them to cease fire. This time, he didn’t bother with the humans. Instead of attempting to tackle me to the floor, Tobin wrapped his tentacles around me and drew me to his body. I might as well have slammed into a brick wall when I collided with his chest. His hands flew to my neck in an attempt to strangle me while his tendrils held me in a vise. My own attempted to push back to prevent him from crushing me. I could already feel my shield cracking under the pressure. With the two of us so intimately intertwined, the agents couldn’t shoot without risking hitting me instead.
Remembering the human self-defense and combat techniques Tate had been teaching me, I brought my arm down hard over his, close to his wrists, breaking his hold. I immediately followed by slamming my elbow against his jaw, and then struck him right under the nose with the bottom of my palm. Tobin shouted, his hold loosening around me as he held his face. Normally, considering the strength I had put behind the blow, that should have broken his nose, even smashed his face in. However, while his shield had protected it, being thinner around his face, it didn’t shelter him from the pain.
Pressing my advantage, I broke free of his embrace and kicked him square in the chest, sending him flying back. But a couple of his tendrils caught me, and dragged me with him. I landed on top of Tobin in a tangle of limbs. Before I could recover, the Nightmare rained blows on me with his fists and his tendrils faster than I could block or react. I couldn’t tell if his human body or ethereal form was doing the damage, but he was on the verge of wrecking me. I’d never felt such debilitating pain. When a lucky blow struck the side of my face, my teeth rattled, and I nearly blacked out.
This fucking body was too damn slow.
I was losing this fight by trying to battle like a human. I didn’t master this body. At this rate, it would soon die. But if I were to keel over, I was bringing this bastard with me.
I stopped trying to damage his much-too-well-shielded human vessel and reverted to my usual strategies in the Mist. Swallowing back the pain, I stopped my efforts to try controlling him and devoted most of my energy to my shield. Shifting back to my Mistwalker vision, I examined my opponent for signs of weaknesses in his ethereal armor. They shone like glowing fissures on the dark surface.
Thinking he had broken me when I remained almost still, Tobin roared in triumph, and relaxed his hold. To my relief, he stopped striking me with his tendrils, switching to punching and slapping my face. The fool wanted to humiliate me before going for the kill. He should know better than to toy with an apex predator. Waves of fear flowed to me from my companions who were also starting to believe I was being defeated. Their fear doubly served me by reinforcing Tobin’s overconfidence and by allowing me to shamelessly feed on their emotions.
Perfectly timing my attack, I extruded my ethereal claws and turned the tips of my tendrils into blade-like tips. As soon as he pulled his arm back to swing at me again, opening himself wide, I stabbed at six of his vulnerable spots with both of my hands and all four of my tendrils. They pierced right through his shield and then sunk into his vulnerable flesh.
Tobin’s body jerked then froze, shock and disbelief replacing the smug and malicious joy on his face. As his brain registered the serious damage he had just sustained, the Nightmare shrieked like a banshee. He tried to back away from him, but I didn’t let him. I bent the tips of my limbs inside him before yanking them out to cause maximum tissue and organ damage as they came out.
My prey screeched again and slapped his hands on a couple of his wounds to staunch the blood pouring out. He haphazardly batted at me with tendrils, but I didn’t relent, targeting his other weak spots with my tentacles. It became too easy. Like most stupid Nightmares controlled by their basic urges, Tobin had never learned real battle strategies. In the Mist, he’d preyed on the weak and easy targets. In the Mortal Plane, humans had been no challenge for him. For the first time, the fool was feeling true pain,