Page 14 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

“What are you doing?” I yelled. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“It’s looking at me!” Evangeline yelled back.

“Yes, I can see that! Monsters frequently look at the thing they’re about to obliterate!”

“She’s checking how it’s tracking her movement!” the other witch called out. She’d backed away from the statue and was rummaging through a bulky, black leather bag, pulling out bottle after bottle of strange substances and throwing them at the statue’s feet. Thick vines began to sprout up out of the ground, tangling around one giant stone ankle.

The statue began to raise its arm, and Evangeline jumped down, landing in the wildflowers.

“I’m going to need to get closer,” she said grimly.

“You’re insane. You are actually insane,” I said, more to myself than to her. She flashed me a sharp grin I knew immediately I’d be spending a lot of time thinking about.

“If it’s looking at us, not just sensing us, that means I can blind it,” Evangeline explained, rummaging in her pockets. The statue tried to swipe at her, but I shoved at the massive stone hand, pushing it out of the way. Even with my vampiric strength, I wouldn’t be able to take this thing on directly, but if I was clever about it and used momentum against it…

Evangeline pulled two small spools of wire and string out of one pocket, and a flat gray stone out of another. Moving so quickly that my eyes could barely track the motion of her fingers, she twisted a net of the thread and wire around the stone, then murmured a few words to it.

“I can use this to make a sphere of darkness, but it’ll only be about fifteen feet across, so I need to get it as close to this thing’s face as possible. I’m going to try to climb up it again.”

“Again?!” I managed.

Evangeline shot me a sour look.

“Are you going to stand around questioning my judgment, or are you going to help?” she asked, throwing up a shimmering shield just in time to block another blow from the statue. It was silvery-blue and lasted just long enough to protect her before flickering out of existence.

“Can’t you use magic to move it where you need it to go?” I asked.

“Short answer? No,” she said, then crouched like she was about to start sprinting toward the statue’s entangled leg.

I put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “Give me the spell.”

“Wh—” she began, but I cut her off.

“Quickly!”

As soon as she had passed the wrapped stone to me, I reared my arm back and threw the stone toward the statue with all my strength. My aim was true, and I hit my target exactly as I’d hoped to. The stone landed in one of the creature’s horrible mouths. An orb of pitch black surrounded the thing’s head. The statue began clawing at its own face, its elongated fingers disappearing into the darkness.

Evangeline gave me an assessing look. “Nice shot.”

“Thanks,” I said breathlessly.

“So, this is him?” the other witch called between firing off spells.

“Isabella, I’m begging you to not be weird about this,” Evangeline called back, and Isabella laughed.

“We should go while it’s distracted,” I said, although I didn’t expect them to listen to me.

“Not yet,” Evangeline said. “I need to get that piece of metal on its lower lip.”

I looked at the statue, which was swinging its lanky arms around to try to find us. “How important is it, exactly?” I asked.

“Important enough to be worth the fight,” Evangeline said firmly.

I looked her in the eye, and her gaze was unwavering and confident.

I sighed. “Do we need to kill it or just immobilize it?”

“Immobilizing it should be enough,” she said. “I just need a picture of the inscription on the metal.”

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