#158. Soul Eater
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Killing from the shadows.
I get tied up a lot. I would wonder at the Freudian implications of that, but I'm a little busy right now. What with being tied to a chair, and all. I'm at the center of an empty conference room, surrounded on all sides by bare floor space. It's almost like the huge room, with its fluorescent lights and grey carpet, is supposed to be intimidating or something. The syndicate's second in command swaggers into the room. He's an older man with greying hair, and wearing a business suit. He's confident, and self-assured, and my gods do I want to beat the smirk off of his face. He's walking towards me, and stops three feet away.
Get closer, I dare you.
"How is it," says the man, leaning in, "That you got in here? Our defenses should be impenetrable."
I tilt my head to the side, deliberately widening my eyes. "Should they, really?"
The man scowls. "You should tell us what we want to know. Things might get...
unpleasant for you, otherwise."
This is going to be the most cliched interrogation ever.
"Hm," I pretend to think about it. "No."
The man growls. His arm swings back, and suddenly I'm released from my bonds. I surge forward, catching him off balance, and use his arm to throw him to the floor. I'm on top of him in an instant, grabbing him by the sides of the head. I lift up, and I smash his head into the floor. The back of his skull impacts with a dull thud, and the man struggles, feebly. I lift again, smash his skull into the floor until the back of his head is a pulpy, bloody mess.
Well, I feel better.
I exit the room, closing the door behind me. No guards. I sense someone approaching, and I duck into a hallway running across a glass wall. Outside, I can see the city, sparkling in the night. This building is mostly office space, but that's a front for something larger. Hell, the ground floor is actually a mall, teeming with people during the day.
The footsteps are getting closer. The guard rounds the corner next to me. I duck behind him and lock an arm behind his back, and use his momentum to push him into the window. He grunts with the impact, and cracks spiderweb across the glass. Before he can pull himself together, I'm pulling him back, away from the window. With a blast of telekinetic energy, he goes flying. The window breaks, and the man goes tumbling out into the street, several stories below.
I run up a staircase, trying to avoid the patrolling guards. The longer I can hold off the alert, the more time my partner has to find -
The dream is destabilizing. My surroundings are a blur of light blue and white. I feel blinded, fully aware that I won't be able to see the guards before they find me. I'm trying to hold onto the dream, and I sense it. It's a shadow, human-shaped and in the room next to me. One of the guards - his aura is completely black, and I can feel him getting closer. He solidifies as a human shadow -
I strike out at him, hitting him in the temple. Before he has a chance to react, I have him in a full nelson, choking him. He's losing oxygen, starting to pass out.
He doesn't have to die, I could just knock him out. Maybe I should stop killing them. This is their job, they probably have families. No. I'm just too close, physically. I'm feeling his fear. A memory washes across the surface of his mind. He's on a job, on a team with three others. Capturing a girl. They rape her.
I freeze. I almost recoil, but the man's waking up, starting to struggle.
A snarl of rage is coming from me, and I throw him to the ground. I disable his vocal cords with a wave of my hand, and he's inching away, trying to scream for help. I weave a wordless spell in blue, lay it over him.
He's frozen for a moment, as he begins to lift up into the air, gravity losing its effect on him. I'm standing back now, as he starts to tug against invisible bonds. I summon another wave of energy.
Glass shatters into thousands of pieces, and this man, too, goes flying. He's falling up, though, up and up and up, screaming soundlessly, clearing the outcropping near the top of the skyscraper, falling into the sky.
Even if the spell fails before he hits the stratosphere, well. It's a long way down.
Killing in the open.
I'm surrounded. Six mooks in blue, four fighters in red, and the leader, a Djinn. Bald and muscular, covered in shifting blue tattoos, he's easily the most threatening presence in the room.
I wave my hand, sending a wave of kinetic energy at them. Four out of six mooks have their necks snapped, dead before they hit the ground. The remaining combatants have too strong of a will to be taken out of the game so easily.
I need a stronger spell. I call up blue-tinted soul energy, holding it in my right hand, and I rush one of the mooks and force it into his chest. I can feel his heartbeat, one, two, and the energy pulses, entwining with his soul and pulling it out of him.
I'm counting numbers in my head: 20, 24. The numbers seem arbitrary, but they help me keep track of the soul energy. If I hit zero, I'll be powerless.
The Djinn hits me from behind, and I can feel my numbers sink to 17. Snarling, I pull free of his grip and hit him with a pulse of the energy. He's flying backwards and I'm down to 16.
The red-shirts are in my way, and I down two, one with each hand. Their souls pulse out and back into their bodies, frying them. I absorb the excess. 27.
I'm ready this time. I block the Djinn, meeting his attack with a soul shield. The energy sparks dangerously with the impact, and we're both forced back, sliding several feet. 23.
Where are the other guys? The floor is conspicuously empty. Jim Gordon is standing on the sidelines, surrounded by the remaining mooks. They've got his gun.
Cursing, I put up an energy shield as I fry the mooks with soul energy. 7. "Run!" I shout at him, "Get the fuck out of here!"
He's hesitating. Why is he hesitating?
My shield is draining me. I'm blocking an attack by the Djinn. 4. "You have all the evidence we need to shut them down! You need to get out!"
Something in my tone convinces him. He's turning on his heel and running, and I'm turning around to face the Djinn.
"I can take care of things on this end," I say, and I let the shield drop.
Happy endings.
I'm walking through the building at the mall level, a skip in my step. It's daylight, and there are people around. A feeling of contentment is going through me, and I ignore the graves being built near the side entrances of the mall.
I'm a child, and I construct a mother DC out of nothing.
Something is coming to an end, some mystery was solved. It feels like closure.
