The once-man, now pseudo-Jinn, clawed along the rooftop not unlike a certain spandex wearing superhero donning a spider insignia. It now showed no signs of humanity, from the leathery bat wings to the black plumage covering its form, anyone would've believed him to have always been a Jinn.

  Lupe knew there were cases where humans stopped looking like themselves, like when a Goetist over used Grudge energy and begun mutating... Director Donner was a prime example of this.

  Or the more likely case in this instance, a Jinn possessed the corpse of a dead man, and couldn't contain its energy enough to prevent instant mutation.

  And yet Agent Shadoll couldn't help but think, 'Something's off.'

  She quickly shook herself off. Her supervisor, as annoying as it was, would likely report this entire mission to Donner... She had to prove herself capable of subjugation.

  Her voice let out a low whisper, barely audible. "Key of Form: Tenebris,"

  In an instant the Goetry took affect. Lortum observed as Lupe's shadow seemed to contort slightly, its image no longer properly reflecting the Agent's own. In fact it looked almost inhuman now, with its limbs slightly longer than they should be, its fingers stretching to almost look like claws, and finally the shadow sprouted two great antlers from its head.

  Of course the most eye-catching part of the transformation took place on the original Lupe, a third eye opening up just below her left. Its sclera entirely black, and the pupil seemingly replaced with a nuclear green circle containing three dots.

  'The alchemical symbol... "Caput mortuum", if I remember correctly.' thought the century old Jinn. 'Signifies a useless substance left over from a chemical operation... It could also be the mathematical symbol for "therefore" but I don't see what significance that would hold.'

  It certainly was a confusing Key. But that only enticed Lortum more, it was a common rule that the harder to understand how a Key worked in Goetry, the more a sorcerer could do with it. After all, Keys were how sorcerers could bend the world to their will, a broad command would always give more lee-way than a specific one.

  "Fascinating…" he murmured, barely audible under the shriek of the pseudo-Jinn above.

  He smiled. She would make a good host with access to Key's like this... What other hidden card would he be able to steal once he took her body? Lortum could hardly contain his excitement. But, of course, he did contain his excitement- he couldn't risk breaking the stoic, nonchalant persona Oz had spent his life perfecting.

  Truly, the man he possessed couldn't have been duller. His entire apartment was bare, save for a few teen-romance books that definitely shouldn't have been in a middle aged mans room, Signed copies at that... It was a strange juxtaposition given that the impression Oz gave everyone around him was more along the lines of a grizzled, hard-boiled Jinn hunter.

  As a loud crash resounded above him, Lortum was shook out of his thoughts.

  "Oh. They're really getting into it." He observed.

  Blasting straight through the ceiling of the warehouse, Lupe and the Jinn suddenly found themselves in the open air. Blocking a blow with her arm, the young Agent found herself being flung onto the rooftop with a resounding thud. Rolling to her feet, she smiled coyly as she checked herself for injuries.

  "A fractured arm and two broken fingers..." She observed, chortling. "Nothing that can't be fixed with a bit of goetry,"

  The Jinn, which had landed maybe fifteen meters opposite Lupe, watched in caution as the dots in her strange third eye began to whirl. Then, its monstrous visage twisted in confusion as her hand snapped itself back towards a perfect state.

  Lupe flexed her now-mended fingers, shaking out the last hint of stiffness. A faint, pained hiss rose from beside her- well, not beside her. Beneath her.

  Her shadow hunched awkwardly, its inky form clutching its own arm, which now dangled at a crooked, agonized angle completely at odds with Lupe's restored limb. Its head, tilted up toward her with a look that could only be described as betrayed.

  Lupe winced."…Right. Sorry about that."

  The shadow stiffened, slowly turning its head away in the most melodramatic rejection a two-dimensional being could manage.

  "I'll have to take back the injury later anyway... Just hold onto it for me while I deal with this guy." Sighed the Agent.

  Her shadow gave a tiny, reluctant nod. The Jinn across the rooftop stared, momentarily forgetting its own murderous intent as it tried to process what it was witnessing.

  The Jinn's confusion didn't last long.

  A ripple of rage travelled down its spine, black feathers lifting like porcupine quills as it let out a shriek that rattled the warehouse beneath their feet. Its wings snapped open, hurling a gust of wind across the rooftop.

  Lupe braced herself, sliding back half a foot.

  "Right," she muttered, "Still on the clock."

  The Jinn moved like a speeding bullet, much faster than should be allowed for its size, claws cutting through the air. Lupe ducked beneath its first swipe, the space above her splitting with a high, slicing whistle. The second however, cut low and straight through her ankle.

  For a moment, blood sprayed as her foot was cleanly severed. But then her third eye spun again. Lupe didn't have to glance at her shadow to know it was now rolling around in pain. She grunted to herself, inheriting a severed foot was going to be a pain to deal with, but she'd mull over that later.

  Throwing herself between the Jinn's legs, Lupe grabbed the creatures tail and pulled. Maybe it was because the scaled appendage had only just sprouted and wasn't fully formed, or maybe it was her increased strength that came with the use of 'Tenebris', but the Agent had no issue ripping the beasts tail off.

  The Jinn let out a sound that wasn't quite a roar and wasn't quite a scream, more like the shrill, furious cry of a bird that had suddenly realized it was missing a limb. It spun on her, wings flaring, balance thrown entirely off as black blood sprayed in a wide arc from the torn stump of its tail.

  Lupe didn't give it a moment to recover.

  Before the creature could fully face her, she swung the severed tail like a weighted chain, the scales hissing as they cut through the air. The makeshift weapon struck the Jinn across the jaw with a sharp crack, sending its head snapping sideways.

  It staggered. Barely. Then, to Lupe's horror, it grasped it's own head and with a sickening crunch, snapped it's own head back into place. The Junior Agent just observed for a moment, her lips pursed in consideration... Then, her face shifted from mild annoyance to outright fury when she realised that the creature was no longer leaking any sort of blood, it's wound sealed itself up.

  The creature wrenched the tail from Lupe's grasp, before tossing it over it's own shoulder.

  "I was hoping you'd have gone down with that," She grumbled, a cold sweat rolling down her back as the creature watched her with a silent fury.

  The Jinn seized the opening, claws raking toward her throat. She leapt backwards, growing slightly concerned that her own shadow may not be able to withstand the pain much longer, after all if it decided to transfer the wounds back she would be in some serious trouble.

  The Jinn lunged again, even faster this time, anger fuelling its movements. Lupe pivoted hard, heel skidding on loose gravel as those hooked talons sliced the air where her head had been a heartbeat prior.

  Her ankle screamed through the shadow beneath her. She grit her teeth. "Hold it," she hissed under her breath.

  The shadow flailed silently, trembling like a shaken sheet of ink.

  The Jinn barrelled past her, wings beating like war drums. Lupe seized the moment, she hooked her foot behind its shin and swept.

  The beast toppled forward with a startled, choking shriek, momentum pitching it toward the rooftop's edge. It caught itself with a claw at the last moment, talons gouging deep furrows into the concrete.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Lupe didn't waste the opening.

  Her heel came down in a vicious arc, an axe kick fuelled by Goetry-enhanced muscle and more than a little adrenalin. Her boot crashed against the Jinn's skull, slamming its face into the rooftop with a crunch that spiderwebbed the concrete beneath it.

  Retreating a few steps, Lupe watched silently for any signs of movement, and after confirming that the creature was in fact immobile, she let out a sigh of exasperation.

  "Alright," she muttered, turning her attention downward. "Let's see how bad you're-"

  She froze.

  Her shadow stood perfectly upright. Perfectly unharmed.

  It wasn't even trying to hide it. The inky silhouette scratched the back of its neck, head tilted in an awkward heh… sorry gesture that made Lupe's jaw drop.

  Lupe opened her mouth to yell again-when her ankle split like an apple cut in two.

  Pain tore through her leg fell apart from at the ankle. Her knee buckled. Her balance vanished. The world tilted.

  "Oh- oh, you coward!"

  Her shadow flinched back as if unable to watch.

  Lupe collapsed sideways, hitting the rooftop hard enough to rattle her teeth. Her breath punched out of her lungs in a wheeze, her vision sparking white at the edges. Fingers attempted to claw for purchase but didn't respond.

  'Right.' She thought, 'Those were also mangled,'

  And she still had a half-conscious pseudo-Jinn at her feet. Or foot, if we were keeping up to date.

  Fantastic.

  Lupe pushed herself up onto her elbows, wincing. "Okay… okay, just need to get Oz's attention."

  Another spike of pain shot up her leg. So intense, in fact, that she forgot about her hand.

  She collapsed again, vision going blurry.

  "…Could be worse."

  Humming to himself as he circled the perimeter of the warehouse, Lortum walked with a leisurely pace. He wasn't too worried about Lupe, after all she had beaten a rank 4 Jinn just recently, and this one was -despite not being a jinn- was about rank 3 on the scale. There was no reason for the Agent to even get remotely hurt.

  "Oh." Said Lortum using Oz's mouth, "A ladder."

  He placed a hand on the cold metal, giving it an experimental shake. It groaned. Oz, in life, had probably climbed ladders a thousand times with grim resolve and a cigarette hanging from his lips. Lortum, on the other hand, considered simply leaping onto the roof. He could. Easily. Even while puppeteering this clumsy flesh-suit.

  'May as well,' Thought the Jinn, 'I haven't tried using Goetry since possessing this man after all.'

  He bent his knees, bracing himself like a sprinter about to launch.

  And then he leapt. Or tried to.

  Oz's body made it approximately half a metre off the ground before gravity seized him by the collar and slammed him right back down onto the concrete with a dull, embarrassing thump.

  Lortum lay there for a moment, staring up at the sky through borrowed eyes, processing the indignity.

  "…No," he whispered, appalled. "That can't be right."

  He got up. Dusted Oz off. Scowled.

  'Again.' He commanded himself.

  He attempted another leap, this one with a dramatic flourish of his arm, as though the added theatrics might coax the needed power out of the man's meat and bone.

  He achieved nearly the same result as before.

  Thump.

  A passing rat paused to stare at him.

  Lortum glared back. The rat left first.

  "…This body is defective," he muttered, rolling Oz's shoulder. Something popped. Rather loudly. "Deeply defective."

  He lifted his hand, letting a small trickle of grudge-energy bloom at his fingertips. The faint black spark sputtered, then immediately fizzled out like a dying match.

  Lortum froze.

  "That's not an injury," he whispered, dread curdling through the stolen nerves. "That's… Something I've never seen before."

  He pressed two fingers to Oz's throat, feeling for the faint pattern of life-force beneath the skin. A Jinn's soul needed a compatible vessel to exert its full power. Too different, and the flesh rejected the spirit. Too similar, and the spirit smothered the flesh.

  But this? This was total spiritual dissonance.

  His eyes widened as the truth reared its ugly head.

  "I've been reduced…" He paused, the words unwilling to leave his mouth. "To a rank one."

  He stared at Oz's Large, calloused, and scarred hands before he let out a horrified breath.

  "This is humiliating."

  For a moment he glanced toward the warehouse roof where Lupe and the pseudo-Jinn were surely tearing each other apart with supernatural force.

  He, meanwhile, could barely muster the strength of a fledgling, newly-formed spectre.

  "…I should've taken the ladder," he muttered darkly.

  And then, because he had no choice, he began climbing it.

  It wasn't too bad. Despite previously being only a rank three Jinn, Lortum was unique in his mind. And it was through this special gift he had survived centuries whereas his fellow kin were hunted like flies. Besides, the Shadolls were gone, humanity had lost a third of its strength just a decade ago. As long as the Jinn remained cautious, he'd be able to skilfully find a more suitable body.

  Yes he was willing to compromise and let Lupe roam free for a bit longer. Trying to posses a skilled agent in his current state would only end in eradication. So he would upgrade from Oz's to some unsuspecting fool, and then from the fool to Lupe.

  Reaching the top of the ladder, Lortum hauled himself to his own puppeteered feet. Glancing around, the Jinn felt his body stiffen. There, just a few meters away were two bodies sprawled out on the concrete.

  Slowly, stiffly, he approached.

  The pseudo-Jinn's bulk was the first thing he checked: A deep crater was imprinted beneath its skull. Blood, blacker than it should be, oozed out from under it in a puddle.

  "Not dead," Lortum murmured. "Good, I wanted to do my own research on this strange 'fake Jinn'."

  Lupe lay face-down, limbs sprawled out limply, almost theatrically so, as if she'd fainted mid-sentence. Her ankle boot was in two, once still connected to her shin like a sheaf, the rest of it still wrapped snugly around her foot- which was sitting slightly away from her body.

  And yet…

  Her shadow was fine.

  Perfectly fine.

  Lortum squinted.

  It stood behind her like a guilty toddler caught breaking a vase, hands behind its back, eyes looking anywhere but at its collapsed master.

  "What a strange use of Goetry…" he murmured, kneeling beside her. "Is this the Key of Form, to alter the body and soul… or the Key of Conquest, to bring life into the world?"

  He reached out with Oz's hand, letting two fingers hover a hair's breadth over Lupe's wrist. Her pulse thudded weakly. Her breathing was steady. Unconscious, not dying.

  Her shadow shifted the moment his fingers neared her skin.

  A silent warning.

  Lortum froze, then slowly turned his gaze to the two-dimensional creature. It stood rigid now, arms outstretched as though shielding her, the faintest ripple of hostility passing over its surface like disturbed water.

  "…You recognise me?" he whispered, before pushing the notion aside "No, you're just protective of your master,"

  The shadow didn't say anything, but Lortum had the faint sense it was glaring at him.

  "Key of Form indeed," he mused, and the grin that tugged at Oz's mouth was genuine. "She has given her shadow a bit of her own soul, although just a scrap, it's had an interesting effect."

  The shadow stiffened at that, almost insulted.

  Lortum clicked his tongue. "Sentience, then. How delightful."

  He extended a hand toward it, not touching, merely observing. The shadow flinched backward as though scorched by the mere intention.

  "Relax. If I wanted her dead, I would have taken her the moment she blacked out," he said lightly, though that was… only partly true. "But between you and I, There's doubt if I could even manage that in this state."

  He straightened, rolling Oz's aching spine. "Rank one… truly humiliating."

  Lupe stirred.

  A low groan squeezed past her lips as she pushed herself halfway upright, blinking through the dizziness like someone trying to remember what century they were in.

  Her eyes, unfocused at first, drifted from the ruined rooftop… to the unconscious pseudo-Jinn… to Lortum looming above her in Oz's borrowed face… to her completely unharmed shadow, who immediately pretended it had been innocent and decorous the entire time.

  "…How long was I out?" she muttered, then flinched as her ankle reminded her it was technically in two pieces. "Ow-."

  She blew out a shaky breath.

  "Mr Oz, Sir… Please call an ambulance."

  The Jinn blinked, slowly.

  "…Pardon?"

  "Ambulance," she repeated, rubbing her eyes with her good hand as if she had just woken from an afternoon nap. "Big van. Sirens. It helps people."

  "I know what an ambulance is," Lortum snapped, affronted.

  "Then call one."

  He froze.

  Oz's hand drifted down to his pocket.

  He produced a phone, And then stared at it his brow creasing.

  "…How does this infernal rectangle work?"

  "Oh my god" She groaned in exasperation. "how old are you?"

  Lupe rubbed her face with both palms, despite her mangled fingers, not getting a response she stated. "Pass it here, I'll do it."

  "No," Lortum said, clutching it protectively. "I can do this."

  He tapped the screen certainty, copying how he had seen others activate this device. The phone lit up. 'Good start' he thought. Then it asked for a 'passkey'.

  Lortum glared at the numbers.

  "It requires a ritual incantation."

  "That's a passcode."

  "A binding spell."

  "A passkey."

  "I am not familiar with this key of Goetry."

  "It's a different kind of Key," She said, voice strained, "Who set this up for you, your grand-kid?"

  Oz didn't respond. Ignoring the several 'notifications' from an individual called 'Sunshine', the jinn tried entering a series of digits.

  "Did you get it?" Asked Lupe, trying to sit herself up. "You look confused - I don't think you got it,"

  Lortum ignored her and tried a different series of digits. There was still 9998 possible combinations, he couldn't waste time discussing details with his delirious protégé.

  "You don't need to get the password, just click the 'emergency' button at the bottom of the screen."

  Lortum froze mid-tap.

  "…Emergency button?" he repeated.

  "Yes," Lupe said, wheezing a little. "Bottom-left. Big red letters. You literally cannot miss it."

  With the air of a sorcerer preparing a dangerous ritual, Lortum pressed the "Emergency" option.

  The phone immediately pulled up the dial pad.

  He glared at it like it was mocking him.

  "What am I meant to do with this?"

  "Dial 999," Lupe said.

  "The angel number? Is Hebrew used in all of these combinations?"

  "Sir." Said Lupe, her voice steady, "What the fuck are you on about?"

  Lortum sighed, muttering something about respect, and pressed the numbers.

  The phone rang.

  He jolted, nearly dropping it.

  A calm voice answered, "Emergency services, what is your emergency?"

  Lortum froze.

  Lupe stared at him. "…Talk," she urged.

  He cleared Oz's throat. Considering himself.

  "One of my… subordinates has experienced damage to her leg." He reassessed Lupe again, "And her hand appears to have also been damaged."

  "Oh that sounds painful, is she conscious?"

  "She is both alive and… intermittently coherent," he answered.

  "Is she breathing normally?"

  He watched her inhale, then exhale in a long, pained groan.

  "Yes. Loudly."

  Lupe shot him a look. Her glare intensifying

  The operator continued, "An ambulance will be with you shortly, do you know how to administer first-aid? I could guide you through it, if that'll be easier."

  Lortum briefly thought of the time he had possessed a witch-doctor during his time in Africa a dozen or so centuries ago. He looked at Lupe, who was mouthing to him something along the lines of 'don't hang up', before directing his gaze to her injury.

  "That won't be necessary."