Marked (42 page)

I
expected Dream Stealer to yank his arm out of the way, but he simply
turned my attack to one side with his claws. Not only did my blade
not cut through his claws, the force of his block nearly ripped my
sword free.

I'd
been expecting to primarily be serving as a distraction, something to
give Alec a fighting chance, but Dream Stealer reversed direction and
slashed at me almost faster than I could compensate for. I threw
myself backwards with all my might, but he still managed to nick my
left shoulder. I didn't feel any pain from the wound, but he started
a steady trickle of red working its way down my arm.

Dream
Stealer would have killed me then—before I had a chance to roll
back to my feet, but Alec dove forward and slashed the side of Dream
Stealer's leg. It was a clean, deep cut, one that would have
completely severed Dream Stealer's leg if not for how massive the
limb was. I'd been hoping to see the spray of crimson that would have
indicated that Alec had opened up a major artery, but instead all he
was rewarded with was a steady drip of what looked like liquid black
fire.

The
fluid didn't seem to be harming Dream Stealer's flesh, but I could
see where it was eating into the stone, leaving small, star-shaped
cracks in the rock wherever it splattered. Several drops landed on
Alec and he hissed in pain as he tried to get back out of range of
Dream Stealer's counterattack.

Alec
would have failed if he'd done even the slightest bit less damage to
Dream Stealer's leg. Instead Dream Stealer was forced to pull up
short as his leg threatened to buckle underneath him, but even so the
tips of his claws drew thin lines of crimson across Alec's back. It
wasn't a killing blow—he hadn't even managed to bleed Alec very
badly—but it was proof of just how closely the three of us were
matched.

All
of that flashed through my mind as I stepped forward and to the side,
trying to get in behind Dream Stealer where his arms would have a
harder time reaching me. I felt like I was moving with glacial
slowness in comparison to the sharp, violent motions of the other
two, but I'd picked my time with a perfection I never could have
matched in the real world.

Dream
Stealer spun back towards me, rotating on his undamaged leg, but my
sword was already up in the perfect position. The slender length of
white light sheared through Dream Stealer's upper arm just above the
elbow with only the faintest tug of resistance.

I
had a split second to glory in the strike, in my accomplishment, and
then the rush of flaming black blood splashed onto me.

The
pain was beyond anything I'd ever felt before. I tried to scream, but
my skin seemed to have pulled tight against my jaw, restricting my
ability to open my mouth. The entire front half of my body from my
waist up seemed to be one large mass of burning agony. It should have
shorted out my nervous system and left me unable to feel anything,
but I was still able to feel the impact as Dream Stealer's lower arm
slammed into me with enough force to launch me more than thirty feet.

I
couldn't hear anything out of my right ear and I was almost positive
that my eyes had been destroyed, but in the instant of impact I felt
something change inside of me. The darkness was suddenly replaced
with an infinite number of glowing gold threads.

I
was still sailing through the air when Alec threw himself forward and
drove the claws on his right hand into Dream Stealer's back. Alec
pulled down as though planning on pulling himself up higher on Dream
Stealer's back, but the unnatural sharpness of his claws worked
against him now—his claws sheared through bone and muscle
without encountering any resistance and Alec stumbled as Dream
Stealer spun and slammed an elbow into the side of Alec's head.

I
collided with a tree at the precise instant that Alec's feet left the
ground, and not even the pain as dozens of thorns pierced my flesh
was enough to distract me from my fear that Alec's neck had just been
snapped. Alec sailed backwards, and for the first time I noticed that
this time the threads of light running from Alec off to the bars in
the distance were matched by an almost equal number of thick threads
that ran back from the bars to Dream Stealer.

It
all suddenly made perfect sense. Dream Stealer had become stronger
since the last time I'd seen him because he was draining Alec like
some kind of metaphysical parasite. Dream Stealer was even moving
better than he had a few seconds before as stolen energies
supercharged his healing process.

Alec's
flight was interrupted as he collided with the stone blocks of the
temple. He dropped to the ground, landing in a three-point stance,
and then charged back toward Dream Stealer. I wanted to yell to Alec,
to tell him what was going on, but my mouth still wasn't working.

My
back had stopped hurting, and even the burning across my chest seemed
to have subsided into something that could almost be ignored. There
was no way of knowing for sure whether that was because I was dying
or if the thorns were just coated with some kind of numbing agent.
Either way, I didn't have much time left before I'd no longer be able
to act.

I
looked down and realized that my sword was still dangling from my
right hand. I took a deep breath and then slashed through the
two-foot trunk of the tree just below my feet. Even as I did it, I
knew that my actions were insane.

The
jolt as the free end of the trunk dropped down and slammed into the
ground took my breath away. For a second I thought the tree was going
to fall over in my direction and crush me, but after a second that
seemed to stretch out to eternity, the tree slowly started toppling
to the side.

Just
before the top of the tree crashed into the ground, Alec reached
Dream Stealer and the two of them exchanged raking slashes. Alec was
moving more slowly now, while Dream Stealer even seemed to be
regenerating the arm that I'd cut off. There wasn't any time to
waste.

I
laboriously pulled myself off of the thorns, but my right leg refused
to work when I tried to climb back to my feet. I nearly despaired
until I saw the tiny thread that ran between Alec and I. The pulses
of light moving between us offered a possible solution. I reached out
with the same part of my mind that was responsible for manifesting my
sword, and used it to reach for the energy pulsing on the other end
of the thread.

The
thread suddenly brightened nearly to the point where it was painful
to look at, and something in my pelvis shifted as nerves that had
been severed reconnected. The feeling was pure bliss and a part of me
wanted to pull more power down through our link, wanted to drink it
all in until I glowed brighter than the sun, but in that instant Alec
stumbled, his light dimming, flickering as more light was pulled from
the rest of the threads running from his body out to the real world.

That
stumble nearly cost Alec the fight. He'd been charging forward in an
effort to get inside the reach of Dream Stealer's upper arms, but his
misstep robbed him of valuable speed and even I could see he wasn't
going to make it in time. Alec twisted away at the last second,
jumping over one of the lower appendages, but he still wasn't able to
escape completely unscathed.

Dream
Stealer connected with another blow—this one more glancing, but
still more than enough to knock Alec back into the temple, and Alec
was slower to get back to his feet. I heard screaming and realized it
was coming from me as I sprinted forward on my newly-healed leg.

Alec
was in motion too, moving with a hitch that told me that last impact
had broken one or more of his ribs, but still moving with a speed
that I'd never seen anyone in the real world match. Somehow, in the
middle of the fight, Alec had figured out how to modify his own body
and grant himself more speed and strength.

Dream
Stealer launched a blindingly fast swipe at Alec that seemed
impossible to block or dodge either one, but Alec threw himself into
the air and landed on Dream Stealer's right arm, digging in with the
talons on both feet and the claws on his left hand.

I
expected Alec's claws to rip free of Dream Stealer's arm just like
they'd done a few seconds before when Alec had shredded Dream
Stealer's back, but Alec must have returned them to their normal
level of sharpness because rather than tearing free, they provided
him with the leverage he needed to scramble further up Dream
Stealer's arm.

Dream
Stealer brought his left arm over, intending on using his
newly-regenerated claws to impale Alec. I screamed a warning, but
Alec simply brought his right hand up before him and in the split
second before impact I saw Alec's claws lengthen out to more than
double their normal length. They sliced through Dream Stealer's flesh
with the ease of a monofilament edge, and then Alec screamed as
liquid fire washed over him.

I
knew the agony he was enduring—I fully expected for Alec to
lose hold of his grip on Dream Stealer's arm, but instead he launched
himself forward, the massive muscles in his left arm and both legs
propelling him like an arrow towards Dream Stealer's throat.

For
one perfect second I thought Alec was going to succeed. Not even
Dream Stealer could survive a beheading and there was no way that
Dream Stealer was going to get either hand in position to knock Alec
away. An instant before Alec's claws would have sliced through Dream
Stealer's neck, large spikes of what looked like obsidian shot out of
Dream Stealer's shoulders, neck and upper chest.

Aimed
as if by magic, the glassy thorns impaled Alec and then continued
growing so that they lifted him up and away from Dream Stealer's
vulnerable flesh. The scream that was torn out of Alec was partially
pain and partially rage at having been bested. Still sprinting, I
watched as Alec flailed helplessly away against the spikes
immobilizing him. His claws, even the monofilament edge of his
right-hand set, didn't even mark the dark glass, and the slick black
material didn't provide enough friction for him to lever himself off
of the cruel points.

"And
what about you, little one?" Dream Stealer turned towards me as
I reached my goal. "What will you do now that young Graves is
finally helpless?"

"He's
not helpless as long as he still has friends!"

Dropping
my sword, I reached up and closed my fist around the cable-like mass
of glowing threads that connected Alec to the bars, and then clamped
down with every ounce of strength I could muster.

The
effect wasn't quite instantaneous—not to my amped-up time
sense—but there was a noticeable dropoff in the light from the
billions of threads that made up the substance of the jungle around
us. More importantly, with me stopping the flow of light away from
Alec, he brightened noticeably and the flow of some of the threads
connecting him to the real world reversed direction and energy
started flowing away from Alec rather than solely towards him.

Most
importantly of all, the black light and flame coming from Dream
Stealer immediately started dimming.

"No!
How are you doing that? It's taken me weeks to figure out how to tap
into his power, how are you stopping the flow so easily?"

I
gave him my best cold smile. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Dream
Stealer charged towards me with a howl of rage, but I reflexively
pulled more light along the thread connecting me to Alec and it was
suddenly child's play to skip to one side, effortlessly avoiding the
four-foot claws that otherwise would have ended my life. Dream
Stealer spun in place, somehow less than he'd been even just a few
seconds previously, but still very much capable of ending me if he
got his claws on me.

Alec
seemed to have reached a kind of equilibrium. He was brighter than
I'd even seen him before, but most of the light coming in from the
outside world was being redirected back out along other threads that
were likewise running to the outside world.

Dream
Stealer took another swipe at me and this time I jumped over the
attack and ran partway up his arm before I felt something moving
underneath his skin. A new set of obsidian spikes burst free from
Dream Stealer's skin, moving faster than even the ones that had
succeeded in spearing Alec, but I was already sailing away from Dream
Stealer, completing a perfect backflip and then landing with the
threads between Alec and the exit still tangled around my fingers.

"What
happened to your sword, little one?"

Some
of the concern had disappeared from Dream Stealer's voice. We were
locked in a stalemate, but it was a stalemate that favored him on
every level. As long as I maintained my grip on the threads that had
been powering him, he would continue to shrink back down to something
closer to his real size and strength, but as long as my only hand was
occupied with the threads I couldn't attack him. I was fighting a
purely defensive war, one where I had to dodge every blow in order to
go on surviving. He only had to get lucky once.

The
next attack came even closer still and I reeled away with fresh
trickles of blood running down my left arm.

"How
long can you keep this up? You're slowing already. It's only a matter
of time now, little one."

He
was right, but not in the way he thought. I was slowing, but the real
problem was that my real body was still gasping for breath, still on
death's doorstep. I needed to finish this now.

I
reached through the thread connecting me to Alec once again and
gulped down all of the power I could hold. It was a heady feeling.
The world around me slowed even further as Alec, still writhing in
pain on Dream Stealer's spikes, dimmed back down to a dangerous
level.

Dream
Stealer charged me again, but this time I ran forward to meet him. I
waited until the last second and then threw myself down as though I
was sliding into home plate. His claws passed over me, mere inches
from my face, and then I was passing under him—too fast for
even me to take advantage of the moment.