WnW 4.9

“What do you mean the jig is up? We just got in here,” I said, looking nervously out of the window. We were too high up for me to see the front entrance. I pulsed my sense of impending danger to Nell and immediately felt her respond in kind.

“It could be nothing,” Terry said, checking his phone briefly. “There’s no need to panic. This is all just part of the game. We can adapt.”

“I’m not very good at adapting.”

Terry chuckled and walked towards the window I was standing by. “I thought that was the key characteristic of Wolves.” He cracked the window open and wind raced through the slit, tossing loose paper from the desk to the floor. Terry shouted through the window, “Peep! Give me an update.”

AJ’s quiet voice responded, barely audible over the wind. “They’re all gathered in the front. They have weapons. Zola had to back out. He’s wondering what we should do.”

“Find us a good spot to slip away. We’ll be out shortly.”

AJ didn’t reply.

“They’re moving unusually quickly,” Terry mused, spinning his phone in his hand. “The Jiezhi are typically slow to respond, always waiting for the go-ahead from higher ups. They must be cooking up something big to be on this high alert.”

“You do have a backup plan, right?” I asked pleadingly.

Terry nodded. “We should change location. What floor are we on right now?”

I glanced at the elevator. “Floor 20.”

Terry already had the phone to his ear, calling someone. “Zhang! Have you found the documents yet?… Never mind that now. I’ve run into a bit of a problem. Gather up some of the boys and meet me on the twentieth floor.” 

Terry motioned for me to follow him as he strode towards the stairs. “Come quick, this is urgent.” With that, he hung up.

Terry reached the door, swung it open and began descending down the stairs at a brisk pace.

I followed anxiously. “I take it we’re not meeting them there.”

“Correct. We’ll hide on a lower floor and wait for them to pass. Then we’ll stroll right on out.”

We descended several floors. Terry wasn’t moving as fast as I would have liked. Suddenly, he halted and I almost crashed into him. He held his hand up to his ear. Rapid footsteps and shouting echoed up the stairwell. Terry sprung back into motion and I followed. The sound of the Jiezhi bounding up the stairs grew louder and I expected them to round the corner at any moment, bristling with machetes and guns. Nell pulsed urgency.

Terry skidded on the landing of the 16th floor and flung the door open. I ran inside after him and shut the door, pressing my back against it.

Moments later, the footsteps thundered past. I could hear them talking excitedly in Mandarin. I shut my eyes and focused on the sound. A couple of times the voices would get close, but then they would move on. In time, the sounds faded out from the floors above.

“Okay, let’s go,” Terry said, touching my shoulder.

“Just wait a second.”

“They’re only a few floors above us. We need to move quickly,” Terry said impatiently.

“I know, trust me for a sec.” I listened for any sound. There was nothing. Got anything for me, Nell? I thought. Nell pulsed confidence in response. “Okay, let’s move,” I said and exited back into the stairwell.

We descended several more floors. I paid close attention to my link with Nell. She didn’t have any plants to work with, so she couldn’t give much direction. On the landing of the 13th floor, Nell pulsed strongly with danger. I stopped and listened. There was no sound of footsteps or voices, but Nell was adamant. I trusted her and entered the 13th floor.

Once inside, I moved further in, then spoke to Terry in a whisper, “There are some below us, waiting.” Terry gave me a quizzical look. “My Witch can sense them,” I explained.

Terry’s eyes flicked up to something past my shoulder. I turned to see the display above the elevator was active. 8, 9, 10, it ticked upwards.

I saw Terry’s expression change and he reached for the elevator call button.

“What are you doing?!” I hissed.

“We don’t know how many are waiting for us on the stairs,” Terry said. “This way, we can be sure it’s a manageable number.” He pressed the button.

“I don’t want to kill them,” I said. The number rose. 11, 12…

“I don’t think they share that sentiment,” Terry said dryly, “and I’m not much of a fighter.”

I thought of what Zola had said. 

“Intimidation, then,” I muttered, as I began to Shape my antler armour. Terry watched me with fascination as the ivory branches emerged from my skin and wrapped around my body, interlocking into a protective weave.

The elevator dinged and the door slid open. Inside was just one man in a beige suit. He held a butcher’s knife in front of him aggressively. His eyes bulged as he saw me and his knife arm dropped to his side. 

I flexed the joints, creating a familiar crackling of breaking antlers.

“Out,” Terry uttered coldly.

The man scrambled out of the elevator and backed away. We got in and Terry pushed the button for the first floor.

The man looked like he was about to try something and Terry said something to him in Mandarin.

The man said a single word in response and just before the elevator doors closed I saw him taking out his phone.

Terry leaned in to look at the bony protrusions on my arm. “Impressive.”

“You speak Mandarin?” I asked, my voice was loud inside my helmet. “What did you say to him?”

“The Jiezhi are obsessed with their pride. Enough so that he might have overcome his fear. I reminded him that no one knows what comes after death.” He sighed and pointed at the floor number. “Unfortunately, they know our location now. I doubt we’ll be able to ride this down to ground level. We may have just jumped from frying pan to fire.”

I watched the numbers fall. 12…11…

I could feel Nell working, strengthening my armour with chitin.

“Stay clear of the doors. When we stop, try to make a break for it,” I said, bracing my foot against the wall of the elevator that was opposite to the door. I focused, visualizing the bones going where I wanted them. The tension storing mechanism was improving and I could Shape it a lot faster. As the Shape finalized, I began to put pressure on the brace around my leg. Focus on the angle. I don’t want to crash into the elevator walls. The numbers continued to tick down, 10…9…

Maybe we would make it before someone stopped the elevator. But just as I had the thought, the elevator began to slow. 8… 7… The number didn’t drop again.

“Looks like this is our stop,” Terry said as the doors opened.

A large man with scars all over his face stood directly outside the elevator. He had a pistol leveled at me. I didn’t hesitate, releasing the pressure and launching myself forward.

I collided with the man, my head impacting his chest. The gun fired. We both crashed to the ground and rolled. Adrenaline roared through my system as I forced myself to rise shakily to my feet. The thug I’d rocketed into was rolling on the ground holding his chest, the gun lay by his feet. I kicked it across the floor. Looking around, I saw Terry was by the stair door. Another member of the Jiezhi was backing him away from it, waving a knife.

I charged him.

“Drop it.” Terry was no longer being subtle about his Shape use. His normal mouth didn’t speak and the raspy voice called out from behind his scarf.

The attacker dropped his knife moments before I slugged him in the mouth. He reeled and collapsed against the wall, sliding down it.

Terry had already stepped past him and through the stairwell door. I dashed after him. Shouts sounded loudly from above as we descended. The thunder of footsteps grew closer and Terry wasn’t moving fast enough. I got a glimpse of the tip of a machete on the stairs above as I rounded the next flight of stairs.

They’re going to catch us. I threw myself down the next flight of stairs, landing at the bottom just before Terry did. Then I spun and stretched out an arm towards the stairs I’d just come down. Grow. A white tree burst from my arm, branches criscrossing, spreading out over the stairway. When I was satisfied with my blockade, I severed its connection to me with a sharp jerk of my arm and continued downwards. The fire inside my skin prickled.

Terry had stopped on the landing of the 6th floor. Two men blocked the way downwards. One of them was the man with the cast on his leg. The other man was muscular enough to be a bodybuilder and he wore dark leather gloves.

“Apologies for the intrusion, gentlemen,” Terry said calmly. “We admit defeat. What say we leave it at that? We can retreat with our tail tucked between our legs and you can gloss over the fact that we momentarily bypassed your security.”

The bigger Jiezhi member spat out words vehemently in Mandarin.

Terry’s eyebrows raised. “You were warned about me? By who?”

A single word response.

Terry glanced at me. “A ghost…”

The bigger thug barked something out and his newly recruited ally hesitated. He said something back and then bent down and removed his cast, revealing what it was hiding: a limb made up of maybe twenty joints, all folded so as to be compressed into the length of a normal leg. The joints zigzagged like a spring and ended in a hoof.

The man kicked out his leg and the Shape extended frighteningly fast towards me, knocking me backwards onto the stairs. I scrambled back onto my feet. The gloved man sneered at me. Where was the other one? He had vanished in the moment I wasn’t looking. Terry had pressed himself against one wall, trying to stay out of the way. I followed his eyes. Above.

The man had just reached the arc of his jump. He twisted midair so his hooved foot touched the roof. Then he shot down towards me. I flung out an arm, about to project branches when I hesitated. I might kill him. The man somersaulted with the agility of a circus performer and stomped downwards with his Shaped foot. It struck me across the face with a crack. The collar and part of my mask broke, momentarily blinding me with pieces of shrapnel.

Arms wrapped under mine and locked behind my neck. I could tell it wasn’t Terry that had just put me in a headlock. I tried to wrench free, blinking from the stinging cuts on my face. The strength of my attacker matched my own and I felt the leathery texture of his gloves.

“Stop moving,” the raspy voice echoed up and down the stairwell.

I stopped struggling without willing it. The grip around my neck slackened as well, but I couldn’t move to escape.

A hand patted me on the shoulder. Terry’s face appeared in my field of vision. He waved as he took a step down the stairs. “Sorry, Nick. This is all I can do. Good luck.”

I watched him disappear down the stairs. Fuck you too. I didn’t have time to think about the betrayal. I needed to act first while they were still surprised at the effects of Terry’s voice. Moments later I could move again. I gripped the arms that still hung onto me. Instead of trying to escape, I grunted and pitched forward, throwing the man over my shoulder.

His grip slipped and he slammed into the door to the 6th floor, knocking it open. I ducked just in time for the hoof to whistle over my head, cracking the green exit sign, sending sparks flying.

I leapt over the man lying on the ground and felt a vice-like grip seize my ankle, sending me crashing down to one knee. I lifted an arm just in time to block my face as the hoof crashed into it. Bone fragmented and blew off my arm. Another blow came before I had a chance to respond, glancing off my unarmored head and making stars explode in my eyes.

I could hear Nell screaming inside of my head. What are you trying to tell me? It’s two versus one. The emotions she sent were of fear, frustration… and confidence. It clicked. I wasn’t playing this right. Confidence was key and I was wrong, it wasn’t two versus one. It was two versus two.

The gloved man grabbed my leg with his other hand and pulled himself towards me. I ignored him. Handle it, I thought. Instead I focused on tracking down the jumpy one. He stood a few meters away, readying his leg for a stomp. I extended branches towards him. He pivoted, kicking against a nearby door frame to propel himself away from my branches. I created offshoots from the first growth, lancing towards his new trajectory, causing him to land awkwardly and roll. The growth slowed to a halt, but I’d forced him to retreat momentarily.

The man with the incredible grip suddenly released me, shouting. I looked down to see that leaves were poking out from between the antlers. The broad leaves were green and unassuming, but by the way the man was nursing his fingers, it was clearly painful to touch. I realized in that moment that he wasn’t wearing gloves, his actual hands were dark and leathery. A Shape.

I bent down and met his grasping hands with my own. He grinned for a moment and I felt the incredible strength in his fingers. Then his eyes widened as his skin started to melt away into mine.

He howled and pulled away. I released him and realized that his voice wasn’t the only one crying out in distress. The goat man was writhing on the floor. Green sprouts were emerging from his limbs and face. His expression told me that unlike how it was for me, Nell’s Shaping was anything but painless.

He shuddered as new sprouts broke through.

I rushed over to him, seeing how shallow his breathing was. “Woah, stop!” I shouted. “You’re killing him.”

Nell pulsed confusion and I forcefully pushed my desire for her to stop through the connection. She halted and the man’s fits subsided. Then she pulsed a new cascade of warning emotions. I heard the voices outside the door. The rest of the Jiezhi had made it past my barricade.

I began to reform the parts of my armour that had been broken just as they burst through the door. Each and every one of them had murder in their eyes and the tools in their hands to enact it. Knives, machetes, baseball bats, and hammers.

There were too many of them. They fanned out into the room, completely blocking off any avenue of escape.

All except one. I really don’t want to do this.

I turned and sprinted towards the glass windows that ran along the outer wall of the building. The hilt of a thrown knife bounced off my arm. It’s only a few stories up. I grew out a branch, spiralling it into a thick lance. Only a few. The lance pierced the glass, shattering it. 

Promise you’ll catch me? I thought as I took a step through the window and felt gravity take hold.