08/20/2020 Snippet, TIPPED ON A STIFF.

Careful stepping around copyright laws!

I almost lost a few fingers grabbing and squeezing shut the spirit’s muzzle before it could rip out my throat, and I wasn’t going to hold on for more than a second. I was pretty much out of options at this point… except for one, of course. So I leaned forward, and whispered a few words in the beast’s misshapen ears, just as hard as I could.

Look, I’m not a mage, all right? I don’t do magic. I don’t cast spells, or anything like that. I just know some stuff, like how things… ought to go. And I know a hell of a lot of the Lore. Everything’s in there, somewhere. Including what a living whirlwind of death and destruction should look like. Because what the sorcerer had come up with? Total amateur work.

Again, I didn’t cast any spells: I just told the spirit what it could look like, and it did the rest. Okay, maybe I said it really, really strongly, and we were close enough to Mt. Jeannie out there in the Gulf that my words had some of Her oomph behind it, but it didn’t have to heed me. But why wouldn’t it heed me? The Lore’s idea of a good form for it was so much better than the sorcerer’s.

It wasn’t even a contest, although the sorcerer tried to make it one. The spirit broke free from me and staggered backward as it broke the sorcerer’s hold on its current form and redefined itself. Although there weren’t many changes. It kept the legs and arms, and the mouth was just as big and just as full of teeth as before. But now it had fur, and a proper face, and a tongue big enough for the mouth that now made up half its body.

And it was no longer interested in me. Instead, it faced its former master and started to growl. When the sorcerer sensibly started running, it gave chase, somehow spinning its lower body in place to build up speed. I could hear it howl “¡COMO CONEJITOS!” as the two left the scene.

I opened my mouth to quip… and fell flat on my ass. Which was a shame: I don’t remember what I was going to say, but I’m pretty sure it was good.