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taken from one of the demons.
Morfran’s axe ripped through the air with an eerie whistle. The hit split Bran’s spear shaft in half and plunged into his shoulder. Blood spurted. He wheeled, unnaturally quick, plucked the axe from Morfran’s hands, and snapped the wooden shaft.
Morfran’s body fell apart into a tempest of floating black feathers. The feathers sucked themselves upward in a reverse tornado and solidified into an enormous black crow. Cold magic flooded us. Devoid of life, it may as well have spilled from outer space through a crow-shaped hole in the atmosphere. Frost licked my skin.
The crow’s claw gripped a huge bronze cauldron.
Bran scooped a handful of metal garbage and hurled it. Jagged metal trash bit into the crow, puncturing his neck and back with a hoarse whine. Dark blood rolled from the jet feathers in fist-sized globules. The spheres detached from Morfran’s flesh and hung in the air, shimmering in the light of the dying sun.
Bran hurled the contents of his other hand. A single piece sparkled and bit deep into the crow’s back—Morfran’s own axehead.
The crow screamed.
Like a drop of molten metal, the cauldron fell from his claws. A wail of pure rage sliced across my mind.
Beneath the cauldron’s feet the earth sighed, opened like a hungry mouth, and belched more Fomorians into the light. They swarmed Bran.
I hacked into them. Beside me the shapeshifters tore them to shreds, but there were too few of us and too many of them. I could not longer see Bran—he was buried beneath a heap of Fomorian bodies.
The heap of demons fell apart. Bloody and battered, Bran heaved an ornate lid free of the dirt. It looked so tiny in his giant hand, no bigger than a Frisbee. Enormous pressure clasped me. My chest constricted.
My bones groaned. Around me the shapeshifters and the Fomorians fell screaming in pain.
Bran strained. Blood gushed from his wounds and with a terrible bellow he slammed the lid down onto the cauldron.
The pressure vanished. Bran grinned, pulled the lid open, and vanished in a puff of mist. The lid went with him. That’s it, I realized. He has returned the lid to Morrigan and now he was done. But we, we still had a field of demons to clear.
“Kate!” The howl made me turn. Thirty yards away I saw Derek pointing a bloody clawed hand behind me. I spun and saw a familiar little figure on the cross, thrust into the ground only yards away. Julie.
I scrambled over bodies to get to her. A shadow fell over me. I looked up in time to see a huge beak the color of polished iron strike at me. Morfran, still a crow. Boxed in by the Fomorians, I had no place to go. I dropped to my knees, ready to plunge Slayer into Morfran’s gut. The crow blotted out the sun and froze as huge clawed hands clasped its wings.
With a roar that shook the Fomorians, Curran ripped into the crow. “Go!” he screamed. “Go!”