A Flash of Red | JAMES MARCH

xiv.

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     THE green hills and busy streets dissipated into beige deserts that were riddled with cacti and snakes making markings in the sands. Alsie watched the winds blow the dust into small tornadoes while also feeling the tension coming off of John like a heat lamp. She could practically smell the sweat rolling down his neck.

     "Anymore of that and I'll feel less safe with you in my presence." She mumbled.

     "What do you mean?" He questioned her. She shifted around to look at him and smiled lightly. She wasn't annoyed but found his nervousness quite hilarious.

     "Your fear is easy to see," She laughed. "If anyone should be scared, it's those warlocks. They don't know that people are coming for them." As the car rolled along the cracked asphalt of the Californian streets, she could only feel her adrenaline spike like a pedometer counting her every heart beat. She wasn't anxious. No, she was just excited. Excited that her claws would be digging into the flesh of warlocks like a cat with her toy mouse. She could feel the blood in their veins already dripping down her lips in ruby droplets, a blissful wine that not even the man upstairs would be able to deny.

     "Why are they after you?" He asked, leaning back in his seat as his fingers tapped restlessly on his knees.

     Alsie grimaced, looking away at the barren landscape that passed them by; tumbleweeds drifting over hot asphalt until they rolled into oblivion.

     "Tell me, John," She said. "When you go after people, what drives you?"

     John was silent a moment, a crease in his brow and a tight lock in his jaw.

     "As a cop, it's the justice. Getting rid of those bastards and making sure they never harm anyone else makes the sleepless nights and time away from my family worth it." The passion behind those words set Alsie to let out a slow chuckle.

     "But you've placed yourself into those criminals' shoes," She turned back to him and she could see the glistening sheen of sweat on the side of his neck. "You're a killer, John. You've raised the stakes for that motivation and now you have more of a purpose than when you put that badge in your pocket. By chance, you won't remember this conversation," She shrugged, knowing fully well the amnesia that circled John's head. "But you'll never tire from the encouragement the thrill of the chase drives inside you. That's what this is, John; thrill. What those warlocks want is the opportunity to say they killed something beyond them. I am a God in some cases; a physical representation of death itself. They are assholes that want to drink off that and claim they are the ruler of death itself when they make it combust into shadows."