Malcolm grinned at him.
“You wore gloves and long sleeves,” he said. “I bet you’re wearing knee high socks, too. Anything to keep me from touching your skin and stealing your power.”
“And what of it?” asked Rain Dancer. “I’d be a fool to face you without preparing.”
“What do you think it would be like to lose your other eye?” asked Malcolm. “Do you think about that, sometimes? Maybe feel a bit grateful that I left you with at least the one, each time you look in a mirror?”
Rain Dancer’s expression grew cold and serious.
“I hope you’re ready to die, Wind Runner,” he said.
“More ready than you could ever know,” said Malcolm.
A complete silence fell over the church. Malcolm faced off against Rain Dancer, standing across from him like a cowboy in an old western, getting ready to duel. There was a terrible gleam in Rain Dancer’s one remaining eye, a look of death.
Malcolm moved first. He threw himself behind the closest row of wooden benches, knowing that Rain Dancer would waste no time attacking him with lightning. Electricity was his weakness. Malcolm had put himself in a position where he was fighting an opponent more powerful than he was, whose abilities were his Achilles Heel.
Well, I’m going to at least make him work for it.
Lightning slammed into the wooden bench in front of Malcolm, causing it to explode into wood shards that scraped painfully across his skin. Malcolm rolled to put himself behind another bench, pulling up the loose scraps of bench with his wind manipulation.
He didn’t throw them at Rain Dancer immediately, but rather, kept them swirling around him. Most of them were small enough to make it easy to do. Malcolm multitasked with his wind manipulation, keeping the shards aloft while lifting a bench and hurling it at Rain Dancer.
The demon blasted it with lightning before it collided with him, but pieces of it continued forward, hitting his shoulders and chest. He let out an annoyed laugh.
“We’ve done this before, Wind Runner,” he shouted.
“And think back to how it ended last time,” said Malcolm. “You’re no match for me, Rain Dancer. You should give up now.”
There was humor in his voice as he spoke the last sentence. Malcolm hoped that it was enough to make Rain Dancer chuckle, because what he needed was a distraction.
He hurled himself forward to the next nearest wooden bench, this time shooting a wooden shard toward one of the church’s beautiful stained-glass windows. Malcolm figured that if they actually cared about the holy venue, they’d have picked somewhere else to host the fight.
Rain Dancer let out a small roar and charged toward him, flying over the wooden benches to attack from above. Malcolm hit him with a portion of the glass and wood he’d collected, sending them into the demon’s face like a swarm of angry hornets.
Rain Dancer struck out with lighting while simultaneously dodging out of the way. The electricity made it past the cloud, and hit Malcolm square in the chest. Pain flooded his senses, and he let out a wordless scream as he fell to one knee. His skin felt dry and papery, as though the electricity had burned off some of the moisture.
Tapestry’s power would be a godsend, right now.
For the first time in a long while, Malcolm had nothing but his wits to work with. He tried to take cover, but Rain Dancer had closed the distance between them while he’d been distracted by the pain. The demon surged forward, slamming his foot into Malcolm’s chest.
Malcolm had come to the church to sacrifice himself, but with every passing second, the idea appealed to him less and less. The pain was a part of it, along with a nagging sense that Rain Dancer would never keep his word when it came to not taking retribution on his friends.
“You’re pathetic,” shouted Rain Dancer. “The shortest fight we’ve had yet.”
He kicked Malcolm again, this time in the leg. Malcolm grunted, annoyed at himself for being so weak. He gritted his teeth and tensed his muscles. If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to make it this easy for his killer.
Malcolm sprang to the side, pushing himself with wind manipulation. He focused, relying more on his powers than he ever had before in his life, disregarding the effect it had on his body and his stabilizer. He moved with speed no normal human could match, jumping around the inside of the church, trying to maneuver behind the demon.
He managed to get in close, and slammed an elbow into the back of Rain Dancer’s head. The demon growled and spun around. Almost immediately, he lifted his hands for a lightning strike, but Malcolm was already in the air. He flew straight into one of the church’s walls, landing feet first against it next to a broken window.
Heedless of the glass’s sharp edges, he quickly cracked loose a shard about the size and length of a dagger. He kicked off as soon as he had it, barely dodging another blast of lightning.
Malcolm dropped down to floor level, rolling between two benches and coming to his feet at a sprint. Rain Dancer was following him with lightning, striking the place he had just been. Malcolm felt the heat as one of the benches ignited from the strength of the current.
He feigned as though he was going to charge Rain Dancer, spinning to the side to dodge again at the last second. It gave him the chance he needed, and Malcolm flung the glass shard forward with all the strength he could muster.
It would have killed the demon, if his aim had been true. Instead, it tore a chunk out of Rain Dancer’s shoulder. He screamed and grabbed at it. Malcolm realized that he should press on the attack a second too late. Rain Dancer’s retaliation struck him full in the chest, a blast of lightning intense enough to knock him out one of the broken windows.
He landed in the church’s yard, rolling across the dew sprinkled grass before coming to a stop. The sun was peeking out over the horizon, giving off long shadows as it banished the night.
“Beg for your life,” said Rain Dancer, as he descended from the air near Malcolm. “And I’ll consider sparing you.”
Malcolm chuckled. His body was bruised and exhausted. He could barely push himself up to a kneeling position after Rain Dancer’s last attack. He slowly shook his head.
I’m ready for this. I knew it was coming when I came here.
He had one last trick up his sleeve, one that he’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to try to play. Malcolm gathered every ounce of wind manipulation he could summon, slowly building it up, twisting and knitting it together. He felt it rustling his clothing, and then saw Rain Dancer stagger to the side as the wind built in intensity.
“Do you know what the wind can do, when it stops caring?” he asked, in a slow voice.
Rain Dancer let out a shout of surprise as a gust blew him off balance. He tried to blast Malcolm with more lightning, but the wind was suddenly too powerful for him to aim straight. Tiles tore loose from the church’s roof. Plastic bags, discarded newspapers, a trash can, all of it was pulled up into the air, into Malcolm’s tornado.
He stood at the center of it, grinning like a madman. The euphoria of pushing his powers so close to his limit was an evil kind of ecstasy. His stabilizer was hot against his skin, clearly struggling to keep his emotions in check, and failing.
“You’ll kill us all!” shouted Rain Dancer.
“That’s the idea,” said Malcolm.
He smiled and held his hands out to either side. He could it feel it coming, as though he was standing on the tracks in front of an oncoming train. He could see the turning point, the line between being one of the gifted and being a monster, and he didn’t stop as he surged toward it.
And then, Rain Dancer tackled him, full on in the chest. Malcolm caught a glimpse of the demon’s face as they tumbled to the ground together, bruised and bloodied by the deluge of airborne objects. The tornado began losing strength as soon as Malcolm stopped focusing on it.