Latch steadied his breath, drawing it deep into his chest before exhaling slowly along the length of his rapier. The steel seemed to hum, faint sparks crawling across the blade as if eager to be awakened. He whispered the old syllables, the ones drilled into him during his brief and bitter service as an inquisitor, then let his voice break into a roar.
"Roaring Tempest!"
The words ignited the sword. Bolts cracked outward in jagged tongues, coiling up his arm, lashing across his shoulders, wreathing his whole body in a mantle of lightning. Each step he took forward thundered against the cobbles, the air thick with the tang of ozone and the scent of burned iron.
Bret's body twisted to meet him. His arms warped, skin splitting into black, glistening edges that solidified into crude blades. The head that had once been his own stretched unnaturally, a maw unfurling with row after row of teeth that gnashed like a predator starved for centuries. The squirming mass that crowned him pulsed as though it relished the battle, veins of shadow writhing through his skin.
They collided with a violence that dwarfed Ivie's bombs. The thunder of the clash rippled down the lane, shattering windows, rattling loose stones from the walls. The ground itself cracked beneath their feet, cobblestones splintering outward as if recoiling from the force. The flames of the tannery, which only moments ago roared with dominance, now seemed like nothing more than guttering candlelight against the brilliance of storm and shadow.
Ivie, no warrior by nature, kept her distance. But that didn't mean she was idle. She crouched low, rummaging through the bandolier across her chest, pulling out one strange device after another, glass bulbs brimming with noxious liquid, spheres wired with short fuses, a vial of shimmering powder that hissed faintly even corked. Her sharp eyes never left the duel, waiting for the moment when her intervention might tip the scales without dooming the boy they still hoped to save.
Latch felt the surge of lightning thinning in his veins, each crackle along his rapier dimming as though something unseen were drinking the storm straight from his blood. His jaw clenched. Every demon's strength was rooted in its true name, and Bret was somehow using his to feed on his invocation, siphoning the tempest as if the storm itself betrayed him.
Gritting his teeth, Latch shifted his stance and broke away with a swift backward step, boots scraping across fractured cobblestone. The air around him still sizzled with fading static as he lunged in again, feinting low before snapping the blade across Bret's arm. The rapier bit deep, drawing a line of blood that sizzled against the lingering sparks.
Bret didn't recoil. If anything, he seemed to relish the wound. His warped body twisted unnaturally, the black blades that had replaced his arms whistling as they cut through the air. One strike came faster than Latch expected, a sweeping arc aimed for his throat. He barely threw himself sideways, the edge grazing past close enough to shear a lock of hair. The wind of it seared his cheek, leaving behind a thin, stinging nick.
Latch steadied himself again, lightning gathering faintly around his weapon, but the strain showed in the set of his shoulders. This wasn't a duel he could drag out. Not against a foe who grew stronger the longer it endured.
From the edge of the fight, Ivie's sharp eyes tracked every exchange. She could see the truth that Latch was sputtering, his lightning devoured by the abomination wearing Bret's face.
She crouched low, slipping a leather pouch from her coat and tugging it open with deft fingers. Inside, nestled in wax paper, was a thumb-sized vial of thick green resin. Basilisk resin, banned from every respectable market, which in Necropolis, was none. Even sealed, the stuff stank of acid and old stone.
"Latch, keep him busy," she hissed under her breath, tugging out the vial.
She bit the cork free and spat it aside, careful not to breathe too deeply. The weapon looked innocent enough in her palm, but she knew a single smear could eat through steel, and the fumes alone made her eyes water.
Latch staggered backward under another brutal blow, lightning clashing with the demon's dark blades. Sparks scattered across the cobblestones like fireflies.
"Move!" Ivie barked.
Latch dropped low on instinct, rolling aside just as Ivie hurled the glass. It arced through the haze and struck Bret across the shoulder. The impact splashed, the resin clinging wetly.
The reaction was immediate. Bret shrieked, the sound jagged and inhuman. The resin smoked where it touched, hissing as it ate through his warped flesh. The demon thrashed, the fleshy mass at his head writhing violently as if trying to recoil from itself.
Ivie wiped her streaming eyes with the back of her sleeve, lips curling into a hard smile. "Let's see you swallow that, you bastard."
The resin burned into him, drawing a guttural wail from the demon. For a moment, it seemed as though Ivie's gamble had worked, its body convulsed, its malformed arm shuddering, flesh sloughing away in clumps of steaming rot.
Then Bret's head snapped toward her.
With terrifying speed, the demon lunged. Its form blurred, its blades tearing across the space between them in less than a heartbeat. Ivie barely had time to register the movement. She scrambled for another ball, but it slipped, clattering uselessly against the cobbles.
"Ivie!" Latch cried, surging forward.
Too late. Bret's arm, honed into a monstrous blade, slashed downward. Ivie twisted aside but not fast enough, steel and flesh tore through her coat, ripping deep across her side. Blood burst from the wound, splattering her already smoke-stained clothes. She gasped, stumbling, her knees buckling.
The demon loomed over her, the fleshy mass at its head splitting into dozens of teeth-lined maws. It raised its other arm for the killing stroke.
"Thirz," a voice rang clear, cutting through the roar of the flames and the crash of steel.
All eyes turned. Yvain stood now, pale but steady, the pocket watch in his hand. His gaze was fixed on the creature. "That's your name," he said. "The Lantern Eater."
The demon froze. Its body quivered with fury, and the fleshy mass on its head writhed violently, as though trying to retreat into itself.
"Hold him," Yvain said evenly, his hands already weaving into the sharp, deliberate shapes of banishment signs.
Latch lunged forward, his rapier sparking weak arcs of lightning as he pressed the demon back. Ivie, still clutching her bleeding side, forced herself upright just enough to toss what remained of the basilisk resin, pinning Thirz in place for Yvain's working.
Yet the creature did not surge toward Yvain as expected. Instead, its warped head softened, the maws folding inward until Bret's face reemerged, his boyish features twisted into a cruel grin. The eyes, though, remained wrong, pits of abyssal red.
"Who are you?" the voice that came from Bret's lips asked, not in anger but in curiosity. The question rippled with a guttural echo, as though two beings spoke in tandem. "Not just any augur could have found my name. And not so quickly."
Yvain's fingers faltered for a breath. His auguric instincts urged him not to waste the moment. Still, he asked, his voice low: "Why him? Why possess the boy?"
Thirz's grin widened, exposing rows of teeth that didn't belong in a human mouth. It chuckled, a sound like lantern glass cracking in the wind. It laughed harder, a booming, layered sound that made the flames shiver.
Yvain grit his teeth and finished the sequence. The final sigil blazed before him, a twisting pattern of unseen power drawn into the air. The banishment struck like a hammer of silence.
Thirz convulsed. Its shrieks melted into laughter as its form peeled away from Bret, pulled screaming into the unseen void. The boy collapsed to the ground, unconscious but breathing. The echo of that laughter lingered long after the body was gone, rattling through the alleyways like a taunt.