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Cold Blood, Chapter 11

I didn't see the albino move. It was only later that I learned it hadn't.

One moment, it was standing on the mountaintop with the other two weird reptilians-and thank God for my superhuman sight, or I couldn't have seen them from the ground. At least this way, I saw where it was coming from, though I couldn't tell how.

There was no thunderclap, no flash of light, distorted air or bent space. One moment it was twenty-five kilometres above me, the next we were clashing.

Fists larger than my head almost tore my arms in half as I blocked, elbows and forearms held together by ragged strands of flesh. The ground between us and the horizon turned to steam from the force, though-strangely-the mountain was untouched.

In an instant, I was pushed down through the ground, clothes atomised, lava swirling around my knees. But my arms had healed, and I started pushing back.

To little effect. The giant albino was stronger than me. Much stronger, in fact.

My punches and kicks struck its body like pebbles hitting a wall, and every counterattack ripped chunks out of me. It shattered limbs, punched head-sized holes through my torso and beheaded me so many times, we were left standing in a lake of lava and bobbing strigoi heads.

It was fucking unsettling. I looked like Ichabod Crane crossed with Dracula at the best of times, and the glassy eyes and crushed faces didn't help. At least they were gone quickly. The albino crushed them under its heavy feet as we struggled back and forth.

But I healed. Every time it tried to sweep my legs out from under me with kicks or tail swipes, I healed before I could lose balance. My torso regenerated just as it drew its arms back, briefly trapping it and allowing me to strike at its joints.

Not that it was doing me any good. Whatever this bastard was made of, it was far tougher than anything I'd fought so far. It didn't seem to be tiring, either.

Looked like I'd have to get creative. I hoped everyone who'd survived had been thrown away by the shockwave, because I was going to cut loose.

As it tried to clamp its jaws around my head, I turned into mist, and it bit nothing. A fun fact about my mist form: any part of it can become any part of my body. I surrounded it, formed the mist behind its head into a tensed arm, and struck at the base of its thick neck. It staggered, but more in surprise than pain, if I'd even hurt it. Its spiked tail came up at my arm, so I turned it back into mist, and formed a leg beneath it.

I kicked upwards, lifting it off the ground, and formed my arms around its tail as it sought to regain its footing. I pushed another tendril of mist into its snarling mouth-I was annoying it, at least- and formed my fanged mouth around its snakelike tongue.

The albino grunted in annoyance, and snapped its jaws shut, but I was mist again. I dispersed the body parts around it into mist, too, and tried a different angle.

I tried to push the mist in its mouth deeper, into its throat and stomach, but couldn't. It had no throat, only a sort of fleshy wall at the back of its mouth.

Frowning mentally, I tried my idea anyway, and turned solid again.

Friendly advice: if you want to phase through something, then turn solid again-or pull a similar move, like I was trying-be sure you're tougher than whatever you're phasing through. Otherwise, you'll get crushed inside it, like I was.

Instead of splattering its head and neck, my body was crushed into a compact mass against the walls of its mouth, which bulged slightly.

The albino opened its mouth to spit me out, but I had another idea. Summoning lightning around me, I pushed its upwards, trying to reach its brain, if it even had any. Either its mouth was insulated, or it was just too tough, because it spat me out, lightning sparkling harmlessly in its mouth.

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I scowled. Seemed like there was no hurting this thing, not with brute force. Maybe I could put it in time out...

As it spat out my pulped body, I healed, upside down, and kicked it in the chin with both feet. It wasn't hurt, but the sheer force sent it flying upwards. Good. Now...

Keeping my eyes on it, I whipped the air into a frenzy, enclosing the albino in a sphere of hurricane-force wind. No leverage, no way to use its strength-I hoped.

Just to be sure, I created a larger sphere of lead-grey, impenetrable clouds around it, too. Raindrops like bullets and hailstones the size of fists battered the reptilian, punctuated by lightning strikes and thunderclaps that would have turned a human's teeth to dust.

And then, I briefly felt something appear behind me, and my head burst apart. I turned and jumped away as the albino tried to grab me.

Damn it. I had hoped it couldn't teleport, or whatever it was that it did, while its senses were obscured by my artificial storm. Maybe it just needed to visualise a place to teleport to it? But even so, it should have been distracted...

Snarling, I leapt at it, wrapping my arms around its huge torso, and jumped. The city-sized lake of lava created by our clash turned into a geyser from the force of my jump.

It tried to rip me apart, even as we cleared Mars' atmosphere and passed Deimos and Phobos. I turned to mist again, and reformed with my feet against its chest, legs tensed. Growling silently, I kicked, and sent it flying through the vacuum like a rocket, towards the sun, until it was just a tiny dot set against the star's glow. Finally, it disappeared from my sight.

And reappeared behind me. For the second. Fucking. Time.

Motherfucker just kept coming, and I hadn't even hurt it. It threw its monstrous strength behind every blow, repeatedly pulverising my body. Even as I was turned to red mist and healed, I was thinking of what to do, and...

God forgive me.

It wasn't dying, like the plants or animals I'd fed from in recent years. Hell, I wasn't even sure it was a real being, rather than some reptilian homunculus. I certainly couldn't hear a heartbeat, or any other organ working inside its body.

But it was alive. It had a body, mind and soul, and its lifeforce was like a raging ocean.

I grasped it, and drained it until it turned into a desert.

The albino didn't show any pain as I drained it of life. It just slowed, blows becoming weaker, its red eyes narrowing briefly, perhaps in surprise.

It died silently. Even if we hadn't been in space. I doubted it would have made a sound. It hadn't, during the fight.

It was stupid, but...my strigoi side, the side that revelled in bloodshed and torment, was sad to see the passing of such a mighty opponent, even if it had tried to kill me, even if its life had fed me.

The dead albino's eyes were now pink and glassy, its face a mask of blank incomprehension. It didn't look scared, or angry, or even frustrated. I hoped that, wherever I had sent it, it would find peace.

I wracked my brain for something to say, but it was as deaf as any corpse, and there was no air to convey my words. Even so...

'You fought well,' I mouthed to the corpse, then turned away and flew back to Mars.

This was not over. And, somehow, I doubted it would get any easier.