Chapter 3: Hunter and the Hunted

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Chapter 3 - Hunter and the Hunted

I bolted through the trees, not having any idea where I was going. More bolts of angel fire blasted past me. Some came way too close for comfort. Stumbling over a root turned out to be a lucky break for me as another ball of liquid white fire hurtled through the space my head had just been. My face still ached from the first near miss, this near miss was far worse. I grunted with the agony of it, and smelled hair burning. Using a tree for help I pulled myself back to my feet, and as I started to move away, I noticed my hand had seared the tree. The mark was the shape of a large, clawed hand. Stupefied, I stood staring at that mark for too long. The significance of that charred mark and its shape were beyond what I was capable of dealing with.

I was tossed like a ragdoll by another ball of those painful white balls that struck the tree right in front of my face. The agony was beyond description as it burned me to the core. I crashed through smaller trees and bushes. The leaves and branches slapping at my skin like whips. My face bounced from a large tree, a good solid elm tree, sending me pin wheeling in another direction. Something cracked and popped as I struck that elm, but that was nothing compared to the pain of angel fire.

There was no way I could let those others get me. I couldn’t take another hit like that, not even a close one. It still felt like I was being melted from the I side out. I pushed myself to my feet, one arm was no help at all in effort. It hung limply at a weird angle just below the shoulder, my jaw hung slackly on one side, and only one eye seemed to be functioning. I couldn’t see out of the other one.

Once on my feet I snarled, well groaned would be more accurate. Raising my hand the way I seen the woman in the parking lot do I channeled my anger and let loose.  My own ball of fire, black demon fire formed just beyond my hand. Its darkness was shot through with veins of bulbous green fire. It strained me mentally to hold it until I was ready to let it go at my enemies. The strain of holding on to that fire was incredible, almost as painful as being hit with angel fire.

A branch snapped in the underbrush in front of me and I let loose with my demon fire. At least that was what I wanted to do. The globe of fire traveled maybe the length of my arm and dissipated with a barely audible hiss.

I cursed loudly and started to run again. Desperation kicked as I took off looking for anything that could give me a advantage over my pursuers. For the moment they had me beat in numbers and knowledge. I didn’t have any idea of what I was capable of doing, or how for that matter. Whatever had happened at the apartments wasn’t something I did consciously or had control over.

It didn’t sound like anyone was chasing me, but that was meaningless. I was making enough noise as I barged through the trees and underbrush a blind person could track me down. I was finding out firsthand that it’s difficult to both run and come up with plans when you don’t have any idea as to where you are, where you’re going, or who is out there chasing you.

I sort of had an idea why. I hadn’t exactly been a good person in my previous existence, and I didn’t think I could go any lower on this one. The old saying was you reap what you sow, I got that, and I was paying for what I had done. That didn’t mean I had to be happy about what was happening.

I skidded a stop behind another elm tree and crouched down beside it. My eyes once more scanned the wooded terrain in front of me as I tried to slow my breathing down. There was a lot of foliage, so I was hoping it would be harder to approach me without a bunch of noise.

Something else I would need to learn was patience. In less than a minute I was getting antsy to move or attack. There was movement but nothing that I could be sure was one of the angels that I had seen a few minutes ago. If they were angels. I only knew that the woman I had seen had been capable of wielding it, and that one of them had launched several balls of that crap my way. That and the fact that it was very painful.

A shape stepped out of the greenery and didn’t appear to be looking in my direction. With a snarl I launched myself at them. I hit the person in the side, sending us both to the ground. My arms were wrapped around my target’s torso, and I squeezed as hard as I could as we rolled through the bush.

The man I struggled with sent a flurry of elbows towards my face, but the angle we were at made the effort futile. He didn’t have the leverage to do anything serious. One of my hands came free and I used it to throw a punch. The jab wasn’t much more than a glancing blow, but the stink of burning flesh filled me with pleasure.

Where my fist had connected with his cheek there was a large, smoking burn. He rolled away clawing at the burn. Yet, he hadn’t uttered a sound. Not being one to waste an edge up in a fight, I dove back on top of him.

Both of my hands found flesh, and he burned. He burned gloriously. There were marks on his skin where my hands had found it, but the burning came from inside him. Smoke coiled up from his eyes and ears as he thrashed. His flailing turned into feeble thrashing, then stopped altogether. It seemed a long time before I let go and stood up.

At my feet was a withered husk that had once been human, or at least I thought he had been a human. This guy hadn’t put as much of a fight as I thought he would have if he had been an angel. Had I surprised him enough that he wasn’t able to fight back, or was there something else involved that I hadn’t been aware of? In the end it didn’t matter all that much what he had been. He was dead, and that was one less person hunting for me.

Standing around debating myself about his origins and my defeat of him wasn’t going to do me any good. I needed to be moving and putting more distance between this guy’s friends and me. I had no intention of finding out what happened to someone like me when they died. On top of that, I was positive I had died once and that got me here. It also gave me a ton of questions that I had no answers for.

I picked a random direction and started moving. The trees began to thin out, so I slowed my pace. Bursting into the open without knowing what was ahead of me was asking for trouble. Every thirty or forty paces I stopped to look around and listen. I wanted some kind of warning if I was going to get attack. The only thing I noticed was the total silence that had descended on this patch of trees.

There were the sounds of a city—the sounds of cars and their horns, the sounds of sirens, I even heard the sound of an airplane so where overhead. All those sounds were distant though. There was nothing to be heard within a hundred yards or so of me. Nothing. No squirrels, no birds, not even insects. It was more than a little eerie. To me it was a bad sign. The silence could have been the result of my presence and the death I had caused. That didn’t feel right though. There was something else in play nearby now.

I sunk into a crouch once more. Deciding to try something different, I closed my eyes and cleared the chaos from my mind. That happened quite a bit faster than I expected. Everything I had done to this point had happened without my input. Maybe, just maybe, if I let mind relax and wander I would notice things I wasn’t noticing when actively looking for them. Minutes ticked by as I just crouched there.

The first thing I felt was that distant tug. I still had no idea of direction that tug was pulling me. I felt a pulse in that tug, steady and slow almost like a heartbeat. Then I felt the little creatures. Those squirrels and the birds I didn’t hear. They were there, but all of them were hiding. The fear emanated from them in a rush. The little buggers feared me. My mind pushed on and I realized that even the plants were scared. The trees, the bushes, the grass. Every living thing recoiled in terror from me. Further and further my mind pushed, until off in the vague direction I had come from I found people.

These people were gathered near the buildings I had destroyed last night. One had a strange  essence about her. Weird how my brain identified that person as a female that easily, then I consciously recognized her. She was the one who had fired that first ball of angel fire at me. Now in a wide circle around me I could sense other people going about their business. Other than that woman there didn‘t seem to be any threats close enough for me to worry.

Had she given up the chase that soon? Maybe she decided helping the survivors of the apartments was a more immediate concern. An evil grin appeared on my face as I focused my will on that woman.

Bit by bit I increased the strength of that will, then I fired it like a missile at her. She must have sensed something at the last second as she started to turn. That turning didn’t help her out as the  lance of black force hit her and tore right through her. There were no physical injuries on her body for anybody to see. It was different for me, I could see the force I hit her with had ripped her soul right out of her body. The link between the two had been severed, and I feasted.

I tore her soul apart like I was ripping paper, and her agony gave me such delightful pleasure. As I fed I felt the aching in my face fade away. My smashed eye slowly pulled itself back together and then I could see out of it once more.

Now I knew how to find, and kill, my prey.

“You quicker figuring that out than I thought you would,” that mocking voice from behind me again. I couldn’t help but think I had heard that voice before today. I couldn’t sense her behind me, I wasn’t feeling anything there.

“Of course, you return after the fun is over.” I turned and sneered at the woman who called herself Angel. The sneer on her face was more condescending than it has been before. To the best of my knowledge this was only the second time I had met her. Yet, I knew that wasn’t correct. We met before, someplace else, I just couldn’t remember where or when.

“My, oh my. The little fly in the ointment finally learns a couple of things and now it thinks that it knows everything.”

She might have been considered pretty, even beautiful by some until those red eyes looked their way There was a coldness that seemed to radiate from those eyes that said she would rather tear you to pieces and revel in the gore than have a conversation over coffee with you.

We stared at each other for a long while. Her gaze never flickered, and it didn’t take long before it grew uncomfortable. Angel didn’t move either. It was if she had become a life like statue among these trees.

“Did you come here to flirt some more, or did you have something more in mind?” I broke the tense silence. I knew damned well she had nothing of the sort on her mind. I was certain her idea of a good time was far different than what I had implied.

“Are you ready to listen, or do you want to keep blundering around like an idiot?” Angel’s expression remain unchanged. She had the personality of a rock. “If you are willing to listen then follow me.”

She broke the stare by turning and striding off and not bothering to look back in my direction. It wasn’t long before I did follow. After all she might have some useful information for me. At least that’s what I told myself.