Ray felt a soft warmth creep around him, and in that instant he knew that Kyra had just saved his ass. The shadow bounced off him as he threw back an incantation at it. 
A sizzling fireball thundered through it and struck the brick wall behind the creature, but it was just enough to catch the beast off guard for a second. Ray knew what he had to do, but he didn't like it.
Not one damn bit.
He snarled an incantation, and his arms glowed an eerie incandescent crimson. With a viper like movement, he sprung forward and wrapped his arms around the lure. It held within his grasp, struggling and writhing but unable to escape him. The magic Ray used hooked the creature in.
Another incantation later and the shadow began to disappear...straight into Ray's mouth. He could not even believe he had done it. To take the shadow into his body, a being of the black into a man already so stained.

Suddenly it was gone, and Ray fell to his knees, clutching at his ribs and whimpering. His eyes were squeezed shut an his mouth drew into a thin, tight line. Veins began to stand out on his neck.
There was a fight going on inside him, the shadow was vying for control, but Ray was giving him none.
He thought of anything he could to keep himself going. All of his thoughts returned to Kyra, of the times they spent happy, to the times he had made her cry, until he finally settled on a picture of her smiling.
He would give all his power to have that back again, he would throw away every connection he had to the magical world if only to see that smile once more.

And that was it.
The shadow had lost.
Ray took a single deep breath before being violently ill in front of him. A steaming pile of glowing, bile yellow liquid pooled on the floor before him.
He recoiled away from it in disgust.
"They left that there for one of us. I don't know how they knew we'd be here but they knew. It was a lure...a nasty one. If I hadn't killed it, it would have possessed me...and then killed you."
He sounded on the verge of crying, but he didn't let it happen.
"Kyra...cleanse this place. Please, please, please...cleanse it so we can leave."