Lucinda was the first to act, slashing with her hand and tossing a massive chunk of stone table forward. It collided with two of the five council members, hammering them back against the wall and knocking them immediately out of the fight. The other three scattered, one of them repeating Lucinda’s spell, throwing another large chunk of stone at the one-handed witch, but Ricard acted first. He shattered the flying stone with a surge of shadow magic, bursting it into dust and pebbles. With a second gesture, he collected the spare pebbles into a battering ram and thrust it back, crashing it into the witch’s chest, sending her sprawling.
Dornac leaped forward, dodging a pair of fireballs from Loren until he’d closed within striking distance and swatted her aside with a swift backhand. She flew in the air, yet caught herself in mid backflip, levitating in mid-air, her arms outstretched. Fingers curling, she drew latent steam still collected in the air and fired it back at the charging demon, engulfing his face in a sudden jet of super-heated water. Dornac reared back hissing and pawing at this face but showed no real signs of weakening.
“Gus!” Doris shouted at me, pointing over my shoulder, and I whirled around just as two minor demons closed upon me. My shield knife was out, drawing a transparent barrier, blocking the initial sword strike, which left the creature open for a follow up blow. Joyland speared it with a bolt of white lightning, the crackling arc sent it twisting and jittering to the floor. Another closed on me and I stepped back twisting the knife in a backslash motion, sending another wave of electricity outward. The demon ducked under my attack, scrabbled forward on all fours, then was up, inside the range of my weapon. It hammered me with a sudden one-two punch, staggering me as a spiked mace seemed to form from nothing in its right hand.
I lunged right as the mace swing narrowly missed me, then thrust my shield forward, knocking the creature off balance. Trading my Joyland blade in for the Salem’s Lot vampire killer, I sliced into the veil and drew from it. I muttered the spell, felt the surge in my palm, then fired the beam forward. The arrow of ultraviolet radiation pierced the monster and I pulled my hands apart, widening that arrow sharply, so it cleaved the creature in two. Although they weren’t made from corporeal shadow like the Shades themselves, they seemed just as vulnerable to light based magic.
“Gus, watch out!” Doris ripped free a fist full of water and shot it toward an approaching beast, the sudden burst rocking it on its shadowed heels. Lucinda leaped the pool and collided with Doris, screeching in rage as she hammered the blunt end of her forearm into the older woman’s head, knocking her to the ground. As they landed together, Lucinda twisted toward me, scowling.
“I will have your head!” She showed her teeth.
“Get in line!” I dodged a demonic attack, then returned it, obliterating another with a blast of magic-infused sunlight. The entire room had erupted in battle, bursts of magic energy searing through the air, starbursts and explosions etching the curved contours of the walls and ceiling. Smoke and sulfur lingered, the tang of magical energy crawling down my throat as it stung my eyes.
Ricard faced off against the remaining witches by the stone table as Lucinda had turned her attention on me and Doris, a handful of demons accompanying her.
“Deal with her!” Lucinda hissed, pointing toward Doris and the smaller creatures obeyed, converging on the elderly witch. Meanwhile, Lucinda sprang toward me, conjuring a sphere of power and hurtling it in my direction. I brought up my shield just in time but could feel its energy waning and it burst apart as the sphere struck it, barely rebounding. My arm stung with the force of the blow and I staggered back, barely able to remain upright. Landing in painful sprawl, I sheathed my shield blade in its place and withdrew Firestarter, tapping deep into my well of energy to hurl a sudden fireball up at the approaching witch.
Lucinda shrieked and jerked back as a searing gout of flame filled the space where she’d been moments before, close enough to scald. I felt as my breath stabbed in my lungs, my own strength lessened by the moment. It didn’t take her long to recover and she eviscerated my flame with a wave of her hand, scattering it into ash.
She snapped her fingers and the ash re-ignited, a sudden halo of fire surrounding my head, heat barraged me from all directions. I ducked low and rolled right, shaking my head to ensure no tendrils of fire were snaked within my well-coifed locks of hair. A few feet away, I saw Doris scream something unintelligible, a rare show of emotion as she swept a trio of the small, hoofed creatures from her. She met my eyes, then glanced behind herself, toward the pool, which was no longer bubbling or steaming, just wavering with unsettling ripple.
Silently, she gestured, and I understood, thrusting Firestarter back in its sheath and groping Christine out from a hip holster. I had little confidence that I could muster the energy needed but I scrambled away from Lucinda, dragging the blade through the air until I felt her presence looming over me, about to strike.
I shouted the memorized spell and lashed out with my blade, drawing every ounce of power I had left. Christine unleashed, a sudden forceful blow, hammering Lucinda in the chest and tossing her backwards. She canted sideways in mid-air, trying to get control of her downward trajectory, but crashed into the water with an echoing splash. Even as the water was still airborne, Doris twisted toward it, pressed her wrists together, and shouted an incantation. Immediately, the roiling water formed into ice, a thick, frozen statue of splashing, the crystalized liquid catching Lucinda in mid-flail, frozen in time. The witch grimaced angrily at us from beneath the sheet of newly formed ice, but was locked, rigid, and unable to move.
I nodded my thanks to Doris, who acknowledged my appreciation, though both of us knew this battle was far from over. As if in confirmation of that thought, Ricard swept toward us, hands sheathed in dark matter energy. I wasn’t sure what he’d done to the last two members of the witch’s council but based on how he’d skewered the one at the head of the table, I didn’t have a good feeling about their fates. I ducked the initial crescent of dark energy, then dodged right as a second ripped a chunk of floor from where I’d been standing. Doris took a tentative step toward Ricard’s flank, but with a backwards wave of his hand he swept a wave of shadow at her legs and took them out from under her. She crashed, headfirst to the stone floor and remained still.
“This, uh— all appears to be going very well for you. Congrats on your successful election.” I looked around the chaos, the council table shattered, fragments of dead demons littered about. Dornac and Loren continued to face off, head-to-head, though I could tell the female witch was starting to weaken.
“This is a joke to you? This is my family’s legacy! This all should have been mine, by all rights, and instead, it’s— this!” He waved his hand.
“Whose fault is that, do you suppose?”
Ricard glowered over at Loren, who was down on one knee, barely holding together an azure shield as Dornac clubbed at her with shadow magic.
“Ohhh, I get it. You think it’s her fault. That somehow, she took something that was rightfully yours? Is that the way your twisted mind works?”
“Does it really matter who’s fault it is? After this is over, the result will still be the same. I’ll have whatever power I’ve always dreamed of and I’ll be free of this contract to the demon who gave it to me...”
“Is that what you think? Have you— not actually read up on your history? Demons aren’t known for sticking to their own sides of a bargain.” It was a piss-poor attempt at stalling, but I wasn’t sure what else to do. A handful of demons had taken up station beyond Ricard, so Loren and I were vastly outnumbered. Even if we hadn’t been, Ricard was far stronger than me, one-on-one, and by the looks of things, Loren was on the ropes. I had an unsettled sensation that this wasn’t going to end well. I took a tentative step back, my Chuck Taylors padding along the stone floor, shadows draped along its uneven surface. Even as I glanced down, I could see those shadows rippling, pulsing with unseen energy, moving like snakes, solidifying all throughout the cracks and crevices in the floor.
I realized what was happening too late as the slithering shadows suddenly lunged at me, coiled around my ankles, then slipped swiftly up my legs. I could feel them constricting as they bound tight along my thighs, then my waist. A loose strand of dark energy snared one wrist and yanked it back, then even as I groped toward a knife, a second tendril did the same. Soon, I was lifted into the air, shadows turned solid, a writhing mass of them held me aloft, limbs outstretched. Pressure touched my neck like fingers, tightening just enough to make me aware it was there, but not enough to actually choke me. Not yet anyway.
“You’re going to accomplish nothing,” I hissed through clenched teeth “other than piss away your family legacy.”
“Legacy. Who cares about legacy? This is a witch’s coven! It’s their legacy, not mine!” He waved a hand in the general direction of Loren and Lucinda, his own twin sister still trapped within the ice statue that Doris had conjured. “I learned a long time ago that legacy is meaningless, at least to the Montagues of my gender. I learned that instead of legacy— power would be my goal.”
“They— are— your sisters,” I groaned.
He cocked his head. “Do you think that— means something to me?”
Even as the shadows tightened around me, he glanced back toward the ice statue where Lucinda was entrapped, frozen within its thick block. Her eyes were opened, almost pleading, her mouth etched into a permanent scowl. Ricard extended his other hand, twisting his fingers as more dark serpents of magic coiled up and across the frozen water, twisting throughout the makeshift ice statue.
“Power is all that matters,” he said quietly, looking back at me. He tightened his left fist and the shadow magic coiled around the ice statue of his sister drew taut. The sudden constriction of darkness was enough to burst the ice apart, an explosion of shattered fragments, scattered across the stone floor and back into the frozen pool. My eyes widened and for a moment, I saw a grimace of unspeakable agony shape the features of Lucinda’s face before her head tumbled from view, no longer attached to the shorn fragments that used to be her body.
“She was weak. Allowed herself to be disfigured by the likes of you.” Ricard glowered back at me, then lifted a hand and coiled his fingers into a fist. I could feel the serpentine shadow as it constricted, cutting off my airway. “Goal achieved.” He pointed his glinting eyes back in my direction. “Now, the last thing you’ll see is your wife’s coven in chaos— the woman you loved about to take her final breaths.”
Sure enough Loren was hunched on the ground, one arm limp, the azure shield with which she’d been barely protecting herself evaporated into a fine mist. Dornac stood above her, one massive hand closed into a powerful, scab covered fist. His cloak of tissue and membrane coiled around his hooved legs as he loomed above her and stared down, pointed bone ringing his head.
“A pity you were ejected from the family, Angus. I think the two of us— we could have been friends.”
I would have laughed out loud if my lack of breath would have allowed it. Instead heat rushed my cheeks and my head grew faint. As what remained of my oxygen seared from my lungs, the same shadows that bound me crept across my vision and drew me toward oblivion.