As my eyes adjusted to my newly darkened surroundings, I sensed Edith was still beside me, releasing a futile string of curses aimed at Silas. We were in some kind of underground cavern or tunnel network. The walls were of slick limestone, with mineral deposits streaking the walls and a constant sound of flowing water.
"Edith, shush!" I hissed. There was a sound of shuffling coming from down the tunnel, and an approaching radiant light. I couldn't yet see what it was, but the footsteps sounded vaguely human. Indeed, the retinue that rounded the corner looked vaguely anthropoid, although emaciated. They did, however, have a large, ringlike structure in place of the top half of their skull, adorned by that radiant light I'd seen. It was akin to a cruel perversion of a halo.
I could better see the group's features now. There were perhaps four,tattered clothes clung to blackened, freakishly thin bodies. Their faces were devoid of skin or muscle, and they shambled forth with a lopsided stride. From lipless mouths poured dissonant prayers, in what I could make out to be latin, their voices twisted ever so slightly beyond being fully human.
They seemed to have spotted us after that. Their halos turning to face us fully, they began to move toward us, still chanting. A cold sense of fear clenched my shoulders. These things oozed menace, I could feel a pressure being exerted from the halos, as they cast harsh light onto the smooth-hewn walls, burning my eyes and piercing my very brain. Edith shielded her eyes, and I threw an arm back protectively, and over it, Edith aimed my pistol. "Not yet," I whispered. The creatures may have had no ill intentions, despite their appearence.
Just then, a radiant tendril burst forth from the halo of the foremost creature, lashing out, right at me. I didn't have time to react, before it cleaved me open from right clavicle to liver. The force of the movement had been accompanied by a sickening tearing of tendon and muscle in the thing's neck. The "halo" seemed to be a parasite, almost, commanding a human host in place of a brain.
This wasn't like the injuries I'd experienced from the Deep Ones. This burned, this wasn't healing quickly either. The whipcrack of my pistol in Edith's hand sent painful reverberations into my skull, as she blasted the creature, nailing it in the dead centre of its human body. It staggered back, but seemed uninjured.
Struggling to draw breath, I croaked out "The halos...", before taking up a more stable stance in front of her. Without time to focus on a sigil, when the creature lashed at me again, this time I intercepted with my crossed arms. My forearms were shattered by the impact, the shock and pain shooting up my arms, into the base of my brain. My arms fell by my sides, useless, as Edith fired off another shot, this time striking the mark, destroying the creature in a pulse of golden ephemera.
Two more creatures advanced. I put up my shielding sigil. It shattered on contact under the radiant lash of the creatures. In unison, i was slashed across the torso twice. I coughed out blood, and I felt my fingertips grow cold. Two more shots, two more creatures fell. One remained, tendril poised above my head. I didn't mind. Edith would kill it while it recovered from the hit.
I felt half-asleep. It was the end. I choked out an amused exhale. Second time in a week, just my luck. It was in that moment I understood psi, my soul. I felt it flickering within me, balanced on a knife's edge. That was me, the self, flickering. Once I understood that, everything clicked. I sensed the concentration of that creature's psi, how it was centred in the halo, the tendril just an extension of that. Maybe, just maybe, I could survive this.
I pushed the psi into my arms, forcing them to move, reinforcing the broken bones, enough so that I could deflect the impact of the attack, the tendril recoiling, and my arm only injured a little more than it already was. I pushed psi into my other hand. I knew I could project a bead of force, using a sigil, but that wasn't enough, I needed more.
If I could repulse, I could probably attract, too. I focused hard pushing my intent onto the halo, there was a very real, very tactile feedback once I started to generate that crushing force, as the creature's psi strained against my own. Then it happened, the thing's halo simply imploded, and it fell down dead.
I too fell to my knees, having expended my already compromised psi. Blood poured from my nose, and eyes. Sounds were muffled, I heard the pistol dropped to the ground as Edith came around to me. There were black spots in front of my vision. My eyes were half-closed, unwilling to be forced open. I felt one of her hands on the back of my head, the other pulling on her collar.
My cheek grazed the cotton of her open collar, and I felt the heat of her skin on my lips. She was pushing my head toward her own neck. Time slowed. I'd rather not have to rely on her, nor take anything from her, but I had little choice.
My lips parted, lengthened canines tracing along her glassen skin. I bit down, first tasting the light film of sweat, then her blood. Edith supressed a small yelp. It was intocicatingly sweet, in comparison to that of the deep ones, and unlike the blood from the morgue, it was thickly laced with something more, something the stagnated blood lacked. I drank deeply, feeling Edith's breathing tighten, and heart quicken under my jaws.
Having managed to extract enough to feel my strength restored, I disengaged from Edith, my head resting on her bloodied shoulder, my wounds now burning once more as they healed. My head was fuzzy, and Edith's hand remained on the back of my head. We were both out of breath. Edith's other hand went around my back, her head resting against mine. Her warmth permeated my flesh, which only moments before was growing cold.
Neither of us said anything. Nothing needed to be said, it was enough that we were both there in that moment.