Chapter one
Blaire stepped out of the shower to hear her phone was ringing.
The specialized ringtone made her stomach sink and she didn't bother to grab a towel to wrap around her soaking body before wrenching to door of the bathroom open. Droplets of water rained down from the curling ends of her dark hair as she dashed across her luxurious penthouse apartment.
"Hello?" Blaire answered the call on the last ring and the panic that had surged in her chest eased.
"Verify." A cool voice demanded from the other end of the line.
Her spine straightened. "Staccato one nine five eight zero. Location Andosa city, coordinates 49° N, 123° W."
"You have an assignment, Staccato. Report to army base nine, location Andosa city. Attempted arson of weaponry and several military grade aircrafts. Verify you have received this message."
"Received."
The robotic voice drifted through the phone once more before the line went dead. "This is a time sensitive mission. You have five minutes."
Struggling to contain a sigh, Blaire hung up the phone. The television was flickering across her living room and she turned just in time to see her own face flash brightly across the screen. She grabbed the remote to turn it off and the room around her fell into darkness.
Counting down the seconds in her head she opened the closet by the glass doors leading out onto her balcony and pulled out a black uniform that was so dark it seemed to absorb the twinkling lights of the city awake below her. Blaire didn't know what the skin-tight fabric was made of but it was impervious to the elements and most hand-held weapons.
For the weapons of another calibre… she didn't need a suit to neutralize those threats.
Blaire grabbed a spare pillowcase in the closet to dab her dripping body dry before leaving it in a heap at her feet as she slid into the black suit. She didn't bother to dry off her hair. It was raining heavily outside so there would be no point. Blaire pushed open the glass double doors to the penthouse balcony and looked down at the city so far below her it looked juvenile. It was hard from her vantage point to imagine anything bad happened in this world with streets and lights and rules to keep everything in perfect order. She envied the tiny figures walking below that were unaware of the chaos that thrived in the shadows. Their lives were so simple, so oblivious, to the things other people did to ensure that it stayed that way.
She was one of the monsters in the dark that kept the horrors at bay.
Blaire stepped off the balcony and let gravity reach up with greedy fingers to catch her. She fell with the rain so that the drops seemed suspended in time as the breath was torn from her lungs. Tears filled her eyes and blurred her vision as the air screamed in her ears. The windows of her building flashed by without recognition and Blaire smiled as the hair lifted from her shoulders. She descended fast as a shooting star.
Blaire reached one hundred and twenty seconds in her head.
Lightning flashed along her veins seeming to scorch her blood as she threw out her arms and altered her momentum in midair. Twisting so that she no longer fell headfirst toward the glittering street below her, Blaire spun with agile grace and launched herself up into the sky.
She knew the location of the army base in the way that every member of the Aequitas needed to know every building and coordinate of his or her assigned city. Blaire flew over the buildings on autopilot as her mind jumped forth to what she might find once she reached her destination. The high-rises of Andosa where she lived fell away first to shorter residential buildings and houses before slowly petering away into fields and large stretches of greenhouses. If Blaire had flown in the opposite direction she would have come across the wide expanse of ocean that separated her nation of Rithoria from Belhaven, the newly negotiated allies from across the sea.
When the numbers in her head reached two hundred and eighty-two, the army base came into view. As she soared closer she could see people swarming from the barracks toward an open hangar in which a few humanoid figures inside open fired on the military soldiers. The whir of a jet engine rumbled through the night and pandemonium ensued from outside of the hangar where men screamed to one another not to let the jets take off with undoubtedly precious cargo stashed away inside.
Blaire dropped out of the sky.
She landed in front of the gaping hangar door with a resonating boom that cracked across the army base and sent sparks of lightning skittering along the asphalt at her feet. The sound of her arrival sucked the screams and chaos from the air around her. For a second, the night was completely silent as Blaire slowly rose to her full height and peered inside the hangar at the band of thieves trying to steal military supplies from the Divinity herself. Such stupidity was difficult for Blaire to fathom.
When the screams started up again it was from the criminals and not the soldiers.
One thief in particular stood frozen with wide terrified eyes as he beheld her presence. Blaire sent him a lopsided smile just to watch the blood drain from his face.
The man fell over himself as he turned to the rest of his team with a scream, "Leave the rest! Fall out, now."
The military soldiers that had been defending the hangar also scrambled to take cover. They looked like mice clearing out of her way as Blaire strolled lazily into the massive shelter that housed rows of military equipment, vehicles and aircrafts. The rain fell harder outside as she stepped under the cover of the building.
She counted maybe twenty thieves altogether. Simple enough.
Her smile felt sharp and wicked as it unfurled across her face. Blaire stretched out her arm by her side and called to the skies to lend her strength. The lights in the hangar flickered as sparks raced down her spine and through her hands until the crackling energy became an extension of herself.
Blaire looked down to see a whip of pure lightning wrapping around her wrist and the electricity rioted impatiently to be released. For now Blaire was its master but even she wouldn't be able to contain the lawless energy for long.
So she yielded to its desire.
Gritting her teeth, Blaire focused on one of the two jets in which the thieves were sprinting towards. Twisting her body, she snapped her arm forward and the world darkened for an instant as the lightning whip curled around her wrist whistled through the air. When it cracked against the hijacked jet, the deafening noise thundered against the walls of hangar. The aircraft lit up with a brilliant ghostly light before exploding outward. The blast was more powerful than a lightning strike from above and Blaire watched as the thieves were blown away from the aircraft. Their bodies were weightless for several long seconds and they looked like ragdolls flipping head over heels.
When they landed the noise was sickening and not one of them moved to get up.
Blaire tilted her head as the second jet screamed past her out of the hangar. She turned to watch it go as it rumbled down the asphalt, gaining acceleration with every second.
She started running.
As Blaire sprinted she let the whip at her side dissolve so that she could pump her arms and allow the blood to pound through her body. The jet was growing smaller and its front wheels were almost off the ground but Blaire had her eyes lifted to the sky.
Each breath that rattled through her lungs was a heartbeat that she let herself gather her power to her core. Every step she took was one in which the universe submitted to her will. The storm raging above the world belonged to her.
The aircraft soared from the asphalt and Blaire leapt into the sky with a scream to split the heavens. She raised her hands above her head as the clouds accumulated to release one of the most formidable forces of nature upon her. Blaire felt every atom in her body vibrate as the arcing lightning split from the thunderclouds to shatter through her.
It was little more than a fleeting thought to redirect the energy before it was pouring out of her hands with the heat of a thousand suns. Pure light exploded from her fingertips toward the jet trying to climb the sky. Blaire might have been screaming but it also might have been the engines of the jet as they short-circuited and the aircraft fell in a beautiful blaze toward the field below almost in slow motion.
Blaire heard the explosion as the jet crashed but she had already turned away from the wreckage. She landed lightly on the runway and started walking back toward the hangar. A few brave soldiers had stayed to watch the show but they didn't look so courageous now that she was stalking toward them. One retreated so fast he bumped into his companion from behind. She didn't pay either of them any attention but simply swept her gaze along the ranks to find the person that looked the most authoritative.
When she found a male that suited her definition well enough, Blaire angled toward him. The man's hands trembled as she approached but he tilted his chin upwards.
"Soldier." Blaire stopped a distance away from the man, hoping to put him at ease.
He was brave enough to correct her. "Colonel."
It didn't matter to her but she nodded all the same. Then she pointed inside the hangar to where a few of the thieves stirred. "Secure any survivors and alert the Cohort of their crimes. Tell them to question the offenders and report anything of interest to her Divinity."
Blaire began to turn away, considering the area was no longer under threat when the Colonel spoke again.
"Y–you destroyed it. The aircraft and cargo are ruined how is that any better than allowing the thieves to escape?" His soldiers sucked in startled breaths and cast each other alarmed glances as the man voiced what was undeniably his disapproval. The Colonel stood rigid as Blaire glanced slowly over her shoulder to look the man up and down. There was fear behind his eyes that was not so easily concealed, despite his forced bravery. The man was lucky. Fortunately for him it was Blaire who was assigned to be the guardian of Andosa and it was not another member of the Aequitas here tonight. Any number of the other eight might have taken his life. Hell, the Mortifer may have also killed the Colonel's men just for their leader's insolence to send a message.
Blaire's brethren were not so merciful as she.
But she simply cast him a venomous smile for his ignorance. "You make a mistake in presuming to understand what the Divinity considers important and what she deems insignificant."
The Colonel looked confused but Blaire didn't fault the man for his evident lack of survival instincts. She simply tilted her head back and laughed until he looked affronted by her amusement. His soldiers still appeared frightened like they expected her to strike them all down at any minute. Cries echoed from within the hangar and the fallen jet still blazed like an inferno across the field despite the heavy rain. The sky reflected the red flames as smoke curled to the heavens like an offering to the gods.
Blaire winked at the Colonel.
"I could have burned down the whole damned base with you inside it and her Divinity wouldn't have cared as long as not one thief escaped unpunished."
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