“Get down!”
He didn’t even have time to turn around before one of them slammed him into the ground.
“So there are terrorists here." He could hear her voice; practically smell the blood that clung to her uniform only to be washed away countless times. “And here I was just wondering why they sent me. It seemed like such a small kill. One person does not usually merit an Angel.”
He couldn’t move, couldn’t turn to look at the new arrival. He didn’t want to face what he knew would happen.
“St… stay back BloodRain! There are twenty of us and only one of you!" There was fear in the voice of one of those who stood around him.
“Twenty? You should have brought fifty!” Her laughter was strained though. Some other emotion was fighting to break through her voice and into her words.
“Just walk away now BloodRain. We don’t want to fight you!” Another rebel spoke, and to her credit, her voice did not tremble.
“That is a very generous offer,” she took a breath as the first raindrops crashed into the ground, “but I am afraid that I will have to decline. You see, it is my job to kill you. It is all that is left of my life. I am a Soldier and nothing more.”
He could hear the thousand of loose stones crack and strike under her boots. How long would they remain white? How long until they were red? One step then another. Crunch. Click. How close was she? The sound of rock hitting rock filled the air, split only by a crash of thunder from above. He could see the breaths of those standing around him frost the air at their mouths. Each breath was so ragged, so nervous, matching the gasps his lungs pumped from him. He had to see. He had to know. His head tilted and his eyes looked up, and though his mind and heart screamed not to, he looked directly at her.
She was different, so very foreign and odd, a metal sculpture among glass figurines, beautiful and sharp. She flowed as if made of water and metal instead of flesh and blood. The black of her uniform stood in contrast to the white boots and gloves that seemed to glow against her pale skin. One glove reached up, covering most of her right arm while its mate barely inched past her left wrist. Gold wisps of hair became matted to her face by the cold rain and hair nearly covered it entirely, but he could still see part of her left eye. It glimmered navy and aquamarine, as if pieces of sapphire had been broken and the shards thrown into a pool of water. The normal black circle did not rest in the pool though. It was all blue. Strange lines swirled out from the corner of the pool, four spirals curving in on themselves like vines. She was frightening. She was inhuman just like all other Soldiers.
“I am truly sorry for this.”
The rain made is look as if she was almost crying, but he knew better. Soldiers didn’t cry. They killed without mercy, a heart, or even a single thought. He watched, no one else moving, as she eased two swords from the two sheaths crossed on her back. The metal shone as the rain fell onto the black blades.
“It’s…It’s not too late BloodRain. Please!” One of them was foolish enough to reach a hand out for her.
“I am what I am and your sad words mean nothing to me!”
Thunder crashed and lightning cut the air as she leapt forward. It was like nothing he had ever seen. It was almost as if it was happening in flashes. BloodRain was in front of one of his saviors for a single breath then she would be behind a different victim as the previous dropped to the ground. Everyone scrambled to catch a glimpse. Each time she was found, it looked almost as if she was pausing only to think. They would try to rush at her, various weapons raised, but then she would move, and they would be left striking dumbly at empty air. One by one, the bodies fell. Revolting cracks of bones splintering from her blows and the sound of the black blades crashing into his failing saviors’ weapons echoed through his head.
He pressed his face further into the mud, too cowardly to watch as death welcome people into its cold arms. He felt sick. A warm body fell on top of him, making his heart leap faster in his chest. Its head rolled slightly, coming to rest an inch from his nose. He could feel the woman’s blood seep through his clothes and into his skin and soul. The woman had just been murdered because of him. He had thought he was doing what was right, but he wasn’t the one to decide right and wrong. The City was the master and everything, everyone, were simply pawns on the chessboard. And now, the City had moved him into checkmate using the queen. He squeezed his eye closed, praying it would all just stop. And it did.
It ended with a rustle that brought his head back up to look at what had become of his world. The last body slumped onto the cold ground, the man’s jacket rustling as it met the concrete and his soul met with death. The silence seemed to almost sway in the wind. Rain added to the blood, making it a red river that trickled through the tiniest cracks in the concrete. It ran towards him. He could hear them calling.
Why did you let this happen? Why did you let so many die because you thought you were in the right? The mournful sobs of the dead echoed within the silence that swallowed him. I had a life! I had a family! We risked it all to help you and you let us die like lambs to the slaughter! Why? Why? WHY?
“Stop! Stop moaning in my head!” He heard her turn to look at him. “Leave me alone!” He jerked his head around, staring at the lone standing figure in the midst of the fallen. “Kill me! Just kill me now! Make them stop!”
But she did not move. The wind pulled at her hair, trying to move her to him, trying to grant his wish, but she stayed. All she did was breathe, cold clouds forming around her mouth, and at look at him. Slowly, the rain stopped and pure flakes started floating around them. They fell so gently, so lovingly, onto the blood. It eagerly ate them, swallowing the innocence with red passion. Her head barely tilted when she looked up. The snow brushed against her face with the same soft touch it gave the ground.
Her hands slipped the black swords back into their sheaths. “I am glad some things never change.”
He stared at her; his mind jumping and his heart racing at her suddenly quiet voice. “What?”
“It always snows on my birthday.” A smile spread across her lips through it did not reach her eyes. “When I was little, I hated it. It was so cold and boring. I could never have my party outside because of it. But now…” She sighed and her eyes fell onto him. They were so human. Their blue shone brightly with hope and fire but they glistened with the pain of held back tears. “Now I think I love it.”
The snowflakes spiraled around her as if drawn in by her every breath. They were together on this world and yet she was so far from him. He could see her mind moving. It flowed over the snow and beyond the city that lay behind him. It skipped over words that she had once heard or said and past the thoughts that must have filled her mind. Memories danced in her eyes and though the smile still sat on her face, a single, crystalline tear slid down her cheek.
She walked so slowly when she finally came for him. She just turned from watching the snow and walked, through the metallic smelling slush and over the bodies. The tear had long before fallen to the ground like the rain but its trail shone on her face. She stopped just short of him, standing with her arms limp at her sides. She didn’t seem like a Soldier anymore. She was a young girl.
The world seemed to muffle his words. “How… how old are you?”
“I am twenty-one now.”
“BloodRain isn’t your real name is it?”
“No.”
She seemed to draw back, her shoulders straightening. He didn’t understand why she did this. Her right hand slowly lifted into the air, palm down and fingers spread out.
“I have my orders and I will follow them.” His eyes widened at the snow and blood around him became harder, cracking as it froze.
“No! Wait!” The red ice slowly spun into a spike until its tip touched his throat. “Tell me your name!”
“I am sorry.”
He closed his eyes, accepting the death she was about to give him. But it did not come.
The ice shattered, smashing into thousands of pieces. BloodRain turned slowly, lifting her heels and spinning on her toes. She walked away stopping only once there was twenty feet between them.
“It is probably better to have some distance between us. Correct Mooncry?”
He heard footsteps behind him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the girl. Her fingers curled into fists and she drew then up to her chest, resting them on her sternum, mocking care and hope in every move.
“I should have figured that you would come.” BloodRain’s hair barely swayed in the cold wing that swirled around them; the rain soaked strands were now frozen to her head, and it made her look even more alien. “I wanted to face you sometime and the present is a marvelous choice.” Her hands slipped down again, hanging limply at her sides, and her shoulders relaxed.
“I’m always happy to make a girl smile.”
He had to turn and watch as the newest player of this deadly game strode from the shadows of the City. He had to gaze at the new arrival with hope shining in his eyes. But the look of his hopeful savior made his heart jump into his throat, choking him. He looked like one of them.
Mooncry was tall, taller than even BloodRain who had towered over the people who now lay dead on the ground. He obviously had muscle but it didn’t bulge from his clothes nor did make him look scrawny. It didn’t look natural. Around his strange form, he wore only black. Black pants, black shirt, black shoes, black leather gloves, and a long black jacket. It all matched the long onyx hair that grew from his head. Where the rest of him was dark, his face was bright. His skin seemed to glow white against the shadows of his body. And his eyes… They were alien all by themselves. Bright green mixed with black filled his eyes and just like BloodRain, he looked upon the world without the black circle of a pupil. He looked like a Soldier. But… he wasn’t wearing a uniform.
All Soldiers wore the same uniform. It was a sleek black suit, broken only by an identifying colored line and a symbol on a shoulder. It ran from the very top of the suit’s half neck collar down to the wearer’s thigh. A line and symbol on the right meant the Soldier was a male with the opposite meant the Soldier was female. BloodRain’s was a bright blue, normally happy color, but it had now been tainted with the spine cringing fear she brought with her. Each line was a different hue of the visual spectrum, and when combined with the symbol on the Soldier’s shoulder, a person would shake in fear. BloodRain’s symbol was a circle broken into quarters without touching by short, thick lines. He knew it well. Everyone in the New City did. It was drilled into their heads so they would never forget it or the fear it brought. It was the symbol for the Angels, the highest level of Soldier. But Mooncry had none of this. Despite his Soldier appearance, he wasn’t one. Was that even possible? Could there be Soldiers who weren’t Soldiers?
“Get out of here Doctor Markus.”
He looked up, startled by Mooncry’s voice. “What?”
“I told you to get out of here. We need you alive and she’s ready to kill both of us if we don’t get away soon.”
Markus scrambled onto his feet and tried to run but his numb feet only made him stumble away.
“I have orders to kill him and I will follow them.”
He felt the temperature drop below twenty and the air cracked again. Ice shot up from the ground in front of him, knocking him back as it reached for the sky. It solidified and formed a wall keeping the New City separate from him.
“Orders. Orders. Orders. Can’t you ignore orders for once ?”
He shook his head. Mooncry had said something. He had called BloodRain something besides her name. But his rattled brain wouldn’t let him know the word. It was beautiful and elegant, but rang of a time that had long since merged with the past.
“I am an Angel, a Soldier, and Soldiers follow orders.” She drew her shoulders back, an exact image of the motion she had made before she tried to kill him.
“Look out!”
Mooncry tried to leap to the side, but the ice spike clipped his shoulder. He landed squarely on his back, but it didn’t seem to the knock the breath from his lungs. He just rolled onto his stomach and winked at BloodRain as one of his hands slid along the gravel and to his face.
“Let’s see if you’re as smooth as me.” He shot his hand forward, loose pebbles skidding.
It was BloodRain’s turn to leap. She jumped back, narrowly avoiding the wave of gravel that rose into the air. Markus couldn’t see her beyond the wave, but he knew she wasn’t down, let alone gone.
“So it is true.” Her voice echoed, rebounding off of the sheer mountains that stoically stood opposite of the City’s swallowing depths. The ice spike shattered into thousands of tiny pieces, melting into the slush that layered the ground, but the red slush was changing. It was melting though snow still fell all around them. What was happening? “You are just like us.”
Suddenly, the water jolted up, slamming into the wall of gravel. It streamed through the cracks and trickled onto BloodRain’s side.
“We need to get out of here, now!” Mooncry jumped onto his feet, running past Markus and to the ice wall.
“Why? There’s a whole wall between us and her.”
“You’ve never actually even seen a Soldier before now have you?”
“So?”
“You’re in no place to talk Doctor.” Mooncry slammed his fist into the ice. It gave way and made a hole big enough to crawl through. “Damn, we are so screwed.” His alien eyes shifted from the hole and seemed to look beyond the gravel wall.
“But we have a way out! Are you blind?”
“That was too easy. She’s focused on something else and that’s not good.” He looked down at Markus and his eyes shifted back to the present. “Why are you still here? Go through the stupid hole!”
He nodded, lifting a boot from the concrete and setting it on the other side, closer to freedom than he thought he would ever get. But he paused.
“For the love of God! What are you doing?” Mooncry grabbed his shoulders, ready to push him to safety, but he stopped when he saw Markus pointing to the ground.
“Where did the snow on the ground go?”
Mooncry’s eyes widened as three shadows crept across their backs.
“Sorry.” Two giant, curving spires of ice loomed over their heads with BloodRain between them. “I have orders.”
Mooncry clenched his teeth. “Then you’ll fail in those orders!”
The spires sliced easily into Mooncry’s flesh, curving upwards so they made him dangle limply in the air. He could do nothing but grimace in pain as she walked forward. Blood slid down the ice, dripping onto Markus’ face.
BloodRain sidestepped Mooncry, smiling viciously as she grabbed Markus by the collar and lifted him into the air. “You were wrong.”
“No, I was right.”
She froze, the smile twitching on her pale lips, as true and utter shock seeped into her eyes.
“What…” Panic slipped in and mixed with the shock. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry.” Her fingers wound tighter in Markus’ collar as Mooncry spoke and more of his own blood dripped into the snow. “But I have to do this.”
A single tear slid down her face as her whole arm began to shake violently. “Stop it.”
“No.”
Markus slipped from her fingers, falling like a limp doll, onto the concrete. It wasn’t just her arm now. BloodRain’s whole body was trembling.
“Please…” She couldn’t breath anymore. All she could do was gasp frantically for air. “Stop.” She shook her head, frenziedly weaving her fingers into her hair, as if getting ready to pull it all out.
“I can’t.”
Her scream pierced the air; breaking the ice and making the shards rain down around them. She crumpled, falling limply onto the ground as Mooncry dropped from where the ice had held him. He lifted himself from the ground, coughing, blood splattering the ground.
“I…” Her fingers scratched madly at the gravel, cutting her skin so warm blood stained her palms and flowed down her wrists. “I will not… I will not let you do this to me!”
She shot upright, drawing a sword from its sheath. It quivered, the tip making small circles as her right hand shook. Tears streamed down her face and blurred her vision, but she still knelt there, staring at Mooncry, passionate anger and hatred in her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” She threw her hand forward but it stopped just below his throat. “I am truly sorry Cassanova.”
He pulled the gun from behind his back and shot her, point blank range. She opened her mouth, but nothing came. Her eyes closed and her body slumped into the new layer of snow that had started to blanket the earth.
Mooncry looked down at the gun, wrinkling his lips in disgust before tossing it next to her still form. “Let’s go.”
Markus mutely followed, his unspoken fear pounding in time with the blood in his head.
One thing that's off-putting is that your paragraph spacing formatting is off, so try and fix that in the beginning-- it's easiest just to check "story" at the format options under the Submit button. Also consider adding some more dialogue tags. Right now I'm mildly confused over who's saying what, and who the Angel is supposed to be, and who's addressing who. This is mainly because you don't often tell us. You could clarify simply by adding a "he mumbled" or "someone shouted". I really enjoyed your description and action until this:
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