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"I'm not so sure about that. If I recall, the last time we were standing here I destroyed my vardoger and you disappeared. This time I'm not letting you out of my sight."
Claudia took a step closer and I forced myself to stand my ground.
"Do you think you're stronger than me?" Claudia's voice was shaking with rage, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "You're nothing!"
Before I could respond, two shadows emerged from thin air behind Claudia, shimmering until they were almost solid. An older man with graying hair stared at me, his eyes wild with hunger. The other figure was a young girl with limbs that looked too long for her body and brown straggly hair. She was even more terrifying than the man, her lips pulled back and her teeth bared in a snarl.
Claudia stepped out of the way, giving them an unobstructed path to me. "Do it," she ordered, motioning towards me with a nod of her head.
In one moment the vardogers were standing there, staring at me, and in the next second they were rushing towards me with murderous intent. They slammed into me with the force of a Mack truck, knocking me to the ground. I felt a suffocating pressure as I felt them sinking into me, tendrils of intense pain radiating throughout my body. I forced my panic and pain aside, trying to concentrate my energy into a single force. But the pain was even more severe than before, consuming me. My body was starting to convulse and I was drowning in their energy. I screamed with pain and fury as they latched inside of me, digging into my flesh and organs, bonding to my physical body and pushing out my soul. The pain was so intense that I felt like throwing up. It was tempting to let the blackness overtake me, to put an end to the agony, but I steeled myself against it, resisting them with all my might.
"Hurry!" I heard Claudia scream. "Take her!"
The vardogers sank deeper into me with a vengeance. I pushed everything aside, the mind-numbing pain, the paralyzing fear and the overwhelming certainty that Simon would be dead if I ever escaped these vardogers. I made my mind blank, pooling my strength until it was a fiery ball of pure energy. It grew larger and more deadly as I gave it everything I had, letting the floodgates open and surrendering my pain and sorrow to it, fueling it with my nightmares and fear.
I heard myself screaming, my body bowing involuntarily, as I slammed the ball of energy into the vardogers. The fireball of energy exploded as it smashed against them and as suddenly as they had entered me, they vanished, my body slumping into the ground with exhaustion.
As soon as I felt them leave me, I wasted no time in scrambling up. Claudia's face was red and she looked ready to explode. I ran over to Simon, relieved that he was in the same position as before. I frantically checked his pulse, reassured when I felt it, thready and weak but present. I stood to face Claudia now that I knew Simon was still alive.
Claudia's furious face glanced down at Simon, and then slid back to mine, her anger seeming to grow.
"Did vardogers kill my mother?" I was breathless but the question slipped out of me, the desperate need to know the truth outweighing everything else.
"Do you think this is question and answer time?" Claudia laughed despite her anger. "Am I supposed to entertain all your questions so that you can buy some time before I kill you? Or are you stupid enough to think you'll get out of this alive?"
"Answer me and I won't make your death more painful than necessary."
Claudia raised an eyebrow, amusement replacing her anger. "Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren't you? Unfortunately for you, you'll have to die without the answers to your questions. I'm in control here."
"If you're in control, why not humor me? If you're not going to answer my question about my mother, then tell me where my aunt is. Where's her inner circle?"
"Poor little Caitlin," Claudia taunted, stepping closer. "Feeling all alone in the world? How does it feel to be responsible for everyone's deaths?"
The blood drained from my face but I forced myself not to react. I concentrated on Claudia's approach as she stalked closer, her nostrils flaring in excitement.
"Now it's time to shed this body and take yours. If you're as powerful as they claim, I'm sure I'll be able to wield your strengths as my own."
I tensed but I didn't back down. "You already claimed a body. You can't claim mine."
Claudia laughed humorlessly. "Screw the rules. Everything else has changed, why not this? What's the worst that can happen? You die and I stay in this body?" She smiled widely. "I'm willing for you to take that risk."
She screamed as she flew at me, but I was ready for her. Instead of being thrown back by the force of her body hitting mine, I crouched low and wrapped my arms around her waist, taking her off guard and unbalancing her. We both crashed to the ground and I scrambled to regain my footing but Claudia was too strong for me. She grabbed my shoulders, pushing me back on the ground and pinning my arms with her knees, breathing heavily on top of me.
"Stupid bitch," she spat out as I struggled under her. "Did you really think you would win?"
I didn't answer as I stopped fighting her. I knew I couldn't win on a physical level, but I could destroy her with my powers. I started pooling my energy together, but Claudia just smirked at me.
"Oh no, you don't. I'm the one doing the taking, not you." Claudia reached up and grabbed the palladium dangling in between us from her neck, her eyes boring into mine. "Let's see if this works."
I braced myself for the suffocating pressure of a vardoger entering me, but nothing came. Claudia was staring down at me and I could feel her frustration mounting, her glare becoming more intense. Finally, she threw back her head and let out an inhuman scream.
"It's not fair!" she cried out, looking back down at me, shaking with rage. "I don't want this body! I want yours!"
Relief flooded through me, grateful that the vardoger wasn't able to enter me because it was already attached to Claudia's body. But that didn't mean I couldn't draw out the vardoger. I had felt the beginnings of it before. Before she had killed Lenore.
I concentrated, feeling the now familiar gathering of my energy, willing it to grow larger than ever before. Claudia's eyes widened and I could see the fear in her eyes.
"It's not possible," she whispered, sounding frantic. Her hand clutching the palladium convulsed. "The palladium should protect me. You shouldn't be able to reach me while I have it. We've been able to kill every other seer using it."
