Almost immediately, Twitch reappeared. Reaching down, he fastened both massive hands about Ross’s neck and began to squeeze.
-=O=-***-=O=-
When she heard the front door explode off its hinges, Nest called to Pick, “Hang on.”
She broke from the darkness of the stairwell into the light and raced for the children. But she had forgotten she had removed her shoes, and she couldn’t find sufficient purchase in her stocking feet. She was sliding on the tile floor almost instantly.
Harper was clinging to Little John, both of them frozen in place, uncertain what was happening.
“Run!” she shouted at them.
She was expecting the guard demon to come at her, had readied her magic to combat it, and still wasn’t prepared when the ur’droch hurtled out of the shadows. A blur of darkness, it crossed in front of the children to intercept her, pushing through her magic as if it wasn’t there. It slammed into her with stunning force, unexpectedly solid for something that seemed so insubstantial. The blow spun her sideways into the wall, where she sagged to her knees. Pick went flying off her shoulder and disappeared.
Wheeling back, keeping to the shadows until the last moment, the ur’droch attacked again. Dazed and gasping for air, she sent her small magic lancing into it, to gain a moment’s respite. The demon was staggered this time, and it careened into the sofa, knocking it askew. Swiftly, it slid back into the gloom.
Nest looked quickly for the children. Harper and Little John were hanging on to each other only a few yards away.
“Run!” She screamed again.
Overhead, the ceiling shuddered from the impact of colliding bodies and expended magic. The lamp shade on the bar counter tilted crazily, and the dim light sprayed the darkness, casting strange shadows that rocked and swayed.
Nest braced herself against the wall, willing herself to remain upright. Everything in her body felt broken. The children were running to reach her, arms outstretched. The ur’droch shot out of the darkness in pursuit, a roiling black shadow. Nest threw her magic at it, trying again to keep it at bay. But she had little strength left and almost no focus she could bring to bear, and she could feel both crumble in the face of the other’s determined assault.
Then Wraith appeared, suddenly, explosively, in response to her desperate need, in answer to her unspoken prayer, launched from the layered darkness as if from a nightmare’s epicenter. Tiger-striped muzzle drawn back, the big ghost wolf hammered into its enemy and sent it flying into the shadows. Barely pausing, it gave pursuit. Seconds later, they emerged in a ball of dark fury, tearing at each other, emitting sounds that were primal and blood-chilling. Across the shadowy room they surged, back and forth, locked in their life-and-death struggle.
The children reached Nest safely and latched on to her legs. She was so weak, she almost went down again. Her head spun. She had to get them out of there, but she had no strength to do so.
And she couldn’t leave Wraith. Not after he had come back for her. Not without trying to help.
The ghost wolf and the ur’droch wheeled and lunged through the pale spray of tilted lamplight, through the hazy gloom, back and forth across the furniture’s debris.
Harper was sobbing and clutching tightly at her legs, and Little John was saying “Mama, Mama,” over and over.
Get them out! Wraith is only something made of magic! He isn’t real! It doesn’t matter what happens to him! Get the children out!
She hugged them against her in paralyzed confusion, eyes riveted on the battle taking place before her.
Do something!
The ur’droch continually tried to carry the fight into the shadows, to maneuver at every opportunity toward the room’s shadowy edges. It dragged at Wraith, hauling him out of the light…
Impulsively, Nest stumbled toward the stairway and the bank of wall switches she had passed coming in. When she reached them, she threw them all on.
Light blazed the length and breadth of the rec room, flooding through the shadows, and suddenly there was no more darkness to be found. The ur’droch wheeled about in confusion, and Wraith took advantage. Boring in with single-minded fury, he fastened his jaws on some part of the demon that Nest could not identify and began to shake his enemy. The ur’droch jerked from side to side as if made of old rags. Bits and pieces of it began to come loose. It made no sound, but things that might have been clawed feet scrabbled at the tile floor and flailed at the air. Still Wraith shook it, braced on all fours, tiger face lifted to hold it aloft.