Malik prowled the street looking for the address his old informant had helped him find—a friend from a lifetime ago who was thankfully still alive. The matter of sorting out which cop had done the awful act was easier thanks to DeMain telling his name, but Malik felt himself getting madder and madder as he sifted through countless similar stories from over the years.
It was evening, almost night here. Quaint little streetlights acted as guides along the path of the gated neighborhood. Every house was the same, but he knew the number he had to follow.
Of course Malik passed by plenty of identical houses, but only one stood out. The lights were still on inside, and Malik could hear faint shouting from within. Seemed like he'd be saving two lives today.
But it wasn't all he heard. Malik heard the cries of agony from the world—the Veil itself—as holes tore themselves open in the sky and its clouds. He could see now the endless, shifting pieces of the Reikai peering back at him. Malik's recently sedentary life gave way to the realization that he would not be dead before the end times came. Even in all the oncoming terror, he had one last thing to do. The fucker couldn't get picked off by anybody else, this shit was personal. Malik knocked, and an angry yelling came from within.
"Marie! Who the hell did you call?! Someone's at the door!"
"I didn't call anyone! I swear! Please!"
A tall, slimy looking man opened the door, some specks of blood still on his wrist while he chewed a piece of cold chicken. Nobody was outside.
Just as he turned around, his body hit the floor. The man's head had been reduced to modern art against the far wall, and the door to the outside pushed itself closed.
Malik hadn't gotten more than two blocks away before a gnawing sensation came to his head, dragging him from his cloaking cover. He was exposed under a streetlight, and he needed to move before he got caught. Of course it wouldn't mean much if they couldn't see him, but Malik didn't want stalling company near a crime scene.
The source of his headache became apparent as the world seemed to pulsate grotesquely, splitting at the seams and letting loose a horrifying, wretched scream from all of the tears and jagged pieces leftover. All at once it stopped and collapsed together again, the cuts in the Veil separating the Reikai from the world deepening and parting.
He should have killed that kid. Malik knew immediately, wondering why he'd hesitated when he smelled that same sour scent as all of the others who'd given them trouble. Xanthists, the rotten scourge who followed a dead-brained Witch God. Even if he was a primordial force, nobody in their right mind would listen to the embodiment of weaknesses and downfalls. Maybe they weren't in their right mind though, it was always desperate kids.
Malik had hoped maybe the kid would stop into the camp and brighten up, or meet a cute girl to take his mind off of things. It was a little too much 'hoping' for Malik. Way too much. What on earth had possessed him to let the kid go? He'd been dirty, twiggy, and he looked more like a girl than a man who could put up a fight. Malik had a gun, but he doubted he'd have needed it to put a hole in a chest.
The older man found himself sweating, leaning against mailboxes as he passed them. He could hear sirens in the distance, but his heart just wasn't ticking right for him to be in the mindset of stealth and hiding like before. The tears of the Reikai remained however, providing him an easy escape at the cost of ending up somewhere random in the shifting collage of landscapes. He jumped, it was this or risk a heart attack from all of the stress being fed to him by the Veil's breakage.
What the fuck was happening to weaken it so much? His ancestral intuition told him the Xanthist Kid was responsible, but how? He'd only seen this level of distress during 9/11, and hunting down the spirits that had been spawned from it wasn't easy. He did meet one spirit during that time though that he'd never turn an invitation from though…
Malik landed through swirling pillars of starlit water and descended until he plunged into a cool lake, a great full moon hanging in the horizon. Strings of light from the rest of the Reikai flickered in and out of existence, dancing in rainbow reflections across the surface of the water. He never missed this place, and Malik was thankful to have ended up here over all of the others.
She was beautiful, and even looking at her felt like being hugged by a lover from every side. Her face—well her face was perfect. Even if the features were different, it was always a gal Malik wanted to see and smile with. The kind of face that you just know under the surface is a good person. No warning sirens going off about a hungry look in their eyes and no dredged-up memories about old arguments or misbegotten opinions. The wings sprouting from the edges of her eyes and the gentle warmth she gave off helped immensely too.
The rest of her was so fine Malik was surprised she'd paid him any mind, but maybe she wasn't used to Witches being so bold and making moves. Right now she had a woven shawl over her body with a cloth dress underneath, something more for comfort than looking pretty—almost around-the-house clothes. Her nails were pearlescent, offered to Malik to help him up. Her skin was a mix of every tone and color with swirling patterns to draw them together, melding gently as the tides do on a slow day. The rest of her was gorgeous, wrapped in rose-gold wings and soft, sensual shapes which took to the air in lines of gentle light around her body.
"Hey, Love."
"Hello, Malik." The spirit responded warmly. "We need to talk."
"Oh."