I cursed. How had she obtained that information? “If you know that, then you wouldn’t want to suffer Lucifer’s wrath by interfering.”
“Oh, I think I’ll risk it.”
The woman slipped easily from the horse and reached back to slide two swords from sheaths at her back, their sharp blades glinting in the sun.
As good as I was with throwing together quick potions, I wasn’t particularly skilled at hand-to-hand combat. Yet, I reached into my cloak with nimble fingers for a vial of fossilized stegosaurus egg and a packet containing powdered harpy’s claw.
“If we’re going to fight over him, may I at least know your name?” I asked, wanting to be polite just as much as I wanted to delay the inevitable.
“You already know my name, witch,” the woman sneered. “But perhaps you mean this meat puppet I’m wielding? That’s a different matter altogether.”
Meat puppet?I peered at her closely. Of course. The necromancer was controlling a dead body. Some unfortunate witch who’d stumbled upon her, I’d wager.
“Honestly, I haven’t the slightest idea what her name is,” Ambrosia continued, speaking through the dead woman’s lips. “It’s of little consequence in the end, wouldn’t you agree? Why give names to mere tools?” She continued, “Which is why I don’t care to know your name, either. You’ll be dead in short order, and you’ll make for another little meat soldier.”
Well. That wasn’t very polite at all. I lifted my chin. “If your prowess with that body is anything like how you handled those trees, I rather doubt it. You had an entire forest at your disposal, and you couldn’t even slow me down.” I watched her eyes narrow and resisted the urge to smile. Good. Opponents were much easier to handle when they were blinded by emotion. Anger was the easiest to stoke. “A shame that such power is wasted on one so inept.”
Ambrosia gritted her host body’s teeth and threw her cloak back over her shoulders, revealing two more arms beneath it. Two. More. Arms.
I gawked at her; the thick black stitches where these extra limbs met the body stood out starkly against her flesh. She pulled a battle-axe from a fold in her cloak with one arm, while the other retrieved a hand sickle.
She smiled wide at my stricken face. “Not so spirited now, are you? You have the misfortune of meeting me in the body of a woman known as The Butcher of Wayward Souls.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” I said, hands deftly dumping the ingredients into an open palm behind my back, “since I have no soul at the moment.”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “No soul?”
“Is that a loophole?” I asked hopefully.
In reply, she took a step toward me, twirling one of her swords overhead.
“No, I wouldn’t be so lucky,” I muttered as she took two more steps in my direction before charging me. She held her sickle ahead of her, while her other three weapons pulled back, as if ready to strike.
I tossed the ingredients of my spell at her feet. “Natare in harenae,” I shouted, stepping back and instinctively throwing my arms up before my face, bracing myself for a blow from the woman’s blades.
But the spell went into effect immediately, and she began to fly at me in slow motion, as if wading through molasses. The pod at my chest flared briefly as the magic depleted slowly, like sand from an hourglass. Thankfully flying on my broom hadn’t drained too much energy, but I still wouldn’t be able to keep this up for too long. I let out a sigh of relief as I watched her move an inch forward in the time she should have cut me down the middle and wiped her blade clean. I stepped around her, thankful to have that rather intimidating obstacle out of my way, before shifting my attention to the horse where Auggie lay.
I was startled to find a figure standing nearby, observing us. It was all black, like a cloud in the shape of a woman, with a black headdress that reminded me of a nun. Although it seemed to stand still as a statue, black mist roiled from its body in undulating waves. This would be the same figure that had appeared at the portal when the coach had been attacked. I could feel the power radiating from this creature from where I stood, hair standing on end. It felt wrong. Evil.
An arm shifted and gestured to the horse skeleton and the horse made for the figure silently.
This would be the witch Ambrosia’s true form then.
“You will let my charge go,” I told her, stalking in her direction.
Ambrosia tilted her head my way, a black cloud rising from her sharply as if affected by her mood. A curious humming surrounded her. “No, I will not.” Her voice was low and smoky, distorted. She waved a hand, and my feet stopped in their tracks. I blinked, staring down at my boots. I yanked on them to no avail, which was odd, since I could clearly feel my toes squirming. I seemed to have total control over my feet, yet they were stuck.
“What do you think leather is made of?” Ambrosia asked. She let out a laugh that was at odds with her somber demeaner. It was still throaty but mocking. “All you humans and witches are the same, draping yourselves in dead things as you saunter into my domain. Not a clever one among you.”
I yanked on my feet even harder, but my boots had grounded me, trapping my feet tightly within them. I had to have a spell to release them. Indeed, there was one to negate magics in the area, but that would also free the four-armed body Ambrosia had been wielding, and I wouldn’t be any better off in those circumstances.
Ambrosia’s face was still obscured by black fog, as if she, herself, were an apparition made entirely of liquid tar. She took two steps toward me, and I let out a deep breath in an attempt to calm my racing heart. She didn’t seem to walk so much as …floattoward me. The black mist seemed to reach out toward me, as if wanting to taste me, and for a moment, I saw a woman’s shape behind it, as if through a veil. The droning noise grew louder, and I focused on the mist. It was buzzing. Flies. She was surrounded by so many that they were a cloud, draping her body. I shivered involuntarily as the flies gracefully retracted to their master.
Dead flies, of course.
“He’s worth nothing,” I proclaimed, gesturing to Auggie. “He’s just a boy whose soul will be claimed in short order. His life only means something to me.”
Ambrosia paused at that, then smirked. “And yet, Lucifer isn’t the only one who wants him.”
