(AFK WORM) CHAPTER TWENTY

The answer, as it turned out, had been floating beside her for most of the night.

Corpsemaker shifted her attention toward the spirit orb without taking her awareness away from Lung, an easy enough distinction now that the creature had become so thoroughly integrated with her senses. Its slit pupil remained fixed upon the ABB leader while the green fire surrounding it curled in restless patterns, and for the first time since the fight began, she wondered whether she had been thinking about its purpose too narrowly.

She had treated it as an eye because it allowed her to see. Before that, she had treated it as the remains of a dead man because that was what it had been born from. Yet the two things did not necessarily encompass everything it might be capable of doing.

The man whose spirit had created it had died wanting the ABB destroyed. His anger had survived him strongly enough to remain after everything else had fallen away, and Shemira had accepted that desire when she bound the orb to herself. Perhaps she had spent too much time thinking of it as a responsibility she carried rather than something that could carry out that responsibility alongside her.

Lung gave her very little time to pursue the thought before surging forward again. Corpsemaker barely managed to throw herself aside as one claw tore through the space where her stomach had been, and she landed on one hand, twisting with the motion so she could drive her heel into the side of his knee as hard as she could.

Her foot connected with a solid impact, yet the result was disappointingly small. Lung shifted half a step, his balance barely disturbed, and Corpsemaker stared at him for a fraction of a second before realizing she had no time to be surprised. She pushed herself backward just as his answering swipe came through, the claws catching the trailing edge of her dress and tearing through the fabric.

So much for that.

The torn strip of dark cloth hung from one of Lung's claws as Corpsemaker retreated, and the heat pouring from his body quickly blackened the fabric before he shook it loose with an irritated glance.

Her own irritation came considerably easier than fear this time.

She had made that dress herself.

Lung came after her again.

She moved before he could close the distance, circling around the alley while the orb tracked him from above. Running would only delay the problem, and every second she spent doing it served Lung far more than it served her, yet standing still long enough to experiment with her magic seemed equally foolish.

There had to be some middle ground between reckless experimentation and allowing herself to be cooked alive by a transforming dragon.

She reached toward the orb.

No hand rose, and no word left her lips. The action happened entirely within whatever part of herself now understood the dead, a pressure of intent sent through the connection she had felt ever since the orb first followed her away from its corpse.

Help me.

The response came immediately.

Green fire surged around the orb, and Corpsemaker nearly stumbled as something rushed through the connection between them. She had expected an answer, although she had not expected it to feel like this. The anger came first, so strong that it seemed to push everything else aside, and suddenly she was standing in a cramped kitchen that she knew she had never seen before.

Children sat around a battered table while overdue bills covered the counter and an empty refrigerator waited behind them. She could feel the man's helplessness as clearly as her own thoughts, the sickening knowledge that there was never enough money and that whatever he did, he might still fail the people who depended on him.

The scene changed.

A girl lay dying beside a dumpster, tears running down her face as she apologized for something that was not her fault.

Then came Oni Lee.

A knife.

Blood.

The knowledge that he would never make it home, and that his family would wake the next morning expecting him to walk through the door.

The anger only grew, feeding on every memory until everything else was swallowed by it. His fear, his helplessness, his grief, all of it had eventually found the same place to go.

Destroy them.

Corpsemaker's breath caught as the words seemed to echo through the connection.

The orb moved, shooting past her shoulder so suddenly that she turned her head after it out of old instinct, even though she could still perceive its path without looking. Lung noticed it as well, his attention shifting from her for the first time since the fight had begun.

The orb struck him squarely in the chest.

There was no explosion, and for a moment nothing seemed to happen at all. Then green fire spread across his scales, thin strands crawling over his body before sinking beneath them.

Lung stopped.

Corpsemaker stopped with him, staring as she tried to understand what she was seeing. For a second, the two of them simply stood there, neither seeming to know what had just happened.

Then he grunted. His shoulders tightened, and one clawed hand rose toward his chest while the other slammed into the brick wall beside him, his claws digging deep enough to leave grooves in the stone.

Corpsemaker felt it at the same moment.

Something was moving through the connection between them.

Life poured into her.

Her eyes widened beneath the mask.

She had reached into another person once before and taken their vitality through direct contact, and the sensation had been intimate enough to unsettle Annette's side of her for days afterward. This felt similar, although distance changed the experience. Lung's life force flowed through the orb first, filtered through the dead man's hatred before reaching her as a steady current of warmth.

It was considerably easier to bear this way… and considerably harder to control.

Lung roared, fire erupting from his mouth.

Corpsemaker flung herself aside as the blast tore across the alley, washing over the wall behind her and filling the air with heat so intense that the exposed skin along her shoulders prickled instantly. She landed badly, caught herself before she could fall, and turned her attention back toward Lung.

The orb was still attached to him, its green flames spreading farther across his chest as the strange connection between them continued to draw his life into her. She could feel it pouring through her, a steady current that seemed to grow stronger with every second.

And then she noticed something else.

Lung's transformation had slowed.

The change lasted only a moment, barely long enough for her to be certain she had seen it, before the scales along his shoulders thickened again and his body continued to grow.

Of course it wouldn't be that easy. 

Still, she had seen it. Lung's power was still feeding him while her magic drained him, creating a struggle she did not understand well enough to really measure. She could feel vitality flowing toward her, enough that the bruising along her back and other minor injuries had already begun to ease, yet Lung showed no signs of weakening beyond whatever minute pain the drain caused him.

If anything, the attack seemed to be making him angrier. Which, considering how his power worked, was probably the worst possible outcome.

"Get off," Lung growled.

His hand closed around the orb.

Corpsemaker felt his fingers pass through part of it before finding something solid enough to seize, and pain tore through her head so suddenly that she staggered. She released the connection on instinct, and the orb vanished from Lung's grasp before returning to her side in a streak of green light.

For several seconds, Corpsemaker could do little more than stand there with one hand pressed against the side of her mask while the ache behind her eyes slowly subsided. Whatever connection she had established through the orb could apparently carry pain in both directions, which was something she would have to keep in mind.

That was new. Useful, certainly, though maybe something she should have considered before letting a giant, fire-breathing cape grab it.

She would remember that.

Lung gave her little opportunity to think about it further. He charged once more, larger now than he had been less than a minute earlier, and Corpsemaker abandoned further experimentation in favor of keeping her head attached to her shoulders. She slipped beneath one strike, twisted away from another, and felt the heat of a third pass close enough to her back that the ends of her hair curled.

The spirit orb darted around Lung as she moved, and his eyes followed it almost immediately.

Interesting.

She sent it to the left, watched his gaze shift after it, and went right. Her fist caught him across the jaw, and although the impact hurt her hand considerably more than it seemed to hurt him, his head moved with the blow this time, so she took the small victory and kept moving.

Lung turned toward her, but she was already sending the orb toward him again. He raised one hand to swat it aside, and Corpsemaker instinctively changed its direction.

The response came so naturally that she almost missed what she had done. The orb veered upward, slipped past his claws, and swept behind him before Lung could adjust. Her awareness followed it, and suddenly she was seeing him from behind while her own body remained several feet away.

The sensation should have been disorienting, having two separate perspectives occupying her mind at once, yet somehow it felt completely natural.

Corpsemaker smiled.

Lung noticed, and judging by the way his expression hardened, he probably did not appreciate what that meant.

"What?" he demanded.

She almost answered honestly.

I'm learning.

The words stayed in her head as she considered them, and then she dismissed the thought. Giving Lung any more information than necessary would be idiotic, especially when she barely understood what she was doing herself.

Instead, she sent the orb forward again.

Lung turned to meet it, his attention following the green light as Corpsemaker moved in from the opposite direction. Her heel struck the back of his knee just as the orb passed across the edge of his shoulder, and this time she deliberately reached through the connection, searching for that same strange current she had felt before.

Life answered.

Warmth flooded into her, and Lung's leg dipped beneath him as the drain took hold. Only slightly, but it was more than she had managed before.

She pressed harder.

For a moment, it felt as though she had caught hold of something deep inside him, something vast and ancient and furious that resisted her with the same stubbornness as the man himself. His vitality pushed back against her magic even as his transformation continued feeding whatever she managed to draw away, and the strain spread through her body until every muscle tightened.

Then the dead man's anger surged through the orb.

Take it.

So Shemira did.

Lung dropped to one knee.

Her breath caught as she felt the weight of him give way beneath her power. It was only a moment, and she knew better than to mistake it for victory, but she had finally found something that could make him stumble.

The satisfaction lasted perhaps half a second.

Lung's hand slammed backward.

Corpsemaker saw the attack through the orb before his arm had fully extended, but knowing it was coming did not give her enough time to get out of the way. His fist caught her across the ribs and sent her flying sideways, and she hit the ground hard enough to roll until her back struck the wall.

Pain tore through her side.

Something had broken.

She knew it immediately. Her breath came shallow as she pushed one hand against the ground and tried to stand, but the moment she put weight on herself, the pain sharpened enough to force her back down.

Across the alley, Lung rose.

He was larger again. The scales around his torso had thickened, his jaw had begun to push outward, and the heat surrounding him made the air distort.

Corpsemaker stared up at him, her body protesting every attempt to move.

Her experiment had worked.

That was the problem. It had worked well enough to make her believe she could keep him down, and poorly enough that Lung had still managed to break several of her ribs.

Annette's response came immediately.

Run.

She could almost hear the word in her own voice. Taylor would still have a mother tomorrow. Danny would still have a wife who avoided his bed and annoyed him into exercising before sunrise. She could call the PRT, tell them what she had heard, and let people who knew what they were doing handle Lung.

There was nothing shameful about surviving, and Shemira knew that.

Then Lung took another step toward her.

Somewhere beyond the alley, four children were waiting for men like these to decide what happened to them. The spirit orb hovered between them, its pupil fixed on Lung, and the dead man's anger pressed against her thoughts again.

If she left now, she would survive.

She would also remember those children every time she looked at Taylor.

Corpsemaker drew in a careful breath, and pain sharpened through her ribs. Then she reached toward Lung through the orb.

His life force answered.

And this time, she held on.