In Too Deep

Chapter 7

After spending the past few days tailing him, it was time. Smithy had sent me on a job, but I had to make sure I had identified the correct person. The man I followed had an athlete’s build, with muscles straining under his jacket, as if his clothes were too small for him.

I clung to the shadows as I tailed him, avoiding the streetlights that could expose me. I needed to get somewhere completely secluded before taking him down. Steven Kline was responsible for multiple murders over the past few months, it was time he was stopped.

I could sense his power from where I was, he could duplicate himself as many times as he needed, causing havoc for Smithy’s officers, no amount of men he sent could out number how many copies Steven could make of himself. Thankfully the human police hadn’t connected the murders yet, so we were safe from exposure for now. As long as he was taken care of.

Steven had been killing humans for sport, or I hate to say it, probably for the fun of it. A shiver ran down my spine at the mere thought of that, killing should never be enjoyed.

Smithy’s men had tried to take him down already, so Steven knows that they’re on to him. Steven had killed every officer Smithy had sent after him. Which led to him phoning me for help. I do, after all, have a unique set of skills. Not that Smithy actually knows what they are, but he understands enough that he knew he could send me after Steven.

As I watched him from the shadows he headed in the direction of the nearby woods. I wasn’t going to fool myself in to thinking this was a coincidence. I hadn’t been careful enough, somehow he knew I was following him. Either way this still works in my favour, I needed for this to happen out of sight.

Steven walked a couple of miles in to the woods, where it opened up in to a clearing. He turned to face me and I revealed myself from the shadows.

“It was a mistake to follow me little girl.” He snarled. How patronising, great start. I said nothing as I anticipated his next move, I highly doubt he was going to spend much time having a conversation, and to be honest I didn’t particularly want to either.

He started coming towards me, not using his power just yet, he didn’t seem to think he would need it. I’m more than a little offended.

Steven barrelled towards me, clearly thinking his strength and speed would be enough. His fist shot out towards me, which I caught in my hand, using my grip to pull him forward, causing him to lose his balance. I swept my leg against his, knocking him to the ground. Steven let out a grunt as he hit the floor. I pinned him to the ground, my hands around his throat.

I barely felt the magic building in the air around us before I felt strong arms grab me from behind and pull me off of Steven, my second attacker threw me to the ground away from Steven, pain shooting through my head as it connected with the ground, I could feel blood trickling down the side of my face.

I turned, unsurprised when I saw my second attacker looked identical to Steven. What did surprise me was that they moved as completely individual people, his copies weren’t restricted to his movements, which made sense, but this information didn’t exactly help me in this situation.

They both came towards me and I prepared myself for another attack, I had an advantage that they didn’t know about, my power was even more unique than his. They came at me, one throwing a punch to my stomach, which I blocked, and I ducked under the other one’s fist that was heading towards my face.

I kicked one of them in the knee, hearing the bone break as he fell to the ground. The other Steven didn’t respond to his pain. This was a test to find out this information, I had lost track of which Steven was the real one and which was the copy, but one getting injured didn’t affect the other.

Another copy of Steven appeared and the two came at me, the one with the broken leg remaining on the ground. I ducked under jabs and side stepped away from kicks. But any time I injured one another would show up to help. I needed to get ahead of this situation, otherwise they were just going to keep going until I ran out of energy.

It was time to use my powers. I considered using Steven’s power against him, to give him a taste of his own medicine, but without being able to practice how it works, it was too risky.

They came at me again and I set one of them on fire with my mind, the others stepped back in surprise as the man screamed in pain. The next moment I was surrounded by 10 more of them, and I noticed one held back away from the rest. That was clearly the real Steven. If I killed him, the others would die too.

Whilst I was fighting, another of the Steven copies lunged towards me with a blade and sliced in to my side. I winced in pain and set him on fire too. I wonder if they’re all armed. At first I didn’t want to expose too many of my powers to them, but as they’re all going to die anyway I guess it didn’t really matter.

I lengthened my nails in to claws and sliced through the neck of the closest Steven look alike, severing his carotid artery, he fell to the ground, bleeding out.

I concentrated on the air around the man closest to me, I drew the air away from him, starving him of oxygen. As I intended he started struggling to breath, gasping for breath that he couldn’t get. He fell to the ground, unconscious from the lack of oxygen.

This was taking far too long for my liking. I needed to end this. Every time I killed one of Steven’s copies, more would take their place. I sent bolts of lightning to strike four of them down at the same time, and setting fire to a further five on my right.

“How are you doing this?” The real Steven asked me.

I felt the flow of a nearby river and summoned the water towards us, drowning more of the copies that stood between me and Steven. I lunged towards Steven, grasping my sword from its sheath on my back, slicing through his arm, severing it from his body. He screamed in pain and fell to the ground, gasping where his arm used to be. I killed off the remaining copies and with the real Steven being injured, no more appeared.

“I assume you know why this is happening.” I said to him in a cold voice, I hadn’t answered his earlier question.

He laughed, he actually laughed. Disgust churned my stomach.

“Did you actually think you’d get away with it?” I asked him.

“No one can beat me.” Steven snarled at me. I looked down at him, his blood pouring from where his arm used to be, it won’t be long until he bleeds to death. I raised my eyebrow, questioning his statement.

“I have.” Was all I said to him.

“It’s not possible, you’re not possible. No one can have all those powers.” He yelled at me. “You’re an abomination.” He accused me. That’s not the first time I’ve been called that.

“And yet, you’re the murderer out of the two of us.” I stated.

“You’re killing me.” He growled, ok he did have a slight point there.

“An eye for an eye.” I said.

“Then wait until your time comes.” He glared at me.

I lifted my sword and plunged it deep in to his chest, ending his life. He needed to pay for his crimes, but there was no need to drag it out and watch him die. As his heart stopped, the bodies of his copies disappeared, no longer having his magic to keep them here.

I set his body on fire, destroying any evidence of what had happened tonight. As I made my way back through the woods, I pulled out my phone to call Smithy.

“Freya, are you ok?” Smithy asked, he answered on the second ring.

“I’m fine, it’s done. Steven Kline is no longer a problem.” I told him.

“Any clean up needed?” Smithy asked.

“Already taken care of.” I answered.

“I know it’s weird to thank you for something like this, but I appreciate your help. We couldn’t arrest him, he’s killed every officer we’ve sent after him.” Smithy told me.

“I understand. That’s what I’m here for.” I said.

“Are you injured?” Smithy asked me, I could hear his genuine concern for me in his voice.

“Nothing serious, I’m going to head back and clean myself up. I’ll speak to you soon.” I told him and hung up the phone.

I headed back to my room and tried to sneak in quietly, intending on grabbing my toiletries so I could head to the shower and clean myself up. When I walked through the door Violet was still up doing homework. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw me.

“Freya what happened? Are you ok?” She was worried and rushed over to me, inspecting my wounds.

“I’m fine, it won’t take long to heal.” I tried to reassure her.

She sat me down on my bed, grabbed her water bottle and poured some on to a wash cloth, using it to clean the blood from my face.

“Violet seriously I’m fine.” I told her.

“What happened?” She demanded as she started to inspect the wound on my side, cleaning the dirt out of the wound.

“I was on a job for Smithy.” I explained. She paused for a moment before answering.

“What happened to the person you were after?” She asked.

“I think you know what happened.” I said and she nodded, her eyes down.

“He was a murderer Violet.” I felt the need to explain to her.

“I know, it’s just an unusual situation to have my roommate come home covered in blood.” Violet said.

After she was satisfied that she had cleaned my wounds enough that they weren’t going to get infected she sat on my bed beside me.

“How long will it take you to heal?” She asked.

“A cut like this this wouldn’t usually take more than a couple of hours, but I’ve used up a lot of energy tonight so it will take longer. It’ll be healed by morning.” I told her and she gasped.

“Only a couple of hours? But it’s deep.” She still looked concerned.

“I have advanced healing, remember?” I asked and Violet nodded.

“Using a lot of different powers really takes it out of you?” She asked, assuming correctly exactly what method I had used to win. I nodded.

“The more I use the bigger toll it takes on me.” I explained.

“How does it work? Using other people’s powers I mean.” Violet asked me.

“It takes time to learn how to use each individual power, making sure I’m in control of it.” I said.

“That sounds exhausting, especially with how many powers you must’ve come in to contact with, coming here must not have helped.” Violet said.

“Yeah, it does get pretty exhausting. I’ve been trying to block it out.” I said, rubbing my hand over my face, feeling sleep wanting to take over me.