Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 116: It Ends Only Before It Begins

It was dark and quiet. Vivi had jumped on Laz's shoulder and rode him down. For her, she didn't care what was happening as long as she would stay close to Laz. Laz didn't really understand why this was, but even if it was just the little pup, he felt better with some company.

He hit the floor pretty quickly before looking up, but he didn't see anyone looking down at him from the room above. In fact, all he heard was a click and then saw the ceiling move back into place while the ladder swung up and went flush with the depression in the ceiling. Unless you were underneath it, you couldn't see it at all from another angle. The actual apartment was empty minus the curtains on the windows.

"Quite ingenious really. I guess Tony was just a bit paranoid after all," Laz whispered to himself. He went to check the front window and saw a lot of activity happening outside as both uniformed and plain clothed individuals rushed around.

Suddenly, he heard a loud bang from the room above and a bit of shouting.

"GET DOWN NOW."

"FUCK OFF, I'M FINISHING MY DRINK. GIVE ME A MINUTE," came Bill's reply. It seemed like Laz could only hear them because the upstairs door was now open.

Laz wanted to do something, anything, to stop this from happening. But there were far too many people, actual people. And real cops too. This wasn't something that could be contained quietly like last time. He would either have to kill everyone or not do anything. Since he was already told such, Laz would not do anything.

Even though he really, really wanted to. He felt it in him, the desire to kill. The desire to burn the things in his path. He knew he could do it. In fact, it would be so easy to do it. But he didn't. No matter how strong the desire was within him to let loose, Laz didn't waver in the slightest. And there was only one reason for this,

'They are still humans.'

Now that he was here, Laz realized that he wasn't turned off or disgusted by the thoughts of killing humans. Or killing anything for that matter. He had done it before, Joey, the monster in the woods and even those still living puppets. Those puppets in particular were special because they were innocent. As puppets, they had no control over their actions and would just be used again and again. At the time, Laz was just pissed and didn't think much about it. As he stood here, alone with a pup in the dark room while his last known relative was being dragged away for who knows what, he had a moment to reflect.

'If this was a movie or some stupid story, I would leave them alive in the hopes they could be helped and just take care of the ones who were dead. But honestly? Fuck it. I can't help them and they were trying to kill me so therefore, there really is no question about this." Laz didn't think he was wrong.

Laz spread out his sense and got the general idea of what was happening. The old guys had already packed up their stuff and were not being arrested, more like supervised. It seemed like his Grandpa Crowe really knew what he was talking about. Seems like they wanted something, not just to kill them or whatever. Knowing this was the only way Laz could hold himself back.

There was also another problem. Despite the three men giving themselves up and being escorted out, there was no movement from any of the men surrounding the apartment complex. They were all staying in place. Although it was a last minute plan, Laz was going to basically jump out the back window before walking the rather long distance to Bill's place. It seemed like it was going to be an issue to do that without being seen if none of them moved.

For now, Laz was just sensing the surroundings while holding Vivi and checking out the back window, waiting to see if something would change. Best case scenario would be that they would start to make their way up to the cars now that their target had been secured, but they weren't moving. As Laz heard and 'saw' his Grandpa Chu walking out the door, he, like Bill and Grandpa Crowe, stumbled a bit as though all three had drank too much. But Laz noticed his hand swing towards some unassuming brick on the wall and saw it move in slightly.

'That must be the timer. But how did these old guys know about all this? Did Tony tell them?' Laz had questions that he knew wouldn't be answer, not that it mattered. He just knew he had five minutes.

'Shit, shit, shit, shit...' Laz kept whispering quietly while looking outside as the minutes ticked by. It was only now that Laz remembered his grandpa mentioned they might do a final sweep of the building. If that was the case, did it mean that they would never move?

In truth, by the third minute that the three men had been taking out, the ones surrounding the building began to move forward and circle to the front of the building. Seeing this, Laz knew it was his chance as he thought they would probably start sweeping the building.

Laz set Vivi back on his shoulder and started fumbling with the window while she looked on with interest. It was a normal side sliding type window with a screen but it seemed like the window was stuck for some reason. By the time the fourth minute ticked by, Laz was almost starting to panic. Just then, Vivi jumped off his shoulder and onto the ledge. She pushed an almost invisible latch at the base of the window, causing the entire thing to swing outward.

'The whole thing is one piece huh? A fake window but actually a swinging hatch. Seriously...' Laz was once again surprised, but he didn't let that stop him. Swinging the window outward and up, he was able to quickly get himself, his knapsack and the dufflebag out the window. Looking around, he didn't see anyone but gave things a quick scan with his sense.

'Shit, there are three people in the brush further out. Fuck it, can't stop now. Maybe I can take them out before they notice me.' Laz made the most logical choice at the moment. Past the brush was the main road which you could normally see from the second floor. Laz could only assume there were no cars parked on the road to keep things as quiet as possible. Laz's plan was to follow the brush along the road until he got a distance away, but it looked like he would have to take care of those three as fast as possible first. Without stopping, he started to sprint the small distance to the brush while Vivi quickly followed after.

Two of the figures weren't moving while the third seemed to be pacing back and forth. It seemed like none of them noticed him as he stalked silently forward, when he reached the first figure, he noticed it was actually frozen in place with it's eyes closed..

'The hell?'

He wasn't moving. In fact, now that Laz focused on it, he realized that the man who was dressed all in black no longer had a heart beat. He was dead. After focusing on this part, Laz quickly sensed the other two. The other stationary figure was also dead. Only the third one seemed to be alive still. Strangely, Laz got a somewhat familiar feeling from it. Thinking real hard, a name popped into Laz's head.

'No fucking way...'

Laz approached the last figure but didn't bother to hide himself while Vivi happily ran around his feet, seemingly having sensed his mood change.

"It's you."

"So you got out ok huh?" Came the seductive voice back to him. Although she was wearing a rather heavy, fur lined coat, it did nothing to diminish her foreign beauty. Her long flowing black hair fluttered in the wind while she held a sub machine gun in her gloved hands. The gun was not aimed at him.

"Jade."

"Hello Blood Demon or should I say Lazarus?"

It was at this moment Laz heard shouting and turned around. The upper half of the building had erupted in flames, catching more than a few of the searchers unaware.

'Did that bastard intend to kill everyone in the even he was caught?' After he had this thought, he realized that it probably wasn't right. Had they come for him, they probably would have cleared the rest of the building first. In truth, Tony wouldn't have cared either way. Had others been caught up in the fire, it would have distracted those that came for him, increasing his chances of getting away.

"What do you want? Come to take me in?" Although he asked that question, he had figured out a few things based on the fact that the other two were already dead.

"No. I'm going to help you escape."

"Why?"

"I'll explain in the car, we should move." Without waiting to see if Laz followed, she made her way out of the brush and to the road before walking down it a ways. Having no better plans, Laz followed her while Vivi followed Laz.

After walking almost a half a mile, they came to a Jeep parked off the side of the road. Jade quickly got in to drive while Laz climbed into the passenger seat. Vivi hopped up on to Laz's ap before quickly making herself comfortable.

Although Jade glanced at Vivi, she didn't say anything. With her training, no matter how crazy the feeling was, she would follow those feelings. And she had gotten an extreme sense of danger from this seemingly weak little wolf pup. She chose to ignore it since it seemed like it didn't want to do anything other than ride on Laz's ap.

"Where do you want to go?" Jade asked as she started up the vehicle.

Laz gave her directions to Bill's farm and she took off, the four wheel drive easily found traction on the rather wet and snowy roads.

"So, your like me now huh?" Laz asked while looking out the window. He didn't feel any evil intent from Jade and since he was still a bit tired despite having slept 4 days, he decided to let his body relax.

"Like you?" Jade asked back.

Laz took off his red jade bracelet and became a bit surprised. It seemed like he could no longer feel his source essence like before. In fact, it seems like since it was all gathered into the condensed ball, it was no longer leaking all over the place. In comparison, Jade was only at maybe the middle of the awakening stage and he could feel the resonance with her. She couldn't do the same. Seeing this problem, Laz circulated his energy, letting it run it's course through his body. As soon as he did this, he stood out like a sun next to Jade's slight candle flame. She couldn't help but be shocked by this.

"WHAT? How did you hide that? How strong are you?" Jade asked excitedly while keeping her eyes on the road.

'Sigh'

"Here, for you. It seems like I won't need it anymore." With that, Laz handed Jade his red jade bracelet to Jade. Seeing what it was, she quickly slipped it on without hesitation and was able to feel the energy in her body calm down. It was still there, but it wasn't acting crazy like before. It seemed like the bracelet had a calming effect on it while hiding it. She had seen a few people like her with these, but she couldn't find them for sale from anywhere.

"Thank you."

"Just think of it as a gift for the ride."

"Oh, just what I needed and everything." Jade smiled rather seductively.

"By the way..." Jade stuttered, her voice becoming softer and less playful.

"Hmm?" Laz wondered if she was going to share what was happening since she was the last face he expected to see here.

"My name is Yumi." Yumi shared.

Although silent for a moment, Laz started to smile.

"Lazarus, but everyone just calls me Laz."