Page 114 of Spirit Storm

"Time to finish this, Poppy." She raises a short-handled sickle and checks with me. "Ready?"

"More than ready."

Tharuzel lets off another bellow of rage. He's fighting against Garrison’s powers, and it's obvious the effort is enormous for both of them.

Asher is back from the passageway with Freya, Dae-Jung, and Sebastian. They all look battered and are bleeding, but are on their feet.

"Can you fight?" I ask.

Sebastian winks. "I'm not missing the big ending."

Dae-Jung tests the weight of the gold-metaled sword in his hand. "This is one of the demon blades you mentioned?"

"Absolutely." Hopefully. "Watch the tendrils. I've seen him pull people into his belly and swallow them whole."

I look to Wylder, and he nods.

I look to Asher, and he's got a blade in one hand and his other hand up, a shield of light gathering in his palm.

I turn back to Tharuzel. He's beginning to move, so I have no doubt it'll be on in a matter of seconds. Those empty sockets find me, and the rune script pulses harder, the shifting names of the dead moving faster.

"You think you can take me down, little witch?"

The torc at my throat does something that isn't quite heat but is close enough to it. I feel him reaching for the bond and hitting the barrier, and the satisfaction of that is difficult to describe.

"Or die trying," I say, and raise the blade.

He breaks free of Garrison's hold and launches toward me.

For something that big, he moves like water, like sound, like the half-second between lightning and thunder where you can't do anything but brace. He comes for me, and Wylder steps in from the left and drives his blade deep into the muscle of Tharuzel's reaching arm before withdrawing and spinning out of his reach.

His shriek is pure fury, and I feel it in my back teeth.

Mica comes from the right with her sickle and catches the back of his hand. The runed skin peels apart and the light inside bleeds out, it's not red now but a pale, sickened gold that dims as it hits the air.

“The weapons work!” she cries out in triumph.

Tharuzel wrenches back, and the air pressure drops so hard my ears ring. I start the words I modified from the spell Sebastian and my mom crafted five years ago, the words I’ve been practicing, to send Tharuzel back to Hell.

I've had them running in the back of my mind for four months. They've been in my sleep and my waking hours, and in the space between training sessions, and meals, and every ordinary moment I've stolen while knowing we would be here one day.

"By the blood of my bloodline...

By the Hallowinds who stood before me...

By the wards that bind this world from Hell...

Tharuzel turns toward the sound of my voice with a rage so concentrated it dims the air around him. He reaches for the blood bond and hits the torc, and through the barrier I can feel him screaming once again.

He charges.

Freya takes a hit that throws her into the wall. She slides down the stone surface and lies limp on the floor. Dae-Jung rushes forward and gets tangled in the writhing tentacles.

He's lifted off his feet and being dragged toward the gaping maw and the rows of teeth within. Sebastian, Wylder, and Mica all race to aid him, hacking at the tentacles with everything they've got.

I don't stop the incantation.

Tharuzel the Soul Thresher...