I spun, bat already rising into a defensive position. A ghoul had somehow gotten past the formation—maybe it had been playing dead, maybe it had circled around through some hidden passage.
It didn't matter.
What mattered was that it was three feet away and lunging for my throat, its jaw unhinged to an impossible angle, needle teeth glistening.
I wouldn't make it in time. The math was brutally simple. Distance. Speed. Reaction time. The ghoul would reach me before my swing completed.
"Not today," I muttered.
I abandoned the bat swing mid-arc. Too slow. Instead, I raised my free hand and focused. The familiar rush of power flooded through my arm, invisible to everyone but me.
SEVER.
I slashed my hand horizontally through the air, channeling energy into a razor-thin plane of force. The ghoul's momentum carried it forward into my invisible blade.
For one heartbeat, nothing happened. The creature's face remained frozen in its hungry snarl, still reaching for me.
