The spirit forged of man's nature manifested as a small child. It was dirty and wore ragged castoff clothing. It held a pipe in its right hand which it smacked grimly into the palm of its left. "Yo, furball!" it called.
The wendigo turned his head at the new interruption. His eyes narrowed and nostrils distended as he drank in the power of the spirit. "You gotta go, furball," the spirit said. The wendigo moved faster than Sam had ever seen him do before. The foot that had been crushing the life out of Hart swept around toward the manifestion. The spirit blocked with one hand on either end of the pipe, stopping the blow dead. The spirit then slid its upper hand down to the lower, raised the pipe above its head, and slammed it into the wendigo's still-raised leg. The room shook as the wendigo crashed to the floor. The splintered ends of bones protruded from his leg.
The spirit's assault didn't slow. Its pipe blurred up and down, pummeling the wendigo. The spirit's strength was magical, unconstrained by its physical appearance. The wendigo was no match for its fury.. Soon, he lay helpless.
The spirit drove the end of the pipe through the wendigo's left shoulder and into the floor. With two swift hammer blows of its tiny fist, it bent the pipe over, forming a staple that pinned the wendigo to the floor. The fight seemed to go out of the wendigo and he lay limp on the floor. He watched fearfully as the spirit knelt on his chest and placed a hand on either side of his broad head. Their eyes locked, and the wendigo screamed.
The air seemed charged with electricity, but Sam knew it was magic. He slipped into his astral senses and saw the storm of mana that raged between the spirit and the wendigo. Glowing like a sun, the spirit poured golden light from its eyes into the wendigo's dark orbs. At first, all that glorious light fought against streamers of darkness that emanated from the wendigo's eyes and wrapped around the twin columns of light as if to smother them. Seconds later\a151or was it hours?\a151the dark wrappings started to fade until they finally turned translucent and drifted away like smoke. The body of the wendigo began to glow from inside as the golden light poured into him from the spirit. The spirit grew dimmer as the wendigo grew brighter and brighter, until Sam could no longer bear the intensity. Just before he dropped back to his mundane senses, he thought he saw a shape within the wendigo's form. But the glare made it too hard to be sure.
On the mundane plane, the wendigo's body looked shrunken, a bag of skin over a frame of bone. The spirit stood by the side of the body and pulled the pipe free.
"The darkness is gone," it said in a voice only Sam could hear.
"You have done all that I could ask, spirit. I can think of no better way to thank you than by giving you your freedom."
"You would do this for me? I still owe you services."
"We fought a common foe. You owe me nothing, and I ask nothing more of you. You are free."
"Honor to you, man," the spirit said as it faded from sight.
Sam could have followed its departure astrally. He wanted to. He desperately wanted to know where the spirit would go. But somehow that didn't seem right.
He crawled past the husk of the wendigo toward Hart. Her breathing was ragged and shallow, and he hurried even though he knew that he was aggravating his own injuries. Pain seemed a small price to pay to be by her side. He touched her face with his hands and found that she was crying. She stirred at his touch and opened her eyes. It took her a few seconds to recognize him. Once she did, she tried to raise her arm.
"Wrist," she gasped.
Trying not to hurt her, Sam unsnapped the cuff and rolled back her sleeve. Sam recognized the name and logo of DocWagon on the circuit board embedded within the clear plastic band she wore. The base color of the board was platinum.
"Don't leave home without it." She tried to smile at him, but the effort to talk had exhausted her waning strength.
He pressed the stud that would summon the medical service.
His own injuries sapped his strength, but he knew that unless he did something foolish, he would probably live. He was not so sure about her. After all she had done to keep him from stopping the wendigo, she had risked her life to save him and give him the time to call the spirit.
"Why?" he asked.
"I wish I knew."
She passed out.
By the time Janice reached the residence floor, everything was quiet. That made her nervous. She had heard his last scream. It had been so full of pain that she feared for his safety. How could anything have happened to him? He was stronger than any norm shaman.
She skirted the hole on the entryway floor. Unlike in the elevator shaft, there was no strong residue of magic. The destruction here was purely physical.
The doors of the formal entrance were open. Through them wafted the faint odor of blood. Tense and alert, she padded through the archway.
There were a lot of scents in the air, but all were faint; the floor's climate control system was busy pumping warm air out the shattered northern window wall and diluting the concentrations below the level she could track. Still, she identified the scent of strangers lingering in the air. One, a male, was vaguely familiar, but the other, a female, was new to her. There was also the ozone tang of machines like the one that had almost struck her in the elevator shaft. That odor was strong enough to indicate that there might be several of the things; they didn't have enough individuality for her to tell if there had been only the one or if more might be lurking about. The machine had been small enough to hide effectively.
The one scent she most wanted to smell was the most elusive.
A high-pitched, sequenced beeping reached her. It was beyond the range of a norm hearing, or even an elf's. It was clearly a signal. She knew of nothing in the residence that would emit such a noise; the device must belong to the intruders. She listened carefully, then shifted position and listened again. The sound seemed to be originating somewhere east of the sanctum. She moved cautiously toward the source.
As she drew nearer, her apprehension grew. With the air flow moving toward her the odors, all of them, grew stronger. Dan's was among them. But her momentary flare of relief was snuffed by the realization that the intruder's signal continued. Dan would not have let it continue if he were able to stop it. Worse, she sensed a lingering tingle of magic.
She stopped before one of the studies where blood spattered the floors and walls. Beyond the hallway in one of the large living areas, she could see a crater in the wall. From somewhere out of sight around a partition, she could hear a male voice whispering assurances. It was not Dan's voice. She crept forward.
She reached the corner, and her wary peering rewarded her with a sight that tore her heart. Dan's body lay sprawled on the floor. His limp form was emaciated, his bones pressing against his once-glossy pelt. The white fur was fouled and matted with blood. A great, gaping wound covered his left shoulder, and his right hand, the hand that had stroked her so tenderly, was missing. It had been jaggedly severed and was nowhere in sight. Her caution and fear were swept away. She rushed from concealment and threw herself on him. He was so still. She didn't want to believe he was dead, but her eyes could only see the blood and the wounds. Her ears could not hear him breathe, and her touch found only chill. He was far colder than he should be. Tears streamed from her eyes, blurring her sight. Her ears filled with the sounds of great sobs which she knew were her own. She felt him cold under her hands and wanted to deny what she felt. It was not possible, he couldn't be dead.
"Fragging drek, Twist. It's got a mate." The words broke through her grief. Those words were meant for the norm shaman and whispered from his earpiece receiver, but she heard them. She raised her tear-blurred eyes and looked at the intruders for the first time.