It was like being hit by a comet. He didn't even realize how far he'd been hit backwards until he lifted his head and saw about three dazed versions of Aria twenty feet away. Everything was blurred and dark and it felt like his head was ready to collapse in on itself. Even now, she was stronger than any monster he'd ever faced. He shook his head, desperately trying to regain some focus.
The ground trembled as Vic sent a shock wave of earth at her but it stopped short, five feet in front of her. She had stopped it. She jumped up into the air gaining at least fifty feet of altitude before slamming back down to the floor. A burst of power unlike anything they'd ever seen was blasted out from her and the tremor that Vic had used turned into an earthquake. A wave of dirt and rock rippled out from where she'd made impact and hit Vic hard. Joe and Goose dived over the four foot wall of earth that was coming at them but Vic didn't and he was smashed backwards but he never hit the ground.
In mid air, blue lights spun around him and a second later, he disappeared into nothing. Transporting himself was quick, easy and very useful. Another blue light shot out and suddenly he was right next to her. He held up his hand and subzero streams of ice hit Aria. He was trying to freeze her again, but this time she was ready.
White hot layers of heat past through her wings, melting the ice as soon as it touched her. Goose saw what was happening and ran for his RPG, still stashed where the crane had been. Aria spun around and clipped Vic with her arm sending him flying through the air before slamming into the warehouse wall. He flopped to the ground, unconscious and bleeding from the head.
She turned just in time to see Goose level the RPG at her and squeeze the trigger. The missile shot out and headed straight for her chest. Aria moved so fast that she simply became a blur of black feathers. In one movement, she spun around, scooped up the missile with her wing and flung it straight back at Goose.
He barely had the presence of mind to dive out of the way before it exploded right next to him. Bells were ringing, the yard was moving and his body felt like it was made of lead.
Before she had time to react, Joe pumped twelve gauge buck into her torso. Another round hit her shoulder before she could deflect it but the ball bearings just fell out of her wounds before they closed up. Jerry fired the sawn-off at her but again the Nitro round changed direction before hitting her. Goose, having regained his senses, opened fire with a pair of Barrettes but they did nothing.
Aria lost her patience and reached her arm out towards the ship that was floating in the wet pool. It floated out of the water and into the air with it's metal frame moaning as it did. It stopped about seventy feet upwards and just hovered while Aria turned back to the three men in front of her. She grinned wickedly.
“Don't say it,” Jerry almost begged.
“You're gonna need a bigger boat!” she snarled before launching the ship at them.
The ship rolled through the air heading straight for them.
“Run at it!” Joe yelled grabbing Jerry and Goose, pulling them forward. They rushed at the collapsing mass, and hit the deck in a skid just as it tumbled over them. The out of control ship came so close that they could practically feel it grate their skin. Joe had been right and by running towards the falling ship they had closed the distance, giving them time to get in front of the path of destruction.
The ship slammed into the ground, breaking apart as it rolled to a stop, taking out everything in it's way like a giant bulldozer. The hull only just managed to stay intact when it flattened the cargo container and came to a sliding stop near the warehouse.
Jerry, Goose and Joe slowly recovered just in time to see Aria chuckle at what she'd just done. She jumped into the air, back-flipping three times before blasting off like a rocket into the sky. In the distance they saw her huge dark wings turn and she banked back towards them.
“She's coming around!” Joe warned and rushed for a pair of rifles stocked where the container had been. It was a miracle that they hadn't been crushed by the boat.
He tossed one of the rifles to Goose and they both opened fire but the bullets never even came close. Aria swooped in, accelerating hard. Joe dived out of the way and dodged her as she came in but Goose wasn't fast enough. He got smashed by her full force and it sent him flipping backwards like a rag doll. He hit the ground hard and didn't up.
He was out for the count.
Aria banked hard left as Jerry heard Wick's words in his head: She's at her most dangerous when she's airborne. He bolted for the crane wreckage as she swept in for another run. Sophinia's face flashed before his eyes as he yelled and pushed himself off the wreckage, using it as a boost just as Aria past.
He dived straight onto her back.
Jerry disappeared into her flight as he grabbed hold of her wing joints. She snarled and shot into the sky, trying to use her speed to shake him off. His hands clamped down on her so hard that it felt like his knuckles were going to rip. He refused to let go so Aria decided to take him on a little ride.
She barrel rolled, then accelerated, then decelerated then took a vertical turn straight into the sky. Suddenly she came to a halt but latched hold of Jerry's arm.
“Sweetie, if you wanted to ride me, all you had to do was ask,” she grinned sadistically before going into a spin that made turbines look slow.
She got faster and faster and soon the G-force alone was causing his body to ache. The pressure started in and it felt like he was being squeezed.
It was too much. He couldn't hold on. His grip slipped and she let his arm go. Jerry fell back to earth with the speed of the freight train and would have been splattered all over the ground if he hadn't landed in what was left of the horrible dirty water where the ship had just been. Of all the places he could have ended up, it was there. Maybe he was lucky after all. Of course, he didn't feel lucky at that moment. His brain felt like it was doing everything in it's power to leave his skull. Even the lightening hadn't made him feel this dizzy.
But he had done what he wanted.
In the air, Aria smirked triumphantly before seeing what was now attached to her hip. Jerry had left a little something behind.
A grenade!
“You sneaky mother fu -”
BOOM!
Aria's body was blasted out of the sky like a meteorite and collided with the roof of the warehouse, smashing it to bits. Jerry was heaved out of the water by Joe a moment later. He was still so dazed that he could barely stand. Joe slung his shotgun over his shoulder and tried to steady his nephew.
“Goose! Vic!”
“They're out but alive. Come on! We gotta finish this!” Joe ordered and Jerry obeyed.
As they rushed towards the warehouse, Jerry picked his fallen shock-machete off the ground. The battery had been fried when he'd thrown it at Vic's water cannon but the blade was still sharp as ever. The Enchoian symbols didn't seem to protect the electronics but the metal wasn't a problem. Next time, he'd put them on the actual power source...if there was a next time.
They reached the giant sliding door to the warehouse and slipped through it. Inside it was practically empty, except for a pressing machine that made the plating they stick onto the hulls of ships. Metal rubble was everywhere. It was was what was left of the roof.
The dusk was visible through the enormous hole in the ceiling. The sun had almost disappeared but it still gave some luminosity to the place but it didn't matter. Aria was nowhere to be found.
A circle of cratered ground was left from where she'd impacted but that was it. The warehouse was silent. Joe signaled him to move to the right as they prepared to move around the pressing machine in the center of the building. The sound of bending metal rang out and suddenly the pressing machine broke off it's foundations and shot straight towards them.
Both Jerichos dived out of the way as the machine destroyed the back wall of the warehouse and tumbled into the yard. Behind where it had once been, Aria was there. Her left arm was gone but regenerating quickly. In fact, the entire left side of her body had
been pulverized by the grenade but she was still alive and healing fast. Jerry didn't wait for an invitation. He rushed at her, swinging and slashing with his machete everywhere he could.
Despite being a limb short, her wings were fine and she used them to block his hits at every turn. Sparks shot out ever time they connected as if metal was grinding again metal. He finally managed to dodge one of her wings and landed the blade through her shoulder. She yelled and grabbed the sword just as Jerry punched her in the face with everything he had. She didn't even register the hit and instead yanked the sword out of her. She threw it away so hard that it dug into the warehouse wall before spinning on the spot. Her wing slashed through the air and Jerry gasped in horror.
He grabbed hold of his belly but that didn't do much to stop the blood from pouring out of him.
She had split his gut open.
He fell to his knees, shock overtaking pain. It didn't hurt, it just felt numb. Even his blood seemed to have lost its heat as it dripped over his hands.
Aria stood before him, wings outstretched in victory. Her arm had regrown and her other injuries had vanished. She was just as magnificent as before, just wearing ripped and bloodstained cloths.
“Ow, you should probably get that looked at,” she said nodding to his wound.
He had been wrong. She was willing to kill him.
“I didn't want it to come to this. But you are such a stubborn little bastard!” she growled and advanced on him.
Everything that he'd come to believe about Aria had come to be true. But he needed to know about the stuff he didn't believe. He needed to be sure about what she was hiding from him.
“You must have enjoyed it then...” he said spitting blood out of his mouth. “Crucifying Sophinia upside down!”
“What can I say?” she shrugged. “I'm an artist.”
Suddenly a metal spike burst out of her chest causing her to snarl in anger. It didn't have his blood on it so it was barely a bee sting to her. She looked behind her and saw Joe standing there. She huffed and rolled her eyes before grabbing the spike and shoving it straight back through her body and into his.
The other end went straight through his shoulder and he went bug-eyed in shock.
“Nooo!” Jerry screamed as his uncle fell to the ground, blood pouring from his wound.
She smacked Jerry across the face causing him to skid backwards across of the floor. She was next to him in a heartbeat. She picked him up by the throat as if he weighed nothing. “Don't worry Jerry, I'll keep him alive just long for him to hear the last of your bones break. Just in time to see his own organs spill out all over the ground. Just long enough to see his nephew swallow his own heart!”
“Aria! Please!” he begged as blood spilled from his mouth.
He never in a million years believed that he would beg for mercy, but he was. He was about to loose everyone. He couldn't fight her, she was too strong. Begging was all he had left.
“Good God, you're pathetic!” she hissed. “I thought there was something there, something powerful, some amazing inside you but I was wrong! You're just another whining, sniveling speck of human garbage!”
He threw him across the warehouse as if she didn't want to even touch him anymore. She was looking at him like the vampires she hated so much. Like he was nothing but disgusting piece of living feces. That was when it suddenly made sense.
“I mean really Jerry! Do you actually think that something like me can die?!”
Aria wanted a fight.
“Let's find out,” Jerry grinned as the arm blade shot from his sleeve. It was coated in the blood he'd lost from his stomach.
With everything and anything he had left, Jerry spun around and launched himself at her. Her right wing shot out like a massive spear but he dodged it and got behind her. He slammed the arm blade into her back, right next to her wing joint. His corrosive blood melted away her skin and muscle and bone until there was barely anything left. The blade retracted back up his wrist as he grabbed hold of her wing and pulled with every last scrap of strength.
A horrible tearing sound hit his ears and Aria's eyes went wide and he yanked her wing right off her back. Blood sprayed out and hit his face as she collapsed in front of him.
His body was spent. Her severed wing dropped to the floor followed quickly by Jerry as he once again clamped his hands over the slash in his belly.
Aria didn't go supernova or disintegrate or do anything. Her body just lay there, a gaping hole in her shoulder blade from where her joint had been torn out. Jerry groaned as the pain from his gut started to show up. Despite that he managed to crawl his way over to his uncle.
“You alright,” he said looking at the piece of metal protruding from his shoulder.
“No,” Joe winced. “Pull this thing out of me will ya.”
“You're sure?” he breathed heavily. The metal spike seemed to be plugging the wound for now.
“Jerry, pull this goddamn thing out of my shoulder!” he growled.
“Yes, sir,” he said using his left hand to hold his wound and his right to hold onto the spike. It seemed so much harder than it should have. He was getting weak from blood loss.
Jerry made one heavy tugging action and Joe yelled out as the spike was pulled out of him. He covered the hole in his shoulder as quickly as possible but now he was bleeding just as badly as his nephew.
“Is she dead?” he managed to ask through gritted teeth.
“I hope so.”
“Not quite.”
They stared on in horror as Aria began to move. She reached over and pulled her severed wing towards her before holding the joint next to her back so that it could heal. The damage repaired itself and she stood up in front of them. She flexed her wing and let it spread out before it folded itself against her back again.
“You ripped my wing off,” she said actually looking pleased. “I think I'm in love.”
Terror swept through them. She really was immortal!
“Nice try. Should have gone for them both though,” she smirked. “I was just kidding about the whole ripping your uncle to pieces, not liking you anymore thing. But let's face it, you did need a little push back there.”
She was back to being the friendly, gorgeous psychopath that seemed to want him so badly. Her outburst a few moments before had just been for show. Jerry knew what she was trying to hide from him now, and despite her happy attitude now, it only made her more dangerous.
“Get away from him!” Joe yelled and tried to put himself in front of Jerry.
“Sorry buttercup. I know you guys are the last two Jerichos but you're going to have to learn to share,” she said crossing her arms over her chest.
“Like hell I am!”
“Oh, come on. It's hardly the worst thing that could happen to you,” she grinned and licked her lips. Even covered in dirt and blood, she was on a different level of beauty. “Would it really be so hard for us to walk off into the sunset?”
“Its not the sunset, its hellfire!” Jerry scowled.
“Yeah, but its all-inclusive,” she admitted.
“Send me a postcard!”
Chains suddenly wrapped themselves around Aria's body, locking her wings to her back. Two black blurs of movement spun around her, carrying the metal with them. In a second, Claire was in front of her, locking the chains together with a padlock that had Enochian tattoos all over it. She was followed by Cass and Wick who both stuck syringes into her neck and pushed down on the plungers.
“Gotcha!” Wick growled as Aria's eyes glazed over and she passed out, falling to the floor.
The chains were holding and wherever they'd just injected her with seemed to be doing it's job. The bitch was down.
They had done it! They had captured Aria!
CHAPTER 26 – THE GAME
Outside Wessington Spring – South Dakota
“You two were supposed to stay out of this!” Joe snapped at the vampires.
“Leave this shit to the men, what are you high?”
Cass snorted, checking the chains around Aria.
“My God, your guys are in peaces!” Claire shrieked and pinned her hands over Joe's wound.
“We've gotta get you guys to a hospit...” Cass's voice trailed off as she saw Jerry's blood. It was everywhere and although his cocktail hid the smell, the sight of it brought back memories that she could leave behind. “Jerry...your blood...I can't be here!”
She was panicking. It was everywhere. He was bleeding all over the place. She remembered the power that it held. How good it felt drinking it. The temptation was taking hold of her.
Sophinia had always been there before. She would have stopped her from trying to take it but now Cass was on her own, fighting the remnants of her experience with him. Her fangs extended even though she didn't want them to.
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