Rival Demons (21 page)

"So what about that deal?" I asked, angry at the
small quiver that crept into my tone.

"You think I cannot sense your fear?" the witch
asked.

Up close, her face was even more terrifying.
Holes littered her rotting skin, the greenish smoke moving in and
out of them like worms slithering through flesh. It took everything
I had to stand my ground.

"I may fear you, but believe me, if you harm
that little girl, you will never see another day in this
world."

The hunter flew back to her place near the girl.
"So cute that you have such confidence," she said. "I can't wait to
break you down to the lowest, groveling version of yourself."

Behind me, I heard Jackson step forward. I threw
my hand up and shook my head. There was nothing he could do here
except get in the way.

"Let the girl go and you'll have your chance," I
said, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

The hunter studied me, then looked down at the
child. "What is it that you're offering to me?"

I drew in a breath, locking my knees to keep
from collapsing. My hands were sweaty and numb, but I kept my chin
raised and my eyes open. "A trade," I said. "You let the girl go,
and I agree to come with you."

The crowd around us gasped, whispers rising up.
Jackson moved to me, his mouth close to my ear.

"What are you doing?" he said, his words short
and angry. "You can't do this. I won't let you."

"I know what I'm doing," I said.

But did I? I was working on pure instinct and
adrenaline.

The hunter laughed again. She crouched low
beside Sasha. "You would give your life for this demon?"

"If that's what it takes," I said. "Let her go
and I'll come with you, on one condition."

"Condition?" The evil witch flew high into the
air, her voice low and fearsome. "You dare to place a condition on
someone as powerful as me? I could snatch you from this place so
fast you would forget your own name."

I shook my head. "No. If you could do that, you
would have already done it," I said. "Your years of life have made
you wise, and you know that if you take me, you'll have a serious
fight on your hand. The same thing goes for the girl. You kill her
or hurt her and the Resistance will never stop until you're
dead."

She was listening now, and I knew I'd hit on the
truth, or some version of it.

"You can't risk a fight right now," I said.
"What if I were to die somehow in the crossfire? What would
Priestess Winter do to you if you screwed this up?"

The hunter's rotting jaw tensed, her teeth
gnashed together with a gruesome grinding sound.

"I offer myself up to you willingly," I said,
lifting my hands up to show my cooperation. "All you have to do is
let the girl go safely. Then, I will agree to a contest. A
duel."

"What kind of duel?" the witch asked.

I wondered what kind of power the Order had over
such a being. When I mentioned Priestess Winter, the rotting hunter
had actually winced, fear flashing in her dead eyes.

"A contest between you and me alone with no
interference from any other being in this place," I said. "But
since you are not allowed to kill me, and I do not have the
strength or power to kill you, we duel until one of us either
surrenders or is no longer conscious. If you win, I'll go with you
and no one in this place will fight for me. But if I win, you
become a prisoner of the Resistance."

The witch laughed, a low gurgling sound. "The
Priestess told me you were a foolish girl," she said. "I could
defeat you with a single flick of my finger."

A cold rope of fear tightened around my throat,
making it difficult for me to breathe. I struggled against the
paralyzing terror of it.

"Then do it," I said.

The crowd in the marketplace stood in stunned
silence. I hoped that anyone who ever doubted my hatred of the
Order now understood that I was worthy of trust, not suspicion.
Surely the Order wouldn't send a hunter to capture one of their own
spies.

I held my breath, waiting for an answer from the
hunter.

Finally, she lowered her sharp nails to the
netting that held Sasha in place. With a flick of her wrist, the
hunter cut the strips of fabric. The net fell from Sasha's body and
the child stood, her eyes wide with fear. Ourelia ran forward with
a sob, taking her child into her arms and pulling her away from the
hunter. Andros kissed his daughter's head and whispered something
to his wife.

The woman and child pushed through the crowd.
Just before they disappeared down one of the side corridors, I saw
Sasha reach out toward me, her eyes locked on mine.

Many in the crowd scattered to the caves, but
several stayed to watch, including Andros.

I partly watched these events take place, and
partly didn't. Even if this witch couldn't kill me right here,
right now, I knew this was still a battle for my life. If she took
me from the Underground, I would still meet my death in Peachville.
For a split second, I wondered what month it was. It rarely snowed
in Georgia, but maybe it was a particularly cold winter back
home.

Was that the ending Jackson had seen in his
visions? A snowy day in Peachville?

Only time would tell.

One thing was certain. I wasn't going to lay
down and just let death come to me. Not this time. I would fight
until the very moment my spirit left my body.

"I will make this quick so you won't have to
suffer for too long," the witch said with a grinding laugh. "I'll
put you out so deep that by the time you wake up, you'll be back at
Shadowford and it will all be over."

I didn't answer her. Instead, I spread my legs
and planted my feet firmly against the tile floor. I blocked
everyone and everything else from my mind, lifting my palms up
toward the sky. I knew I had a very limited amount of time to
connect to my power and try to find the same level of strength I
had found in training.

I breathed deeply, the first few nervous breaths
coming jagged and uneven but eventually settling into a good rhythm
that calmed my heartbeat. I cleared my mind of all worry. I thought
only of my mother's favorite flower. A single white rose in the
darkness. I poured all of my focus onto that rose, feeling my power
center inside of me, its strength growing with each second.

Before me, the hunter turned in a circle,
marking out a makeshift battleground, the boundaries marked by a
hazy green line that hovered just above the ground. She crouched
low, then began to spin. Slow at first, then speeding up until
she'd become a tornado. The demons screamed and covered their
faces, the wind pushing them backward. The marketplace shops on
this side of the Grand Hall fell over, tents and their contents
flying all over the area.

"There," the witch said as she slowed and
finally came to a stop. "That's more like it."

She pushed the boundaries of her green haze out
a little more, creating more space for our fight Then, she lifted
her hands quickly, the green haze stretching from floor to ceiling
and all around us, locking us into a bubble together. All outside
sounds disappeared, the cries of the crowd silenced in an instant
by the new green arena.

I looked up, taking stock of my new prison. The
green barrier extended all around us in a messy circle. I was on my
own now.

"We can't have any of your friends jumping into
the fight to save you, now can we?" the hunter said. "Don't look so
worried. This won't take long."

Knowing the fight was about to begin, I willed
my nerves to settle. My heart pounded against my ribs. The evil
witch moved toward me then, her pointy claws raised, a scream on
her rotting lips. I threw my hands out to my side, fire engulfing
them. Quickly, I spread the fire in a straight line in front of me,
then lifted my hands high into the air, creating a wall of flame so
high the witch ran straight into it. I had no idea if she would be
able to pass straight through it or not, so I was relieved when she
stopped short of the wall.

She placed her palms together, then slowly
opened them, the fire parting like a curtain in the middle. She
smiled at me then, an ugly twisted expression that made my insides
shiver. I backed away, my wall of fire dying down to nothing.

The hunter gathered an oozing ball between her
hands, its color a kind of electric lime-green. With tense arms,
she reared back and threw the ball toward me with perfect aim. I
didn't react fast enough, diving out of the way just in time to
keep the poisonous ball from hitting me square in the stomach.
Instead, it grazed the top of my thigh, burning with a vicious
heat.

I cried out, clutching the spot that was now
covered with a glowing, sticky fluid that mixed with blood as it
burned through my skin. I tore a piece of cloth from my shirt and
wiped as much of the liquid off my wound as I could.

The hunter laughed and threw another green
poison ball toward me. This time, I knew I wouldn't be able to get
out of the way fast enough. On instinct, I threw up a shield to
block the spell. Unfortunately, the only kind of shield I knew how
to create was the one Zara had taught me back in Peachville. The
kind that absorbs a piece of the opposing witch's essence.

The second the poison slammed into the shield, I
felt the infinite hollowness of the hunter's existence. An intense
sadness filled my heart. Underneath the evil at the surface of her
power lay a life stolen just as mine had been. I looked up at this
wretched being and realized that at one point, this thing had been
a girl, just like me. She'd had hopes and dreams of her own, a
life, even people she loved. I couldn't see what it was that had
sent her to this world to be turned into this evil creature, but
deep down, under the layers of decay and stench, she hated
herself.

I listened to the echo of her power in my mind,
and a single word came to my mind.

Maria.

Leaving my shield up, I stood and took a step
toward her, ignoring the pain in my upper leg. "Maria," I said.
"That's your name isn't it?"

The witch's eyes grew wide as saucers, the
ghostly cloud around her body moving faster. "Don't you dare say
that name to me," she growled.

She gathered an invisible power in her hands and
angrily threw it toward me, but her anger had affected her aim. The
invisible force slammed against the floor several feet in front of
me, rolling slowly toward me, bringing up pieces of tile and rock
as it rolled. I jumped easily out of the way.

"I see you," I said, taking a step back, careful
not to trip over the debris. "You used to be beautiful with your
shiny black curls and bright honey-colored eyes."

The hunter screamed and flew high into the air.
With a vengeance, she barreled down toward me, her fingertips
raised, ready to claw my flesh to pieces. I took hold of the edge
of a broken tile and with all of my strength, I hurled it toward
her. The jagged edge ripped into her arm. A greenish black liquid
spewed out from her, and as it fell on the marble below, it made a
hissing sound as if it were made of pure acid.

The hunter fell to the ground, clutching her
shoulder. The cut had weakened her.

While she was distracted, I formed a large
fireball between my palms and hurled it at her. She moved out of
the way and the fire slammed into a fallen tent behind her. The
blue tent burst into flames.

"Maria," I said again, forming another ball of
fire in my hands. "What I can't help wonder is just how a pretty
girl like you got assigned to the shadow world. How did you get
stuck doing the Order's dirty work? You must have done something
that really pissed them off, huh?"

She snapped her head toward me, saliva dripping
from her blackened teeth. "Shut up," she said. "You don't know me,
fool. You don't know the first thing about me."

"That's a lie," I said. I hurled the second
fireball toward her, but she flew up into the air, dodging it too
easily. A pile of debris on the other side of her caught fire too.
With two strong fires blazing, I felt somehow stronger. As if my
own power drew force from the flames. "I know exactly who you are.
You used to be me. Just a regular girl caught in the Order's web of
lies and promises. What did you do to piss them off so bad that
they sent you here for all eternity?"

The hunter began to shake, her anger getting the
best of her. I stood on my guard, creating more fire in my hands.
The hunter flew around the circle, leaving a trail of greyish green
fog behind her. As I reared back to throw the fire toward her, the
gas reached my nose, making me gag and cough. I threw the fireball,
but it landed several feet from my mark, barely lighting a small
banner that had fallen from one of the shops.

I fell to my knees, coughing. I couldn't catch
my breath. The gas surrounded me. My vision went fuzzy, and I began
to fall back. Somewhere in the depths of my mind, I realized this
was how she planned to end me. If I lost consciousness now, I might
as well surrender my life.

I fought against the effects of the poison gas
and reached deep inside to find some ounce of power left within.
With it, I created a whirlwind around my body, the air moving
slowly, then, as the gas began to clear away, faster and
faster.

The rotting witch narrowed her eyes at me. She
thought she'd won already, and was obviously annoyed I was still
standing. Well, kneeling, really.

I felt the warmth of the flickering flames all
around me as the fire caught and spread around the dueling circle.
I drew strength from that fire, standing despite the pain in my leg
and my lungs. I knew I had to end this soon or I would lose my
ability to fight back. The hunter had more power than I did. She
could wear me down slowly if she wanted to. I had to stop her
fast.