Her Billionaire, Her Wolf(75)

It was as if the two opponents had come to an unspoken decision, then suddenly they were flying at one another. Steel against steel, sparks flew in the darkness as they spun and parried.

Clement tried everything he had ever learned. He jumped to the side, feinting first one way, then to the other, doing all that he could to force the monster back.

They danced a deadly dance as they flew together only to break apart again. Desperately, Clement tried to pit brute strength against the creature, then their faces drew horribly close together and it spoke to him.

“What an interesting weapon you have there. The craftsmanship is astounding. However, as soon as I dispose of you I will dispose of it, for you see, it obviously has a terrible effect on him and I can’t have that, can I?”

Clement risked a quick glance at his brother upon the bed. He was in chains but seemed calm, so far unhurt, although it did look as though his strange tattoos were of a far lighter hue than he remembered.

“Trying to distract me won’t work, vampire,” Clement said through gritted teeth, “My brother is just fine and is going to stay that way, if I have anything to say about it.”

The thing leered at him as they trembled with the force they each used against one another.

“Stupid, blind fool. I wasn’t talking about your brother,” it said, then spun away from him, its blade flicking out as Clement came within a hair’s breadth of having a wrist sliced wide open.

As he danced his own pirouette, Clement had just time enough to see Sara look hard at Braze after hearing the Journeyman’s words. And in the next instant, he saw her eyes go wide with the dawning of some understanding.

He had no time to consider what had just happened as he brought himself round to chop down hard with his sword like an axe, trying to drive the Journeyman back.

But, the creature did not relent and its knives flew together time and time again in a crossed lock that Clement’s sword could not cleave apart.

They circled round one another in a seeming stalemate, when suddenly the thing said, “I think I have tired of this.”

It cocked its head to the side as if hearing something from afar, then continued, “Yes. I’m quite sure that I have. And time presses for us all, does it not?”

A flurry of blows almost too fast to see hammered Clement to the floor. His sword fell to the side with a thud and then the shadow was leaning over him, its single eye gleaming with cruel delight.

“For all your efforts, you are no match for me, little man. Neither you nor your poisoned sword will stop me.”

Sara screamed, the vampire’s stupor still leaving her sluggish as she groped about herself for something, anything, that she might throw at the Journeyman.

That was when she saw it.

As with the rest of the suite, the bedroom’s far wall was of towering glass. The view of the city beyond was extraordinary and all the more so because the clear panels rose far higher than any glass she had ever seen in any other building. She was sure that it was heavily reinforced, doubtless with some cutting edge technology that Abraxis Industries had yet to release in the marketplace.

But what she saw then took her breath away. The view of the city, and its miles and miles of lights in every direction, had begun to bow inward.

The Journeyman saw it, too, as it took a step back from Clement, its knives drooping slightly in its hands as it turned toward the glass wall.

There was a whining sound, almost as if someone nearby had begun to pull a single, screeching note from a badly tuned violin. It was a sound that grew and grew while the wall bulged inward to a point that should have been impossible.

When Clement saw the Journeyman hesitate, he began to inch his hand closer to his sword hilt. He had been pounded down by the creature as if he were of no more consequence than a housefly. Yet, while it was distracted, he might have one last chance, even if it meant his own life in exchange.

His fingers were outstretched, almost to the point of touching the sword’s pommel, when Clement caught a glimpse of Sara’s face. He followed her stunned regard and his breath blew out of him.

“Sara!” he shouted even as he was turning away, rolling into a ball and facing away from the bulging glass, “Cover your face. Now!”



Sara heard Clement at the same time as she saw the Journeyman take another step back, for once without anything to say.

Like a lightning strike in slow motion, she saw great jagged fractures appear like the branches of a tree sprouting from nothing in the glass wall. Then, she, too, was flinching away, doing her best to cover her face with her hands.

The high keening sound stopped. Then, like a bomb burst, the glass blew inward in a storm of shards.

Sara felt thick chunks of it raining down upon her back. There were some heavier than others, but when she risked a glance through the fingers covering her face, she saw that while thick, the glass had broken in cubes and not jagged pieces that would have meant all their deaths in an instant.