There she stayed, silent, waiting, her body pumping adrenaline through her system, infusing her musculature, readying it for action. A dark smile creased her shadowed features, despite the danger about to face her. Only at times like this, her death a very real possibility, did Kael feel fully, impossibly, alive. One long finger caressed the trigger of her weapon like the tender skin of a lover.
In the brief eternity of waiting, her mind had time to contemplate and chastise her for her stupidity in trusting people so easily bought with drugs and money. Further self-flagellating thoughts of that nature were mercifully silenced by the sound of confident footsteps leading to the door to her room. Her nostrils flared and she could fairly smell the scent of betrayal as it oozed its way under the crack at the bottom of the door.
From her place in the veiled shadows of the night, Kael watched intently as the moon-bathed doorknob twisted slowly, once, twice. Her fierce eyes glinted briefly in amusement she heard a muffled curse directed to the locked door. The footsteps backed away a pace and she readied herself for action.
The door blew open with a resounding crack, arcing gracefully toward the wall, its now impotent knob breaking through the wall’s weak plaster and sending puffs of white up and out to be caught by the moon’s light as it mimicked snow.
A large bull of a man burst through the open doorway, his weapon hefted and ready. The rapid sound of gunfire sounded loud in the tiny confines. Bits of shredded betting and wall plaster scattered throughout the room, drifting on the stained and colorless rug. As the man stepped in further, confident his goal had been met, Kael drew a bead on his bald, shining head and squeezed the trigger ever so gently. The man’s head disappeared in a fountain of blood and gore. His body bounced off the bed, then rolled to lay beneath her.
Two more heavily muscled men burst into the room, firing blindly. Kael picked them off easily, the grin of her bared and growling teeth a specter in the moonlight.
The fourth man to enter was a bit calmer, and was able to crease her shin with a bullet before his firing went awry, doing Kael’s job for her by splintering the room’s only avenue of escape. She finished him off as well, trying to keep her weight off her injured leg while still maintaining balance on the wobbling dresser.
Shouting in the other room told Kael her time had well and truly run out. Wincing at the pain of her wound, the American squatted slightly against the wall, then flung her body up and to the left, bracing for impact with the lethal shards of glass left behind.
Hot breath hissed through her teeth as razor sharp glass tore through her thin cotton shirt, imbedding itself into the warm skin below her shoulders. A brief instant of weightlessness and she was falling free, her long body propelled into the chill air by the strength of her legs. She maintained enough presence of mind to compact her body into a tight tuck and roll and sped toward the onrushing ground feet first. Her wounded leg gave out and Kael sprawled onto the broken pavement, glass shards showering over her bloodied form.
Quickly, she broke herself out of her mild daze, pulling herself up to her feet and grabbing her weapon securely against her. A quick look up at the broken window and the weapon muzzles suddenly protruding from it and she was off, limping and running down the midnight-deserted inner city streets, leaving several trails of blood behind to mark her passing.
Running steps and weapons fire came inexorably closer as Kael stumbled her way down the damp city streets, scraping her palms raw against the crumbling cement as her leg intermittently gave way, dumping her onto the pavement.
“C’mon, Kael, run,” she whispered to herself, beads of sweat popping out over her eyes and lips. “You’ve been through worse before and came out just fine on the other end.”
The gray haze of too many sleepless nights, too much opium, and blood loss threatened to take her under with it as she stumbled to the ground once again. Jumping back to her feet, she reached down and jabbed a finger directly into the bullet hole in her shin.
Agony sliced through her like razor wire, jerking her back from the precipice of semi-consciousness she had been about to fall into. Her eyes darted back and forth along the narrow street, looking for escape routes as she ran, just barely keeping ahead of the quickly approaching armed mob.
A tiny alley off to the left caught her vision and she darted into it, almost slipping in the accumulated water and debris littering the pavement. The alley stank of rotting food and the slimy mess squelched around her bare feet, turning her already nauseated stomach.
“Adapt and overcome,” she muttered to herself, trying to make herself as invisible and silent as possible. The water and sodden garbage would serve to hide her blood trail, giving her just a bit more breathing room.
Easing back against one dirty, wet and crumbling brick wall, she peered carefully around the corner, ducking back quickly as she caught a glimpse of the onrushing men. She pulled back completely into the shadows as they flew past and watched as a sputtering streetlamp gilded their features in gold.
Her blood froze in her veins.
“Geraldo, you stinking son of a whore. You betrayed me.” Her lips peeled back in a death’s head smile. “You’d better light a few more candles to the Virgin tonight, my friend. Cause you’re gonna need her help where you’re goin’.”
Turning as quickly as she was able, Kael darted out the other end of the alleyway, making a complete circle so as to briefly confuse her pursuers.
Then she made another circle through intersecting alleys and headed back down the main thoroughfare, listening closely for any hint that the enemy was getting closer.
A loud shout echoed off the dank walls looming over the streets, causing Kael to shoot a quick look over her left shoulder, trying to pinpoint the sound. As a consequence, her next step was halted, unannounced, when she came into contact with a slight, warm body.
Her body stiffened as if galvanized and she brought her bloodied hands up in a defensive posture as she whipped her head around, stringy tendrils of her hair plastering themselves to her face.
Realizing that only a slight, if beautiful, Asian woman was the only thing impeding her path, she pressed her open hands against the woman’s narrow shoulders and pushed.
The woman didn’t move. Not the slightest inch.
Kael shoved harder, with the same result. It was like trying to push a boulder socketed into the earth.
“Come with me,” the woman said serenely, her English barely accented.
“Get outta my way!” Kael snarled, pushing away.
Her eyes widened in shock as she found herself helplessly restrained by a woman half her size.
“You will die like a dog in an alley if you do not come with me now,” the woman said, her intense stare cutting through Kael’s drug and adrenaline-induced haze. Her voice was calming, serene.
“Who are you?”
The woman didn’t answer. Instead, she looked past Kael’s shoulder. “You must make your choice now. I have no wish to lose my life with yours.”
A short second later, Kael heard the shouting of the men trailing her. She looked back at the strange woman still holding her. It was like looking into the surface of an utterly still pool of water. She felt all resistance leave her.
The woman smiled, the expression lighting up her face and making it radiant.
Shifting her grip to Kael’s elbow, the woman gently ushered the tall American into the building from which she’d appeared. The door closed almost silently behind them.
Kael stiffened as she heard the sound of feminine giggling from above. Immediately in front of her was a long set of steps ascending into an unknown part of the building in which she now found herself. At the top of those steps, young, painted Asian women giggled behind the hems of their colorful robes.