Master of the Monsterverse 3 - Ch 3

Had a shot gone off? It was hard to tell and my mind was reeling. The monsters sprang into action immediately, causing much more of a scene that I felt comfortable with. But if it was between comfort and their safety—or mine—of course safety wins every time. Still, if they could have caused less of a commotion, that would have been great.

Jalee was the first to react, I saw as I managed to my head up and see her with wings of electricity burning through her clothes. She rose up above us and had a blast of lightning shooting through a second story building up a street and to the right. Presumably, that’s where the attack came from, because Milrae was already charging that way, head back and sword at the ready.

“We’re all going to have to have a talk about this,” Ahlaksiz said, then gave me a light shove so that my knee wasn’t digging into her side from where we’d fallen. “Right after we figure out what’s going on.”

“Agreed,” I said, heart pounding. Pushing myself up and then offering her a hand, I shouted, “Someone, get this man a doctor!”

He was already stumbling away, cursing from what I could guess, in a mixture of French and Arabic, along with one long, “Fuuuck.”

“He’ll live,” Kinara said, checking on us. Her eyes were narrowed, hair a bit of a mess, and she looked furious. “Whoever tried to hurt you, though—not so much.”

It wasn’t until I was at her side that I noticed the figure on the ground behind her. A man, a pool of blood forming near his head.

“Shit…” I muttered.

“He lunged right after the knife,” Kinara explained, showing a pistol she had concealed in her dress. “Was pulling this out when I took him down. His knife-throwing buddy took off into that building. And a third shot from that window.”

Another shot sounded just then, people on the street screaming and running. Jalee shot out into the window now, vanishing from sight but leaving a glow of blew that strobed as she clearly took care of business inside.

Kinara led the way, Ahlaksiz and I following close behind, but halfway there I glanced back to see the older woman breaking off to the left.

“Wha—” I started.

“Go,” she waved me on. “I’m picking up on something.”

“Shit. I hated to have the group separated like this, but if she had been on her own this long, so it wasn’t her I was worried about. My hand went to my satchel to ensure it was still there, then Basty, who I’d noticed getting a bit tight around my neck.

Kinara entered the first floor and I followed to find Milraie exiting out a back door up some stairs, which seemed to lead to another alley.

“Follow her,” I said, already going for the other narrow stairs that led up to where I presumed Jalee would be.

“She’s not there,” Milrae said, at the door and gesturing us out.

“You’re su—”

“Move it!”

I trusted she knew what she was doing, and a burst of blue lighting shooting across the alley behind her showed this to be true. We came sprinting out to find Jalee landing, sirens blaring in the distance.

“What’s that sound?” she demanded, eyes lit up with electricity, a car in flames nearby.

“Damn, police?” The siren certainly wasn’t like what I was used to back home, so it could have been an ambulance, but judging by the chaos and gunshots, police was probably the safe bet.

“Where’s…?” Kinara started, glancing back.

“This way,” I said, motioning them to follow me. “And the attackers?”

“Taken care of,” Jalee said.

We reached the next corner and I did my best to guess how to get back and find Ahlaksiz, but halfway there the sirens lit up the white and blue buildings, and I saw I’d been correct to think it was the cops.

Kinara led the way to our right. We turned away from the police car, sprinting down that alley and then turning again into a walkway without streets. We charged up a walkway that had two sets of stairs every few paces, dirtied white walls with blue trim on one side, crumbling brown on the other. If we weren’t possibly being pursued by local law enforcement, this would have been the perfect place to stop and take some pictures to make this feel like a real Tunisia trip.

A vision hit me of Ahlaksiz running, too, but in pursuit, then tackling a woman. Not far, maybe a thirty second running at our current pace, but to the left. Basty had come through!

“Thanks, bud,” I said, patting the scarf that was him, and I led the ladies to turn at the next left we could find. Turning to them as we narrowly fit into the passage between buildings, I said, “Can we try to keep a low profile this time?”

“As long as nobody’s shooting at any of you, or throwing knives, yes,” Jalee said, giving me the stinkeye.

“Even then, if it can be avoided,” I countered.

“You know where we’re going?” Milrae asked. “Because the way Jalee is dressed, I think keeping a low profile is going to be tough no matter what out here.”

I hadn’t thought of that, but a glance at Jalee reminded me that her dress had mostly burned off when her wings had emerged, so that now she was running around in her old outfit, but even that was singed and missing in places. As far as one who appreciated her body was concerned, I wasn’t complaining. But Mirlae was right that we weren’t about to stay out of the spotlight with Jalee looking like that.

“Another reason to keep your powers in check,” I noted with a grunt. “I’ll go in front, to… I don’t know, try and make sure we’re not noticed.”

“What can I say, I’m noticeable,” Jalee countered as I passed her. By the way my eyes went to her cleavage, I couldn’t disagree.

Kinara stepped aside for me, grinning as she too checked out Jalee, then the two of us checked at the corner. There, one street over and kneeling at the top of a set of stairs that led into a gray building, was Ahlaksiz. To our relief, nobody else was around.

“Hey,” I said, running to her and motioning the others to stay close. A dirt-bike-looking motorcycle rode by, nearly hitting me, but Kinara was there to pull me out of the way. The driver shouted back at us, swerved to narrowly avoid crashing into what looked like the corner of a pharmacy, then turned and was gone from sight.

“Want me to zap ‘em?” Jalee asked, but her eyes gave away the fact that she as joking.

Shaking my head, I turned see Ahlaksiz, now standing and quickly slinking down the stairs, head swiveling as if to check for anyone who might have been watching.

“Inside,” Ahlaksiz said. “I found what I’m looking for, but it’s not a totem. The woman has a Iridant—basically a locator.”

“I hope I’m not the only one here completely lost by what you just said,” I admitted. “A locator of what?”

“Of a totem, basically.”

“But totems can be practically anything, no?”

She nodded. “I wasn’t sure if we’d find simple totems here, or maybe monsters who already lived among us. But this… An Iridant is a special item that once belonged to a specific, more powerful monster.”

“Wait, you’re saying this thing someone has in there belonged to a powerful monster. So what?”

“It not only belonged to one, but is linked to one. Meaning we might use it to exert control, or… if the monster isn’t here, even summon it.”

“You want to summon a monster who’s powerful enough to actually have an Iridant?” Milrae said in what was either disgust or fright.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Ahlaksiz replied. She licked her lips, eyeing me. “The question is, can you handle it?”

“Me?” I gulped.

“If you have this ability to work the totems, and have been linking, this would fall on you. We can fight it, if necessary, but the last thing we should do is unleash a Iridant-level monster on Earth.”

All eyes on me, I tried to fully understand the ramifications of this. One thing was for certain, though. A powerful monster could help us, and I wasn’t about to back down.

“I’m in,” I said.

Ahlaksiz grinned. In spite of my trepidations, I was excited.