Tempest Reborn (Jane True) - By Nicole Peeler Page 0,105

That fire spread over her body till she’d lit up like an ifrit. I couldn’t help shuddering. Reminders of Con would always have that effect on me.

‘She’s coming,’ I said to Anyan, and seconds later we saw her flaming presence making itself felt across the field. Combatants parted like the Red Sea, and those who weren’t fast enough were blasted out of her way regardless of whether they were our soldiers or hers.

Ryu, Nyx, and Caleb hastily cleared our soldiers out of the way, pushing everyone back into a semicircle behind us.

When Morrigan appeared, she was obviously irate.

‘What is this ritual, you stupid bitch!’ she roared. The long muzzle distorting her face was full of sharp teeth and a snake’s tongue, all of which contributed to a definite lisp. What came out was more like, ‘Whas iss diss widual, you dupis biss!’

Any humor created by her speech impediment, however, was mitigated by her throwing the head of one of our goblin fighters at us. I felt bad batting it out of the air but I also didn’t want to get dinged by it.

Morrigan followed up the head with herself, lunging her own neck forward using her Go-Go-Gadget-neck trick that never ceased to horrify me. The Red blazed in her eyes as she again fought for control over her own body. I followed after her retreating jaws, the labrys blazing before me like a comet.

Slashing, I could feel myself melding with the creature as we fought Morrigan together. Preternaturally swift and sure on my feet, my arms moved through the air like a ballerina’s, if ballerinas were armed with flaming axes of death.

Her neck still extended unnaturally, Morrigan pranced in front of me, slashing with wicked teeth and claws. I kept my shields beefed up as much as they could, because any wounds made by the Red were immune to magical intervention. But the same kind of primordial power that animated my labrys animated the Red, and my shields were not immune to her slashing attacks.

So it was up to me to be quicker than she, and the creature helped with that. But I felt the first burning score across my hip like a tracing of fire, and bright blood swelled to the surface when I looked down.

‘Son of a bitch,’ I growled, slashing forward. My labrys found Morrigan’s shoulder as if in punishment for the hip slash, and she growled back at me with equal ferocity. Dancing around each other, we fought with wicked ferocity until we finally fell apart, panting.

Only then did Anyan nod at me quietly from the sidelines.

Launching myself forward, I again attacked Morrigan. She snarled her rage, coming to meet me after the briefest pause. But this time, I didn’t close with her. Instead, I began a weird slashing dance that sent me prancing around her like a deranged dervish. All of my power went into the labrys, leaving me vulnerable. So despite the speed lent to me by the creature, I felt a fiery slash across my left arm, then my right, and another dug deep across my calf. That one made me stumble, but buoyed by adrenaline and egged on by the labrys, I erupted back onto my feet, only to continue my weird twirling circuit around Morrigan.

Obviously confused, she didn’t realize what I’d done till her shields crumbled around her, slashed in a thousand different places. Before she could erect new ones, I shouted for my backup even as I struck.

The ax wasn’t meant to be thrown, but Anyan and I had practiced all day. Good aim and a nudge from the creature’s power meant the strike was perfect, the labrys burying itself in Morrigan’s chest. From inside her, the double-headed ax struck again – a pulse of power that actually knocked me back on my ass and tore through Morrigan like a grenade.

Without losing a beat, Iris ran forward from where she’d been hiding, waiting for her moment. She carried a single, precious bucket of water that she threw with perfect aim over Morrigan.

As the water arced over her, I raised my hand and commanded it to slow and spread till it resembled a net of water that fell over her, pinning her to the ground for the next, awful stage of this ritual.

Anyan came racing up from behind me, grabbing my hand and hauling me to my feet and to Morrigan. Writhing in agony, the labrys pumping a series of tiny explosions of power through her mutilated chest, Morrigan still looked