Chapter Thirty
The walls and floors stop closing in. “Wait, Samantha! Please! I’m not ready to die.”
I pause, turning to face him down below. “No one is ready to die.”
“Maybe I am making a big mistake.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But think about it. No more drinking blood. No more controlling everything. No more uprisings. No more silly wizards. No more immature royals. No more kidnappings, death, or destruction.”
“But I like most of those things.”
“But you could be done with all of it. You could finally rest within the Creator.”
“But what will that look like?”
“No one knows. Those who go to the Creator are gone forever.”
“Forever?”
“It is understood to be so. I suppose there is a chance you might be reincarnated into another form. After all, you have served your role admirably for many millennia. You might be useful in another form.”
“As a god?”
“Don’t know. No one can know.”
“I don’t want to disappear forever, Sam. I have some good memories.”
“I know. I saw them in your weird sphere.”
“I think I am ready, but you will have to fight me, Samantha Moon. It is not within my nature to lay down and die.”
“I will fight you and you alone,” I say. “No more giant hands, tentacles, or demon-bats.”
“Geez, way to take all the fun out of it, but okay.”
“Then let’s tango.”
Immediately, the Dark One springs from the floor and rockets up to me, wielding a sword the size of an Oldsmobile fender.
“Sweet mama.”
I parry the shiny blade as the force of it sends me flying through the empty space of the chamber. I flap my wings and come to a relative halt, though my inertia has me slewing sideways. The Dark One chuckles and races across the chamber, chasing me down.
“You will have to do better than that, Samantha Moon!”
Devil Killer or not, there is no way I can match the Dark One’s raw physical strength.
Not down here on the floor or in the air where I can’t find any purchase.
The bastard stands between me and the rotating meatball floating above him.
Grr. Pretty sure if I tried to fly around him, I would meet a similar fate, splat! against a far wall, or onto the floor.
With these grim thoughts in mind, Baltazar suddenly appears just behind the Dark One, floating in the air, cross-legged, looking like a very emaciated genie from Aladdin.
All that is missing is a magic carpet. The wizard smiles at me, nods, then gives me two enthusiastic thumbs up.
Considering his longish head hasn’t caught fire, I’m thinking the teleportation spell really has been broken, unless Baltazar is immune to it.
I know he can teleport. He told me as much.
Had he just teleported? Or is this some kind of trickery?
An illusion, perhaps? Either way, I do not think I can beat the Dark One one-on-one.
The devil in my world had not grown so big or been so physically powerful, and he certainly hadn’t wielded a sequoia-sized sword.
And so, I take in some air and, knowing I might very well receive the mother of all headaches, I summon the single flame.
It appears instantly, as if waiting for this very moment.
With the devil’s massive sword now screaming toward my head, I see within the flame the spot just next to the hovering, pulsating orb.
I move toward the flame, even as it races toward me.
And make the leap.