The world turned dark. Pain exploded in my head, chest, and stomach, as if my whole body was rebelling against me. The ground spun and fell on my head.

I clawed through the agony, desperate to hold onto consciousness.

Feedback from the broken blood ward. Someone had shattered my spell.

I floated through the sea of pain. Reverse the magic flow, pull it inward, exhale out, wrap it… Reality exploded around me in a cacophony of light and sound. Ten yards from me, the bull shook his head, trying to dislodge the metal wolf impaled on his horns and melting over his face. The construct had sacrificed itself for me.

Above me a nightmarish meld of wolf and human bounded onto a pillar, digging his claws into the metal, scrambling up.

Derek, you stupid idiot! It’s too high, it’s too hot…

He jumped onto the top of the pillar. The ma’avir vomited a torrent of fire. Derek dropped under it, planting one hand on the pillar. The fur on his arm burst into flame. He swung his legs, knocking the priest off, and leaped after him, ripping into the ma’avir as they fell. They crashed to the ground in a cloud of ash.

“Run!” I screamed. “Run!”

A lupine shape rushed out of the cloud: Derek, sprinting at full speed.

The priest detonated. The blast wave picked Derek up, every hair on his body igniting at the same time, and tossed him like a rag doll.

The metal scream erupted again. I clamped my hands over my ears. To the right, another head melted from the bull’s shoulders. He was down to two horns now.

Derek staggered upright, swaying, stunned. Burns smoked all over his body. His skin crawled, sprouting fur, as Lyc-V tried to repair its host.

The bull sighted him.

“Hey! Here! Look at me!”

He didn’t see me. I was off to the side and Derek was directly in his line of sight, still dazed.

No.

I sprinted to the bull, melting the armor over my thigh, pulling blood onto my hands in twin ribbons.

The bull spun toward me.

You can’t have him.

The Bull of Tophet charged, but I was too close. He didn’t have time to build up speed. I twisted to the side, rammed Dakkan between the metal scales over its shoulder, and thrust my hands into bovine fireblood.

“Hesaad.” Mine.

Magic tore out of me. The pain shook me to my core. It felt like my bones cracked open and the marrow was sucked out into the void. The threshold for taking the bull over was too high…

The bull brayed. On top of his pillar, the remaining ma’avir screeched in agony. Our magic collided, wrestling for control of the beast. Pressure clamped me, the power inside the bull a dense knot.

Derek would live. No matter what it cost me, he would walk away from this.

Blood drenched my lips. My eyes and nose bled, and I fed every drop of it into the creature. The Bull of Tophet had been crafted from Molokh’s divine power. I was trying to rip a god’s beast away from him.

“Amehe, amehe, amehe…” Obey, obey, obey.

My whole body went numb. Tears drenched my eyes, making it hard to see. I couldn’t feel my hands. I was teetering on the edge of a chasm, about to plunge to my death.

“Amehe.”

The cocoon of magic within the bull burst. My magic flooded through it. A malevolent primitive intelligence that was the creature’s consciousness connected with mine, accepting the bridle of my will. I felt the overwhelming strength of the bull’s body, its weight, its power. I jerked my hands out and shoved the bull’s mind at the last ma’avir’s pillar.

The creature charged and smashed into the metal column. The pillar quaked. The bull bounced back and struck again, like a battering ram. The priest above ripped his robes and fell to his knees, wrapped in flames.

The air shimmered and split, and through the gap a giant reached out with a perfect hand. He stood eighty feet tall, his face heartbreaking in its beauty. A mane of blond hair fell onto wide shoulders covered in ancient armor that glowed like a golden mirror. To look into his emerald eyes was to lose yourself. Moloch had come to see me.

He had to be burning through his magic at a crazy rate to manifest here and in the giant form. He couldn’t possibly keep this up. I had to outlast him.

Moloch’s fingers closed around the priest, lifting him in the air. He opened his perfect mouth. “YOU STILL RESIST.”

I hurled the bull at him. It charged the avatar, thousands of pounds of fury and flame.

Moloch reached out with his other hand. The bull connected and melted into his palm. The loss of magic brought me to my knees.

“YOU BELONG TO ME. COME TO ME, PRINCESS OF SHINAR, AND KNOW PARADISE.”

“Go fuck yourself.” Moving my tongue was a colossal effort. I had lost so much magic…

“YOU CAN’T DEFY ME. MY WILL IS ABSOLUTE. YOUR MOTHER WILL DIE, YOUR GRANDMOTHER WILL BE MY SLAVE, AND YOU WILL SIT BESIDE ME.”

“I’ll kill you and obliterate your name. Nobody will remember you, and you will pass into nothingness.”

He smiled, magic radiating from him, warm and brilliant. It pulled me like a magnet. It made me want to weep.

Moloch leaned forward, reaching for me.

I could do nothing. I was spent.

A silver werewolf thrust himself between us. Power boiled out of him, hungry and ancient, so potent it took my breath away.

Moloch stared at him. His eyes widened.

Derek raised his head and howled. It sounded like a vicious battle prayer.