Her companions shifted behind her in the narrow space, both taking especial care to keep away from the thorny root throbbing beside them. Neither objected to Sloan's plan, so she revved up the barrel, waiting for it to reach full spin before unleashing a focused and steady stream of light at the archon. She struck at the most corpulent part of the bulb, where the epidermis stretched wide and (she hoped) thin. Not that she knew jack dick about plant anatomy. Not that a magical demon formed of pure despair had to conform to actual plant anatomy anyway.

The light hit the skin with no splash, as though it had bored a hole straight through on first contact. Or maybe the fleshy plant was absorbing the light the moment it touched, slurping it into the infinite darkness of its miasma. The irony of fighting with light was that things got so bright it was difficult to see exactly what was happening. Usually Sloan assumed when something disappeared beneath a deluge of her magic it meant the thing no longer existed, but as she fired for five, ten, fifteen seconds with no change in the archon whatsoever, either in demeanor or the gleeful murmur that burrowed into her earbuds, she began to doubt. After twenty seconds she shut off her magic before she taxed herself too heavily.

Not a single mark where she had hit.

"As I expected," said Winnipeg. "I recall saying exactly that: I doubt normal weapons will harm it."

(Chapter 10)