Magda used the opening to duck under Isidore’s outstretched arm and to slam her knife up into the ribs just under the man’s extended arm as it swung past them. It was a solid strike. She pulled back in time to miss the elbow that cocked back, trying to get her. The arm swept around again, inches from her face. She tried to slash the arm but missed. Magda saw that the fingers were like shriveled, blackened claws.

Isidore pushed both hands out, using all her strength to send a concentrated, focused fist of air at the center of the figure. It bent him only a little. He staggered back a half step but then kept coming forward again as Magda and Isidore kept circling away from him.

The cat leaped out of nowhere up onto the man’s back. He twisted and threw it off. The cat hit the wall hard.

With an angry roar and sudden, ferocious speed, the man lunged toward them. Magda snatched for the blind woman’s arm to yank her back out of the way, but she caught only air as Isidore leaned in and again tried to force a focused wall of air at the attacker.

Magda felt as if she were moving in a dream. Even with all her strength put into the effort, her legs wouldn’t move fast enough to get her within range to stab the man, to stop what she knew he was about to do.

Lashing out with lightning speed, his clawed hand raked through Isidore’s middle. Isidore’s scream turned to a grunt with the impact of the blow.

An arc of warm blood and flesh splattered across Magda and then in a diagonal line up across the wall.

Isidore’s legs began to buckle.

“Run! Now!” she cried out at Magda as she was going down.

Magda instead rammed her knife into the side of the man’s neck. She had to stop him before he did any more damage. All she could think was that she had to stop him and then get help for Isidore.

Driving the knife in deep didn’t feel like stabbing into muscle and sinew. It felt hard and leathery and dead. She tried to yank the knife back so that she could stab him again, but it was stuck fast.

She gripped the handle with both hands, trying to pull the blade back out of his neck. It was then, when she was close enough, that she saw in the dim light that the man, though he moved with impossible speed and power, didn’t look like a man.

He looked like a corpse.

His face was sunken and partially decayed. His jaw hung crooked to one side; his dark teeth were exposed behind shrunken, shriveled lips. He looked like a rotting cadaver.