Payback

Adalia Moore quickly rolled several times to her right before standing up. Shards of shattered glass pricked her forearms but didn’t draw blood or distract her from the task at hand. She carefully removed the offending shards as she slowly retreated from the demolished storefront window to her right. Adalia hastily shook her head in an attempt to clear the cobwebs and regain her focus. Adrenaline-induced energy was rapidly fading and her muscles felt heavier, slower and not as responsive. Ripples of sharp pain began flowing down from her right shoulder to her elbow.

“Beth is going to have my butt for this,” she chided herself.

She was expecting Amanda, the young woman she just launched through the storefront window, to suddenly emerge from the store hurling insults and brandishing a demonic weapon. For a moment, Adalia regretted barreling into her mortal adversary from behind like a coward, but it quickly passed when she thought of all the lives lost to Amanda’s treachery.

Once Adalia realized Amanda wasn’t going to appear for a few moments she quickly retrieved her smartphone and opened the text application. Fingers typed furiously on the crystal display, engaged the traitor 2 blocks south of tower on Michigan, and hit send. As she slid the phone back in her hip pocket, eyewitnesses began announcing the police were on their way along with paramedics. Adalia ignored the vile comments referring to her as a thug and lowlife gangbanger. They had no idea what was going on and what was at stake. All they saw was young African American woman in jeans and a T-shirt attack a young Asian woman who was casually window shopping on Michigan Avenue.

A moment later, Adalia heard a scream and several gasps of astonishment from somewhere inside the store. A stampede of frightened shoppers exploded through the exit doors, causing bystanders outside to fall back instinctively. Adalia slowly backed away from the storefront until she stepped out into the southbound traffic of Michigan Avenue. Her sudden appearance on the congested avenue immediately drew the ire of taxi cabs and CTA buses which were forced to stop.

Amanda slowly emerged from the depths of the store, crossed the damaged display case and dropped to the sidewalk. Donning black body armor trimmed in dark red, she appeared mad enough to chew nails.

Adalia scrutinized Amanda’s armor for a few moments and wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“Where is Jenny?” Adalia shouted.

Amanda cocked her head to one side and replied, “You do realize I am going to make an example of you?”

Adalia was not one to be intimidated, especially by a conceited turncoat who sold her soul to the adversary. Whispering a quick prayer for strength, Adalia summoned her Armor of God. Clothing glowed then morphed into dark blue body armor trimmed in gold. A golden cross etched on her breast plate signified her allegiance to God and his laws. A three-quarter mask beginning just below her eyes hid her identity and served as protection for her mouth and neck.

Amanda casually stalked Adalia with a confident swagger born from years of combat experience. She knew who Adalia Moore was by reputation. In fact, she knew a great deal about the young upstart who helped the host of Heaven successfully defend their stronghold weeks ago. Amanda wasn’t present for the attack, but she was informed of the failed attempt and Lilith’s defeat at the hands of her old mentor. During the raid several Fallen were able to retrieve dossiers on Heaven’s new recruits. Adalia appeared to be nothing more than a gamer who spent most of her time playing online video games with her sister and friends. There were a few notes of interest stating Adalia was no stranger to violence due to her rearing on Chicago’s south side. Amanda interpreted that as Adalia having a hood or ghetto mentality. With one or two exceptions over the ages, Heaven always followed the same modus operandi: recruit altar boys or brainwash Bible thumpers and turn them into mindless zealots. Interestingly enough, Adalia was none of those, not even close. This confirmed Amanda’s suspicions that Heaven was truly in dire straits and desperate for soldiers. Even God wasn’t above scraping the bottom of the barrel.

“You do realize I already killed her?” Amanda said dryly. “I’m not sure where Jenny is. Maybe she’s dead.”

Adalia ignored the comment and quickly summoned her weapons of choice into existence with a mere prayer. Concentrated beams of light streaked down from Heaven into her awaiting hands. Two Swords of Spirit with elaborate angelic cyphers etched on the long blades materialized in the divine light. Adalia smiled when he felt the hilts in her armored hands again. Power and confidence flowed from the angelic swords and her body soaked it up like life-giving nourishment.

“Do you even know how to use them?” Amanda asked mockingly. She recognized the swords and frowned.

Countering Adalia’s aggressive display, Amanda summoned her weapon of choice. The ground rumbled beneath her feet for a moment before an enormous broadsword with a black blade, hilt and red pommel slowly rose from the Earth. Concrete split and crumbled as the demonic sword slowly appeared for its master. Amanda casually grasped the hilt and violently ripped it free, leaving a small crater behind.

Observers who hadn’t already fled for their lives fell silent as they watched the two combatants on their smartphones. Chicago was a violent city and its residents didn’t scare easily. Many were used to many forms of violence ranging from fistfights to gunplay, but this was absolutely fascinating. Two women in body armor and wielding swords in downtown Chicago was worthy of social media attention.

In an instant, Adalia charged her opponent with her swords held low allowing the blades to carve lines in the ground. Time slowed as the distance between her and Amanda decreased. Adalia’s mind raced with possible outcomes from this course of action and regretted the ambush. She hadn’t entirely thought this through and hoped she could somehow finish this before it became a public spectacle. Well larger than it had already become. Adalia realized she was on the verge of overthinking the situation and chided herself. This wasn’t the time to think, it was time to act.

Thirty yards away, Glenn Taylor’s interview with a local food vendor came to an abrupt halt when he heard a window shatter. By the time he pinpointed the source further down the street a young Asian woman in black armor was dropping down from the display case. Glenn followed her sight line to a young African American woman standing in Michigan Avenue. He couldn’t hear what they were saying from this distance but based on their posture and hand gestures he knew it wasn’t a pleasant exchange. When he witnessed clothing morph into armor and weapons appear from nowhere he turned to his cameraman Steve Baker for help. Steve could only stare at his partner for a moment with a look of bewilderment before turning his camera on the women.

Glenn normally covered local events for a digital new source called “The Perspective” and today he was covering local food vendors. Prior to this new endeavor, Glenn had run his own blog on underground parties, local musicians and community awareness. At the ripe age of 21, he was accustomed to inner city conflicts ranging from gunfights to stabbings, but never had he witnessed a sword fight. Glenn quickly scanned the vicinity for movie cameras suspecting he was witnessing a stunt sequence. After all why would there be two women fighting with swords in the heart of downtown’s shopping district? After a few moments his confusion turned to fear and concern. This one act of apparent insanity would do two things. One, someone was bound to get hurt or worse and two, Chicago was going to lose a lot of street cred. Glenn could only imagine the headlines in social media ranging from “Chicago goes old school” to “Getting medieval with it.”

“Steve please tell me you are getting this?” Glenn asked while reaching for the cellphone on his hip.

“Is this for real?” Steve replied while focusing his news camera. “Did we stumble on to a movie set?”

Steve followed the action while slowly walking forward for a better angle. He watched as the woman in blue parried, blocked, attacked then deflected a cross cut meant for her neck. She then side stepped a down stroke while narrowly avoiding a passing car. The car wasn’t as lucky. The rear suddenly separated and skidded toward the sidewalk and Steve swore aloud. Pandemonium erupted as observers scattered to avoid falling street lights, careening cars and chunks of flying concrete. The two women were inadvertently destroying everything in the vicinity as they fought.

“Look over there,” Glenn yelled as he pointed past the skirmish.

“I see them,” Steve roared over a city bus skidding to a stop. He refocused his camera lens to capture the approaching group.

A small group of young adults darted through around traffic and spectators headed for the mêlée. Clothing transformed to armor and weapons materialized from beams of light as they drew near. Everyone’s armor was similar in style and color with the exception of one female. Unlike her companions she bore a darker coloring, identical to the woman already in combat. Her dark blue and armor was a stark contrast to her companions in brushed nickel and silver. The overall designs were similar with slight variations on the chest plates and armored boots.

“More weapons and shields? Seriously?” Steve asked excitedly as he refocused on the two combatants. He managed to zoom in just as the woman in black armor delivered a powerful uppercut to her opponent.

Glenn was now ignoring the spectacle and yelling into his cellphone. The recipient of his frantic pleas thought Glenn was joking and refused to inform the site manager to pick up his transmission. He politely informed her would post the photos of her and her manager using the office copier for anatomy pictures if she didn’t connect the call. After a few moments Glenn gave Steve the special tap on his shoulder indicating their transmission was being picked up. Glenn grabbed the wireless microphone from Steve’s utility bag and waited for his cue. After a few moments a red light above Steve’s eye piece flashed three times then went solid.

“This is Glenn Tyler live on south Michigan Ave near... ” his voice trailed off as he stumbled and lost his footing. A moment later he found himself in the sitting position staring at the ground.

Through sheer force of will Steve managed to cradle his camera like a football as he fell. Through all of the excitement they failed to notice the tremors growing in intensity until now. It felt like several freights trains rushing down the street and everyone ran for cover. The tremors subsided moments before several street covers rocketed skywards like exploding corks, sending Glenn and Steve scrambling for the safety of a restaurant entry several meters away. They didn’t want to be around when then covers fell back to Earth. As they approached the restaurant a chill raced down Glenn’s spine.

Animalistic howling and wails erupted from street drains and openings where the street covers once were. Rats by the hundreds poured out in droves screeching and scurrying about in every direction. Moments later, over two dozen decrepit claws ripped from the Earth and clawed for freedom. Concrete opened like flowers blossoming to reveal the charred creatures below emerging from their eternal damnation. Resembling disfigured humans with charred flesh and broken limbs, Hell’s Fallen greeted the citizens of Chicago with horrific shrieks and wails.

Jamari raced next to her older sister who was slowly rubbing her sore jaw. She could tell Adalia was pissed, but wasn’t seriously injured and eyeing her opponent. Jamari recognized that contemplative look; Adalia was busy playing out a few scenarios and trying to determine her next move. Jamari loved her sister’s tactical mind, but there were times it just got in the way. There were times to think and there were times to act. This was clearly butt-kicking time and she intended to dish out plenty of it.

“I got your text, why didn’t you wait for us?” Jamari asked while positioning herself between Adalia and Amanda. She cautiously observed Amanda, who was forty yards away gently rubbing her right eye. Jamari smiled at her sister’s handiwork.

She turned away from Amanda momentarily to address her sister’s tactics, “Having a Leeroy Jenkins moment?”

Adalia shuddered at the thought. Leeroy was a famous avatar, in the nerd world, who bungled a meticulously devised attack plan by simply running into the enemy’s camp alone screaming his name. The video was famous for its sheer absurdity and humorous take on delusions of grandeur.

“No, I’m not looking to die.” Adalia replied, pushing the image from her mind.

“I see plenty of property damage.”

“If it were you, two city blocks would be leveled by now.” Adalia added with a wave of her hand.

“Surely you jest big sister. I would have at least leveled four blocks and a hotdog cart. But seriously aren’t we supposed to…” Jamari faltered in mid-sentence and turned to her right. Intense burning behind her eyes drew her attention to the southwest and she opened herself to the Holy Spirit.

“How many?” Adalia asked while reaching for her sword staked in the ground.

Jamari‘s eyes suddenly began glowing sky blue a few moments before her sister’s. “At least two dozen. We need to wrap this up.”

“We’ll leave when we capture Amanda. She’s the key to finding Jenny.”

“Adalia, we’re not even sure Jenny is alive.” Jamari offered, trying to force reason into her sister’s thinking.

“I agree with Adalia. We need to capture Amanda if it can be done without risking innocent lives.” Alima said as she approached her guild mates. Her British accent carried a hint of caution, “We all agreed to keep this war contained as best we could. No civilian casualties or needless violence.”

Alima’s tall muscular frame easily bore the weight of her body armor. The nickel plating was slightly thicker than Adalia’s and offered more protection to the joints and shoulders. Her dark brown eyes slowly turned to the southwest as she, too, opened herself to the spiritual plane. She didn’t possess the acute demonic senses or tracking abilities of the Moore sisters, but Alima was gifted with other abilities which she would put on display soon. Her eyes slowly transformed as she scanned for the new arrivals.

“Actually we said at a minimum,” Jamari added while glancing at Alima with a sly smile.

Alima frowned for a moment before realizing Jamari was kidding. She hoped Jamari was kidding, Jamari proved rather unpredictable at times and that made her dangerous.

Several police cars skidded to a stop two blocks south as several Fallen emerged from the Earth. The confused officers didn’t know what to do other than draw their guns and call for backup.

Alima quickly assessed the situation and summoned her weapons of choice. Two golden double bladed axes materialized in her hands. The intricate angelic designs etched on the blades glowed sky blue and white as she rolled her shoulders. “What’s the call Adalia, fight or flight?”

Jamari watched as the Fallen clawed their way to the surface and slowly converge on Amanda’s position. She glanced over her shoulder for her Adalia’s intentions and received a familiar answer. Adalia’s twin swords burst into flame.

Adalia glanced at her second and third in command with determination in her eyes. “Let’s end this quickly.”

“Tactic?” Alima asked as she took a step forward.

“Spank and Tank?” Jamari offered while cracking her knuckles.

Adalia shook her head disapprovingly, “We want to end this quickly, not wait for your casters to pick them off.”

“Well it would help us keep the creatures contained to one area.” Alima clarified.

Adalia resigned, “Fine.”

Alima turned to the nine guild members behind her and shouted, “Tanks! Parallel!”

She quickly took his customary place at Adalia’s right shoulder as several guild members specializing in melee combat flanked them both. Alima quickly relayed tactics and reminded everyone to taunt their opponent during the battle. If a dimwitted Fallen lost interest, disengaged and chased a pedestrian, containment would be lost and the situation would spiral out of control. Mini engagements spread out over a given area would be chaotic and they didn’t have the numbers to watch each other’s back for long.

Jamari motioned her six casters to take their positions ten yards behind Alima’s tanks. They specialized in ranged combat and needed the space to unleash their powers. Their swords and shields faded from existence, leaving behind pulsating glows of blue energy around armored fists. As long as the front line held the Fallen at bay, Jamari’s group was free to blast them like snipers from a safe distance.

Now that her forces had arrived Amanda was ready to deal with Heaven’s upstarts. Her master’s orders were clear and he didn’t tolerate failure.

“Attack!” Amanda roared and her minions rushed

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 21.03.2015
ISBN: 978-3-7368-8493-9

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