The Fifth Element

Part 2 Chapter 39

The impact of the soulless woman landing on Deception's wing threw him completely off balance. He tilted violently to the right, before spiraling into a nose dive. I held on for dear life while the earth rushed at us.

But even with my impending date with the ground, I still had a bigger problem. You see, the soulless woman was on top of me, and it had wrapped its cold, lifeless limbs around my back. I could feel its hot putrid breath on my neck as its teeth scraped my skin while it attempted to bite down.

The soulless woman broke most of the fall, and my ears were treated to the sound it's of shattering sounds. The soulless woman didn't release me though, and we rolled over one other, each taking turns on the bottom. The hard, rough, black surface, torn my at my skin.

We finally stopped rolling and came to a halt only because we crashed into a building and had ended up at the worst possible angle, at least for me. The soulless woman had every advantage that she could have over me. You see I had ended up with my belly pressed up again the building's exterior and the hand that was holding the channeling weapon was pressed up against the wall too.

I yelped in pain when its teeth finally cracked my flesh and pure agony bloomed throughout my body and canceled out the painful throbbing from the scrapes and bruises I received on my roll on the road were causing me. The pain lit up every inch of my body until that was the only sensation my body burned with.

It felt like someone was trying to suck out my organs with a straw and my body began to seize. No, it wasn't trying to suck out my organs, it was trying to suck out my soul!

Before I had time to comprehend that I was about to lose my soul, the pain was gone and so was the weight of the soulless woman on top of me. Once again I looked to see that I had again been saved from the clutches of the soulless by one of Arnold's dolls. Its eyes glowed a hot white in the sunlight while it stared down at me. It held the squirming dead women in its massive cracked stone hands. I saw that the soulless women had long blonde hair and eyes that once could have been brown, but were covered by that same milky sheen.

I quickly got up and stabbed my channeling weapon into its side. It let out a loud streak, before going completely still. Arnold doll's let go of the broken body, and it fell to the ground with a loud thud.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned around to see that Arnold was standing directly behind me. His brown curl clumped together from what appeared to be blood, which had somehow ended all through it. Actually, Arnold was covered head to toe in blood. Everything from his gray shirt and black pants, to his old ratty boots and glasses, were splattered with the thick red liquid.

I wrinkled my nose at the metallic smell that was pouring off him and covered my mouth quickly when I felt bile beginning to rise in my throat. He smelled exactly like death, a scent I should probably be used to by now seeing what I was, but I usually dealt with old death, not new death. At least I didn't feel the final death of whoever's blood was covering Arnold. My senses were certainly far more muted in this world than ours.

Arnold opened his mouth and began to speak "Most of the zombies stopped being zombies and things got really boring. Thank you for being attacked and making things interesting," he said to me in his same dull, flat monotone voice. He pointed to something, and I followed the direction of his finger until my eyes landed on Deception who was backed up against a building with his back arched all the way up, while Arnold's doll stood over him. He was growling at the thing. His yellow eyes were wide with fear, and all his teeth were bared.

"You're welcome, but I wasn't trying to entertain you by nearly getting my soul sucked out of my body like a milkshake," I retorted and shook my head at him. "Can you tell your doll to get away from my dragon?" I asked him, and Arnold nodded and waved his hand, and the clay man stepped away from Deception.