I was airborne for less than a second. I barely remembered the decision to launch myself at Agent Mandalay’s tormentor-it had been that close to automatic. So intent was his focus on her, he hadn’t even noticed my presence until we collided. My shoulder met hard with his midsection as I flung my full weight into his stationary form. A guttural huff exploded from his surprised mouth as the impact drove the breath from his lungs, sending the two of us on a collision course with the spiny thicket surrounding the clearing.
The primary objective of my less than thoroughly thought out plan was to sever the supernormal connection between Roger and Agent Mandalay, effectively ending the deadly glamour. My secondary ambition was to subdue him until he could be turned over to someone more qualified to make a proper arrest. Fortunately, the first part went exactly as I hoped. It was the second idea that immediately presented itself as a problem.
His initial shock rapidly fading to nothing more than a memory, Roger regained his breath and twisted wildly from my grip as we slammed into the thorny hedges. He scrambled upward from the tangled heap, fighting to break free as he regained his feet. From my prone position, I pitched myself forward, stretching my arm until I believed I could feel tendons tearing away from bone-then I reached even farther. Claw like, my hand hooked around his ankle as he fought the scrub for freedom, and with an agonized jerk, I knocked him off balance, casting him once more to the ground.
The two of us dragged ourselves to our feet almost simultaneously, first into a crouch then fully upright, slightly more than an arms length apart. Roger wheeled around to face me and we both froze. His hood had fallen back across his shoulders, and his face was exposed to the night. Hatred smoked in the grey-ashed cinders of his eyes as he locked his glare on me, and the sinewy tendons in his neck bulged angrily as he tensed.
“I warned you, Gant,” he seethed. “You can’t stop me.”
“I already have. Look at the moon,” I choked between somewhat labored breaths. Internally, I was regretting what my desk bound choice of professions had detracted from my physical condition. “Give it up Roger.”
Slowly, he looked up through the shadowy foliage to the swollen globe. Absolute fullness was only a handful of heartbeats away, and he knew it the moment his eyes were filled with the silvery visage. With an almost calm intent, he just as slowly lowered his gaze back to mine. His smoldering grey irises started to crumble away like ash from a burning coal, revealing a savage red-orange glow.
The fire that had earlier danced up my spine now seared like a blowtorch across my body, slathering its malignant excrement upon me. Bracing myself against the supernatural attack, I pressed my own energies outward, deflecting his rage and forming an ethereal barrier between us. The blaze of pain was immediately doused, and my tortured skin quickly cooled.
Roger was unprepared for the backlash of his own energy and almost didn’t catch it in time. The stream of malice-driven power exploded against his own hastily erected defenses in a roiling shower of crimson lightning. He stumbled backward from the shockwave and fought to maintain his balance. To the average spectator, we would have appeared to be doing something on the order of shadow boxing. To a crowd of Witches, one hell of a fireworks presentation was taking place. However, the exhibition was cut short as my opponent realized his chances of defeating me in such an arena were almost non-existent.
I caught only a vanishing glimpse of Agent Mandalay from the corner of my eye as she crawled forward reaching for her gun. My ears were filled thickly with a demonic banshee wail from Roger as he propelled himself low into my stomach and drove me through the ripping thorns of the thick brush. He bear-hugged me as I fought to maintain my balance, backpedaling into the foliage. I hammered my fist downward and felt it glance across his ribs, a sensation that was immediately followed by jellied numbness chased with glass shards of pain as the blow reverberated up my arm.
My stability faltered as we exploded through the wall of scrub and ricocheted off a solid tree trunk. A crush of agony ripped through me as my attacker’s shoulder dug inward, and I heard the sickening sound of my own ribs as they cracked. We lurched to the ground, glancing from a tree stump, and began to roll. I fought to keep my arm hooked around his neck as our momentum increased. Rocks and small trees insinuated themselves into our wild path, exacting what revenge they could as we rolled over them. I reached with my free arm to grab at the tough saplings, trying to halt our progress down the ever-steepening hill, but to no avail. My grasp was too slow and our inertia too great. I ended up with nothing more than damp fistfuls of leaves and a raw, bleeding gash across my palm.
Our chaotic journey down the hillside ended almost as abruptly as it began. In a tangle of flailing limbs, we were catapulted from a low earthen ledge at the bottom of the hill.
With a dull thud, Roger and I impressed ourselves into the muddy shoreline of the small lake. I laid there gasping as the shock of the sudden stop began to subside. My right arm was still curled tightly around my assailant’s neck, locked firm and unyielding. My heart was racing as I stared upward at the night sky, listening to shouting voices in the near distance.
Roger hadn’t moved since we stopped rolling. I had maintained a desperate hold on him for the entire journey down the hill, and his head now seemed oddly cocked to the side. Resting against him in the mud, I listened for any sound from his limp body and not only heard nothing but felt nothing. Wearily, I disentangled myself from his still form and extricated my arm from about his neck. The voices were drawing closer and were joined by the sounds of running footsteps against soft ground. I hauled myself up to my knees, then shakily, to my feet.
Sharp, blinding pain surged up my thighs then down my calves, and my kneecaps felt as though they had been detonated like small explosive charges. My legs buckled, and I pitched backward, slapping the surface of the water with a stinging smack, and then I slipped under. Most of my breath had been forced from my chest with the surprised yelp elicited by the sharp pains in my legs, and the murky water rushed in to fill my nostrils. I knew I was in no more than two feet of water, so I clamped my eyes shut and started to sit up. Unfortunately, I felt a sudden weight on my chest and an angry hand firmly encircling my throat.
I began flailing my arms in front of me, pounding against the weight and trying to force it off my chest. My lungs burned from lack of oxygen, and the violent physical exertion only added fuel to their blaze. The bonfire in my chest crackled desperately up my throat, singeing it like a blowtorch. My body begged me to gasp for air; my mind forcefully told it not to.
I opened my eyes in the murky shallows and blinked rapidly as silt tried to settle in them. My vision, distorted as it was, started to darken and tunnel as my brain screamed helplessly for oxygen. I knew I was on the verge of passing out, and I fought even harder in the face of my greatest fear. Drowning.
My water-filled ears picked up the thick sounds of splashing as I flailed against Roger, his hand ever tightening around my neck. He pushed me hard into the spongy lake bottom, forcing me another inch farther from the cool, fresh air. Through the rippling surface of the silty water, I could see the glowing moon, which had moved past full, and although undetectable to the naked eye, into its waning phase. Its cold blue light glinted sharply from an all too familiar double-edged dagger held poised above me by the madman.
Murderous grey eyes bore down on me through the murky surroundings, smoking with the same fire they had displayed earlier. Ariel’s athame flashed once again as my attacker prepared to plunge it downward. My vision continued to stretch forth in a tunnel-like fashion then slowly began to fade.