The boards creaked. She was moving Torch in my direction. A wound to the stomach would do nothing to him and the collar kept me from slicing his neck. Not a lot of choices. If this failed, he’d burn us alive.
Torch passed by the door.
Now.
I lunged out of the room and clamped my left arm across his throat, pulling his back snug against me. Fire shot along his skin. I slid Slayer between his ribs into his heart and whispered a word into his ear.
“Hessad.” Mine.
The world shook, as all of the magic I’d gathered tore from me at once. Pain streamed through my body, wringing tears from my eyes. Torch’s mind opened before me, hot like boiling metal. I clamped it, dousing the flames, and smashed against the solid wall of Erra’s presence. Her mind punched me and I reeled.
The immense force of her mind towered over me. Nobody was that powerful. Nobody.
Was that what looking into my father’s mind would be like? If so, I didn’t have a fucking prayer.
I pushed back, a gnat against colossus. An immense pressure grinding against me, sparking pain. I hung on, clenching my hand on Slayer’s hilt. If I held it in his heart long enough, the blade would turn the undead tissue to pus. I just had to last.
Torch spun, lifting me off my feet. Fire licked my chest. “You shame the family. Weakling. Coward, who runs from the fight like a mangy dog.”
I gritted my teeth against the pain and pushed back with my mind, extinguishing the flames. “It wasn’t my idea. I had you and I would’ve killed you.”
Hard fingers gripped my left wrist and pulled, slowly moving my arm from his throat. I strained. The moment he got free, he’d pull Slayer out and then we’d be done for.
“You dare to wrestle with my mind? I’m the Plaguebringer. Gods flee when they hear me coming.”
“If my hands weren’t busy, I’d clap for you.”
Slayer gave under my hand, slightly loose in the rapidly liquefying undead tissue, and I jabbed it deeper into the wound. Erra grunted, a harsh sound of pain.
“Did that hurt? How about this?” I twisted the blade.
A fiery hammer hit my mind, tearing a groan from me. Heat shot from Torch. The air around me boiled. Fire spiraled up his legs.
“Did that hurt, whelp? I’ll cook you alive. You’ll beg me to kill you when your eyes pop from the heat.”
Torch threw himself back, smashing me against the wall. I hung on to him like a pit bull. A few more moments. It didn’t hurt that much. I just had to hold on for a few moments.
Erra slammed into the other wall. Something crunched in my back.
A dark shape sprang from Ted’s office and sprinted to us. Erra saw it. Flames filled the hallway. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe.
An enormous black dog shot through the fire. I saw eyes glowing with blue fire and ivory fangs. The creature smashed into Torch.
My mental defenses shuddered. I was done.
The giant dog clamped his teeth on Torch’s arm and hung on. Torch shook him like a terrier shakes a rat, but the dog clung to him, dragging him down.
A second shape burst through the fire, this one pale and spotted. Deranged blue eyes glared at me from a face that was neither hyena nor human, but a seamless fluid blend of the two. Andrea buried her claws in Torch’s gut. We crashed on the floor, Torch on the bottom, me on top.
The world drowned in pain, melting into hoarse snarls.
The flesh under Slayer’s blade gave. I strained, forcing the saber through the soggy undead heart. The blade ground against ribs and burst out in a spray of dark fluid. The undead blood splashed on my lips and its sting tasted like heaven.
“I’ll kill you,” Erra gurgled. “I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth—”
I smashed my foot into Torch’s neck, crushing the windpipe.
The awful pressure on my mind vanished.
I closed my eyes and floated in a long moment. Absence of pain was bliss.
And then an ache gnawed at my arms. My eyes snapped open.
A sleek creature rose from the Torch’s stomach. Petite, proportionate, with elegant long limbs and well-shaped head, she was a perfect meld of human and hyena. Dark blood drenched her hands armed with long claws, staining her spotted forearms all the way to the elbow. Furious red eyes gazed at me from a human face seamlessly flowing into a dark muzzle.
She’d changed to save me.
Andrea’s dark lips trembled, showing the sharp cones of her teeth. “God damn it.”
She kicked Torch’s corpse, knocking it off me, and kicked it again, sending it flying into the wall. “You bitch! Mother-fucking whore.”
I sat up and watched her punt and throw his body, spouting profanities. Being part bouda, she fought driven by rage. The quicker she let it out, the quicker she would be able to calm down enough to change back.
The enormous black creature lay down next to me and licked my foot.
“Grendel?” I asked softly.
The hell-dog whined softly in a distinctly Grendel-like fashion.
My attack poodle turned into a huge black hound with glowing eyes and shaggy fur. Figures.
The light dawned. The Black Dog. Of course. It was an old legend from so many cultures nobody knew exactly where it came from. Stories of giant Black Dogs with shiny eyes haunting the night have been passed around for years, especially in the United Kingdom and northern Europe. Nobody quite knew what they were, but when captured, they scanned as “fera,” animal magic. Animal magic registered as a very pale yellow. When the medtechs scanned, their scanner must’ve failed to pick it up.
Andrea growled a few feet away. Grendel whined again and tried to stick his baseball-sized nose into my hand. Around us the office smoldered.
We’d beaten her again. Three undead down. Four to go.