Ordinarily I wouldn’t have believed someone in his position, but he appeared to be so angry about his brain being fractured by the blood-magic curse that I was certain he was being honest. The expression on his face told me that he knew he’d been betrayed. Yet I felt little sympathy for him. He’d come here to kill and maim innocent people.
I took a step toward the light. “Thank you for the information. I’m going to find this My Liege character, and I’m going to kill him.”
The man laughed and started shaking his head.
“Enjoy the last seconds of your life,” I told him, and stepped into the light, vanishing from the shadow realm and reappearing in the shadows of an overturned car.
The fighting had continued to rage while I was in the shadow realm, with many of the attackers lying dead on the floor. The group I’d been with in Tommy’s office were fighting their own battles all around me. A second truck had arrived, increasing the number of attackers. But Tommy’s people outnumbered those who would hurt them by a considerable margin. The fight wouldn’t take long. I got the impression that wasn’t the point.
One of the attackers aimed a gun in my direction, and a slither of shadow jumped out at him, knocking the gun aside and dragging him down into the shadow realm. I wasn’t sure how many the wraith could feed on at once, but I knew having the boost of two people was better than one. A few seconds later the familiar tingle of power spread through my body, followed closely by a second one. The two men were now gone forever; no traces of them would ever be discovered. I felt no horror or unpleasantness at that thought. Their fates were sealed the second they decided to come after the people I cared about.
A blast of air magic threw another attacker into a car near where Diana stood. She grabbed him with one massive, paw-like hand and punched him in the chest so hard that I heard bones snapping. She released him, and he fell to the floor like a bag of cement. She placed a foot on his head and pushed down, the noise forcing me to look away. Death and blood were staples of my world, but seeing a man’s head crushed like a grape was a step over even my own considerably high threshold of violence.
It didn’t take long until the last of the attackers were mopped up, but as I looked around to find Tommy I heard a roar behind me. I turned as two huge cave trolls tore through the back of one of the two trucks, flinging pieces of metal about and causing several people to dive for cover.
“Where did they come from?” Zamek asked from beside me. He was covered in blood, and the blades of his two axes were drenched in it.
“We’ve got the one on the left,” I shouted to Diana, and tore off toward the smaller of the two cave trolls, although “smaller” is a relative term. It was still nearly eight feet tall and about the width of a tank—which, considering the amount of metal armor that adorned its torso, wasn’t that far off.
Cave trolls are mean and nasty, and enjoy murdering people so that they can feast on their remains. They can also take an incredible amount of punishment before going down. The day wasn’t going to be a fun one.
“I’ve killed cave trolls before,” Zamek told me as we stopped beside a car close to the troll. “We need to get above it. They have a weak spot just behind the neck. If you can keep it occupied, I can get up there.”
“I think I can do that.” I stepped out from behind the car and threw a ball of fire at the troll’s head. It roared in anger and took a ground-shaking step toward me. “That’s right, you big bastard. Come fight me.”
It took another step and roared again, the stink of decay on its breath now able to reach me. I ran to the side, forcing the troll to turn its back on Zamek. I walked back, throwing the occasional ball of fire at the troll to keep the attention on me while Zamek climbed on top of a nearby van and launched himself toward the troll.
For a second I thought that Zamek was going to make it, but the troll must have sensed the dwarf, as it moved quicker than I thought a troll could move, swatting Zamek out of the air and sending him crashing into a nearby wall. The troll turned back to me with rage in its eyes.
Dozens of shadows tore out of the ground, wrapping themselves around the troll, who roared in defiance and continued to walk toward me. I tried wrapping the shadows tighter and tighter, but with every step he made, one of the shadows snapped, forcing me to re-create it. My magic was not an infinite source of power, and even with the boost I’d had from the wraith, I wouldn’t be able to keep up the newly re-formed shadows indefinitely.
I removed the shadows in one go, causing the troll to stagger forward, where I hit it with a blast of air powerful enough to knock the off-balance troll to the ground with an almighty crash. I ran toward the troll, my fist wrapped in dense air, and struck the beast in the side of the head, darting aside a moment later to avoid the swipe of its arm.
The troll climbed back to its feet, and I readied a sphere of spinning air in the palm of one hand, using my fingers to spin the ball faster and faster, until it was a blur of magical power. Only then did I pour my fire magic into the sphere, mixing it with the air and creating a ball of pure magical lightning. It crackled, and air around my hand became superheated as the sphere moved at an incredible speed.
When the troll was up on one knee, I sprinted forward, dodging the poorly swung punch, and drove the sphere into the troll’s chest, where I released the magic it contained. The metal armor that adorned its body did nothing to stop the furious power I’d unleashed. But when it was all over and the magic had dissipated, the troll remained on its feet, albeit unsteadily.
“What do I have to do to kill you?” I said, feeling frustrated. If I used all the magic at my disposal, I was likely to kill the troll but could possibly hurt people who were already injured and being tended to by Grayson’s team of medics.
I cracked my knuckles and raised a hand to the heavens as the clouds above me darkened. There was a clap of thunder. I was about to call down real lightning and mix it with my own magic, creating a power so vast that it caused me physical pain to do it, when Tommy smashed into the troll, taking the creature off its feet. Tommy was still in his werebeast form, and while he was shorter and considerably less bulky than the troll, he was also faster and probably not far off in terms of strength.
The troll tried to push Tommy away, but Tommy avoided the creature’s massive hands and launched himself up at its head, sinking his razor-sharp claws into the flesh and skin of the troll. For a second I thought that Tommy was going to try and rip the creature’s face off, but with a howl born of rage and anger, he tore the troll’s head clean off its shoulders, ripping the skull in two. Tommy breathed heavily for several seconds, and for just a moment I thought the beast had finally won. I wondered whether or not my best friend was still in control.