The voice changed as he spoke that last, and the eyes lightened and brightened as another mind surfaced.I swallowed, feeling ill.“Yeah.”
“But she didn’t challenge,” the thing inside Bleddyn said silkily.“She didn’t do anything for days.But when the elders finally arrived, she fell on us.
“We called on the clans, thousands of warriors, to wipe her and her little band out, but they didn’t come.She’d gotten to the elders already, met them on the road, told them what I’d done, claimed I was too afraid to face him—”
“Weren’t you?”Someone asked, but it wasn’t me.I wondered if my eyes had just changed, too.And if Bleddyn was as weirded out as I was, having two old enemies talking through us.
“I was too important to risk!”the spirit snarled.“Anything can happen in battle, and the clan depended on me.I wasn’t going to gamble it all for some no-name from a backwater clan, who had no right to challenge me!”
“But he did,” my counterpart pointed out.“By Were law, he did.”
“That’s what the elders said when they passed judgment,” he spat.“Said for me and those responsible to face you and an equal number of your clan.Prohibited anyone else from helping us, and left us to fight and die alone!”
“And die you did.”
“You were aCaptain!”the spirit raged.“No one had told me!No one knew!With that ability, you could have bartered for what you wanted, better treatment for your clan, lower payments, titles, lands—anything!I needed one such as you, had since our last Captain died, yet you said nothing!
“Instead, I found out the hard way, when your clan moved like one in combat, when they changed tactics and direction on a dime, when they savaged us even after we broke and ran.And still, you wouldn’t let it be.You had won; my position was forfeit, my clan’s name in the gutter, yet it wasn’t enough!
“You wanted blood for your man, and you got it, leaving me to breathe my last alone, for the crows to pick my bones and the animals to scatter them!But I got something, too.A burning need for revenge that didn’t die, but only banked.And you denying me the fire, the pyre my position had earned, and leaving my spirit to wander and fester instead of being reborn...”The yellow eyes slitted.“Bad idea.”
And so was that, I thought, suddenly remembering what Dave had said about undead mages and how to kill them.And there was plenty of fire around, only it wasn’t strong enough.Not to get through that hide.
Above, whispered through my head, but I didn’t look in that direction.I knew what she meant, but we were only going to get one shot at this, and I couldn’t risk tipping him off.I also couldn’t risk missing.
We have to take him there,I told her.You understand?We have to find the right spot and hold him in place.It’s the only way to be sure.
There was no answer, but there didn’t need to be.We were Lupa.We would die for our clan, if need be, for all the clans, for they were all ours now.
“But tonight, I will scatter your bones!”he roared.“Tonight, I will bring down your clan as you did mine!I will rule the Were world as I once did, and soon after everything else!And your troops are too busy to save you this time,captain.”
“They didn’t save me last time,” she told him.“They held me back.Would not let me feast on my kill.”I felt her lips stretch wide, showing teeth.“But as you say, they are busy tonight.Coward.”
The response was a bellow and a lunge, so fast that I could barely track it with my eyes, much less grab him.But I was going to try, when instead of helping me, my counterpart simply stepped aside.And let his momentum carry him forward a dozen yards before he spun with a snarl.
Just as a stab of light speared down from above, skewering him with a column of fiery purple energy, as if she’d known exactly where it would strike.
For a moment, I just stared as the explosion highlighted every bone in his body.“How—”
The blasts have a pattern to their hits.A rotation.Did you not notice?
“No.”Like I hadn’t noticed her maneuvering him into place, onto a blast mark from a previous strike.
But I noticedthat, I thought, as something began to emerge from the writhing figure in the flames, and was revealed when the ward cut out, leaving a body on fire and charring to a crisp.But not fast enough.Relic bodies take a while to burn, as I’d found out earlier.
Long enough for a certain spirit to escape.
And there were plenty of other Relics here tonight for it to choose from.Plenty of bodies for it to take over.And I didn’t think that trick would work twice.
But as I stood there, exhausted and despairing, it paused halfway out of the burning corpse, almost as if stuck.An amorphous, pale spectre struggling against something it didn’t understand any more than I did.Until I looked around.
And noticed a small woman with a short blonde bob, silhouetted at the entrance to the hole in the shield, her hand extended, her eyes green fire.Jen, battling it out with the creature just as she had with my coat.But this time, I thought there was a good chance she’d lose, because the bastard was still getting away.
Slower now, and pushing against the burning corpse around it like someone trying to escape a too-tight pair of skinny jeans, it was nonetheless tearing free.And what the fuck are you doing?I asked myself.I wasn’t a necro; I couldn’t help her.
But I could damned well help the fire!
“Kimmie!”I yelled, spotting her behind Jen, along with the rest of my students.“Multiply this!”
