Star Harbor Nights

"You've heard of me," Diana said to the man with the silver mask and the black suit. "In that regard, at least, you have me at a disadvantage."

"You may call me Mr. Divine," the masked man said.

"Is the 'Mr.' so nobody confuses you with the drag queen?" Ray asked.

"In point of fact, yes," the assassin said. "But let us waste no more time on such trifling matters. For all intents and purposes, you may think of me simply as the man who will kill the both of you."

"Talk is cheap," Diana said.

"I think Fernando Guzman would disagree," Divine said, stepping over the man's body. "He has learned just how very dear talk can be."

Enraged by the off-hand treatment of the callous murder they'd just witnessed, Ray charged forward, leading with his fist. Mr. Divine stepped nimbly aside like a matador dodging a bull, and... also like a matador, he struck Ray as he went passed, running him through from back to front.

Ray stood as though in shock, looking at the sword tip which protruded from his stomach with an expression somewhere between surprise and horror. Giving a sadistic sneer, the assassin twisted his wrist... only to have his own expression mirroring Ray's as the hilt turned far too easily, detaching from the rapidly softening metal of the now red-hot blade.

"I'm sure I'm going to somehow regret that later," Ray said, turning around and wiping a film of red-hot melted steel off his wounded stomach. The wound was trying to close up, pushing more of the metal out in the process. He could feel it trickling down from the exit wound in his back, as well.

Recovering quickly from the surprise, Divine punched him in the face, the sword hilt adding weight to a particularly precise and quick blow. Ray reeled backwards, seeing stars, then went down as Divine swept his legs out from underneath him.

In those moments that their opponent's attention was on Ray, Diana launched a series of nerve strikes at Divine's back... and missed with every one. To an unskilled observer, Mr. Divine's actions must have seemed spastic and random... but to Diana's frustration, she could tell that he was simply moving out of the way at the last possible instant, giving her no chance to correct her aim.

More infuriating, he wasn't even looking at her.

She snapped off a roundhouse kick, a wild swing that would have had little chance of connecting against an alert opponent of even moderate skill... but one that couldn't be avoided with the small movements Divine had been favoring. He leaped forward, again at the last moment, leaving Diana to feel the toe of her boot brush against the cloth of his jacket. He spun around in mid-air to land facing her, nearly thirty feet away.

"The gods themselves have decreed me untouchable," he declared.

"Yeah, well, I've never been particularly religious," Diana said. Not taking her eyes off him, she kicked up a fusillade of gravel from the path with her instep. Keeping his own feet firmly planted, Divine went through a series of rapid contortions that kept any of the improvised projectiles from touching him. Diana was already in motion, covering three yards with each stride in order to launch herself at him while he was still distracted.

It was to no avail; he dropped backwards like a limbo dancer, and her momentum carried her past him.

"So, you've got some kind of power where nothing we can do will hit you," Ray said, staggering towards Divine. His voice was a little hoarse, his breathing ragged. He stopped to cough up some molten metal, then wiped off his mouth. "Nice. What happens when we're not trying to hit you, though?"

"Surrender will earn you only a less painful death," Divine said.

"Wasn't talking about surrender," Ray said. He put a finger to his lips as if to make a shushing gesture, and blew hard. Two gouts of flame spewed from his mouth. Divine's body twisted sideways between them, though the bulk of the fire would have missed him by inches anyway.

As it turned out, inches away from an intense magical blaze was not a very good place to be. Mr. Divine screamed as his skin seared and his exquisitely tailored suit caught fire.

"See, fire isn't what you need to worry about," Ray said as Divine beat at the flames, then dropped to the ground to try to smother them. "It's the heat that gets you, and on that score, a near-miss is almost as bad as a direct hit."

By way of demonstration, he spouted off another blast, this time not bothering to intentionally redirect the flame. The rolling man seemed to bounce out of the way, though the back of his jacket ignited.

"I can keep doing this," Ray said. "I can turn up my own internal thermostat to the point that I'm cooking everything near me, including you if you're dumb enough to keep coming near me. I don't like using my powers like this... but your powers don't give me much choice. So, I'm giving you one... give up peacefully, or be slow-roasted to a crisp."

"Ray, no!" Diana screamed. Ray resisted the urge to whip his head around in her direction, fearing she was trying to warn him about some impending treachery from the now badly singed man who had pulled himself up onto his knees before him. Indeed, Mr. Divine tensed as if preparing to act... but then simply fell over onto his side.

"What the...?" Ray asked, mystified.

"He killed himself!" Diana said. "Probably with a poison capsule, though it's possible he was trained to stop his own heartbeat."

"But why?" Ray said. "I gave him a chance to surrender."

"Exactly... and what did you expect to happen when you force a fucking  ninja to surrender?" Diana asked.

"I didn't know..."

"Damn it, Ray, don't you ever watch movies?"

"All the time," he said. "But... they're movies."

"Damn it," Diana repeated. "Damn it, damn it, and double damn it... with him dead now, too, the link back to the crime boss is broken."

"That's your concern?" Ray asked. "A man just died and you're losing sleep over a lost lead?"

"It's a wasted opportunity," Diana said. "But no, I wasn't actually going to lose any sleep. If I don't get eight solid hours a week, I'm no good to anybody."

"How can you be so flippant about a dead man?"

"Why not? It doesn't hurt anybody," Diana said. "Unlike, say, being flippant with the feelings of living, breathing people. Anyway, do you know how many people he killed? How many people he would have gone on to kill? You watched him murder a man in front of us, because of us... how about a little thought for his victims?"

"God, I don't know why I thought we could work together," Ray said, throwing up his hands. "This was a huge mistake."

"You're right... I despise you for what you did to me, and you despise me for what you think I am," Diana said sadly. "There's no way a relationship can work. It was stupid of me to think otherwise."

"Yeah, it... uh... you mean a working relationship... right?" Ray asked. "Becuase... if you mean any other kind of..."

"I despise you, Ray," Diana repeated, stalking in close until her nose was inches from his mouth. "You made me feel weak and vulnerable in a way that no one has since I was a kid. Can you possibly imagine what that feels like, to train your whole life... to dedicate yourself to being the toughest of the toughest and the best of the best, and then find yourself reduced to a child by a careless clown who never worked hard for anything in his life?"

"Diana, if I said I was sorry..."

"Shut up," she said, pushing him hard with the palm of her hand against the still-tender spot where Divine's blade had pierced his stomach. He stumbled backwards with a grunt, and she shoved him again, knocking him to the ground. "I don't want to hear your apologies."

"What the hell do you want from me, then?" Ray asked.

"What do I want? I want the badass who gets run through and spits out metal," Diana said, catching him completely off-guard by pouncing on him. "I want the man who took what he wanted and never thought twice about it... I thought bringing you out here tonight would bring that out... and it did, for a few minutes, before you turned into some big wuss who falls to pieces because he used his fire powers and somebody got burned," she continued. "But I think I know how to get the man back." She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him forcefully about his shoulders and chest as she spoke.

"You don't know what you're doing," Ray said, grabbing her arms and trying to disengage. "You're probably light-headed from hunger. Go home, eat half a grain of rice or something."

"I'm hungry, alright," she said, biting his ear.

"I... I should probably make sure none of the smoldering grass flares up," Ray said, shaking his head to try to dislodge her teeth while crawling backwards to try to wriggle out from underneath her.

"If it burns, let it burn," Diana said, clamping her legs tight around him.

"Diana... on top of all the other reasons why this would be a really, really bad idea, it's just not safe for me to be with you," he said. "Don't ask me to explain it, because I really can't, but... I just... I can't... love anybody."

"I don't want you to love me," Diana said in a low, throaty growl. "I want you to use me, like you used me before," she said, pushing his shoulders back down against the ground and pressing her body against the length of his. "I want your loathing, and your spite, and your anger battering into me like a ram," she said. "I want you to fuck me, Ray... fuck me like I'm everything in the world that you hate the most and you can kill me with your dick. You don't have to convince me that you can't love anybody, but I believe you can do that much, at least... can't you, Ray?"

As it turned out, he could.