GR: Ghri - Part II

GR: Ghri    Part II
The dark night air swirled around her as the flaming silhouette tore down the Houston streets; people screaming and running at the sight of her. She took no heed - it wasn't her job to be afraid. After all, how could she? Her job was to help accomplish something that fear itself would be afraid of. She was simply a pawn in a large chess game. One that would most likely be obliterated once she fulfilled her duty. Her master - or boss - was Blackheart, son of Mephistopholees - the devil himself. A contract had been created long ago with the names of a thousand dead souls and now it lay hidden in a cemetary somewhere here in the area surrounding Houston. Blackheart had instructed Ghri to retrieve the contract - and to annihilate anyone who stood in her way. He had also warned her of someone that was after himself - someone who wanted to keep the contract out of Blackheart's hands and to see Blackheart dead.

"Find him, and kill him," Blackheart had told her, his eyes narrowed in disgust. "He is a Rider, a creation of Mephastopholees. You are my Rider. And you, will carry out your job without any further interrogation."

Ghri had done nothing but agree, and left into the darkness. Arguing with Blackheart was ended with death; and a painful one at that. His mere touch could suck the life from any human body without effort; and though Ghri took her place alongside him, she was just as vulnerable. He had no feelings, no heart, no soul to corrupt. And the evil that lay within his soul like a blackened sword was aimed to be trippled with the help of the contract. Blackheart would be unstoppable.

Ghri blinked. A roaring of sirens had appeared behind her; flashing red and white lights trailed behind her flaming cycle. Slowly, she turned to face her persuers. Three police cars - all in a defensive row - were pressed behind her. The drivers were tense, seemingly unprepared for the scene of a woman on a flaming motorcycle before them. Nonetheless, they had their orders. How Ghri had missed such an obvious sound, she wasn't sure. The sirens were loud enough to alert people on the uppermost floors of the skyscrapers. Yet she, a Rider, had missed them? She sighed dismissively to herself and continued to ride. Must have been lost in my thoughts, she decided with a shrug.

As two of the cars pulled alongside of her, Ghri wrenched down the acceleration. The engine roared louder and she pulled away effortlessly, the bike's full potential not even close to being reached. Ghri smiled smugly as the cars fell back a few yards, only to try and accelerate in attempts to match her pace for pace once again. Narrowing her eyes, Ghri jammed her hands onto the handlesbars, pulling the acceleration back as far as it could go. Within moments, the flames came to life behind her as she took off down the street, the wind whipping her mercilessly as she was lost from the sights of her persuers. The city went by in a blur; as did everything else. Everything was nothing more than a meld of darkness and blue specks of light. The city was disappearing behind her, and she released her hand from the bar. The bike slowed, and everything came back into focus. She was now riding alone on her way out of the city, with only the steady roar of her motorcycle engine to be heard.

Looking fully from side to side, Ghri stared coldly into the horizon. No signs of a cemetary could be seen - nothing more than flat land with a few scraggly trees. The buildings weren't far behind her, and others could be seen in other directions. Though to her utter disappointment and disatisfaction, no signs of the old cemetary were anywhere.

"Where is it?" she hissed to herself, jerking her motorcycle to a stop. She threw herself off of the seat into the dust and walked slowly down the desolate street.

"It should be here. They couldn't have moved it. They wouldn't have dared."

Her thoughts were interrupted by a hazy light that drew itself slowly over the horizon. Ghri, standing only a few paces from her motorcycle, looked up. Sighing quietly, she cussed under her breath. It was sunrise.

The light began to pattern the dark earth, and as it hit Ghri, her image changed. Her flaming hands disappeared into that of a normal woman's.  Her leather outfit dissolved into faded jeans, light tan sandles, a light tan overcoat and a brown shirt. The swords that hung upon her back faded into nothing.

Ghri turned to look back at her motorcycle. Sunlight flickered gently off of the polished black surface. The old design had gone - for now it looked simply like a polished black chopper. No longer was it flaming. It looked normal. Like her. Like how she and her bike used to look before fade changed her life forever.

Ghri folded her arms tightly across her chest and sighed, letting her head fall to her chest. She had failed to locate the cemetary another night. Blackheart wouldn't be pleased. She stood there for a moment with her eyes closed, then unfolded her arms and swung her leg over her bike and pushed hard on the kickstart. The engine roared to life and she pulled the bike in a tight circle, facing the Houson city limits once again. She twisted her hands on the handles and started to ride back into the city, her hair flying behind her. During the daylight, she was nothing more than an ordinary girl. Though at night, in the shadows, and in the presence of evil, she was faced with the option to become her other half - where she too, was known as a Rider. Even though she had not become a Rider in the same respect that the others before her had, she too was forced to do the bounty hunting of another evil being.

As she rode, she seemed to get lost in her own thoughts, as she often did. She had been doing her job for only a week now, and she had already been thrown into a world of her own thoughts and regrets. In her attempts to clear her head of the thoughts of what life could be like if she wasn't faced with such a job, she blinked; and gave a sharp cry. She had veered off the road, and was heading into the path of a large cargo truck. The white truck was only yards ahead of her, a startled driver motioning frantically for her to move. A loud horn reminded Ghri of her predicament, and she frantically twisted the handles. She turned sharply to the right, the bike skided across the road, and out of the truck's path.

She breathed in fumes as she continued to ride, her eyes wide with shock. Her breathing was hard and heavy, her hands gripping the handlebars so tightly her knuckles had turned white. Never had she had such a problem with her driving. Never had her thoughts driven her into something so dangerous. She struggled to keep calm, forcing herself to take a few deep breaths and focus on the road before her once again.

"Focus, Ghri," she muttered to herself, releasing her grip on the handles a bit. "You didn't get killed this time. Stop thinking about what didn't happen, and focus on doing your job."

She knew she wasn't convincing, even to herself. She never had been. Sighing deeply, she rounded a corner into an alleyway and stopped short, pulling her still moving motorcycle into a small garage beneath an apartment. The garage was dimly lit, a small lightbulb swinging quietly from a chain on the roof. The garage was fairly large; with just enough space to fit her motorcycle and a few desks which were scattered with tools and old, musty books. Ghri pulled her bike into the center of the garage and swung herself off the side, after turning it off with a small kick to the ignition. She lazily opened the kickstand and the motorcycle engine died as it fell against the kickstand and lay still.

Ghri stretched out her arms and yawned, pacing slowly over to a small wooden desk in the corner of the garage which was caked in dust. She blew away the dust and picked up a book about as thick as her hand and brushed off the cover. It was an old leather book, and the brown cover was worn along with the yellowed pages. All of her books were old and worn, though this one was not as bad as a few of the others in her posession. A dull golden border was the only thing on the book beside the brown cover; and it swung easily open as Ghri began to scan through the yellow-tinged pages.

The pages contained numerous maps, all printed in a light ink that was hardly visible anymore. Leaning against the desk, Ghri stared at the book intently as she reached a rection of the book that showed maps of Houston. She stopped flipping and held open two pages, scanning thr pages slowly. The cemetary in the map was placed inside the city near the outskirts - or, where the outskirts existed now. She had rode downtown just the night before, and she and Blackheart had searched for the cemetary with no luck. He had then instructed her to find the moved cemetary - and to do it quickly and not disappoint him.

So where was it now?
Ghri forcefully shut the book and tossed it onto the desk, sighing loudly. "Where on earth could that cemetary have been placed? Where?" She knew that she had spent a day too long searching for the cemetary, and the longer she took, the more forceful Blackheart would be on her for her incompetance. She also hasn't seen so much as a trace of the other Rider, who was after Blackheart. He was her primary target, after retrieving the contract. If she couldn't find him, how could she complete her job? And more importantly, how strong was he?

Ghri began to rummage through another desk full of books, tossing books in every which direction on the desk. She found a small black book piled under several others and threw it in front of her, beginning to quickly scan the pages. Word after word she read briefly on a page before hastily flipping to another. All of this information she had seen before; at least a hundred times over. None of her old books seemed to hold any new information on the Riders, Mephistopholees, or even Blackheart. It all seemed lost to the world - or she just hadn't found the information yet.

Mumbling angrily, she shut the book and walked out of the garage, pulling the door shut behind her. Her apartment was above her garage, which she hardly visited any longer. Her job had taken most of her time now, and she didn't have any time at home. A side door, painted white stood beside the garage; and as Ghri stepped inside a self-automated elavator greeted her. Grabbing a rusted metal latch, Ghri looked around lazily as the elevator began to jerk and pull her upwards. This route seemed so familiar, so normal to her before. Now it was almost like a memory.

She pulled the rusting doors open after the elevator jerked to an unsteady stop and stepped into her apartment, which was nothing more than a large room. A couch was lying in the corner with a small wooden table beside it; and it like the others below in the garage was littered with piles of dark books and dusty novels. The walls were painted a tope color, and a few paintings hung in the corners of the walls. One small hallway in the back lead to her bedroom, and a small kitchen stood just before the doorway. Besides that, the room was desolate.

Morning sunlight flickered through the single window in the room, and Ghri groaned, pulling the dark brown drapes closed, shutting her room in shadows. A smile alighted the girl's face after the light source was cut off, and immediately Ghri's hands sprung to life with flames. They flickered dully at first, but rose higher ever so slightly. Ghri loved the darkness - it brought her power. Power that no amount of light could ever bring her; and now that she was in darkness, it allowed her to practice. She closed her eyes and focused on the flames in her hands. They began to dance wildely as she began to walk, different designs of fire following her across the room. She was careful with her aim, keeping the fire from licking what few posessions she had. She knew that practicing in her own home was dangerous, though what choice did she have? She was nothing more than an outcast now, and even against her own will. She was forced to live like this. But she didn't dare deny it. She was enjoying it.