Page 34 of Panther in the Shadows
The second comes at me low. I pivot, letting momentum carry it past, then bring my elbow down on what passes for its spine. Bone cracks. The thing collapses but keeps moving, crawling across rocks with broken determination.
The third ignores me entirely. Goes straight for Moira.
"Behind you!"
She can't turn without breaking contact with the man. Can't defend herself while channeling magic. The choice plays across her face in an instant.
She doesn't let go.
I throw myself between her and the corpse-thing. It hits me like a sledgehammer wrapped in rotting fish. We go down in a tangle of limbs and wrongness. Its fingers—if they can be called fingers—dig into my shoulders with unnatural strength. The face that looms over mine was human once. Now it's just a mask of decay and hate.
My hand finds its throat. I squeeze, feeling things break and shift under my grip. But it doesn't need to breathe. Doesn't need anything except to kill.
Behind me, the man convulses under Moira's grip. For one heartbeat, the glow in his eyes flickers. Then it blazes brighter, stronger. Green light erupts from his skin in waves.
He screams. The sound tears from his throat like something breaking.
The corpse-thing on top of me goes still. Not defeated. Just waiting. Then I feel it. The summoner's attention focusing. Power gathering like a storm about to break.
"Moira, get back! Now!"
She doesn't listen. Her magic pours into the man, fighting the binding with everything she has. Sweat beads on her forehead. Blood runs from her nose. She's pushing herself past safe limits.
The man's body begins to smoke. Not fire. Something worse. His skin turns grey, then black, spreading from his chest outward like infection. The summoner isn't just killing him. They're turning him into another corpse-thing right in front of us.
"I can't break it!" Desperation edges Moira's voice. "The binding is too strong. It's anchored to something I can't reach."
Then the strings jerk hard. The man rips free from Moira's grip with inhuman force. His body convulses, spine arching at an impossible angle. Green light explodes from his eyes, his mouth, his very pores.
He lunges for the water like a fish on a line being reeled in.
I throw off the corpse-thing and launch myself at the man. Catch him around the waist. Use my full weight to drag him down. Away from the convergence point. Away from whatever death waits in those dark waves.
His hands claw at my arms. Nails tearing skin. Mouth opening in a soundless scream that goes on and on. The necromantic power wraps around him like chains pulling him toward the water. Pulling both of us.
"Hold him!" Moira's gathering power again, pulling sea witch magic from the water and air and stone around us. "One more try. I can do this. I can save him."
The man's skin turns colder under my hands. Ice cold. Death cold. Whatever controls him is killing him right now, forcing his body to fail rather than let him escape. His heartbeat hammers against my chest. Too fast. Irregular. Failing.
"He's dying. Right now. Whatever you're going to do, do it fast."
Light erupts around her hands. Sea-green and silver, pure power unmarred by corruption. She places both palms on the man's chest, directly over his heart. Magic floods through the connection. I feel it wash over both of us. Clean. Pure. Everything the necromantic corruption isn't.
For five rapid heartbeats, I think it's working. The glow in his eyes flickers. Fades. His convulsions slow. The grey infection spreading across his skin reverses, color returning. His heartbeat steadies. Strengthens.
Moira's face lights with desperate hope.
Then something laughs in the darkness beyond the shore.
A child's laughter. High and cold and wrong.
The sound hits like a physical blow. The corpse-things freeze. The water goes eerily still. Even the wind stops.
Then power slams into the man like a hammer. Not gradual. Not slow. Just instant, overwhelming force that rips through Moira's healing magic like tissue paper.
The man goes rigid. His eyes roll back. One last shudder runs through his frame. Blood pours from his nose, his ears, his eyes. Then he goes limp in my arms.
Dead weight.
