Green Flame Assassin (Demon Lord series, book 2) (54 page)

She kept a grip on me while her other hand continued to burn across my tats.  Somehow, she flipped me over without losing her grip on Mr. Willy.  Her knee went into my back as the burning continued.  At one point, she hopped over me, pivoting on the knee that pinned me down.  My cock was ripped off—almost.

“Damn it, bitch, be careful.”

She let me go.

I fought to my feet, turning to see what she was up to, and staggered as too many pain signals flooded my brain.  I looked down at myself.  The skin over my tats was striped red with burn welts and discolored green as if some of her weird green fire had contaminated the dragon-blood ink.

“Let’s see some magic now,” she taunted.

Little did she know she hadn’t taken a thing; my magic had already been behaving badly.  My balance was back.  Despite the burns, a second wind had set in.  I felt fit enough to kill.  But I couldn’t match her strength or speed.  I had no magic, no weapons, and I wasn’t going to die from pride.  I backed toward the forest.  A few more steps and I could try to lose her in the surrounding woods.  Payback would have to wait.

She smiled, green flames bursting out of her body.  Her features ran, coarsening, reforming.  Her voice deepened, “I’ll give you two-hundred feet, and then my bear will be coming.  Wiggle quickly, little worm.”

I turned and ran at my best speed, knowing it wouldn’t be enough.

THIRTY-NINE

“Run, hide, kick Death in the teeth:

a warriors survives by knowing the

proper time for every option.”

                                              
—
Caine Deathwalker

The need to kill the bitch burned in every cell of my brain, but thanks to Old Man’s training, my warrior instincts had kicked in.   I followed a path of least resistance, letting gravity guide my steps.  If I could keep heading down, I’d run across water which always seeks the lowest level in an area.  I needed to break my trail.  For now, that was more important than finding a weapon. 

The new burns hurt but could be ignored with
my god-like pain tolerance.  Still, they’d need to be treated; my body could still go into shock.

Hugging a slope, the pine forest rippled downward, seeming to lean back as it did so.  The canopy stayed heavy, filtering the light, wrapping me in a gold-green twilight.  I moved with little jumps, knowing I’d stumble if I tried to slow or stop.  That was last on my mind.  Two-hundred feet and she’d start chasing me—like I believed that.  She wouldn’t wait
that
long.

I stumbled at a V as the land bubbled up again, almost turning an ankle on mossy stones in the crease.  Turning right, I pitched myself along, running on one bank, then the other, also hop-scotching whatever stones I could find to leave less of a trail.  Veering left around the base of a hill, I followed the crease into low hanging branches, and stumbled as a steep descent appeared.  Skidding down the hill to a flat area of low grass, I was happy for the heavy calluses on my feet from martial arts practice.  That didn’t mean I wouldn’t be running them to ribbons if this kept up. 

I heard a roar shivering the air.  Not too close, but too close for comfort.

I needed to use the environment better.  Fairy wasn’t cooperating, so it was time to force the land to help out a little more.  I wasn’t finding water, so water needed to find me.  I closed my eyes and concentrated on an embankment.  I made myself believe a concealed underground steam lay just behind that earthen wall, begging to surface.  Cool, liquid-crystal water.  I imagined the mineral-rich, gurgling glory of it bursting through the soil, filling the crease with a new-born stream, bathing my abused feet in—
icy cold.

At the sensation, I opened my eyes and looked down.  Cold water gushed up my legs until the water was knee deep.  It seemed too easy since I’d seen Izumi struggle so hard doing something similar.  Maybe it was because she thought it ought to be hard.  Maybe there was something really different about me, something from the elusive non-human part of my DNA.  Whatever, I went downstream, stepping on a few rocks.  I made sure I dribbled some water ashore, leaving a partial footprint. 

I carefully waded back to the mouth of the stream.  The hole it came out of was small, but so was I.  I climbed into the hill, slathering my body with mud which soothed my burn welts and would also hide my scent.  Welcoming me, the land belled upward a little and offered a stone bench that was out of view of anyone sticking their snout in here to sniff around.  I climbed up, settled, and scooped out more mud to cover exposed patches of skin, paying special attention to my feet which had been cleaned by the stream. 

I was just in time, freezing with caution as I heard
wuffling
grunts outside the hole.  The inquisitive sound took on an odd reverberation, coming from only a few feet away.  I held my breath, slowing my heartbeat with a meditative exercise.  I heard a paw flailing around inside the pocket, splashing in the water.  Then nothing.

And still I waited.

There was a final dismissive grunt, and the Spirit Bear retreated, shambling away. 

Slowly, I counted to a hundred and worked my way back down into the water.  I was insulated me from some of the cold, but chunks of mud washed off.  I could only hope the stream would dilute such evidence of my passing before the bear noticed a fouling of the water.  I poked my head out.  When nothing bit it off, I slithered out and headed back the way I’d come. 

Up a slope, through the trees, I reached the place where I’d returned to consciousness.  Skirting that small clearing, I went on into unknown territory, willing the path to shorten, sweeping me back to my friends, wherever they were.  I drove myself as fast as I could, knowing the bear could probably use the same trick, letting her obsessed hatred bend her trail to mine.  Time and distance are never simple in Fairy.

At one point, I snapped a branch off a fallen tree.  Clearing it of smaller twigs and branches, I made a staff to lean on and to fight with if necessary.  I pushed on, staying to rock where possible, trying to leave the forest floor as undisturbed as possible.  The winds stiffened.  Through a gap in the canopy, I saw the sky thickening with storm clouds.  I wondered if they reflected the simmering rage of the bear, and if she were close.

My strength was thinning steadily along with my endurance.  That they had carried me this far was a testament to the value of the frequent orgies I engaged in.  Such training had proven invaluable.  Still, the effort to keep going did nothing to dispel my headache.  Sometimes, trees would seem to divide and move back together.  I’d taken multiple blows to the head.  I wondered if it were possible to have multiple concussions at the same time. 

Have to check on that.
 

Lightning ripped across the sky, green-white fire framing the branches above.  A few second passed and thunderclaps—like bear roars—bludgeoned the world. 

The earth jumped beneath me in response. 

Limping along now, I noticed the trees changing character, becoming primal, higher and broader, with roots that belled out before sinking into soil.  Like pythons sliding in and out of sight, the branches were leafier.  The tree bark itself went ebony.  The bases of the trees were streaked with graphite moss.  I stopped and extended a hand to lean against once such tree.  The charcoal moss extended tendrils with closed buds on the ends.  The ends opened to form tiny yellow flowers with garnet jewel cores.  The flowers rubbed my hand in affection.

I laughed, understanding flaming across my mind like sunset. 
This part of the land must lie outside of the Dream Marshes, it’s the unclaimed borderland.
 
Alive, lashed by the rage of the bear it wants to be claimed by something or someone else.  It’s offering itself to me.

There’d be hell to play with the other Elvin domains.  The fey kings and queens would resent an out-worlder owning a piece of Fairy no matter how small. 

Hah, like I care!
 
Fine, I need an ally about now anyway.

I heard a throaty, ursine bellow.

Close.  Very close
.

I knelt and used old leaves to wipe mud off my thigh.  Kneading the flesh where I’d had a stick plunged in, I broke a crust of dried blood.  Fresh blood dripped from the wound, curving inside my leg, splattering the detritus.  I brushed the surface layer aside and the blood hit bare ground. 
Drip.  Drip.  Drip
.

“Take of my blood, my heart, my strength, and give me yours.  Dream and dreamer, we are one.  You are unclaimed no more.”  Winging the incantation, I hoped to hit the right notes.

More of the weird greenish-white lightning seared the heavens.  A lash of it drilled into the forest.  It had sought me, but split a tree instead.  Splinters of wood, and larger chunks of it, stabbed outward in a spray.  I fell back, a piece of tree embedded in my shoulder.  I pulled the wood out of my shoulder, laying it on the ground.  The wood melted into the soil, absorbed along with all trace of my blood.

I patted the bare earth.  “Not your fault.  I forgive you.”

A sound like a mission bell—a god-awfully big mission bell—peeled, swallowing the thunder bursting over me.  And strength flowed into me.  My wounds healed.  Beneath the mud, I could feel the last of my burns fading away.

Like nerves flowing throughout my domain, I felt a part of each rock, tree, and animal sheltering in the forest.  And like an ugly cancer, I felt the wrongness of the Spirit Bear, a thing of fury and death, lusting for murder.  An enemy of life, with its own life lost, this was a true spirit, a ghost anchored to living flesh, feeding off a woman’s darkest emotions.  It was no wonder the borderland wanted nothing to do with her.  I felt each step the bear made.  Each angry claw swipe on a tree bole was like a slash in my own flesh.