She focused on the wind.
How it felt warm against her skin. The way it pounded rhythmically in her ears. Steady, intentional, warning.
She looked from one side of the street to the other, counting the people on each side, watching the steps they took, the way they appeared to fly by in a blur as the bodyguard drove faster. Demonic laughter came in those moments, amidst the sound of the music and the bike’s engine, a quick eerie chuckle that told her they were coming.
Demonics with long gangly legs stepped out of the line at the last club the bodyguard passed. They were dressed in jeans, T-shirts and tennis shoes, like everyone else waiting to get into the various buildings. But they were not the same. Their golden skin and orange eyes set them apart. The loud screech they made in the seconds it took them to break into a run and propel themselves through the air until they landed in front of the bodyguard’s bike, an alarming confirmation.
The bodyguard brought the bike to a quick stop that should have jolted them out of the seat, but neither moved. Six demonics stood in front of the bike, forming a line that would prohibit the bike’s passage. The bodyguard moved his neck to one side until it cracked and repeated the action in the other direction. She drummed her fingers on her thighs. Shifting her eyes from one demonic to the next, and then the next, thoughts of how to protect them rolled quickly through her mind.
She had been warned of the demonic presence in the world, but had not seen any up close back home. The Western World was very different from her secluded village. She was getting an early glimpse of just how much.
“Listen to me closely,” the bodyguard said. “I’m going to get off this bike, and when I do, I want you to run into that building to my right.”
She saw the building less than ten feet away, but she had no plans to run.
“Do you understand?” His tone was condescending and instantly annoyed her. But now was neither the time nor place for her to address that.
She did not get a chance to offer a pleasant retort either, because the demonic in the center of the line lifted his hands to show blue rays of light shooting from each finger.
When the other demonics lifted their hands to send streaks of blue light filtering through the air, the bodyguard cursed. Power pulsed through Shola’s veins as training scenarios played in her mind. This was not her job, not what she had been sent here for, but something needed to be done, or she would never make it to fulfill her destiny.
With moves that were faster than the light cutting through the air, the bodyguard kicked one demonic until it dropped to the ground. He never looked behind, but reached an arm back to punch the next demonic coming for him. Then he pulled a dagger from the back of his pants and stabbed the first demonic in the center of its chest. It disappeared in a puff of blue smoke. The next one bold enough to approach him from behind caught the dagger in the throat, his body also going poof.
Although he fought like a highly trained warrior dressed in all black, his body whisking through the night in powerful motions, she didn’t believe he could stop the demonics. Not by simply using hand-to-hand combat. She had to do something. Her mind centered on the earth and all that surrounded it before she slowly lifted her arms to call for the wind. It tickled along the line of her fingers, easing up toward the tip where it stung with urgency to be released. Wiggling her fingers sent the air around them into a frenzy, paper from gutters rose to twirl on the breeze, windows on all the buildings rattled and a soft whistle shot through the night.
The blustery air threw the remaining demonics off balance while the bodyguard continued to pounce and strike them down as they tried to attack on wobbly legs. With each swing of his dagger, blue smoke swirled into the whistling wind. And when they were all gone, she dropped her arms to her side just as the bodyguard turned to face her.
“I told you to get inside the building! Did you not understand that?”
Again with that irritating tone. Either he thought she was an idiot or that she could not decipher English—which was silly because she’d spoken to him before she climbed onto his bike. It didn’t matter and she wasn’t going to reply to his rudeness.
He didn’t seem to care because he stalked past her to his bike. Kicking the stand that held the bike up, he straddled the seat and started the engine.
“Get on and hold on tight. We’re getting out of here before more of them show up,” he commanded.
She acquiesced because he was right, they needed to leave this place. Shola climbed onto the back of the bike again, pushing her dress between her thighs once more. Only this time when she did that, on impulse, she moved her hands back farther until the bunched-up material pressed into her core. She held it there for what seemed like endless moments praying the throbbing that increased in that area each time the bodyguard looked at her would stop.
It didn’t.
He pulled off. The bike moved much faster than it had before, like it was flying on the wind. The air burned against her cheeks now, and when he took the first turn this time, she almost slipped right off the seat. Her arms went around his waist, the front of her body slamming against the back of his.
“Glad you understood that time,” he said when he looked over his shoulder at her again.
Shola
