Rain on Windows

I'm more of a fan of urban fantasy but I'm not very exprienced with it. This was sort of inspired by the movie 'Push'. I'm hoping that I don't completely twack this up Rip it to shreds...please!

I walked through the streets of downtown Hong Kong, battling through the mass of people that were walking, trying to get through the city in one piece. They were chasing me. My hood was up to hide my face, I was dressed in an outfit that would blend in, and I was keeping my eyes alert and moving. A bump on the shoulder by a stranger caused me to jump and I looked at him with my eyes, which turned bright silver with my anxiety. The power that I had in me flickered for a moment, but I quickly got a grip on it.

My family came from an ancient line of powerful beings that were not quite human and for centuries had been in a bloody war between us and a race of monsters that were set on the destruction of humanity. We were the protection. Countless have tried to defeat them; my family is the only one left. We were the last line of defense against them, the Medrian. They had the ability to shift into human form, but they also had a form that was half wolf, half bear and it was terrifying to see. I was in Hong Kong to chase down a particular leader of the Medrian, one by the name of Marckus. He was supposedly smuggling weapons into the city, using them and selling them to gang members who kill each other off. It was my job to put a bullet in his head. And I intended to succeed in my mission. I'd always been my mother's disappointment next to my brother and sister. I had to do this to make her proud, even if it was only for a moment.

I arrived in a market that was still and quiet. Making my way towards the back of the square and through a tight alleyway that led to a quiet street, I sat down on a doorway. There was little time to waste, but I needed to take a rest and let my anxiety shrink away. If it took control, I could wipe out an entire city block. And that would be just another thing to piss my mother off. I'd yet learned to control the powers within me, unlike my older siblings who had already mastered theirs.

"You need to try harder," Mother had said, her voice hard and cold. "Otherwise there will be casualties and knowing you, you will never be able to forgive yourself for that." While I had been fighting back tears, she had shaken her head. "You are weak Avery. And there is no room for weakness. Not in our world."

When I snapped back to reality, I looked down at my hands; they were shaking uncontrollably. I pulled my gun out of my sweatshirt where it had been concealed and used my ability to let it float in the air around me. It too was shaking slightly, but as my confidence grew a little it gradually settled and was still. Letting go of the gun with a flash of my hand, I caught it and rose from my perch. A thump sounded from behind me and I spun around lifting my gun back into the air.

From the darkness of the alley stepped a Medrian. He was not Markus, but he looked like he had almost 50 pounds on me. He smiled crookedly at me. "Well what do we have here?" he asked. "A scrawny telekinetic."

"You know, making comments about my size isn't going to keep you alive," I snarled, willing the trigger to pull. A blasting gunshot rang out through the space and the Medrian dodged it easily, shifting into his beast form. He let out a roar which apparently was a signal to two others who had been concealed in the alley's darkness. Both of them remained as humans and were shooting at me. I barely made bullets halt in their path to protect myself from getting killed; my gun however reamained in the air, shooting at my attackers. One of my bullets made its way into the throat of one of them, blood spraying out from the wound like a fountain. When my gun ran out of bullets, I allowed it to drop to the ground and pulled out a knife that I'd hidden in my boot. The knife was made of thick silver and had been my father's before he'd died. It was curved and the hilt was made of oak.

With a rush of adrenaline running through my veins, I rushed at the other one of the Medrian in human form. Behind him, the one in beast form was growling angriliy. I was thrown back into the wall and I grunted in pain. That was going to leave a bruise on my shoulders. Angriliy I kicked my attacker in the chest, pushing him backwards so that he fell on the pavement and his skull hit the sidewalk. As I jumped forward with my knife angled to kill, the paw of the one in beast form slashed across my face with his claws extended. A stinging pain flashed across my face and I knew I would have an ugly scar in its place when it healed. I brought my knife up and jammed it into his chest. His roar of pain was earsplitting, but it gave me the chance I needed to slide my knife expertly across his chest, spilling blood and his innards out onto the ground. He fell to the ground, dead.

While I spat on the corpse, I noticed the one still in human form starting to groan as he came back to his senses. I didn't hesitate in jumping over to him and kneeling down to press the knife to his throat. "Tell me where Marckus is," I said. He simply grinned and brought his fist up to punch my face. I didn't move, but I did press the knife harder. "Don't try me," I hissed. "Give me the location of Marckus and I'll consider letting you live!"

His face grew hopeful and I could tell that he was seriously considering telling me where his boss was. "He's at the docks. He's using that as his base of operation for now and he goes into the city during the night to sell the weapons."

"I do hope you're not lying," I said smoothly. I thought at first of letting him go. But as I was aobut to, I thought of my mother's face when she heard that I let a Medrian go. So I plunged the knife into his heart. He was dead instantly with his face frozen in shock. His eyes were boring into mine and I knew that they were going to haunt me. As I stood up, I pulled a cloth from the pocket of my jacket and wiped my knife blade clean and reinserted it in my boot. I plucked my gun from the ground and noted that I would need to wait until tomorrow to go after Marckus as he was in the city right now selling his weapons. I would have to go to the docks in the morning if I was planning on catching him. As I started to walk again, I looked down at my sweatshirt and noted that it was stained with blood and that my face probably looked like a trainwreck.

When I had found a door to the back of a restuarant about a block away, I slid through the door and down the dimly lit hallway and into the bathroom that was at the end of the hall. So far I'd gone through without being seen. Once in the cramped bathroom, I locked the door behind me and stripped out of my sweatshirt so that I was left in my black tank top. Finally I had enough courage to look at my face in the mirror. The marks from where the claws had scraped across my face were bloody and ugly and my lip was fat from where I had been punched. Groaning, I pulled paper towl from the roll that was on the next to the sink so that I could wash the blood from my face and clean the gashes so that there wouldn't be an infection. I would have to clean them out more thoroughly with disinfectant when I got back to the hotel where I was camping out.

After I had cleaned out the marks as much as I could for now, I slipped the empty gun into the back of my pants and slid my shirt down to cover it. Before tossing my bloodstained sweatshirt into the trash bin, I flipped my brunette hair over and pulled it into a loose bun at the nape of my neck. I breathed deeply and shook my head and unlocked the door, slipping back down the hall to the door I had entered from. Voices speaking Chinese were soon in my ears and I ducked around a corner and stayed close to the wall waiting for them to pass by. Both of them were carrying giant boxes of what smelled like shrimp and laughing. I hadn't learned much Chinese but I picked up that they were discussing soccer and the World Cup that was going on right now. When I was sure that they were out of hearing distance, I made my way to the door and slid out into the street again. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I set off in the direction of the hotel.

***

The next morning I woke well before dawn. I had to get an early start on Marckus if I intended to kill him. My face still looked awful, but lucky for me I had packed an extra sweatshirt in my bag. Carefully, I removed my guns from the spot under the bed that I'd hidden them and inserted the correct bullets in each one. When my phone rang, I jumped. I picked it up and looked at the caller ID to see if it was my mother checking up on me. Instead it was an unknown number. My mother had always told me to ignore unknown callers, but I was intrigued.

"Yeah?" I asked as I answered it.

"Hello Avery," a deep voice said on the other end of the line. "How are you feeling this morning?"

I froze. "Who is this?" I murmured quietly. "Who are you?"

"I would think it would be obvious." There was a chuckle after that.

"Marckus," I breathed. "You're Marckus."

"Correct." Another chuckle sounded from the other line. "I recieved your number from a very reliable trace that I placed on the guns you purchased while you were here. You see, I sold them to the people you bought them from. I told them to sell them to you. I've been watching you this entire time." This time he let out a booming laugh. "Really, I must say that you are not your mother's daughter. I can only imagine what she would say when she finds out that I slipped right through your pretty little fingers."

At that moment my lungs stopped working. He'd gotten away. What was I going to do? I was supposed to kill him, but instead he had gotten away because I was too much of a fool to realize that I was being tracked just as much as I was tracking him. Instead of giving in to the fear and anger that I was really feeling, I spat, "I will find you again. And next time you will have a bullet in your head." With that, I clicked the phone off and laid back on the bed to stare at the ceiling, dreading the moment when I returned to my mother's mansion in England.

***

I shut the door behind me as I entered the foyer of the place that was my home. The cold stone hallways reminded me of a castle in many ways with the weapons on the walls and the medieval paintings. Walking into the kitchen, I dropped my bag on the floor and went to the fridge to pull out a bottle of water.

"You failed your mission," a cold voice said from behind me. It took me a moment to turn around for fear of seeing my mother's face. When I did turn around she had the look of angry disappointment that I was used to getting from her. "Marckus is still alive and roaming the planet, selling his weapons and corrupting the human race." She shook her head. "You're always going to be a mistake Avery. You should have never been born into this life. You'll always be weak."

"Sorry Mother," I whispered, fighting tears the whole way. I knew she was right. I would always be the disappointment child. "I will find him again and I will not fail you again."

Her eyes narrowed. "I certainly hope so." Without another word to me, she turned on her heel and stalked out of the kitchen. Sitting down at the kitchen counter, I laid my head on the cool stone countertop and closed my eyes as tears silently poured down my cheeks like rain on windows.