“You’re supposed to lead the battle,” I said as she bent over, losing her breath. “If I don’t make it to the end, someone is going to have to take on Lucifer. It’ll likely be you. You can’t get distracted.”
The demons still moved around us as she straightened up. I stitched in a big black wolf, like Devon, figuring it might help anchor her. The detail in the image was great, but I couldn’t get it to move.
Charity barely spared it a glance. She learned fast; I had to give her that.
She slashed her sword, and I blocked the move and sidestepped to sweep her legs. She jumped over my leg and turned, her blade coming down. I swiveled and threw a punch at her face. She jerked to the side, barely missing the impact, and stepped in the direction she’d turned. I created my sword as her thrust came at me. I blocked it, then shoved at her with air.
She wasn’t like the others. She thought two steps ahead. She’d already seen me use this trick and had clearly been thinking about how to work around it.
She swung her blade in figure eights, chopping through the air, pushing back rather than going down and rolling. Clearly she had been paying attention when fighting demons in the Brink.
“Shh,” I said, even though she wasn’t speaking, and slammed air down on top of her. I wasn’t ready for the other fae to know they could fight my power like that. It would steal all my fun. She bent under the weight, and her electricity started up again, reducing my magic. Which was fine, because it didn’t seem like the other fae had that in their arsenal.
“Where’s your hellfire?” I asked as she pushed her way to standing, sweat beading on her brow. I let her.
“I don’t have the power.”
“Bullshit. You have plenty of power.”
She sent a buzzing ball of light at me. I braced myself, because it would probably be electricity and would hurt something fierce. In a moment, though, it bloomed into fire before enveloping me. I’d already protected my hair and eyebrows from a possible attack, so I ran with it. Literally. I bore down on her covered in flames. It was probably really freaky.
“To make hellfire…” I said, pooling the fire onto the outside of my air blade, letting flames shed as I swung it through the air. She danced away when one of the embers landed on her, burning. “You need a little bit of love…”
I thrust forward. She barely dodged. I was faster than her, but not by much.
“A little bit of lust…”
I kicked out. She blocked with her shin, then danced forward and side-kicked at my chest. I ducked under the attempted kick and spun around, at her back and hacking, catching the edge of her shoulder before she could face me. She let out a gasp. That smarted.
“A little bit of hate…”
Demons descended on the wolf, ripping and tearing. She didn’t so much as flick her eyes in that direction.
“And a little bit of violence. You need them all, in equal doses. You need the balance. The desire and the pain. The love and the loss.”
She danced backward, and I wasn’t expecting it, so I stood there like an idiot for a moment.
Her eyebrows lowered over her intelligent red-brown eyes, and silence descended on the practice field. Bodies crowded in, more than before. It had to be nearly the whole village.
It is good that she has this knowledge, Darius thought, clearly in the area now. I’d been too busy trying not to get skewered to notice his proximity increasing. I half hoped it would come after I was out of these lands, however. You are magnificent, by the way. Your power is unequaled in this village. It is giving them a lot to think about.
Skulking and eavesdropping. Doing what a vampire did.
“Are we breaking? What are we doing?” I asked as Charity put her sword away. “I’m not winded. Are you? Or are you passing me off to Penny?”
“No,” Penny called from somewhere behind me.
“She really does like me, you know.”
Charity leaned forward, thrusting her hands out. A very thin stream of hellfire blasted forth, and I let it wash over me so she’d get a little joy out of it.
“Good,” I commented after it diminished. She panted as though she’d run a mile. “It’ll get easier and your stream will get bigger.”
“I have a lot of anger,” she said after a moment. “A lot of violence.” She paused. “Until Devon, I’d forgotten how to love with my whole heart. How to lust with my whole body. I’ve never merged those two halves of myself. Part of me, I think, was afraid of all that anger.”
I grimaced and then worried the grass with my foot. “Yeah, I’m a little uncomfortable with emotional revelations. Your people seem to just hand that stuff out willy-nilly.”