Metal screams through the air, but the pitching wail of pain that strikes it, clear as a bell, is not the same thing - it's a girl's scream, wrenching and ragged, and by the time the monster has been stopped, something else has happened. The multi-limbed creature of ugliness is gone, and in place is a smaller figure, dressed down to little more than a white frock that is quickly becoming red, with four naked limbs and a lolling head.
The girl bounces off the side of the carriage and crumples like a doll. Blood streaks her legs from thighs to ankles and spatters on her arms. A railroad spike is driven through her thigh, one into her ribcage, another in her gut, and the others have disappeared (although not from Erik's senses).
Her face, though, where Tadhg's knife struck strew, has been torn. An eye is a gory mess, a hole of red and black, and the searing edge of the magically charred knife ripples her skin down to her top lip, making her unrecognisable. Except that she isn't, not to Tadhg, because of course he can visualise what his little girl Caoimhe looks like. To Lucius and Erik, she is just a girl. One that can't be older than five.
"Specialis Revelio," is quietly and almost coldly uttered by Lucius, the sound of his wand cutting the air in a sharp and almost dismissive flick, as if one were pulling aside a curtain. The cloaking illusion lifts a moment, showing the twitching, mangled creature embedded with eight or nine steel spikes puncturing through its strange body, its black eye collapsed, and its mouth snapping soundlessly.
The girl's mournful cry catches on the wind, the illusion fighting back.
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Metal screams through the air, but the pitching wail of pain that strikes it, clear as a bell, is not the same thing - it's a girl's scream, wrenching and ragged, and by the time the monster has been stopped, something else has happened. The multi-limbed creature of ugliness is gone, and in place is a smaller figure, dressed down to little more than a white frock that is quickly becoming red, with four naked limbs and a lolling head.
The girl bounces off the side of the carriage and crumples like a doll. Blood streaks her legs from thighs to ankles and spatters on her arms. A railroad spike is driven through her thigh, one into her ribcage, another in her gut, and the others have disappeared (although not from Erik's senses).
Her face, though, where Tadhg's knife struck strew, has been torn. An eye is a gory mess, a hole of red and black, and the searing edge of the magically charred knife ripples her skin down to her top lip, making her unrecognisable. Except that she isn't, not to Tadhg, because of course he can visualise what his little girl Caoimhe looks like. To Lucius and Erik, she is just a girl. One that can't be older than five.
"Specialis Revelio," is quietly and almost coldly uttered by Lucius, the sound of his wand cutting the air in a sharp and almost dismissive flick, as if one were pulling aside a curtain. The cloaking illusion lifts a moment, showing the twitching, mangled creature embedded with eight or nine steel spikes puncturing through its strange body, its black eye collapsed, and its mouth snapping soundlessly.
The girl's mournful cry catches on the wind, the illusion fighting back.