Cause of Death: Unnatural

Em watched Raeisa's blood ooze slowly down the road tracing a crack in the old bitumen. She drew in a long, slow breath, shut her eyes and tilted her head back. Raeisa's life force, or what passed for her soul, was still hanging around her flesh. Em's dark energy sniffed at it. It really was as hideous as Raeisa had been in life. She thought about devouring it, and then found she couldn't. She didn't eat junk food.

She had a better idea.

Em spread out a net of dark energy, a web of black smoke and snagged the monster's soul as it tried to pass. Raeisa's essence rippled and fought against the net, but Em hauled it tighter and tighter until the thrashing soul was compacted down to a sphere about the size of Em's fist.

Em held out her hand and the soul sphere dropped into it. Green and silver streaks of color swirled around inside it. There was a malevolence about it still, but Em frowned at it and the sphere hardened into a shining ball of black glass.

She tossed it once into the air and caught it lightly. She'd give it to Jarek. Let him take it home to the Family and see what they made of it. Let Jarek prize the soul back out again and tease Raeisa's secrets from her. Perhaps she'd give away her masters then. Em knew Jarek and her father could be very persuasive.

Footsteps suddenly echoed further up the alleyway. Em sent out a flicker of energy to see who was coming, then sighed and began drawing in the rest of her dark matter.

Robert and Nick both exploded around the corner of the alleyway, and skidded to a stop a few meters from Em. Both men had worn expressions of intense concern on their faces as they turned the corner, but Em found herself almost amused by the speed at which those expressions spun through concern, confusion, alarm, surprise, disbelief and bewilderment as they took in Em and the body on the ground in front of her.

She smiled at them. "Hi boys," she said lightly. She knew she was still trailing bits of dark energy, and she knew she was covered in blood, but what did that matter when there was a dead lizard-woman at her feet?

Nick's eyes were flicking from Raeisa to Em and back down again, the frown on his face growing deeper and deeper.

"You're covered in blood," he said.

"Yeah. I know."

"What happened?"

"I stopped the killer," Em said simply.

Nick's eyes went back down to the lizard at her feet, and she saw his face crumple as his mind tried to accept what he saw there. Poor Nick. This was a long way from his comfort zone, further even than his girlfriend trying to drink his soul. It had been a rough few days for Nick. She kind of felt sorry for him.

She turned her eyes to Robert. For some reason Em found she was worried about what Robert might think. He'd managed to get his expressions under control, and was looking at Em carefully, studying her face, his eyes moving out to gaze at the air beside her head.

"You're ... bleeding," he said, gesturing at the side of Em's head, though his eyes were focused on something in the space next to her face.

"No, I'm not," said Em. "All this blood is from her." She nudged the body with her toe.

"I don't mean blood," Robert said, pointing again. "You're ... leaking."

Em put a hand up to the side of her face and realized she'd been scratched. Not her physical body, but her dark matter had been ripped. She could feel it now - a rent in her matter and form that she hadn't noticed in the heat of the fight. She smothered a sudden giggle. The gash in the side of her face was probably spilling black smoke and the stars and darkness of the void. No wonder the two men looked so freaked out.

Her hand cupped the side of her face and healed the wound. When she pulled her hand down the gash was gone. She saw the surprise in both men’s expressions.

'It's fine," she said.

Robert took a step toward Raeisa. He was bending down as he moved. Em could tell he was busting to examine the creature and smiled to herself.

"No," she said, quietly. "Sorry Robert." And with another nudge of her toe she disintegrated Raeisa's body and scattered her atoms with a little kick. "Can you imagine the paperwork?" she said.

Neither man returned her smile. Em sighed. She didn't want to leave this little life she'd made for herself, she'd been so comfortable here, but this was looking like a total disaster. Even if she hadn't thoroughly offended both men this week, this scene was likely to make them both run screaming. She ran a hand through her hair and began gathering her energy. She'd have to re-write a few things in their minds...

"So, what's a bit of paperwork?" said Nick slowly. He was looking at Robert with one eyebrow raised. "We do paperwork all the time. Paperwork for this, paperwork for that. We could do a little more, couldn't we, Robert?"

Robert was still staring at Em, but he had tilted his head toward Nick as he listened to him. There was the glimmer of a smile around the corners of his lips. It was a wry smile, Em noticed, but it was a start.

"My speciality, actually," said Robert. "Though I'm not entirely sure any paperwork would be needed in a situation like this."

"No paperwork?" asked Nick.

"Well, there's no body, is there? There's a fair amount of blood of course, but if Em..."

He glanced down at the blood and then meaningfully up at Em. She stared for a moment and then smiled broadly. With a whisper of dark energy the blood on the road was gone. So was the blood on Em's clothes.

"Oh, l must have been seeing things. There's no blood after all." Robert paused for a moment and then took a step closer to Em. "You have a bit of explaining to do Em, but maybe that can wait for a while. That was your friend over there, wasn't it?" He nodded toward Jennifer's body where it lay just outside the warehouse door.

Em felt a huge rush of emotion well up somewhere between her throat and the back of her eyes. Yes, Jennifer had been her friend. And Em was thoroughly ashamed of herself for underestimating Robert and Nick. They had both just shown themselves to be stronger and truer than she had imagined. This was the side of humanity Em found so difficult, but so desirable. Friendship and loyalty. She'd worked hard to earn both, trashed them in selfish moments of her own stupidity, and then somehow won them back again by revealing her true self. It made no sense to her. Humans! This was why she loved them. Perhaps she did have a home here after all.

Robert put a hand on her shoulder.

"Go home, Em. Get some rest. Let Nick and me do this. We'll talk about it all later." He paused. "If you want to."

Em nodded. Wonderful Robert, she thought, ever the gentleman. I don't deserve this.

"How did you find me?" she asked.

"You left your phone on in the lab," said Nick gently. "We traced your last call. When it pointed here we knew something was wrong."

"Thanks," said Em.

"Now go!" Robert ordered.

Em grinned, spun herself into smoke and laughed at the boys' expressions as she flew down the lane.