Shadow Demon

Leo gasped and opened his eyes, his nightmare waking him. The room's light immediately assaulted his once sleeping eyes and forced him to squeeze them back shut. Shapes of green and orange lights danced on the back of his retinas.

Leo's vivid nightmare replayed in his memory: Boris and Oscar attempting to kill him, the white-hot pain of a bullet tearing into his arm, and that woman... The stunning woman in the catsuit and heeled boots. Based on the woman, it may have been more a dream then a nightmare. It was odd just how vivid the dream was. Leo could almost perfectly recall every detail about the woman; The fluid movement of her hips, the husky seductiveness of her voice, the wild blue of her eyes, and the way that suit she wore hugged her body perfectly, accentuating those feminine curves.

Leo rubbed his face with his hand, which caused his bare arm to incidentally brush over the fabric of the blanket he laid on. There was a familiarity to the blanket's fabric. This was his bed.

Leo focused on the ceiling, blinking his eyes multiple times, forcing them to adjust to the room's light. He could see the layout of the room in his peripheral. This was certainly his room. He rolled over on his right arm to look at his alarm clock.

"Ack!" Leo breathed as the weight of his own body sent pain through his arm. He instinctively rolled on his back again to relieve the pressure, but still managed to get a glimpse at the clock, which read 2:56am. Looking at his now throbbing arm, Leo found it to be freshly bandaged. On closer inspection, a faint red circle could be seen through the top layers of the bandage. He continued to stare at the wound in confusion. Had he really been shot? What else from his dream truly happened?

Leo sat up in the bed and looked around his room. As his gaze moved to the corner of the room, he flinched. In the corner chair of his bedroom, sat the woman from his dream, dressed in the same catsuit, mask, and heeled boots. She sat there casually watching him, one of her legs was crossed over the other. She lightly sipped on a glass of white wine, then brought the glass to eye level and studied its contents.

"You have expensive taste Mr. Patterson." The woman said swirling the wine in the glass. She then looked up at Leo. "I hope you don't mind that I helped myself to your collection."

"N-not at all." Leo stammered, barely able to offer an intelligent response as his brain worked feverishly to understand what was going on.

The woman regarded him for a second, took another sip from the glass, then placed it on a table beside the chair. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, so that her forearms rested on her thighs and she could bridge her hands together. Her face turned serious as if she were about to say to him that he was late for work. "I know what happened tonight is a lot to take in, but I need to make something extremely clear. You will not speak of anything that you witnessed or heard tonight. You were never at the Wolf's Den, you never talked to those thugs, and most importantly, you never saw me. If anyone asks, you came home straight from work and went to bed." She said. The woman's gaze fell open his arm and she said, "Can you treat that yourself?"

Leo examined at his bandaged arm. There was another red dot on the opposite side of the first. The bullet had gone clean through. Judging by the angle, it didn't hit the bone, so it should heal alright.

"Um, yea, or yes. Yea, I should be able to take care of it." Leo stammered.

"Good. You should also know that you are the only person to have seen me, and the only person that can place me at the club. Should you tell anyone about this, I will find out, and I will kill you." The woman said coldly. She let her words sink in for a moment, watching Leo's face. Seeing Leo's likely wide-eyed expression, her face warmed to allow a slight smile. "Now try and get some sleep Mr. Patterson. You are wounded after all." She added before standing up and walking towards the balcony doors of his room to leave.

Leo's brain finally caught up and understood that everything that he dreamed was in fact very real. On top of that, Leo realized something about the woman, he knew her from somewhere. He saw her without her mask tonight, not that it really covered her face, but its removal made him certain that he knew her. Just as the woman's back was turned to him and she grabbed the doorknob to the balcony, it hit him. Leo asked, "Your Sarah, Aren't you?".

The woman froze.

It was coming to Leo now. He remembered Sarah from high school. He didn't know her personally, but he saw her. It wasn't like someone could miss her back then. Her and Beth Lawson were the hottest girls in the school and made sure everyone knew it. The self-proclaimed queens of the school, dressed in variations of heavy makeup, crop-tops, heels, and the tightest low-cut jeans. Dressed like that, the two girls had every jock wrapped around their finger. Jocks that would forcefully remind Leo that if anyone had a chance, it wasn't him.

Leo smiled.

After all this time, the hottest girl in Leo's high school now stood in his bedroom, and the years since high school treated her well. If she was considered hot before, she presently was somewhere approaching the temperature of the sun. The once heavy makeup was now painted on her face as if by Leonardo da Vinci himself. As for her body, it had filled in with the strong feminine curves of a fitness model.

With Sarah's back to Leo, his eyes couldn't help but zero in on Sarah's ass and marvel at how perfect that suit outlined it, how it dared to venture deep between her ass cheeks. In Leo's opinion, this woman was a work of art and judging from the tent pole rising in his pants, so did his member.

Sarah turned her head to look over her shoulder.

Leo coughed and, in a panic, quickly grabbed a pillow from his bed and painfully slammed it over his crotch to hide his erection. Leo tried to maintain a blank but interested expression.

Sarah looked at him in a way that told Leo that she knew full well what was under the pillow and said, "Mr. Patterson, sparing your life was not a choice I took lightly. If you know me from somewhere, please burn that memory."

"You-your right! I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pried." Leo said quickly, trying to regain repour with the woman. His mouth went on autopilot, hoping that whatever he said would distract her from his obvious erection. "I-It's just that. We knew each other, or at least saw each other during high school. That doesn't mean anything, I know. B-but there's a familiarity between us and you said that you were different from e-everyone else in the city. That means something. I-I should be different too. The streets are dangerous. I thought I was safe from it, but after tonight... I'm-I'm as vulnerable as anyone else. Maybe I could help you in some way?" Leo quickly blurted out.

Sarah let go of the doorknob and turned to face Leo. She cocked a hip and crossed her arms. A position that Leo noticed, caused a faint camel toe to be visible between the woman's legs.

"Mr. Patterson, I fight and kill people every night, that on average, heavily outnumber me. Are you telling me you want to be an accomplice in that?" Sarah said dryly.

"N-NO! I could never kill anyone, and I don't want to. It's just that you saved me. I'd be dead tonight if it wasn't for you. I owe you my life! I need to help you in some way." Leo said, shifting his gaze away from Sarah to his feet.

"The best way for you to help me, is to forget what happened tonight." Sarah said a bit more empathically.

Leo took in Sarah's words for a moment. He didn't mean to ask if he could help her, his mouth was just on autopilot. Maybe he should just act like this never happened. Although, after tonight, how does he act like tonight never happened? Even with all his past effort of staying out of the way of the city's organized crime, Crackle still found him and bribed him into working on Angst.

Leo's eyes widened in realization.

Without Crackle, Leo wouldn't be able to afford his sister's medical bills. They already spent all his family's inheritance on the cancer treatments. Clara wouldn't last more than a month off life support when the hospital kicked her out.

After a long moment, Leo concluded that he didn't have the time to help Sarah, even if he wanted too. He needed to work more, make more money, and be with his sister. Leo said sorrowfully, "Your right, I'll forget that tonight happened and move on".

Leo looked back up at Sarah to see what might have been a disappointed expression under that mask. It was probably Leo's imagination. She told him that she wanted him to act like tonight never happened, so if anything, she's probably thrilled that he gave up arguing with her.

"That would be best." Sarah said dropping her arms. She then turned towards the balcony door, opened it, and walked out onto the balcony.

Leo's wounded arm itched under the bandage and he gave it a quick glance. When he looked back to Sarah, she was gone.

***

Sarah jumped off Leo's balcony, her shadow form embracing her as she freefell towards the ground. Only a foot before hitting the ground, she willed herself home into her downtown penthouse suite. Upon arrival, she extended her senses throughout the penthouse looking for anyone trying to hide in the shadows, then further for anyone that may be watching outside the penthouse.

Confident that Sarah was alone and unwatched, she flicked on the lights.

Sarah's shadow form was peeled off her body and the interior of the suite was bathed in warm light. The suite was spotlessly clean, modernly furnished, and freshly renovated; the walls painted in warm shades of yellow and orange. A look that put Sarah's old apartment from last year to shame. Her old apartment was a dive to be modest, full of torn walls, shouting neighbors, and the ambiance of flickering lights. The state of her last apartment was entirely her fault. When her father died after high school, Sarah burned through the inheritance that he left her within a year and a half. She spent money like a teenager with a credit card, throwing money at things such as: parties, traveling, clothes, and poorly thought out business ventures. By the second year, Sarah had to forgo her family's home to the bank and move into her shithole of an apartment. The only way Sarah managed to stay in college with Beth, was buy selling her evenings to an escort service. It was a job where she was paid a reasonable sum of money to look good hanging on the arms of rich businessmen during events to increase their status, and on occasion she was paid an even larger sums of money to let them have sex with her. Being an escort wasn't a job she was proud of, and for the most part it was a secret only Beth knew, but a rumor did float around in small crowds that the spoiled Sarah Noir was prostituting herself for money and living in the city slums. Thankfully, those days were over. The money she got from being an assassin had allowed for some living upgrades, among other things. Her penthouse and the renovations were subsidized from her profits as an assassin, but most of the funding came from her position as partner and head of events at Lawson's Urban Restoration and Designs. A company founded by her late friend's Father, Henry Lawson, who started the company in Beth's memory.

Sarah cleared her mind of Beth and thoughts of her old apartment, then strode purposefully through her suite into her kitchen, and pulled a bottle of iced wine out of the bar fridge. She poured herself a glass, then walked into her living room and sat horizontally along the couch with her back against the arm rest. She thought about Leo Patterson. The guy was a stuttering coward, but for a moment he was inspired to do something about the state of Winsome Bay. He wasn't special, at some point everyone in Winsome Bay thinks they can do something about the despair lining the streets, but just like everyone else, it seems Leo Patterson thought it best to keep his head down. A part of Sarah had hoped that Leo would have proved to be different.

Sarah took off her gloves and mask, then placed them on the coffee table. Grabbing the back of her thigh and lifting her leg with one hand, she pulled the zipper of her boot up down its length. She pulled off the long boot to reveal her well-manicured foot, then did the same for the other boot.

Normally Sarah wouldn't have any issues with heels, but the act of removing her boots tonight had an element of bliss to it. It had been a long night. Sarah took a sip of her wine then reached for the T.V. remote and clicked on the large flat screen mounted above the gas fireplace adjacent to her.

The television ran Winsome Bay's 24-hour local news channel, WBNN.

A pretty news reporter labeled as Taylah Joyner by a blue banner at the bottom of the scene, stood in front of the Wolf's Den. "As you can see Roy, the police have surrounded the popular downtown club and forensics are entering the building. There is still no word as to what happened inside, but residents of nearby apartment buildings have stated that several automatic gun shots could be heard just before police arrival on scene. We'll keep you updated with the details as they become available. Back to you Ron." Taylah Joyner said with the trademarked professional urgency of a journalist.

The screen switched to the news anchor, Roy Schofield.

"Looks like I caused quite a stir tonight." Sarah said to herself, taking another sip of wine.

"Thanks, Taylah. In other news, the vigilante publicly known as Maximum Force has been found dead in a small convenience store on Lindhead Road. WBNN has obtained a copy of the store's security footage. As a warning, the images you are about to see may be disturbing." Said Roy Schofield.

The scene then cut to a black and white security footage of the store. The camera overlooked the store from behind the clerk. Nothing happened at first, it was just a scene of a regular convenience store. Rows of various snack packages in the center and glass door fridges lining the back wall. If it wasn't for the horizontal bar of digital distortion slowly making its way down the screen, Sarah would have assumed she was looking at a still picture. Finally, there was movement as the front door opened. Three armed men walked into the store, two going to meet the store clerk, the other walked to the back of the store, looking for customers. The two gunmen with the clerk, pulled out their weapons and motioned for the clerk to open the till. The clerk hurriedly started pilling wads of cash onto the counter. A reflection on one of the glass doored fridges, revealed a white clad figure peeking through one of the widows off screen. The figure then stepped away from the window and out of the reflection. A moment later, the window nearest one of the gunmen by the till, exploded inwards with the white and blue spandex missile of Maximum Force. The hero's body connected with one of the gunmen in a tackle, and the two flew into and through a rack of potato chips. The other gunmen whorled in the direction of the hero, and before either Maximum Force or the gunmen he tackled could get up, the gunmen fired his shotgun. The blast of the shotgun removed a chuck of flesh the size of a fist out of Maximum Force, between his ribs and hip. The gunmen holding the shotgun turned and, in a panic, grabbed the money from the counter and ran out of the store, a few bills flew out of his grasp and onto the floor as he left. The gunmen in the back of the store ran over to the one pinned under Maximum Force and pulled him out from under the bleeding hero. The two gunmen also ran out of the store, and the screen cut back to the grim face of Roy Schofield.

Sarah grabbed the remote and shut off the TV before the news Anchor could give his two cents.

"Idiots." Sarah breathed to herself.

At least once a month some self-proclaimed hero would rise from nowhere, only to be found dead a couple weeks later. It was becoming recently more common in the city. As the public witnessed the police force become lazier, and willing to turn a blind eye to the corruption and crime in the city, citizens were taking it upon themselves to fix the city. Most of the city's heroes were those that have lost so much to this city, that the noble allure of donning a cape and fighting crime seems like the only way to fix things. A few of the Heroes don't even bother to wear masks, feeling that their reality was so awful that they had foregone their personal lives altogether.

Sarah guessed she was technically one of the "heroes" of the city, but she liked to think that she was smarter, less illusioned with how bad things really were, and not afraid to use the criminal's weapon against them. To fight fear with fear.

Sarah looked and frowned at the clock. It was nearly 3:30am. Reluctantly, she got up from the couch, grabbed her boots, mask, and gloves, then walked through her bedroom and into her walk-in closet.

The closet was massive, and stocked entirely with expensive clothes, jewelry, and shoes. All of it neatly organized, as if a museum display. Although, for the massive size of the closet, anyone that would take a closer look at the suite's original floor plans would realize that the closet could be twice as large. Part of Sarah's recent renovations included the creation of a second room within the closet.

Sarah put the boots, mask, and gloves down, then unzipped her catsuit. She grabbed either side of the zipper and shrugged the top half of the suit off her shoulders. Pulling her arms out of the suit, the top half dropped around her hips. She then, placed her thumbs in the suit around her waist. She tugged and wiggled the suit off and out of her ass, then down her legs. A struggle that came with having the suit tailored to fit her body, perfectly. The suit pooled around her ankles and she stepped out of it, leaving her naked as the day she was born.

Walking up to the large ornately framed mirror on the opposite wall of the closet, Sarah admired her body. She was proud of the physique she accomplished through fighting and attending the gym, minus the bruises she acquired tonight. She turned so that she could see the damage to her back. She had two baseball-sized purple bruises on her back, one under the shoulder blade, the other at the bottom of her ribs. She hissed as she poked the purple bruise on her ribs. Thankfully the bruises should be mostly gone by the morning. Another perk to the whole demon thing was that her body healed abnormally fast while she slept.

Sarah slid her fingers behind the frame of the mirror and clicked the two release switches simultaneously. The mirror shifted away from the wall and then slid to the side, revealing a doorway to the once other half of the closet.

The secret room was dimly lit with a green glow emitting from the surface of a large glass table in the center, and a red glow emitting from the ceiling on the opposite side of the room. To Sarah's left, a cylindrical glass doored chamber with a mannequin the size of a child was magnetically suspended within, as if levitating by magic. Beside the chamber was a weapons rack holding copies of Sarah's gloves, sniper rifles, pistols, and several small gadgets. To Sarah's right, was a clothing rack that held extra boots, trench coats, hooded robes, and a few latex catsuits she wore before she got her armored one. Beside the clothing rack, was a desk with a laptop and a couple cell phones on it.

Sarah picked up her costume, then walked into the room, the light was dim enough that her shadow form enveloped her as she stepped over the threshold. She put her boots and gloves in their separate racks, then opened the glass door that contained the small mannequin. Hanging the catsuit on the shoulders of the mannequin, caused the mannequin to activate, prompting the small mannequin's limbs and body to stretch and grow, filling in the suit as if it were Sarah. She then closed the glass door and pressed a button on the panel. Jets lining the wall of the chamber started spraying the suit in a concoction of sanitizers, material preservatives, and hot water. The magnetically suspended mannequin slowly rotated during the process.