"Surely, your worshipfulness knows more than that," Bigglesworth said from one of the rooms ahead. "Your people took all the records. Where did they put them?"
"I bloody told you all I know, you right bastard," a hoarse, but defiant voice replied. "The records are gone—destroyed."
"Another bloody lie, eh?" Bigglesworth chuckled. "How does this suit your fancy?"
I stopped outside the door as the other man screamed himself raw. Risking a glance, I peeked around the doorframe. A man who looked perhaps thirty strained hard against straps binding him to a chair, his profile to me. The veins in his neck bulged, and his skin glowed beet red. Bigglesworth stood over the other man, doughy white fingers touching his captive's forehead.
Attacking the shape changer head-on seemed the wrong approach. True, I might be strong and fast, but this guy wasn't exactly solid. If he could inflict pain through touch, he could probably incapacitate me. Bella had told me his kind ate people. I shuddered at the thought. She'd never found out much more about Bigglesworth's species. Knowing his weaknesses would have been dandy right about now. As usual, I had no choice but to improvise.
"So, guvnah, what's it gonna be?" Bigglesworth's mouth stretched inhumanly wide. "More pain, or will you tell me and let me go on my merry way?"
The other man shuddered violently, coughs racking his body.
As Bigglesworth chided and threatened the man, I thought furiously about how to get rid of the shape shifter once and for all. The only destructive spell I knew wasn't really supposed to be destructive—it was supposed to light a candle. Instead, I usually ended up launching fireballs. I had to pretend Bigglesworth was a candle and see what happened. It sounded simple enough in my head. All it required was a bit of focus.
With Doughboy's attention solely on his captive, I switched to incubus sight and drew in magic. I flinched as the energy swelled against my reservoir, stretching it. I pressed my lips together, glared at Bigglesworth, and imagined him as the biggest, nastiest candle I'd ever seen. I pulled out the practice staff Shelton had given me, clasped it in both hands, and with a concentrated effort of will, flicked the knobby end toward my target and shouted, "Hadouken!"
A ball of blue flame the size of my head streaked from the wand like a comet. Bigglesworth looked up in surprise at my shout and flung up a hand as flames engulfed him.
"Yes!" I shouted, pumping a fist.
The flames washed over the shape shifter and splashed against the wall behind him. Cherry-red lava dribbled down the wall, puddled at the bottom. Bigglesworth didn't have a mark on him.
"If it ain't me old buddy, Justin," he said in his Cockney accent. He smiled. "I'm almost glad that ruddy golem didn't blow you up, mate." His lips stretched grotesquely wide. "I'm gonna enjoy tearing you to little bits meself."
Chapter 15
I stared in stunned silence at the undamaged Bigglesworth.
"You look surprised, guvnah." The shape shifter didn't walk so much as he flowed across the space between us in an instant, his feet slithering along the floor like snakes. His arm stretched like rubber, flashing toward my neck.
I leapt away. My back slammed against the wall opposite the door. His fist nicked my face and crushed the stone next to my ear like a sledgehammer. I blurred right to avoid him. He glided into the hallway.
I tried to bind him with the same ethereal bindings I'd used to save me and Shelton from the Gloom and flung my hands toward the shifter. Glowing lines swept toward Bigglesworth, wrapping around his form. The moment they touched him, the magical bonds melted to nothing.
"What the hell?" I shouted.
Bigglesworth gave me an evil grin, his mouth stretching horrifically wide and displaying a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. "I'm gonna enjoy eating you, mate. I'll bet you're just chock full of vitamins and minerals."
"Yeah, right, Doughboy." I shot back. "I'm gonna go Betty Crocker on your doughy ass." I summoned more energy and flung another fireball at him.
The shifter didn't even flinch as it washed over him. "You ain't too bright, guvnah." He stalked toward me, arms stretching wide to block the hallway. "Or maybe you ain't figured out magic don't affect me."
"Say what?" I backed away, clueless about what to do next.
Bigglesworth giggled like a schoolboy. "Ain't too many who knows about my kind. A fact I find very useful."
I glanced behind me as he spoke. The dead end loomed closer. Unlike the opposite end of the hall, this one had no portcullis, or way out. An open door to my left appeared to lead into a room similar to the one where Bigglesworth kept his victim. Somehow, I had to get past this thing. I dashed toward him. Feinted left. Dodged right. The flesh on his arms splayed like nets, completely blocking the hall. I smacked into the trap, the fleshy material stretching against my body. Fiery agony erupted in every cell where my skin touched his.
Before I could twist free, the netted flesh snapped shut like a Venus fly trap. I cried out in desperation, summoned all my energy, and directed a blast of fire. The fireball passed through him without harm and blasted into the ceiling. Molten stone splashed down. I was sure some of it landed on me, but the volume of pain inflicted by Bigglesworth overwhelmed everything else.
The shifter suddenly wailed in an inhuman voice. He writhed and twisted, slinging me away. I slid down the hallway and slammed against a wall. Dazed, but desperate not to be the creature's next meal, I staggered to my feet. Where the molten rock had landed on Bigglesworth, his flesh smoked and steamed.
He snarled. His body melted like a wax figurine, forming a white, featureless puddle of goo. The doughy mass flowed toward me, cresting like a wave and blocking the entire hallway. A huge mouth formed in the center, chomping and biting like a rabid dog straining to break through a pair of sheer yoga pants. My back pressed to the wall. I couldn't run. Magic wouldn't work. Punching wouldn't do a thing.
I was doomed.
And then I remembered the molten rock. It had hurt him, or at least made him really mad. Magic might not directly hurt Bigglesworth, but what about indirectly? I clenched my fists. Focused and drew in more energy—or tried to. As my incubus senses took in my surroundings, all the magical energy dried up like morning mist under a hot sun. Even with the thrum of major ley lines pulsing beneath the castle, every time I tried to draw energy toward me, it vaporized.
My gut instinct told me the shifter was somehow doing it. I had no idea how full my fuel tank remained. At this point, it didn't matter. I had to use whatever was left. Flicking my staff toward the floor in front of the shifter, I unleashed another fireball. It exploded, spraying red-hot magma into the wall of flesh. The gaping mouth in the undulating wave screamed, but didn't stop coming. I shot another fireball and another. One exploded on the left wall, the other on the right. Bigglesworth cringed from the spray of molten stone, but he couldn't avoid the splashes. Despite the damage, he still came, relentless as a vampling. Panic raced through me. My heart jackhammered against my chest. I didn't want to think about what would happen if this monster engulfed me like a Justin burrito.
Sweat dripped into my eyes and exhaustion sucked the energy right out of me. I knew then I must have burned through my magical reserves. I might have one more burst left, and that was it. But how in the hell could I focus more damage on him? I'd practically made him wade through molten rock. And then it hit me. I would have face palmed at my stupidity, but didn't have time. Bigglesworth was less than ten feet away.
Drawing every last reserved of strength, I shouted, "Hadouken!" with as many exclamation marks after it as possible and slashed the staff at the ceiling just in front of the charging wave of flesh. Globules of red-hot rain spilled down, some of it hitting my clothes and exposed skin. A sizzling blob splashed right into Bigglesworth's mouth.
The flesh crackled and blackened, creating a nearly indescribable stench, like burning hair mixed with sewage and lavender soap. The only thing that could have made it worse was Old Spice.
The shifter flinched away from the superheated stone. The chomping jaws melded into a giant pair of lips and screamed at such a high pitch I had to cover my ears. My body trembled. My knees demanded I drop to the floor in exhaustion. But now was not the time. I glanced at a section of roasted Bigglesworth. It looked like a burnt pancake. With savage anger, I stomped it. It made a satisfying crunch beneath my shoe.
Then I ran my ass off. I passed the mass of goopy, screaming yuck where it twisted from the floor like a tornado with teeth, praying the shifter didn't try to engulf me in that horrific maw, and made a beeline for the room with the captive inside. The diamond fiber straps securing the man parted when touched, and he slumped forward. Summoning my incubus strength to bolster my reserves, I tossed him over my shoulder and took off.
A tendril of white flesh snapped at my ankle the moment I stepped outside the room. I flicked my staff at the ceiling. A teensy tiny little fireball swerved crazily through the air like a released balloon expelling the air from an open end, whistled weakly, and popped into a pathetic display of sparkles. Even though I would have been lucky to singe a fly with what was left of my magical energy, Bigglesworth hadn't known I was tapped out.
His tendril flinched the moment I flicked my staff, freeing my ankle. And then I did what I usually did best in such situations. I ran.
I blurred up the stairs, losing count of the hallways I passed in blind panic, and swerved through a doorway into a milling crowd of students in the hallway just outside a large room lined with tables. The sounds of clinking silverware and dinnerware drifted out. I'd apparently stumbled upon the cafeteria, or whatever people called the squat-n-gobble in an institution of higher magical learning.
A girl who looked middle school age gasped, looking straight at the unconscious man slung over my shoulder. Murmurs went up from the crowd as they saw me. Someone screamed. Students dashed off in all directions, panicking like spooked deer. By the time the stampede finished, only a couple of students remained, one of them quite familiar.