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He dodged, because of course he did. I was under no illusion I’d be able to defeat him with such a simple tactic, but it did buy me space to fight my way back onto my feet while my body healed.
The thing was, however, that my body just wasn’t healing fast enough. Too many injuries, one right after the other, were slowing down the whole process, not to mention all the energy I’d expended already in battle. Even though I still felt quite capable of fighting, it was clear all of my parasympathetic systems were definitely being affected.
I needed a boost, otherwise the Shrouded Shriek was going to be able to wear me down, bit by bit, until he won. It would be a battle of perdition, and when it came to such things, immortals always won.
And the Shrouded Shriek could not win.
I tried pushing my magic into myself for a moment, splitting it between my shield and my inner workings in a healing wave, and while that helped, earning a fizzing rush of effervescence, it wasn’t enough.
I needed to be a wolf.
I knew it was going to hurt, but it was gonna hurt a lot less than trying to fight with broken ribs. There were few bones that hurt quite so much as the ribs while still allowing motion, and I couldn’t afford that distraction. So, as the Shrouded Shriek pierced my shield and came hurtling downward, I let myself explode out into my wolf form.
I didn’t stay still as I did it, either, throwing myself to the side and allowing my momentum to send me tumbling down the path. When I got back on my feet, I was on all fours, and I took advantage of my new speed by charging the Shriek directly.
He hadn’t expected that, and his power swirled around his hand in a summoning spell. But I launched myself at him, shifting back into my witch body in midair, ignoring the way my skin cracked and my joints popped in painful protest. It hurt, but I knew I’d heal, and that’s what mattered. Besides, I was alive, and so were thousands of Blath citizens who were counting on me. Not to mention my own mate.
Exactly as the Shrouded Shriek was summoning magic to his hand, I called an answering amount into mine, willing the energy to be truly unleashed. Unfettered. Not channeled as fire, or lightning, or water, or ice. Just as pure unadulterated, living energy flowing from the earth. I was tired of the unnatural enchantment of my enemy nullifying my power. It was time to show him what true, uncorrupted magic could do.
Both of our attacks slammed into each other, and for a moment, I truly hoped mine would overcome him. Instead, there was a massive explosion that sent the both of us flying in opposite directions. For what felt like the umpteenth time within just a few minutes, I collided with something solid and slid to the ground, breathing hard.
“I really gotta stop doing that,” I grumbled to myself, happy that I could breathe without too much impingement. It meant at least this time I didn’t have anything broken or punctured. A tiny victory, but not enough. That was the mantra of my fight so far.
The Shriek had already recovered by the time I got to my hands and knees, and I realized I couldn’t win this fight as half a person. Because I wasn’t just a witch, I wasn’t just a wolf, I was both. I was a healer, I was a mate, and I was loved.
I needed to embrace both halves of me if I was going to win, and I had to, no matter what. I didn’t know when I would get an opportunity like this again, and it was incredibly apparent that if the war with Vekas was ever going to end, the Shrouded Shriek needed to be taken out. He was a poison to peace, and peace was what the people of the entire continent deserved.
So, I yanked at my magic again, pulling deep at that well within me. Once, not all that long ago, the power was nearly dried up, completely exhausted from all that I’d demanded from it. But now? Now, it still felt so depthless, like I could use up twice as much and still be ready to fight. The combination of being free of my curse and fully mated to the love of my life was far more potent than I’d ever anticipated.
Once that magic responded, I channeled it into a rush of soothing, healing energy for myself: mending muscles, rejuvenating what was worn down, mending any slight fractures that’d happened since my shift.
I would have given anything for a rejuvenation potion to boost me along, but I had to make do with what I had, and what I had was determination and a can-do attitude regarding the murder of my mortal enemy.
With my body feeling refreshed, I barreled forward yet again toward the Shriek. This time, he stood his ground, and I could feel him gathering energy to enact another attack. But the moment I felt him ready to release it, I burst into my wolf mode again, steam enveloping me as my entire body screamed in agony.
I persevered, however, and that agony was short lived as fur erupted all over my body, and my skeleton shifted, taking on my lupine form. I dodged to the side, going halfway up a wall and pushing off of it to allow myself to sail through the air, and just when it seemed like I was going to collide with my enemy while in the shape of a wolf, I shifted at the last moment and called up the strongest draining spell I could muster.
“With these words they must be fed, with these words I find you dead!” It was a simple invocation—one even a child could learn—but the majority of the spell work was in the mind, on plucking extremely specific strands of magic and weaving them together to lock onto a target and drain it of its energy.
I didn't just cast one. Oh, no. I cast as many as I could all at once, dozens of little fishhooks all flying out at once, burying themselves in the Shriek. Sure enough, all the lines connecting them to me began to glow a sickly, insidious gray-blue-black as they sucked the Shriek’s magic out of him.
But I knew better than to channel that energy into myself. It looked far too much like a poison for me to ever allow it within my being, within that wellspring of energy which fueled so much of what I did.
So, I did something else entirely.
In the time it took me to land on the ground and shove the Shriek back with another shield blow to his chest, I sent a purification spell through every line.
This one bore no invocation, no clever rhyme to denote its function. It was just pure energy work through and through, but I shoved it across as hard as I could, pushing the golden, shimmering magic through the mire of the Shriek’s energy.
They fought for a moment in the middle, a true struggle between opposing forces, but bit by bit, that golden light began to take over more of the line. I knew the Shriek saw it when those unnatural eyes of his shot wider. Wider. Wider than any living creature’s eye should be able to go, until I swore I saw a thousand souls of the damned lurking within those depths.
The Shriek lunged for me, his arms extending as his claws tried to sink into me, but I just popped back into my wolf form again and leaped clear over his head. I wasn't quite high enough to land on the roofs behind him, but I did make it onto the balcony.
My wolf form was trembling, her teeth gnashing at wanting to spill blood with an enemy that had no blood, so when I pushed to go back into my human form again, she acquiesced. For the first time in my entire life, we were truly united and working toward the same goal. There was no separation between us, no resentment for keeping her pushed to the back of my mind, and no fear in taking a form that was supposed to be natural to me. She was me and I was her, and together, we could win. We could end the Shriek’s reign of terror.
The Shriek looked upward, but I was already leaping down to meet him, that same golden energy forming into a sword in my hand. I aimed, ready to cleave him straight through, when his arm shot out once more.
I didn't know why I wasn't prepared for his arm to be impossibly long, but it caught me by surprise when it was twice the length of his body. Suddenly, his cold, amorphous hand was gripping my throat. I stopped dead, my momentum screeching to a complete halt as my entire body jerked against his grip. I could feel his nails sinking into my skin, and though my body tried to rapidly heal against the invasion, the oily, nightmarish cold began to seep out from the punctures, invading my veins in little rivulets of black poison.
