The naagloshii’s form shifted from something almost human to a shape that was more like that of a gorilla, its arms lengthening, its legs shortening. It rushed forward, bounding over the distance between us with terrifying speed, grace, and power, roaring as it came. It was also vanishing from sight, becoming one with the darkness as its veil closed around it, utterly invisible to the human eye.
But Demonreach knew where Shagnasty was. And so did I.
In some distant corner of my mind, where my common sense apparently had some kind of vacation home, my brain noted with dismay that I had broken into a sprint of my own. I don’t remember making the decision, but I was charging out to meet the skinwalker, screaming out a challenge in reply. I ran, embracing a rage that was very nearly madness, filling the fire in my hand with more and more power that surged higher every time one of my feet hit the ground, until it was blazing as bright as an acetylene torch.
The naagloshi leapt at me, horrible eyes burning and visible from within the veil, its clawed arms reaching out.
I dropped into a baseball player’s slide on my right hip, and brought my shield up at an angle oblique to the skinwalker’s motion. The creature hit the shield like a load of bricks and bounced up to continue in the same direction it had been leaping. The instant the naagloshii had rebounded, I dropped the shield, screaming, “Andi!” and hurled a miniature sun up at the skinwalker’s belly.
Fire erupted in an explosion that lifted the skinwalker another dozen feet into the air, tumbling it tail over teakettle—an expression that makes no goddamned sense whatsoever yet seemed oddly appropriate to the moment. My nose filled with the hideous scent of burning hair and scorched meat, and the naagloshii howled in savage ecstasy or agony as it came tumbling down, bounced hard a couple of times, and then rolled to its feet.
It came streaking toward me, its body shifting again behind its concealing veil, becoming something else, something more feline, maybe. It didn’t matter to me. I reached out to the wind and rain and rumbling thunder around us and gathered a levy of lightning into my cupped hand. Then, instead of waiting for its charge, I turned my left hand over and triggered every charged energy ring I had left, unleashing their deadly force in a single salvo.
The naagloshii howled something in a tongue I didn’t know, and the lances of force glanced off of his veil, leaving concentric rings of spreading color where they struck. A bare second later, I lifted my cupped had and screamed, “Thomas! Fulminas!”
Thunder loud enough to knock several stones loose from the tower shook the hilltop, and the blue-white flash of light was physically painful to the eyes. A thorny network of lightning leapt to the naagloshii, whose defenses had not yet recovered from deflecting the blasts of the force rings. The deadly-delicate tracery of lightning hammered into the exact center of its chest, stopping its charge in its tracks. Smaller strikes, spreading out from the main bolt like the branches of a tree, snapped into the rocky ground in half a dozen places, digging red-hot, skull-sized divots into the granite and flint.
Exhaustion hit me like a hammer, and stars swam in my vision. I had never thrown punches that hard before, and even with the assistance of Demonreach, the expenditure of energy needed to do so was literally staggering. I knew that if I pushed too hard, I’d collapse—but the skinwalker was still standing.
It stumbled to one side, its veil faltering for a second, its eyes wide with surprise. I could just see it going through the naagloshii’s head: how in the world was I hitting him so accurately when it knew that its veil rendered it all but perfectly invisible?
For one quick fraction of a second, I saw fear in its eyes, and triumphant fury roared through my weary body.
The skinwalker recovered itself, changing again. With what looked like trivial effort, it reached down and ripped a section of rock shelf the size of a sidewalk paving stone from the rock. It flung the stone at me, three or four hundred pounds coming at me like a major-league fastball.
I dove to the side, slowed by exhaustion, but fast enough to get out of the way, and as I went, I gathered my will. This time the silver-white streamers of soulfire danced and glittered around my right hand. I lay on the ground, too tired to get back up, and ground my teeth in determination as it charged me for what would, one way or another, be the last time.
I didn’t have the breath to scream, but I could snarl. “And this,” I spat, “is for Kirby, you son of a bitch.” I unleashed my will and screamed, “Laqueus!”
A cord of pure force, glittering and flashing with soulfire, leapt out at the skinwalker. It attempted to deflect it, but it clearly hadn’t been expecting me to turbocharge the spell. The naagloshii’s defenses barely slowed it, and the cord whipped three times around its throat and tightened savagely.
The skinwalker’s charge faltered and it staggered to one side, its veil falling to shreds by degrees. It started shifting form wildly, struggling to get loose of the supernatural garrote—and failing. The edges of my vision were blurry and darkening, but I kept my will on him, drawing the noose tighter and tighter.
It kicked and struggled wildly—and then changed tactics. It rolled up to a desperate crouch, extended a single talon, and swept it around in a circle, carving a furrow into the rock. It touched the circle with its will, and I felt it when the simple magical construct sprang up and cut off the noose spell from its source of power: me. The silver cord shimmered and vanished.
I lay there on the ground, barely able to lift my head. I looked toward the cottage and the safety it represented, standing only forty feet away. It might as well have been forty miles.
The naagloshii ran its talons along the fur at its throat and made a satisfied, growling noise. Then its eyes moved to me. Its mouth spread into a carnivorous smile. Then it stepped out of the circle and began to stalk nearer.
One bloody and spectacular mess, coming up.
Chapter Forty-five
The naagloshii walked over to me and stood there, smiling, as its inhuman features shifted and contorted, from something bestial back toward something almost human. It probably made it easier to talk.
“That was hardly pathetic at all,” it murmured. “Who gifted you with the life fire, little mortal?”
“Doubt you know him,” I responded. It was an effort to speak, but I was used to meeting the rigorous demands of life as a reflexive smart-ass. “He’d have taken you out.”
The skinwalker’s smile widened. “I find it astonishing that you could call forth the very fires of creation—and yet have no faith with which to employ them.”
“Hell’s bells,” I muttered. “I get sick of sadistic twits like you.”
It tilted its head. It dragged its claws idly across the stone, sharpening them. “Oh?”
“You like seeing someone dangling on a hook,” I said. “It gets you off. And once I’m dead, the fun’s over. So you feel like you have to drag things out with a conversation.”
“Are you so eager to leave life, mortal?” the naagloshii purred.
“If the alternative is hanging around here with you, I sure as hell am,” I replied. “Get it over with or buzz off.”
Its claws moved, pure, serpentine speed, and my face suddenly caught on fire. It hurt too much to scream. I doubled up, clutching my hands at the right side of my face, and felt my teeth grinding together.
“As you wish,” the naagloshii said. It leaned closer. “But let me leave you with this thought, little spirit caller. You think you’ve won a victory by taking the phage from my hands. But he was hanging meat for me for more than a day, and I left nothing behind. You don’t have words for the things I did to him.” I could hear its smile widening. “It is starving. Mad with hunger. And I smell a young female caller inside the hogan,” it purred. “I was considering throwing the phage inside with her before you so kindly saved me the bother. Meditate upon that on your way to eternity.”