Mistborn #01 The Final Empire

creature’s hand in a dozen different places. He ignored the wounds, raising a bloody hand toward her.
    Vin yelped, ducking behind the altar as pieces of metal sprayed against the back wall.
    “You are trapped,” the Inquisitor said in a scratchy voice. “Come with me.”
    Vin glanced to the side. There weren’t any other doors in the room. She peeked up, glancing at the Inquisitor, and a piece of metal shot at her face. She Pushed against it, but the Inquisitor was too strong. She had to duck and let the metal go, lest his power pin her back against the wall.
    I’ll need something to block with. Something that isn’t made of metal.
    As she heard the Inquisitor step into the room, she found what she needed—a large, leather-bound book sitting beside the altar. She grabbed it, then paused. There was no use in being rich if she died. She pulled out Kelsier’s vial and downed the atium, then burned it.
    The Inquisitor’s shadow stepped around the side of the altar, then the actual Inquisitor followed a second later. The atium-shadow opened its hand, and a spray of tiny, translucent daggers shot at her.
    Vin raised her book as the real daggers followed. She swung the book through the shadow trails just as the real daggers shot toward her. She caught every one, their sharp, jagged edges digging deeply into the book’s leather cover.
    The Inquisitor paused, and she was rewarded by what seemed to be a look of confusion on its twisted face. Then a hundred shadow images shot from his body.
    Lord Ruler! Vin thought. He had atium too.
    Not pausing to worry about what that meant, Vin hopped over the altar, carrying the book with her as protection against further missiles. The Inquisitor spun, spike-eyes following her as she ducked back into the hallway.
    A squad of soldiers stood waiting for her. However, each one bore a future-shadow. Vin ducked between them, barely watching where their weapons would fall, somehow avoiding the attacks of twelve different men. And, for a moment, she almost forgot the pain and fear—and they were replaced by an incredible sense of power. She dodged effortlessly, staves swinging above and beside her, each one missing by just inches. She was invincible.
    She spun through the ranks of the men, not bothering to kill or hurt them—she only wanted to escape. As she passed the last one, she turned around a corner.
    And a second Inquisitor, his body springing with shadow images, stepped up and slammed something sharp into her lower side.
    Vin gasped in pain. There was a sickening sound as the creature pulled his weapon free of her body; it was a length of wood affixed with sharp obsidian blades. Vin grasped her side, stumbling backward, feeling a terrifying amount of warm blood seeping from the wound.
    The Inquisitor looked familiar. The first one, from the other room, she thought through the pain. Does . . . that mean that Kelsier is dead?
    “Who is your father?” the Inquisitor asked.
    Vin kept her hand at her side, trying to stop the blood. It was a large wound. A bad wound. She had seen such wounds before. They always killed.
    Yet, she still stood. Pewter, her confused mind thought. Flare pewter!
    She did so, the metal giving her body strength, letting her stay on her feet. The soldiers stepped back to let the second Inquisitor approach her from the side. Vin looked in horror from one Inquisitor to the other, both descending upon her, blood pouring between her fingers and down her side. The lead Inquisitor still carried the axelike weapon, its edge coated with blood. Her blood.
    I’m going to die, she thought with terror.
    And then she heard it. Rain. It was faint, but her tin-ears picked it out behind her. She spun, lurching through a door, and was rewarded by the sight of a large archway on the other side of the room. Mist pooled at the room’s floor, and rain slapped the stones outside.
    Must have been where the guards came from, she thought. She kept her pewter flared, amazed at how well her body still worked, and stumbled out into the rain, reflexively clutching the leather book to her chest.
    “You think to escape?” the lead Inquisitor asked from behind, his voice amused.
    Numbly, Vin reached into the sky and Pulled against one of the palace’s many spires. She heard the Inquisitor curse as she pitched into the air, hurling up into the dark night.
    The thousand spires rose around her. She Pulled against one, then switched to another. The rain was strong now, and it made the