I jerked my eyes up in time to see Murphy rush the Lord of Outer Night and speed straight past him, her sword sweeping up in a single, upward, vertical slash. The gold mask fell from the vampire’s head—along with the front half of its skull. Silver fire burned at the revealed, twisted, lumpy lobes of the vampire’s brain, and as its blood flowed out and touched that fire, it went up in a sudden pyre of silver-white flame. The Lord of Outer Night somehow managed to scream as fire consumed it, and flung more bursts of magic blindly and in all directions for several more seconds, until it finally
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