Fan Fiction ❯ Raven ❯ Books and Banditry ( Chapter 7 )

It was a big building. Easily as large as any of the other buildings I had seen thus far, although it only had one story. The front, above the door, had a square sign with the words, “Public Library,” stenciled in. I walked in.

 

 

So many books! I couldn't believe it. Rows upon rows of them. It dwarfed the library at my old school. There were a half dozen other people sitting and reading or looking through the books.

By the time I started home I had read three books and started through a half dozen others. I now had a stash of them in the backpack I bought. It had been surprising easy to get an account so I could check out books.

As I walked I had a book out and was reading. It was incredibly interesting; all about physics and quantums and a whole bunch of other stuff.

THWACK!!! I ran into two women and the book dropped to the ground. “Sorry, sorry,” I said as I bent down and picked up the book. The were giggling and apologized profusely, all while smiling and laughing at some secret they had. I took a second glance over them and decided they were definitely weird. They were both fairly tall for women, probably five nine or more. One of them wore a long trenchcoat over broad shoulders. The other seemed dressed pretty normally, except that she had on gold earrings that didn't mesh with the rest of her outfit. The second woman had long black hair that reached down past her shoulders. The first had frilly orange hair.

They continued walking and I went back to my book.

“Hey, you!” At first I thought the voice was directed at me, and I turned, annoyed at the intrusion. A man stood in front of the two ladies, gripping a handgun in his right hand.

“Give me all your money, now!” He yelled at them. The woman with orange hair giggled. Idiot. The other woman looked grim, almost ready to fight. They were both crazy. But still, I couldn't just let them kill themselves.

“Just back off now, guy,” I said. Both women's faces, as they turned, held mirrored visions of total surprise. It was a little amusing. The man with the gun turned toward me with menace. Ok. Time to start.

Throwing my arm out, I let my power flow along it and continue beyond. Even as he registered the oddity and pulled the trigger, my power was already around the gun and shoving it past him. Bang! The shot went wild as his gun was thrown beyond him.

He froze and I could almost see the succession of thoughts running through his head. He turned and started for the gun. I was after him. I couldn't let this filth escape.

“Hey!” The woman's voice was lost in my rush. I don't think that my feet were even touching the ground; my power seemed to have grown threefold since the conflict began and was holding me off the ground even as I raced for the man. He reached for the gun a second too late. I grabbed him, one of my hands gripping him across the chest from behind. Somehow I was reinforcing my physical actions with a layer of power, making my strength exponentially higher. I don't know why I did what I did next. I felt somehow stimulated by the power and energy of this.

Somewhere deep in my soul something came loose. It should never have been free, but it was. It was like a bittersweet sound that I had always had but never tasted. Gripping his hair with my reinforced strength, I pulled his head back. He was screaming. Staring straight into his face, I smiled. Somehow my incisors had grown and the need to use them was beyond my control. I bit deeply into his throat. Blood spouted across my chin and dripped down across the front of my shirt. I could feel the energy of his life, so much untapped energy that he had not even known he had. I sucked and drank, stealing that energy into myself. As I let his corpse drop I felt oddly invigorated. Nothing seemed to take any effort. I floated inches above the ground, my energy forming an insulating bubble around me.

And there were the two women. No smiles on their faces now. I giggled at their change, blood spattering out from between my teeth and dripping even more onto my shirt. Before they had seemed to think it was all funny, even the man with the gun. Now they both stood in defiant positions, looking like they were going to attack. What did they think they could do against me?

“Stop right there,” the orange haired one snapped, her voice ringing with military authority.

I dropped to the ground, unhappy to release so much power. I picked up my bag and book from the ground and began walking away. “You don't want to get involved with me,” I called over my shoulder.

WHAM!!! I was shoved forward with a force that I would not have believed possible. I hit the ground and my body continued moving for a second. The skin on my arms and hands was torn open and one of my knees was bleeding. Slowly I stood and turned to face the woman with red hair. She stood behind me, hands on hips, trench coat discarded to the ground and wings… wings?!… sprouting from her shoulder blades.

“I said stop,” she stated.

Looking over at her, I raised one of my hands, blood dripping down to end in the growing red pool on the ground. Leaning closer to it, I dragged my tongue over the fingers, letting even more blood flow down into my throat. The woman grimaced in disgust and I laughed.

“Ok. If that's the way you want it.” I dropped my book and bag, ignoring the blood around them.

Looking around, I saw one of the blue federal mailboxes sitting on the curb. Using my power, I reached out and yanked it from its grounding. I supported it above the ground for a moment, then threw it straight at the woman.

 

She looked contemptuous as she leapt into the air and soared above it. She came at me almost immediately, and for a moment I was caught by the beauty of the arcing of her wings. Then I saw that behind her beauty lurked a deadly kind of power. I used my power to launch myself into the air as she came. She threw a punch and I moved at the last minute, watching her punch fly by my face. Even if I used my power around my fists I would not be able to defeat her. So I wouldn't use hand-to-hand combat. As she came again I dragged my hand across the space in front of her and forced my power into a solid shield. Wham! My mind held the shield a moment longer then released it. Interesting. It had taken much more concentration to maintain that shield than anything else so far, and her punch had still pushed me back a little.

She came at me again, determined to break my next shield. I threw up another shield, but this time as she threw her arm at the shield I let it drop the instant she impacted it. I was already out of the way and as she tumbled past. I reached out with my mind and gripped entire pieces of the cement below. The were all small, most no larger than a fist, but there were dozens of them. Power was not the issue now, mental control was.

The woman regained control and was coming back when the stones began pelting her. I gave her no reprieve. The stones either hit her or flew past, it didn't matter. I brought the stones from behind her back and used them to continue to buffet her in a whirlwind of deadly grace. She cried out again and again as each new stone hit her. Bruises and cuts ran over her body now and her wings dripped with blood. She fell to the ground and didn't move.

I dropped, as did the remainder of the stones. I must have been more than thirty feet in the air, and only just managed to cushion myself before impacting the ground. I began transferring some of my energy towards healing the cuts on my hands and knees. Glancing up, I realized that it wasn't over. The black haired woman was kneeling by the winged woman. Her head came up and I saw unmasked fury in her eyes.

“You sicken me,” her voice held enough venom to etch steel. “Killing one man, then beating my friend to an inch of her life. It ends now.” She took off her jacket and let it fall to the ground. A gold bracer clasped each of her wrists.

She leapt. It was not a human leap. She bridged almost thirty feet in a second and was at me in an instant.

The first fight had exhausted me. Concentration took more than just simple energy and this was the first time I had levitated so many objects and myself at once. The rush that I had felt when killing the man was gone and I felt hollow and empty inside.

I pulled a shield in front of her punch, hoping she was not much stronger than the first lady. She shattered it. Her fist continued unhindered into the side of my stomach. I heard ribs crack and knew that I had no chance against this warrior. Well, no chance in a fight right now, when fatigue was as much an enemy as her.

The picture of Ilyssa's final appearance came to my mind, how she had come simply as a pool of shadow and reformed herself upon reaching me. If I could do it, I could escape. First I would need a distraction.

I let my energy swirl from my hands in an outward spiral. Not much energy, more like the mere fumes of it. I ignited the energy. Firestorm. Waves of flame swirled around me, greenery and houses around me lighting. The black haired woman had both arms up in front of her face and somehow the fire avoided burning her.

Now was my chance. I focused. Took all of my energy, everything holding my bodily structure together, and changed it. I forced it to move, independent of my former position. And I felt myself flow. I took a form not my own, a form made of energy but lacking real matter. I took the form of a raven and flew. I was no more than a shadow of energy, but somehow I was able to remember myself and not simply lose myself in the energies.

I reformed myself blocks away and heard a soul-wrenching cry that promised vengeance. Shuddering I stumbled back to my house and went in. The door was unlocked.

“You look like shit,” Druggie girl again. I didn't care. Blood dripped down from my shirt and arms. I had trouble breathing from the broken ribs. “I'm gonna use the shower.” No response.

I washed most of the blood off myself and got on some clean clothes, wincing as the fabric scraped across the sluggishly bleeding cuts and bruises. I lay down on my bed and fought off exhaustion long enough to force my energy into a cycle of continual healing. I gave in and slept.