Finding Darkness

Chapter 5 Unexpected

The next morning, Tamar awoke to the noise of combat. It wasn't very close, but the sound was, to her, unmistakable. She rolled out of bed on instinct and looked towards the open window from which the majority of the sound came. Creeping forward on all fours, she stuck her head over the edge until her left eye was stuck far enough over to see down.

What she saw stole her breath. Twenty stories below, Malachi was grappling with three Saltek. He had stuck his wings into the building and was holding himself suspended in open space. The three huge alien warriors were clinging to him while trying to pull their huge curved blades from their back scabbards with one hand. With the advantage of both hands, Malachi pulled one off his waist and let gravity pull it to his doom. The other on his right leg was dislodged with a hammering kick that sent it pinwheeling downward where it smashed head over heels into the side of the building, leaving an orange smear to mark its passing. Tamar gasped as she watched Malachi smash his fist into the third's midsection. The next second, she watched it disintegrate into millions of pieces. Blinking, she couldn't quite believe what she had just seen. Millions of tiny spikes suffused the space around Malachi, making his silhouette seemed blurred from her distance.

Was this the same man who had been acting so strangely for the past two days? Same guy who couldn't put two words together correctly? The man she watched now was savage, confident, ruthless, calculating. Her mind raced. It had to be the same guy; he was in the same suit, and she had seen him step out into thin air with no apparent ill effect. But why did he act so soft and cuddly one second, yet as harmless as an atom bomb the next?

Her internal conversation was cut short when she felt as well as heard a heavy thud behind her. Turning over onto her back, she saw a Saltek marching towards her. It seemed to be fitted with some sort of climbing gear; it had just begun to detach its harness when a black figure landed behind it. Tamar was struck speechless. This was Malachi? The man who had gotten her a blanket and pillow so she would be warm and comfortable. This couldn't be. The man she saw now was savagery given form. His face was a mask of fury as he grabbed the cable the Saltek had used in scaling the building before the creature could detach from its harness. Pulling the line taunt, Malachi dragged the creature off its feet then began to spin. The spin accelerated it into a blur, the alien at the end of the line pinwheeling faster and faster until it smashed into and through one of the wall, caving it in and finally Malachi let it go. It went sailing into space, its weakening scream fading to nothing.

"The lady doesn't like to be touched." Malachi growled out from behind the broken wall. Then, without hesitation, he leaped back out into the open air.

Tamar had no idea what to think. She dove to the window ledge and looked down again. Malachi had his wings out and was spiraling downward. Coming to a stop near the ground, he dove into the building in a shower of glass. Seconds later, a heavy boom sounded from inside the structure beneath Tamar. She waited and sure enough, first one, then two, and then three four and five Saltek bodies flew out and fell to the ground. Some in different phases of dismemberment.

Feeling a soft impact behind her, she flipped over onto her back, knowing what she'd see. Malachi stood there dripping with orange gore, dirt, and an accumulated layer of dust. Before she could say a word, he rushed towards her.

Scrambling away from him, she came to the edge of the window and stopped.

"We need to go, now." His voice was low and lacked any of the emotion he'd shown before.

"Why would I want to go anywhere with you? What are you?" She backed as far away from him as she could without falling out the window.

"Right now, I'm the only way you're going to survive what's coming. We have three dozen of those things converging on this building as we speak. Either I get you out of here, or they kill you. We have no other options." Glaring up at him, she rose to her feet.