So hunched over his desk, no at some point he had fallen to the floor, still he focused on the single card in his hand. Magaroth the fire ghost inside him burned, trying to get him to acknowledge her torment.
This is nothing, Willow thought. Then before he could think much more about the pain he carved another line into the card depicting a tree, in honor of his friend. He painted more and more, the pain still distracting him, but he held to his card.
This is what it meant to be a magician. This was who he was, glamour and all. It had been a year of hell being the only male glamor magician in the world. Now that he had accepted that nothing could stop him, not even an ancient fire demon that burned away at his soul.
He continued to paint in honor of his friend. Magaroth the ghost had probably killed him when she had tried to possess him. But Willow ground his teeth and drew. He poured his soul into the card, not just the remorse of his lost friend, but what it meant to be human. The pain, the humiliation, the hope, and ambition.
The edge of the card dug painfully into his fingers, but he held on, the artwork becoming more abstract. A shuffle of paper sounded and distantly he realized that every card in his soul deck was floating around him. With a tearing sound one by one all 36 blank cards burned as the essence they carried flowed into him.
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The fire receded for a moment, and then surged back, his advancement stalemating Magaroth's attack.
You’re mine, Willow whispered as he tried to burn Magaroth's spirit just like she did to his own. There was resistance like a lid to a stubborn jar, but then it popped, and the contents of the jar flowed out for his own use. He started to burn it.
Alarm flooded his soul as Magaroth began to do the same with him.
He would not break, if this is what it took to end Magaroth's curse and banish the demon for good, so be it. They would both die. But his will would not.
For the first time in a year since being possessed he felt hesitation from the creature.
Magaroth said to him.
He pushed harder, burning more of Magaroth's essence to fuel his advancement.
Pain erupted in his stomach as Magaroth returned the favor.
“You die with me,” Willow said. Not as a threat, but as a condition. “I will be your last host.”
A moment of hesitation.
The two abandoned their battle, saved by their death pack. Willow gasped, he hadn’t realized that he had been holding his breath.
A single card glowed in the air in front of him, he had advanced. The essence flowed through his body, changing him on a physical level. And a bit of the spirit's essence he had claimed flowed through him as well.
He fell to the ground, his body shaking as it transformed, and for once Magaroth was quiet, and didn’t resist.