This was the Skeal Eile Pan knew, arrogant and dismissive. The boy began to advance on him anew, enraged. But once again the runes of his staff blazed and a fresh uneasiness washed through him.
He stopped once more, trying to decide what was wrong. The demon was here. It had to be. Close by. It felt as if it were right in front of him.
His gaze fastened on Skeal Eile. Right in front of him. Skeal Eile, for all intents and purposes, but yet not quite as Pan remembered him. Something was different—enough so that he realized the truth. He took a quick breath. He had almost missed it, almost given himself over to his worst enemy. This wasn’t the Seraphic he was dealing with,
even if that was how it appeared. It wasn’t the Seraphic who was standing there, speaking to him.
It was the demon.
The confrontation that Prue had warned him about was happening right now, and he hadn’t even been aware of it.
He had just enough time to whip the staff around in front of him like a shield, the magic flowing through its length and into his body, his startled recognition changing to steely determination as the demon attacked. It must have seen something in his eyes or read it in his body language, but it acted quickly, arms extending in a billowing of black robes, fire lancing out in a wicked green wave. The magic slammed into Panterra and threw him backward, knocking him off his feet to sprawl among the dead. It washed over him like a blanket that would smother him, sucking away all the air, its heat intensifying as it pressed downward. Pan fought back with his own magic, using the staff to keep the flames at bay, fighting to gain space and time.
When the attack broke off, a sudden cessation of sustained effort, Pan rolled away from the place to which he had been pinned and surged back to his feet. But at once the attack began anew, this time in a series of sharp bursts that struck with such force his bones rattled. He fought this attack off, too, but it drained his energy and left him shaking. The demon was giving him no chance to react to what was happening. He was fighting a defensive battle, and the effort he was expending kept him from mounting any sort of counteroffensive.
“Put down the staff, Panterra!” the demon shouted at him, striking out once more, using blades of fire this time, spear points that lanced and cut like steel edges. “You can’t harm me. You can’t defeat me. Don’t be foolish. Lay down the staff, and I will let you live. The staff is all I care about.”
He kept coming toward Pan as he attacked, getting steadily closer. Pan was being wrenched about, knocked over each time he sought to gain his feet, pressed backward as if by a great wind. He managed to keep the staff between himself and the demon, fending off each punishing blow it delivered, but he could do little else.
“Are you listening?” the demon called out. “Time isn’t something you have to waste, boy. Better that you do as I say before I am forced to turn you to dust. What a shame it would be if you failed to protect that little girl who thinks so much of you.”
Pan clenched his teeth, trying to respond. But he couldn’t speak.
“Your friends are all dead, Panterra. Did you know that? The girl is all that’s left. If you want to keep her safe, lay down the staff. Don’t be a fool. Do it now.”
Whatever else he did, it would not be that. His hands tightened on the length of black wood, feeling the steady pulse of the runes against his skin, and he fought his way back to his feet once more.
PRUE LISS WAS STILL CROUCHED behind the rocks at the entrance to the pass when Panterra Qu appeared from out of the fading night. She watched him approach the killing field and the waiting demon. She had thought to go to him right away when she saw him, but Aislinne had pulled her down again, shaking her head. Wait, she had mouthed silently.
When Pan had begun speaking with the demon, assuming it was Skeal Eile, Prue almost went to him again. But then the demon did something to give himself away, and Pan summoned the magic of the black staff just in time to save himself. From there, the battle had escalated quickly until now the mountain air was thick with smoky residue from expended magic, the smell bitter and strong in her nostrils, the taste metallic on her tongue.
I have to do something to help him, she thought.