The Lost triggered an aura technique that pushed back against the Thief’s Shield before I could drain the rest of her strength. My technique sputtered and died, and my enhanced senses showed me she’d erected a powerful defense around her core. If I wanted any more of her jinsei, I’d have to rip that down, first.
Whatever spell the woman had cast over me was shattered into a thousand crystalline shards. My Eclipse nature threw off the enchantment she’d woven around it and screamed for her blood. She’d said she was going to kill me. That was all it took for my dark urge to remember whose team it was on.
I threw a wild, hooking punch that caught the woman in the side of the neck, snapping her head hard to one side. I yanked the hand I was holding toward me and drove my knee up into her abdomen with all the strength I’d stolen from her core. The blow lifted the Lost off her feet and drove the air from her lungs in a single barking yelp.
The pale woman landed hard, then reared back and slammed the top of her skull into my chin and rocked me back onto my heels. She grabbed my thumb with her free hand and wrenched my grip away from her fingers. Her other hand chopped down into the juncture of my neck and shoulder.
Pain exploded from the impact, and my left arm went numb as the jangled nerves refused to carry messages from my brain. I twisted to avoid another chop that would’ve taken out my right arm, stomped down hard on the woman’s leading foot, and threw my weight into her chest.
The unexpected maneuver knocked her off balance, and she stumbled to the edge of the bed. Her knees buckled when they smashed into the obstruction, and she collapsed onto the bed. With a surprised shout, she threw her hands up to defend herself from my follow-through attacks.
I followed up with an ax kick that crashed down on the woman’s right thigh. The blow smashed the jinsei from the channels in her stark-white leg, and she howled in pain. With a shout of raw rage, I leaped into the air and channeled jinsei into my right arm and hand. There was no way she’d be able to avoid the amplified attack I drove straight into her core.
The Lost didn’t even try to defend herself.
Jinsei exploded from my fist like a spear at the precise moment my knuckles slammed into the woman’s solar plexus. The blast of spiritual energy shredded the cage the Lost had built around her core, revealing it to the Thief’s Shield.
“It’s over,” I said as my technique stole her jinsei.
“It is over,” she agreed.
With a start I realized how I’d been tricked. Her core latched onto the channels in my arm and reversed the flow of jinsei. The prey had become the predator.
“You can’t do this,” I shouted.
I’d struggled so hard to get this far. Now, when everything was finally falling into place, she was here to ruin everything. My Eclipse nature raged against the pain as she ruthlessly drained my jinsei. She was too experienced in this art, too powerful for me to save myself.
“I can, and I will,” she said. “You are a pup. A brave, fierce pup, but just a pup. I am a wolf. Only one of us leaves here today.”
My core was powerful enough to slow her leech-like draining, but strength faded from my muscles by the second, and my legs gave out. I slithered off the end of the bed and onto the floor next to Henry’s corpse. My dead weight pulled the Lost down with me.
She hardly noticed when she hit the wooden floor. Her eyes were half-lidded, lost in bliss as she fed on me like a tick on a hound’s throat. A faint smile played across her lips. She was enjoying this, reveling in my final moments.
I tried to summon my spirits, but as fast as I could gather aspects, the Lost consumed them. I raked my fingers across the floor, searching for the fusion blade I’d dropped in the fray. My groping hand found something hard and closed around it.
“No.” The Lost bolted upright, but she was slow to shake off the feeding stupor. For a split second, she was too sluggish to stop me.
I raised Henry’s pistol and rammed it into her chest. I squeezed the trigger and prayed that the safety wasn’t on.
The weapon roared, and the Lost shrieked.
I pulled the trigger, again and again, until it clicked impotently in my fist.
“You could have had the world,” the Lost gasped, blood bubbling on her lips.
Her eyes faded from black to blue, the vivid iris surrounded by bloodshot white. Her mouth fell open.
A final bloody breath escaped the Lost, and her core faded away.
The Revelation
THE LOST’S BODY SEEMED smaller curled up on the floor. It was hard to believe the slight woman had killed my clan’s guards. And yet, the proof was all around me. Henry’s cratered head had leaked a pool of blood that mingled with the Death Weaver’s crimson drool.
Hagar had fallen—
I ran down the stairs and found my friend slumped against the wall at the bottom of the steps. Her eyes were badly bruised and closed tight. A crimson thread spilled from her split lips down the center of her chin, and another red trail oozed from her left ear and down the side of her neck. I dropped to my knees next to Hagar and grabbed her wrist.
“Come on,” I whispered urgently. “You’re tougher than this.”
My fingertips found a pulse. The beats were weak and thready, but it was there. Flickers of jinsei lit up her core with fitful flashes. She wouldn’t last much longer. I scooped Hagar over my shoulder, surprised at how little she weighed.
I ran to the front door, where I found one of the clan guards splattered across the front porch. It looked like someone
