Page 110 of How to Seduce a Slender

Melody’s back arched. Bones cracking. Skin ripping. Fabric shredding. A long, angry howl radiated the air as she transformed. Like being able to stretch a cramped muscle, she grew into her new form. The dead at the mausoleum lunged like they wanted to attack her only to be buffeted back by a hard smack of her tail. Mushrooms broke out along her sides, spikes and thorns ran down her spine. Melody narrowed her red gaze on Elyth. She braced herself, eyes narrowed.

Summon them.Melody returned to last night. The playful teasing. Smith trampling through the trees. Little wolves running alongside her. Melody called for them. Her desperate plea filled the air around them.

Snarling, dripping, angry beasts stepped out from her shadow.

Smith stepped up beside her as she dropped to all fours, back arched and teeth bared. “Give it up Elyth.”

“Oh no…the fun’s only just begun!” She ripped the blade across her open palm and the dead screamed. Bodies popped and morphed, ripping in two then three. They gnashed what teeth they had as their mouths split their mutilated faces in half. Tentacles of blood and ink spewed from them as they crawled out from within each other. Melody arched back on her haunches as an army of snarling undead faced them. They weren’t zombies. They weren’t ghouls. They were just dead things made from a mad woman.

And the world descended into chaos. Dead lunged against beast. Melody commanded the beasts to protect Smith at all costs. Slippery fingers made of bone and rot tried to tug on her only to be ripped asunder. More of them sprouted out from their shredded parts. But Melody wasn’t focused on those who tried to pull her fur.

No, her attention was on Elyth. The necromancer was fist to fist with the werewolf that towered over her. Melody bulldozed her across the earth until her legs met a tombstone. It cracked from the force as Melody snarled at her.

“Both of you are just mindless beasts!” she roared, swinging her wings, and creating a force of wind that threw Melody across the ground. The werewolf snarled, ripping around on her paws and charging. Elyth met her, claw against dagger. Melody didn’t flinch at the ripping of the blade through her palms. Smoke and shadow stitched her wounds up within seconds. Elyth noticed as she continued to cleave at Melody with a Havershum blade.

Unlike the one she had tucked at her side, Havershum’s blades were serrated, sharp at the end, fat blades meant for ripping through the body and breaking bones. The ceremonial blade, the one she held over Smith earlier, was a straight blade with etched designs dripping in blood. Melody could smell her rotten blood all over the graveyard. It stunk. Worse than the dead, Elyth stunk of something worse than rot, decay, and sour flesh.

“Your master did a good job stitching your fur back on. It took me days to get Giovanni’s wolf back to functional.” Elyth’s sneer landed on angry, belligerent ears. Melody didn’t give up her fight, not even as her heart began to bleed uncontrollably. She swiped at the Necromancer who danced out of her way. Elyth giggled evilly, “It’s a shame I can’t have you both—”

Several hands erupted from the ground and tossed Elyth through the air, and wings first into a crumbling gravestone. Her head cracked back against it. Melody panted for air, looking to the army of things, finding her beasts eating the dead. Snapping jaws, as a pack they were devouring the last few of her dead things. Smith limped to her side.

Melody’s heart stopped as he put a hand to her leg, holding his torso with the other hand. There was no blood. But she saw the tear through him, showing a swirling abyss as he stitched himself around a massive bite mark in his side. “That…really…hurt.”

“More than when I walloped you?”

“You’ve been talking with Havershum!” he hissed, picking at the torn fabric of his suit. “You did not wallop me. I surprised you. You punched me.”

“Mmm, sounds like I walloped you,” she teased, flashing her large fangs at him. Her tail wagged happily behind her.

“We are having a vocabulary lesson when this is over.” He waggled a finger in her wolfie face. She licked up his finger, watching him melt toward her. His hand affectionately rubbed up the fluff on her arm.

“Only if you teach me my vocab while bent over your knee.”

“Melody!” he barked.

She snickered to herself. Before she could open her mouth to back talk him some more, Elyth peeled herself away from the stone. Melody braced her muscles as the woman wiped blood away from her crooked mouth.

“You think yourself the victors, do you? Do you see yourself getting out of this alive?” Elyth dusted crumbs of marble off her body. “All this effort and you can’t even get revenge for your stupid brother.”

“Shut!” Melody snapped, scrunching up her muzzle. “Your! Mouth!”

“And why should I? You’re just another stupid girl in my way. You think what I did to him was special? I’ve reanimated hundreds of little dead things, and he was only handy because of your little talent. Turns out when she tried to take his from him, she tore off a little, just off the muzzle, right along the bone. And that chunk stayed in the Nightmare Realm with your pelt, where it just soaked and soaked and soaked up all her eldritch magic. My little beast grew stronger with every passing day. It was really quite helpful for me. Because otherwise he was just a whiny little boy who wanted to go home. Another reason I never wanted to marry and breed with the prince. Children are insufferable.”

Melody felt the world snap as her rage overtook her.

“I'll tear you to shreds for what you did,” Melody snapped her jaw, her fangs clicking hard. She flung through the air, snatching Elyth and pinning her to the ground with her paws in one movement. Elyth smirked through every blow. Every punch, every claw, putting herself together like taffy as Melody roared. Hot tears welled in all three of her eyes as she pummeled Elyth into the earth and she didn’t change.

“This is for Giovanni!” Melody ripped an arm off, snarling as it crawled back to its owner. She snatched up a massive rock, bashing her face in. “This is for tricking my brother into the woods.”

Elyth laughed…and laughed…and laughed as Melody cried harder, smashing then watching in angry horror as she reassembled herself. It made Melody’s blood boil. It made her vibrate to the point the foggy air around them shook.

There was a low whine behind her. Like a dog, watching something they didn’t like. Melody stopped, cold blood making her heart slow to a frightened, sluggish thump. The Elyth beneath her turned to slime, crimson and inky marbled slime that wiggled at her. Like it was laughing at her. Melody twisted away from the goop and saw her worst nightmare come true. Her eldritch beasts, ripped open from the insides. Just a massive wasteland of body parts and writhing shadows. Her dead things were gone but so was Melody’s pack. And at the center, a blade protruding through Smith like a spear, the real Elyth, covered in graveyard soil and moss, buried it in him.

“No.” Melody struggled to her feet. Her eyes darted to the smeared symbol on the door then Elyth. “But…but you have to use the sigil!”

“Funny thing about spell circles. They can be inscribed on anything.” Elyth removed her hands from Smith as he crumpled to the ground. The ceremonial blade disappeared in a cloud of static. Only the handle hit the ground, rolling across the uneven earth for a moment till it fell into an open grave. “You see, I realized that drawing out my spell circles on the ground or on walls made them more stable, they only get one use…and it’s so hard to pin a slippery thing like a Slender to a wall long enough for it to work. So, I started experimenting with blades, having the blades engraved. Though, for that I had to go to the city. A small favor to the council woman for turning the other eye while I used the council forges in exchange for minor things…really. And while my traps into other realms didn’t yield the results I wanted, I still did catch a few good things. My father used to tell me a patient hunter always wins in the end. The one good thing he taught me.”

Elyth made a sweeping movement with her hand over Smith. “Right now, all of my best beasts are descending upon the house, making sure that I have all the time in the world before your friends can look for you. And now, for my favorite part of this plan.”

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