Dominion (Guardian Angels) - By Melody Manful Page 0,8

anger boiled through me. “That’s a shame.” I took two steps closer to him, put my hands together, and hurled a flaming orb at him, but it froze, thawed, and sprinkled to the ground before it could reach him. I released several at a time, throwing flames in every direction so that there was no way he could stop them all. Displays shattered, creatures screamed as the flames burst against their bodies.

The screaming made me happy. I turned, walked away from Tristan, and approached the creatures still stumbling in the chaos. Black dust swirled behind my every step. My footprints burned holes into the ground. I turned full circle to admire my destruction.

“Gideon!” Tristan shouted as he waved his hands. A circle of air shielded some of the creatures.

Was he challenging me? I threw a fireball toward the circle, but it evaporated the moment it reached the barrier. I tried once more, and again it evaporated on contact.

“They are innocent!” His voice, filled with pain, echoed through the marketplace.

“Innocent?” Anger rippled through me as I pressed my teeth together, clenching my fists. “No one is innocent.”

Tristan landed right in front of me. “Right now, I see you hurting them for no reason, and that makes them innocent.”

I released a humorless laugh. “You tell Daligo I accept his challenge.” Our faces were so close by then that my red eyes reflected in his blue ones.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you tomorrow,” he said.

I pulled away from him and took a quick look around at the smoldering embers. A few bodies lay strewn across broken displays and crushed pottery.

“Save me a chair.” I hurled flames every each way, and as much as Tristan tried, he couldn’t stop all of them. I smiled as painful screams filled the air around us once more.

I glanced at Tristan, who was too busy protecting creatures he didn’t know, and hurled another ball of flame toward him. He spotted the flames within milliseconds, and with a flick of his hand, the flames spun back toward me.

I jumped out of the way, barely escaping my own creation.

This time, when I opened my hands toward Tristan, flames weren’t released, but rather dark smoke. Tristan stopped the smoke between us, combatting the dark haze with a blue smoke of his own. I pushed with all my strength, but he countered. Surprisingly, the blue smoke started to move closer to me, emanating powerful heat that burned against my skin.

I’d heard Tristan was powerful, but not this powerful. His smoke crept closer and closer to me, and I feared I might lose. But, then again, losing wasn’t an option for me. I braced myself for the pain and then released my hold on the black smoke. The moment I did, Tristan’s smoke hit me hard in the chest, sending me crashing through the tables and computers behind me.

Tristan’s blue smoke hurt. I felt as if I were literally on fire, my whole body weakening, and although I grew stronger on pain and was standing in a marketplace filled with pain, I couldn’t regain my strength.

I forced myself to stand. Anger burned through me, hotter than even the flames I released from my hands.

Using my mind, I was able to inflict pain onto others. I lifted my hand, causing a little girl trying to escape to float into the air. The girl screamed in pain as I mentally tortured her.

“Gideon!” Tristan shouted, and by the time his voice died out, the little girl was safely on the ground beside him.

I raised my hand again, this time levitating two angels, a women and a little boy. They screamed together as I brought down my hands. Tristan stopped them, too, in mid-air before they could crash into the ground. I wasted no time in creating another fireball in my hand and swiftly hurling it at Tristan.

This time he was too late to stop it. The fire hit him dead-on. I smiled as the flames formed a circle around him, and he yelled.

Some of the angels shouted his name and rushed to his aid, forgetting that I was there and that the danger hadn’t passed.

Of course they wouldn’t want Tristan to get hurt. No one wanted Tristan harmed because he was a hero and the only effective weapon against me.

It took Tristan mere seconds to free himself of the flames. Although he was in pain, I knew he would refuse to leave. I didn’t want to be the weakest link and leave, even though I was