Killing game rishis wish.., p.2
Killing Game (Rishi's Wish Book 1), page 2
-So much for your getaway.-
Insides jarred by the clash of bodies, she found the air she'd regained pushed back out of her. They were motionless, pushing against each other in a test of wills.
The distraction of keeping her skin from its jaws was enough of a disadvantage that she lost her forward momentum. She fell backward, forearms crossed against the creature's chest to keep it from making a meal of her face.
More pain exploded through her as her body slammed into the grass. Whether this pain was from a fresh wound, or old, she hoped to survive to find out.
-This seems familiar.-
Hoping another kick would save her, she leveraged her legs beneath her, managing to get one in a position to push out at the thing snapping at her face. Her arms burned with the effort to keep its mouth from fastening on her, while pain threatened to send her into unconsciousness.
She threw all her will behind that one-legged kick.
Free, she scrambled onto her stomach, pulling herself through the damp grounds of the graveyard in a half-crawl, half face-shimmy. She didn't make it far before the boy-that-was-no-longer-a-boy caught her leg.
Groping in desperation, her hand settled on a piece of broken tombstone. It was all she had to fend off the snarling vestige intent on ending her life. With a secure grip, it dragged her towards it. She swung…
-You really are going to die.-
…feeling the bone of its head cave under the mass of the stone. The snapping sound of the impact echoed in her stomach, sending her senses to war. Willing herself not to throw-up, she maintained a tight grip on the makeshift weapon, swinging for a second blow.
Another snap, this time from a facial crack, and she was free. Scrambling on a hand and knees until she could get to her feet, she tripped on steps that propelled her faster than her balance could maintain.
Stumbling, she sensed the creature line up for another leap. In the recesses of her brain, she wondered how she could still be conscious after so much blood-loss, while a more primal part of her maintained control of her physical movements. This instinct paid more attention to the wrought-iron fencing buried in a season of overgrowth than on her encroaching death. This instinct allowed her to grab the new weapon, rise, and spin to meet the next assault.
As if choreographed, the two met, becoming one as the metal post pierced through the creature's body. Its face shrieked in surprised defeat while its fangs clamped open and closed mere inches from her face. Letting go, she kicked it away before she, too, dropped to the ground.
Out of danger, the emotional torrent adrenaline had kept at bay flooded over her, manifesting as silent tears. Already on her knees, she heaved the contents of her stomach into the damp grass.
Gasping from both physical and mental trauma, she rolled away. With cheek pressed to the damp earth, her eyes fluttered closed.
Darkness took her.
Hamal had had no trouble finding her and even less tailing her over the last few days; his job made simple since the girl rarely left the house.
Whoever she was, she was clueless that anyone had any interest in her. No security other than a lock on her door. No awareness of her surroundings as she left each night to trek her jogging path through town. He didn't worry that anyone would catch him snooping around, especially the girl he watched.
Possibly the most boring person he'd ever seen, he still had no information to suggest she was worth this much trouble to anyone, especially to one as powerful as the one who'd sent him.
Desiree Galen. Small-town girl, living in a degraded upstate town, complete with the small-town life.
As far as Hamal was concerned, Adam's Center, New York, was the center of Hell. If Hell was the most mundane place one could think of, anyway.
Her only friend, a Mike Nolan, hung around for reasons Hamal had yet discerned. Mike's work took him out of town more than he was ever there, but he'd never officially relocated. A romantic relationship between the two would have explained things, but Hamal had found no evidence they were anything but good friends.
Hamal smirked. Idiot. He couldn't understand the use of a female friend, especially not one who kept him living in a place like this. Hanging around a place like this for anyone was senseless.
The only information he had managed to collect was that Mike called Desiree, Dee. Hamal had made a notation of this, the words close to slicing through the paper from his fervent tracing of the note in an outlet for his obsessive boredom. That, and a detailed map of both her house and Mike's, along with their surrounding properties, was all he'd been able to add to her file.
He laughed to himself at the ridiculousness of the assignment. Didn't they have drones and satellites for surveillance jobs like this? Way below his pay-grade, Hamal had only agreed to take it because Zi had personally asked.
As Dee came jogging around the corner of the night darkened street, a fact about her flashed through his mind. A fact that could be interesting. A fact that could be nothing. A fact that ate at his pride so he couldn't just forget it.
He drummed his fingers against the leather steering wheel of his luxury SUV, annoyance at her outperformance of him coming through in this tick of motion. Nothing in her file suggested she was anything other than some random girl, but the fact that her endurance far outreached his own ate at him. Finding this out on his first night when he'd failed to tail her festered in his mind.
He sighed, a huff of air that expressed his annoyance at a mission barely started. Not that anyone was monitoring his mood, or would care if they were, but it made him feel just a little better.
To circumvent this problem of tracking her through town, he'd set up cameras along the girl's jogging route, tuned to give him live-feed of her progress from her front door, through her journey, and back again. His gamble that she traveled the same path each night had paid in full, which helped heal his wounded ego.
Parked in the center of this course, between the sparsely placed streetlights, he waited. In a town like this, everyone was sure to know everyone else, so his SUV would look suspicious. Proactively, he had stopped by a few of the local haunts to drop hints that he was in town doing some work. If anyone noticed him, he'd sown the seeds of explanation. Not that she would hear any town gossip. As far as he could tell, she had no contact with anyone other than Mike.
He'd noted this with more heavily traced marks in her file.
As she moved closer to his position, he relaxed into the bucket seat, ensuring his obscurity in shadow. As unlikely as it was, there was always the chance she would notice him sitting there. Whether or not she recognized his truck as out of place, someone hanging out in the middle of the night in their vehicle would draw attention.
The portable screen he used to view the camera's video sat in the seat next to him. Tented by a thick, dark cloth to keep the viewer’s light from reflecting to the exterior of the vehicle was something else that might garner a look.
He held his breath.
When his presence went unnoticed, he let out the held air, then glanced at the screen to watch her turn the corner behind him.
Anticipating another eventless night, he picked up her file from the center console to keep his hands busy. As many times as he'd been through it, he still hoped some nuance of information would clue him into what he was doing there. These late-night jogs were weird, but they were nothing that required the level of attention his presence indicated. Especially nothing that explained the secrecy stressed around him being there.
Flipping the folder open, he stared at her picture. Short, dark hair framed a nice face. Pretty even. Her cerulean eyes held sadness as she looked away from the photographer to some faraway point.
Eyes flickering from her file to the monitor, he noted nothing of interest. Settling more comfortably, he dragged the file onto his lap.
Five-foot six. One hundred forty-five pounds. Athletic. Hair cut in a sort of naturally tousled look, though it had grown out a bit since the picture was taken. Dropped out of college after her father died at the end of her sophomore year. An only child, she'd inherited everything. However, she had turned the operation of her father's company over to Mike, who'd expanded the very profitable construction firm into consulting as well.
Mike's head for finance was the reason for Desiree's growing accounts. She was worth over one-hundred million dollars. From what her file told Hamal, she didn't use much of it. The house was paid off. She had no extra-curricular activities and rarely traveled. The occasional night out with Mike, which he usually paid for, was the only time she spent money on anything outside utility bills and groceries. Running shoes seemed to be the only thing she splurged on with any consistency.
What was more strange, though accountable to grief, was that as soon as the papers were signed that gave up responsibility for her property to Mike, she'd dropped off the grid. For four years, she seemed to vanish, never touching her father's money.
Hamal knew it was in this unaccounted history that he'd find the answers to why he was here. If only he were allowed to approach her, Hamal was sure he'd get all the answers he needed. He had no doubt she would be putty in his hands. If not for the parameters that forbade him from making contact, he'd be talking with her right now. Possibly between the sheets of her king-sized bed.
He shook that thought away. If the assignment had come from anyone else, Hamal would have ignored the decree and reached out to her. As hard as his curiosity pulled at him to figure out the mystery, he wouldn't cross that one. Not even for this.
Instead, he was left to watch, wondering who this girl was and how she might have garnered the attention of one who pulled so many strings.
His eyes moved back to track her progress on the monitor while he leaned over to change the infrared view to night-vision. The red, blue, and green of the screen turned to a green-tinged world where her form shone brightly against the background of the night.
He'd noted the wireless earbuds in her ears as she'd passed and couldn't help but wonder, from a strictly professional point-of-view, how she could deal with running at night after cutting off her strongest working sense. What if something came at her? There was no way she could see that well in the night that she should risk blunting her sense of hearing.
Maybe the girl had a death-wish.
He straightened in his seat.
If she did have a death-wish and something happened to grant that wish was he supposed to stand by and document what happened? His directives were clear; he was here merely to observe. But should he interfere in this case?
Not for the first time since arriving, he fumbled with his phone. Another parameter had been not to make contact with home-base under any circumstances.
He'd never been on such a troubling case. How could such a dull girl be the focus of such a confusing mission?
These were questions above his pay-grade. If he was here merely to observe, then observe was all he would do. If the girl wanted to die, then maybe that was all he was supposed to find out.
Slapping the thin file closed, he tossed it aside and nestled back into the seat, wishing he hadn't already finished his coffee.
Lids heavy with boredom, he almost missed the blur of movement that cut across the screen. He jolted forward to manipulate the video to rewatch what happened.
Had she just been attacked?
He watched the video in slo-mo to be sure.
Completely unprepared, the second hit to his ego since arriving, he leaped from the vehicle. Sprinting, shotgun in one-hand, night-vision goggles in the other, he made his way to where his mark was most assuredly dead.
He hated being right, especially when he hadn't expected to be this right.
The thing that had ambushed his mark was the last thing he'd thought to see turn up as a player. If he'd had more time to wonder about the nature of its appearance, he might have re-thought his forward pace. There were things he was good at, and there were things above the ability of his DNA to accommodate. What had attacked Dee was one of those things he wasn't sure he'd be able to help with.
Accustomed to looking for the barest of clues, Hamal saw the phone lying in the ditch, right alongside the scuff marks and battered grass that told of the struggle the pair had shared before racing off into the night.
He gazed down the path the two had taken, curiosity peaked that she had chased it. He allowed the fact that she lived through the attack to filter quietly in the back of his head as other questions raised by the event took precedent, the most critical being: if Zi had known the players involved, would he have sent Hamal? This was a job for someone much more durable than Zi's favorite human pet.
More questions raced through Hamal’s head as he followed the trail of blood, knowing he'd arrive too late to be of any use. There was too much blood for her to last long.
He knew the speed of the thing that had attacked, but struggled to correlate her speed with that inhuman pace, despite every clue pointing to that fact. If she'd been a Soldier, Zi would have known. If she were another form of Castoff, someone would have been aware of her. They wouldn't have left her to her own devices. She wouldn't be living this benign existence watched by someone like him.
Right?
Forgetting the questions he couldn't answer, he focused on the sign ahead: King's Quarry Cemetery. Laughing to himself, he couldn't help look around to see if someone was setting him up for some elaborate joke. A cemetery was where the fight ended? C'mon!
The sound of bodies colliding brought his attention from his possible candid camera debut. She was alive and fighting it?
Hiding in the shadows of the sparse groupings of trees, he watched, helpless, as Dee fell to her knees while the creature lined up for a final attack behind her. A part of him wanted to move forward, but he knew there was no way he'd arrive in time to save her, even if he thought the intercession might help or be allowed. When she pulled a shaft of metal fencing from the brush, turning in time to impale the creature's final attempt at taking her life, his mouth fell to his knees.
All he'd seen over the last few miles suggested she was capable of this. That he hadn’t found her dead body along the way was telling enough, but his brain struggled to align the dull girl he'd been tailing on previous nights with this new persona more akin to the creature who'd attacked her. Whatever the answers, why he'd been sent to watch her was finally clear.
This new perspective on the mission sparked an excitement he hadn't felt in a long time. As he continued to watch, his mind whirled with possibilities and what they meant for the true nature of his mark.
This excitement tempered when the girl fell to her knees, followed by her throwing up violently. When the sounds of retching faded, Dee seemed to think about pushing herself to her feet; instead collapsing to her side. Finding something to be excited about, only to lose it so soon was enough to send him forward.
"Shit. Shit. Shit." The word was his mantra as he made his way to her. Bypassing the gate took little concentration. Finding cover under a full-moon was more difficult.
He knelt next to her, eyes scanning the Revenant that would not be getting up. Its skin was already shrinking in on itself, showing a glimpse of the husk it would become that always reminded him of a mummy he'd seen in a museum when he was a boy. He noted the head wounds that told the story of their fight, impressed she'd bludgeoned the thing as she had. Not near the power of the ones he worked for, these Revenants were still nothing to laugh at. He wasn't sure he could have wounded one in such a manner and he definitely wouldn't have survived the initial ambush.
His ego survived these observations. Matched against any human, he was the best, but when compared to the things that were more, he never tried to compete. He'd seen too many lives end from that kind of pride.
He processed this in a scan of eyes while he knelt next to the one he couldn't lose like this. Not now that he knew more about what she was.
Fingers searched for a pulse at her neck while his eyes scanned the damage done to her body. Her wounds were severe. He'd never guess she could be alive if shown them in another context.
As he continued to check her over, he noticed the blood, moments ago flowing liberally from multiple lacerations, slowing. Her heart-rate, thready and irregular only seconds ago, was a steadier, stronger pulse against his touch.
He took off the night-vision goggles to look at her with his own eyes.
Athletic muscularity was highlighted through tight running pants. A tank top, mostly torn away, showed the athletic bra underneath still intact. Blood seeped at her knees, and there were tears in her thigh, ribs, and most notably, the arm he worried she would never use again, mangled in a way that suggested she should have bled out from the wound long before she made it here.
He winced at the dichotomy of her clean bicep and untouched hand book-casing her forearm. It made the injury seem more traumatic, seeming detached from the rest of her.
She moaned, pulling his attention from cataloging her injuries, eyes wide that she would recover consciousness already.
Who was this girl?
2
Dee was sure she'd heard a voice curse; felt fingers on her neck. When she managed to pull her eyelids apart, there was no one, only the shriveled face that had been her attacker staring at the sky, metal fence-post sticking from its chest.
-What's with that thing looking like a mummy?-
She giggled with delirium at the observation.
Her weight shifted, flooding pain through her, and there was no more laughter. There was no more anything as moving took all her focus.
She managed to get herself to a kneeling position without using her arms. Head hanging to her chest, she paused to gather her will, body fighting her desire to stand. She was one giant hurt. As one fought for attention over the others, another she hadn't even known about rose to take top place. Her right arm was held close to her stomach by the left, and she vaguely remembered the creature using the appendage as a chew toy. The bleeding had stopped, though a fresh current now leaked out of her, spawned by her movements.
