Alaskan Fury (60 page)

For almost an hour, Kaashifah
kept the mirror-like blade between them, heart pounding, trying to hold her
sister in place long enough for her body to neutralize the hydra poison in her
arm and wing.  Her sister continued to stare into her own visage, her body
utterly frozen in place.  Around her, Kaashifah heard sirens and helicopters,
as well as the sound of a bullhorn, telling people to stay in their homes.  Yet
with only one arm with any strength, all she could do was keep the mirror
trained on Zenaida’s face.  Her other arm and wing continued to hang limply at
her side, though she was regaining some of the feeling in her fingers.

As the minutes stretched into
hours, Kaashifah’s sister remained absolutely motionless before her, staring in
wide-eyed horror at her own reflection in the sword.  Kaashifah tightened the
fingers of her wounded arm into a fist around the Damascus blade, but she didn’t
have the strength to lift it. 
Just a little bit longer…

Much too soon, Kaashifah heard
the sound of footsteps in between buildings, and a bullhorn called out,
“This
is the United States Army. We have you targeted by laser sight.  Drop your
weapons or you will be fired upon.”

I need help,
she thought,
biting her lip, knowing she had to get to Zenaida before the mortal soldiers
decided to try and keep the peace.  She looked around for a nearby observer,
but all of them had fled or fallen to the medusa’s gaze. 
Damn.

Overhead, she suddenly heard the
scream of engines as several USAF fighter-jets shot past overhead. 
Oh no,
Kaashifah thought, turning to watch them as they began their long, veering
curve.  She had to do something, and
fast
.

Careful to keep the mirror
trained on her sister’s face, Kaashifah sidled closer, until she was within arm’s-reach,
then lifted the blade until it was nearly at eye-level with her, tilted for her
opponent’s greater height, then twisted her head sideways and took the grip in
her teeth.  Biting down hard to keep the heavy sword in place, Kaashifah
reached out and began fumbling with her sister’s belt with her good hand,
searching for some clasp.

“Holy
fuck
!” she heard
from somewhere nearby.  “I don’t know what it is, but it ain’t fucking human.  It
looks like fucking Medusa.  Fire!  Fire!”  Immediately, the echoing retorts of
machinegun fire echoed off of the nearest walls, and wads of little gray
bullets slapped against her shielding.

Kaashifah ignored the
distraction, straining to keep her head steady as she felt along Zenaida’s belt
for the release.  She quickly discovered that there
was
no clasp. 
Zenaida had fused the damn thing to her body.  Kaashifah knew she couldn’t yank
at it without throwing her sister off balance and ending the mirror’s spell.

The jets made another pass, this
time heralded by the ear-shattering blast of cannons, shredding the concrete at
their feet, powdering those statues misfortunate enough to have been standing
nearby into dust before arcing back for another pass.

Knowing she didn’t have much
time, Kaashifah summoned her power and pushed her body outward, shifting to
full Fury.  A moment later, her head was rising, pulling the sword out of
Zenaida’s line-of-sight.  Even as Zenaida’s face was twisting with disdain,
Kaashifah reached down, grabbed her sister’s belt in her good hand, and yanked
it with all the strength she could summon.

The golden chain snapped.

Grabbing it, Kaashifah stumbled
backwards, holding the artifact to her chest.  She could
feel
the power
in it.  It seemed to bend the very shape of Time around her, shifting the world
like the djinni’s wishes.  It was tantalizing,
alluring
…  Kaashifah
actually stopped breathing, feeling it tugging at her soul.  She’d
never
felt anything like this.  It was
exhilarating
.

Zenaida’s patronizing smile fell,
replaced with a wary darkness.  She crossed her arms, watching disdainfully. 
“And what do you think you’re going to do with it, sister?  You don’t know
which vials are poisons, which charms kill.  You have a fifty-fifty chance of surviving
the first sip.” 

Kaashifah looked down at the belt
in her hand, feeling the realm-warping power around it, then bit her lip.  She
had the claymore in her teeth, and as numb as her left hand was, it was all she
could do just to keep a grip on the smaller sword, much less lift it to keep
Zenaida at bay.  One-handed, she couldn’t defend herself against Zenaida’s
attacks.  If she didn’t drop the belt and pick up a sword, Zenaida could rip
her apart.

“All that power,” Zenaida
chuckled.  “Certainly you can feel it, sister.  You know what that feel is?  That’s
a thousand years of souls, at your command.  That is the power of a
god
.”

Overhead, the jets were once
again turning, and this time, once they leveled out, she saw little trails of
white underneath their wings.

Missiles.  Kaashifah glanced down
at the belt, looked at the many vials and charms, debating.

Zenaida chuckled mirthlessly at
her, but her eyes were dark.  “Not half an hour ago, you were lecturing me on
the repugnance of blood-magics.  Yet here you are, about to use it for
yourself?”  She scoffed and started towards her.  “The Blade of Morning.  I
knew you were a hypocrite.”

Saying a prayer to the trapped
souls inside, Kaashifah ripped open the gateway to the Void and tossed the belt
through it, then slammed the barrier shut again.

Zenaida stopped, mid-step. 
“You…”

The ground exploded around them
as the white trails of smoke collided with their shields, throwing great blasts
of heat and flame outward, knocking over light-poles and tumbling cars. 
Kaashifah was backing up, holding her hand to her face to see through the flame
and smoke, when Zenaida appeared before her, sword cocked back, an insane rage
in her face.

Kaashifah downsized to her human
form, wrenching her wings back into her body, and ducked the blade that was
aimed for her chest.  With her target’s size cut to almost a tenth, Zenaida
stumbled, swinging too high and wide. 

Wrenching the claymore from her
teeth, Kaashifah retook her wings and once more shoved her energy back down her
weapon, spun around, and held the sword out between them.  “I just want to
talk, sister,” Kaashifah said.  “Perhaps the belt was affecting your—”

But Zenaida screamed and whirled
again, her own wings lighting up the smoke and dust as she flared them wide. 
“Do you know…” she bit out, forcing each syllable through clenched teeth, “how
long
it took me to make that?!”  Rage livened her face, and her tiny snake-heads
were beginning to wither and die under the force of her Fury.

“Obviously not long enough,”
Kaashifah said, pacing around her.  “Sister, I understand your pain.”

“
You can never understand my pain!
” 
Letting out an insane scream of frustration, Zenaida rushed forward, sword
high.

“I agree!” Kaashifah cried,
dancing out of the way again, using her smaller form to avoid her sister’s huge
swing and dance behind her.  “The Sisterhood was corrupt, its tenets damaged by
the annals of time.  I would like to start over.  A new Order.  We can make
things
right
again.”

“The only thing you’re going to
do,” her sister said, turning slowly to face her once more, pulling her
swordtip through the concrete, “is go to your
grave
!”  Her sister lunged
again, blinded by her Fury.

Not wanting to meet her sister’s
blade and begin a battle in earnest, Kaashifah danced backwards, intending to
slip out of the way of her charge, but a ragged chunk of concrete caught her
ankle and set her off-balance.  A moment later, Zenaida was
shoving
her,
sending her sprawling on her back, and Kaashifah found herself looking up into
the face of an enraged Fury as her sister slammed a foot onto Kaashifah’s
chest, pinning her to the ground.

“The Blade of Morning,” Zenaida
scoffed, her words dripping with disdain.  She hefted her sword over her head.

Kaashifah, from her position on
the ground, saw the white trails of smoke barreling towards them and, instead
of trying to shove her sister off of her, chose that moment to focus her mind. 
This close to Zenaida, lying
inside
her shields, she was able to grasp her
sister’s barriers in a mental fist and rip them away.  An instant later, the
missiles exploded between them, throwing Zenaida aside in a shower of rock and
twisted metal.  Kaashifah jumped back to her feet and jogged backwards up the
street, out of the point of impact, eying the column of dust and fire warily. 
Inside, the wings of a Fury flashed against the smoke, then Zenaida was
stumbling out, coughing and rubbing dust from her eyes.

Overhead, the jets were rounding
for another pass.  Zenaida looked up at them, then back at Kaashifah.

“Let’s take this somewhere else,”
Kaashifah called.  “This place is too visible…”

The darkness spread into
Zenaida’s smile as her sister said, “What better place for a warrior of God to
triumph over the forces of evil?”  Then she leaped from the ground, surging
upwards, spinning.  “But here, sister,” she laughed down at Imelda, still
climbing.  “You want to fight dirty?  I’ll just take away the temptation!”

Kaashifah frowned, unable to
follow.  “What are you…”

Her sister hit the first jet from
underneath, slamming her fingers through the metal skin, clinging to it as she
pulled her sword with one hand. 

“Zenaida, no!” Kaashifah
screamed.

Then, still clinging to the jet,
Zenaida swung at the nose, carving her sword through the front of the aircraft,
slicing it off just before the pilot’s window. Then, yanking her sword free,
she released her grip and swiveled to plunge it through the aircraft’s wing as
it went by, taking the tip.  Then she was soaring to meet the next.  The first
jet, missing its nose and part of a wing, immediately began listing, dropping
altitude.  Kaashifah saw the pilot eject, saw the aircraft in a fast arc for
downtown Wasilla.

Zenaida hit the second craft from
underneath, and this time didn’t miss the pilot’s chamber, but rather sliced
her sword lengthways through the plane, splitting it in half.  The two halves
parted on either side of her, then tumbled to the ground, where they exploded
in white-hot balls of fire.  Kaashifah was just getting back to her feet from
the concussion when the first jet finally lost enough altitude and hit the ground
a few miles away, the resonating boom making the electric wires and
already-battered signposts quiver.

“Zenaida!” Kaashifah shouted up
at her sister, as she flew towards a third jet.  “Fight
me
, damn you!” 
She found her weak arm clenching its fist on the sword in impotent
frustration.  Her wing twitched, but would not extend, forcing her to watch the
devastation from below.

Her sister ignored her and,
laughing, knocked another craft from the sky. 
Like a child batting at
whuffle balls,
Kaashifah thought, following her sister’s progress on the
ground.  It looked as if Zenaida would go for another, but the remaining jets
pulled up, arcing away from her before she could meet their trajectories.

“Zenaida!” Kaashifah shouted, as
her sister spun in a circle above her, laughing at the jets as they swung wide
arcs around the city.  Frustrated, having no way to get there on her own,
Kaashifah dug a chunk of concrete from the ruined mess at her feet and hurled
it at her sister.  “
Zenaida!
”

She had been aiming for her
sister’s spine, but instead it caught her sister in the back of the head,
ending her laughter abruptly.  As Kaashifah watched, stunned, from below,
Zenaida went limp and tumbled forward, falling out of the sky.

Heart hammering, Kaashifah yanked
her wings back into her body and broke into a run, aiming for the place where
her sister would hit the ground.  “Excuse me!” Kaashifah cried, dodging over
cars—and the men and women that were huddled behind them.  “Sorry!” she called,
weaving between startled onlookers, who were only then starting to pour out of
the storefronts, now that the explosions had ended.  “Excuse me!  Sorry!  Let
me through please!  Excuse me!”  She tried to push through two big men that
were blocking the road with their backs, standing between two cars, looking
over the smoking ruins of a jet engine, but they continued gawking at the
smoking husk, ignoring her attempts to get past them.

More people were coming from the
shops and behind their cars, calling to each other about angels fighting,
packing the area with bodies, ignoring Kaashifah entirely.  Somewhere up ahead,
Kaashifah heard the ripping sound of metal, followed by the
whomph
of a
crumbling building.  Car alarms started going off in the distance.