Pain flared again, the numbness burning away as time sped back up and the bubble Tess had cast around us died with her. I yanked the knife from my belly before I could think about it too hard and lose my will. Or consciousness.
I poured raw magic into the wound, visualizing it closing, willing my body to heal. The blood stopped gushing but even getting to my feet was agony. I reached for Tess's cold magic and numbed myself, letting her memories guide me instinctually. It would take practice to learn to do what she had done, but I could mimic what I'd seen, what I'd felt.
The wound throbbed but the worst of the pain faded. Tiger-Alek crashed out of the trees and rolled across the clearing, gaining his feet with a snarl. He spared a glance for me as a huge stone catlike beast followed him, rust-colored smoke spilling from cracks along its body. Blood stained tiger-Alek's white coat, a gash open and oozing along one shoulder.
Trees crashed and shook in the forest and green light flickered in the twilight between the trunks. I thought I saw two women, both with long flaming hair, dancing out there, swords in hand, fighting the stone snake. The trees and growing darkness made it difficult to tell.
"Clyde," I screamed at the woods. I stumbled forward, every step threatening to break the icy magic I had cloaking my wound. I wrapped my hand around my talisman and gritted my teeth. This battle was only half won.
He appeared, slender and shining with dark power, springing from the trees. Tentacles of inky light slashed toward me.
"You killed her," he snarled. "She was mine!"
I slashed out with purple fire, burning back the tentacles. Greasy smoke hazed the air, the smell something between a wet campfire and a pile of rotting garbage.
"Come and get her, then," I said through clenched teeth.
His magic was the filth that had tainted the unicorn, the same oily black sludge now turned into slick tentacles that rent the air with acidic smoke. At the corner of my vision, I watched as Alek sprang at the stone beast. The cat was nearly as big as he was and they rolled back into the trees, a flash of rusty light and white fur.
I wanted to go and help him but I forced myself to stay focused on Clyde. I'd told Alek not to interfere with my fight with the sorcerers when they showed up, and he'd made me promise to let him and Brie protect me from the guardians that I was sure Clyde would bring with him.
I'd wondered if Clyde would bring along the Fomoire hounds as well, but gambled that he would send those at the druid, seeking to keep them occupied so no one could interfere with him and Tess. The Tess in my thoughts whispered that Clyde had likely hoped I would bring her down, or at least drain her low, so he could take her heart for himself. He would harvest mine for Samir, she thought, and in her memories I saw the heart container, a small sliver-threaded bag.
A bag tied now to Clyde's belt. The sorcerer wore a long coat, which he stripped off and dropped to the ground as he gathered more power, circling to my right. Tentacles lashed out from his outstretched hands and again I threw a wave of magic fire at them, shoving them back.
The red-spot tango was back in my vision, the euphoria I'd felt for a moment as I took Tess's gift to me now drained completely away. I had no time to prepare for the tentacles; he was able to move them independently, sending them at me from both sides. I expended blast after blast of sheer raw power, trying to hang on to reserves, to see a weakness, and a way to reach him. I was too hurt to charge him; even sidestepping was enough to cause panic in my body, enough to threaten my balance as my legs tried to give out.
He's so arrogant , mind-Tess whispered to me.
He wanted my heart. He thought he could win, and maybe he could, but maybe I could out-power him. If I hadn't already spent this whole damn week draining myself over and over, if I hadn't been stabbed by Tess, I probably could have. As she'd told me, he was young, inexperienced with doing damage to things that fought back.
He advanced slowly on me, now wielding three tentacles that struck at me from the top and sides.
"Fall already," he snarled at me, his eyes black with his power, filth emanating from him in sickening waves. And I saw my opening.
So I took it. I fell, dropping to one knee, turning my power from offensive into a shield along my skin, keeping the filth off myself but letting it batter me, drive me to the ground. I used my body to shield my hand from Clyde's line of sight as I picked up Tess's knife, still wet with my blood. Then I waited.
Maybe I really was some kind of Super Saiyan. Glutton for punishment and pain, but rising stronger every time. I almost laughed at the mental image of me with white hair sticking straight up but held it in. That was the delirium talking.
Triumphant, grinning, Clyde ceased his tentacle attacks and closed on me, his eyes flicking around the clearing to make sure we were alone. A terrible battle raged in the trees but our space was open, only growls and howls and the breaking of branches and shaking of limbs giving any sign that we weren't wholly alone out here.
He stepped in close enough, only a tiger's length away now. I sprang, ignoring the pain in my belly, ignoring the darkness tugging at my vision. I used my magic to shove me forward and flew through the air, slamming into him. We rolled. I stabbed at him, over and over, eyes squeezed shut, mouth closed against the inky putrid magic leaking from him. He panicked and tried to use his hands, his body, losing his grip on his power.
I sank the knife into him again and again, throwing my own magic along the blade, searing into that darkness, remembering how it had nearly killed the unicorn's wondrous light. Clyde stopped struggling and his screams died. My knife had found his heart.
Rolling off him, I lay on the grass. Stars winked down at me. Wolf appeared, her cold nose sliding under my hand as she crouched beside me. My own breathing was labored, heavy.
Clyde's breath gurgled, erratic. He was still alive. I hadn't taken his heart yet.
Green light spilled from the forest as a keening note, high and pure, rang through the forest. The stone cat and a huge turtle insect plunged into the clearing. Their hides were marked with scores and leaking rusty smoke. Three women followed the turtle, tiger-Alek at their side. They could have been triplets, each with long curling red hair and eyes full of emerald fire.
The light followed, first in streamers and then in a tidal wave, swamping us all. The stone beasts fell apart, their carapaces turning to shimmering mist. The three Bries cried out, their voices singing with glory. Behind them, a small, stout man in red ran toward them. Tiger-Alek roared.
The wave poured over and around me. Faces formed and dissipated before I could make them out. I hadn't realized how hurt I was until the pain just quit, its sudden absence making me gasp. Then the light changed from green to iridescent, and the song, that pure, clear note, became wild with joy.
The soul of the wild. I'd touched a piece of it within Lir. It danced and sang around me, awake and free, cleansing the wood of Clyde's filth, closing Balor's Eye.
Tess, built of green smoke and glimmering fire, appeared beside me.
"Take his heart," she said, her voice many voices, all languages, as though she spoke in tongues. My ears rang with the power in that voice.
I crawled to my knees and looked down at Clyde. He watched me with wide, pale eyes as I formed violet claws with magic around my hand. I ripped his heart out with the ease of pulling a half-embedded stone from sand, and held it dripping and beating in my hand.
He shuddered and his eyes bled to black, but there were no stars reflected in them. I started to raise the heart to my already bloody mouth, but stopped.
This would be my fourth heart taken. Each of the others now lived on in me in a way, their experiences now mine, their memories, their abilities, their knowledge. Through me, they survived—even the damned serial killer whose memories I had mostly burned away.
"No," I said. Clyde's power was evil, his knowledge was of evil things, twisted life, ruined spirits. I felt nothing but filth and cruelty from him, in his magic.
I was already killer enough, worried enough that if push came to shove, I'd fall off the cliff of "not quite good" and tumble down into evil in the name of survival.
Mind-Tess railed at me, but the soul of the forest, still glimmering beside me in Tess's likeness, nodded as I met its eyes. I pulled the silver bag from Clyde's belt, ignoring the sweet, familiar feel of Samir's magic. Then I shoved Clyde's heart into the bag, and watched his body still and his eyes cloud over as I zipped the bag shut.
The light took his body, the ground beneath me opening up and sucking him in like shimmering green quicksand. The heart in the bag still beat, but Clyde's magic was cut off, dormant, his body just a body without it. The wild light faded away, but my own magic burned on, my body light from within by purple fire as I knelt over the bare ground and let my tears fall.