To Kill a Cactus - The Wise Ones part 2

The Wise Ones part 1: HERE

...

The sun fell behind the horizon when we began our journey towards the north of the city. We were dressed in dark colours which were supposed to distract the zombies to a degree, apparently, they didn't have good night vision. Neither did I, so I definitely stumbled a few times and got scared of every tree branch that dared to move in the wind, but somehow we made our way through the narrow streets of Exitium.

We couldn't say a word to each other during the journey, just in case someone would hear us. Suddenly Christopher stopped and walked straight into his back. That really hurt my nose, but I pushed back the tears and tried to have a look around to see what exactly made him stop. I looked up to him and saw that his eyes were closed, I guessed he must have had a vision or perhaps he was trying to listen carefully to something. As I had understood, he also had heightened senses, he could hear and see much better than the average person.

I held on to his bag, waiting for a sign, but he felt so silent that I thought for a moment that he wasn't breathing at all. Then he released his breath and turned around. I thought he wanted to tell me something, but his eyes were fixed on something behind me instead. He gently pushed me behind him and I tried to make myself as small as possible to stay out of sight of anything that he might have been seeing.

Usually, all of the streetlights were out, but one of them started to flicker right in front of us, I could see a woman stepping into the light although stepping would be the wrong word, she more so floated than walked. She was wearing a long dress that just about grazed the ground beneath her, it was very well fitted to her waist and flared out at her hips. Her hands were covered in tiny delicate tattoos, her hair was long and sleek, half of it was up in a bun and the rest falling down over her shoulders all the way to her waist. I was holding my breath, so looked so beautiful, her pale skin made the dark blue colour of her eyes pop.

"Christopher, how lovely to see you," she said, her words flowed out of her mouth like a sweet poison. It made shivers run down my spine.

"I wish I could say the same, Laylah" Christopher answered, his voice was calm and gathered as always.

"You can't possibly still be mad about the fact that I couldn't come to our meeting, I had a sudden change of plans," she murmured, there was a smile on her face, but nothing about her implied that she was happy or even had emotions at all.

"I'm not mad at that, I wasn't expecting you to show up, I'm a bit more bothered by the fact that you sent your slaves to attack my hospital," he answered.

"Oh that, they were bored and hungry and I was bored and hungry, so..." she giggled and curled a piece of her hair around her finger.

I wasn't looking at her anymore, I was still hiding behind Christopher, but I could feel her looking at me nonetheless as if she wanted to burn a hole straight to my head.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?" she had suddenly moved so close to us that I could almost hear her voice straight in my ear although Christopher was still blocking me from her. I could feel the hairs on the back of my head stand up and it felt a lot colder than I had remembered, something about her was very off and I didn't want to be around her at all.

...

To Be Continued