This was an absolutely fun chapter to write and read; this chapter is all about action and I do hope you'll find it enjoyable. Atalanta cuts loose a bit and consequences be damned.

I also want to thank Ashleigh again for her editing prowess as editors are the backbone of a story and I know she hasn't been feeling well.

This chapter is not too long but I feel it should be looked at separate from the next chapter but I'll try and post it in the next couple of days because they fit together.

Chapter 10

Mists rose slowly from the pavement from between buildings twisting, crawling upward along invisible lines. The sun timidly peered from behind steel and glass structures.

A dog howled in the distance. Quick scurrying footsteps reached my ears. Metallic tinny sounds followed. I scanned the windows and buildings at my side and across the street.

Nothing stirred.

“Full immersion achieved,” a voice broke the stillness in the control room.

I moved away from the alley onto the street my knees bent and nostrils flaring. I held in each hand a Wakizashi a traditional Samurai sword with a blade length of 20 inches. The Bo-Hi or the so-called blood-grooves whistled as they flashed through the air, each sword crossing my body center-line.

Across the street on the sidewalk the air shimmered a broken horizontal black line zigzagged. As it slowly grew I matched the speed of my sword to its widening rhythm; rotating my wrists keeping time and leveraging the finely tuned weapons.

One coal red eye glowed at me from the abyss followed by a second as the chasm grew wider and taller. In between those glowing red orbs a huge misshapen head appeared with jagged teeth and swept back tipped ears which resembled horns. The mist parted as his body and legs stepped through the curtain. Wings stretched across his back and anchored along his upper arms ending in three talons like claws. The creature’s large muscular body and legs quickly followed his cloven hooves clicking on the paved street.
He didn’t show surprise at seeing me instead he opened his mouth revealing fierce looking fangs, “Atalanta,” his voice rumbled across the space that separated us. He half turned reaching back with one talon equipped paw latching on a squirming bundle that until now had been hidden by his body and by the abyss.

He turned back facing me swinging his captive through the air suspended by her clothing.

Before the creature or his captive spoke I recognized the woman.

Mom!

For a micro-second, ten thousand thoughts crashed together in my mind with each screaming for attention. But in the time it took for the creature to speak my name again, the panic had left my mind swept away into the non-time that limbo existed in.

“Atalanta,” he began, “I have”—his guttural voice cut short watching his claw tumble to the street, the stump at the end of his hand spurting blood. Sheathing a sword I helped mom to her feet.

“You all right,” I asked helping her cross the street.

“I think so. What happened? How did I get here?”

“I don’t know and right now it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you stay out of sight. Can you do that?”

“Why? What are you going to do?”

“Mom,” I cried watching the monster holding up his stump the blood flow now just a trickle, “I don’t have time for twenty questions right now. Just stay out of sight,” I added pushing her down behind a parked car.

“Atalanta I’m the parent—,”

“Not here and not now,” I interjected adding, “Stay Put!”

I turned to face the nightmare creature jeering as I walked toward him drawing my second sword, “Hey stumpy forget about me.” He looked at me from his damaged limb that had stopped bleeding.

Regeneration?

Along the edges of each wing were evenly spaced rows of retractable talon like fingers extending from its bony structure. Talons that were sharp and long enough that they would rip someone to pieces, truly a death by a thousand cuts.

I smiled feeling my lips tighten against my teeth, stepping eagerly closer.

“Because I like to think I’m unforgettable, otherwise you’re liable to make me mad and you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” I continued smiling pleasantly in a conversational tone as I closed the distance.

Suddenly light glinted off the sword in my left hand as it flashed and sliced through the wing membranes on that side. The creature reacted immediately; roaring and twisting his body whipping a spiked tail at me previously hidden by his body. I was intent on watching the wing talons react to the pain and I almost missed the missile flying at me. My right hand twitched raising the sword partially deflecting and slowing the appendage. The shock and power hitting the sword broadside bent my wrist back knocking me backwards and off balance.

He roared again and lunged at me frustrated as I danced around him inflicting another cut on his backside as he swept by.

“C’mon Stumpy if you want to be my dance partner you’ll need to up your game,” I called out jeering.

“See,” he growled a response triumphantly raising that limb to show me that his claw had re-grown, “I have...”

Light flashed as steel whistled through the air and a claw rolled on the street, “Lose something Stumpy,” I mocked using the tip of my sword to flip it up into his face, “Is this yours?”

He howled in anger and from pain.

I bounced lightly on the balls of my feet watching the creature intently, my lips stretched thin against my teeth my heart racing. Anger began bubbling to the surface as the image of my mom hung suspended in the air from that hook that I had flipped back at him: In his face.

Take that!

My smile stretched wider.

I feinted to my right raising that sword hand and when he turned that direction tempered and layered steel flashed slicing through the tip of his right ear.

Cocking my head, “There you go, Stumpy now you’re balanced out.”

The birthmark on my shoulder itched. Warning lights flared as my heart slowed and my eyes widened. Colors dulled and environmental sounds faded. The Creature’s respiration rate increased, his eyes narrowing, muscles tensing as he straightened to his full height.

Something in the manner that he moved his damaged wing rang warning bells and I dropped my left hand sword gripping the duster’s lapel and drawing it around me. Immediately the rat-tat sounds of a half dozen miniature missiles struck bouncing harmlessly off the coat’s tough leather exterior. He raising his wing, the direction of the strikes, and their weight told me that somehow he had launched the inch long talons that ringed the edges of his wings.

Pain in my left forearm followed as one of the darts found flesh to penetrate. Immediately my senses rushed at the point-of-entry in my arm and I felt a dark mist trying to reach my bloodstream. I immediately danced away sheathing the other sword and using my right hand plucked the dart from my skin allowing blood to flow. Stepping back I circled the creature being careful to keep the other wing pointing away from me. I fought against that dark energy imagining rows of cavalry rushing into the growing battlefield near my wounded arm. The defenders surged forward welcoming the test of mettle cutting through the attackers like a scythe through a field of wheat. Like the sun burning away the curtain of night the defenders obliterated the invading force absorbing every last trace of their existence.

The pain vanished too and as it did restoring strength and tension to that arm. Flush with renewed vigor I raised that arm signaling victory, and unsheathing the Wakizashi weapons held them upright, the lights sparkling and dancing off the polished steel. I flexed my wrists as they crisscrossed in front of my body in a choreographed dance of death while I studied the creature.

Large fangs designed to pierce flesh protruded pushing past swollen lips and his misshapen mouth. The talons looking like three fingered maws used in carnivals were large and clumsy but effective on larger targets. I had already felt the dangers of his wingtip daggers; their ability to launch swiftly and silently carrying a poisonous cargo. His large tail was capable of breaking bones and ripping flesh from the trident shaped spike. Probably due to his ability to launch and replenish the daggers from his wings he had some ability to regenerate as evidence by the re-growth of a talon although the wingtip daggers hadn’t yet reemerged. I circled to my left and away from his “loaded” wing while searching for a weakness to attack.

Kill the head and the body will die.

The creature was huge, hardly able to fit through a conventional doorway with his head likely brushing an eight foot ceiling. Glancing quickly at the row of storefronts I smiled thinly as an idea took shape.

Stepping from street onto the sidewalk he followed me like a dance partner from storefront to storefront most looking out at the street from large plate glass windows. At spaced intervals the buildings were separated by narrow alleys designed for side entrances and deliveries. I kept up a steady stream of banter; everything from questioning his lineage to challenging his virility.

A vein jumped along my neck; I grinned crookedly at the monster while furrowing my eyebrows drawling, “Well Stumpy you’re a quick learner, now we’ll see if you can learn the two-step,” I immediately stepped to my right and then quickly dashing into the space between two buildings and he turned to follow. As he did I feinted charging at him stopping him dead in his tracks as he crashed into a brick structure causing it to fall away. I turned around and sprinted down the alley sheathing my swords as his roar added speed to my actions.

“Atalanta running won’t do you any good. I’ll find you.”

No I’ll find you Ha! Ha!

Without breaking stride, I crashed through the side door splintering the door and its frame and dodging obstacles racing through the interior toward the front of the store. Gripping my coat’s lapels and wrapping it around me like a blanket I leapt at the glass shattering the store’s front window sending the broken pieces crashing onto the sidewalk. I followed without hesitation as my feet lightly kissed the concrete surface barely slowing and turning down the alley as the monster was busy widening the doorway to admit his bulk.

I helped

Launching my 6 foot 135lb frame at full speed and hitting him in the back we both crashed into the store’s interior sliding across the floor with the monster’s weight crushing furniture in our path. One arm clamped around his forehead while my other hand reached into my vest gripping the Special Forces Tanto knife, edge in, arcing it out and back slashing across his body on a direct trajectory towards his throat.

Missed!

A falling filing cabinet jarred my shoulder spoiling my aim. Instead of his soft throat and jugular my knife cut through the muscles of his shoulder and back. Feeling the power in his body I bounced up and away from the reach of his long wingspan but not before slicing through the big tendon at his heel—the Achilles tendon—effectively crippling him.

He roared in anger rows of oversized teeth gleamed menacingly in the dim interior. Grimacing he used overturned furniture to stand bent over in pain. Propped up against an overturned filing cabinet with that foot and ankle dangling, bleeding from his back and shoulder wounds, one clawless hand dripping blood, and the other wing emptied of darts the Monster spoke surprisingly soft:
“I underestimated you Atalanta. I’ll not make that mistake again,” and he began a chant using words and sounds that held a familiar tone.

Immediately the air behind him shimmered and parted as three more monster clones began to take shape from the mists. The creature had summoned three more of his kind from whatever hell they existed in.

I reacted instantly leaping forward raising my knife hand with my attention solely on one of the large glowing twin orbs.

Three things happened microseconds before my knife plunged into his eye socket: recognition dawned in those eyes, life flamed out, and Mom called from across the street, “Atalanta,” sending adrenalin pumping through my system.

Feeling the honed steel slice through layers of membrane I left the knife buried to the hilt in the lifeless body whirling to face three additional adversaries. Two figures were prone on the floor while the third was bent over shaking his head. Without hesitation I leaped across the littered floor unsheathing my swords plunging them deeply into the eye sockets of the two monsters on the floor, leaving each writhing in a death dance that ended when I twisted my weapons free and turned to face the last enemy.

Sirens, voices, and boots hitting the pavement outside mixed in with the added sounds of metal clanging against metal reached our ears through the broken windows and doors. The creature lifted his head half turning towards the approaching reinforcements barred his grisly fangs at me lifting a paw, “Until we meet again, dear girl.”

The air shimmied around him dancing like flames from a fire before pulling him back into the void.

Screw you!

As I turned to leave and intercept Mom, the room with its smashed furniture, overturned file cabinets, broken glass and lifeless creatures began fading, soon replaced by another room. A single table in the center dominated the space. Stage lights gleamed from their recesses supplying the light for the windowless room.

A single door broke the monotony of the four walls.

I hope you find that as exciting as I did reading it again. Okay maybe I exaggerating some. If you do or even if you didn't leave a comment and I'll reply but please leave a kudo too. I appreciate it.

Katie