Red dropped over my vision. A loud roaring filled my head. Everything went dark and vividly bright all at once. The world pulled away from me, leaving me isolated. At the same time, I was aware of every little movement around me unfolding in excruciatingly slow motion.
Kermit jerked, eyes going wide, hands flashing out as if he could have stopped something that’d already happened. A gasp of surprise burst out of him.
Erin shouted, a sound of denial and pain, not for Mercy, but for me, for what this would do to me. Her gun came around, pure instinct directing her arm. She aimed at the sorcerer.
Tanqueray opened his hands and stared at them, his expression perplexed, as if he didn’t recognise them, or what they’d done, staggering back a step, two steps. His mouth opened and closed, no sound coming out.
And Mercy. Mercy dropped, boneless, arms limp, legs crumpling under her. She hit the ground and rolled, coming to a lifeless stop against a gravestone, black curls tangled, sweet face blank, eyes staring at me, seeing nothing.
The sorcerer shifted and he was the only one moving at normal speed. At least, normal in my perception. He sprang off the gravestone and fled.
Hunt. Hurt. Kill.
Then Tanqueray was in my way. He growled and caught my arm, jerking me around. I used the momentum to propel myself off the ground. Free arm locking around his neck, my body swung out, pulling him off balance and he went down. Coming around, I twisted my arm out of his grip, reversed the hold and wrenched his arm out and back. He shouted and writhed in pain. I didn’t care, just put more pressure on his elbow, aiming to break. His hand spasmed and I shifted, using my whole body weight to force the bones in directions they weren’t supposed to go.
The pressure in my head intensified, the slow driving of the spikes turning razor-edged, slicing into me. My left arm bucked out of control and I let Tanqueray go.
He yelled wordlessly and rolled, knocking me off. I tumbled away and he came after me. I came up on my feet just as he reached me. Massive fists flew, punching me into the wall of the hut. I ducked the next blow, turning around between him and the wall. A thick arm wrapped around my shoulders from behind. I shoved back against him, running my feet up the wall, then pushed off. Tanqueray crashed backward, losing his hold. I flipped over his falling body and landed in a crouch.
I looked around. Kermit was next to Mercy, shaking his head. Erin was racing away, chasing the already vanished sorcerer.
About to follow her, I was brought up short by Tanqueray. He grabbed my ankle and yanked. I went over hard. He punched me in the guts, once, twice. Then got a knee into my side and something in me broke. I felt the snap but not the pain.
Tanqueray rolled over me, got up and ran. For a muscle bound rock, he moved fast.
Flipping to my feet, I chased him.
The Colonel sprinted through the cemetery, smashing through old headstones and snapping young trees off at the base as he went. A human juggernaut. A human.
My speech to Erin about how I could have killed one of those kids today replayed in my head, but I ignored it. Tanqueray might be human, but he was a human who had taken my Mercy away from me.
Tanqueray left the cemetery grounds and fled into the park beside it. He crushed picnic tables and playground equipment and didn’t slow for either. I hurdled the remains, focused on him to the point of not noticing anything else. Beyond the park was suburbia. Rows of houses looking out over the river, windows bright with the lives of the people inside, blissfully ignorant of the true nature of the thing that crashed through their fences, and the thing that followed it. If they had known, they wouldn’t have come out to shout and curse.
Then the giant burst through the last fence and came out into a car-park. A few cars sat under yellow, glowing cones from the streetlights. Tanqueray turned aside, but clipped one of the cars. It rocked and an alarm went off. Lights flashing, horn blaring, it alerted the few people waiting on the dock to what was coming.
Faces turned toward the noise, going pale at the sight of the massive football star barrelling down on them. A ferry was just pulling away from the dock as Tanqueray hit the wooden planks, witnesses scattering out of his path. The whole structure vibrated violently under his unnatural weight. The end of the dock crumbled as he launched himself off it, hurtling toward the moving catamaran.
He hit the side of the boat. The vessel shook, slewing through the water, churning brown and white froth. Its stern slammed into the dock as I reached it. The long dock creaked and shifted abruptly. I hit the wood, rolled, and came up running. Tanqueray was clinging to the side of the ferry. It listed heavily, but the engines chugged and it moved forward. Passengers grabbed for hand holds, gaping in shock.
I reached the end of the dock and threw myself after the moving boat. Came down on a guy at the stern, both of us hitting the deck hard. People were shouting, their voices mere drones in the background of the pounding thrum in my head. On my feet again, I found Tanqueray. He was on the roof of the catamaran, legs braced against the motion of the boat, big hands splayed, looking from me, to the shore, to me, to the boat and settling on me with snarl.
“You can’t fight here,” a strident voice announced. A blue uniformed CityCat employee stood in the doorway to the cabin. “You haven’t paid!”
Ignoring him, I took two long steps forward, sprang to an empty seat and launched myself to the roof. Tanqueray met me with a fist. I flew backwards, nearly falling back to the deck. Caught myself on the very edge, on my back, hands full of roof to keep from falling. Tanqueray pressed the advantage, looming over me. I put a boot into his gut, then his crotch. He didn’t seem to notice.
I swivelled my hips and sliced my legs through his. The Colonel crashed down, but I wasn’t there. Hauling backward, I fell off the roof and hit the deck again, upright and balanced. Again propelling myself off a seat, I jumped up and caught him around the neck and let myself drop. The giant came down on the deck in a graceless pile. The whole boat shuddered with the impact. I looked at the thing at my feet and sneered. It was no match for me.
Someone hit me from behind. I staggered forward, feeling arms around my waist, the whole weight of a body tackling me to the deck. People piled on like a scrum, me at the bottom.
“Get him,” someone was yelling. “Keep him down.”
Good fucking Samaritans. Just my damned luck.
I thrashed and knocked a couple clear but the others just locked on tighter.
“Jesus Christ! He’s got to be on something. Strong as an ox.”
“Stay on him. Oh, fu—” The voice vanished in a startled gasp and the body went with it, disappearing off my back.
“Hey!” But that one went the way of the previous speaker, as well.
Which left one on top of me. I heaved and he was knocked free with a strangled cry. I shoved him the rest of the way off and squirmed away, looking for distance before I got to my feet. Spinning, I took in the situation.
Three men were on the deck, one unmoving, two more moaning in agony and clutching parts of their bodies. A forth dangled from Tanqueray’s fist, panicked but fighting. It was the CityCat guy, probably the pilot, judging by the circles the cat was turning in, slowly making its way into the middle of the river.
“Let him go,” I snarled at Tanqueray.
Those crazy eyes found me and he sneered, giving his captive a hard shake.
“Shit,” someone said from behind me. “That’s Henry Tanqueray!”
The man in question roared at the poor unfortunate, spittle flying. He tossed the terrified pilot aside and charged.
I stepped into his way, body-blocking him from the innocents. I went flying but at least he was deflected, careening off to the side. He hit the wall of the cabin and the boat juddered. Those passengers still standing wobbled and most gave up and hit the deck. They crawled into the protection of the rows of seats or rushed to the bow, leaving the stern area to me and Tanqueray.
The berserker-fuelled strength was starting to wan. Everything was still tinged red and I couldn’t shake clear of the mounting pressure in my head, but I’d been knocked about too much. Already hurting and exhausted from one berserker trip today, I wasn’t up for much more of this.
Tanqueray pushed off the wall and faced me. His lips curled up, exposing his teeth. Those inhumanly wide shoulders rippled as he flexed his arms. The wounds in his arm from Mercy’s nails still hadn’t bled. Four gaping rents in flesh exposing grey-tinged red tissue. In the thumping turmoil of my head, things clunked together.
Like the rats, Tanqueray had been altered by the earth sorcerer, enlarged, maddened, driven to do one thing—attack me. Unlike them, he didn’t bleed. Unlike them, he didn’t bend or break under pressure. He was solid, through and through. Unbreakable, invulnerable.
I reached for his aura.
At first I thought there wasn’t one, but just as I was wondering if he’d somehow lost his aura, I found it.
His aura was pulled in tight around him, lying so close to his skin it may as well have not been there. No, not pulled in. Eaten away. All I felt was the ragged remains, the bits of flesh too close to the bone to be chewed off.
The flavour came to me reluctantly, gritty and bitter. A hint of beer and salt overwhelmed by a stale taste I couldn’t classify, but it left my tongue feeling dry and scraped raw.
“Give up, Night Caller,” Tanqueray said, his words slurred, jaw working at odd angles. “You don’t have the strength.”
“You’re only saying that because it’s true.” Not my best line, but it gave me a bit of room. I began inching backwards.
“You are nothing without the other one.”
The red flared and I felt a surge of anger-powered strength. “Yeah? Come here and say that.”
Tanqueray sneered and curled his hands into fists. It sounded like grinding stones. “Without her, you won’t be so quick to resist. You will succumb eventually. Just give in and get it over with.”
All I could manage was a growl. My head felt like it was filling up with cement—heavy and slowly solidifying. By my side, my left arm twitched.
“Just let it happen,” Tanqueray slurred.
Jaw set, I ground out, “No,” and lifted my right arm. Directing my telekinesis along it, I hit him with a blast right in his chest.
The Colonel grunted and pushed into it. I was forced backward, giving deck grudgingly. He leaned forward, following me, teeth gritted, body straining against the pressure. The torn front of his shirt ripped even more, material shredding away. Dark skin rippled under the telekinetic energy. It began to abrade the surface layers, peeling it away in small pieces, exposing raw skin, only to drill through that as well, opening up red wounds. And still Tanqueray came on.
I skidded backwards, boots skimming across the supposedly non-slip covering on the deck. The psychic strength was being depleted too fast. He was coming on too quick, resisting it too easily. His chest was down to bone. At least, I think it was bone. It was grey and incredibly hard, taking the battering of the telekinesis and not giving even a millimetre.
Then my telekinesis gave out. It stopped in a sudden rush, leaving me empty and exhausted. A lone, stupid guy at the very back of a ferry, with a massive footballer suddenly free to charge.
Tanqueray came like a freight train, bellowing in triumph.
At the last moment, I ducked under his charge and came up under him.
He was heavy. Heavier than anything I’ve ever tried to lift, but momentum played a big part, as did his weight, ironically. He went over the back of the ferry at a great rate of knots, arms flailing, yelling wildly.
Something snagged me. I had a moment to realise he’d caught my left arm, and then I was going over as well.
Tanqueray had the momentum to get him out past the back of the boat. I didn’t.
I slammed down over the propeller housing, whole body exploding with pain, sharp and intense, knocking the air from my lungs. Still caught by Tanqueray, I was dragged backwards. He hit the churned up water with a splash that wouldn’t get him any points with the judges. I went in after him.
Cold water closed around me, chaotic and frothing, pushing and pulling in all directions. There was a strong pull, though, a powerful draw sucking me in. In the murky water, I caught a flash of propeller as I was pulled in, closer and closer even as I was dragged downward. I thrashed for traction in the water, wanting away from spinning, chopping death. In the frantic churning, I got nowhere fast, just further down and closer to an ugly end.
Tanqueray yanked and I was pulled under the propeller before it could slice and dice. The cat skimmed away as we sank. Darkness and cold wrapped around us. I couldn’t see a thing, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t break the Colonel’s hold. He dug both hands into my arms, dragging me further away from precious air.