Chapter Twenty — Part 4

As an angel I had some built in defenses, it would take more than one shot to injure me. I shook off the blow and dove down, retrieving the mace, then threw it at Wastik. He ducked, but the mace glanced across his shoulder before shattering the wall behind him. I could see blood where the dull blades of the mace had ripped open his flesh.

Wastik snarled and fired round after round in my direction. With speed and grace, I flew around the room, one step ahead of his rage. His blaster was glowing red-hot now, and he’d changed power clips twice. Frothing with rage,

he fired his last round. The coils burned out; he tossed the blaster aside. He picked up the mace I had thrown at him, and held it in a sinuous grip. I hung from the rafters for a moment, resting. A mace was something I could deal with, so long as he didn’t hit me directly. I dropped down, spreading my wings.

“You can’t beat me Wastik, not with that weapon.”

“I intend to kill you, not beat you.” Wastik said. “This isn’t a school yard brawl, girl.”

He lunged at me and I got a grip on the mace. He broke it free and swung again. Energy wrapped around me, protecting me from the blow, the stones in my earrings glowing in my defense. My soul felt drained. Uruza’s fear of the stones was now expressing itself in full glory. Wastik’s own dark magic sizzled in response to the light of the stones. Dazed but unharmed, I fluttered backward, catching the mace with my hand. He was stronger than I was, and it took all my strength to keep him from shaking me loose. “Those stones can’t protect you forever.”

“You can’t fight forever.”

“Neither can you.” The mace resonated violently, burning my hand, and I was forced to let go and jump back. The mace had a cold blue energy surging through it. “You think that I would ever let you have an advantage. I have on my person the one thing that weakens you.”

“It must be the ignorance in your head.” He suckered me, catching me in the ribs. The stones only took the edge off the blow that time. I fell to my knees, wondering if any bones were broken.

He swung the mace into my back, knocking me to my belly, then went completely crazy. I was pinned to the floor with each blow, and each blow added another bruise to me. The stones in my ears could not keep him from slowly killing me, they fed off my will, and my will was getting pretty dim. I knocked his legs out from under him with a snapping kick, and then flashed the knife-edge of my hand across the bridge of his nose. The damage was minor, and only blinded him for a second. I took flight, hiding in the rafters, biding my time.

The Central watched helplessly while I fought to catch my breath. This battle was taking too long. Wastik was stronger, faster, and seemed just as strong as he had been from the start.

“You can’t hide from me forever, girl. You’ll come down, eventually.”

Hunter Reed slunk into the room, hissing at Wastik. “Take the Central, get him away.” I yelled down to Reed. “I’ll take care of Wastik.” I dropped down onto Wastik’s head, ripping at his eyes with my claws. Dropping the mace, Wastik grabbed my feet, placed conveniently on his shoulders, and tossed me across the room, into a far wall. I bounced off the wall, hit the ground, and bounced twice more, and lay still, aching.

“Oh,” I moaned. “That was stupid.”

When I looked up, Wastik was standing over me. “I’m not stupid enough to go after a full grown Hunter, but since he’s abandoned you, I can finish what I started.”

Blue fire erupted around the head of the mace, and he slammed it down onto my skull. I cross-blocked, curling into a ball, with my wings wrapped protectively around my upper body. He hit me repeatedly, kicking at me for spite, and I felt almost nauseated from all the abuse. Something snapped inside of me, and fear was washed away.

A new power rose, the power of somebody at the last edge of desperation. I pushed myself to standing, looking straight into his eyes. My skin, a shade darker from all the bruises, took on a golden glow, and I put my hands together in prayer, my wings half bent as I brought my thoughts into focus. I sent out a blast of pure white Otherspace energy into his face. He fell back, the blue flame around him extinguished.

The battle of force, which I would have lost, became a battle of wills. His Mixedspace laws fought with my Otherspace principals. My psychic force was pushed back, then fluxed forward, dispersing his will in all directions. My hands worked patterns in the air, and he threw his mace straight at my face. It breached the field, but not my fingertips, which I threw up to catch the mace. I held it in front of my face, my fingertips now stronger than chords of steel, and tossed it aside. A Hunter returned, merely an observer, and I knew that things were about to get ugly.