Anachronistic: Endless Masquerade

34 | Because She's There

- 34 - 

"Fuck."

        "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck."

        The worst thing you can do on a hunt is to panic, but that wouldn't stop Pandora.

        There was no doubt. It was Lilith's book. Not another copy of the story; the same exact one. There was report of a youkai attack and now she had found Lilith's book.

        Pandora felt light headed.

        A piece of rotten meat. Drops of fresh blood. A black feather. The more Pandora looked around the worse it got. All she could hear was that damn gorilla saying, "You should keep better track of your little girlfriend." It played over and over in her mind.

        If Lilith ended up dead, she would kill him herself, just to deny him the satisfaction of being right.

        "This isn't the time to freeze up," She told herself. It didn't matter how hopeless it felt; how likely it was that Lilith was already dead. If there was even a small chance she needed to act. Her first step should be to find out what happened. She sprinted along the deck, book held tight against her chest. Time dragged as she searched for a security officer, anxiety stretching the moment into an unending hell. The irony was, once she finally found one she had outgrown her need for him. He stood at the edge of a crowd staring up to the sky, each member of the crowd mirroring him. Dozens of sets of eyes, pointed to the small human form atop the ship's mast.

        Lily!

        The figure hung at least one hundred feet up, making most details impossible to make out, but that didn't matter. Despite the distance, she was sure it was Lilith. The dread constricting her chest made that clear. What wasn't clear was what to do next. Whatever she choose, she would need to decide fast. But her thoughts vanished as if covered by a black mist. An obscuring fog of fear.

        Each of Pandora's muscles tightened until she was trembling. Then a single point of light shone through the mist. Lilith's novel. Pandora clenched the binding until her fingertips left indents in the cover. She unfastened the top two buttons of her blouse and slid the book inside. She would channel all her focus onto the book. That was all she could do to chase the uncertainty away.

        Lilith will want this back once she's safe. I have to take care of it until then. She will be safe. She will be safe.

        She repeated it over and over like casting a curse without the blood cost. It became her mantra as she pushed herself into the crowd. Progress was hard fought. Most of the crowd were too busy gawking to notice her until she shoved them aside. It was like wading through waste high water, but at that moment Pandora would swim the oceans for Lilith.

        Stumbling, she broke free of the mass. She needed to catch herself on the mast to keep from falling. The metal was cold, but the relief she felt brought a flush of heat across her skin. I made it, she thought, before looking up and realizing she was half way at best. Then Lilith's leg slipped. Pandora's pulse vanished and didn't return until Lilith had regained her grip on the mast. How much longer would she have?

        It wasn't worth considering; that would only waste more time. For now, she needed to focus on finding a way to the top. There was a ladder at the back leading to the crows nest, a sort of bucket shaped lookout, but that only sat a quarter of the way up the pole's length. The rest would need to be free climbed. A challenge only made worse by the mast's metal construction. The texture of a wooden pole wouldn't have given her much grip, but anything would have been better than machined steel.