Tim Marquitz - Echoes of the Past

Still a number of blocks from freedom, I slipped into another alley, but this time I stopped right at the entrance. The DSI already thought of me as a bad guy, so it wouldn’t hurt my reputation to play up the role. Intent on chasing me down, and likely figuring I’d just keep running, the agent turned the corner full out, barely slowing to keep from falling. His eyes bulged in the opening of his mask as I grabbed ahold of him. I ripped his rifle away, tossing it aside, and pushed him into the wall across the way. He huffed, the impact knocking the breath out of him. I used my knee to pin his hand closest to the pistol at his hip.

“I don’t give a damn what the DSI’s agenda is, buddy, but I suggest you all reconsider your attempts at intimidation. I’ve stood toe-to-toe with some of the biggest and baddest this universe has to offer, so if you think a bunch of pajama ninjas are gonna make me wet my pants, you’ve got another thing coming.

And he did…it just didn’t come from me.

As the agent caught his breath and started to bluster, a tiny blue ball of fire crashed into the top of his head. He was immediately engulfed. His uniform and flesh went up in an eruption of heat while he shrieked. The flames licked at my hands and face. I stumbled back on instinct, letting the agent go as I scrambled to think of how to put the fire out. I willed my magic to the surface, picturing a waterfall as my power glistened at my fingertips.

“Holy shit!”

I spun at the shouted curse and saw two more DSI agents turn the corner. They stopped cold when they saw their fellow agent cooked alive, my hands glowing with energy. I turned back to unleash my magic, but right then the flames roared, his body charring before my eyes. There was a whispered sigh as his flesh gave way and he fell apart, a crumbling statue of ash. The air was suddenly ripe with the overwhelming stench of burnt meat and hair. I choked on a mouthful of it and coughed, stumbling away from the toasted corpse as I gasped for breath.

The two guys who’d watched their friend go up in a cloud of black soot didn’t bother to call out a warning. They opened fire. The chatter of automatic gunfire filled the alley and sent me scrambling. Not fast enough, I caught a bullet in my triceps and one in the meat of my shoulder. Two points of searing pain exploded and then collided into one as they overwhelmed my senses. The impact of the gunshots nearly knocked me off my feet as I ran for the end of the alley. Bullets crashed into the wall beside me, flinging shards of concrete and brick everywhere. Several flickers of pain stung me across my side and back, but I couldn’t tell whether I’d been shot again or just pelted by debris. It all felt the same after the first wound.

Around the corner a split-second later, I hit the gas and hauled ass. I needed a way out, the DRAC portal no longer an option. Given the obvious assumption that would be made, that I killed the agent, I didn’t dare risk bringing this mess to DRAC’s doorstep. I was also too far from Baalth to go back. By now, every single DSI operative in the area knew they’d lost an agent, and every single one of them would be gunning for me first, asking my corpse stupid questions later.

More fucked than I’ve been in a very long time, I ran for all I was worth. The two agents who’d seen me in the alley would have wasted precious seconds checking on their friend and phoning the cavalry. That was the only advantage I could hope for. It wouldn’t be long before they had air support and flooded the streets of Old Town with cops and suits looking to put a couple extra holes in my ass. I needed to get out of Dodge, and fast.

I turned down a side street and spied a battered Lincoln Town Car parked outside a dilapidated bail bonds office. I thought a car would suit me better than my feet, so I ran alongside it and peered through the window. No keys. Shit. I glanced around real quick, looking into the bail bonds office but didn’t see anybody. Too rushed to try to rationalize a better escape plan, I put my fist through the glass and popped the door open.

In the driver’s seat with glass shards grinding into my ass cheeks, only half noticing the damn door had been unlocked, I summoned a tiny flicker of energy at my palm and pressed it against the ignition switch. I did my best to block out the world and focus, willing my energy to fill the keyhole without blowing it out the other side of the steering column. There weren’t any shouts in the street, or obvious calls for the police, so I settled a little and pictured the energy expanding, gently conforming to the shape of the switch triggers. When I felt I was there, I willed the power solid and cranked the ignition over. The car started right up.

Unable to hold back a laugh, the rebel in me already contemplating a new life as a car thief, I released my magic and tore off down the road. Well, sputtered off would be closer to the truth. The beater coughed and wheezed harder than Redd Foxx faking a heart attack. A thick spew of black exhaust huffed from the tailpipe as I drove down the street. I was conspicuous as hell in the old jalopy, but I was still moving along faster than I had on foot. I’d also be harder to recognize shielded by the car and smoke screen I was laying out. The “Peter Gunn” droned on in my head.

Things were looking up. From where I was at the bottom, it was the only way I could look.

I made it a little ways into downtown before the clunker went on to visit Azrael. It trembled and shook and farted out a couple of mean backfires, like a good burrito morning, before the lights on the dash flickered. Then it died. I managed to get it to the curb. I was back to walking, but I needed something to alter my appearance or it was gonna be a short trip.

A quick search of the backseat turned up a couple pair of work shirts and a ratty hoodie that looked like it was meant to be worn by an elephant. I slipped the jacket on to cover the blood from my injuries, which were already healing, and cringed at the smell. It was like a mix of skunk and baby poo, sharpened with the vinegar love of a cat, which clearly thought the hoodie needed that something extra to top it off.

My nose being assailed, I hopped out casually like I’d meant to park there, wherever I was, and wandered off. There was a moment after I’d walked about a block when I thought I should go back and wipe away evidence, but there really wasn’t any point. I was already looking at being charged with killing a federal agent, so what was a tiny case of hoodie and vehicle theft gonna matter? They could only kill me once.

My eyes swiveled in their sockets, as inconspicuous as I could make that appear, and scanned the streets and the sky for any DSI agents that might swoop down on top of me. I didn’t see much of anything, having likely slipped the fed’s cordon before it could be set up. The roads were busier than they had been in Old Town, less of the supernatural hijinks wafting over the line into the heart of the city. That made it a little easier to blend in, despite my inherited super-funk.

Vendors stood outside their shops and shouted at passersby, a duel of competing voices trying to draw customers to their stores and away from their neighbor’s. No one paid attention to me once they got a whiff of the jacket. A funk like this didn’t often come with money, so they let me be. In fact, folks cleared the way so I could pass. How considerate. I should piss on my clothes more often.

Once I was past the market district, the constant screech of sales pitches settled and drifted into the background. Though the area I was walking through wasn’t exactly on the highbrow scale, it was a far cry from the low-rent shanties I’d just passed. The shops here carried themselves with a little more class, and a lot more pretension. They weren’t rundown; they were aged. The walls had been covered in bright-colored mosaics to keep the gang-bangers from tagging them up. The art looked like a baby puked up a box of crayons, but what do I know? I’m no art critic, I’m just critical.