Page 62 of Gladiator Moon

The Dark One watches the attack without moving. His molten eyes follow me as calmly as a man watching a moth outside his window.

I bank hard as another wave of demon-bats drops silently toward me. They are fast, yes, but they are making a critical mistake: they attack in swarms. One broad sweep of the sword carves through half a dozen at once. Black smoke blossoms around me like mini-storm clouds, and for the first time since entering the chamber, I realize something else: everything he creates can be destroyed with the Devil Killer.

When the last of the bat-demons have been vanquished, the bastard whips around in a blink. His long tail lashes out and catches me squarely across my chest, sending me crashing to the far wall, where I slide down in a heap. The impact has driven the air from lungs that no longer truly need it. But for a few precious seconds, I forget how to move, though the Devil Killer never leaves my hand. The Dark One walks casually toward me, the ground shaking as he does so.

“You cannot hope to beat me, Samantha Moon.”

“Explain to me,” I gasp, “why you allowed the sword to be stored here, within your Arena? Within you?”

“I was unaware...”

“Bullshit,” I say, cutting him off. “You can feel this sword. I see you eyeballing it. You can feel it. It can feel you. It vibrates even now as you walk closer to me.”

“I feel nothing.”

“More lies. You knew what it was, and you knew what it could do to you and your demons, yet you kept it here. Why?”

Chapter Twenty-nine

“What are you getting at, vampire?”

I glance up at the shimmering, meaty orb of memories. It is more than an orb, I’m sure of it. It is, I think, another extension of him. His mind, perhaps. Or his brain? Hmm.

“Like the Devil in my world, I suspect you’ve grown tired of your lot in life. The Games bore you. The games of kings bore you. Your demons bore you. Blood bores you. Torture bores you. Even all this power bores you. You’ve been doing the same terrible things for so long that none of it means anything anymore.” I tighten my grip on the Devil Killer. “You’ve grown complacent. Reckless, even. You left the one weapon capable of destroying you hanging on a wall inside your own kingdom. You could have destroyed it. You didn’t. You could have attacked me a thousand different ways in here, yet you didn’t. Please. Giant hands? Evil crows?” I study him. “You could have done better than that. A lot better.”

His expression doesn’t change, though he does grunt once.

“You want out, don’t you?”

He raises one clawed hand, and the floor beneath my boots suddenly softens. My feet sink.

“You are right. I have been easy on you. No more!”

I sink to my ankles, then my calves. The chamber is trying to swallow me. Or he is trying to swallow me. I spread my wings and beat them hard, finally wrenching myself free just as the floor hardens beneath me. I rise quickly and hover just beneath the spinning illuminated orb. The Devil lifts his head, tracking me.

I fly closer to the shimmering sphere, and something strange happens. It stops spinning. The shimmering fades, too, leaving behind a surface so dark it seems almost black. Then the orb contracts. And expands. Contracts again.

Thump, thump.

The sound reverberates through the chamber. Molten goo drips from its surface and splashes onto the floor below with a hiss. I stare at the thing, watching it expand and contract again and again, and suddenly everything I thought I understood about it changes. This isn’t his mind nor some all-seeing eye.

It’s his heart!

Or maybe it is his mind, too. How the heck could I know?

Either way, I have a new target. And the bastard led me right to it. Wow, he really does want out.

A forest of tentacles suddenly shoots up from the floor and drops from the ceiling. Some are as thick as tree trunks, others no wider than my wrist, but all of them move with terrifying speed, reaching, grabbing, striking. Every one ends in a different nightmare: claws, hooks, barbed spines, mouths lined with rows of needle-like teeth.

I weave through the striking, snapping tentacles. One snaps toward my face. I duck beneath it and sever it with the Devil Killer. A black cloud bursts from the wound as the massive appendage recoils rapidly before dissolving into nothingness. Two more whip at me from opposite sides. I roll between them, nick one with the glowing blade, then slice the other clean through. Both withdraw instantly, their wounds billowing black before unraveling into nothingness.

The remaining tentacles hesitate, but not for long. The forest comes alive again as tentacles lash at me from all directions. I tuck in my wings and drop straight through the middle of them, all the while spinning like a lawnmower blade. Tentacles drop free before puffing into smoke. A low groan fills the huge room. It is the groan of pain, and it is coming from the Dark One himself.

The tentacles finally snap back, disappearing from whence they came.

“If you kill me, Samantha Moon, then everyone in my arena dies with me.”

I shake my head as I take to the air again, beating my wings and tightening my grip on the sword. “I don’t think so.”