Alex started out of his chair, thrusting his hand into his pocket to close around the small metal disk. The woman also leapt to her feet, her hands reaching for him. Her eyes were narrowed into a look of malice entirely different from the coy smile she had worn before. Alex involuntarily tried to take a step back, but almost tripped on chair behind him. He yanked the disk from his pocket and held it out towards her.
“Vade retro Satana!” he cried.
Alex felt nothing more than a tingle in his arm, but the woman reeled backwards as if he had shoved her with all his strength. The amulet itself, spinning from the force of yanking it out, had stopped instantly, its back facing towards him without a tremor. Alex thought he heard, or perhaps felt, a small hum or chime emanating from it. On the side facing him was a cross inside a circle, with individual letters inscribed within both shapes, bringing the words back to his memory.
Alex’s legs shook slightly. He planted his feet, thrust the medallion out before him, and recited the spell.
> “Crux sacra sit mihi lux.
>
> Non draco sit mihi dux.
>
> Vade retro Satana!
>
> Nunquam suade mihi vana.
>
> Sunt mala quae libas.
>
> Ipse venena bibas.”
For a long moment, the room was completely still. Alex watched dust kicked up by the shifted furniture filter down through the lamplight in his periphery. His instincts screamed at him to flee, but he also feared turning his back to her. He mustered his courage for a show of bravado. “You can't harm me,” he said, raising the amulet and forcing a smile to his lips. “I have my own magic.”
The momentary feeling of real pride in his chest was doused by cold, melodic laughter. The woman had caught herself on the arm of her chair, and now straightened to look Alex in the eyes. “Very good,” she hissed. “You will make an acceptable vessel. But if you are going to borrow the power of the divine, you had best believe in it yourself!”
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Her eyes flicked over his shoulder, and Alex felt a presence behind him. He was certain that no one had entered the room; the door and the windows had not moved since he arrived. The man behind him must have been there all along, unseen. As he tried to turn and guard himself, thin hands gripped his shoulders, dragging him backward.
Alex fell half into his chair, struggling against the incredible strength of his assailant. His eyes took in mottled, paper-thin skin wrapped around bony knuckles, the hands of a man in the extremity of advanced age. He had a vague impression of an ancient face breathing heavily behind him from his peripheral vision.
The unbelievable power surging through those feeble-seeming hands could only be magic. Unable to escape, Alex lashed the medallion back towards his assailant’s head. Though the disk had no sharp edge and weighed little, the creature recoiled from the swing as if from a striking viper. Alex felt himself breaking free when he was seized from the front. The thin arms and pale hands of the woman were quite as strong as those of the old warlock behind him.
He thrashed against her grip frantically, trying to prevent himself from getting caught from both sides. She leaned back from a swing of his medallion and moved to grip his arm to prevent another. Desperate, Alex stopped struggling back away from her and leaned in instead, slipping the loop of chain that held the medallion right over her head.
The effect was immediate and dramatic. The woman lunged back away, tearing at the thin silver chain, but it did not break. Gripping the chain with both hands, she attempted to lift it back over her head, but with both arms straining with unearthly power, she could hardly move it. She bent over forward, as if trying to keep the medallion from touching her skin.
Alex realized he now had no weapon and scrambled towards the door. He had taken three steps when a shadow surged to his side, and he felt the bony hands grab at him again, catching onto his jacket. He shrugged his way out of the garment, but the brief delay gave the warlock time enough to get a grip on his belt, drawing him inexorably backward.
He hit the ground with a thud and hands closed around his throat. A hoarse voice began to chant into his ear, and blackness crept into the periphery of his vision as he struggled to draw air into his chest. Alex flailed behind himself with a frantic backhand, and felt his fist connect, splitting aged skin and cracking brittle bone. But the grip on his throat only tightened, and as strength left his body, Alex knew he was going to die.