It meant something to Blackwood.

But again, this hesitation cost him. The Hollow slammed his head against the stone floor, disengaging from his grip. It slammed his head again, dazing Blackwood, the Hollow thrashing about. At once, it snatched the dagger from Blackwood’s hand. It turned the blade around, pointing it at its own throat, and with a crazed smile stabbed upward.

Blackwood just caught its wrist. The Hollow’s strength was prodigious, and Blackwood had been weakened in his duel with the conjurer. His hand shook as the blade tip neared Odessa Hardwicke’s neck.

He was losing her.

Then a flurry entered the crypt from the catacomb, a gust like the wind from the beating of great wings. Two big hands pulled at the Hollow, wrenching it off Blackwood, tearing the dagger from its hand.

Joachim, the tattoo artist and Hollow Ones’ jailer, watched the Hollow spin away from him, still a crazed look in its eye, getting ready to charge him.

At once Joachim flexed his chest, and his shirt ripped apart at its back seams. A pair of wings unfolded, twice as wide as they were high, the patterns of their scales painted with structural color patterns to rival that of the rarest butterfly. It was an angry flex, stunning the Hollow, freezing it in its tracks. Joachim lunged for it, grasping it by the neck, his wings retracting.

In a flash, he spun the Hollow around, one arm beneath its chin, the other atop its head. He was making to snap its neck.

“No!” yelled Blackwood.

Joachim looked up, surprised. Blackwood picked up his fallen leather kit and went before the squirming Hollow, looking past its ferocious sneer to the eyes of Odessa Hardwicke behind it.

Joachim held it tight, his arm moving back from the top of its head. Blackwood intoned the incantation, placing both hands on the sides of the Hollow’s head. His arms shook with the effort, the Hollow struggling in Joachim’s grip.

The body convulsed. As Blackwood withdrew his hands, an image of the Hollow’s head appeared between them, as though Blackwood was pulling it out. The Hollow’s large mouth howled in either pain or reluctance, but Blackwood could not yank it free. He was losing his grip on the nasty imp, until…as though the result of a great push from within Odessa Hardwicke, the Hollow was ejected, Blackwood staggering back with the foul, baying spirit in his hands.

Joachim released Odessa, letting her body sink to the floor. He grasped the Hollow One, seizing it from Blackwood, gripping the squealing, mewling imp by its throat.

Blackwood went to Odessa, kneeling before her, clearing the hair away from her face. Her skin was deathly cold to the touch, but then her eyelids fluttered, her lips moving.

She was coming around. Blackwood helped her up into a sitting position. She looked at him dumbly, wondering why he looked so happy to see her.