The Nightmare (The Mist #2) - Regine Abel Page 0,97

get out of its path, I dissolved into a vaporous form, letting his tendril pass right through me, leaving me unscathed. Once again, that made me visible for a split second before I vanished from view.

Enraged, my nemesis got up and flapped his tendrils in every direction, waving them like a madman in the hope of landing a lucky blow.

“Show yourself, and fight me as a human, you coward!” he shouted, hitting the gorilla a few times instead.

I grinned, pleased to see him exert so much energy in vain—not that it made a significant dent in his insane reserves. But every bit he lost was a step closer to a potential victory for us. More importantly, it bought me time.

Drawn by the ruckus, a couple more Beasts came looking for prey. I glided away, at a safe enough distance not to get caught by a blow intended for another. One of the two creatures could have been the offspring of a peacock and a pterodactyl. When the freaky bird started spitting on him something that looked like acid, it almost gave me a hard on.

Such poetic justice.

The acid was doing a number on the Nightmare’s shield, forcing him to burn more and more energy to reinforce it. The other creature looked like a carnivorous plant hydra mounted on the body of a giant porcupine. It nipped at Darryl with its nine heads, forcing him to juggle parrying it and the gorilla, leaving the acid bird to safely fuck with him.

For a moment, I considered luring more creatures his way so that they could keep him tied up, then thought better of it. I needed to preserve my energy, and this hallway was too narrow for the Beasts to give him a real run for his money.

That decision was reinforced by the fact that the Nightmare expressed no fear, only anger to have his plan turned against him. Fury also emanated from him that I should have gotten a few hits in while he still had yet to score a single one against me. It was inconceivable to Darryl that a being so inferior to him could have the upper hand.

Unfortunately, the battle didn’t last long. The wretched Nightmare was too powerful and the creatures too weak in comparison. In his rage, Darryl killed the gorilla, regretting it immediately.

He stood there for a moment, fuming. His gaze flicked back and forth between the pile of ashes from his victims, and the damaged wall. I couldn’t believe the fool was actually considering finishing breaking the wall himself. He had the energy reserves to do it and survive the cost. The agony he would endure though would overwhelm him.

I was hoping he would do it.

While he’d been battling the gorilla near the cells, I’d felt my mate leave, the strength of our connection dimming as Peters led her and the others through the tunnel. Merax and Letho were protected by the double, reinforced glass walls. Breaking through those would require even more power and inflict significantly more damage than this first wall. It would wreck him.

Seeming to come to the same conclusion, Darryl snarled with rage, his gaze blindly looking for me in the corridor, empty but for the Mist and the ashes of his victims.

However, as much as Darryl wanted to kill me and harm my woman, his creator had not spawned a mindless idiot. Smart leaders like Thomson never did. Their monsters were usually the cold and calculated types, which made them even more dangerous. And this specific Nightmare was coming to the conclusion that his perfect plan had encountered too many hiccups to justify pushing through.

He had thought that by the time the agents would have realized what was happening, half of them would have already been dead, and that the remaining ones would have rushed him in a desperate effort to retake the base. Instead, we had trapped him in a limited set of narrow corridors with me in stealth form preventing him from cheating his way into breaking into the locked rooms. But I couldn’t let him leave. While I had not expected our confrontation to go down this way, our current situation was actually stacking the cards in my favor. I needed to lure him inside the gym before he decided to bail.

I carefully glided past him towards the high security area before turning around. I dashed forward swiping at him with three of my tendrils, hoping to catch him in the face with at least one.