Chapter Twenty Three
She snapped awake as she felt a cool breeze on her skin and a soft presence in the room. She could feel Kenny’s arm still around her, his breathing slow and steady. It wasn’t his then, something else was there.
Her mind raced, her axes were by the table where she’d placed them earlier. She needed to disable this thing before it became aware she wasn’t asleep any more. She balled up her focus into a concentrated psychic attack and shot up, yelling as another shadow slipped in through the window.
The attack she’d thrown didn’t incapacitate the intruder as she had expected but it certainly did some damage. Kenny roared to life and shot forward at the second intruder. He dodged fast but not quickly enough. Kenny caught him and, ignoring a blow aimed at his throat, slammed the attacker into the floor with a crunch of breaking bones. Abandoning stealth, four more intruders jumped through the window. Dahlia dove for her axes.
One of them grabbed Kenny’s sword and tossed it out the window a split second before Kenny snapped his neck. The other four had rushed towards Dahlia as she grabbed her axes. The chains whipped around her arms and she brought them up as the intruders surrounded her. She parried two who had drawn swords while a third ducked and smacked her bare leg with something spiked and metal. She felt the spikes sink into her flesh and the shield around her mind went down. She screamed in pain as the thing in her leg seared into her, painfully cold.
Kenny grabbed the fourth and threw him into one of the ones attacking her with a sword. Both went down in a heap. Dahlia threw her weight into the ax she’d blocked an intruder’s swing with, pushing him back on his heels before spinning towards the one who had hit her leg. Her mind instinctively tried to push more energy into reforming the shield and the pain in her leg became unbearable. Her swing missed and she dropped back to one knee. A psychic bolt hit her and a red haze swum around the edges of her vision but she heard Kenny take out the one she’d pushed off. She fought off the pain and disorientation, was able to catch sight of the last attacker, and threw her ax. It lodged in his shoulder, then the chain dragged him back to her as he screamed. A sharp blow to the head rendered him unconscious.
“Fuck!” she screamed falling back into a seat on the floor as her leg burned in excruciating pain. Kenny turned to her for a split second and one of the men extracted himself from the others and threw himself out the window.
“Shit,” Kenny growled, “you alright?”
“Yes, go.” Dahlia gasped out as she grabbed the metal thing stuck into her leg and ripped it out. She muffled another scream and pounded a hand on the ground. The construct’s spikes had been cruelly tipped with small hooks to hold it in her flesh. As Kenny jammed on his pants and vaulted out the window her door burst open and Sabir ran in.
With the metal removed from her leg, Dahlia’s shields shot back up. Furious, she sent a psychic lance towards the last man struggling to get up from where he’d fallen after Kenny threw his comrade into him. He screamed and collapsed.
“Restrain the ones still alive, rope’s in the desk” she shot out at Sabir who pulled it out and began to bind the men’s hands.
Arreal entered and rushed over to help Dahlia back to her feet.
“Thank you, help Sabir.” Now that the metal was out of her leg it was just a sharp ache when she put weight on it.
“Do you need me to track outside?” Arreal asked as he moved towards Sabir.
“No, that’s not necessary,” she focused a moment then released four puppets. “Take two and get the captives to the holding cells then send a message along with the metal they hit me with to Captain Mazaran. The puppets will help if anything’s waiting for you. I’ll follow shortly.”
They didn’t question her. Their trust and loyalty to their captain did them credit. She wrapped a short dress around her and tied a strip of cloth around her thigh to slow the bleeding. She left two of the puppets behind to help carry the unconscious and semi-conscious prisoner. She took her axes and the two other puppets with her, vaulting out of the window after Kenny.
She landed softly, taking most of her weight on her uninjured leg and looked around. The ground outside was a mess. Anything useful was obscured by a mass of footsteps. The two puppets following her landed softly to either side. She locked onto Kenny’s familiar presence and took off silently in his direction, her puppets following behind like shadows.
She felt him growing closer as she flew over the landscape, flitting between trees in the moonlight. He must not be running now. She expanded her senses, trying to detect any unfamiliar presence in the trees but she couldn’t pick anything out.
At the same time her senses warned her she was coming up on Kenny she caught the impression of a beast crouched low over the ground. She stopped dead. Her heart beat faster and a primal part of her urged her to turn and run. She quashed it as she forced herself to tread softly but confidently towards him. The presence was unmistakably Kenny’s but had intensified and taken on a peculiarly animalistic nature. He turned towards her and she felt the intensity and single-minded focus of a predator. In the back of her mind she wondered where this man must pull his abilities from. If what she was feeling from him was just a side effect of his abilities then whatever he was drawing on must have been darker and even stronger than she’d suspected.
The pressure of his presence receded as he stood straight. Shadows cast by the moonlight filtering through the trees danced over his body as he prowled towards her. She stood her ground as the overwhelming presence of ‘predator’ filled her awareness.
“What are you doing?” She asked in a low, steady tone.
Light reflected off his canines as he grinned, “Are you afraid?” The voice was lower and even closer to a growl than normal.
“No, it’s just distracting.”
“I like it when you’re distracted.”
“It makes it hard to focus on hunting the men who attacked me,” she kept her voice even and calm.
His grin faded. She felt the energy around him surge and then recede as if he’d fought back something vying for control. She resisted the impulse to step back.
“I tracked them this far,” he growled. “There were two so I’m guessing one waited outside the window while the others attacked us. I’d almost caught up to them when they just vanished.”
“Vanished?”
“Yeah, unfortunately I can’t be more specific. I could sense them and then I couldn't. Their tracks end here. I went to the perimeter and back trying to pick up a trail. There was nothing.”
“Then we should assume they’re gone and get to Mazaran and the prisoners. I’m concerned that once those two report back we’ll see the others self destruct.” She dismissed the two puppets with her. Now that she was with Kenny and the enemies had vanished she didn’t see a need for them.
Kenny looked curiously at where they’d been, “Why do they look like you?”
“Tit for tat,” Dahlia replied, “what were you doing when I got here that changed your presence so drastically.”
“You want a glimpse into my soul?” He grinned at her again. “Ha, suppose that’s fair. I was calling on my better half. The closer I get to a shift the stronger, faster, and harder to kill I am. My senses get better and my instincts have more of a hold on me.”
Dahlia felt chills run down her back. Were-creatures were extremely rare. Someone with that ability appeared once every few hundred years. The legends held that they were brutal, half animal by nature even in human form, and nearly impossible to kill. Compared to the creatures in the stories, Kenny had behaved like a paragon of self-control and pacifism. She’d misjudged his skill. Control over that kind of ability must have taken mental discipline of the sort she’d studied for decades. No wonder he’d been able to throw off her compulsion and distinguish her voice in his head.
He watched her reaction carefully, “You aren’t the only one burdened by a legend.”
She bet. People were scared of her but at least fewer of them had heard of the Puppet Master as he stalked in and out of obscure tales. Stories of were-creatures were common enough that they were used to scare naughty children. She was surprised he’d lived past the onset of his abilities, most anyone who found him would have tried to kill him.
In the silence part of the predator crept back into his eyes, “Are you afraid now?”
She shook her head, “No.” She focused on keeping her breath natural. “The puppets look like me because they are manifestations of different aspects of my psyche.”
Kenny let out a low whistle, “How many are there?” Dahlia felt the predator retreat again.
“Right now there’s twelve. It increases.”
“That’s a lot of people in one skull, I can barely keep two aligned.”
“I spend a lot of time meditating.”
He was quiet for a moment, completely still. Then, “Well, it’s nice not to be the only fairytale villian around at least.” He laughed, the sound slightly chilling, and grinned.
In spite of herself, Dahlia felt herself returning his insane grin. She’d fought so long against perceiving herself as something to be feared. She’d fought against it because she’d been hurt when someone reacted to her with fear she hadn’t earned. She hadn’t wanted to be the person they feared and hated, burdened by the sins of a long-dead monster. From Kenny she had a sense of acceptance and understanding that caused the weight of others’ fear to drop from her shoulders, if just for a moment.
“You’re right, though, we should get back. Can I give you a ride?”
She mock bowed, “I’d be obliged.”
He crouched down so she was able to swing onto his back. Sensitive to it now, she felt the presence of a predator increasing and they took off, running through the night at a breakneck pace towards the central building of Barrack One to make their report.