‘Oh my god,’ Kira said. ‘You are fucking kidding me. What are you doing here?’
The tan queen wriggled in Azrael’s grasp, her feet a few centimetres from the ground. The very same one Az had knocked senseless in the alleyway at the pub. She looked neither drunk nor leery now, though, in her royal-blue velour tracksuit. She held what looked a hell of a lot like a bubble wand in her right hand. Weird-ass time for blowing bubbles.
‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to get down now,’ the woman said.
‘Please, miss.’ The boy gave up trying to get Kira to move. ‘Could you please tell your friend we aren’t here to hurt you?’
He was super young, couldn’t have been more than fourteen, Asian, great cheekbones, and eyes so dark brown they seemed black. His pale skin was dotted with angry acne. The hairstyle was bad enough, but the clothes were just sad. High-waisted jeans with a faded T-shirt emblazoned with some K-pop band tucked into them.
‘Kira, are you well?’ Azrael said, not seeming to notice the woman’s heels slamming into his shins.
‘I’m okay, Az.’ She levered herself to her feet. Being upright made her head spin. ‘You can put her down. Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on?’
‘They are what’s going on.’ The woman pointed over Kira’s shoulder.
The blonde lay directly behind the couch, while Braidy lay closer to the windows. Neither of them was moving, and both were covered in what sure as hell looked like bubbles. Not bubble-bath froth but large translucent orbs, the type kids blew with a slippery solution out of a colourful bottle, the type where the bubble wand was the size of a butterfly catcher, minus the net. The type just like the one the white-haired mess was holding.
‘Shit, are they dead?’ Murder wasn’t great for low profiles. Kira sat down on the edge of the couch; standing made her want to puke.
The boy and the woman, Leona apparently, answered at the same time, both looking mortified it had been suggested.
‘Of course not,’ Tan Queen Leona sniffed.
‘No, no, no,’ K-pop boy squeaked.
‘What the fuck was their problem?’ Kira pressed her fingertips to her temple, as if that could stop the world rocking.
‘They have suffered a strong possession, quite unlike one I’ve seen before.’ The woman gave Azrael a sideways look, her expression too hard to read. ‘We have subdued them and now will exorcise the spirit within.’
Exorcisms? This little soiree was fast turning into some Alice in Wonderland moment.
‘And you’re doing that how?’ Kira indicated the bubble wand. ‘With killer bubbles?’
Chances were she was still unconscious. Or dead. Maybe death was down the rabbit hole after all.
The woman patted at some of the wayward strands of her hair, adjusting one of the multiple glittery clips. ‘I’m really not appreciating your tone –’
‘No?’ Kira said. ‘Well I didn’t appreciate being strangled, either. We all have burdens to bear.’
Azrael walked over to the woman lying nearest to the windows.
‘You’re very rude.’ Leona might as well have tsk-tsked. ‘You should be giving thanks that the Maiden’s grace saved you.’
‘Maiden’s grace? Did your fucking Maiden just grace all over me?’ Kira wiped at her damp cheeks. ‘It’s from those bubbles, right? Do I need to get a shot or something?’
‘If you had considered your decision to walk around with a bright one at your side,’ Leona jabbed a finger towards Azrael, ‘then this conversation would not be necessary.’
Bright one. Clearly she didn’t know Azrael all that well.
‘Leona,’ the boy cried. ‘She’s moving. She’s getting up.’
The ‘she’ he was referring to was Supermodel Susie. And she wasn’t just getting up, she was up and running. Barefoot with a clunky, awkward lope, like one of the walking dead smelling dinner, but it had speed behind it. Her trajectory was odd, though. She wasn’t bolting for the door or even one of the other rooms. She was headed across the apartment towards the windows.
‘I’ve got this,’ the boy said. ‘I’ve got this.’
The boy didn’t look as if he had anything. He rifled around in his pockets. Then he pulled his hand free and flung something from his grasp. Tiny pellets of metal. The dude must have had some muscle behind the swing, because the pellets moved like a swarm of angry wasps across the distance between where he stood and the bolting woman.
She was only about two metres from the window.
‘Jesus,’ Kira whispered.
Surely windows at this height were shatterproof? She’d bounce off them like a tennis ball. Bit of a concussion, a fractured cheekbone or two.
‘Vail, careful. They are too fast!’ Leona whipped the wand into the air, producing a stream of shimmering bubbles. She hurled them towards the woman. A bunch of translucent drones on high speed, but the pellets the boy had thrown were already there. Several of them hit the fleeing woman, and she arched her back, looking as though she might fall. She didn’t. She jerked herself back into position. Ahead of her the remaining pellets struck the window, and a giant spiderweb of cracks bloomed across it. The boy’s scream rose high.
The woman didn’t bounce like a tennis ball. She hit the glass and, weakened by the damage already done, the window shattered. Supermodel Susie flew out into the perfect sunny day without a sound. The kid screeched and hollered, either distraught or sickeningly excited about sending someone out a window. Leona shouted at Kira. Telling her it was time to go. They needed to leave. That a possession that strong probably would have killed the woman anyway.
Probably. A twenty-five storey fall wasn’t a probably.
Azrael knelt beside the remaining woman. He cradled her upper body against his chest, gaze shifting between Kira and the gaping, jagged hole in the window.
The only coherent thought that came to Kira’s mind centred on how warm the breeze was. The rest was
