Chapter 1 #3
The Tro’grath’s pin-sized pupils widened at the smell of her blood. It tipped its head back and howled in delight.
“My family will see what I do to you, and they will sing my name for lifetimes.” Another one of those awful smiles stretched its lips. It pointed to the center jewel in its forehead, now glowing. “They will see.”
The hell did that mean?
Pippa urged the magic to move faster. Already, the blood had stopped flowing from her stomach. Another few seconds and she would—
She barely managed to duck beneath the demon’s swinging fist. Her head felt light from the triple impact of heavy magic, pain, and adrenaline, and her body wasn’t moving as fast as it needed to.
The next backhand swipe caught her squarely in the chest. Pippa flew several feet across the warehouse, and when she landed, the scattered bricks didn’t make for a comfortable landing. Two of her ribs snapped on impact, and her breath left her chest in a silent shout.
Snarling, the Tro’grath vaulted through the air and landed on top of Pippa.
She threw out a hand and shoved against the demon’s throat.
Even though her muscles burned and her ribs screamed, she kept her arm extended while she tried to avoid its scraping claws.
Her forearm trembled with the effort of keeping those gnashing teeth at bay.
Saliva dripped from the demon’s fangs and burned as it hit her skin.
The fangs were inching closer, and Pippa could easily imagine the feeling of them sinking into her neck. Claws dug into her side above her hip; hot, rotten breath filled her lungs.
A little thought brushed against her, breaking through the growing fog of fear: Natural magic required concentration and energy.
With every second this fight continued, a little more of her abilities slipped away.
She was already too tired. Too spent. If she became too exhausted to channel the magic around her, it might as well not even be there.
Yet there was that other magic, one that didn’t need nearly as much focus and care as the magic she pulled and molded from the world around her. She only had to let this power out, and it would take care of everything.
No.
Pippa hadn’t hidden away that part of herself for so many years just to give in to it now.
With one desperate pull, Pippa urged the world’s magic up through her body, encouraged heat and fire, and sent it through the hand gripping the demon’s throat.
Flames shot from her palm into its skin, and with a scream, it arched its back in an attempt to pull away.
Pippa brought her legs high and struck out with both feet, hitting the demon squarely in the chest.
It lurched off of her. Clawed fingers scrabbled at the shining blisters ringing its neck.
She tried to grasp more magic, but the demon was already preparing to lunge again. There wasn’t time.
A piece of rebar, about twice the length of her arm, caught her eye beside her shoulder.
She grabbed it, and when the Tro’grath leaped toward her, she used her entire body to swing the bar into the demon’s side.
It connected with a vibration that rattled Pippa’s elbows, and as the creature tumbled onto the concrete, it let out a burbling screech.
Every limb ached, every muscle felt seconds away from collapse. She couldn’t fight much longer.
Magic roiled in the ground beneath her back.
It was there, ready to listen. Pippa called on it with her last scraps of energy and felt the concrete push upward in a wave that sent her staggering to her feet.
Taking advantage of the momentum, she held the length of rebar tight and thrust it down so the rusted steel punctured straight through the center jewel in the Tro’grath’s forehead.
Blood-smeared limbs spasmed. The demon’s throat convulsed in a choked gurgle. One eye centered on Pippa, the pupil having contracted so small she could hardly see it.
“They will . . . come for . . . you,” the demon croaked. Then, with a rattling breath, it fell still.
If Pippa had a dollar for every time some creature promised vengeance or death, she wouldn’t have to be an assistant at a law firm. How nice would it be to have payment for all of this.
She had enough energy for one more bitter thought about the coven before her strength gave out and she sagged to the concrete and flopped to her back.
Pippa reached up to scrape her sweat-damp hair out of her face and, from the feel of it, managed to smear her own blood over her forehead and into her hair. She groaned.
Magic was slower to respond when she was so exhausted.
Instead of racing through her body, it moved like cold syrup.
But it still moved. Warmth oozed over her rib cage, side, and stomach, knitting bone together and closing her skin.
It did best with fleshy injuries, and though her stomach and side would be closed by the end of the night, bone took longer to fully heal.
At least it had done enough so she could breathe without her own ribs knifing a lung.
Pippa rolled to her side and forced herself to her feet. She still had more to do.
According to the Ash Coven, the citizens of New Hawkshead would riot if anyone saw a corpse like the one in front of her. No humans knew that the bus drivers and politicians and grocery clerks lived alongside creatures of myth and nightmare; she had to make sure that did not change.
Her legs wobbled slightly as she stood and held her hands over the Tro’grath’s body. She focused on the flesh, the collection of blood and viscera that was an intrusion on this world. The magic hovering in the air flowed where she directed it, tweaking, changing, burning.
The Tro’grath’s body withered on the concrete as if it were being consumed by flame from the inside. Skin burned red-hot momentarily before it turned to ash, and soon, the entire corpse was nothing more than a charred pile.
Pippa tried to call the wind inside to scatter the remnants, but after all she’d done, she could only manage the barest lazy breeze.
A few clumps of ash twitched and then fell still.
Whatever. If anyone came in, they’d have to look hard to find a pile of dust slightly darker than the other piles of dust.
She staggered from the warehouse into the moonlit warehouse complex.
“They will see.”
The demon’s words slunk back to her. She shook her head, then groaned and pressed a hand to her temple at the resulting headache.
A demon’s dying promise didn’t much matter now. And even if it did, she’d worry about it tomorrow.
Yeah.
Tomorrow will be a better day.