Chapter 32: True Advocacy For Gender Equality

I feel the pain as her staff connects with my back. I roll to the side, avoiding her next attack and instinctively hold my hand out. My dagger pulls out of her chest and flies back into my grip, that’s new, I think to myself. The more I use these abilities, the more natural they become. Carol swings at me just as I clutch my dagger and I parry the attack. I redirect her weapon and lodge it in the ground while gracefully using the momentum to flip myself towards her and stab both of my blades into her torso. My daggers pierce the area above her breasts, right under her shoulders and she falls to the ground with me pinning her. I leave the blades lodged and send a fury of her punches to her face, her mouth bleeds and I punch her one more time. She tears up and cries, she begs me to stop: “Angy, please.”

I stop and look down at her with sorrow in my eyes. What am I doing? I pull out my daggers and a vine entangles around my ankle and yanks me off her top before tossing me into the wall behind me. I leave a crater and walk out, she tricked me. She flashes a bloody smile as she picks herself up. “You are quite something. All that talent, you learned so fast. Such a shame that I have to kill you.” Vines pick up her staff and one shoots past me like a bullet and grazes my cheek. I think she broke a rib on my right side when she tossed me, it was already pretty banged up. “You are such a fool. So soft.”

She shoots more at me. I jump off the wall, dodging the first and execute a well-timed side flip to the left, dodging two more. I rush further to the left performing more flips and manoeuvres to evade her vines. I land a corkscrew somersault flawlessly and a vine emerges under my left foot and shoots up all over my leg. “Shit!” I curse as the vine holds me in place. A vine rams onto my chest and cracks my ribs. I groan and feel my lungs compress. “Fucking show-off, why don’t you keep shuffling around huh?” Carol mocks. I cut the vine on my leg and take a stance. “I am starting to understand why Brad bullied you. Funny thing, I always told him not to touch you but I didn’t do more than that. He was a good lay sometimes but he was so boring.” Carol puts her free hand on her hip and laughs. “I am sorry, I thought it was obvious.”

‘Calm down, boy. Focus. She wants to rile you up,’ Abhartach advises. ‘She isn’t lying, she did all that. I can tell,’ I respond. ‘Regardless. Conjure more. I think we can win if you focus.’

My eyes see through the night almost as clear as day. I feel my fangs grow and I hiss, flashing my fangs menacingly. A dark liquid-like essence forms under my feet and dances around my shadow. I see her temperature, her aura and her small movements. A different sensation races throughout my body as if a comfortable darkness engulfs me. The first time I gave in to this power becomes clear to me. I devoured that mugger that jumped a lady in a dark alley. I ended up devouring her too. What am I? The Danann are pure, this is not pure. Carol’s expression shifts into confusion and disgust. “What the hell are you?”

‘You are one born of both worlds, Danann and Fomorian, a nua-aois born.’ Abhartach says.

I charge at Carol. She waves her hand signalling vines to emerge beneath me. Her powers do not respond and she summons them from behind her and fires them at me. I leap between them, slashing efficiently with darkness emerging from my shadow and cutting the ones I miss and dropping them to the ground. The darkness infuses into the vines cut and turns black as they fall to the ground. She clutches her staff and retaliates as I encroach into her range. I slash before she swings and she blocks. I immediately execute a backflip and kick her in the chin. She takes three steps back in response to the impact but pokes at me with the edge of her weapon. I see it move slowly toward me, I turn around it and sheath one of my daggers and with my now free hand, I grab her staff and pull her toward me. She lets it go and sends a barrage of pressure point attacks at me. I let go of the staff and dodge the first two attacks. She likes to tuck as she gets closer to give her better access to my openings. I weave my body backwards and redirect her next two attacks, she is moving slower. I land a swift jab with my knuckles under her left armpit and cut her diagonally across her torso to her gut. A shallow cut but effective nonetheless. She trudges back and attempts to escape. I step on her foot and alternate a fury of punches and slashes on her. I see her body give in and I move in. I want to feed. I want blood, warm, life-giving nectar. My fangs stop right at the skin of her neck. No. I can’t.

“Sam!” A familiar voice calls out to me. Elana. I look behind and see her standing by the edge of the building, a katana in her right hand. “Is that you?” she asks and I gather my thoughts. I see my shadow grabbing Carol’s leg and her body infused with it all over her injuries. I did this. How? I drop Carol and move towards Elana. “You are late, she knows.”

“I can see that- wait,” she stops abruptly. “What?” I say and she points where I dropped Carol. “Where did she go?” I look behind me and she’s gone. No. She could go after Kelly. What do I do now? Shit, this is not good. How did she get away? My adrenaline drops and the pain from the battle sips in.