I tried to get up, but I still couldn’t move my legs. I could see them right there in the dirt, but they didn’t obey.

Raphael hammered a massive kick into the creature’s ribs.

The abomination spun toward him, its mane sparking.

Raphael ran.

The creature bellowed, an otherworldly, terrible sound. Blood from the cuts I’d caused dripped into its eyes, rendering it half-blind. It raised its snout, inhaled, and charged after Raphael.

I just had to get up. I had to pull myself upright.

Raphael sprinted along the wall, leaping over the piles of refuse. The creature raced after him, devouring the distance between them in huge leaps. The floor shook with each thud of its paws.

I rolled up to my knees, clumsy like a drunk, and forced myself upright.

The creature’s mane turned bright orange.

“Magic!” I yelled.

Raphael glanced over his shoulder.

The orange glow around the beast’s mane coalesced and whipped from the creature in twin bolts of bright lightning. Raphael zigzagged, but it was too late. The left bolt caught his ankle, splintering into a dozen small forks that bit into Raphael’s flesh. It jerked him off the ground.

The world stopped. All I could see was Raphael’s face, twisted by pain. Fear clamped onto me and spurred me into a desperate sprint.

For a second he seemed to float weightlessly, suspended a foot above the ground, and then he crashed down, rolling in the dirt.

Please don’t die. Please, please, don’t die.

There were fifty yards between me and the beast. It felt like I was running for an eternity, stuck in some sort of hell, watching the man I loved die in slow motion.

The beast snorted in vicious glee.

I’ll get there, honey. Hang on another half a second.

The giant jaws opened wide, teeth ready to rend.

I smashed into the beast from the side, thrust my claws under it, and sank them into the creature’s gut. Blood drenched me. Slippery innards slid against my fingers. I grabbed them and yanked.

The beast spun, trying to bite me. I sank my claws into the wound and hung on. The orange lightning bit into me, fire and ice wrapped in pain. The moonlight dimmed.

Raphael loomed on the other side of the beast and clawed it. He was alive. I almost cried from the relief.

The magic stung us again.

Oh my God. It hurt.

The magic wouldn’t kill us. It just hurt.

Hurt.

Raphael and I stared at each other over the beast’s spine through the haze of pain and laughed. Our eerie hyena cackles echoed through the ruin.

It wanted to play the hurting game against two boudas. It had no chance.

We mauled the beast.

It raked us with its hind legs and shocked us with its magic, and we clawed it and clawed it, hanging on and laughing through the pain. I tasted blood in my mouth and clawed even harder, digging into the beast’s stomach, wrenching innards and bone out. We carved and gouged, blacking out and coming to, throwing blood and wet entrails.