Delilah and I peeled ourselves away from the window, plans for escaping swirling through our minds. Eventually, a crazy thought popped into my mind, and I turned to my new partner in crime.
"How sure are you about getting out the window safely?" I asked. "And then climbing down to the street?"
"Not very," Delilah muttered, squinting at the window in question. "I'm not really dressed for it, either."
A glance at her dress told me it would be a hindrance, and I discarded the first plan I'd cooked up.
"Well, we have to get out of here somehow, we have less than a minute before they storm up the stairs," I muttered. The gunmen from the van had left, and were no doubt in the process of heading up to this floor.
I reached down and grabbed the gun from the man who'd shot me, stealing a spare clip from his pocket and then took Delilah's hand and led her out of the office. I also looted the downed men in the waiting room, taking weapons and ammo as well before leaving.
"Into one of the other rooms," I said in a hiss as we crept out into the hallway, an eye towards the stairwell I'd come from, and was expect the gunmen to emerge from.
"But the doors are locked!" she hissed back.
'Now I really wish I'd made some Alohomora Ofuda,' I grumbled in my mind, before taking a boot to the nearest door, kicking it down.
"Inside!" I ordered, and Delilah scrambled inside, before I followed in after her and closed the door, taking the time to stack some furniture in front of it to block the way.
"That will hold for a moment or two," I said, satisfied, before looking around the new room we'd hidden inside. It was laid out like the previous one; a front room leading to an office in the back. This one had a printer near the front desk, however, and I eagerly pried it open and removed two sheets of paper and one of the ink cartridges.
"What are you doing?" Delilah demanded.
"Saving our bacon," I replied, pulling open the cartridge. "Find me a pen, please!"
She did after a brief bit of searching, handing me a fancy ballpoint pen. I nodded, then stabbed my thumb with the tip, letting my blood drip into the ink from the cartridge. Delilah gasped in shock – and no small amount of confusion – at what I'd just done.
"What the-?!" she uttered, before I shushed her. I then mixed my blood into the ink as best I could, before taking my index finger and dipping it into the concoction.
It wasn't the best mix, and home-made ink worked much better than mass-produced stuff, but it would suffice, and I quickly drew two crude but hopefully effective Floating Ofuda.
"Here, hold this," I told Delilah, shoving one of the sheets of paper into her hand. Bewildered, she did, holding onto it carefully while staring at it in confusion. I went over to the window at the back of the office, and peered outside.
We were a couple doors down from the one we'd previously been in, and the suspicious van was still parked outside. I smirked, then motioned for Delilah to come over.
"We're leaving I said," grabbing her waist and pulling her close to me. "Hold on!"
Wuh?" she uttered, before yelping in shock as I pulled the window open, cold December air buffeting us. Then her eep turned shriller as I dragged her out the window with me.
To her shock, and my relief, the hastily made Ofuda in our hands began to glow, and we didn't plummet to our deaths. Instead, we fell slowly to the sidewalk. It was still a jarring experience to land feet first after jumping from a second story window, but there was no danger of broken bones or anything.
"How the-?!" she exclaimed, confused. Her bewilderment only grew as the crude Ofuda I'd given her burst into flames and turned to ash in her hands alongside my own, its work done.
"I'll explain later. For now, we need to leave," I told her, and she nodded.
We'd left the office building just in time, as I could faintly hear the door I'd barricaded being broken down and it wouldn't be long before the gunmen entered our previous hiding spot and found we'd escaped them.
Taking her hand into mine, I quickly led Delilah over to the van, and in my other hand, pulled out one of the guns I'd stolen.
"Out of the van!" I shouted at the driver, who was still behind the wheel, waiting for the earlier goons to come out.
"What the shit?!" he uttered, flinching back as he realized he had a gun pointing at his head.
"Out of the van!" I repeated, and fired a warning shot into the air to scare him. It worked. He screamed and dove out the van from the other side, scrambling away.
"In, in, in!" I shouted at Delilah, pushing her into the van. She did so, stunned, though from what I was unsure of. Maybe the fall, maybe the gunshot, but whatever it was, she was running on autopilot. I scooted her over, and took the wheel.
'Okay, it's been a while since I've driven. Not since my last life, in fact,' I thought to myself as I checked and saw that yes, the driver had left the keys in the ignition. 'And I never drove anything bigger than an SUV, or in any country that did it backwards like the UK does. But how hard can it be?'
....
Join my P*atreon for 100 premium chapters ahead of the public release.
Link: pa*treon.com/MysticVerse (Remove the *)
Free members also get 2 advanced chapters for free.