?

4. A parting kiss

Delilah sat at the table and at a slice of toast with butter. The old bungalow near Toronto wasn't much, but it served as a hideout while the heat died down. She figured that getting further away from the Canadian sanctuary before leaving the country would be a good idea, so she considered her options while she scratched her faithful company and all-round good boy Otis' head, which was resting on her lap. She needed to get out of Toronto, that was for sure, and Ottawa was probably teaming with Sanctuary officials. She could go south, into the US, but she figured she'd probably have the same problem at the border. Eventually, she settled on flying out from Montréal. It was a long drive, maybe six hours? But she had nothing else to do, and she figured some time on the road might be a good thing. 

When she was all ready to go, she locked up the house, let Otis into the passengers seat of the car, and set off for Montréal.

*

Delilah made pretty good progress, trying to stop at as few service stations to avoid being seen by the wrong person. In the end, she had only stopped 4 times, not counting the 5 minute stops to allow Otis to pee. Now she was on the final stretch towards Montréal. She smiled at how easy the journey had been, and turned the CD player on. Neil Diamond. Classic. She turned the volume up and started singing, Otis looking midly concerned in the passenger seat the whole while.

When she had gotten to 'Forever in Blue Jeans,' she noticed the unmarked van behind her. Fuck, had they found her? Someone must have recognised her at the last stop. The perks of being a internationally wanted criminal, she figured. Well, she couldn't have them following her straight to the airport. As soon as she could, she got onto smaller roads until she she was on a little dirt track. Surely enough, the van followed her all the while. She got out of the truck, and locked Otis in, with the windows cracked ever so slightly. Dogs die in hot cars, after all.

The van slowed to stop maybe 30 metres from her, and some pompous sanctuary douchebag got out of the driver's side. 

"Miss Valour, you are under arrest for crimes against the Canadian Sanctuary, American Sanctuary, and, well, just too many things to list."

"Yeah, that's actually gonna work for me. I'm a busy gal."

"I'm well aware. Well, I don't get paid to talk, so if you'd like to put these on," he tossed some shackles to her ffet, "we can get going."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Well," he shrugged, "worth a shot." 

He banged on the side of the van and a dozen cleavers hopped out.

"How do you guys fit in there?" she asked. 

She barely got to finish get sentence before they were on top of her. Her nails extended into claws, her teeth sharpened, and her canines became long fangs, all in a fraction of a second.

She flipped out of the way of the cleavers, giving herself time to think. What was her battle plan? Don't die, kill the bad guys? Worked for her. 

She dodged left and right with impossible speed. The first cleaver went down when she ripped through his armoured cloak like it wasn't even there and made his entrails his out-trails. She the spun through the air like a horizontal corkscrew and kicked his scythe so that is lodged itself in another cleaver's side. One by one the cleaver's fell, some of their deaths more amusing than others. When just one was left, she decided to savour the moment and let him kill himself. She ducked and dodged and swerved and jumped until he got dizzy. The she easily overpowered him and let him fall on his own scythe. She heard him whine slightly before he died.

Then the fireball hit her from behind. The little sanctuary prick had actually hit her with a fireball. Elementals. So predictable. 

She weaved around the walls of air he sent for her, before leaping into the air and slamming her heel into his jaw. He went down like a bag of rocks. She stuck her claws into the back of his neck and accessed his memories. He'd alerted the sanctuary that she was headed towards Montréal. Well, shit. She crushed his spine in her hand and thought about her next move. She guessed she would just have to go south, and try to sneak into the US. This had suddenly gotten a lot more complicated than she had thought.

She started back towards her car, but she stopped when she realised one of cleavers was still alive. His arms were broken, and he had been slashed by her claws, but he was, surely enough, alive. She pulled off his visor and saw a plain man beneath, hyperventiliating. She gave him a kiss on his forehead and walked to her car.

There was a satisfactory crunch, followed by a squelch as she reversed a wheel over his head. South it was.