“That is a risk this one will take,” Emma said. She threw both hands toward Turillia, and the window behind her imploded. Glass shards rained down across the room, and Kari had to turn her head to protect her eyes. The shards bounced impotently off her armor, but when she looked at Turillia, the succubus had been forced to protect herself using her wings. They were torn and shredded from the glass, and the golden eyes of the succubus were locked in a scowl of pure, vengeful fury. Emma jumped out the window into the stormy night, and after a brief glance toward Kari, Turillia drew her second sword and gave chase.
None of the glass had cut Kari, protected as she was in her paluric armor. She was glad Turillia didn’t immediately make good on her promise to kill her; Emma had at least bought Kari time to recover. If the mallasti girl didn’t want to kill Kari, why did she keep putting her in danger by incapacitating her? Eli was right: Emma was difficult to figure out.
Kari managed to prop herself up on her right elbow, and she narrowed her eyes against the mist blowing through the smashed window. It would still be some time before she could get her legs back under her. She looked to where Turillia had stood only moments before, and her brow furrowed; the succubus hadn’t left any muddy footprints. It was impossible for her to have walked across the street without getting muddy. How had she managed it?
Her contemplations came to an end as Turillia stepped over her again and turned to face her. Kari’s heart nearly stopped. How the succubus had gotten back upstairs so quickly? She hadn’t come back in through the window.
When Kari glanced at her feet, Turillia was marked by the mud she’d expected.
What the hell…?
The succubus drew her twin straight blades, put them tip-down to the floor, and knelt near Kari’s face. Her golden, slit-pupiled eyes were full of malice, and she grinned, showing those fangs again. In her vicious smile, Kari could see the succubus was planning to try to drain the power of Kari’s Blood Oath for herself.
“Poor little demonhunter,” Turillia taunted, and she ran her finger along the jawline of Kari’s helmet. She pulled the helm off and grabbed Kari roughly by the snout. “I must admit, I had my doubts this entire plan would work. I have heard of you and your skill at killing our kind for so many years. I thought you would pose much more of a challenge.”
Kari swung her head to the side to free her snout from the succubus’ grip. “Spare me your gloating. If it weren’t for Emma’s lightning, I’d be cutting you up by now.”
The succubus grinned again and shook her head lightly. “Even in the face of death, your overconfidence has not faded a bit. I will admit, your skill with the swords is impressive, but if you honestly think you would so easily best me… well, I supposed idle threats are a waste. I was going to kill you or sell you, but I have a better plan. All this skill and power you think you possess… will soon be mine. Now, have you any last words? I will be certain to pass them on to your mate and child before I send them to join you.”
Kari kept her poker face in place, her eyes locked with those of the succubus. Whatever she did, she couldn’t alert Turillia to the dark form that had appeared in the window. “Actually, I do have some last words,” she said when the timing seemed right. “Do you smell a wet dog?”
Kari was blinded and nearly gagged, her face and open mouth spattered with pieces of Turillia’s flesh and a spray of blood. The werewolf hit the succubus again with its other massive, clawed hand, sending the succubus airborne to crash into the wall beside the window. Turillia tried to scream in pain, but with much of her face missing, it came out only as an inarticulate moaning. The pain and the fury behind it multiplied when the shattered glass tore up her hands and the exposed skin of her legs. Joining that pain and fury a moment later was terror, as the eight-foot, black-furred mass of snarling fangs and razor claws stalked toward her.
Kari wiped the blood from her face and spat it out of her mouth, and she tried to clear her eyes enough to mark Turillia’s position and condition. The succubus was trying to get to her feet, but her legs were wobbly, and she couldn’t properly stand while being lacerated again and again by broken glass. When Turillia lifted her head, Kari saw the succubus’ jaw hanging limply and to the side; her face was a ruined mess of blood and shredded flesh. It appeared Turillia was trying to teleport away, but her arms were shaking as she tried to shut out the pain enough to enact the arcane power.
It mattered little. The werewolf pounced on the demon and picked her up effortlessly in one of its massive, clawed hands. It snarled in her face for only a moment before it pulled her head back sharply by the hair and bit her throat out. Turillia died instantly, and the werewolf cast her body aside carelessly before it jumped up into the shattered windowpane. The black-furred beast turned to regard Kari only briefly before it let out a massive howl and jumped from the second-story window, out into the rain.
Kari fought with all her might to get to her feet but thought better of her efforts after a moment. She called upon Zalkar’s strength instead and opened her cloak to let his symbol flood the room with its blue glow. She abandoned her will to him, allowing his strength to flow through her like adrenaline. It was a unity of mind and joy that empowered her and drove the fatigue and limpness from her body in a tidal wave of strength.
Filled with the power of her Blood Oath, Kari stood up, any trace of what Emma had done to her gone. She spat what remained of Turillia’s blood out of her mouth, wiped the rest from her snout with her cloak, and took stock of the situation.
Turillia’s body crumbled to dust in the corner near the window when Kari’s gaze fell across it. She remembered Eli, Katarina, and Piotyr describing the same thing happening to BlackWing when he was killed, and Kari’s eyes widened. Turillia hadn’t been boasting. Kari was quite mistaken in thinking the succubus had lost any of the power she’d stolen from the shadow demon. Her performance in the cemetery had been good enough to convince Kari she couldn’t teleport anymore, and Kari had mistakenly taken that to mean the succubus was losing the power she’d stolen.
That wasn’t the case. Kari stared at the near-invisible traces of dust, and the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. Turillia had taken everything she could from the demon. Now all that remained was to seal that power in herself by draining Emma. The werewolf that had just saved Kari’s life had done her an even greater service: she’d destroyed a duplicate of the succubus. After what Kari had just seen, and as she thought of the events of the past few weeks, it now all made perfect sense.
Turillia could be in two places at once.
It explained how she’d killed three members of the Blood Order without BlackWing’s help. It explained how she’d harried Kari all the way to Barcon from DarkWind while still killing for, and drawing power from, BlackWing. And it explained what had just happened: two Turillias—one chased after Emma, the other stayed behind to kill Kari. The one that had led her into the old city hall was a decoy; the other must have gotten there earlier and hidden herself somehow. If that was the case, it meant Turillia and the shadow demon had turned Kari’s trap against her, and only the intervention of Emma and a black werewolf had saved the day.
Kari considered this power Turillia possessed. She had no idea what kind of power it was, or how Turillia had stolen it from the demon, but then it hit her.