“You know what I do, Whitney. I went to Columbia, and I did it there.”
“You killed him?” I can barely breathe.
“It was the first time I’ve killed for personal reasons.” He looks a little bothered by it. “I thought it might be harder, but it wasn’t. It was easy. It might have been the easiest I have ever taken a soul.”
“You—you traveled to Columbia while I was sleeping and you murdered the man who assaulted me?”
“The man who threatened to kill you, who ripped your shirt open?” His fists are balled at his side. “Yes, I ended his life, and I did it painfully. I don’t regret it. If you had seen his soul, you wouldn’t have regretted my actions either. Energy may be light or dark, depending on whether it’s tied to the creation of or the termination of life, but the soul, that’s different. As humans make evil decisions, their soul darkens. It becomes darker and darker, and his was quite dark.” He tosses his head at the doorway. “It’s time for us to go.”
I should argue with him or chastise him, like usual, but I can’t find the will to do it. He’s finally done something I’d have done myself if I had the skill. “What is it exactly that I’m getting ready for? Are you about to shove me into a big, dirty hole?”
He clears the doorway and gestures for me to walk through. “That’s how my brothers teleport, because they’re strongest in earth powers. I’m stronger in wind and lightning, so I usually. . .” He waves his hand around, and I fly upward, along with him, shooting through the doorway and into the air outside, and slamming pretty solidly against his chest.
My hands press against his powerful pec muscles, and I can’t help shifting my fingers just a little, because he may be a terrible person, but his chest didn’t do anything horrible, and frankly, it’s a thing of beauty.
“What are you doing?” He clears his throat. “Why are your fingers moving like that?”
“Me?” My head snaps up. “They’re bracing me against the currents. I’m flying through the air like Lois Lane, here.”
His brow furrows. “Lois who?”
“It’s from a movie.”
We dip a bit in the air.
I squawk.
He’s smiling now. “Relax, little one. This will be fast.” We hurtle forward for another hundred feet, and then there’s a strong sound like a popping accompanied by a strange sort of a vacuum feeling, as though we’ve just hurtled through very compressed time and space, and then we explode into the sky above Travis Air Force Base.
Or at least, I assume it’s Travis Air Force Base. There are buildings, tents, and several towers. All of it’s rather boring in color, and there are loudspeakers blaring in the distance.
“How’d you get us here?”
“All I need are good images to orient on, and I recalled after you went to sleep that I had seen this place in the minds of many of the soldiers who died yesterday.”
Of course he did. Gross. Mass murderer and mind rapist. Ugh. Every time I think maybe he’s not so bad, he says something like that. I swear, I might be getting Stockholm Syndrome.
But if these are going to be some of my last moments on this earth, at least I’m doing cool stuff and seeing once-in-a-lifetime things. We drop toward the earth, and by golly, Xolotl was right. There are loads of people still gathered below us, even though we’re clearly very late.
Tanks, jeeps, and rows of armed troops are directly below. And above us jets dart and weave.
Xolotl’s smiling as we light on the ground a hundred yards from the gathered troops. “Who’s the leader here?” His voice booms, so he must be augmenting it somehow.
The tinny, grainy sound of a loudspeaker explodes out toward us. “I’m General Phillips, and you’re quite late.”
Xolotl waves his left hand and two tanks roll end over end, away from us. He tightens his hand into a fist, and the rolling tanks crumple into balls. I close my eyes, unwilling to think about what happened to the humans inside them. “You were saying?”
“The entire force of the West Coast United States military’s arrayed against you, Xolotl,” General Phillips says. “I’m not sure watching you destroy two tanks convinces me of much.”
“The entire military force, yet you hide like a coward,” Xolotl says, “I thought perhaps you would be the man I was looking for, but that’s clearly not the case.”
“I’m not hiding.” A small figure walks toward us from the line of infantry in the front. He’s holding a loudspeaker in his left hand. Smart. He continues walking forward until he’s only fifty feet away. “I’m here, before you, but I should warn you that what we deployed yesterday was just a little test. It’s nothing to the heat we can bring to bear on you right now.”
Xolotl sighs like he’s terribly annoyed. “Great, then do it.”
The general’s jaw drops. Then he shakes his head. “Excuse me?”
“I said go ahead and do it. I’m ready and waiting.”
