I slammed into her, and freight train doesn’t adequately describe my momentum. I led with a front kick this time, and it folded her in half so hard that her face actually hit her feet as they were ripped off the ground. She flew in a straight line, and hit a lamp post with her back. The crack was short and significant, followed by the sound of her arm being ripped from her body at the point of impact—the shoulder—as she and the pole continued their journey another forty feet before they both came to rest. Her arm? I’m not sure where it landed. Poland, maybe.
Krakow, wench.
I saw a blur of light come at me from the right and turned in time to get blinded. It was as though I’d looked directly into the sun, and I wondered if I still had corneas. Based on the scalding feeling in my eyeballs, I would have guessed not. I couldn’t tell whether it was tears running down my cheeks or blood. Amaterasu hit me and I could feel the heat. I tried to absorb it with Gavrikov’s power but I failed, and the searing pain that hit my arm told me I’d had skin burned off.
No, no! Gavrikov shouted in my head. It won’t work! Different kind of heat energy!
“Helpful,” I gasped out in the midst of the pain. I gritted my teeth. Very helpful, I muttered in my head as the agony nearly overwhelmed me. The smell of burning flesh filled my nose, and I realized it was my own.
Something sharp and painful struck me in the back, and I realized I’d forgotten Rude Rod or whatever his name was. All the air rushed out of me at the sharp sensation of the impact, and feverish chills spread out from my flesh at that point. I sagged to my knees, all the strength leaving my legs in a rush like fans at a concert bailing after a no-show.
“Sienna Nealon,” Amaterasu said. She sounded eerily calm. Calmer than I would have been if I’d been in her shoes. I had just taken out at least three of her crew. I felt my arm burn and blacken, the flesh burning down to the muscle, and I realized where her confidence was coming from.
I fell to my back, which hurt, surprisingly. Something was happening to it, and it burned in its own way. I rolled slightly and my good hand traced its way up my shirt to find blisters and pustules clustered along my spine. I jerked my hand away at the touch, but not before it caused a howling pain down my back.
I lay on my bad arm—assuming it was still there. I couldn’t feel it, except for the pain. My eyes were firmly squinted closed, and though I tried to open them, they failed to respond. I could faintly see a glow, though, and wondered if I was imagining it or if the light of Amaterasu was simply the last thing I would see.
“Should we keep her alive for Claire?” It was a man’s voice. It was high and accented and sounded not at all pleasant. Rudra, Wolfe told me.
“I think not,” Amaterasu answered. I could tell by the sound of her voice that she was above me, and then I felt the soft glow of a sun coming to life. My skin began to burn, and the smell of it filled my nose, even as my body started to quiver in the rising, scorching heat.
Chapter 31
Knowing you’re about to die brings a certain amount of clarity. It eliminates the extraneous worries for the most part, the random thoughts, the idle nattering of all those voices in your head telling you to do this, do that, finish your homework, go to school, get a job, do your work, be responsible—
Oh, wait. I never had those voices.
I had one voice in my head (absent those mental hitchhikers that were giving me assistance nowadays). It was my mother’s voice, and it only said one thing, ever.
Survive.
I drew upon Aleksandr Gavrikov’s power and snapped my speed of flight from zero to maximum in two seconds, heading straight for Amaterasu’s voice. I felt myself impact against her, shoulders checking hard against her legs. She registered the pain with a “Hngh!” noise that was followed by her face and upper body smacking the pavement. I could feel the ground beneath my back, less than an inch below as I dragged along blind, then shot skyward to escape the situation.
Wolfe! I called out, the pain clawing at me. I could feel the wind against my face and then my sight began to return. I didn’t dwell too hard on whether I’d just regrown my eyes. Instead I focused on regaining my sensation. My jacket was scorched and sleeveless on one side. I watched the flesh return with my newly restored eyesight and struggled to keep my mind on what needed to be focused on—flight and my health. I had a feeling that Gavrikov and Wolfe were giving me a hand with both, because the pain was making it insanely difficult to concentrate.
I halted in midair and looked down. The city looked like a tiny model beneath me, the figure of the Atlas barely, barely visible lying far below. There were clouds, and suddenly I realized that I was having a harder time breathing. “Too … high …” I gasped and let myself drop into a dive again.