His counter strike sent me staggering as I slowly brought my defences up. I had been caught unawares at the sight of Victor’s shield almost falling. I hadn’t expected the strike to take such a toll and Victor quickly capitalised on my distraction. Three lightning fast strikes impacted against my shield in rapid succession and I was forced onto the back foot and closer towards the edge of the building.
“But you are still undisciplined! You could have finished me had you not stopped to admire your handiwork!” Victor snarled as he forced me from the side of the building.
I leapt backwards and threw a thread onto the building behind me, pulling myself into a tight ball. I shot through the window behind me like a wrecking ball. The glass on the side of the building shattered on impact with my shield and I was able to pull myself back onto my feet. My stunt had given me a break from Victor’s attack and allowed me to regroup my resources. Taking his earlier advice I didn’t hesitate in launching attacks back at him.
I had landed a level up on the building and this gave me a slight advantage, unfortunately the gap between us made combat difficult. Given the distances we were easily able to predict each other’s strikes and it was quickly drawing to a stalemate. I knew from experience that this type of battle would not serve me well. I needed to get up and personal with the Arch Mage. He didn’t cope well when his opponent was in his face. I needed to close the gap, but any attempt I made to cross the gap would result in me being swatted from the air like a fly.
Maybe I could lure him into making that mistake. I knew how out of control he got when he lost his temper. It wasn’t an easy task to accomplish, but if I could make him angry enough his rage might unbalance him and give me the advantage.
My thoughts were disturbed by the familiar ‘whop-whop-whop’ noise of a chopper closing in on us. Harsh lights shone upon us and stern voices called for us to surrender. I had no intention of getting shot by that high calibre machine gun again and was contemplating disappearing into the building when the matter was taken out of my hands. With almost casual disdain Victor wrapped a thread around the helicopter and simply tore it in two. The explosion as the machine died was anti-climactic as the wreckage fell from the skies. Just a dull thump and screams as its inhabitants fell to their deaths.
Victor’s face was grim as he surveyed his handiwork. “This is the first time in half a century that I have been responsible for the death of a non-mana user.”
There was no possible way that I could have heard that statement from him. It wasn’t said loud. It wasn’t said with the aid of a whisper thread. Yet I had heard it as if he had been standing next to me. His dark eyes sought me out across the void between us. I knew in that moment that I wouldn’t need to antagonise him to make him angry. He was already furious.
“Then let’s end this now!” I snarled at him, “before anyone else gets dragged into this.
“I have the higher ground,” I mocked, “come over and take me down, prove that you’re the superior Mage! Prove it now or die by my hand!”
“Higher ground means nothing,” Victor commented before launching a thread. I had at first thought that the thread was aimed at me. I had thought he had played right into my hands, but I was wrong.
Victor’s thread took out the windows and support structure of the level below me. There was a horrible rumbling noise as the floor I was standing on gave way and tipped me out into the air. Unprepared for this kind of attack I stumbled and attempted to grasp at something, anything to prevent what was about to happen. But of course, it was inevitable.
As I fell from the building Victor’s threads sought me out and pulled me into the air before him. I heard a crunching noise as the thread wrapped around my shield and felt the pressure build as I had to pump more and more power into my shield to prevent it from being crushed like an egg.
Victor dragged me before him and held me in the vice like grip of his Mana. Threads stronger than steel wrapped around me and squeezed. My whole body arched with agony as I brought everything I had to bare against him, but it wasn’t enough.
“Your shield is exceedingly well constructed,” Victor commented casually, as if we were merely chatting during a morning class, “I would have liked to know where you learned to do this.”
Shit, I don’t know how I’d learned to craft my shield. It was possible that I had learned it from one of the numerous Mages that I had fought over the years. It was also equally possible that I had simply figured it out for myself. It didn’t really matter in the end. Victor wasn’t really asking the question seriously. I suppose he had just wanted to keep me talking until the end. I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.
“You were always a most disappointing student,” Victor continued, “but a talented one none the less. It seems such a waste for it to end like this.”
The end – I had often wondered how I was going to die. I had never thought that it would be like this. I had survived things that I had no right to. I suppose I had thought that I was just lucky or blessed. That I couldn’t fail like others. As Victor’s threads wrapped themselves tighter around me I was forced to think about another Mage who had died in a similar way.
I had been the one crushing him though. Vin had died held up before his foe in bands of Mana just like these. I had barely been able to muster the strength to finish him back then and had limped away from the battle too wrecked to even remember the details properly. They had flooded back over the next few days as the guilt had taken me. His death had been the catalyst for my rise to power and my subsequent fall. It seemed almost fitting that I die in much the same way.
For a brief moment I contemplated just lowering my shield to embrace my death. It would be so simple, so quick – a moment of pain followed by nothing. The desire was almost overwhelming as I made my peace with my end. I kept promising myself just one more second, then I’ll let the shield fall and then as that second passed I promised myself again. Soon this will be over. Soon. Then a hissing noise rose in my head as the pressure to keep going overtook me.
I couldn’t hear Victor talking to me now. A ringing in my ears had blocked out all external sound. It felt like I was being held underwater as the pressure came in on me from all sides. The crushing weight of it burned as it pressed me and I felt about ready to explode.
Conscious thought had almost left me by this stage as my primitive-self kicked into survival mode. My senses expanded as I sought anything, however remote, that could help me. But there was nothing.
“Allie,” I thought desperately as my shield caved in, “I’m sorry. I failed you.”
A loud explosion of air rocketed me as my shield imploded, there was a split second of immediate relief as the pressure released and I was washed in a breeze of cool air. It lasted less than a second before the pain overtook. As Victor’s threads closed in on me I felt a wrench as my shoulder was first dislocated and then crushed into pieces.
The pain was more than I could bear. I would have given anything to have passed out, but the fates were not kind. The whole thing must have taken mere seconds but to me it felt like a lifetime. I swear I could feel every rib in my chest being crushed as my body was twisted between vicelike threads.
I could see blood dripping down across my eyes and in a brief second of delusion I had wondered who was bleeding before the reality kicked back in. I must have sustained a head wound. It was perhaps a blessing as the wave of nausea and dizziness blocked out the pain some. I felt Victor wrench me to one side and I glanced down and saw an alley below me. He was hanging me over the side of the building.
“I take no satisfaction in this,” Victor intoned as he held me before him, “it is merely something that needs to be done.”
I could barely hear him and for some reason I couldn’t seem to lift my neck to look directly at him. I wondered briefly if my back had been broken. I couldn’t feel anything. The last thing I heard was a loud crack followed by blinding pain and the brief sensation of falling. Then nothing.
“Renee,” I gasped as the darkness overtook me, “…forgive me.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I was more amazed than relieved when the darkness relented and my vision became filled with light. I’ve heard stories from people who say that after they’ve had near death experiences that the only thing they remember is the light. They remember the light being welcoming and loving. They recall being anguished about not being able to go into it.
That’s bullshit. The only light I recall was from the ceiling of an ambulance cabin and it wasn’t comforting. It was hard and it was cold and it hurt my eyes. It definitely didn’t envelope me in love.
I had no choice but to look at the light – it was my whole world. The light wavered uncertainly and for a second I thought the darkness might return. That would be good. I didn’t like it here. The light returned with vengeance and my vision was torn to pieces by it. The light sought me out no matter where I chose to hide. It always found me. The light was bad – it brought pain.
“He’s responding,” a voice cut in. Who had said that? Did I say that? Why would I say that? What was happening?
Before I could ponder this further the light was blissfully removed once more, but the pain remained. I couldn’t for the life of me remember a time when there had been no pain.
I felt something painful jerk against my arm and it took me several seconds to realise that I even had an arm let alone where it was. Something was holding it down. I turned my head to see what it could be. All I could see was blurry light.
I tried to bring my other hand to my face, but it was pushed away. Grunting, I tried again. The feeling of my hand on my face sent shockwaves of pain lancing through me, though strangely, it felt that it was as if it was coming from a long way away.
The light blurred as it broke before me and I could see a hand. It looked familiar. It was my hand. I could recognise it. I could see it! I couldn’t see much else, everything else looked like a blurred void. The Mana on my hand was going nuts. It took me several seconds to recognise what it was. I briefly tried to bring the Mana under control, but I must have blacked out. The effort must have been too much.
When I came to the hand was gone. The light had gone too. I was strapped to a gurney in the back of an ambulance. There were two paramedics in the ambulance with me. They had the look of soldiers. I’d know that look anywhere.
I attempted to rise, but my neck was in some kind of brace and I couldn’t move. I brought my hand to my face to attempt to free myself, but one of the paramedics noticed me and brought my arm back down. He must have looped it into a fastening or something, because I wasn’t able to move it again.
“You’re okay kid” he murmured. “We’ll be there soon.”
I vaguely wondered which kid he was talking to and where this kid was hiding. I also wondered where “there” was but as I tried to open my mouth to speak no words came out. I glanced down at my body to see a tangled mess of blood and wires and tubes poking out from me.
That explained the pain. They were doing something to me. I should probably stop them, but I was so very tired. I let my head loll back into the brace again and closed my eyes. The darkness returned, but it wasn’t the same. There was no comfort here.
* * * * * *
I opened my eyes. I was lying in a hospital bed in a very non-descript room. Hospital rooms are normally pretty sparse, but this one was completely empty. The sound of monitoring equipment behind my head slowly intruded into my consciousness. It was strange that I hadn’t noticed it at first. Now it was all I could think about.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I wasn’t feeling any pain, but I was feeling fuzzy, kind of like when you’ve had too much to drink. This feeling wasn’t anywhere near as pleasurable. They must have drugged me. I didn’t know who they were, but it was the only explanation. I felt nauseous. If I was going to feel this bad I could at least do it without that god damned beeping noise from the machine.
The machine was too far out of reach for me to turn it off and my arms still appeared to be locked into some form of brace. I sat up as far as I could, which wasn’t very far with the braces holding my arms and legs to the sides of the bed.
This wouldn’t do.
A thread leapt from my fingers almost unbidden and unstrapped me from the bed. It happened so quickly that it took me several seconds for my mind to catch up. I had almost forgotten for a moment that I could do that.
In fact I only had very shaky memories of anything that had occurred. I knew who I was, but I had no idea where I was or how I had gotten here.
Then the fights with Marcus and Victor exploded back into my consciousness like a raging bull. Each memory struck me harder than the last. I gritted my teeth as I relived the pain of being crushed by Victor’s threads. How was I even still alive? Had he somehow left me alive after that? That didn’t seem likely. Had I died and this was some form of afterlife? That seemed even more far-fetched.
The only thing I knew for certain was that I couldn’t stay here. I went to pull the brace from my neck and try to stand. Unfortunately this was made more difficult by the number of tubes connected to my nose and mouth. I couldn’t seem to remove the neck brace without disconnecting myself from the tubes and wiring and I had no idea where to even start to do that.
My right shoulder and arm also appeared to be in a brace and most of my arm was in plaster. This more than anything else had been what was restricting my movement. I went to move my legs to the side of the bed and knew almost immediately that something was wrong. My legs weren’t reacting the way they were supposed to. In fact, they weren’t moving at all. I couldn’t even feel them.
Just what kind of drugs had they given me? Had they sedated my legs? A hundred suspicions and theories rose in my mind until I finally settled on the horrible truth. My legs weren’t moving because my back was broken. Victor had broken my back.
Had he meant to do that? I didn’t think so. He had meant to kill me, but somehow had been unable to do so. That didn’t seem right; by all rights I should be dead. Why wasn’t I?
A chill settled over me. I didn’t know how and I didn’t know when, but he would pay for this. I would survive this somehow and I would find him and I would finish him. I gritted my teeth as the absurdity of that statement hit me. How the hell was I going to get revenge? I wouldn’t even be able to get out of bed without assistance.
A particularly loud beep from the machine behind me drew my ire as it echoed throughout the room. Before I knew what had happened a thread had lanced out and smashed the machine. The impact sent the machine careening into the far corner of the room. There was a sharp tug as wires were unceremoniously pulled from my bed frame. The machine gave one last metallic squawk before it finally died with a small fizzing noise and a small exhale of smoke.
The door was almost immediately flung open and a white-coated man rushed into the room. He surveyed the scene. His eyes flicked from disbelief at the destroyed machine then through to annoyance at me.
“You shouldn’t be sitting up,” he growled as he came over.
“Where am I?”
He didn’t answer. Instead he set about re-arranging the tubes and wires that I had knocked out of place earlier.
“Where am I?” I repeated darkly.
Again the man ignored me. I gritted my teeth as I pondered my next move. The inability to move my legs properly was only a minor inconvenience. With Telekinesis I didn’t need my legs. I could kill him where he stood and there was nothing he could do about it.
“Answer me,” I rumbled as I held out my good hand towards him. He gasped as a thread wrapped around his throat and pulled him from the floor.
“I didn’t pull you from the ruins of Melbourne to let you torture doctors,” a familiar voice said from the corner.
I dropped the doctor immediately as I turned to face the newcomer. Levenson was standing in the doorway. Before I could think about it my thread lanced from the doctor to wrap around Levenson’s neck. His eyes bulged as the
thread squeezed around his throat.
“Were you working with Marcus?” I demanded.
Levenson couldn’t answer with his throat constricted, but I could see him trying to shake his head from side to side. The doctor took the opportunity to scramble from the room. I was sure he was going to go get armed soldiers, but I didn’t care. I’d deal with them when they got here too.
“Did you know what Marcus had planned?” I snarled.
Again, Levenson tried to frantically shake his head. He was going a horrible shade of purple before I loosened the thread. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I wasn’t going to kill him. He fell back to the ground.
“Where am I,” I snarled at Levenson as he got to his feet.
“You’re in a secure military facility about 30 kilometres out of Melbourne.” Levenson replied weakly. “We brought you here after we found you. You’re lucky to be alive.” There was a hint of reproach in his voice.
“I don’t feel lucky.”
“We were hoping you would be able to answer some questions.” Levenson began.
“You dragged me all the way here, patched me up because you had questions?”
“Not as such.” He looked like he was being completely honest with me. That was the problem though, he always looked like he was telling the truth.
“I can’t feel my legs,” I said.
Levenson nodded, “You have incurred some spinal damage. Your doctor wasn’t sure you would even survive, let alone walk.”
“You’re saying I won’t be able to walk again?”
“You are made of strong stuff,” Levenson finished, cutting me off.
I didn’t answer immediately, “What am I doing here?”
“That is up to you.”
“No games, no lies,” I snarled. “Tell me what you want.”
Levenson gave a thin-lipped smile.
“We need your help.” Levenson said softly, “but that can wait…”
“… until you’re better.” He trailed off as a small team of doctors entered the room. There were soldiers behind them. Levenson immediately waved the soldiers off, they didn’t look happy, but they remained in the corridor.
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