The ambush at the warehouse had not gone as planned. The wretched mortals had come in force. She had only expected Hephaestos' unnatural offspring and the beast. Instead, there had been four antagonists. It did not matter, now. The first witch was safely stowed away elsewhere. Her destiny had never been put remotely at risk by actually bringing her to the warehouse.
As she prepared to make the next leap, an entangling line of flexible wire wrapped itself around her ankles, causing her to lose balance and crash onto the rough surface of the rooftop.
"I don't know who you are, woman," the Fist of Khonshu nearly growled as he close upon her. "But i know when I am in the presence of evil."
She smiled darkly as she pushed herself up from her elbows.
"It would have been better for you, foolish mortal," she said slowly, rising t her feet, "if you knew instead when you were in the presence of your doom."
She turned and drew her flashing katana. Moon Knight drew his own extending staff, spinning it in tights arcs as he moved to engage. She quickly wounded her opponent several times, while barely taking any blows in return. Just when she thought her opponent was beneath contempt, with one hand he locked her blade away to the side with his staff, and with the other swung hard at her exposed face in a flashing uppercut. His spiked cestus cracked into her jaw, and her vision momentarily reeled from the impact. Staggering backward, rage filled her as she contemplated dropping all pretense and tearing this mortal limb from limb with her bare hands.
She quickly realized, however, that the Moon Knight's companions were approaching their battlefield. Uncertain whether she could face them all at once, especially with the infernal healer in their ranks, she decided to end the fight.
Before Moon Knight knew what had happened, she had tucked and rolled behind him in a barely discernable blur of movement. As she came up, she drove the entire blade of her unholy weapon through his back, and out his chest in an explosion of gore.
As he stood dying on the end of her blade, she leaned forward and whispered in his ear.
"Know that it is Nemesis that has slain you. I was ancient when your master was a babe suckling at his mother's teet, mortal cur, and vengenace is my trade. Tell Khonshu I have done him a favor when you meet him in hell."
She rapidly withdrew her blade and kicked the fallen knight to the ground. She resumed her flight into the darkness, plotting her revenge against the heroes that had dared to interfere with her plans.
As Crucible, Fenris and Malpractice emerged upon the scene, they found their companion laying in a pool of blood. Malpractice rushed to the fallen knight to desperately attempt to revive him. Looking up to the next rooftop, they spotted the receding form of their friend's killer as she fled the scene. Before they could pursue, the woman stopped and briefly looked back at them over her shoulder.
Without another sound, she dropped over the edge of the rooftop. By the time they reached her last location, she had vanished into the night.
(published June 19, 2014)
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