My body protested the movements as I started to circle around, my hands up high. Protecting my face. All of a sudden the black ground shifted beneath my feet. Ash flew all around, obscuring my vision. I started to dance backwards, trying to get out of the cloud of dust. But I couldn’t seem to escape it. Something was beneath me, disturbing the land.
The ground split again, and I jumped backwards just in time to avoid falling into a massive hole. What the eff? I was about to haul butt when up popped the first. Was he for real? Hiding under the ground like a weird freaking gopher.
I realized then that he must have control of the Earth element. Strange – he wasn’t a conduit like myself. The Walkers believed the conduit was the key to saving the worlds. I still wasn’t sure what they meant by that, but maybe my abilities were more unique than I guessed.
His scarecrow-like face screwed up, and he dived across the space to land right in front of me. A sort of stillness washed over me. He was so close, but not quite in my reach. The world slowed down. There was only me and him right then. One of us was coming out on top.
“I find that since freeing my brothers and regaining a physical form, I can no longer feel your essence. Which will make it easier to end your existence.”
No emotion inflected his voice.
“The melding bond with your mate … it was confusing for me. I … felt and that’s not something we were designed to do. We do not feel; we simply are. We are power and we are destruction and we are the great equalizer.”
A trickle of sweat decided that was the moment to run right down the center of my face. The first’s three eyes followed the movement, and a certain level of revulsion spread across his features.
I almost snickered. Seriously – he looked like one of the gremlins that had been fed after midnight and a drop of sweat bothered him? I heard grunts and a yell. The bond told me that the girls were struggling to hold their own against the other Seventine. I needed to wrap this up quickly.
“Two questions: why are you wearing my hair like the king of stalkers? And is there a reason you’ve decided to politely talk me to death instead of fighting? Are you weaker than your brothers?”
The stillness which had come over me seemed to descend over the first then. He did not like being called weak.
“That was three questions,” he said.
And then he attacked.
Okay, I’d goaded him, but I hadn’t been prepared for the sheer speed with which he moved. He landed a series of jabs before I could even get my hands up in the air. Far too quick for me to latch on and trace. I hit the deck hard, my chin and shoulder aching from where he’d landed those solid blows. Those pains could join in with my ribs. Which were still pissed at me.
“I didn’t want to punish you. It would have been simple enough to wait and sever the tether of all the worlds, but I need you to know … I am not weak.”
I rolled over and lurched to my feet. He was standing over me, talking down, and I was not cool with that.
“Why aren’t you off severing tethers right now?” I said, spitting out a mouthful of the ashy disgustingness which coated my lips and tongue. “You’re just playing games.”
“We have no need to waste our time or energy. The convergence approaches.” His head dropped back as if he was basking in the warmest of sunlight.
Of course it was nearing night now, so he was mostly basking in slivers of moonlight.
“I can feel it humming through my blood.”
Now that he mentioned it, I wondered if that had been that strange thrumming I’d felt over the past week or so. Like a low-level buzz in the back of my head.
“The hair was my idea. I wanted my brothers to have a link with each of the half-Walkers. I wanted you all to be part of our family, but instead of embracing our power, you fight us.”
His face fell. “There can be no bond any longer. We remember now why the originals locked us away and forsook our abilities to rule. They were never happy to share the power, and we will not be locked away again. We will no longer share.”
The fugly features brightened then. “For now we are enjoying playing games as you put it, punishing the clans which locked us into a prison for many millennia. Suffering is so enjoyable, when it is done by others.”
And we were back to the psychopath. This freak-show needed like a hundred hours of therapy, because he had some messed up shit going on in his head.
A scream distracted me, and I realized that Fury was down on the ground. The black-haired Seventine was leaning over the top of her, stabbing down with some sort of object.
I moved before tracing across to her side, using my body and momentum to full-on tackle that ass. As I landed a punch and two knees into the Seventine, we both hit the deck. All of the air whooshed out of his body, and I flipped up to my feet before diving down again to hit him some more.
I would have stayed and beaten the crap out of him for a little longer, but I needed to help Fury. I hurried to her side, relieved to see she was sitting up.
“Fury, you’re okay?”
I dropped down next to her, noticing the trickles of blood around her throat and collar bone.