Imagination, I reminded myself fiercely. He was playing with my mind.
The fog crept over the remnants of my beach, obliterating it completely. Again I had to wonder why. Was it something to do with his blindness in real life? Did he think the fog gave him some advantage over me? It wasn't as if he didn't already have enough of those—The thought stopped as I suddenly realized what he was doing.
Taylor wanted me dead, and to do that he had to get me up into the umbra. He had no idea how skilled or not I was at astral traveling, so he was using the fog not only to disguise his movements, but to hide which level we were on.
I swished my sword back and forth. The fog boiled away from her flames, and I caught a glimpse of Taylor moving to my left. I imagined standing behind him, unseen, unheard. Moved in an instant, and swept Amaya left to right. Made contact, though where or what I hit I couldn't say. It could have been Taylor; it could have been his staff. He made no sound to give me any indication either way.
Yet the smell of blood suddenly seemed to permeate the air.
His or mine?
And how was something like that even possible, given that Azriel had said a soul could be killed only in the umbra?
Killed, yes, a voice inside me whispered—a voice that sounded suspiciously like Azriel's—but remember Adeline's warning. What happens to you on the plane can become reality if the illusion is powerful enough.
Taylor's illusion was certainly powerful enough.
To repeat a favorite phrase, fuck, fuck, fuck!
Which meant it really was time to stop playing the game his way. I needed to start moving up the levels, but I doubted he'd follow easily. He wanted to play, and I very much suspected he'd want me far weaker—bloodied and bleeding and on the edge of exhaustion—before he stepped onto the umbra and attempted to finish me off.
I had to convince him that I'd reached that state—that I was scared and on the run—long before I actually reached that point. And that meant I had to take far more blows than I already had.
Not something I really wanted to do, but I had little choice.
I gripped Amaya a bit tighter. Her hissing ramped up a couple of notches, an echo of the tension that gripped me. I swung her back and forth and watched the recoiling fog, trying to catch another glimpse of Taylor. For several heartbeats there was nothing; then air caressed my skin.
Once again, the bastard was behind me.