Smokeless Powder [Cinnamon Cherrywhip]

[Levi DAmico]

When Levi’s words came to a close and their echo died in the dust, so did he. In one quick turn, the woman had driven a dagger straight into his skull and let him fall. It was lights out for him, but in some strange way, it wasn’t unpleasant – even when she was kicking his corpse and rummaging through his pockets. He hadn’t felt a thing. It was like the world had ended in a blink – all the pain, the fear, the anger, the regrets and even the good stuff. There was just nothing. The big bang had never happened. No Gods had put two humans on the Earth and made their offspring mate to propagate the population. No rivalry between Titans had made the heavens fall and washed the world of dinosaurs. And most importantly, there was no hell that would have him serve eternity under fire for all the terrible **** he had done throughout his life.

Levi would have thought about how to feel about this whole thing, but he couldn’t think and he couldn’t feel. He wasn’t even certain if he was aware of this void or if his mind had just leapt to fill the unknowing moments of unconsciousness. He’d been knocked out before, which was like going into an unexpected nap and waking with a major ******* headache. He’d even been in a coma before, which after the blink of unconsciousness had him bolting upright to the screams of a heart monitor to then realize how dry his throat was and how that itch was nothing compared to the pain exploding over his body. This feeling, however, was not like any of those instances. When Levi woke, he woke not with pain, but with the surprise of immediately recognizing his surroundings – he was home.

The sheets rolled off his bare legs as he sat up with a start; his skin tingling from the colder-by-comparison air. The curtains were drawn and there was minimal lighting coming from the strip lights along the corridor. The room had the kind of clammy darkness you’d expect from the inside of a cave, only dusky-grey paint and dark wood took the place of rock and dirt. The silence was heavy, forcing him to overcompensate and search for any kind of sound through his frozen apartment. Every detail in the room, every sensation he felt, had him convinced that he couldn’t be dreaming right now. He had no idea whether it was night or day what with the black-out blinds, but it wasn’t just his sense of time that was disorientated. He wasn’t overly convinced that what he’d experienced with that woman in the Canadian HQ was a dream, but since one of them had to be and he was most certainly alive – breathing, feeling, thinking – then the latter must have been a dream after all. The only problem was that he couldn’t remember anything that had gotten him to this point.

Levi brought his hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose over the pain that wasn’t there; his fingers unconsciously drifting upward to stroke the wound that wasn’t there either. But just why wasn’t he in pain? He always felt some kind of ache. Those old bullet holes and stabbings and surgical scars never kept quiet. Levi ran his fingers over a few of them to make sure they were really there as he idly scanned the rest of his visible skin. He was at a loss. He didn’t feel hungover, but was having trouble remembering things. This could only mean a few things: he was having neurological issues or something was extraordinarily wrong. Why couldn’t he remember last night? Why couldn’t he remember the week before? Why was it all that he could remember was the fact that he’d gone to Canada to talk with the Calabria and ended up in a brawl with some psychopathic ***** and her undecaplets? And, while he was on the subject, just how did she appear in that warehouse with all of her siblings? He’d blinked and missed it and then she’d stabbed him. Why was she so fast? And why was she so strong for that matter? Not strong for a chick, strong even for a dude. Despite her burly form, she’d had cleavage – he’d felt it pressing against his back, so Levi was pretty sure she was female. Sure dudes could fake that, but it was rare they were that short and that good on their feet.

Levi couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d put him in a strong hold though, how her muscles felt like they were supposed to, but that they exerted an unimaginable amount of power. He was fit, he worked out now and again and he could handle himself in a fight; the reason he had all those scars was because he’d gone up against the strong, the desperate and the vicious, and came out the victor. Yet, she’d wrapped him around her will like she was working clay. It was ridiculous how easily he’d bent. He was injured, fatally, but that didn’t seem like an excuse either. It was like no matter what he did, he couldn’t win, like he was destined to lose. Was that how nightmares went? Levi resigned himself to hate that **** and to blame his brain for conjuring it in the first place. He reached over to the night stand to put his hand on the Beretta, to feign a threat at his own brain, but he felt the bed move in the opposite direction. He grabbed the gun, his trigger finger ready to squeeze as he pushed the barrel into the face of the intruder.

“Levi! ****. Chill out will you.”

Two deep-set eyes, the pupils large and shining like polished obsidian, looked out from the pale-olive face with anger. The man was knelt on the very edge of the bed, looking at him rather like a small black cat whose thoughts lingered somewhere between killing Levi because he’d just pointed a gun at his head and licking Levi because, well, he was probably hungry. Levi put his gun down and tried to mirror that angry face, but he couldn’t stop himself from snorting a laugh at the thought.

“When you frown like that,” he said. “You kinda remind me of a cat.”

“Go to hell,” the other man growled; still angry, but otherwise puzzled. “What’s your problem anyway? Are you trying to kill me?”

“That’s a little difficult to answer right now.”

He studied the man’s face when he said those words, looking for the slightest cue of recognition, but Shiro continued to look at him cat-faced. Levi sighed and put his gun back on the night stand, a little more convinced now that he must have been dreaming.

“So what the **** do you want?” he asked, pushing his back into the leather headboard. “Ain’t like you’re here coz you just love my ******* company.”

Shiro rolled his eyes and stepped back onto his feet. “I’m here to check your pulse actually,” he sneered.

“My pulse, huh? What the hell for?”

“Because no one has seen or heard from you in over a week.”

Levi’s frown wasn’t impeded by any laughter this time. Shiro knelt onto the bed again, looking over him a little less cat-like and now more Mother Goose-like. Levi had to hold onto the need to punch him in the face.

“You do look a little pale, actually. Are you sure you’re not dead?”

“If I was dead, don’t you think I’d know it?” Levi spat back causing the other to back up again.

“There are several schools of thought on that one. However, they are just theories. No one could ever test them analytically of course.”

“D’ya gotta get all philosophical and ******* stupid on me right now? Damn you’re annoying. Maybe I am in Hell.”

Shiro sighed and walked around to the other side of the room. When Levi expected him to pull open the blinds and curtains, however, he didn’t. Shiro stood there and kept his back to him; a flood of black hair trickling down the length of his back. Levi thought it a bit weird seeing as how Shiro had always gone on about how the view was the only positive thing about Levi’s apartment, but he neglected to think any more about it as the man spoke.

“So if you’re not dead, why are you just lying there?”

“Have I got someplace to be in a hurry? **** off. If I wanna lie down, I’m lying down.”

“Your legs do work, yes?”

Levi quirked a brow. “What kind of dumb-*** question is that? You think I got paralyzed or some ****?”

Shiro simply shrugged his shoulders.

“Shut ya stupid cat face, dumb ****.”

“You’re not normally this… lazy.”

“And you’re not normally this ******* weird. Did you skip your meds this morning?”

“Are your arms functional?”

“Uh huh.”

“Still have all your fingers and toes?” Shiro began to ask like he was marking a checklist and Levi began to get more and more irritated as he provided each answer.

“Yep.”

“Back’s fine?”

“Mmhmm.”

“And… the plumbing works fine too?”

“What?! **** off.”

“I’m just asking. How’s your head?”

“Head’s… fine.”

“Why did you hesitate?”

“Coz I’m still ******* creeped out about you asking about my dick, freak.”

“So, your head is fine?”

“Yes.”

“And your brain too?”

“Shiro. Just what is your ******* point? And why in the hell are you just staring at the curtains? Is my brain ok? Are you sure your brain’s ok?”

“I’m worried about you. I haven’t seen you in a week and the last time we spoke…”

“What? What happened the last time we spoke?”

“You said you were sorting something out… tying up loose ends. And the Calabria are dead.”

Levi didn’t have an answer for that, just a thousand questions. He was even expecting to be accused at one point. What he wasn’t expecting, however, was what came out of Shiro’s mouth.

“Why won’t you get up, Levi? Why are you just lying there?”

“What – the actual **** – are you talking about?”

“If you’re not dead… stand up.”

Levi noticed the shallow light from the corridor start to dim considerably out of the corner of his eye. His head whipped around to check it out and all at once felt like he was suspended in ink. The world floated away from him; the bed he’d been on, the room around him, Shiro who’d been by the curtains – everything. It was still deathly quiet and empty, yet, he felt Shiro whisper into his ear.

“If you’re not dead… stand up.”

The humid voice made him want to turn and look, but he couldn’t feel his body.

“Stand up.”

His eyes strove to search through the darkness as he felt the voice grow distant.

“Stand up, Levi.”

He couldn’t feel his body, couldn’t see ****, how was he supposed to stand up?

And then it screamed, “Stand up!”

His eyes opened, though he swore he’d never closed them. The smell of chemicals and iron assaulted him. In the dark, coal-black ceilings loomed over him, jet-black walls boxed him in and the floor beneath him was cold and hard like onyx. He took a deep breath and the oxygen burned like sulphur, in fact, his whole body felt like it had been doused in acid. Yet, the worst feeling of all was the agonizing pinch coming from the centre of his brain; it was like someone had taken a cleaver to his skull. He wanted to sit up, but couldn’t. His arms and legs were too heavy, everything ached, everything was tight. He stared hard at the ceiling, wanting to blow it up with his mind. Anything to cause damage. Anything.

Levi’s glare held steady, straining to distinguish shadows from shapes when he found the blunt shaft of an object standing upright on his forehead. With effort, he lifted his rigid arms, flexed stiff fingers and felt his way around the object. When he came into contact with it, it didn’t so much as budge, but he felt the vibration of his own touch make his brain twitch like the two were connected. He couldn’t fathom the cause immediately and only listened to his instincts. His aching hand grasped the object and pulled. At first it resisted and he could feel his own skin, bone and brain matter give a twitch again, so Levi continued his efforts. He pulled slowly, but steadily with even strength until the object slipped forward with a sickening slurp. He was able to retract the thing a lot easier at that point and then he brought it before his eyes for inspection. Startled didn’t cut how he was feeling. It was like pulling a very large splinter from a place it never should have been in and all he could do was fascinate over the obvious: How in the hell had he survived that?

Screw thinking, he just wanted to get up and get out of there. He tested his body, willing it to move, but it simply shuddered before collapsing. He let his hand fall across his chest, the small weight of the dagger felt more like a tank parked on his chest, but he was too weary to shift it and too angry to let go. He lay there for a minute longer, breathing and feeling and acclimatizing – though he didn’t know it. He knew he felt strange; pain and the aches were fairly normal and expected, but he was still so confused and still resistant to think about it. Every time a tiny bubble of intrigue floated into his mind, he popped it was a sharp thrust of denial. The plan was simple: get up, go home, get on with it. None of the specifics mattered, nothing was going to stop him from what he’d set out to do.

With renewed vigor and anger of course, Levi’s hand gripped the dagger and threw it aside. It hit the broken tiles like a clap of thunder and clattered into an unnerving silence. With the dark being what it was, Levi was beginning to hate the silence and the stillness. He wanted to move, he had to. No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much it felt like he was tearing his insides apart, he had to sit up. He grunted and gasped with each movement – it actually hurt too much to swear – but eventually, Levi hauled himself up. He stared down at what was left of him. His leather jacket was gone; his crisp white shirt almost glowed. His belt and the buckle was gone too, but he could manage without them. Getting on without his shoes, however, was going to be a completely different story. Just beyond his body he saw his wallet with his credit cards and keys strewn out along the floor. Clearly his eyes were adjusting to the dark, but there was no hint of his guns.

Levi grumbled, still popping bubbles of thought, but he couldn’t pop the anger. He liked guns because he was a sharp shooter and was fascinated by the mechanics, the physics, the chemistry and most certainly the biology when a bullet was fired and turned the solid human form into a liquid. Maybe it was a little sick and twisted, but he really liked that **** and hearing a gun go off, whether it was in his hand or in his enemy’s hand, made him feel alive. He wasn’t pissed just because he was fascinated with guns, though; the Beretta and the BHP were more significant than that. Occasionally the Beretta fired like a piece of **** and while it wasn’t particularly valuable, he kept it and used it because it, and the BHP, had been his father’s. Of course, that sparked a bit of controversy with everyone who knew him. Levi made a big deal over hating his father, he wore the fact like it was a badge of pride, so why keep the guns? Because he hadn’t been given them, that’s why. Effectively, he’d stolen them and this was his way of flipping his father the bird. Thus when Levi couldn’t find his guns, he was invaded with a mixture of emotions that he both couldn’t understand and didn’t want to feel. Not knowing what else to do, Levi resigned to chalk up his losses and get on with it. With effort and cursing, he got to his feet.

Standing up made the world tilt. Levi grabbed for the boxes around him to steady himself as the off-kilter axis worked itself out. He took a few careful steps back to assess his stability, then looked around from this higher perspective. The warehouse had been shot to ****, most of the merchandise was spilt and spoilt, mixing with the blood on the ground, but Levi didn’t care. He stepped over the puddles and bodies of the Calabria as he could and headed for the door. Feeling each cold step kept him aware of the fact that someone had stolen his Italian loafers and even though his pride turned his nose up to every flash of leather painting dead men’s toes, his discomfort made him bend down to take a pair that was roughly his size. With angry feet, he kept moving, only pausing again at the frame of the door. It had been left open and Levi couldn’t help but notice how neither of his men had come in. Of course, he figured they were dead and as he stepped over their bodies on his way out the main door, he didn’t bother to check them.

The skies were navy-black by now, but any mention of a star was lost beyond the shade of tower blocks, the glow of streetlamps and the neon fluorescence of cafes, bars and restaurants. Despite not wearing a jacket, he didn’t feel a chill, just the touch of a breeze slithering across his shirt. He didn’t think it was weird; he was too distracted with his ever-growing rage. The car was gone, naturally, and even though Levi was still reluctant to think too much, he was marking notes against the woman who’d damn near killed him tonight. He was also sure that if he ever saw her or one of her siblings again, he’d turn all of his rage onto them. She’d find no mercy in him and every vile and atrocious thought he had he’d devote to making her scream and beg for forgiveness, just so he could revel in the helplessness and the hopelessness before he put her to death. Yeah, he was going to enjoy running into her again, but in the meantime, he had to get home.