BY STAFF WRITERS

The rain was back but it was still stinking hot.

Detective Lewis sat alone in his car and checked the time on his watch.

3.14am.

His car sat high on Owen Road, about a hundred metres from the entrance to the Royal Bank of Australia – which nestled in comfortably a few streets from Miami Beach.

For two days, police had made a scene throughout the night at other banks across the city.

They were purposely vigilant and there to be noticed. It was a smokescreen, trying to lure their criminal toward this specific bank.

Lewis had spent the last couple of nights inside his car in the same spot.

To draw in, whatever it was they were chasing.

Directly across from the bank, a SWAT team sat quietly in a dimly lit coffee shop. Atop that building, and the two on each side were expertly-trained snipers.

The detective’s walkie talkie came to life.

“Are we pulling the pin on this soon, boss?”

The old detective shook his head.

“I told you to stay off this frequency, Goddard.”

Lewis took his finger back off the button and scratched at his head. He wanted to go home. He’d done enough. He thought about his career and how close he was to getting out. The cases up in Brisbane, down in Sydney, overseas, now here.

Just as he was about to call it a night, he felt an electric wind from the bottom of the street. It came over him like the first day of Spring on supersonic steroids. He’d never felt anything like it.

Goddard couldn’t help himself from his vantage point.

“What the fuck was that?”

The old detective slowly put the walkie talkie back to his lips, “Everyone shut up.”

It wasn’t protocol but Lewis was drawn from his car.

Some kind of spark, or light, flashed from the corner down ahead of him.

He got out of his car without thinking like he was sucked towards it.

Lewis walked quickly at first which then became a jog.

“Hold fire!” the SWAT leader’s order crackled.

Before Lewis knew it, he was standing directly outside the bank.

The noises rumbled from the next street before showing itself in a typhoon of sound and fury. It wasn’t human but parts of it appeared, or seemed to look like, arms or legs and muscle. Colours of red, yellow and blue swirled around it.

The incredible sight numbed Lewis.

He stood in front of the bank – completely defenceless.

And just like – this cosmic sight of sheer horror and power spun in front of him.

It towered over him by at least twenty metres.

“Do not fire,” Lewis somehow got the walkie talkie up to his face.

This “thing” was aware and knew what it was doing.

It wasn’t human but not completely otherwise, either.

The face was half-human, with horns, it looked down over Lewis and blew smoke from its nostrils.

Lewis collapsed to the ground and rolled out of the way.

“Fire!” someone screamed.

Bullets reigned down from the surrounding buildings but it didn’t make any difference.

This frightening, mystical tornado of man and bull, turned, and almost scoffed at the inferior bullets before crashing through the front doors of the bank like a knife through butter.

The building exploded in pieces of metal, cement and glass.

Lewis, pushed from the blast into the gutter on the opposite side of the street, watched as the SWAT team streamed out of the coffee shop and across the road to what was left of the bank.

“Pull back!” Lewis fired.

But before they had a chance, the bull was back and erupted back out onto the street, hurling police into the air.

The creature ripped down the street, knocking parked cars out of its way, sending them smashing into buildings and shop windows. Lewis was in awe. As it was about to turn the corner, the monster stopped in its tracks. It could feel something else. Lewis could feel it too.

Lewis peered up into the night sky and through the smoke he saw the masked man in jade green – standing atop the building above him – ten stories up.

Fire simmered from the bull’s nostrils.

It wasn’t just the SWAT team and other police in complete shock.

Lewis tried to get up but winced and grabbed at his left arm which had been broken.

Before he, or anyone else knew it, the bull and the masked man in jade were gone.

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