Realm of Wings

Jade, Shigatse District, police station:

The Chinese language isn’t something that I use to speak, daily, so it took me some moments to get into the fast, fluent speaking locals, to get me to understand them better. Besides, this side language from the regular Chinese that I have been taught in Beijing, is rather different and somewhat harder to understand, even though the words are quite similar.

My phone call from yesterday didn’t require me to be fluent yet, as they hadn’t seen me in person. So I could just pretend to be someone important, from a different country. But today I needed them to believe I was at least born Chinese, to make myself trustworthy and get myself inside the same room as the chief of police. I needed to persuade him to talk about any soldiers that were here, and I only could do that when I could look him in the eyes.

I don’t really know how it works, but once I look people in the eyes and lower my voice, I can make them do pretty much whatever I want. This has come in handy on plenty of occasions, but I had to be able to focus and not be distracted by whatever people were around me. Besides, if I would use any force, physically, it wouldn’t work.

I only recently figured out I could do this trick, so it was still difficult to use for me. Besides, I wouldn’t know what the long term side effects were of it, as people who I had commanded to do anything, had been confused for a few minutes. So, I hadn’t dared to use it on Sister Margaret either, to get her to tell me about my history, as she was still someone dear to me.

So, I walked up the stairs inside the white-walled building, that has a red roof on top. Armed forces were standing in and around every corner and I had to get to the end of the hall, to enter the chief’s office.

Two guards were standing on either side of the door, keeping unwanted people out, but I came prepared. I hated how I looked, but I thought it to be necessary to be able to fulfil the purpose of my mission. My blond hair, tucked in a bun, bulging underneath my dark blue cap, adorned with the city’s symbol; my chest wrapped in a light blue blouse, dark blue tie and dark blue epaulettes; and my ass was flaunting off a tight dark blue skirt, to make the men look twice to my booty instead of being distracted by my blond hair.

“Please, let me in.” I asked the men in perfect Chinese, at which they both frowned. Okay, maybe it wasn’t perfect, but they understood me perfectly. They looked towards each other, one of them even grinned while dropping his eyes to my ass once.

I didn’t react to his pompous action, as I didn’t want to cause any scene here, even though I was happy that my stolen, formal police outfit, and thus distraction, had already worked. Once I would enter the chief’s office I would need my focus and not being distracted by fighting off these goons, for me to be able to get their chief to reply to my demands. Besides, these people weren’t supernatural or criminal, so I wouldn’t want them to get hurt or killed.

The gazing man had met my eyes and I asked him to look at my shoulders, instead of my ass. His eyes squinted for a moment for the fact that I so easily talked to him about being inappropriate, as that wasn’t really something Chinese women would do without being disciplined by a man. Even though times have changed for that fact to be taboo, a lot of women still were heavily under the influence of them. But as soon as he realized he was dealing with someone high ranked, as that was what my epaulettes were indicating, he dropped his attitude and let me in.

It was ten in the morning, and thus the chief was busy with all sorts of things. The day was in full swing, so assistants were working for him and answering his calls and doing other things. One of them looked up to me, not knowing what I was doing here, probably not expecting visitors as I wasn’t in the chief’s schedule. But fortunately, he noticed my rank immediately, without me having to come up with a fake explanation, and so I kept on walking, head held high while continuing my way towards the chief’s desk.

But once I reached it, I noticed a strange-looking guard standing in the corner. And when I say strange, I was referring to his built and facial features as he wasn’t Chinese at all. Just like me, he didn’t have any of the typical Chinese facial features and hair. I knew that I was odd in this setting, but I didn’t think there would be another.

Or two…

Had I missed that dark-skinned female in the other corner? Where did she come from?

The dominant man at the other side of the desk cleared his throat, as he looked towards me, waiting for an answer to a question I hadn’t heard.

“My apologies sir, I just came here to get the reports of the rather peculiar incident that occurred a few days ago.” I explained my mission after I had cleared my throat as well, ignoring the two strange figures in the corners of this room.

“I’m not going to give a defenceless woman such delicate documents! Who do you think you are?” He nearly growled as he stood up from his chair, trying to intimidate me by raising his voice.

He was clearly one from the old pile of people, one that still thinks women don’t have anything to do in the department of protective services or higher ranked offices. But what the idiot hadn’t realised, that even though he didn’t know me, he had released some valuable information. Acknowledging the fact that an incident had occurred, a strange one even; he had reports of it in writing, as he called them documents; and that they were probably in his near vicinity, as he was dedicating them to be delicate. Besides, his arrogance showed me that he wouldn’t want those documents to be in someone else’s care, as his big head wouldn’t have allowed them to be with anyone less superior than himself.

I kept my eyes locked unto his, to make sure he wouldn’t lose focus on me while I walked around the desk. The fool squinted his eyes, taking deep breaths to let me know that he had trouble keeping his anger within. Good, because then he would keep himself occupied while I caressed the wood of the desk with my fingertips, grabbing the letter-opener that he had probably just used.

“Either you open the drawer of the desk and give me the documents,” I bluffed. “or I’ll let the Deputy Prime Minister know about your ignorance.” I stated while I lowered my voice and made sure that my wishes were heard clearly. I kept the letter-opener in the palm of my hand, in case my newly acquired trick would lose its magic and he would be able to threaten me, and I would be forced to show him exactly how defenceless I was.

From where I was standing, the male guard that I had found to be strange earlier, turned his head just slightly, to get his ear to be able to listen to every word I said. But even though the motion was tiny, I had seen it and knew that he was trying to figure out what was going on. I bet that he thought I was here to flirt with the chief and get some valuable information that way, but as his eyes were widening and his jaw was clenching, there was some confusion written on his face too. Sure he would have seen that I had taken the sharp object from the desk, so why hadn’t he attacked me? Wasn’t he here to protect his boss?

The chief in mentioning was now trying to figure out whether or not I was telling the truth, hesitant to act upon my wish. Would it work better if I should ask my question more concretely?

I hadn’t been able to train myself much into this way of command upon anyone, and with all these people around me, of which I hadn’t truly anticipated for them to be here, it was going to be rather difficult. But I have to try to get this arrogant ass to cooperate with me.

“Open the drawer and give me the documents of the strange occurrence.” I said again, trying to focus on only his eyes and not towards everyone else in the room. “Give me the documents.” I used more force and slightly more energy, that I tried to use from within my core.

“Y- Yes, of course.” He stuttered at which he turned around, opened the cabinet behind him and gave me the folder that was lying at the back of the drawer. Ah, they weren’t in the drawer of his desk, is that why my initial command hadn’t really worked? I need to keep myself reminded of that.

I cleared my throat again and said my thanks, after which I walked around the desk to leave this room as fast as I could while the chief of police was occupied by the frying of his brain. With the folder tucked underneath my arm, I click-clacked my heels over the floor, towards the door of the office. But as soon as I had the doorknob in my hands, a blast of air, fire and debris pushed me backwards.

A loud ring was blurring my hearing, the flash of the bomb diluting my vision, dust from the exploded walls and ceiling diluted the air to make me cough and breath heavily. Even though everything was distorted, I felt around my body to check if I hadn’t been hurt, but I guess that the slamming of the door towards my head was protecting me enough from any object that would pierce my skin.

“Grab her!” A clear English voice yelled, followed by gunshots and sounds of pain rummaging through the air. Was it the strangely looking guard that stood in the corner earlier? I couldn’t focus on what was happening around me as my body was still trying to adjust to the sudden change of surrounding. The folder with documents and the sharp letter-opener were not near me anymore, I realized as I tried to find them with my hands. They must have been thrown away by the blast. Shit!

Suddenly, I felt someone tug on my arms, dragging me away from whatever source was trying to attack me head-on. “Get behind me!” Another, more dominant male voice, but with a strange accent underneath it, yelled at me. My vision became clearer and I noticed that the man who ordered me to take cover behind him, was the strange male guard that stood in the corner just moments ago.

I wanted to use the energy from my core to clear my vision and hearing, to let me be able to defend myself. But everywhere my head would allow me to turn to, there were people who could see what I was capable of, as when I would use my magic my body would light up.

Cursing incoherently, while trying to shuffle myself behind the toppled over desk, pushing away the dead body of the chief of police, I managed to get me into some sort of cover and slightly let my energy take over and clean out the mess in my head. It only took me a minute or two, but in the end, the ringing had stopped and my eyesight had returned completely.

“Seriously? You are using your magic, here?!” I suddenly heard in front of me, while I opened my eyes again. A set of green pupils gazed towards me, a scowl on his face accusing me of apparently something criminal, while he had lowered himself and grabbed me by the arm again. “Get behind me I said!” He yelled once more as his gun unleashed a set of bullets, shooting towards the incoming attackers.

But how is he so accepting my being? Does he know of fairies and their magic? Is he here to hunt me? Is he one of the mercenaries – no that can’t be, the mercenaries must be the ones that just used a bomb inside this police station – I interrupted my thoughts. But what is he then? Why is he here?