HAVEN
The flames coating my fists warm my hands as I square off with the demon. Its mouth is stretched wide in what I think must be its version of a grin, showing off its rows of jagged teeth.
Terror lodges in my throat and gut, thick and suffocating, but I force it down. There’s no place for it here.
Stoking the magic within like Becks taught me, I let it radiate through me, cycling around and around as it grows in intensity.
I’m not ready for this battle, I know that, but it’s happening, so this monster is about to learn how much fight I have in me. I’m bringing this demon down.
Or going to die trying.
The demon pauses about ten feet from me.
“Finally,” it says, the word a deep rumble that resonates in my chest.
And then it strikes.
I should have been prepared, but I’m still a little too slow when it lunges, smoke and muscle colliding with me in a blur of force that sends me skidding backward across the snowy ground.
The world jolts as I hit the ground, breath exploding from my lungs, but I’m already moving, already pulling fire back into my palms as I rise up to one knee.
I hurl it without thinking. A torrent of magenta and purple flames rips across the space between us and slams into the demon’s chest.
It shrieks, the sound sharp this time. Real.
Heat scorches my arms as I pour more magic into it, feeding the flames until they burn so bright I almost can’t look anymore.
The demon staggers a step back, blackened flesh cracking and reforming where the fire licks the longest.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement: Becks, fighting savagely against coils of living smoke and the mist wrapped around his limbs. He roars, fury and fear bleeding into the sound, straining toward me even as the darkness drags him down.
I grit my teeth and unleash another wave of fire, getting to my feet as I drive the demon back another step.
It’s working.
At least a little. More than it did for Becks.
That’s when the demon smiles, grotesque and knowing.
It angles its arms forward and a stream of black smoke shoots from the ends of its pointed fingers. The smoke wraps around my flames, smothering them as it heads for me.
Panicked, I send even more magic at it, pulling from wells inside of me I didn’t even know existed. Something rattles inside me, demanding to be freed, but it’s too late, because the darkness reaches my hands and wraps around them, completely cutting off my magic.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Before I have a chance to run, the darkness winds up my arms, covering them, then down my torso and legs until I’m completely wrapped in darkness, bound as tightly as Becks.
As the demon’s magic lifts me into the air, I realize with sudden, horrifying clarity that it was just playing with me, like a cat playing with a mouse before it eats it.
I never stood a chance, and it always knew it.
Even so, I scream, struggling against my binds that only squeeze tighter with every movement.
This can’t be it. It can’t be over. I have too much to live for.
The demon draws me closer until I’m hovering in the air in front of it, with Becks at my back. I can’t see Becks, but I can feel his fury, his desperation in his roars. He’s fighting with everything in him to get to me, but it’s not enough. The demon is simply too powerful for us.
Getting in my face, the demon lifts one hand and runs the tip of its finger lightly down the side of my face. The end is so sharp it splits my cheek, and blood flows freely, dripping off my chin.
