My NaNoWriMo Offering: Holy Bounty

“For Nicolette there is nothing worth destroying more than evil.  When did you realize it would be your death as well?”

Nicki felt her mouth form a soundless moan and felt the whispers of truth in her soul as she stared into the black glowing pits that the creature holding her had for eyes. She could hear Dalen in the back of her head. “Never stare there for too long, they are infinite space, soul less, you’ll get lost in there.” She felt the pull of oblivion in his eyes and the waning of her light at her core.  All replaced by the question she refused to ask.

She knew the second the Almighty decided to interfere, moments before they were both thrown from the gate.  They landed in a heap of bloodied flesh and rendered fabric.  Neither of their outfits had survived their battle.

Nicki tensed as the beast threw her away from himself to run back to the gate. Her left eye was nearly swollen shut but she was healing as she always did. If his tantrum continued she might get back up to partial strength to attack him again.  The sound that erupted from him made Nicki’s blood curdle.  It was a howl of pain, desperation and a deep deep rage.  He had discovered what she knew moments before they were tossed away.  The crack he had so carefully cultivated was gone.  The way was shut to him once again.

He made his way over to her and Nicki geared herself for the next phase of the battle when a whisper in her soul declared. . . . submit.  She fought the thought and reached within herself for the light that burned like an unending furnace in her core, but could pull nothing from it.  Fear clutched her anew when the beast lifted her and started chanting again.

A soundless gurgle fell from her lips as her body began stretching as if pulled from every end by some unseen force. The pain started as an intense burning at first, then the monster changed his cadence and it built to a sharp intensity she had never known. 

From Dalen’s mouth it seemed, whispered in her ear, “Pain is for focus, use it to see where you went wrong.”

She shifted her mind from the pain and back to the moment this battle started. He had already gotten pretty far by the time she shifted to this plane.  The energy field that sealed off the Heavens had a substantial crack in it.  Over the past few hundred years 250 holy men had been collected.  Their souls now glowed from the crack.  Someone must have told him that would be enough to displace the amount of energy needed for him to pass through. They had been wrong.

Nicki breathed in deeply, focused on the air around him, centered her will around it and breathed out. It was a basic gravity manipulation, which normally wouldn’t work on a creature so powerful, but he had been distracted.  His energy focused on pushing through the crack.  Under these circumstances he was nearly tossed off of the mountain.  She quickly positioned herself between him and the gate.

He pulled himself back up and began stalking towards her.  There was something about this plane that suited him and Nicki couldn’t figure out why that was.  He was so dark, the surrounding so light.  The top plateau they were on was bathed in light from an unnamed source.  The blades of grass the greenest you’d ever see.  The trees never lost their leaves and were shaped like the most pleasing Bonsai tree meticulously cut to perfection.  The sky a harmony of shade from lavender to yellow.  The breeze light, tempting, and sweet to the smell.

His dark hair trailed in the breeze as he walked towards her, measuring her up.  His skin swarthy with an iridescent sheen, like glazed oak.  He was in skins, not actual clothing but the hides of animals.  His feet were shodded in sheepskin wrapped with string.  The wolf’s pelt on his shoulders nearly covered the leather vest and pants cured to a soft durable suede.  His hands were ungloved but symbols ran over his fingers painted there in blood.

Nicki knew there was something she was supposed to remember if she ever faced one garbed like this. Instinctively she reached for her hip only to realize that her blades were gone.  She looked the creature over again, realization dawning as he speaks.

“Stand aside child.” His voice felt like a cat’s tongue, wet, grated, sharp.  The tone deep and sonorous with an underlying harmony.

“You know I can’t do that.” She hoarsely answered becoming more and more sure of what he was.

“You’ve expelled much of your energy shifting here and then moving me. Use your freewill girl.”

“I serve.” She gritted back.

He laughed a joyless sound. “Don’t we all.” He moved closer, his gait resembling a prowling lion. “You aren’t fit for the fight.”

“Neither are you. No small feat, trying to power through the crack. You must be running low.”

He gave her an appraising look.  She could feel him taking in her appearance. Her reddish brown hair was braided back as always, out of her way. She always fought in leather because of durability, steel toed boots and her lucky riding jacket.  Her skintone was dusky, had been since the incident in Egypt with one of Dalen’s old curses.  She in no way resembled the Hungarian girl she had been born as centuries ago.

He closed in on her and Nicki adjusted for the height and reach disadvantage she was going to have.  She was a modest 5’ 8” to his well over six feet. Luckily her trainer had been a big guy as well.  When you were low on the core energy you needed for a normal battle, old school rules applied.

“Old fashioned now; how quaint.” He muttered before he came at her with a right cross.

She ate it, this was the only way to feel him out.  Both his speed and power.  Like most beings on their level he could alter his speed just like she could. But he was bigger, she had no choice but to be faster.  She blocked and dodged the next series of attempted strikes.  Surprisingly he was fast enough to block all of hers as well.

He’s old, she thought immediately, much older than me.

She raised her arm to block the kick coming for her head.  The energy blast pushed it aside letting him score a bell ringing shot to the temple. 

Here we go, she thinks to herself as she launched with her feet and a smidge of gravity manipulation to get him into a headlock, using her strength and momentum she flings him head over feet to fly past her.  On his way he grounded himself and grabbed her leg slamming her into the ground.

Nicki braced fort he ground and planted her hands behind herself.  She absorbed the impact through her hands and sent it shooting back up her body as she planted both of her feet in his face. He flies back but gets his barring fast as he pivots using the momentum to send him barreling towards her.

Nicki takes her push with a slight grunt and then a thud as he fits her to the crack in the gate.  Nicki needed to act fast.  If he used her energy he would get in at no time at all. Must’ve been the plan all along.

She shot a burst of energy into the crack behind her offering a patch, then she ripped the ground right from under their feet.  As they fell through the mountain Nicki shoved his face against the rock.  Eh got his footing and shot them both across the divide driving her through the mountain face first. Nicki elbowed him in he gut, then the throat. She pushed away from the side, landing on his chest feet first seconds after he hit. He shifts the rocks falling around them to pummel her.  Nicki starts deflecting with energy fields until she regains her footing. She immediately drops gravity again tunneling to the core of the mountain.  He follows her down.

Pay dirt, she thought as she felt the heat.  Bursting through she plants on a rock ledge.  She shifted the molten lava beneath her into the hole.  With an intense pressure shift she molds the lava to rock around him. Before his mouth is covered he mutters a phrase. The rock turns back to lava and lands on Nicki.  Cursing and screaming she instinctively turns it to ash.  But it was just enough distraction for him to grab her by her throat and shift them back to the gate.

He shoved her in and the crack began to widen.  Nicki struggled but he began chanting and she felt her strength begin to drain.  She tried shifting but his grip on her throat tightened, his will holding her in place. The gap widened.  She tried shifting gravity.  The ground fell away but they did not move.  The crack widened, his chanting becoming more intent.  She felt the wall at her back giving away.

Nicki closed her eyes and moved deeply within herself.  The pillar of light burned brighter than ever.  She hated to pull from it. The price for using it was very, very high. She walked up to it cupped her hand and drank the golden liquid that flowed into her palms.

Her eyes popped open and a sonic energy burst came from her, knocking her enemy back, staggering him. Nicki’s eyes grew wide as he staggered back to her.  Terrified she focuses harder, pulls even more; the most she’d ever dare to take and fires with everything she has.  He staggered back again but continued to approach to resume pushing her through.

He meets her eyes, soulless orbs are staring into her, divining her secrets, memorizing her nightmares. And then he said the words that broke her very spirit.  The pillar of light flickered and waned; her connection to the divine audibly snapped.

She slowly returns to the present, the searing pain of being slowly pulled apart a reality again.  He had been torturing her for quite a while.  But it wasn’t for her.  It was for his audience. Both her shoulders were out of their sockets, she knew the feeling well.  Now tendons were being cruelly stretched in ways not meant.  Her spine was straining to hold onto the bulk of her tendons the longest were beginning to tear.  She felt her eyes widen as her Achilles tendons went yet she uttered not a word.  Merely a loud exhalation of breath. Not that the creature noticed. He was yelling at the gate.  Words she doesn’t know, in that language that she didn’t understand.  But unlike the before the meaning she comprehends.  As the pain of the rest of her tendons ripping away from her spine forces her to pass out, his words were ringing clearly in her head.

“Where is your God now?”