CHAPTER#119

"I see that we have failed once more." His voice was pleasant, but somehow sucked the warmth out of the air. Mike, still frozen from having Cecilia riding shotgun inside of him, somehow felt colder even hearing it. The stranger shook his head, his dark curls unmoving.

"And who are you?' Mike asked.

"You may call me Amir. If you would like to invite me in, I would be happy to speak with you."

"Do you think I'm dumb?" Mike fiddled with the goggles, trying to look at him with different settings. The goggles could see so many different things, and right now, they told him he was looking at nothing. No heat signature, no heartbeat. He may as well be looking at open air. Even the stranger's magic was somehow invisible to him. "There's no way in Hell that I'm inviting you in, and I am not giving you my house."

"I don't want the house. I only want what is mine." His eyes finally fell on what he had been looking for. Lily had bounced off of the stone wall and was currently fighting her way free from what was left of the same hedge Mike had hidden behind when he fell off of Zel. Her eyes had gone wide in terror, and she fought to free herself.

"Nothing here is yours."

"I beg to differ." His eyes locked on Mike. "I will offer you a one time deal Mr. Radley, but you will only have moments to make it, so please, hear me out. I am a patient man. I am patient enough to simply wait until you have passed away, leaving this place to the next Caretaker. I am patient enough to convince the others that this fight we have with you is not worth the toll it has already taken on my colleagues. I am patient enough to admit defeat, and return again when you have been long dead in the ground.

"However, I have no patience for disloyalty. That succubus belongs to me, and I will have her back. Hand her over to me, right now, and we will go away." Though his face was dark, his teeth were bright, making him look like a sadistic shadow.

Mike watched the man, then looked at Lily. She had managed to fall out of the bush, her dark eyes on the stranger at the edge of his yard.

"I don't know that you really have any bargaining power," Mike said. "With this sundial, I can keep you out of here for the rest of my days."

"Indeed. But you will be under house arrest. I will wait for you to step away, and I will kill you. A lifetime of being stuck in that tiny little home, wondering when we will try again. Paranoia at every hour of the day. Or you could return my property and have your freedom and my word that we will never bother you again. It seems to me that you are getting the better end of the bargain."

"Mike." Lily's voice shook. "He means it. He won't just kill you either. He'll make you suffer.."

"What? Do you want to go back with him?"

"She does." The stranger held out his hand. "Even if she doesn't know it. Give me her ruby and I will take the others from here and leave you in peace."

Mike chuckled. "She and I have a deal. She can't break it."

"But you can." This time, when he held his hand out, Mike could see the shadows clinging to him. It was like he had been poorly photoshopped back into the real world, the extra dark lines around his body the main indicator. "Now hand her over. I won't ask again."

Mike sighed. He walked to the edge of his yard, the stone lions moving at his side. They were an extension of his mind, but he knew they could not go past the boundary of the house. When he was about ten feet away, he stuck his hand in his pocket. The stranger's smile grew impossibly wide.

"You know what? Maybe she is too much trouble." Mike frowned. "Wait, hold on." He pulled his hand out of his pocket and felt around on the outside of his pants, then looked around. "That's so strange, where did it go?"

The smile faltered. "What happened?"

"Well, sometime between yesterday and today, I ran out of fucks to give." Mike grinned sheepishly. "Guess you're just going to have to be patient enough for me to grow a new one, or something."

Amir's eyes narrowed, and the ground shook, but Mike held his ground,his eyes never leaving Amir's. The rain had finally stopped, and the sun was coming out above them.

"You are a dead man, Mike Radley." He knelt down to pick up Kali. "You should have taken my offer."

Mike felt that cold feeling in his gut, but he was ready for the attack. An arm made of shadows quickly crossed the space between them, seizing him by the collar of his shirt. Mike's arm swung up, the dagger clutched tightly in his fingers, and he severed the shadow limb. It tumbled onto the ground and shattered, freezing the grass around him.

"Do you want me to check my pockets again, Amir?" Every fiber of his being told him to run away and hide, to flee from this man, but he felt it deep within his being, that voice of reason that said if he turned his back now, Amir would kill him.

Amir chuckled. The shadow arms lifted Kali, cradling her like a child.

"We have no more to say to each other." Amir walked backward onto the street. Someone had left a large, ornate rug just sitting on the asphalt. Mike's jaw dropped when it lifted Amir and Kali into the sky and flew away, Amir's dark eyes never leaving his until they were gone.

"Mike." Lily was at his side, her hand on his arm. "You should have given me back. Now they'll never stop. He'll never stop."

"I don't expect that he will." Mike let out the breath he had been holding, his limbs suddenly heavy. "Dude scares the shit out of me. Shadow arms and a flying carpet? What the actual fuck?" Mike looked at his front yard. "Shit. It's going to take days to fix this."

Lily laughed. Mike liked the sound of it.