Mackie

Helen leaped so quickly I felt like a gazelle that’s just discovered there’s a lion lurking in the nearby bushes.  At least a gazelle will run.  I was frozen by her quickness—or perhaps I was simply unaware that a creature so small could be a danger. 

Her kick connected with my forehead and the impact staggered me backwards, just missing the doorway into DD’s closet.  The walls of the condo, sturdy by any measurement, resisted my momentum and my back crushed plaster and crunched the brick behind but I didn’t go through.  That kick hurt! 

“Bitch!” I said, maybe not the most helpful comment but quite expressive of my true feelings.  Helen had landed maybe three feet away and immediately threw a flurry of punches and kicks at me.  I don’t know what was more impressive, the unbelievable speed of Helen who probably threw ten blows a second or my response.  She punches low, I block low; high punch, high block; low kick, move leg, she connects with my knee; she twin punches, I slap block the upper, the other hits and my back dents the wall further.  Helen spins around into a wheel kick and I let my legs become jelly and plop to the ground.  Her kicking foot lands and immediately lashes out and low.  Somehow I block and snatch her foot.  But I don’t grab her foot, just yank off her shoe, and she snaps her socked foot into my face.  It’s just a slap but it annoys me.  I remember my gun and drop the shoe and reach for my holster.  Helen kicks my side and I fell like she’s broke my ribs.  The gun comes out and Helen seems unconcerned.  In fact, she’s more than unconcerned.  She someone finagles her shoe back on.  Then, she seizes my hand and twists it with a deft aikido move; physiology and common sense demand that the gun drop out of my hand.  My fingers are barely holding onto it.  Before I can regain control of the gun she chops down with a move from a bad 60’s spy film that actually shouldn’t work.  Somehow I know it will and the gun will drop.

But the gun doesn’t drop.  Somehow my holding it with barely two fingers is sufficient.  Her foot flies up and axes down.  I still have but two fingers gripping the gun and she hits the gun exactly and my hand swivels down into wall and now the gun must drop.

It doesn’t.  Instinctively, I switch off the safety.  I point the gun at her immensely surprised face.  She slides sideways and seizes the gun itself.  Meanwhile, she sidekicks me and I offer a lame block.  The gun fires and the noise deafens me but the shot goes into the wall and nowhere near Helen.  Now we share possession of the gun and momentum is on her side.  I’m bent forward, and still have a very loose grip on the gun.  She tugs.  And tugs.  And tugs some more. 

The gun stays mine.

I pushed her.  I just pushed her.  The way you’d try to push an annoying kid sister.  OK, I pushed her a bit harder than that—but who could have expected the results?  It was as if I had dropped a grenade at her feet (or at least the way it looks in movies).  Helen rocketed across the room and at such speed and force that she never arched into a parabola: she just shot through the bedroom wall.  Bricks, dust, wood splints, and a noise that was even greater than the boom of the gun.

Helen emitted a yelp, I think, but it was lost in the fury.  My reflexes superseded my thinking and I raised the gun and held it securely in both hands.  I shot directly at Helen though she was largely obscured in dust from the wall (but was impossibly on her feet again).  Still, I thought I hit her and but she disappeared completely.  I’m pretty sure she headed right, towards the living room balcony and I raced after her.  Except, I couldn’t race.  My head throbbed from a kick sufficient to kill a buffalo; my knee felt shattered; my ribs were broken; my right hand had fractures; and my back longed for a team of chiropractors.  

So I crept instead.  I transferred the gun to my left hand.  It wasn’t natural but I was certain my accuracy would be only slightly impaired.  The weapon felt as light as a feather from a starved dove.  How strong was I?

Eventually I reached the hole but this proved a fruitless avenue.  Helen had somehow, I suspected, twisted in the air, landed feet against the wall, and kicked her way through.  I didn’t know what was more impressive:  my strength or her agility.  Anyway, I had only a partial view of the room and I had to go the long way round.  The good news: I could see the splatter of blood drops in the kitchen which proved that I’d tagged her.

It took perhaps five minutes to go around because I ventured with excessive caution.  She could be armed (I later learned Helen had dropped her purse—and her gun—before she struck me or things might have gone differently).  I edged along the far wall of the hallway, gradually bringing the room into view a slice at a time. My injured arm formed a blocker while I the kept the gun tucked behind.  This seemed natural. 

“Come out where I can see you!” I said.

No response.  Well, eventually the whole room came into my view and I saw absolutely nothing.  The sliding balcony door was closed and curtained and the curtains too thick to hide behind.  The couch—sturdy hardwood with minimal cushions—was supported by two-inch high legs.  Perhaps she was hiding behind it.  Part of the kitchen was also obscured. 

I needed backup.   No, that was a dumb idea.  Something told me that if I couldn’t stop Helen a company of police couldn’t either.  This sudden arrogance surprised me.  If I called, they would come.  Helen would run.  She wasn’t immune to bullets.  It was that simple.  Ah, but my cell phone was at LAX.  

Right, not immune to bullets!  I surveyed the carpet and floor.  Where was the blood trail?  Oh, come one, Mackie, look!  But aside from the blood in the kitchen, I saw nothing.  How can you make blood disappear?

“Come out from behind there!” I said.  “Come out or I’ll shoot right through.  You’re under arrest!”

Well, I proved Helen wasn’t stupid (this, as it turned out, was a premature judgment but more on that later) and she stayed put.  All right.  Keep the wall to your back.  Move to the kitchen. 

My head was pounding and my knee ached every time I put weight on it.  But the strange part: all the aches and pains hurt but they didn’t really impair me.  My knee slowed me down only because it wouldn’t function correctly.  At no point did the broken ribs slow me.  Ignore the pain, Mackie!  Manage it!  Where those thoughts came from I didn’t know.  But they were good advice.

I angled for the kitchen when I turned my gun and shot at the couch just near it’s far end.  The gunshot noise added to the throbbing in my head.  But Helen didn’t pop out.  No motion of any kind.  Could someone stand still when a gunshot came within a few feet of them?

What about outside?  The hallway door!  Shut, certainly, but she could have bolted out.  I jammed it shut with a sturdy chair so she couldn’t surprise me from that angle.  I felt a little safer. 

A counter separated kitchen from living room.  She could be behind that.  I lacked the height to see over it.  If I went into the kitchen, my back would be to the living room and that I didn’t want. 

Why not move into the living room and reveal as much of the kitchen as possible?  The logic of this tactic appealed to me and I wondered how I had suddenly become so calm and resourceful in danger.  But I’d no time for such questions (which were silly, anyway, since I’d never really been in danger before except for that alley and I hadn’t behaved that badly).  I backed up until I was perpendicular to the edge of the couch then slowly shuffled sideways.  Now the kitchen, by and large, came into view (we were both so small we could fit into the cupboards beneath the sinks but that was so stocked with cleaning supplies I ruled it out).  OK.  A quick glance to the side.  Nothing.  She wasn’t hidden along the corner of the couch.  I could see beneath the stuffed chairs.  Balcony or kitchen?

Decisions, decisions. 

Balcony.

Once past the couch, I hugged the wall.  I’d now seen most of the kitchen and the living room.  I sidled towards the curtains.  The draw string was handy and, stepping out just slightly so I could see the entire balcony, I yanked the curtains open.  The balcony was empty.  A noise.  What was that?
I looked sideways.  Something from the kitchen?  No. 

Try the sliding balcony door.  It opened with the slightest effort from me.  Given DD’s meticulousness and sense of insecurity, he would never have left a door unlocked.  Did she jump over?  Oh, I know what you’re thinking.  Don’t go on the balcony, Mackie!  It’s a trap!  What can I say?  I was stupid.   

My approach wasn’t entirely stupid.  I looked both ways before going outside and I did look up and down.  Nothing.  The balconies on this building were too far apart for jumping sideways.  That left down.  I reached the edge and craned my neck over the side…

And boom.  Just what you were probably thinking.

Down swings Helen like a gymnast.  With flawless technique and perfect timing.  She caught me just under my neck.  The odd thing was that she hit me perhaps as hard as I had thrown her but with entirely different results.

I did go backwards but I didn’t fly.  My left arm crashed into the closed half of the sliding door window and my momentum twisted me around three-hundred-and-sixty degrees.  I ended up in the apartment and on my ass in the end.  My head hit the couch but not hard.  It felt like she just about crushed whatever bones guard the area just beneath your neck. 

Helen flipped to her feet and stride into the room, smiling her total confidence.  Blood clearly dripped from her side but as soon as it struck the ground it disappeared (“I leave no trace behind when I move through the jungle,” she later told me, as if that explained everything).  The wound was serious but it left her unfazed. 

“I forgot,” she said.  “Darren was small but considered among the strongest Majestics.  Oops.”

Really?  How strong was I?

I rotated away from her like I was vainly trying to escape.  My hands found the side of the couch.  This, as it turned out, was an extremely dangerous thing to do.  I know now that Helen strikes with ruthlessness precision at such moments. 

“I really like your perseverance,” she said.  “We’ll eventually be good friends but—”

Whatever she was about to say was cut short.  I had lifted the hardwood couch—which must have weighted two-hundred pounds—and swung it over the coffee table (smashing aside the unlucky lamp on the table) and towards her.  Helen stood next to a stuffed chair.  I batted them both.

The chair I hit sideways and it tumbled towards the far wall where it embedded. 

Helen I hit out of the park.

She took off backwards and only the balcony could prevent her fall.  I’d hit her perfectly and she should have catapulted over the balcony but somehow she twisted in the air and seized the metal ballistrade railing.  Her momentum overcame the balcony rail, however, and it came off with a screech along with the whole side of the ballistrade itself.  Helen and the ballistrade disappeared from my view.  A few seconds later a host of screams and a loud crashing sound.  This, in turn, was followed by screeches of car tires and inevitable car crashes. 

Now, imagine if you will this tableau.  My whole chest feels like it’s caved in; my ribs are crushed; my back impossibly sore.  But I’m on one knee holding a two-hundred pound couch up in the air like a batter who’s just completed the swing.  The end of it was maybe four feet off the ground.  I’m not a physicist.  Maybe someone as strong and small as me can lift a two-hundred-pound couch and swing it around.  But it did seem like I was firmly rooted.  (This would prove to be a feature of my strength I to which I have yet to adjust.  My powers grant me tons of effective mass by somehow rooting me into my surroundings without truly adding to my weight.  That explained why Helen hit me with such force and I didn’t just go flying.) 

I only know that when I dropped the couch and it made a thump that rocked the floor I stood firm.  And I felt oddly elated. 

“Take that, bitch!” I shouted.  Blood spurted out of my mouth as I spoke.  Now that was not good.  Was I dying? 

No time to worry about that.  I somehow rose and stumbled over to where my gun had flown.  I retrieved it and shambled towards the balcony.  Well, she had to be down, now, and not up.  If she could be shot then the couch attack would surely have hurt her.

When I looked over the edge what did I see below?  A four car pileup, of course, the ballistrade that had thankfully missed pedestrians (but some lady was clutching her chest, hopefully out of shocked relief and not out of having a real heart attack) as it had landed half in the street and half on the sidewalk.  A crowd stared up at me and several people pointing. 

No Helen.  Of course not.  Carefully, I leaned over the balcony and looked straight down.  More banisters.  She’d almost certainly grabbed one so she could be anywhere.  But hurt.  She had to be hurt.  And surely now there’d be a police response especially with all the shooting in my very quiet building. 

“Hel-en,” a voice gurgled.  It pronounced her name in two syllables, slowly and mockingly.  The voice sunk my stomach and chilled my spine. “Hel-en!  Remember He-len?”

Something was above me.  Something that wasn't human.