Flush with this petty victory she cried out, "I am still Talitha!" Yet the victory was short lived.
Similar to a car crash, she felt herself flung forward in hard jolting manner and then...just like that, she was in her body again, out in the desert.
Confusion was her second sensation behind the screaming pain of the wound in her neck. The pain was all-encompassing and rendered her incapable of thinking beyond it. Nothing in her life or her death had ever compared, which was indeed something. It was as though her soul had been ripped like a sheet and each fiber that parted from its neighbor carried its own individual agony straight to her mind, where instead of being glomped in with the rest, she felt each as a singular unrelenting torture. The pain was cacophonous beyond the describing and thankfully short.
Amazingly, the Draugr withdrew the blade from her neck, whereupon the sanity destroying pain completely disappeared and in its place was blessed numbness. The nerves that ran along her left shoulder and neck were destroyed beyond any hope of repair, and after that pain, she couldn't have been more thankful.
Now came the confusion and questions. Why did the creature pull the sword from her? Why did it save her life? Why was it still night and what was the day? How long had she been in the Void, staring at her body? Weeks or days? These came to her as she watched, happily at first, as if in slow motion, the black blade drawing back from her. It raised up high, paused above her face and then without warning came plunging back down faster than she could blink.
This answered her first query, the Draugr wasn't trying to save her life at all. In its mindless attack, it knew nothing of souls, only of beating hearts and hers had never ceased its heavy drumbeat. Her soul had been snatched from her body and sucked to the very brink of the Void, but hadn't crossed over. This insight hit like a flash as did the understanding that if the blade struck her again, there would be no coming back.
Feeling remarkably composed after all that had occurred, Talitha yanked her good right shoulder hard to the side at the same time, she brought the flat of her palm across her body and just barely was able to direct the blade away from its intended course. Instead of driving down into her left eye, it sunk soundlessly into the dirt next to her ear. Time indeed was an oddity to the senses. Again, as if in slow motion the Draugr reared back to strike, this time Talitha used its momentum against it, shoving out hard with her right arm. Though the creature was possessed of unholy strength, it still weighed only one-hundred and sixty pounds and her shove almost toppled it off of her. It flailed backwards with the strength of her push, giving her another second in which to grab its leg, and this she used to catapult the Draugr into an ugly rear summersault.
In the space of a breath, the two opponents were up facing each other and Talitha had a half second to take stock of her situation—her future never looked more grim. Hours or days might have passed in the Void, but only a fraction of a second had passed on earth and so she was quite unrecovered from her long dash. She gasped for breath and wobbled on shaking legs, the ghastly wound in her neck bled freely and with her broken left wrist and destroyed nerves, her left arm was all but useless.
The Draugr was her match in strength but greatly exceeded her in its ability to absorb damage, she could punch the thing for the remainder of the night and not seriously affect it, and nor would it slow from exhaustion or blood loss. Their speed was equivalent as well, though an outside observer would have given the edge to the girl, but that was illusionary. It seemed this way because Talitha held one great advantage over the Draugr and that was in the area of intelligence, which she used to anticipate and analyze the creature's attacks.
It moved in again; amazingly fast, dreadfully strong, merciless, and vicious. Four times the evil blade hacked at her, blistering the air with its intense cold and she gave ground, dodging about back and forth, using up her dwindling reserves of energy. This couldn't last much longer. Her body was fading, but her mind, perhaps slapped into focus by the dread reality of her fate was still composed and saw in the Draugr a great oddity.
The vile thing attacked with horrendous power, yet also with one-dimensional unvarying repetition. With its last swing, she had been too slow and exhausted to dodge far enough away and there had been an opening for the Draugr to reach out with its left hand and tear out her throat as she slipped away from the blade, but it didn't avail itself to her destruction. This she puzzled over until the order Amy had given came to mind. "Diablo, run to the Jern's. Use the sword, kill everyone. Go!"
That was the reason she was still breathing in the desert air. Had the creature used all of its not insubstantial abilities, she likely wouldn't have lasted more than seconds against it. And there also was her single slim chance, and if she were to live past the next few minutes, she would have to find some way to exploit it. Only the Draugr pressed her so closely and with such blazing speed that not once could she see an opening to strike back.
Still she had the resource of her mind at her disposal and she determined that if an opening didn't present itself then she would have to create one. Without waiting for the next attack, Talitha turned and ran. Hot after, the Draugr came and in her exhaustion, the thing was within a second of catching her when she spied the good-sized bush that she had hid in only a minute before. This she jumped full over.
The Draugr charged around it, only to come upon a completely naked Talitha Jern. It cared not for such things, as she knew, and slowed not a bit while it brought the broken blade back for another great swing. Though it strained at the weaken fibers of her courage, Talitha waited the onslaught and only at the last minute did she fling the balled up sundress at the fiend's face. With ease, it slashed the dress aside with the blade.
Talitha struck. The blade had flashed right to left and as it passed she leapt in with a bone crushing roundhouse. Now, the Draugr could in no way feel pain, nor would a fractured bone do much to slow it, yet for all its hell bound ruggedness, its human body still operated along the normal laws that govern our world. Talitha's kick was sent at the things left knee, cracking it square in two and torqueing it off to the side. No longer was the simple pulley action of the opposing muscles of its leg capable of moving it in anything close to a normal gait.
Ecstatic for the moment, she skipped back out of reach of the blade as it swung back at her and looked for another opening, while the creature lurched after. With the gunfire dying out in the house, she felt a growing sense of urgency but she couldn't leave the Draugr even as debilitated as it was. There was no guessing at what rate it might heal itself, she would have to brave the blade and destroy her enemy as fast as possible. In front of her, a rock the size of a baseball sat partially embedded in the dirt, in a second she yanked it out and stood poised to hurl it with all of her considerable force.
Indifferent to its body, her opponent staggered on and she waited until it was almost upon her before she threw it pointblank into the things face. Her aim had been to take out its left eye and she succeeded so admirably that after retreating again she stooped to find more rocks. The rugged landscape had birthed millions of rocks so that ammunition was plentiful and soon she had blinded the creature and crushed in part of its skull. It kept coming.
Since its joints were the closest thing to a vulnerable area that it possessed, she moved in like silent lightning and destroyed its other knee with a driving sidekick. After this, with the creature flopping about blind, lashing out robotically with the sword, she went to work on its elbows. A bit of patience and deft strikes had them both broken in a minute and after that, it was only a simple yet disgusting matter of breaking all the bones in its right hand for it to release the sword. Pathetically, it still squirmed in complete silence, attempting to come after her; she withdrew from it with a great deal of disgust contorting the beautiful features of her face.
The look wasn't singularly for the Draugr, the sword too added to her discomfort. Not only was it blistering cold, its foul touch reminded her of the Void, and that sparked the return of the s
tranger, who grew in her mind becoming larger in seconds. Never in her life had Talitha been more worn down, this wasn't just physical, though she still breathed in and out like a furnace bellow, and her muscles shook—fatigue struck her mentally and spiritually as well. Her mind was drained, and she felt depleted and empty to the core. The stranger knew all this and decided that right then, it would challenge her for control. Ultimate control.
For the last eight years, it was she, Talitha who was the dominant personality within her. On a daily basis, she was in charge and the other soul that had resided in her had to resort to trickery or fatigue, or chance, to gain control. But now, the stranger wanted it all. She wanted to call the shots and make decisions and more than that, she wanted to live! She demanded to live.
The onslaught in Talitha's mind was an avalanche of consciousness. It struck her brain like a seizure and she collapsed, twitching, the sword dropping from her hand. Synapses began firing at an unprecedented tempo so that facts warred upon supposition, ideas and opinions surged against each other, hypothesis encountered refutation and all clamored to be deliberated upon. For every up, there was a down, a black for every white. The two personalities clashed striving for dominance and her physical self was caught in the middle. Talitha's hands became hooked claws and she began to bubble and froth at the mouth.
What such a clash came down to was desire. Which personality wanted to live more?
The stranger had a hunger for life. Yes, it wanted to go to the Void and become named and contest for supremacy there, but it also wanted this life, the real one. She thought of it as being wasted and it was this more than anything that spurred her on.
On the other hand, Talitha seemed to be living, simply to delay her coming time in hell. She was alive because she was afraid of death and this was why she was losing the silent battle. There was no denying that deep inside she had long ago let go of her life.
The stranger grew stronger with every passing second, crushing the girl's will and she barely fought back, she was done.
And then she heard—as if through someone else's ears—pop, pop, pop of gunfire. It had been going for some time, but now that she was no longer brawling the Draugr for her life, or sprinting across the desert or battling to save the last vestige of herself, she understood what it meant. A gunfight was raging room to room throughout her parent's house. But in truth it meant more than that, it meant her brother was in trouble. And she loved him.
And just like that, she realized she had a reason to live.
The tables were turned on the stranger, who fought back resolutely, but Talitha was too powerful and sent it scurrying once again to hide in the crevices of her mind. There was no rejoicing over her triumph, since it was a shoddy triumph indeed, both Talitha and the stranger knew what had really occurred was simply a postponement that couldn't last much longer.
Not only that, she lacked the strength to rejoice, she barely had the strength to stand. The battle had left her wilted and damp with sweat and drool, her insides quivered as if she were about to be sick and her muscles protested even holding up her slight frame.
Reeling like a drunk, she went first to her dress, but didn't slip it over her head. Instead, she wrapped the sword in it and doing her best to ignore the fantastic cold she staggered off in the direction of the gunfire.
Strobe lights looked to be going off within the ranch house, back and forth they seemed to duel, but when she was fifty or so yards away it ended with a long pause and then a single flash. A second later the dampened rumble of the last gunshot rolled down to meet her and she stopped, scanning in the windows for movement, but the house, at least from her angle, looked remarkably still. And foreboding. Without the gunfire, the house lay cloaked in an eerie darkness. The last gunshot hung in the desert air with a depressing quality. She waited for more, yet none came and the thought that the final bullet fired had come from an executioner had her running again. It wasn't anywhere near her normal running style. There was no grace to it at all, her legs felt like broken stilts that had been taped together in the middle.
But she staggered on. Bloody prints following after her as did dead silence, she was a shadow tottering across the landscape, moving as quick as possible despite the pain in her torn up feet. They were in poorly suppressed agony and when she hit the thick green grass that bordered the house, she had to hold back a sudden cry of pleasure. Nothing had ever felt so cool and comforting in her life. She couldn't pause to enjoy it. Instead, she leapt through a partially destroyed bedroom window, almost stumbled on a body, and sliced her feet even greater on broken glass.
In the shadowed room, her senses came alive: she heard the sound of a gun being loaded with a fresh clip, she saw the bodies strewn about, she smelled the blood and the pungent fumes from spent bullets, and she felt even the small vibrations of a man walking upon carpeted floor. He was working his way from room to room and she had his position fixed in what she took to be the family room. Exiting from the bedroom, her fatigue caused her to trip and she thumped, first into one wall before ricocheting off onto the opposite. This she clung to and it held her up as she wobbled her way toward the kitchen, but a sight there stopped her.
Her brother lay in a heap at the junction where the kitchen and hallway met. His head was soaked with very bright fresh blood and covering his face and chest was a thick chunky looking grey substance. She knew very well the odd metallic smell of human brain.
A tiny whisper escaped her numbed lips, "Oh, no."
She wanted to go to him and cry over him, but there was still a killer to deal with and her mother could possibly be alive. Though this seemed like a long shot. Talitha forced her eyes from the body of her brother, but as she turned the corner and looked into the living room she had to stop once again, stunned by the sight.
More bodies, more blood, more brains greeted the girl. The room was such a nightmare of death and carnage that for a moment Talitha had to check her hold on reality. It looked like a scene from the nastiest pits in hell and it was with an effort of her crumbling will that she pushed herself on.
The one man left alive, whom she had heard walking about, stood over the body of another. She knew the man's scent. He had been at her brother's house, and now he was here, killing, murdering, executing. Without a thought to her state of undress and in complete silence, she ran in a shambling stride through the living room before vaulting the low wall; and the man was unaware. His focus was on aiming down the length of the assault rifle that he carried. Talitha struck it with the hell blade and sent it spinning away before he knew what sort of terror was upon him.
In the dark, with her wild hair looking black and skin that glistened with the blood of many men, her teeth shown fiercely white and hungry. No succubus or vile Huldra of the lower planes could have caused any more fright in the man and a fear induced mania seemed to light the man's eyes from within.
Perhaps this was why he fought with greater speed and strength than she had experienced from a normal human in a long time. He was on her in a flash striking wildly, hitting her twice, and sending her sprawling. She could barely protect herself, her body was worn, broken, and bleeding, she had no use in her left arm, and her right was numb from carrying the sword, and this she no longer held, it had thunked heavily to the carpet after she had hit the man's gun.
With no real way to protect herself she started kicking backwards to give herself room, but he jumped full upon her and easily pinned her arms over her head. And then he very stupidly paused. Shock crept into his eyes at her nakedness, but amazingly the shocked look evolved into a leering one. Up and down her slim body, he gazed and she felt the depravity within his soul as his manhood gave a forceful pulse against her thigh.
Talitha went limp. Other than her heaving chest, she let all of her muscles relax. It was precious seconds that she needed. Seconds where her body could recoup just the smallest amount and the perversion atop her gave her just that as he fumbled with his belt. More seconds were a gift as he struggle
d his pants down one handed. He paid for those seconds with the loss of his left eye.
Just as he thought he would slip into her, she yanked her right hand out of his loose grip and punctured his eye with her thumb. It went into the socket, right to the webbing of her palm. He screamed and with the last of her strength, she toppled him sideways, rolled and ended up atop him. The charred black hell blade was right there; she snatched up the horrid thing and brought it up for the killing stroke.
But she was stopped with a word, "Talitha."
The voice was ragged and unpleasant and barely human. Turning, she saw a lurching bleeding man heading into the living room and instantly thought it was the Draugr coming for her again.
"Where's Kay...where's Kay..." The man stumbled against the couch and then fell over it, to lay on the ground unmoving. It was her brother.
The shock of seeing him alive sent her mind reeling, "Will? Is that you?" She had trouble believing her eyes. "Will?" He didn't answer. Unthinkingly she tossed aside the sword and crawled off the moaning thug and went to her brother.
The outward appearance that he presented was far, far worse than the actuality of his injuries, which apart from a minor scratch along one shoulder, consisted entirely of a deep nasty wound—a long furrowing gash along the side of his skull. On closer examination, her questing fingers discovered his skull to be intact and she almost wept with relief. The grey matter drying on him was not his at all.
"Miss?" Behind her.
Suddenly she became aware of her nudity and grabbing up her fallen dress she spun about, pressing it to herself. Abraham, looking dead pale with eyes that were half closed said, "Jake is out there...in the desert. Please go find him."
The man appeared so far gone that modesty was no longer an issue. Talitha yanked the torn sundress over her head and went to him first.
"No..." With mouse like strength, he tried to push her away.
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