Chapter 7
Your Demons, My Demons
RAVEN
God, I regret everything. This evening I stepped out of Lain, put on my stupid little mask, got ready for heisting and fighting, and for what? To suffer? To choke through mucus as my ex-girlfriend watches impassively?
There’s literally snot running down the inside of my mask. I can barely breathe, and my nose hasn’t experienced a proper breath in the last twenty-four hours.
‘I want to die,’ I groan.
‘And I want you to keep your problems to yourself,’ Maria grouses beside me.
I roll my eyes. We’re both on the roof of a building near the docks in our full uniform, all poised to steal a case of moonstones from its shipment. As I watch, Maria checks her break-in equipment, her fingers running deftly over crowbar, lockpick, daggers, grappling hook.
I tip my head back in hopes the snot will go running back where it came from, but all it does is make me dizzy. ‘Man, this flu is not leaving.’
Maria checks her phone, completely ignoring me. ‘Okay, the shipment just came in. We have visuals on the Sentinels, but we’ve got the Nagas wrecking the Sentosa Express monorail as a distraction, so two Sentinels are helping out there. Only Lune’s coming in our direction.’
‘Got it.’
Maria bounds off the roof of the building – it’s only three floors – and she lands safely on the pavement and melts easily into the shadows.
When I close my eyes and focus, I hear the distant whoosh of body through air.
Lune.
I pretend to start running as the engines grow louder and Lune appears, a white bullet from the clouds, streaking down like a star. She slows as she gets closer, and lands in front of me, the slim pads of her uniform glinting like a knight’s under the moonlight.
I have to jam my heels into the ground to avoid ploughing into her. ‘Come to join the party?’ It comes out a little muffled through my snotty mask, but I decide not to acknowledge it.
‘Here to steal the moonstones?’ Lune narrows her eyes. ‘Are you alone?’
‘Yep.’ I deploy my daggers into my hands, but Lune says something I can’t hear – probably communicating with the rest of the Sentinels for back-up.
Damn it. I switch my intercom on. ‘Mari, Sentinels are here. I’ll lead Lune away, but if either Niko or Kiran come, it’s on you.’
‘Got it.’
Lune’s still talking into her intercom, but her gaze is trained on me.
I use the distraction to grab Lune with my telekinesis and throw her off the rooftop.
She disappears over the ledge of the building, sailing through the air like a broken figurine, and I snicker and break into a sprint.
Unfortunately, Lune comes back quicker than I expected, the blasters carrying her bright and blinding. ‘Not so fast!’ she yells.
I roll my eyes. All you have to do is distract Lune from getting to the rest of the Foxes, come on.
Leaping off the ledge of the building, I slam Lune into the ground with my telekinesis and bolster my landing.
Grunting at the impact, Lune conjures up her sword.
I barely miss the swing of sparking, fizzling energy, and roll to the side, duck under Lune’s attack.
Lune scowls. Every attack comes quicker now, stronger. God, she’s getting so much better. Some part of me admires it, and the other, more primal part of me wants to rip her apart.
Lune nearly clips me at one point, and I back up, heart thudding.
I conjure up multiples of myself, blending in and cloaking myself under the illusion so Lune can’t see which one is the real me.
She approaches the crowd warily, her sword held out in front of her, her eyes shifting between every Raven copy as she advances.
While Lune’s distracted, I break away and sneak behind her. With the hilt of a moonstone dagger, I deliver a swift blow to her temple.
It sends Lune staggering backwards, and I smash the butt of the knife across her faceplate.
Calling my illusions back, I pin Lune to the floor with a forearm across her neck. I know exactly where the eject button for her helmet is because I’ve peeked at Tia’s blueprints too many times to count, and I jam the knife against it.
‘No!’ Lune yells as the helmet detaches from her head. She bucks against my grip, but I yank the helmet off, kicking it aside. ‘Oh my God, I hate you.’
I swing a leg over Lune’s hips and straddle her, locking her down. ‘Pretty sure it was implied, but – achoo!’
Lune grimaces. ‘Did you just sneeze in my face?’
‘Uh.’ I blink through the tears from the sneeze. ‘Biological warfare?’
I sneeze again.
This time, Lune takes advantage of it and bucks me off.
I roll to my side, resisting the growing urge to take off my mask. All the bad karma I’ve accumulated over the past years must’ve chosen to strike now. I can barely find the strength to stand without being bowled over.
Time to retreat.
I throw myself off the roof, but as I launch myself over its lip, something sears my side. The fall is too short for me to register the pain, and I roll on my landing, popping up and sprinting away from the docks to lead Lune away and give Maria time to steal the moonstones.
Fortunately, Lune blasts after me. Unfortunately, I press a hand to the burning on my side, and my glove comes away bloody.
Shit.
Lune’s gaining quickly. With adrenalin masking most of my pain, I pick out the few cars parked in an open-air car park to my right. Ferrari, Toyota, Subaru and a hulking Range Rover.
Despite it all, I grin.
I grab the Rover with my telekinesis – and then almost drop it when pain stabs my gut. Blood leaks wet over my skin, seeping through my uniform and clinging uncomfortably to my body.
Shit, shit, shit. It’s not the worst wound, but the world turns slippery. There’s no way I can call Maria for back-up – the moonstones are more important than me, and I can’t be a burden.
Barely dodging another blast from Lune, I pick the Toyota up too, twist, and slam it into Lune.
She bolts into the air to avoid it, but I’m used to her flight pattern. I have another hand ready with the Rover, and as Lune avoids the Toyota, I slam the Rover into her.
Lune crashes to the ground. There’s no way of ascertaining how much damage I’ve done, but it doesn’t matter as long as I can escape.
With Lune out of the way, adrenalin ebbs. The world begins tilting, but I run to the car park where Maria and I had left our motorcycles and hop on one.
As I kick it to start, I switch my intercom on. ‘Maria, status?’
A scuffling over the intercoms. ‘Niko just arrived. Can you get them?’
I twist around to find the glint of Niko’s wings, but the night sky is empty.
As a nymph descendant, they’ve been gifted with super strength, luck and reality manipulation, but I know they don’t use the last one much.
Rather, as the owner of a tech company, Niko’s formulated hollow metal wings to fly.
I personally find them terrifying, but it also makes them hilariously easy to spot at night.
Luck is not on our side today, though. ‘Can’t see them. ’
Maria swears. ‘They’re guarding the moonstones. I don’t think I can beat them without you. When will you be here?’
‘I—’ I tear out of the car park, glancing down the second I pass its gantry. Blood shines over my front, but I’ve been through worse. ‘I took a hit, but I can be there.’
‘How bad?’
‘It’s okay. I’m coming over.’
‘No. Look, I’m going to try to get a case of moonstones, but I’m going to be out of here soon. I don’t know what you did to Lune, but Niko looks pissed off. Give me ten minutes, I’ll grab the stones and head towards you. Where are you?’
I don’t want your help, I want to say. We’re not dating any more. There is no point in Maria thinking I need her – even as my grip on the motorcycle handle weakens.
I park the motorcycle by a side road and use my illusion to cover myself in shadow. The effort feels like digging my insides out. ‘Car park.’
‘I’m trying to escape. Niko’s on my tail, but I should be able to lose them.’
I settle against a wall, the grit from the ground digging into my palms. I just have to wait for Maria to come. I’ll be okay.
Under the stars, the world is dark and huge.
Everything reeks of blood – it’s a crisp night, a little humid, and copper stains the loamy air sharp.
With fewer buildings here on Singapore’s outskirts – where the jagged skyscrapers give way to shorter, simpler flats – the universe stretches high above and arcs into the docks, the ocean glimpsing between buildings and ships.
It makes me feel so tiny. There’s a creature in my chest that aches.
Alone. I heave myself up, ignoring the blood that leaks over my fingers. Maria should be at least several minutes out.
There’s still time to leave. I restart the motorcycle, and because it’s three a.m. I get to run every single red light.
I take the back alleyways as the yawning shadows swallow me whole, dig into the city’s twisted bowels until I reach its heart and park the motorcycle in a car park beside Lain.
Scaling the pipe running up the outside of the Lain Co.
building like a thief, I plant my foot against the bracket between the wall and pipe.
I leap up to the next, all the way until the penthouse, where I’d purposely left my room window open.
Catching the ledge with my fingers, I hinge my hips over the sill, ignoring the sparking pain on my side, then I tip into my room and the darkness claims me – tempered by a sacrifice of energy and blood.
A deep ache in my bones pulses me out of sleep.
My hands stretch across the bed instinctively, grasping the cold bedspread and memories of a past I thought I’d buried with a break-up.
Empty.
Singapore’s night skyline casts a gentle glow into my room, glancing over a roll of gauze, blood-wrinkled at its end.
In the metal rim of the ceiling light above, I catch a ghost of my reflection, the blood staining my side dark, my face pale and maskless. A Raven body and a Harper face. Two identities blurred.