’t be sure considering my ears were still ringing from my own scream.

We got
to the car park and I saw a large black van with blackout windows and it didn’t take a whole lot of guessing to know that this was the vehicle the bad guys had turned up in. Well, one thing I was certain about and that was me being grateful that I wouldn’t be seeing inside it, thanks to my mystery giant.

He carried me closer and when we were round the other side of it he let my legs swing down from his arm under my knees. Then he walked away from me and closer to the van.

“Are you gonna check for ID or something?” I said thinking back to my Columbo days and all I got in answer was a shake of his hooded head. He went to the fuel cap and pulled it out with little effort even though it was locked. Out here I could finally see the full size of him and it made me do a comedy gulp.

This guy was friggin
’ huge and trust me when I say that up until recently I was used to being around massive guys, Draven being one of them. But this guy was at least six foot six and had shoulders that wouldn’t have fit inside a door way without turning side on. If anything, I think I had just found a contender for Ragnar, but with this guy having a bit more stealth reactions rather than the man bull that Ragnar was.

I didn’t really know what to say
, so I decided that he obviously knew what he was doing and didn’t need little nagging Keira asking stupid questions…like the ID one. So instead, I watched as he held his middle finger over the hole to the tank until it turned black, the same as his entire arm had done inside. It dripped down like crude oil from his finger tip and after four drops it sucked back up his hand, leaving the tattoo around his finger.

He turned back to me after dropping the cap
over his shoulder and walked past me, snagging my arm in the process. He pulled me over to a motorbike I had only just noticed and this was when I heard other voices coming from the side of Afterlife.

“There’s more of them?!” I said in a panic.

“Yeah, so get on the Harley.” He responded, while looking their way and not really sounding concerned or even looking surprised. I did as I was told and ran the remaining steps over to the bike, after I saw six more men round the side of the building where we came from and once they saw us, they started running.

“Oh shit!” I said and just before I could mount the bike
, I felt a steel band wrap around my torso and he lifted me with one arm. I found, due to his height, he could actually lift me quite high up and with my legs kicking out in surprise, he lowered us down into the seat.

“Umm… shouldn’t I…like… get behind you?” I stammered as I was positioned in front of him.

“Why, are you bullet proof?” He asked dryly and then reached round me and started the bike until a deep rumble vibrated beneath me. I jumped when his hand rested in front of me, but then I shrieked when that same black stuff started to ooze from his hand. It travelled up and over the top of my thighs and half way up my waist.

“What are you doing?!” I screeched out as the ink started to harden which ended up forming a secure seat that anchored me to the bike. It even ran down the bike and attached itself to my feet to keep me more firmly in place. Then we roared off just as shots were once again being fired.

“Jesus!” I shouted as he skidded the bike round, causing a dirt cloud, bringing us low to one side. He pulled the bike round again, kicking up a ring of dust that hid us from view and thankfully from the raining bullets. Then he righted the bike up and steered us onto the road, leaving the bad guys running for the van.

I didn’t think it would be possible to ride a bike with a person in front of you but the handle bars were higher than the one
s on Vincent’s, so he just kept me caged in his arms, while he rode us the Hell outta there. Unlike my first ride on a bike with a sweeter Angel, this one was a bad ass ride that speed off at a speed I didn’t want to think about and had me hanging on to a lump of black rock in front of me like my life depended on the tight use of my fingers. At least I now knew why he had gone to the lengths of securing me to the seat like some lava ass shaped saddle.

We just cut through the tunnelled greenery the forest created when I heard it. An almighty boom exploded behind us and I would have looked
, but the immense body behind me hid everything from what we’d left behind.

“Was that you?” I asked…or more like shouted over the roar of the engine.

“Yeah, that was me.” This was his only answer and also the last time he spoke to me until we pulled up in front of my house.

Half way home, he had slowed down somewhat
, which told me the danger was now over or at least I hoped so, considering he’d blown up a van load of bad guys. After seeing all that had happened in the last hour, I was actually surprised I was still coping without girly hysterics and lip biting. If anything, on the way home, I had somehow felt the urge to relax into the body at my back and I had to say…man I felt safer doing so!

It was, however, when we pulled up in front of my house that the lip biting started. My mind started to speed up and I was racking my brain as to what to say. I mean
, what was the standard procedure for times like this… ‘Thanks for finding me, snapping necks, dodging bullets, blowing ugly dude’s brains out and then blowing up a van full of thugs before taking me on a death ride home’…? Umm…I didn’t think so.

He cut the engine after leaning closer into me and then the solid black su
bstance around me started to liquefy and left me, flowing back to its master. I think my mouth dropped open at seeing it happen this close up. It was nothing like watching it when it came out of him, which just looked like he had a hidden tube under his palm or something but this…this was something else.