Page 132 of Witch Undecided
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Cora
The slau rushed toward us, a wave of darkness intent on swallowing us whole. I brought my hands up and slammed it with lightning from my fingertips, opening up crimson welts across the surface of its body, but the wounds closed up just as quickly as I made them. Sloane and Poppy hit it with their power. Waves of green and blue energy battered the slau, forcing it away from us.
“We need to deactivate the barrier and get out of here,” Sloane yelled.
Jessie was the warding queen, but she wasn’t here.
“Cover me!” Poppy cried.
Sloane and I intensified our attacks on the slau, forcing it further back to clear a path to the steps.
Poppy made a break for it and Rune ran with her, keeping his body between the slau and the witch.
“Focus, Cora,” Sloane ordered. “All we can do is hold it back. Keep it from repairing itself so it can’t attack.”
“I have my iron daggers.”
“They won’t work against a slau this size. You’d need a fucking flurry of iron swords.”
“So, we run?”
“If you want to live, yeah.”
I channeled more power into my hands, chest trembling with the effort. “You’re telling me there’s no way to kill a slau.”
“Oh, you can kill a slau, but not one this size. This is…This is a fucking anomaly. They shouldn’t grow this large.”
We stepped forward in unison, pushing the slau further back. Energy rushed down my arms, flowing out of my fingers in bright white bolts of light.
The slau writhed and shrieked in rage. Faces rippled over its inky surface, eye whites popped open here and there, mouths yawned in desperation, and hands pushed out of its viscous body.
Join us.
Be one with us.
Words from my nightmare. I shook my head and focused on keeping the level of power up.
Rune’s growl battled the slau’s shrieks. A quick glance in Poppy’s direction showed that she was frantically drawing runes in the air.
“How’s it going, Pops,” Sloane yelled.
“I can’t…Sloane, it’s too strong, I can’t—”
A crack and Poppy was thrown across the room. She slammed into the pool table and slumped to the ground, unconscious.
“Fuck.”
The slau jerked and slid forward and then my chest grew tight. Oh shit. No. The tugging sensation bloomed in my chest as the slau began its extraction of my soul.
Sloane made a strangled sound. I didn’t need to look at her to know she was also in its grip. My power crackled and fizzled out, and then it had me. My boots slid across the ground, drawing me toward it. Tentacles of darkness shot out of the slau and whipped toward us, ready to embrace us.
“No!” Sloane cried.
Rune’s huge golden body cut a path between us and the slau. He looked at me, and I saw his intention in his hazel eyes.
“No, Rune. No!”
