Mistborn #03 The Hero of Ages

the gutters.
    The capital, once home to hundreds of thousands, seemed empty. Wind blew through Vin's rain-wetted hair and she felt a shiver. The mists, as usual, stayed away from her—pushed aside by her Allomancy. She was alone in the largest city in the world.
    No. Not alone. She could feel them approaching—Ruin's minions. She had led them here, made them assume that she was bringing them to the atium. There would be far more of them than she could fight. She was doomed.
    That was the idea.
    She launched off the wall, shooting through the mist, ash, and rain. She wore her mistcloak, more out of nostalgia than utility. It was the same one she'd always had—the one that Kelsier had given her on her very first night of training.
    She landed with a splash atop a building, then leaped again, bounding over the city. She wasn't certain if it was poetic or ominous that it was raining this night. There had been another night when she had visited Kredik Shaw in the rain. A part of her still thought she should have died that night.
    She landed on the street, then stood upright, her tasseled mistcloak falling around her, hiding her arms and chest. She stood quietly, looking up at Kredik Shaw, the Hill of a Thousand Spires. The Lord Ruler's palace, location of the Well of Ascension.
    The building was an assemblage of several low wings topped by dozens of rising towers, spires, and spines. The awful near-symmetry of the amalgamation was only made more unsettling by the presence of the mists and ash. The building had been abandoned since the Lord Ruler's death. The doors were broken, and she could see shattered windows in the walls. Kredik Shaw was as dead as the city it once had dominated.
    A figure stepped up beside her. "Here?" Ruin said. "This is where you lead me? We have searched this place."
    Vin remained quiet, looking up at the spires. Black fingers of metal reaching up into a blacker sky.
    "My Inquisitors are coming," Ruin whispered.
    "You shouldn't have revealed yourself," Vin said, not looking toward him. "You should have waited until I retrieved the atium. I'll never do it now."
    "Ah, but I no longer believe that you have it," Ruin said in his fatherly voice. "Child . . . child. I believed you at first—indeed, I gathered my powers, ready to face you. When you came here, however, I knew that you had misled me."
    "You don't know that for certain," Vin said softly, voice complemented by the quiet rain.
    Silence. "No," Ruin finally said.
    "Then you'll have to try to make me talk," she whispered.
    " Try? You realize the forces I can bring to bear against you, child? You realize the power I have, the destruction I represent? I am mountains that crush. I am waves that crash. I am storms that shatter. I am the end. "
    Vin continued to stare up into the falling rain. She didn't question her plan—it wasn't really her way. She'd decided what to do. It was time to spring Ruin's trap.
    She was tired of being manipulated.
    "You will never have it," Vin said. "Not while I live."
    Ruin screamed, a sound of primal anger, of something that had to destroy. Then, he vanished. Lightning flared, its light a wave of power moving through the mist. It illuminated robed figures in the blackened rain, walking toward her. Surrounding her.
    Vin turned toward a ruined building a short distance away, watching as a figure climbed up over the rubble. Now lit only faintly by starlight, the figure had a bare chest, a stark rib cage, and taut muscles. Rain ran down his skin, dripping from the spikes that sprouted from his chest. One between each set of ribs. His face bore spikes in the eyes—one of which had been pounded back into his skull, crushing the socket.
    Normal Inquisitors had nine spikes. The one she'd killed with Elend had ten. Marsh appeared to have upward of twenty. He growled softly.
    And the fight began.
    Vin flung back her cloak, spraying water from the tassels, and Pushed herself forward. Thirteen Inquisitors hurtled through the night sky toward her. Vin ducked a flight of axe swings, then slammed a Push toward a pair of Inquisitors, burning duralumin. The creatures were thrown backward by their spikes, and Vin accelerated in a sudden lurch to the side.
    She hit another Inquisitor, feet against his chest. Water sprayed, flecked with ash, as Vin reached down and grabbed one of the spikes in the Inquisitor's eyes. Then she Pulled herself backward and flared pewter.
    She lurched, and the spike came free. The Inquisitor screamed,