Chapter 5: A chase

We found shit.

I mean, we were in there for three hours, combing through every drawer, peeling back rugs, even prying off wall panels and floor tiles in spots that seemed the slightest bit off. And still—nothing. Nothing that screamed “seer” or “magic” or even “dangerous woman.” Just a locked laptop, stubborn and cold, password-protected and sealed like a tomb. We’d need a professional to crack it.

Frustrated, we were digging through the innards of Honey’s couch—crushed pills, coins, what might have once been a lollipop—when we heard a sound behind us.

A strange, dry tearing noise. Like cloth ripping in reverse.

Then—boom. The apartment door disintegrated into thousands of tiny splinters, dust and metal flecks raining across the floor.

Standing in the wreckage, framed by hallway light, was Shiroi.

The same Shiroi I’d shot yesterday. Point-blank.

He looked as surprised to see us as we were to see him.

“Don’t let him touch you!” I shouted.

Thomas didn’t hesitate. He already had his silenced pistol drawn. The soft phfft of the suppressed shot was still louder than movies ever portray, a hollow snap that echoed off the apartment’s walls. The bullet hit Shiroi clean in the chest. He slammed back against the wall, but didn’t fall—he leaned, clutching the wound with one hand, his face twisted in a grimace that wasn’t pain. It was rage.

“You will die for that,” he hissed, his voice low and inhumanly steady.

Thomas didn’t blink. Another shot, this one square to the head.

Shiroi’s neck snapped back slightly—but when I looked closer, I saw no blood. No wound. Just a faint red spot, like he’d been flicked by a giant finger.

“You see that?” I pointed at his forehead, backing up.

Thomas nodded grimly. “He’s still breathing. Just stunned.”

Without a word, he reached behind his belt and pulled out a massive serrated combat knife, heavy and matte black. He knelt and slashed it across Shiroi’s neck.

The blade met flesh—and unraveled.

Steel transformed into strands of glittering wire, shredding in Thomas’s grip, he let it fell to the ground. The handle dissolved next, threads of composite and metal dancing into the air like it had been undone at the molecular level.

“Fuck that shit,” Thomas growled, leaping back. “He’s a demon.”

I didn’t argue. I didn’t ask questions. I turned and ran. We both did, bolting for the stairs like hell was licking at our heels.

“Wait!” Thomas shouted, just before the staircase. “Cameras!”

“Just go,” I shot back. “He must’ve gotten rid of them. They’re not there anymore.”

I always paid attention to things like that. You don’t want to be caught on video doing very bad things—especially if you’re not even wearing a mask, like Thomas.

“Good.”

He bolted for the staircase. I followed without hesitation. No way in hell I’d take the elevator in a situation like this—especially not when someone might be able to melt the cables.

We burst into the ground floor hallway—unfortunately, it was empty.

I ran to the front desk, hoping against hope.

But the concierge was gone. Not just gone—turned into ribbons. Him and the computer.

Thomas hovered behind me, watching warily as I checked.

I turned my head toward him, just once.

He saw my face and knew.

There was nothing left.

We both noticed the elevator moving—descending straight toward our floor.

I looked at Thomas. No words needed.

We bolted.

With Honey’s laptop clutched tight, we exploded out of the hallway like bullets from a chamber, pivoting hard toward the curb where Thomas’s car waited—a battered, steel-gray beast of questionable registration, dented pride, and bad intentions. It looked like hell on wheels, but it was our hell. Our only chance.

No talking. No plans. Just instinct.

I dove into the passenger seat and yanked the door shut as Thomas fired up the engine. It growled awake, then screamed into motion, tires shrieking as we launched down the alley. The sound echoed like a war cry bouncing off the concrete walls.

Then—that sound.

High-pitched. Needle-sharp.

A motorcycle.

I twisted in my seat and looked back.

From the alley’s far end, a single headlight cut through the twilight like a blade of divine judgment. A white eye. A godless thing.

Shiroi.

Of course.

God forbid the Yakuza use a car like normal people. It would’ve made tailing us so much harder. But no—he had to glide in on that black, predatory machine like Death in a tailored suit.

We blasted onto the main road, nearly flattening a couple on scooters. Thomas cut across two lanes and mounted the pavement, rubber burning against the stone. Pedestrians scattered, some screaming, others frozen like startled deer.

It was nearing 5 p.m.—rush hour. Chaos was building. A blessing and a curse.

“He’s gaining!” I shouted.

In the mirror, Shiroi crouched low over the bike, posture perfect, deadly. His suit didn’t flap in the wind—it flowed, like silk on water. The man moved like he’d made a pact with gravity.

Then, with a guttural roar of acceleration, he reached us.

I pulled my pistol, clicked the safety off, and leaned out of the window. The cold wind cut at my eyes. I aimed.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Shiroi saw it coming—twisted the bike into a swerve, veering off course just seconds before he would’ve touched the car. Smart move. A second more, and I would’ve taken the shot.

He had to weave now, threading between the cars that Thomas had left between us with his exceptional driving. That bought us a moment.

A short one.

Up ahead—red light. A dozen cars waiting, a wall of shiny metal and indifference.

Waiting meant death.

Thomas didn’t blink. He yanked the wheel right, launching us back onto the sidewalk. People screamed, leaping aside. Some didn’t move fast enough.

He honked, bellowed, cursed—but one stubborn pack of pedestrians held their ground like law was stronger than terror.

Bad choice.

Thomas snarled, reached under his coat, pulled his pistol, and fired two quick rounds into the pavement near their feet.

They scattered.

And we were gone.

But those wasted seconds were all Shiroi needed.

He was back—right behind us again. I could feel him, like a shadow pressing on the back of my skull. No motorcyclist should move like that. He flowed, tireless and fluid, a panther hunting with elegance and precision.

Thomas punched the accelerator. The car surged forward—not just fast, but silent. The old chassis hid a modified electric engine, one of Thomas’s little secrets. It responded like a coiled snake finally released.

Shiroi stayed close. Dancing behind us.

Not chasing. Escorting. Like this was all part of his design.

We swerved hard left onto Riverside Avenue, narrowly missing a delivery truck that had no business being there. The city blurred—storefronts flashing by like neon ghosts, reflections warping across the windshield.

“He’s not stopping,” I muttered.

Behind us, that glowing, cyclopean eye of Shiroi’s bike never wavered.

I didn’t need to see his face to know—he was smiling.

He pivoted around, creeping up on Thomas’s side now—smart. I couldn’t get a clear shot without leaning across the entire cabin.

Then it came.

In the side mirror, I saw it—his ungloved hand reaching out, fingers spread like claws. The tips touched the rear of the car.

And the car dissolved.

Metal and plastic peeled away from the frame like they were melting, turning into silvery ribbons that fluttered into the wind. A brutal gust slammed into us through the exposed wheel well. Shards of our own car—our damn car—whipped through the open windows and scratched at our skin like angry hornets.

It hurt.

But Thomas held the wheel steady, teeth clenched, hands white-knuckled. With a hard yank, he veered sharply, cutting Shiroi off just long enough to make him brake or risk being sprayed by his own handiwork.

“I swear to God,” Thomas yelled, “what the hell is this guy?! He touches stuff and it just—melts!”

“No shit, Sherlock!” I snapped. “Focus!”

But Shiroi—he was a shadow. A ghost. Always there, weaving through traffic like it was choreography, never losing ground, never breaking form.

Thomas swerved hard, running another red light. Horns screamed, tires shrieked. A yellow cab clipped our bumper and spun out into the intersection, metal crunching in our wake.

We didn’t stop. We didn’t look.

We were heading for the industrial district now—toward the old warehouses, the bridges, the dark water beyond.

Still, Shiroi followed. Not trying to stop us. No. He was eroding us. Testing the limits of the machine, letting time and fear chew us apart.

“Lex!” Thomas barked, glancing at me. “Get the bag from the backseat. Laptop’s inside. First chance you get—jump!”

Oh, great. Car acrobatics. Again. My body still ached from the last time I had a pleasure to fight in a vehicle.

“Okay,” I muttered, already reaching back.

But of course—I had to be right when I was being pessimistic—Shiroi came for me next.

I saw it. In the corner of my eye, just as I reached the bag. He swept to my side like a phantom and reached out again.

The doors—both front and back—dissolved. Just like that. Gone. The frame wept into strips of plastic and alloy, fluttering out like dying leaves caught in a storm.

“My insurance will not cover this shit!” Thomas shouted. He swerved left, trying to put some breathing room between us.

Shiroi faltered—only for a second—grabbing the handlebars to steady himself as the gap widened.

I looked down.

My door was gone. Gone. What was left had melted into a puddle in the footwell, like the car had cried itself to death.

Thomas’s face was set like concrete, eyes locked forward. Then he took a corner too fast—too fast—the tires lifted, and for a second I swore we were going to roll. But the car slammed back to earth, groaning under its own unraveling frame.

Up ahead—I saw it.

The bridge. Just past the train yard.

We weren’t going to make it in this car.

“We’re losing it, Lex!” Thomas shouted. “It’s coming apart! Any second now—!”

“Then aim for the river.”

He shot me a look like I’d just suggested eating a live grenade. But then he saw my face.

And nodded.

“Hold on.”

The last hundred meters blurred. Wind. Screams. Water rising.

Then—thud.

Not from the road. From above.

Shiroi had leapt. Off the bike. Onto our roof. I felt it buckle above me. Heard the steel groan in agony.

Then—tap.

Soft. Almost tender.

The roof began to dissolve.

He was right above me, fingers curling through the thinning metal like a god reaching through clouds. Like I was a thought he meant to pluck from his memory.

I didn’t wait.

I shot up, pistol drawn, aimed point-blank at his hand and fired.

The world exploded into noise. I grabbed Thomas’s bag, hugged it to my chest, and jumped.

The ground slammed into me—a strip of grass just feet from the riverbank. I rolled, gasped, tasted blood. But I was alive.

Thomas flew a second later—straight into the water. His body hit with a clean splash, just before the car—what was left of it—followed in a tangled, glimmering ribbon of shredded metal.

Then came the second splash.

Shiroi.

But his path had skewed. He must’ve been caught mid-leap.

I looked for his bike, but it must have crashed earlier—tumbling toward the edge and slamming straight into a rusted industrial machine, old and long forgotten. It collapsed under the impact with a metallic groan.

I forced myself to stand—eyes stinging, knees trembling. I checked the bag: the laptop was intact. Good.

Turning back to the river, I saw Thomas already swimming toward the metal ladder embedded in the wall. He was bleeding, but he was moving.

A second later—of course—Shiroi surfaced.

Because why not?

I raised my pistol. Took aim. Fired.

Too far. I didn’t know if I hit him. He dove again, vanishing beneath the black water like a ghost.

I didn’t wait.

I ran.

Through the docks. Past startled workers and shouting foremen. Someone tried to grab my arm. I shoved him aside. Another called out, tried to chase me—I didn’t even look back.

Let the cops deal with Shiroi.

I wasn’t going to be there when they arrived.

--

“Thank you, sir,” I said as Phillipe Penrose gently pressed a bandage over my left arm. Some of the metallic ribbons from the car had sliced me open pretty good when it started unraveling beneath us.

“It’s good you managed to confirm what happened last night,” he said, voice calm, steady. “I was hoping for a quieter approach. But we don’t always get what we want.”

Yeah. No kidding. Quiet had been extinct lately—along with subtlety and peace of mind.

“When do you think the laptop will yield any results, sir?”

“Hard to say,” he replied, standing up and brushing off his sleeves. “I’ll hand it off to a specialist. We’ll know more once they’ve cracked the encryption—if there is any.”

He checked his phone again. No missed calls. No new messages. I didn’t need to ask who he was waiting on.

“You think Thomas is dead?” I asked quietly.

“No,” he said, without missing a beat. “He never has been before.”

That was one way to look at things. I guess there’s a kind of optimism baked into grim experience.

“I hope Shiroi’s feeding the fish, though,” I muttered, not entirely proud of the feeling—but not denying it either. I’d never wished someone dead before. But that man… that thing... he was something else. Something that shouldn't exist.

Penrose nodded faintly. “I’ve been digging into him since yesterday. He works for someone—probably not yakuza, though. Used to be one, sure. But his whole unit packed up and left Japan a while back. Vanished. He stayed behind, started freelancing. Cleaner work. High-end, no questions asked.”

Yeah. I could imagine how clean his jobs turned out. Razor clean.

“At some point,” he continued, “he vanished off the grid too. Two years. Nothing. Not a whisper. And now, here he is—tearing through a city like a damn ghost.”

I leaned back against the wall, letting the dull throb in my arm settle into something manageable. “What are we going to do about him?”

“Well,” Penrose said, “you wore a different face. You can become someone else again if need be. The laptop’s ours, and hopefully, they don’t know who they hired Honey to target. But Thomas...”

He paused.

“Thomas wears his real face.”

That hung in the air a bit.

“If they trace him, they could trace me,” he said. “And that’s... not a desirable outcome.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“It’s the risk of the job, Alexandra. We deal with people like this all the time. The nature of the dealing just changes with the threat.”

I looked at him. “But this guy isn’t just a threat. He’s using literal magic. He turns things to threads—metal, walls, people. Anything.”

“I believe you,” he said, calm as ever. “But from what you told me... that’s also a weakness.”

He met my eyes.

“If he wanted you dead, he could’ve shot you. But he didn’t. Maybe too proud. Maybe too stupid to carry a weapon.”

He paused.

“That will be his downfall.”

I wanted to believe him. Wanted to cling to that logic like a lifeline.

But the truth?

Something told me Shiroi wasn’t finished with us yet.