total obedience. Is that too much to ask?” he growled at me.
“Considering what you’re asking for most of the time, yes it is,” I said through clenched teeth. I was too stubborn for my own good. I was literally in the hands of a god and still picking a fight because I was unwilling to bow to his every wish.
“Well, this time I think you’ll be in complete agreement with me,” he said. He tightened his grip on my neck long enough to pitch me forward. I caught myself with both hands and tucked in for a quick roll on the ground before popping back up to my feet. I jerked around and remained in a defensive stance as I waited for him to strike again. “I want you to finally kill that nightwalker.”
My head fell backward with laughter and my hands unconsciously dropped down to my sides as I lowered my guard against him. I couldn’t help it. It was as though he’d asked me to take an afternoon stroll in the sun. He wanted the impossible.
“Kill Jabari?” I repeated as if my hearing had suddenly gone fuzzy. “Don’t you think that if I could, I would have done so already?”
“You haven’t been trying hard enough,” Nick said in a low growl.
“He’s thousands of years old! I can’t beat him. I can only control him when he lets me, when it’s to his advantage. He’s not going to stop doing that just so I can kill him.”
Nick waved his hand toward me and a surge of energy knocked into my chest. I fell to the ground, my butt slamming against the earth. “He may be an Ancient, but you are my daughter.”
“Some daughter.” I gave a soft snort as I moved some hair out from in front of my eyes. “You toss me around like a rag doll. Do you honestly think it’s going to be any different with Jabari?”
“You have more powers to call upon now. You have an edge over him at last.”
I pushed off the ground and brushed some bits of grass and dirt off the seat of my leather pants. “Why now? If you haven’t noticed from all the gatherings I’ve been attending recently, we’re facing a multifront war, and me picking a fight with Jabari now isn’t the best timing.”
“I see this as the next stage of your training,” he offered.
There were times when Nick was willing to provide me with information, and there were times when he simply wanted to knock me around. This seemed like one of those times when he needed me to know something— or at least I hoped it was.
He paced a little closer to me. “Training that provides you with the strength and ability to regain my place as a true god once again.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, suspicious of that statement in too many ways. “And what does that mean for everyone else? We spent a lot of energy and lives getting rid of the naturi and the bori so the humans would be safe. Are we now going to suffer under your rule once you regain your place as a true god?”
“You spent a lot of energy and lives!” he screamed, his hands balling into fists as his face flushed red. There wasn’t a second to guard against the attack. He was simply there in the flash of an eye. The back of his right fist slammed across my face and I fell to the ground in a heap. As I rolled onto my back, Nick was on top of me again. Kneeling at my side, he placed one hand against my chest, but I could feel his energy plunging deep inside me. It felt like his fist was wrapping around my soul and trying to pull it from my body. He was trapped in a blind rage, and he was going to kill me if I didn’t do something to stop him.
Closing my eyes against the wrenching pain, I focused all my energy inside of myself and wrapped my own pull of power around my soul, attempting to hold it in place. I tapped into the swirling energies around me, strengthening my hold so he could not pull my soul free of my body. If he removed it from where it resided in its little hole deep within me, he could set it free, instantly killing me, and yet I had a feeling that my soul would be trapped forever on this plain, never able to move forward to the next level of existence.
After more than a minute of tug-of-war with my soul, Nick finally released his hold and lifted his hand from my chest. I remained perfectly still on the ground with my eyes closed and my powers wrapped tightly around the remnants of my soul in case he should try to attack me a second time. Energy flowed into me from all directions, from the earth and nearby humans. I could even feel some of Nick’s powers mixing with the other energy pouring into me. I felt stronger, more powerful, than I ever had before. I felt as if I could take on Jabari and at last crush him like an insignificant insect.
While I lay there, I felt Nick’s powers increase again as he prepared for another attack. Balling my hands into fists, I pushed the power deeper inside of myself and then I disappeared. Stunned shock gripped me so quickly at the unexpected ability that I immediately reappeared exactly where I was, which did me little good against Nick. My eyes popped open and my mouth formed a perfect O in surprise. The only time I had been able to disappear and reappear before was when I tapped into Jabari’s powers. Now I either had the power to do it on my own or I could simply tap into Nick’s powers to do it.
“You can do it on your own,” Nick said.
“What else can I do?” I demanded with an eagerness I couldn’t hide. The world had suddenly opened up to me in a new way, and I needed to know the extent of what I was capable.
Nick gave a slight shrug of one shoulder as some of the anger started to drain out of his expression. “You will never know until you try.”
With a small smile, I wrapped a ball of energy tight within my chest, gathering together as much energy as I could stand. It crawled along my skin like a millipede and pounded against my chest like a heartbeat, but it was nothing more than power looking for an outlet, and I was willing to give it one.
I directed the energy at Nick, sending it crashing into the center of his chest, throwing him several feet backward across the yard. As soon as he was standing again, I hammered him once more, knocking him off balance while I set him on fire in a towering inferno that threatened to light the nearby trees. I paused long enough to watch the flame-cloaked figure brush off his jacket and take a few easy steps toward me.
“The fire bit is getting old and stale, Mira,” Nick said in a singsong voice.
“Then how about this?” I said. Pushing to my feet, I directed my hands down to the ground, feeling the pulse of the earth beneath me. Straining to maintain the flames, I directed the roots of the surrounding trees to explode from the ground and wrap around his ankles. The roots pulled and slammed him to the ground again as he extinguished the flames. Pulling in different directions, I attempted to split him into two different pieces, but he disappeared before I could even get a grunt of pain out of him.
Nick instantly reappeared before me and cocked back his fist to punch me, but I was gone this time before he could touch me. I reappeared a few feet away, my mind scrambling for some new way to attack him that could make some kind of impact when it dawned on me: use the same attack that had been so effective on me. Gods had to have souls as well, right?
Gathering up as much powers as I could possibly stand before a scream could be torn from my throat, I reached out toward the energy flowing from Nick. I plunged the powers inside of him, searching for that faint wisp that was his soul. I found it in a heartbeat, but it was like trying to wrap my arms around an angry grizzly bear. The energy thrashed about, shoving me away anytime I grew too near. His soul could actually fight me, where mine lay limp and helpless against his attacks.
“And that is why you should never have become a nightwalker,” he calmly said, before finally brushing me and my powers aside like an annoying fly. I was thrown back again, slamming into the ground.
I pulled the energy back to me and disappeared again before he could attack me. However, it felt as if a hand grasped me around the neck and pulled me back so I was standing directly in front of Nick.
“Enough playing for one night,” he declared. “I think you’ve begun to understand exactly what kind of power is at your fingertips if you only try.” To my surprise, his words sounded heavy, as though he was struggling to catch his breath. There was a slight flush to his cheeks, indicating that he might actually be tired from all the exertion of fighting me. I tucked that little mental note away in the back of my brain and kept my face clean of any expression.
Of course, it was only after I released the powers I’d been holding onto that I felt a wave of exhaustion pour over me. My knees turned wobbly and threatened to buckle under me, while my arms felt as if lead weights had been tied to my wrists. I needed to sit down and wait for the feeling to pass, but was unwilling to show any weakness to Nick, knowing that he could potentially take advantage of it.
“Do you think you can handle Jabari now?” he demanded.
“It feels as if the fight will be a little more even,” I admitted. “He can still control me, which gives him an edge.”
