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“That is enough," he hissed, his voice still as grating as it had always been, more of a haunting rasp than actual articulation. I had no idea how he could be satisfied with such an accursed existence. Where was the joy in speaking without the ability to sing or hum? What was the joy in living without being able to feel, eat, or sleep? In his quest for endless gain, he had utterly lost everything that mattered in life.
I’d fought so hard to finally have that same everything. I wasn't about to let him ruin it.
“You cannot fight me. I am endless. I am older than time itself, and when you are long dead, I will conquer this world, and all of its power will be mine.”
He was confident, wasn’t he? Too confident. He had the arrogance only a malevolent creature living purely because of greed could have. But that was the thing about pride that Zara had drilled into me so many times when I was young.
It always came before the fall.
“You’re not any of those things,” I managed to gasp out, clawing at where his hand held my neck, though it made no difference. “And when I die, it will be at peace with my loved ones around me. But you…” I drew in a tiny breath of air, about all the Shriek’s grip would allow me to take in. “You are dying today.”
“And how do you plan—”
I didn’t quite give him the chance to finish. I could tell I was running out of air, and I desperately, desperately needed to breathe. So, I reached out for every single strand that I’d connected to the hooks of my draining spell, grabbing them all at once, and yanking them with all I had.
The hooks dug themselves into whatever the Shriek was made of and buried themselves deep. There was a split-second delay between when those magical fasteners thoroughly adhered themselves to my enemy, and when he realized what’d happened. I let myself savor that look of pure, unbridled rage on his face before I poured as much cleansing magic as possible into every single one of those wounds.
The sound the Shriek let out was purely ungodly, rattling down my spine, and I swore it would make my ears bleed. But what was most important was that he dropped me, his ghastly hands scrabbling all over as if he were trying to rip my magical hooks out.
But he couldn't. They weren't something he could actively grasp. They were magic, as ephemeral as he was, and if he wanted them gone, he was going to have to use a spell or counter curse to get rid of them, and to do that, he needed to calm down.
But I wasn't going to give him a chance to. I continued pulling, yanking away whole chunks of my enemy that burst into little clouds of gray ash once they were separated from him before being scattered on the wind. Every time I succeeded in tearing a piece off, I’d pour my cleansing magic into it, filling the darkness with light, quite literally.
Every other time we'd made contact, there’d been a visceral lock placed on my magic, as if so repulsed by the presence of the Shriek’s energy that it was completely nullified. But now nothing of the sort was happening. Now my magic was a burning brand against the insidious rush of the Shriek. It scalded him, ate away at him like acid poured over flesh.
As I burned him, here was what was inside: the gaping, ravenous void of malcontent, of never having enough, thousands of years of never knowing happiness or contentment, a depthless pit of dissatisfaction and greed.
I could sense that he was beginning to come apart at the seams. I was winning.
I thought I had him, I really did. I was breathing hard, my body was on fire from my rapid shifting and all of the abuse it’d taken at the hands of the ancient spell caster, but I was winning!
Yet the Shriek got enough wherewithal to stick his hand out once more. I braced, expecting him to press his advantage while I struggled to cut off my cleansing spell right in the middle of a surge of it. But he didn't attack me.
This time, he summoned a black blade to his hand, but it was less so the actual dark color, more like a complete and total absence of light, of life, and it was with that negative space of a blade that he cut through all the magical lines I’d attached to him.
I stumbled back, as if the severing of my spell were a physical force that’d actually knocked me off balance. Nausea overwhelmed me, and I was suddenly aware I was growing increasingly exhausted. I needed to boost myself again, but I didn’t see how I would be able to carve out the seconds to do that in the middle of a battle with the strongest magic user in all of our history.
Panting, I looked to the Shrouded Shriek. His form had been diminished, and he was still hemorrhaging energy, so it wasn’t like everything was a loss. I still had the upper hand as long as I played my cards right.
I prepared to fight further, bracing myself as best I could. I was determined to ensure that only one of us was going to walk away from the fight. But before I could so much as take a step forward, the Shriek shot up into the sky in that same gray, billowing pillar, before streaking across the sky, straight back toward... Camdaria?
No, that couldn't be right. He had to be heading back toward Vekas, yet he had taken the complete opposite direction, and there had to be a reason why. Even in a hasty retreat, he’d purposefully chosen that direction.
Part of me wanted to chase after him, but I knew I didn't have the ability. I was still far too corporeal, and I wasn't willing to give that up like the Shriek had over the years. I liked having a body, I liked its joys, and I liked the trials that came with it.
So, I watched him go, trying not to despair that my enemy had survived me, instead taking solace in the fact that I had survived him. But as I stood there, I belatedly remembered there was a whole different type of battle taking place.
Turning, I began to limp back toward the beach. I wasn't sure what injury I’d sustained that caused the unevenness in my gait, but I also felt the adrenaline wearing off and my body's protesting to all my repeated shifts. It wasn't easy to do in the best of circumstances, and I was fairly rusty at taking my wolf form. In the future, I was going to be better at that. I swore to myself I would enjoy and revel in all of me, not just the tiny pieces that my coven and other people had deemed convenient.
I hadn't quite made it over the ridge leading from the residential area to the more commercial beach front and dock area when Darla came running up to me. I had no idea just how far the Shriek had thrown me, and suddenly the pain in my leg made a lot more sense. If I had to guess, it was actually my lower back that was the source of the injury, but I could diagnose myself later.
“Ayla!” my friend cried, rushing forward in relief with her arms open.
I let myself collapse into her, holding on for dear life. I didn't quite feel like crying, but I was incredibly overwhelmed, not just at the disappointment and shame of not having finally destroyed the Shrouded Shriek, but the happiness at seeing my best friend safe and intact, although she was absolutely filthy. I was sure that was blood caked onto the side of her face—blood that smelled like hers. I was worried for my mate but soothed that I could still feel him healthy and alive through our bond. It was a heady cocktail of sensations and impulses, but it felt so much easier to weather in the arms of my best friend.
I had been so foolish to try and push Darla away for so long. I knew that I’d been so scared, and that my curse had complicated things far more than a younger, less experienced Ayla could ever understand, but it was connections to my fellow cryptids, and the family we'd built together, that gave me the strength to do what I'd always assumed was impossible. I wouldn't be alive without them; I knew that through and through.
“The battle,” I said through deep, unsteady breaths. It was only a fragment of an idea, and yet my friend understood exactly what I meant, and not just because of her psychic powers, but because she understood me at a level none of the previous caretakers in my life had ever tried to. We'd been through hell and back together, and it felt like nothing could stop us.
