The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural (45 page)

She knew Michael was going to show her the
underground life, but it hadn’t dawned on her just how scary it was
until she saw them. Almost a dozen men formed a half circle with
some sort of firearm as a handful of armed Jeeps added to their
numbers. Even though it was cold, some of the men hadn’t bothered
to wear coats. Instead they loomed around in black and yellow wife
beaters and t-shirts as thick ink designs plastered into their
muscled skin. In a heartbeat Lotus knew who these thugs were. They
were the notorious Tarrillian City gang; the Brotherhood of
Artillery.

“
What are we doing here?”
Lotus asked her own voice shaking with unease.

Before Michael could respond, three men that
had been seated on the hood of a Jeep slid off and began to
approach. Their heavy boots crunched against the frozen dirt and
with each step Lotus could feel her heart beating even more
furiously. If her trembling grip wasn’t enough of a hint to
Michael, surely her hammering heart would get his attention.

“
It’s alright,” Michael
whispered pulling his hand away only to slide his arm over her
shoulder. “You’re with me. They wouldn’t dare hurt you.”

Even though his voice was soothing, Lotus
couldn’t shake the fact that the men approaching her had guns
except for the one in the middle. He was probably a head taller
than Michael and the tightness in his black wife beater only
managed to show the mountains of cut muscle rippling over his
olive-skinned back and down his arms. By far, he was the most built
man Lotus had ever seen and it was almost uncanny. His neck was so
thick; there was hardly anything to distinguish his shoulders and
jawline until he smirked. His beady black eyes gleamed hungrily as
he gazed at Lotus. “You brought a friend Highness.” The man said
his voice as vicious as a dog on a chain.

Michael nodded and held Lotus a little
closer. “I did. And if you so much as look at her wrong, I will rip
your arms off myself. Are we clear?”

Lotus had never heard such command behind
Michael’s words before and for a moment she was as scared of him as
she was of the advancing BOA. When she glanced up at Michael, his
brown eyes seemed almost as dark as the man’s shirt. Was this what
being the King was all about? Intimidation?

The three men stopped a good distance away as
the man in the middle replied, “Of course your Majesty. We are here
for you after all.”

“
Right.” replied Michael. “I
see you changed up your ranks, Trench. Introduce me.” He
commanded.

It was as if Michael had turned into someone
else entirely. Had she really been this blind to not notice a
completely different person? As she stood beside him, the first
emotion to appear in her heart aside from fear was now guilt. How
could she have loved him when she didn’t even know him at all? But
she couldn’t blame herself entirely. After all, Michael had only
showed his entirety recently.

Trench gestured to the African American man
on his left. “This is Tristan…” That was about all Lotus caught
because the next thing she was doing was studying the man up and
down. He was tall, clean shaven with a greying goatee around his
mouth. The rifle in his hand seemed out of place because Tristan
looked more like a basketball player than a criminal considering he
had the least amount of tattoos out of the three. He was even
wearing the shorts and shoes for it.

Lotus couldn’t follow half of what Trench was
saying because most of it seemed to be sang intertwined with
various names of guns, but Michael just nodded occasionally as
Lotus eyed the BOA to the right. Long dirty blond hair fell to his
shoulders and like Michael, this guy had most of it covering one if
his dark blue eyes. He was hardly BOA material and when looking
around, this kid seemed the most out of place even if he had two
revolvers tattooed on his chest. He was clearly the youngest even
though bags hung under his wide eyes, but there was something
creepy about him Lotus wasn’t too fond of.

She wasn’t sure if it was his lanky body, or
his lizard thin lips, or even the way his cheeks sunk in his washed
out face. But he seemed sinister. Perhaps the reason they made him
a High BOA was because he had the mind of a weapons dealer. Out of
curiosity, Lotus stared at a rock in the dirt as she tried to
figure out what Trench was saying about this other High BOA but she
caught nothing other than his name. Jacob.

“
You added no supernatural
to your lead?” Michael finally asked after the
introductions.

Trench shook his head. “There are none within
our gang.” He replied in his deep voice.

“
Uh-hu.” Michael snapped
almost instantly. “The Krome have two in their highest ranks. It’s
odd that you have none.” A moment lingered where they held eyes and
nothing but the chilly breeze rustled the bushes. “Why are you
hiding things from me, Trench?”

The Highest BOA said nothing.

Lotus watched the faces of the BOA as she
tried to figure out what Michael knew. When none of them spoke up,
Michael took over. “I would consider half-natural as a part of the
supernatural race, lads.”

Lotus stood up straight and gaped at him. He
know about the half-natural? Lotus thought she and her sister were
the only ones! Who else could it be?

“
Jacob, was it?” Michael
asked, his eyes sliding over to the scrawny teenager holding a gun
that should have been too heavy for him. “Come now, don’t be shy.
Drop it and show me what you can do.”

The wide eyed kid looked over at him and
pulled his thin lips back in a smile. That reaction startled Lotus.
Michael, the King was so intimidating she could feel the tension
between him and the Highest BOA, Trench. But when Michael asked for
Jacob, all he did was smile as if egging him on.

“
I could show you what I can
do.” Began Jacob slyly, “Or we can make it into something
fun.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “What are you
talking about?”

“
A game.” Jacob replied.
“Let’s play a game. It’ll be just you and me Highness.”

Lotus didn’t know the crowd of BOA standing
beside their armed Jeeps could hear until they started laughing at
Jacob’s comment.

Michael joined in on the smiles and said,
“Alright, give us a go. What is it?”

When Jacob cocked his head to the side, the
dirty blonde hair slid to reveal his other wide blue eye. That’s
when Lotus realized that through his uncanny glare, specks of brown
were mixed in with his blue eyes.

“
King of the hill.” He said
simply and the crowd behind him laughed even harder. Lotus couldn’t
help but to snicker as well. Two grown men playing a game in the
desert wasn’t exactly the manliest thing to do. Especially when one
of them was a High BOA and the other was the leader of the
supernatural world.

“
The object of the game is
to see who can stay on that plateau the longest.” Jacob continued
pointing to the mound of rock behind them. “If I win, I earn the
pleasure of saying I beat the King. If you win… well you will have
learned my weakness. Does that seem fair?” He asked extending his
hand.

Michael’s eyes went from Jacob’s pale hand to
the smirk over his thin lips. A chilly breeze blew through the
scene as everyone waited for Michael to cross over and shake hands.
Instead he turned to Lotus and the world was whisked away from
their feet. When they touched back down, they were once more on the
top of a plateau. The only difference was, instead of looking out
over the endless stretch of desert, a short gap separated Lotus
from the even larger plateau surface before them as if she were in
a lone bleacher with nothing but the football field before her.

“
Where are we?” she asked
looking around eagerly. They had landed right in the center of the
small plateau, but even then, the five feet keeping her from the
edge made her feel as if she were on the verge of falling. As she
mustered enough courage to peek over the edge, she could see the
alarmed amount of BOA just at the base of the dirt
mound.

“
Stay here. I don’t trust
them alone with you.” Michael said.

Though she was trembling now with the fear of
falling, Lotus managed to scoff. “Yeah, because I am totally going
to go somewhere else.”

Michael smirked as he leaned away from her.
“We’ll go wherever you like after this alright Lozey? But for now,
I’m going to play a game.” He smiled eagerly but before Lotus could
say another word, Michael had vanished.

At the base of the plateau, the BOA stopped
chattering to look up at the King as he appeared in an instant
before them. “Alright lads,” he began, “The game starts when you
reach the top. See you there.” There was just enough time for him
to point at Jacob before vanishing once more.

Jacob shielded his eyes as he glanced up at
the top. Sure enough Michael Caster was already there, sitting on
the ledge with his legs draped over the cliff waiting for Jacob to
join him. Off to the east and standing on a lone plateau pillar was
Lotus and her gleaming blond hair tossed in the winter breeze. For
a moment, Jacob watched her stand there as a strategy began to form
in his mind. One way to catch Caster off guard was to attack Lotus
instead. Perhaps that would be a last resort considering Michael
was a full supernatural and the odds of Jacob winning were already
slim.

“
He never said you couldn’t
use that gun.” Trench’s deep gruff voice seemed to bellow from
beside him.

Jacob sailed his sight over to the Highest
BOA as a snake-like smile stretched across his face. “That sure
would make things interesting wouldn’t it?” and his hand quivered
on the barrel of the rifle still in his grasp. “But maybe as a
backup plan. He doesn’t know how strong I am. Besides, didn’t
Ithaca say she wants him alive?”

Trench nodded but kept his dark eyes glued to
the King’s seat. “That’s right. Beat him up, but keep him
alive.”

“
What about the girl?” added
Tristan nodding in Lotus’s direction. “I say we just kill her now.”
And he lifted his weapon to his eye.

With near supernatural speed and aggression,
Trench yanked the gun from his partner’s hands and Tristan let go
immediately with a start. “We’re not playing by my rules anymore.”
Trench said almost casually, “Ithaca’s in charge. If she didn’t say
kill Lotus Stelter, we don’t kill Lotus Stelter. Give me your
weapon too, Jacob. You can have it back if the job gets too
hard.”

Respectfully, Jacob handed him the gun then
popped his neck and shoulders like a track star about to sprint.
“Michael Caster is only the King of the Legend. How hard will it be
to bring him down?” Trench had just enough time to see Jacob’s own
arrogant smile before he was bolting up the side of the
plateau.

Michael had never seen anything like it
before in his life. Jacob was half climbing, half running up the
face of the rock. With each step he managed to dig his grip
perfectly into the grooves of the cliff, launching himself up with
phenomenal speed. Michael just had enough time to comprehend what
he was looking at when Jacob’s fist came sailing up past his ear.
In a split second, Michael had rolled over his back and popped back
up to his feet just as Jacob landed on the ledge before him.

“
Well, well!” Exclaimed
Michael with his knees bent and fists by his chin. He couldn’t risk
another surprise attack so early in the game. “Looks like we have
us a rare halfy!!”

Jacob smirked as he too crouched at the
ready. There was only a foot of space between him and the ledge, if
Michael wanted to, he could end the game in a swift punch but that
didn’t seem to be his agenda at the moment.

“
No phenomenal ability,
simply strength and speed.” Michael continued to say. “You have the
pleasure of being the first I know to turn this way.”

Jacob continued to say nothing, but the idea
of being in a vulnerable position beside the cliff didn’t sit well
with him. In one giant leap, he had launched himself into the air.
He made one talented flip several feet above Michael’s head before
landing down smoothly behind him.

Michael hadn’t taken his eyes off his foe.
“Blimey, you’re full of surprises!” he exclaimed still crouched and
waiting for the first strike. “If this weren’t a game, I’d give you
a fare interview just to see what it’s like being only half.”

The wicked smile hadn’t left Jacob’s face
since landing on the top of the rocky terrain. “I think you’ll
learn more from this game than an interview.” And with that, he
charged. Though he was only half, Jacob had the speed of any other
supernatural and as he raced toward Michael with his fist raised,
he thought for a moment he was moving faster. Or maybe Michael
wasn’t a fighter at all. As feet turned to inches, Michael hardly
made to move away.

It wasn’t until the millisecond before impact
that he vanished and Jacob’s fist sailed through empty air. It had
just dawned on him that the King had used his phenomenal ability
when he felt the presence of Michael reappear behind him. But
before he could whirl around, a hard kick to the middle of his back
sent him sailing through the air.

Michael watched satisfactorily as Jacob
slammed back down only to continue sliding across the dirt and
right off the edge. He stood there with his balled fists still
ready to strike as his ears strained to hear Jacob’s body collide
with the dirt below. But nothing happened. Several seconds had gone
by and Michael had just considered glancing off the edge when an
earsplitting crack cut through the howl of the desert wind. There
was just enough time to comprehend the sound before Jacob was once
again flying back up the edge of the plateau with an enormous chunk
of rock in his hands. The moment Jacob touched down, he launching
the washing machine sized boulder over his head and directly at
Michael.