Chapter 15: “One should never cut off one’s p**is to spite one’s face. It hurts.” —Caine Deathwalker
Still convalescing, every step barely seemed to move me ahead. The weapons I carried gave comfort, but they also weighed me down. Or maybe I just didn't want to do this. Izumi had lived next door for years, a first class demon, both in and out of bed. The dragon magic in my tats could deal with her—if I could pay the price in pain. The bitch had destabilized my territory. She had to go.
Didn't she?
Unbidden, memories came: Izumi in my arms, in tangled sheets, lathered up in the shower, on her knees before me her warm mouth sheathing my—
I shook off the vision and growled at the scent of opium smoke in the air, laced with demon herbs. The smoke came from her house, an aromatic spell designed to waken my intensions. Subtle. It wasn't the attacks I'd see coming I had to worry about, but the ones I'd never see.
Mentally, I traced the pattern of one my tats and felt it burn to life, a sensation similar to a bullet kicking a hole in my head. I staggered, stumbled, but didn't go down. After a moment, my vision cleared and I could breathe again. With the defensive shield now around me, it would take a high level spell to do more than irritate me. Already, the narcotic smoke in the air transformed to purifying sage.
Point to me.
I reached her fence. Usually I stepped over. This time, I kicked it in. Boards cracked and flew like a bomb blast had gone off. My foot was hurting—it bitched me out.
Shut-up.
I limped up the walkway to her porch, climbed the stairs, and stopped in front of the door. Every mystic alarm she had was probably clamoring for attention. She'd be expecting me to kick the door in. I would have, but knew I needed to conserve all the strength I could, no matter how pissed I was.
I kept my voice low and gravelly, "Open up."
I counted heartbeats. One … two … three… The door swung open silently. No one was there to greet me. How rude.
I stepped inside and noticed that the house temperature had to be somewhere around twenty below. The air I breathed sandpapered my lungs. Exhaling, my breath hung as a cloud in my face. I went down the hall, into a deserted living room, and brushed a frosted bamboo tree in a small pot on a long narrow table behind a white leather couch. The main bamboo stem and the two that spiraled around it snapped off and fell to the table. The dead growth lay before a silver frame. Inside the frame was a picture of me at a party, pounding a piñata into submission. The blindfold I wore only covered one eye. It was easier that way.
Another picture showed me laving ice cream off her pale torso. We'd been out of waffle cones, but not ice wine, wine frozen by her touch to remove water and make the final product extra potent. Izumi had her uses, I had to give that to her.
"It's not going to work," I called out. "I don't get sentimental when I'm about to kick ass."
"Worth a try." Her voice drew my gaze to the bedroom door. She stood in the doorway, without a stitch of clothing, looking utterly relaxed. She pirouetted, giving me a 360° view. "Isn't there something else you'd rather do to my ass than kick it?" she asked, peering over a creamy shoulder at me.
Well, I knew she wasn't about to fight fair.
I let cold indifference glint in my eyes as I lied to her, "I've seen better. Pack your crap and get out of my territory. I'm putting word out that my protection over you is rescinded. By dawn tomorrow, you'll be gone or dead. And don't think the wolves will stand for you. Their Fenris has called them in for an accounting."
I turned to go.
"Caine…"
I stopped. "What?"
"We've been friends a long time. Doesn't that count for something?"
I laughed, a wounded sound, thin and sharp as a katana. "Sure, I haven't killed you myself, have I?"
The blizzard hit then, a wall of snow coming out of some nameless frozen hell. Slashing winds wound around me like barbwire. The temperature dropped another twenty degrees. My blood felt like it was turning to ice wine in my veins and arteries. My defensive shield buckled under the onslaught, but stronger, automatic wards activated.
She vanished in the white-out, merging with her storm, as snow flurries whirled and drifts formed on the carpet and furniture.
Heat built at my core. Electric current crackled in my blood, the price I paid for the Dragon Aura spell that warmed my muscles, keeping organs functioning, and my flesh fever-hot to the touch. The magic would last for six hundred and sixty-six seconds, but required six days, six hours, and six minutes to be renewed.
The snow touching me evaporated, refreezing once the vapor reached Izumi's blizzard. Winds howled, hiding the sound of her movements.
I was sure she'd hit me from some unexpected direction. I kept my face down, which changed my range of vision, letting me see further behind me. Not that I was focusing. That's the common mistake that half-assed martial artists make. To focus is to limit your perception. To anticipate is to limit your responses. By being ready to respond in all directions to everything, I wasn't going to be blindsided.
Except for the killer snow men that formed from the snow all around me, leaping in with icicle teeth bared in old, savage aggression. They had indentions for eyes—not even lumps of coal, poor bastards—and they actually thought they had a chance.
A spinning heel kick took their heads off, splattering them against a distant wall I could no longer see. Somewhere in the storm, I heard a lamp crash over and a picture fall. Headless, they still grappled with me, becoming slush as my furnace level metabolism melted them. As ineffective as this attack against me was, it had to be a simple diversion. Izumi had to be close to making her real attack.
I almost missed it when it started.
The wet slush around my feet became a block of ice, anchoring me in place. For her ice to stand up to my magic-fuelled heat, she had to be expending a huge amount of energy. Still, ice could be dealt with in an old-school manner. I drew my guns and fired around my feet, freeing myself...
…As she slid down a stalactite-sized icicle grown from the ceiling, landed on my shoulders. Her bare legs wrapped around my neck, but before I could act, she arched backwards, her dead weight flipping me along with her. Fortunately, my ankles were free; otherwise, this little maneuver of hers would have broken them. As it was, I sailed over her, out the front door, and rolled off the porch, onto the walk way.
Rising from the sidewalk, I noticed she'd followed me outside. Dressed in armor made of blue-white ice, she stalked toward me with twin swords made of ice. They had serrated edges, and were curved like sabers. Another of her threats, the blizzard following her out of the house like an eager puppy.
She flew from the porch, lifted by the screaming winds of her storm. They added to her power as she slashed.
I threw myself to the side, squeezing off two shots that fractured the ice over her heart, presuming she had one. With a snow demon, you couldn't always be sure.
Her sword blurred past, missing me by a mile.
But then I wasn't he target. My left gun was sheared in half, made super brittle by the focus of her magic. That still left the gun in my right hand. I spun to keep the muzzle centered on her. The sidewalk iced over as her feet touched down. She wheeled toward me, the swords continuously swirling around her upper torso. In another moment, she'd lunge back and I'd be a twig in a wood chipper.
Extended, locked onto her head, I pulled the trigger, ready to empty the full clip into her. The gun exploded in my hand, made too fragile to fire bullets by Izumi's winter stare. The icy air made the explosion sharp and clear, only muted by the screaming and cursing I was doing as my trigger finger separated from my hand and spun through the sir, trailing smoke. It fell in the grass as I bit off the flow of my own profanity, ripping my shirt to staunch the blood. My thumb was shredded but still attached.
If not for an impossibly high tolerance of pain, I might have passed out, or given in to shock. As it was, my thoughts were fuzzing up, running in circles. Get out your sword … get your finger a good surgeon can reattach it… Wait! What's Izumi doing?
One of her swords slashed low as she tried to separate me from my knees.
I leaped onto her sword, my weight taking it down, shattering it.
Her other blade came straight at my face, point first.
I ducked under it, ramming my head into her armor. The pain of impact cleared my head a little. She directed the sword I'd ducked into the air, bringing the spike on its pommel down into my left shoulder blade. On my knees, I grabbed her legs, driving my head between them, lifting her into the air, flipping her over my back.
She crashed down hard. Pieces of her ice armor broke off. As she slowly rolled over, orienting on me once more, I used the strip of cloth I'd torn free to bandage my hand, tightening it with my good hand and teeth, all the while glaring at her. Like a wounded wolf, I was done with playing around.
But her blizzard hit me like an eighteen wheeler, slamming me across her lawn, though a section of fence, into a car parked at the curb. The whiteout of dancing snow blinded me. Sleet pelted me, rattling off the car behind me. I activated the tribal-style Demon Wings tattooed to the back of my shoulders and my upper back, above the shoulder blades. Paying for the magic felt like taking a spiked mace to the head, but at least it distracted me from my hand, what was left of it.
The blizzard lost focus. Its attacks faltered, spreading randomly over the area. I walked through the storm, back the way I'd come, until the air cleared. Izumi stared through me, at her pet blizzard. The cloaking magic I used didn't allow her to notice the footsteps I was leaving in the snowy ground. I walked right up to her—and punched her in the throat.
Her sword fell as she did. I stepped on the ice blade as she scrambled to pick it up. Coughing, choking, wheezing, she made the sweetest music as her larynx swelled, cutting off her air flow. On hands and knees, she shuddered with the knowledge that death was very close. I kicked her in the face, shattering the helmet she'd made from ice. She dropped back, sprawling on her back. I stomped her chest, right over her heart where the ice armor was crackled. The body armor fractured off her.
She flopped around, managing a sort of mewling sound.
Her pet blizzard came running, but its magic was thinning. The ice and snow dropped on the lawn and quivered like amputated limbs. The air cleared as Izumi lost consciousness, growing still.
I staggered over to her. My heat spell had left me. I was shivering. The demon wings spell was burning through the last of my strength. Izumi had put up a hell of a fight. For what? It had been a pointless battle. Was she so afraid of whatever had chased her here that she preferred having me kill her?
Now there was an interesting thought.
I sat on her stomach, my knees pinning her arms to the snow covered ground. Using my good hand, I pulled out my tanto, putting the point between her breasts, right over her heart. That's when I noticed Old Man standing beside me, watching with great interest. "Take a picture," I said. "It will last longer than this bitch is about to."
"I'd hurry," he said. "Her breathing is getting easier. The swelling in her throat is going down. She appears to be healing herself even in an unconscious state. I'll have to try that some time."
I looked at her pale, sleeping face. Tears had jeweled her eyelashes with chips of ice. Her mouth hung open, inviting.
The tip of the knife cut into her flesh as I shook my head, refusing to indulge in any of the memories we'd made together. I leaned forward, a second away from plunging the knife into her.
Her eyes fluttered open. "Do it," she begged. "Please."
I drew the knife back. "Like I'd do you any favors."
"Stay there," Old Man said. "I'll go get your missing finger. I just might know a zombie spell for restoring damaged flesh.
I put the edge of the knife against Izumi's throat. "There are worse things than dying, you know. You better hope he can fix my hand."
"Let me stay," she said. "Wasn't this the best fight you've ever had? And imagine what the makeup-sex will be like."
"I can get sex a lot of places. You'll have to do better than that."
"You need something to nullify the grimoire necklace Sarah is using. I know of a relic that can do that."
"All right. You've got my attention."
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