Why not? It was more fun than just taking them with us while we slowly drained them.
“You wanted to make them afraid.” He got off on it. Maybe even derived a power from their fear.
Ding, ding, ding. Give the woman a prize.
He could have made his victims, the human sized milk shakes, disappear with none of the spooks the wiser. Instead he’d left his victims in public places where they were bound to be discovered.
I can see those wheels turning,he said as he drifted closer to the invisible line under the oak’s branches.You’re so close.
It would have been safer and wiser to kidnap them rather than wait for them to wake and compelling them to his side. The witches and Inara both suspected the culprit was demon tainted. He was like a serial killer who felt the need to show off, wanting everyone to know what he’d done.
“You don’t just feed off your victim’s fear but the community’s as well,” I guessed.
He snickered.Very good. It’s not as sustaining as a direct feed, more like a delicate dessert. One that’s meant to be nurtured and then savored.
He pressed against the invisible barrier, pushing and pushing. Cracks started appearing, emerald and silver and electric blue.
Those were not colors I normally associated with my magic.
Something tugged at me. I remembered those colors. I stepped away from the oak and looked up at it. I remembered this oak.
Liam. Peter.
I had a link to them. One both had put on me without my permission.
I reached, trying to grasp their magic. Like mine had previously, they slipped and slid from my grip, stubbornly remaining just out of reach.
The cracks next to the demon widened and he advanced a step.
I reached again, pulling and pushing and insisting. They slid further away.
The demon reached for me. I backed away.
Once again. This time I didn’t reach; I didn’t coax. I yanked, forcing the powers up and to me. Peter’s came first, pulling like a fractious horse. Mine was little better, acting like water draining from a sieve. Liam’s followed mine, shadowing it and forming a barrier as it threatened to leak away from me again.
I growled. I would not die when I had the means to survive right within my grasp. I mashed them together, having no idea what I was doing, going off instinct.
Three was better than one, so I combined them, forcing them to meld and then pushing them out and away from me in an ever expanding arc.
What’s this?
The magics hit the demon, yanking him up and away. He resisted, using his own black smoke to bat them away. They persisted. When one threatened to fail, the other two fell into the gap, gradually overwhelming him and forcing him back, biting at his smoke until little of him remained except a black spot on the ground.
His laughter trailed behind him.Marvelous. Simply marvelous. We’ll have to do this again sometime.
I opened my eyes to fighting. Peter’s face was above mine, his hand on my stomach.
Brax and Liam were up and attacking Elinor, who rebuffed their attempts with mad laughter. Brax was in half beast form and standing upright. His head was mostly wolf, with ears and snout and fangs. His arms a cross between man and wolf, longer than normal and tipped with lethal looking claws. He looked like a b-movie wolf man, only much more real.
Liam had vamped out, his eyes glowing a surreal blue, his fangs bared.
A small, reddish wolf wove in and out of Elinor’s reach, snapping and trying to draw blood but being forced back before she could do any real damage.
The three of them moved in a blur. Elinor’s hand flashed out, leaving strips of flesh hanging off Liam’s chest. She glided away from Brax’s lunge and shoved him, sending him crashing into the wall.
They were losing.
I could see the black tendrils draining their power and feeding it to her. As they got weaker, she got stronger.
