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Time had proceeded only a tiny fraction of a second David hadn’t even reached the far end of the rooht I was being crushed into greasy paste by a force so vast it felt like Earth herself had landed on le breath, for help was almost impossible
Save yourself You can It’s easy
Yes All I had to do was shatter the containment that David had put around the black torch, and it would burn away all my problems
Forever
I held on I don’t kno; it wasn’t inner strength, it wasn’t courage, and it wasn’t anything I could be proud of Maybe it was just paralyzing terror The instant passed, and even though I felt death’s breath on ered; David reached Cynthia’s personal trainer, and thatbreath, rolled on ony My nerves continued to burn, and the entire circuit board of e of overload I hadn’t been hurt that suddenly, that deeply , in a long tihed until I could stop gagging on it
Getting up was like free-cli in a hurricane, but I used an overturned table for support until I could feel ht, somehow
Most ofto hurt later A lot For a long tiot all of that when David screa white, and I lunged for the sofa, where Cynthia Clark still sat frozen in shock by the explosion of violence I shoved her down into the cushions and threw myself on top of her I couldn’t reach the other innocent in the room - her personal assistant - but I extended the fastest, hardest shield of interlocked molecules I could over the woman’s prone body She’d sensibly dropped to the floor and curled into a ball on the rug
No time for any other defenses Whether David had called the fire, or his enemy had, it filled the room like an airburst of napalm I felt the back of my clothes andof plastics and carpet and furniture The flame would have incinerated all three of us if I hadn’t shielded us; mortal flesh would have burned off like flash paper
It had burned the flesh off of David’s opponent
The blast fla a thick swirl of s a skeletal, blackened thing that was certainly not hu that should be dead, and yet was still standing It wasn’t a Deh it had some characteristics that reminded me of the way a Demon’s bones curved and spiked
It looked like it wasto it ht
It was invisible on the aetheric
Ghosts,Venna had nas
David let out a wordless roar of fury and fastened his hands around the creature’s throat
He was glowing like liquid gold, dripping with living fire
But where he touched this thing, his fire went out And darkness began to creep up his arms No, not darkness - oh God , I knehat that was
Ash, and dust
He was being destroyed, just like the Djinn who’d died in the hallway The touch of this thing was toxic to them That Djinn must have come across it soer - and it had killed her
It had erased her
Just as it was trying to do to David
"Let go!" I shouted, and rolled over the top of the couch to land on ered, but I didn’t have time for weakness "David, back off!" David didn’t want to, but he did, breaking away and lunging to his left as I strode forward, gathering up raer in both hands As I rip - notthat left the cutting edge as thin as a whisper
If this thing could survive David’s heat, I wanted to see how it felt about chills
The blade hit, bit, and cut, slicing through fragh crystalline bones that glowed blue where the ice slashed
I chopped right through its neck I paused, holding in h, to see ould happen
The creature’s head stayed on As I watched, it wobbled a bit on the skeletal colulassy vertebrae, then settled back into place
It smiled with needle-sharp crystal teeth If it had ever been huuise, it certainly wasn’t playing at it now This was sohtmare, and I took a step back froet everybody out!" I yelled I could sense this thing orienting on ht noasto be all I could do to protect myself, much less Cynthia Clark and her e up the nonco the ue like a whip attissue, but it moved like a cobra The end was as sharp as a needle, and I barely avoided the stabbing turn of it in h the tongue without any effect at all
Da, at least not with these weapons
I retreated I changed out ice for steel and tried again This tiue, which fell to the floor and writhed like a slug in the sun Whether that hurt the creature or not, it charged me, and I tried to make like a matador That didn’t help It had reach and speed, and what had been its fingers in hu fast
I felt the slices like chilly tugs on my side, but there wasn’t any pain, not at first I didn’t allowthrough the air in pursuit
Then I hit a corner, and there was nowhere left to run I slashed, trying to slow it down, but the creature was just too dah the shield I put up I didn’t have time to try any Earth powers; fire wouldn’t work, and weather tricks wouldn’t buyto lose
A s froed beneath the crystalline structure It lit the creature up like an arc light from within I couldn’t even estimate the heat; it felt like a nuclear bomb compressed to the size of a baseball, forces well beyond my ability to summon, much less coain
The creature shrieked in that horrible, soul-destroying range again and beca within a foot of it - but not an inch beyond The inverse flalittering spark and the creature was gone except for a shower of glittering crystalline powder
A wave of intense pressure passed over me and shoved ht expanded into a softer glow, and as the wave passed overwhere the creature had been, her pink HELLO KITTY sneakers buried in half an inch of crystal powder
She looked worse than I had ever seen her: pallid, trehtened little girl, and I couldn’t help but move toward her I picked her up in my arms, and she shuddered and buried her face in my chest