Sunny - Mona Lisa Blossoming

I hit the ground, half of me numb. I'd lost my dagger and wondered for a moment if I'd stabbed myself. My chest felt as if it were on fire, as if purgatory had decided not to wait until I died and was roasting me now. I glanced down to make sure. Nope, no dagger sticking out of my chest. Just felt that way. Broken ribs tended to do that. They hurt like the dickens.

Mona Louisa's battle shriek tore through the quiet of the night as she rushed me with blinding quickness. She may have been strong, beyond Monère strong, but she'd obviously not had much fighting experience. Experienced fighters didn't scream and warn you that they were coming.

I lay there waiting for her to come to me and she did. She threw herself at me, reaching for me with clawed fingers. I took a trick out of her own book and waited until she'd almost reached me. When it was too late for her to check her rush, I brought both legs up and donkey-kicked her in the stomach and chest. The jarring impact of stopping dead all that weight and momentum ripped another fiery pain through my chest, but the satisfaction of hearing that whoosh of breath and glimpsing the surprise in Mona Louisa's face was worth it. Seeing her go flying back and smash up against a palmetto tree, hearing the groaning wood crack and tilt as she hit it, was even better.

The stunned look that swept across her face and the twisting rage that flushed into an ugly red mask made me think that it was the first time she'd ever been hit in her life. Made me want to hit her more.

Pushing back against the tree that had broken my fall, I climbed back onto my feet, hunching over a little. "Did that hurt, bitch? Why don't you come back for more?" I taunted, mainly because I couldn't rush her. Heck, I doubted I could even take one step toward her.

With a screeching cry, she flew at me again. I got in one good swing that snapped her head back nicely before she grabbed me and tossed me up so I soared twenty feet in the air again. I was getting used to the feeling of flying. Landing, though, was a real bitch. Sure enough, a tree trunk tried to break me in half again. Holy sweet mother of God… I almost passed out from the pain.

I saw Blaec, or I thought I did, in my wavering vision. A hazy bronze shape peeping out from beneath the shadow of a tree, a question on his face.

"No." I shook my head stubbornly to clear my vision, to shake off the pain. "She's mine!"

And then she was on me, her breath in my face heavy with the smell of my own blood, imprisoning my arms, crushing them to my sides as she lifted me up with almost effortless ease and slammed me back against the heavy, solid tree trunk with pounding force, her teeth drawn back in a furious snarl. "You are nothing!" she screamed. Thunk! Thunk ! Beating me like a board she was trying to break. "Nothing!" Rough bark tore into my back, snagged my hair. Blood trickled down, soaking into my pants.

"You are as weak as your lover!" she hissed. "Killing him was so easy."

The blackness that had been edging my vision cleared at her words, and I began to struggle in silent, fierce earnestness, twisting in her grasp.

Mona Louisa laughed and slammed me upright, back against the tree, pinning my wrists low with her shackling hands, restraining my legs with the press of her lower body against me. "Killing you will be even easier," she crooned, her breath warm against me. "And much sweeter."

Her teeth lengthened. Rearing back, she struck hard, her fangs sinking deep into the left side of my neck, the clean, unbroken side. I screamed as she drank me down. Tried… tried so hard with everything that I was to break free. But I could not. She was too strong. All I could do was twist my hands, wet from Gryphon's blood. They slid barely, just barely in her cinching grasp so that my palms turned outward, facing toward her.

Her loud swallowing sounds echoed in my ears as I reached out with that other part of me, with a willing, Come to me . My palms throbbed, but either the distance was too great or I was too weak. The lost silver dagger, the dropped sword did not fly to my hands. They remained empty, impotent. My vision was hazing, sounds growing distant as more of me flowed into her. All I could see above me now was the moon, three-quarters full, a neutral presence in the sky, a silent witness. Help me, Goddess. Hear your daughter's plea .

I forced my last conscious will into my hands, into those mounds of pearls embedded deep in my palms. The Goddess's Tears. I angled them up to the dark, velvety sky and begged: Give me strength. Renew me .

I didn't just open myself to the moon, welcome it, and let it flow down. I pulled it down, called it to me, demanded it. Give me justice ! But it wasn't the moon's rays I pulled forth.

The Goddess's Tears trembled, gave one giant throb. Then another. They began to glow, twin pearls of light breaking the darkness of the night. Heat filled me. Power swept into me like a gentle spilling light. Mona Louisa's head suddenly jerked up, her eyes panicked and wide. "What is that? What are you doing?"

A light radiance sparked deep within her, like a candle lit by a match, the wick catching aflame. My hands pulsed, my entire body throbbed with the power, with the calling. And I drew more light from her. Pulled it into me.

She released me as if touching me suddenly burned her. She tried to draw away, step back. But I held her now. Energy rushed through me, her radiance spilled into me, filling me, renewing me, siphoning her power, making it mine. My palms pressed against her arms, imprisoning her, holding her to me gently like a sweet lover as I drained her of her power, of her beauty, of her youth and vitality. As I drained her of life itself. And the power that rushed into me and flooded me, stretched me with seductive heat was better than Basking. Better than sex.

Her essence rilled me, poured into me, kept coming in a steady streaming, a steady draining. My skin felt as if it had become porous. Her energy, her aura, her force flowed over my skin like thick honey and then seeped into every open pore. Was sucked in. And I watched her ebb, fade away. I watched myself grow stronger, brighter.

Power streamed into me until I felt as if I were a paper lantern. As if I had swallowed down the moon and it glowed within me, spilling from me with such blinding luminescence that the forest was ablaze with wild, glorious splendor, lighting up the night.

I watched Mona Louisa shrivel before me, her skin becoming tight, thicker, leathery, all moisture wrung from her. Her flesh melted, was sucked away until she was nothing but thin wrinkly skin draped over dried bones. Youth and beauty vanished. She became an old crone who had lived too long and yet still clung to life, her bulging eyes white and terrified. All that remained of her old self was her bright yellow hair, still shiny and silky and long, like a wig worn by a mannequin. Even her screams had dried up, as if all moisture in her vocal chords had vaporized and all she was capable of emitting now was a high keening sound. A wailing that did not stop.

I extracted the very last drop of her light into me like a final drop of sticky molasses. And yet she still was… screaming, keening, crying, always crying. "Why won't you die, bitch?"

She lay there on the ground where she had fallen, too weak to move, a drained bundle of sticks, an undying corpse.

"She has become more than Monère now." The High Lord's quiet voice came from a careful distance away. His eyes were neutral once more, his face inscrutable.

"Because she drank Halcyon's blood," I said. "Demon dead blood."

"Yes."

"Even demons can be killed." I stretched forth my hands, palms out. But still my weapons did not answer my call. Not for lack of power then. Simply too far away. My eyes fell to some nearby rocks and narrowed in thought. It wasn't just knives that could cut.