‘Give it up Raal, you’re done,’ she said.
‘Don’t count on it,’ he replied.
The extra power she could bring to bear overwhelmed Raal’s defensive shields in a matter of seconds, and they quickly faded to nothing.
Wasting no time, Amanda reached inside his head with her Magic and with a quick working, she knocked Raal unconscious and let his limp body drop to the floor.
‘Finally,’ she said as she sprang from the floor and bolted across the room, straight for the same door Lucian went through just seconds before. Crossing the room, she vaulted over a few sofas and managed to glance back at the fight in the doorway with Yoh and Maya, and noticed that Liz, with Xain and Orion had just arrived as well. They were winning, and within moments they’d be able to help, but she couldn’t afford to wait even a few seconds more.
On reflection, she understood now that Lucian had seen Liz and the boys arrive a few seconds ago, which had probably led to his swift exit.
Using her Magic, she looked back in time to when Lucian ran through the doors she followed him through them and turned left as he had.
It felt like following a ghost as she sprinted along the corridor as fast as her legs could carry her and looking back in time to see where Lucian had run. She moved fast, running at speeds beyond those an Athlete could achieve. Amanda barely slowed down to tackle the corners, taking as wide a line through them as she could she still ended up using her hands to keep herself from slamming her shoulder into the wall.
As she watched, she knew she couldn’t see Lucian’s Magic use back in time, but she could see that he flickered for a moment, disappearing and reappearing with an angry and frustrated look on his face.
Amanda guessed he’d tried to Port out once more, but had been resisted once again. Amanda suspected the culprit to be Yasmin, stopping him making a quick and easy getaway. It also served as a nice little reminder from the Arch Master that although she might not be in the room, she was watching.
Amanda saw the indecision for a moment in Lucian’s face before he swore to himself and ran down another corridor, but maybe not the one he had wanted to take ideally.
Amanda careened off the walls and followed round the same corner she’d just watched him take brief moments before and saw the door at the end of the corridor that now stood ajar.
Unlike the other doors in here, this one had been made from metal and looked like it had seen better days.
As Amanda watched the vision of Lucian step through the door, she also noticed him fade from view and turn invisible.
Amanda cancelled the time magic effect and slowed down to a walk by the time she reached door. He’d only come through here maybe ten or twenty seconds ago at most, he didn’t have much of a lead, and he now needed to be much more careful and quiet if he wanted to get away from her.
Amanda stepped slowly through the doorway, her Aegis and Force Shield back to full strength. On the other side of the door Amanda found herself back in the sewers and subterranean passages beneath New York.
There were a few dim lights scattered about the place, but otherwise the tunnels were very dark. Amanda’s eyes had been enhanced by Magic permanently and were able to see in all but absolute darkness to a much better degree then a Riven human.
Before her a metal staircase descended from the steel mesh platform she stood on. Amanda looked around her, her vision looking into the magical realm and into other spectrums of light invisible to the average human eye, but saw nothing.
Lucian had moved on from here and into the tunnels beyond.
Amanda reached the top of the steep stairs and looked down. Rather than trust the structure she jumped and fell lightly to the floor below, her Magic making her landing gentle and silent.
Passageways led off into the darkness in several directions. Pipes lined the walls with the occasional pump or other bit of mechanical engineering jutting out into the walkways. Puddles covered the floor as mist and steam hung in the still air.
Amanda noticed the remains of a few eddies in the steam down one passage that looked like someone had recently walked through it. It seemed likely that he had passed this way.
Walking forward she could feel the Essentia she had built up inside her on her skin like a static electrical charge. The looming fight with Lucian both scared and excited her, causing the Essentia within her to feed off that emotion and produce that static feeling.
Amanda followed her instinct most of the time, letting fate take its course and following whatever clues she could find, but she didn’t need to go far before she rounded a corner and saw his silhouette ahead.
‘I should have you arrested for stalking me!’ he rumbled to her as Magic flared out of him and slammed home into her Aegis.
He wasn’t holding back anything now, and although Amanda threw up an effect to try and counter his Magic, it simply couldn’t resist him, his magic hitting Amanda hard. As suddenly as it had appeared, it stopped, and Lucian had gone with it.
Amanda span round, looking about her waiting for that next attack. She stalked forward and into a wider section of tunnel with passages and tunnels leading off from it. She dropped down onto the damp concrete, splashing a puddle as she landed.
Moments later she had a strong feeling of someone being behind her. The Magic that blasted her Aegis and Force Shield from the front both confirmed and confused the matter, but the kidney punch that Lucian drove into her back ended that confusion.
She staggered as she struggled to remain upright in the immediate aftermath of the attack, but the pain passed and on looking round, she appeared to be alone in this space once more.
Amanda got flashbacks to the fight in Columbia and had no desire to be taken by surprise again, so she quickly gathered her thoughts and looked about her once more, looking for any hint in the surrounding Essentia that might give away his position.
She couldn’t see anything, nothing at all. Lucian had this invisibility effect truly mastered.
Suddenly he appeared right beside her once more, the second he appeared, two things happened right away. Lucian cast a powerful kinetic blast that slammed into Amanda and knocked her forward. At exactly the same time, gunfire rang out ahead of her from the darkness of a nearby tunnel.
Amanda fell but used the momentum to roll, ending up on her feet once more. Quickly she looked about to take in the situation and saw that Shaun had appeared in the tunnel holding a gun that he pointed over Amanda’s head towards Lucian.
‘Shaun?’ she asked.
‘In the flesh,’ Shaun answered.
Looking across at Lucian she saw he’d dropped to one knee, the last remnants of magical energy from Shaun’s gunfire dying away as his Aegis fought the attack off.
Shaun had some Magic bullets.
She looked back to Shaun, about to thank him, only to see a bloodied Raal stood just behind him and looking very upset.
‘Shaun, move,’ Amanda yelled before Raal grabbed his wrist, swiftly disarmed him and magically shoved him from the tunnel like a rag doll. He landed on the damp stone floor not too far from Amanda and groaned in pain.
‘God damn it Shaun,’ she said.
Raal stepped towards Amanda and raised Shaun’s gun, pointing it at her, but Amanda had already moved. Stepping into Raal she caught his gun hand in hers and raised it up, pointing the weapon away from anyone it might harm. Twisting in the opposite direction she moved around Raal and once more secured him in a hold, using leverage and his strength against him.
By the time she’d finished, his gun ended pointing up beneath his jaw.
‘For what you and your coven did, you deserve much worse than this,’ she said, and pulled the trigger.
Blood splattered onto her face as the ear shattering noise of the gun made the other two people in here flinch.
She released him from her grip and let Raal fall to the floor, toppling onto his face.
Amanda looked at him for a moment, waiting for something inside her to change, waiting for
the massive guilt or horror at what she’d just done. Instead, she felt a sense of relief. She knew she had moved a step closer to stopping further innocent deaths and the suffering of parents.
Lucian looked up and saw Raal on the floor before Amanda, the hole in the top of his head leaking blood.
The scowl on Lucian’s face darkened and she could see his fists ball up tighter. Amanda slowly rose from the slight crouch she had held Raal in, watching for Lucian’s next move.
Magic flared suddenly and launched her violently through the air as if a car had hit her at eighty miles an hour from behind. She flew over Lucian and hit the makeshift wooden wall behind him, braking straight through it in a shower of splinters and pain all through her body. Had it not been for her force shield she would have broken several bones or worse. She landed halfway through the next room, tumbling and forcing herself to slow and eventually stop the momentum of the kinetic throw, coming to a stop in a crouch after skidding a few meters.
Looking up, the rest of the wooden partition wall exploded out into the room as Lucian leaped through the flying debris, landing a few meters from her.
‘It’s all been fun and games so far bitch, but you goin’ down now. Let me show you what we do to Arcadian scum like you,’ He scowled.
Amanda pulled herself up to her feet. Lucian’s throw had been a shock and knocked the wind out of her, but apart from a few minor cuts and her clothes looking worse for wear now, she wasn’t actually seriously hurt.
‘Bring it!’ Amanda said, as she stood up, preparing herself for the fight to come.
She lowered herself into a fighting stance, her feet apart for balance, her knees bent, her fists ready, she watched as Lucian drew a knife from his belt as he walked.
A few feet from her he went in for the first stab. She closed the gap, getting in closer to him and used her forearms to block his swings, knocking his attacks away from her and countering with an attack of her own. The whole time they fought Amanda’s Aegis flared with golden energy as Lucians Multitasking mind sent attack after magical attack at her, wanting to break down her mystical defences.
Amanda had both her extra minds working double time to bolster her shield and keep Lucian’s magical attacks at bay. Amanda felt she could hold her own against him quiet well, and if he would just make a mistake she could take advantage of it, but he suddenly changed tactics and hit her with another Kinetic force attack, knocking her backwards and for a moment, off balance.
She wondered then, where she might be going with this. This fight could go on for a while if all she did was defend herself. But that might work to her advantage. Her Coven mates had seen her leave the room, it wouldn’t take much investigation to find her.
She didn’t want to be saved though, she wanted to be able to deal with this depraved monster herself, to prove to herself that she could do it.
So as she closed the gap between them once more and went in with a kick, she watched him closely, looking for a weakness, a hesitation, something she could use to turn the tide of the fight.
‘You’re good at this Amanda, a regular Bruce Lee, you should consider joining us, we could use you girl,’ he said.
‘Thanks for the offer, but I’m afraid I have issues with torturing children so…’ she said in disgust.
Lucian punched as he listened, and let his arm hesitate a moment too long. Amanda saw it and hoped she had an opportunity. She grabbed his arm and with as much leverage as she could muster, and twisted it into a lock. Both their shields flared as they came into contact, throwing multi-coloured lights out as they reacted to each other.
For the briefest of moments, Amanda thought she had taken the upper hand in the fight, until another of Lucian’s Kinetic Force blasts hit her in the chest and threw her backwards. She hit the floor on her back and skidded over the old worn concrete to a stop, surrounded by the dust she had kicked up. She could feel several cuts through the shredded back of her top.
For crucial seconds she sat there winded, fighting for air until she finally caught her breath and sucked in a lung full.
Lucian turned and took a few steps towards her, stopping a few meters away.
‘I have you now,’ he said as he reached up and grasped at nothing, and then swung his fist down as his Magic surged once more, bringing another Force Blast down upon her.
Amanda raised her arm to protect herself, flooding her Shield with energy as the attack stuck home, hitting her and the ground around her.
The old weak floor couldn’t take such punishment though and with that latest hit, the whole floor gave suddenly way in a violent disintegration, taking Amanda and Lucian with it.
Amanda had that sudden feeling of weightlessness until gravity took hold of her and pulled her down, the stone breaking apart all around her and pelting her with stones and rocks while dry bitter particles of stone floating on the air filled her nose and mouth.
She landed on the pile of stone that had fallen away beneath her. Jagged edges stabbed into her back making her wince with pain. She rolled off onto her front and climbed down the rubble, dodging the occasional falling rock as she peered through the dust cloud wondering where Lucian might be. She didn’t want to get caught off guard so she made her way towards where she thought he had landed.
The rocks made the going difficult, she had to pick her away over them on all fours using her hands for balance to keep from twisting her ankle on the way.
She suddenly made out movement through the haze and headed towards it, quickly seeing that Lucian had been making his way off the rock pile too.
She jumped the last few meters and landed on a more even surface and walked with purpose towards the Nomad, refuelling her Aegis and Force shield the whole time. The fall must have broken Lucian’s concentration as he’d stopped attacking her Aegis during the fall.
The dust cloud faded and Amanda slowed as she saw Lucian looking around, eventually his gaze fixing on her. Except that it didn’t. She’d seen Lucian a few times now and every time she’d seen him, he’d been wearing his sunglasses. They were deep black wrap around shades and she’d taken it for granted this time, not even really noticing them.
But the fall had knocked them off him. Seeing his face without them might have been interesting enough under normal circumstances, but seeing what they were hiding changed everything.
Lucian didn’t have any eyes. The insides of his eye sockets were sunken and scarred, and his eyelids were sewn shut.
She’d noticed the hint of scarification on his skin around his shades before, but hadn’t thought much about it.
This revelation stopped Amanda in her tracks and she stared at him for a moment, re-evaluating everything she thought she’d known about him.
So if he had no eyes, how did he see?
She took a quick step back as Lucian stepped forward, making his way towards her.
‘Getting scared are we?’ he taunted, but Amanda didn’t listen.
Quickly she scanned the Essentia around him, and easily found the Magical set of senses that hovered just in front of his face, and crucially outside his Aegis.
Of course, he used Magic to see, he didn’t need eyes. And now she thought about it, she’d seen this casting on him each time she’d met him, but thought nothing of it.
Magi often used additional sets of senses to see things, get a second view on things, look round corners and more. This ridiculously common effect nearly always went unnoticed when you met another Magus. Seeing things from an alternate view point could be useful, but Amanda had never thought of countering such an effect as it had always seemed inconsequential.
Lucian however needed those senses to see, without them he would be blind. But he had no need to worry because the commonality of the effect pretty much guaranteed that they were never counted, never dissipated because in a fight, they weren’t dangerous for an opponent.
Amanda smiled, this basic little effect that no one took any notice of meant the world to Lucian and allowed him to see. Amanda c
ould counter the effect and blind Lucian in less than a second, but she waited, she wanted to do it just as she attacked him. Causing the most confusion that she could.
Suddenly she ran, bolted straight at him and roared at the same moment. She caught him slightly unprepared and landed her punch right on his Jaw and just as she did it, she put as much magical energy into blowing away the Magical senses Lucian had been using as she could.
The effect dissolved into nothing instantly.
Amanda noticed Lucian’s reaction right away as he stiffened and seemed suddenly surprised, but she had no time to waste. She gave him no quarter and followed up her punch with more kicks and punches. She wanted to keep him off balance and make the most of his confusion because she felt sure it wouldn’t last long.
At the same time, she used her multiple minds to hammer into his Aegis with her Magic as much as she could.
Lucian’s defences were strong, and held up against her attacks on them as he tried to cast his senses again, but Amanda had been waiting and the working looked far too hastily made, so she countered it easily, unravelling his Magic before it went anywhere.
‘Aaaagh, fuck off,’ he shouted and worked a swift combat casting sending out a wave of force energy in all directions. The kinetic shockwave hit Amanda and knocked her back, skidding and stumbling away from Lucian as she went.
Lucian stood tall, noticing the brief lull in her attacks, He pulled Essentia back into him, and started to work his Magic once more.
‘Clever girl, no one’s figured out that I’m blind before today. I respect that. But you should know that I can’t allow you to live now,’ he said.
‘No,’ yelped Amanda, seeing her chance to beat him slipping through her fingers as Lucian regained his control. She could see his Senses spell reappearing inside his defences as he started to repair the damage Amanda had done to his Aegis.
Gunfire rang out suddenly and Lucian’s Aegis lit up as Essentia bullets ripped into it, peppering his shields with tiny destructive little rounds of Essentia.
Magi Saga 2: Shadows of Darkness Page 26
