Mira Wrestles With Evil, Wins. Sort Of.
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DIE BY WIRE – CHAPTER ONE – CONTINUED
Click here for previous excerpt from Chapter Three.
Amsterdam
Mira whirled, took the killer to the pavement then wrenched the knife from her hand. The killer shrieked, then bit Mira’s ear.
Don’t tear. Don’t!
Mira felt blood trickling down the left side of her neck
Instead of pulling away, Mira pressed her hand into the woman’s face, covering her nose and shutting off her air for a moment.
The woman opened her mouth to breath. Mira whipped her head around and smashed her assailant’s nose with a furious head-butt. The bone snapped with a dull wet crack. Blood flew.
“Charrira!” The woman screamed in Arabic. Bitch.
“Nika mok qahhba!” Fuck you, you stupid whore bitch.
With all her considerable strength Mira brought her left knee up and thrust it deep into her crazed assailant’s solar plexus. The woman fell, crumpled into a fetal position. Her mouth worked like a fish out of water.
Mira stood, raised her left hand and tentatively explored her ear, relieved to find nothing felt ripped, torn.
From a distance came a siren’s shrill, urgent call.
Then a voice.
“Here.” She turned, found Jan bare from the waist up, offering his tee-shirt.
When Mira didn’t take the tee-shirt immediately, Jan leaned forward and wiped at the blood on her face and neck. When he stood back, Mira noted his ripped pecs and deltoids. She combed her fingers through her hair, tugged at the hem of her skirt and smoothed it with the palms of her hands.
Gazing through a pale vermilion haze, she looked down at the pile of gray cloth at her feet. She saw a shrunken husk, empty of the malignant fury that had driven the woman. A young, unlined face with smooth cafe au lait skin lay buried in the cloth. High cheekbones and prominent eyebrows framed the woman’s large, dark almond-shaped eyes. Tendrils of black hair, deranged by the attack, had escaped from the hijab and framed her face with a wraith-like gentleness.
Only the misshapen nose and blood marred a face so obviously beautiful. Mira’s anger welled again, directed toward twisted men who had concocted an evil brew of religious hatred and force-fed it as the will of God. Whether Taliban, medieval Crusaders or ancient Israelites butchering their way into the Promised Land, wanton slaughter and hatred in the name of God represented ultimate evil — blasphemy without bounds.
The young woman’s nose could be easily fixed, her physical beauty restored. But the bestial evil that fed on her soul would not yield half as easily. Or ever.
A profound sadness shrouded Mira’s thoughts. She felt pity, concern.
For just an instant.
Then the woman regained her breath.
“Rape!” She shrieked, first in Dutch, then in Arabic, then back to Dutch.
She transfixed Mira with a hellish glare, her eyes clear, unadorned windows to a Stygian landscape painted by the worst of the human spirit. Despite the summer evening’s warmth, Mira shivered.
“Murder! Help me! Save me! Rape! Rape!”
