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I retreated, still riffling through my pockets for my cell – where the hell was it? – when I bumped into something. I whirled, brandishing Vanitas in front of me. Good thing I didn’t swing him any further – it turned out that I’d bumped into Asher.
“I told you to hang back,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“I said I could help, but you wouldn’t listen.”
He pulled something out of his pocket, then lifted it to the sky. His hand pulsed with the sickly green energy of his necromantic power, and from between his fingers shone the blood-red glow of the Heartstopper.
“What the – where did you – ”
“Picked it up at Nirvana,” he muttered. “Also: get out of the way.”
I obeyed and hauled ass immediately. Asher yelled as he thrust his arm forward, directing the fused forces of his own gift and the Heartstopper’s magic in a braided twine of arcane power. My eyes scanned the hillside, waiting for his magic to take effect. It exceeded anything and everything I’d expected.
One by one, the bloodied and broken bodies of the homunculi rose from the earth, balefully resurrected by Asher’s necromantic energies. The Heartstopper must have preserved them as he prepared a reanimation spell powerful enough to affect nearly a hundred corpses.
I stood and watched, aghast, as the risen dead joined the fight against the shrikes. The homunculi demonstrated their unholy strength in full force, quite literally tearing the abominations apart, tentacle by tentacle, limb from limb, using nothing but their bare hands.
“Holy shit, Asher.”
“Well done,” Carver called out from across the way, his eyes sparkling with all of a father’s pride. “Brilliantly played, Asher.”
Asher grunted as he hefted the stone up high, wielding it like a weapon, a torch. His eyes bulged with terror, shock, and exhilaration, like this was his first true taste of power. I couldn’t have been more relieved. The extra bodies he raised meant that we finally had a fighting chance against the shrikes.
“Join the others,” Carver said, pointing at Sterling and Gil. “Asher and I will stay back. We need him to maintain the reanimation spell as long as he can. I’ll protect him.”
“Copy,” I said, rushing into the gap that vampire and werewolf had so surgically hacked among the shrikes.
Thea stood among them, still motionless, still without having cast any magic of her own. As I moved closer, I realized it was because she was incanting. Her lips formed around whispered words as she stared sightlessly, far beyond the battlefield, as if addressing something – or someone – that we couldn’t see.
A black, shaggy creature tore past me, roaring and growling. I yelped and leapt backwards. Sterling threw his hand over my chest, pushing me back.
“Stay out of Gil’s way. It takes more effort for him to distinguish friend from foe when he’s like this. I can heal out of it if he slashes me by accident, but you?”
“Got it,” I said, eyeing Gil carefully. He was unstoppable when he went full dog, the term we casually tossed around the Boneyard to describe his full transformation into a lycanthrope. It sounded cute, but was ultimately completely inappropriate considering the carnage he wrought each time he entered the wolf state. “I have to deal with Thea,” I continued. “She’s planning something, but I don’t know what.”
“No. We’ll deal with Thea.” Sterling pushed me again as he gracefully dodged a tumble of limbs and tentacles – a shrike and a homunculus locked in mortal battle, ripping each other to pieces. “The others have this under control. We need to stop her before she completes her ritual.”
We threw ourselves at Thea, raining down an assault from either side, me striking with Vanitas, and Sterling raking at her with his claws. Though making no sound, Thea’s lips continued to move with increasing speed, her eyes calculating the angles of our blows. She whirled in place as she incanted, her hands lifting to erect shields of blazing light, deflecting both blade and talon with unearthly precision.
Sterling, with his preternatural reflexes, found an opening between the shields somehow. He slashed, and Thea faltered, three lines of black blood blooming on her torso. She looked down at herself, momentarily stunned, but recovered quickly enough to conjure a spear of light, her teeth bared in anger.
“Sterling,” I shouted. “Get out of the – ”
Thea was always fast. The spear left her hand, soaring like a rocket, slamming into Sterling’s chest and throwing him off his feet. He screamed, clutching at the beam of solid light piercing his torso, struggling.
At least he wasn’t dead. That was the only consolation. Maybe Thea missed his heart. But this was my opportunity. I slashed Vanitas in a wide arc, aiming for her head. Thea lifted her hand again, her fingers supporting a shield crafted magically out of solid light.
I twisted my strike at the last moment, catching her at the wrist.
The slash severed her hand. I watched with dark satisfaction as it landed in the grass at her feet, fingers twitching, talons raking at the earth. Thea screamed, her eyes widening at the stream of thick, black blood dripping from the stump that was once her arm.
Then she locked eyes with me. Her horror turned into glee, and her screams warped into piercing laughter.
Chapter 28
I looked on in revulsion as the meat of Thea’s stump began to move. Sinew and muscle wriggled like little black worms, knitting and stitching even as she laughed. Bones erupted in slivers from the weaves of her ebony flesh, providing structure for her fingers.
Thea raised her hand in my face as a perfect layer of alabaster skin formed over it. Every finger looked pristine. New.
