Hanging limp and helpless in Richard's arms, despite how much she tried, Nicci simply could not bring forth enough strength to warn him of the beast about to crash down on him. She would have given her last breath to deliver that warning but, right then, she had no breath.

It was Cara, throwing all her weight at the charging creature, who deflected the full force of the attack and saved Richard from a killing strike. The beast's fangs caught only air as it crashed past Richard, but its claws ripped through the flesh at the back of his shoulder. Knocked off balance from Cara's tackle, the beast stumbled past Richard and smashed headlong into one of the heavy shelves. Bones, books, and boxes tumbled down.

The thing scrambled to its feet, snarling, fangs bared, muscles taut. Stretching for a moment to its full height, it was a good foot taller than Richard and its shoulders were nearly twice as wide. Bony projections marked its hunched spine. Dark, leathery flesh, like that of a desiccated corpse, covered powerful muscles.

It was a creature that wasn't really alive, and yet it moved and reacted as if it were. Nicci knew that it had no soul, and for that reason it was all the more dangerous. It had been conjured in part from the lives and Han — the gift — of living men. It acted with the single-minded purpose that had been instilled in it by its creators: Jagang's Sisters of the Dark.

As it immediately recovered and again went for Richard, Cara lashed out with her Agiel. The beast didn't appear to be harmed in the least by the weapon, but it abruptly halted and twisted toward the Mord-Sith with shocking speed and strength, backhanding her hard enough to send her flying. She crashed into a bookcase, toppling it back. Cara didn't rise from the jumble of books and splintered wood.

As lightning flashed outside the tall windows, Zedd used the opening to thrust out a hand, unleashing a shimmering bolt of power that lit the room. Shards of white-hot light exploded against the dark hide of the beast's chest, leaving lines of soot radiating outward as evidence of the contact that didn't appear to have caused any real harm.

Nicci, after Richard had laid her on the floor, was just starting to be able to pull desperately needed air into her lungs. She put an elbow out to prop herself up as she gasped for breath. She saw blood running from Richard's shoulder and down his arm. As he rose to meet his attacker he reached for his sword, but his sword was no longer there, at his hip.

Slowed for only an instant, he instead drew a knife from a sheath at his belt. As he met the threat racing toward him he slashed with the blade, making solid contact that sent the creature reeling. Staggered by the blow and knocked from its feet, it tumbled across the stone floor, stopping only when it collided with one of the massive shelves. A ragged flap of leathery flesh hung like a flag from the injured shoulder. Without slowing, without pause, the beast sprang into a somersault and landed on its feet, ready to renew its attack.

Ann and Nathan both threw fiery bolts at it. Rather than incinerating it, the conjured flames splashed off the beast. Unharmed, it roared with fury. Flashes of lightning glinted off the razor-sharp blade poised motionless in Richard's fist. The creature seemed all fangs and claws as it again lunged for him.

Richard stepped aside, gracefully turning with the beast's onrushing charge, and with a backhanded swing slammed his knife hilt-deep into the center of its chest. It was a perfectly executed strike. Unfortunately, it seemed to have had no more effect than anything else that had been tried.

The creature wheeled with impossible speed and seized Richard's wrist. Before it could catch him up in its powerful arms, Richard twisted under the grip and came up behind his attacker. He gritted his teeth with the mighty effort of twisting the creature's powerful arm up behind its knobby back. Nicci heard joints pop and bone snap. Rather than the injury slowing the beast, it whirled around, swinging the broken arm like a flail. Richard ducked and rolled away as deadly claws scythed past.

Zedd used the opening to ignite a sphere of seething liquid fire. Even the lightning seemed to pause in the presence of such profound power brought to life. The room vibrated with the howl of the deadly, concentrated inferno Zedd unleashed. The knot of churning flames shrieked through the dark room, illuminating the tables and chairs, the shelves and columns, and the faces of everyone watching as it swept past.

The beast glanced back over its shoulder at the tumbling, hissing yellow conflagration wailing across the room and defiantly bared its fangs at the approaching fire.

It struck Nicci as an odd thing for the creature to do, almost as if it didn't fear fire conjured by a wizard. Nicci had trouble imagining anything that could withstand such an onslaught — or not fear it. This was no mere fire, after all, but a menace that burned with phenomenal ferocity.

An instant before the writhing sphere of wizard's fire reached its target, the creature simply winked out of existence.

Absent an objective, the fire splashed down on the stone floor, exploding across the carpets and breaking over tables like a rogue wave crashing ashore. Although conjured for a specific enemy, Nicci knew that runaway wizard's fire could easily annihilate them all.

Before it could destroy the room or anyone in it, Zedd, Nathan, and Ann immediately cast yet more webs — Zedd doing his best to recall his power while the other two suppressed and smothered the flames before they had a chance to get out of control. Clouds of steam billowed up as they all worked to contain any errant droplets of the tenacious fire. It was a tense moment before they knew that they had succeeded.

Beyond the fog of vapor, Nicci saw the beast materialize out of the darkness.

It appeared behind Zedd, back in the shadows where she'd first seen it step into the world of life. Nicci was the only one who realized that it had returned in a different place. She had never before seen the creature slip in and out of the world of the dead at will, but she knew that was the method by which it was able to track and follow Richard across vast distances. She knew, too, that no matter the form it took, it would never rest until it had him.

Richard spotted the beast coming for him before any of the others and called out a warning to Zedd, standing directly in the path of the wild charge. Zedd blocked that charge by massing the air itself into a densely compressed, angled shield. The trick deflected the beast's course by just enough. Richard used the diversion to slash at his attacker. Before his knife could make contact, the beast again winked out of existence, only to return an instant later once past Richard's blade.

It almost seemed to be toying with them, but Nicci knew that that wasn't the case. It was merely employing varying tactics in its soulless quest to have Richard. Even its seemingly angry roars were merely a tactic meant to weaken its victim with fear, thereby giving it a chance to strike. Instilling the capacity for emotion in it would have produced limitations; therefore Jagang's Sisters had left such qualities out. The beast was incapable of actually feeling anger. It was simply unremitting in its purpose.

Ann and Nathan released a torrent of power concentrated into thousands of small, rock-hard, deadly points that could have shredded the hide right off an ox, but before the hurtling fragments could rip into the creature, it again effortlessly evaded the attacks by stepping into a shadow and coming out once again in another place.

Nicci realized that none of them had the ability to stop the thing.

Struggling to recover her strength, she scrambled across the floor to check on Cara. Still lying against a wall, Cara was dazed and having difficulty regaining her senses. Nicci pressed her fingers to the Mord-Sith's temples, trickling in a thread of magic to wake her and revive her strength. She seized the woman by her leather outfit when she suddenly tried to scramble to her feet.