AN INHUMAN SOUND tore from my throat. A shriek, a growl, a roar that an animal would make. It ripped out of me as I lunged toward Daniel and the nurse monster, and it yanked the magick with it.
A gout of fire jolted from the end of the stick, crashing into the nurse monster like a shotgun blast, driving her off Daniel and into the wall. I kept screaming, kept pouring fire, magick rumbling through my veins in an avalanche. She curled into a ball, trying to hide, but the flame covered her, roiling against her like a blast furnace. Her skin turned black, cracking open as she wailed. Something boiled inside the cracks, bubbling out in hissing clouds of steam as her flesh turned to cinder and crumbled, leaving behind the blackened sticks of a deformed skeleton.
It took seconds. By the time I reached Daniel, the deed had been done.
I hit my knees beside him, ignoring the pain of kneecaps on hard linoleum, ignoring the puddle of slimy monster spit he lay in. He sprawled on his back, his fingers still locked around the gnarled metal pole he’d used to fend off the nurse, drenched with sweat and saliva, his hair dark and wet with goo. Blood soaked the shoulder of his shirt, but I couldn’t see a wound. His skin had gone pale, his lips blue, and even through his closed lids I could see his eyes jittering wildly back and forth. Clenching internally, I cut the magick running to the stick, and it snuffed out with an air-sucking sound. My arm went dead, feeling like a sack overfull with liquid. Shaking it to the side, I reached out to Daniel with the other.
Please let him be okay.
I pulled his head into my lap. His eyes fluttered open.
“Hey, Charlie,” he said, his voice hoarse, “you all right?”
His sweaty hair stuck to his forehead. I brushed it back, nodding. “How are you?”
“Tired. My shoulder hurts like hell, but I’m still good to go.” His eyes widened, white showing around green irises as he struggled to sit up. “Where’s the Master? I have to help him if he needs it.”
Pushing him down, I looked around. The Man in Black had freed himself from the liquefied tumor and now faced the two remaining nurse monsters. He pushed off the floor, spinning into an inhuman leap across the room, flying in a swirl of bat-wing black, sword blade licking out like dark lightning. It cleaved deep in a quick line, lopping free the top halves of both monsters’ skulls. A geyser of red pulp sprayed up and out, striking the ceiling, soaking into the acoustic tiles. The Crawling Chaos spun his sword in an arc, slinging gore from the edge of the blade. He turned, shark teeth smiling through a mask of runny, scarlet liquid.
“I think he’s okay,” I told Daniel.
The next second he was beside us. Not kneeling. No, he stood, impossibly tall, his coat whispering around him in tattered tendrils.
I wish he would quit doing that.
“Stand, minion. I am not done yet, and I have need of thee.”
“Back off him! He’s injured.” The snarl hurt my face.
Nyarlathotep’s face flushed dark. Magick crackled, dripping off his red right hand. “Acolyte.”
I tensed, my body tight with anger, with the desire, the need, to protect Daniel. A thought sent a spark of magick down my arm. I felt it as a relief, an ease of pressure in my skin as pent-up energy gushed forward and into the firebrand. It was intuitive, as natural as breathing. My palm hurt, the torc buzzed my throat, and the stick lit like a torch, the flame an eye-searing acetylene blue.
I rose into a crouch, holding my weapon between us. “Back. Off.”
“You threaten me, Acolyte?” The Man in Black slid back, his sword held ready to swing. “Bold.” Magick dripped off his hand and ran down the sword in trickles of etheric energy, making the sticky gore on the blade sizzle. It spattered onto the ground, eating holes in the tile like acid. “But I will teach you your place. There is a price to pay for defiance.”
I stayed crouched, making myself a smaller target and reserving power for when I attacked. I fell back on all the years of martial arts I had taken, training relentlessly so I would never be helpless again. Kenpo, jujitsu, tae kwon do, Muay Thai, wushu; I blended all of them to give me the skill set best suited to my physical abilities. Sensei Laura always drilled home: Run if you can, but sometimes you must fight. If you must fight, then fight to kill.
Daniel was worth fighting for, even though, deep down, an ice-cold knot of certainty said the Man in Black would kill me for trying. I could make him pay for the privilege, but he would kill me just the same.
We stared at each other. I felt the ripple of heat from the firebrand and Daniel behind me as I looked into the black-pit eyes of a chaos god. He didn’t move, save for the sizzle-drop of magick from his sword and the anxious fluttering of his still-living coat. Tension stretched between us.
Who would break the stalemate?
Who would make the first move?
Who would strike first?
Maniacal laughter rang across the room, ending the standoff before we could find out.
The Man in Black looked over my head, past me. “We will finish this at a later time, Acolyte.”
I could feel something against my back, a pressure like a hot, dry wind from a gulch of death. It made the back of my scalp itch and crawl as though it were alive. The symbol cut into my palm burned fiercely.
From the corner of my eye, I watched Daniel sit up, facing behind me. He scrambled to his feet, eyes wide. “Charlie, you need to turn around.”
I rose and turned and my stomach clenched in a fist of dread.