Page 42 of A Shade Too Far
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The dybbuk was so fastthat I barely had time to see it before it knocked me over. I hit the grass and rolled sideways, its next attack missing me by inches.
The crimson whirl of rage honed its amorphous shape into a razor-sharp point, becoming a living knife. It had no face, no features, no discernable sentience other than its violent need to hurt me.
It slashed my forearm, burning a bloody gash across the skin. Swearing, I shook out my poor limb. I’d seen one cut Laurent, but it hadn’t happened to me before and it freaking hurt. Talk about the wrong day to wear a sundress.
A magic inky shadow funneled down my left arm into a scythe and I uttered the Hebrew word to make “die” appear on the blade, before swinging it into the dybbuk’s center.
Yaas, queen!
But instead of withering and dissolving under the crushing blow of my scythe, the dybbuk just split in two like one of those old cartoons and reformed unharmed to my right.
I stepped backward in shock, almost turning my ankle on the uneven lawn. That wasn’t—they weren’t supposed to behave like that.
I should have been vibrating like a live third rail with it this close, yet as it swooped and darted at me, expertly sidestepping all my attempts to destroy it, I felt no sense of its presence. In the darkness, it was little more than a blur that I was too slow to track. How long could I hold out against this thing? It was like it moved at warp speed while I was molasses.
I was tempted to jump through the shadows into the Kefitzat Haderech to safety, but the strain of revelers down in the lower section of Blood Alley grew louder. Rolling out my sore shoulder, I bolstered up my tired left arm with a two-handed hold, squinting into the gloom for my foe.
Where had it gone? I cocked my head, listening, but heard only the faint throb of music and voices of Blood Alley patrons. I crept forward, my shoulder blades prickling, jumping at a twig cracking underfoot.
The dybbuk shot out of nowhere, herding me back against a gargoyle carved with its wings outstretched and a look of vague constipation on its hideous visage. Caught between a wraith and a hard place.
I ducked and dodged, sprinting through a narrow gap between the dybbuk and the statue, but the spirit expanded to crowd me against the cold marble. This made no sense. Dybbuks on their own didn’t have intelligence, much less battle strategy. Until they fully possessed their host and had access to the person’s intelligence, their sole aim was to cause pain.
Its angry hum surrounded me, giving me an idea. Humans could hear much faster than we could see so, closing my eyes, I let the buzzing sounds guide my hand, abandoning myself to the same easy movements as back in Zumba class. Something inside me clicked, my actions taking on a new level of fluidity. Swing, duck, pivot, swing… I danced with my foe, my nonvisual senses wide open, and my weapon an extension of my arm.
The smell of my sweat mingled with that of dried grass and soil.
I spun like a dervish. My body ached and my scythe-wielding arm weighed a million pounds, but the dybbuk wouldn’t die. I ducked behind a large statue to catch my breath. The night breeze ruffled my hair and grass tickled my calves. Where was that woman from the island hiding? As its host, she had to be here, but try as I might, I couldn’t spot her.
The dybbuk gave me about three seconds of respite before it drove me back out into the open. I was growing tired, and it seemed able to bombard me from everywhere at once.
“Hey, lady! Are you okay?” a man called out.
I yelled at him to stay back, but the poor guy advanced, asking if I was drunk or sick. Of course, he couldn’t see the dybbuk.
The evil spirit hesitated and I brandished my scythe.
“Come and get me,” I said, intending to keep it away from the Ohrist.
Unfortunately, the young man took that as a threat directed at him and with a flick of his fingers like a conductor, gathered a cloud of mosquitos to attack me. Swatting at them, I jumped backward, clipping my eyebrow on the beaky nose of a gargoyle. Blood dripped into my eye.
The dybbuk got tangled up with the swarm of tiny bloodsuckers. It extracted itself, its humming louder, and shot after the Ohrist and his friends.
I sprinted for the young men, commanding them to get into the club. Luckily, they didn’t take much convincing because not seeing the true threat, they figured the crazy lady was out to get them.
Getting close enough to land a hit I swung my scythe, but the dybbuk switched course in midair, ramming into my arm and sending my attack wide. The scythe barely grazed it, allowing it to double down on one youth who’d hung back to rubberneck.
A crimson smile bloomed across the youth’s neck. He frowned, swiping a thumb over a drop staining one of the crisp gold buttons on his blazer, then he fell to his knees and pitched forward into a clump of dandelions.
He’d ironed his khakis into sharp pleats. I pictured him excited about his night out, taking great care to get them that crisp.
A rush of adrenaline shot through me, and taking a deep breath, I jumped back into the fight. The dybbuk and I parried across the lawn, my assailant driving me in circles until I tripped over the corpse.
The dybbuk closed in for the kill with a new brusqueness like everything up until now had been a game that it had wearied of. My dress was plastered to my skin and my left arm burned, the weapon shaking in my hold. Santiago’s last moments roared up to assault me, and while I couldn’t make my cloaking materialize, I refused to die here.
I dredged up the last of my energy for one final attack, hacking at empty air until I noticed the furious hum was gone—and so was the dybbuk.
