by Sam Cheever
Maternal Mayhem
A mother’s love is staunch and true, no matter what the test
But when her love is bent on power, she rarely shows her best.
“Blessed Be daughter.”
The traditional Wiccan greeting was innocuous but somehow didn’t feel that way coming from her.
“Blessed Be. What brings you to this lowly place?”
Danika shrugged wide, shapely shoulders and looked around, barely holding back the slight curl to her lip that was so familiar to me. My mother finds many things in life unpalatable. Among them, her family.
She turned back to my father and tried a warm smile. It didn’t fly with my father or with me. We knew her too well. “Hello James. You’re certainly looking…human.”
The top of her smile curled up just the tiniest bit, just on one corner but enough to tell us what she thought of my father sitting in an ordinary diner wearing ordinary clothes. Always sensitive to status and power, my mother liked to forget my father was a powerless fallen angel without wings. Despite the fact that he’d fallen for her.
His allure to her had faded away with his wings and gossamer robes. And she’d never bothered to hide that fact from him.
“Hello Danika. I’ve been hearing bits and pieces about your activities from the other commanders. They’re very concerned with your current path.”
She dropped the smile and sneered. “They have no business monitoring my activities, James and you can tell them that for me.”
My father glanced quickly at me and seemed to make an effort at remaining calm. “Your life sphere encompasses many others, Danika. Your activities are of necessity important to the celestial army. You know it to be true.”
She flung a dismissive hand at my father and turned to me, effectively dismissing him and his concerns. “I am glad we met today, Astra. I have been wanting to contact you. I wish to discuss your future. It is time I took a hand in guiding your choices.”
I stared at her for several beats, wondering if my brain had perhaps melted. Surely I didn’t just hear her say she wanted to start acting like a mother.
“It’s a little late for that isn’t it, Mother?”
She didn’t miss a beat. “On the contrary, Astra, it’s the perfect time. You are of a responsible age and your powers are growing. You will need guidance on how to use them.” With this she sent my father a brief but scathing glance. Her meaning was clear. Obviously she didn’t consider him adequate to the task of guiding me.
I shook my head, fully intending to resist her efforts to “guide” me, when two things happened at once.
DD Raoul walked into the diner and stopped dead just inside the door, blinking at me in horror.
And Emo shimmered in to stand beside me, a slightly agitated look on his face.
“Astra, we’ve found the hostages but we have to move fast. Alcott’s sent a superdemon to kill them.”
I looked back and forth between Emo, Raoul and my parents and wished I were an amoeba so I could split into four parts. Well three parts anyway. My mother didn’t deserve her own part.
I realized suddenly that Emo was talking to me. I looked into his handsome face and grinned. “Hi!”
He struggled not to smile back but then gave in. His grin made my whole body warm and tingly. “Hiya boss.”
I reached a hand toward him, remembering only at the last second to turn to my father. “I’ll call you later.”
His eyes sparked with something that looked like humor and then I was locked in a place without movement and sound, the warm, muscular feel of Emo’s arm under my hand.
I couldn’t say any of the things I wanted to say to my partner. So I was left with my thoughts and they were jangling to say the least. But I didn’t have time to examine my feelings about Emo’s return. I had a superdemon to fight and I had to prepare.
We landed in a dank, moldy-smelling space that had the feel of being underground. I recognized it immediately as the tunnel beneath the dubious Diablos’ tomb.
I was surprised to see Girsch approaching us at a brisk jog. He gave me a jaunty salute and turned to Emo. “They’re spread throughout the tunnels, separated into groups of four or five. Most of them are guarded by a demon handler with a ’goyle.”
Emo nodded and turned to me. “You might want to call Prince Dialle. I think we’re gonna need him.”
Holy shit! Things must be grave if Emo was asking for Dialle.
“You mean he’s not here with Girsch?”
Emo slanted an impatient look at me and walked away. “Catch up with us as soon as you’ve contacted him.”
I watched him walk away and found myself wondering if aliens had stolen my best friend and replaced him with this snarky, confident shell that looked wonderfully like Emo. However, I had it on very good authority that the alien situation was under control so I shook it off and shuffled my mental drawers.
Dialle?
The resulting silence was deafening and I began to get irritated. The damnable devil never seemed willing to show up when I needed him but he sure as Hades liked to pop in when I didn’t want him around.
Like when I was naked and dripping in the cleansing tube!
“Hello, Astra.”
I jumped, gasping. His husky voice wasn’t in my head where I’d expected it to be and his warm, fragrant breath tickled my ear.
I felt a pair of soft lips on the back of my neck and stamped a foot in vexation. “You could have warned me you were there.” I turned to scowl at him. The scowl pinged off his slick, self-assured persona like oil off water.
He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me close, nuzzling my nose with his lips and grinning. “Astra.”
I scowled more deeply. “What!”
“I’m here.”
“Very funny, Dialle. Come on, we have demons to vanquish and hostages to save.”
He bowed low. “As always, I’m at your service, my princess.”
“If only,” I murmured and received a sharp pinch on my butt for the remark. “Ow!”
“Show some respect, Astra,” he paused and grinned, “for your betters.”
Without looking at him I reached out and touched his shoulder with one finger, zinging him with a jolt of power that made him jump and laugh, rubbing the offended shoulder.
“Respect that!”
Not too surprisingly, the tunnels got smaller, danker and darker as we followed them. At one point they widened out considerably but the ceiling dropped down so low even I had to duck my head a little. Dialle didn’t even bother ducking, he just disappeared with a pop and shimmered to a spot further down that was more amenable to his six-foot-three-inch height. “Show-off,” I murmured, wishing he’d taken me with him.
On the tails of that wish my skin started to crawl and I was suddenly aware of a malevolent aura directly behind me. I spun to meet the threat and found myself staring at what I hoped was an Orgick, because if it wasn’t an Orgick it was one huge assed rodent.
“Oh shit!” I screamed and flung out a power arrow without thinking.
The shot went wild and hit the wall behind the enormous critter, which promptly opened its huge snout and started hissing at me through yellowed fangs that were the length of my fingers.
I watched it carefully as I started to back away, taking care to stay on my toes. I knew I had to wait for it to make the first move but, considering the fact that it looked exactly like a king-sized rat, right down to the twitching wet nose and hairless tail, it was all I could do not to turn and run away, screaming like a banshee. The only thing that kept me facing it was the knowledge that, despite its current lumbering form, the Orgick was lightning fast and would soon overtake me if I ran.
I shivered as I imagined those huge teeth sinking into my back.
Its eyes glowed at me malevolently. I watched and waited. When it finally lunged I was ready. I sprang off my toes and did a rolling flip over its head, just narrowly missing a bone shattering whip of its disgusting tail as I landed dire
ctly behind it.
I shot a jolt of power into its back, hoping the jolt would turn its ugly heart into cinders and put me out of my misery but I must have missed the heart ’cause the thing whipped around with mind-numbing speed and snapped at me, missing my leg by mere inches with those enormous fangs.
Its foul breath washed over me and I gagged. I flipped again but this time the tail caught me across the midsection, throwing me to the ground about ten feet down the tunnel and I lay there, hunched in pain and gagging. I couldn’t catch a breath to save my life. And that’s exactly what I needed to do, because I was about to become Orgick kibble.
It approached with an ambling, rat-like gait and I could swear I saw a smile on its ugly, Orgick face.
Then suddenly a thin stream of power shot into the thing’s chest and it stopped. Its tail gave one agitated whoosh, slamming against the nearest cavern wall and dislodging fist-sized chunks of rock for several feet along the wall.
I covered my head with my arms as one particularly large chunk of rock plummeted toward me from above.
The rock missed my head, just barely and skittered away to land just in front of the largest pair of green, scaly feet I’d ever seen. My eyes rose up a pulsing green chest and over a wide, fleshy mouth to a pair of bulging brown eyes. From between the wide lips a tongue flicked out, testing the air for something, though I wasn’t sure what.
I followed the Orgick’s gaze and saw Dialle standing several yards away, a look of pure horror on his gorgeous face.
Still having trouble catching my breath, I initiated a trip into his mental drawers. You’ve got to be kidding me…a frog!
I felt his mental shrug. It’s a childhood fear. I’m mostly over it, Astra.
I glanced back to the Orgick, which looked like a giant, green frog.
Apparently not.
The thing’s tongue lashed out again and, for just a fraction of a second before the Orgick frog retracted its tongue, I saw a tiny bat struggling to get loose from the gluelike appendage. Then both tongue and bat disappeared and I gulped.
It’s gross but not very scary.
I felt Dialle’s mental shrug again. You had to be there, Astra.
Yeah. I guess.
I struggled to get to my feet. That was a big mistake. The Orgick noticed my movement out of the corner of its eye and turned back to me.
Faster than you could say “soil your knickers” the gluey tongue lashed out and wrapped around me, drawing me inexorably toward that wide, fleshy mouth.
The thing’s breath almost made me pass out, which would certainly have made things easier for the Orgick but would have been most unfortunate for me.
I tried to pull my power forward but I needed to work too hard to keep from being pulled into that gaping maw. I couldn’t concentrate long enough to gin my power up to the level I would need to blast the Orgick to smithereens, which was my fondest wish at that moment.
I finally settled for several, quick, stinging jolts on the gooey, sticky tongue.
I could only use my fingers and my aim was off because my arms were pinned against my body from just below the shoulders to my wrists by the nasty snakelike appendage.
I managed to hit the tongue several times despite my inability to move. Each jolt caused the tongue to loosen around me but not entirely let go.
Do something, Dialle!
I’m thinking, Astra. I can’t shoot it with enough power to kill it because it would kill you too. Can you pull a power bubble around yourself?
He shot a very focused jolt of power into the thing and it flailed around a bit, taking a couple of hops toward him but it didn’t do much damage.
No. It’s too hard to concentrate. And I’m losing feeling in my arms.
The glue-like substance that coated its tongue apparently contained some kind of numbing agent. My arms and body had begun to prickle and then lose feeling, making it even harder to throw my power darts at the ugly monster.
A sudden thought occurred. Dialle, can you use your power to hold it in place?
He turned to me and a smile slowly slid into place on his face. I can do that.
I had to force my mind to continue concentrating. The sticky stuff was starting to invade my mind and I was getting woozy. I shook my head and prayed I’d have enough time to do what I needed to do. At the very least I was going to make myself taste very bitter, so if the thing ate me it would be really sorry!
I felt Dialle gather his power and pulse it out in a sort of power net that he settled carefully around the Orgick until everything but the tongue was held immobile.
The tongue loosened until I was almost able to climb out of its grip but then the Orgick jerked and the tongue tightened even more, suddenly squeezing me to the point that I was having trouble even breathing.
Dialle felt my panic in his mind and adjusted the power net to include the first six feet of the tongue, stopping just before where it started to wrap around my gasping form.
He slowly tightened the net until the Orgick’s froggy eyes bulged.
The tongue loosened again but not enough. I was able to take a few breaths and then focus on pulling a power bubble forward. I felt Dialle helping me with his power. Something he’d been able to do easily since he’d given me the daemon hickey. I was quickly learning that the mark joined us in many ways that I had no control over Something else I didn’t want to think about right then.
When I had the bubble in place I turned to him. Okay, I’m ready. Hopefully it will hold.
He frowned slightly. I’m not sure this is the best idea, Astra.
You got a better one?
He thought about this for a minute and then said, Yes. I think we should redirect my power through you instead of at the Orgick, forcing it to release you.
I turned to look doubtfully at the frog-like creature in front of me and was surprised to see its buggy eyes waggling frantically about, as if it understood what we were saying.
Imagine that.
I shrugged. I guess that’s no worse a plan than having you blow it up while it’s clutching me. Okay, let’s give that a try.
I immediately felt his power join with mine. When it had built to the point where I thought I’d explode, I let go of my protective bubble and allowed it to blast away from me.
The Orgick screamed as the power wall hit it and threw it across the cavern to smack against the far wall.
The tongue, which hadn’t gone with the rest of the Orgick, pulsed once or twice around me and then loosened slowly and slid down my body toward the rock floor beneath my feet. It left a slime covering on my body everywhere it had touched me.
I raised my arms and looked at them, “Bleurgh!” I said as the slimy substance glopped off my arms and legs and landed on my pretty boots.
Dialle was suddenly standing next to me again. “That’s extremely unpleasant, Astra.”
I looked up at him in annoyance. “You think?”
He shrugged. “I do, yes.”
Sarcasm is lost on the royals.
I tried a low-level burn of power throughout my body and it singed most of the slime away, leaving only a slightly pasty residue behind.
Pasty residue would have to do for the moment.
We turned to look at the Orgick. It was a mess of twitching and jerking flesh on the rock floor. We watched as it changed form several times, from gargoyle, to snake, to fish…
Fish? Who in Hades is afraid of a fish?
Then I laughed.
Dialle looked at me. “Do not say it, Astra.”
I bit my tongue and started walking again.
The first demon and gargoyle pair was only a few feet further down the tunnel. They were both dead, lying in a puddle of green blood. The stench was stomach-turning.
We moved on, hoping Girsch and Emo had been able to save the hostages.
The next pair were slightly less dead so we finished them off with a couple of jolts of power.
We were nearly to the end of the passageway when we heard
the sounds of fighting and came up behind Emo and Girsch.
They had a small crowd of hostages huddled in a natural nook behind them. The humans were pressed as far back as possible into the niche to avoid the occasional, errant jolt of power that got past Emo and Girsch and hit the rock wall which barely covered them.
Dialle looked at me and resumed our mental communications. Speak to Emo telepathically and tell him we’ll be shimmering to a spot behind the demon. He must stop firing or he’ll hit us.
I nodded and complied.
Then Dialle grabbed my hand and we were momentarily suspended in time and space. When we shimmered back to the physical plane we were looking at the back side of the superdemon I’d battled at Castle Gregg.
It was a very nice view.
Emo was firing at the thing’s feet to distract it.
I glanced at Dialle and he nodded, then we shot our combined power into the demon’s broad back. Emo joined us with his own power force which, I noticed, had grown considerably since last I saw it in the clearing during the witches’ black mass.
I guess that old, human adage is correct, practice does make perfect.
The force of our three-way jolt raised the demon off the ground about ten feet to crash into the rock ceiling. His pretty red-gold head shattered the low ceiling and created an avalanche of rock, which began falling into the narrow tunnel around him.
I looked around in horror, it wouldn’t take too much to bring the whole cavern down on all our heads. I reached out and placed a hand on Dialle’s arm. “Stop! If we have a cave-in the humans will die.”
We stepped back to a place where the ceiling wasn’t raining down and waited. Every now and then I’d hear someone cry out and I said a quick prayer to the Big Guy that we hadn’t just killed all the hostages.
That large holo-screen in the big house flashed through my mind and I smiled and waved, just in case.
When the dust finally cleared the demon wasn’t moving.
We walked over to look at it and Girsch reached down to clear some of the rock debris from its face. Its mask was gone and I saw it for the ugly sucker it really was.
“That really annoys me.”
The three of them turned to look at me. Emo arched a midnight colored eyebrow at me in silent question and I shrugged. “I’ve never been taken in by a demon mask before. I didn’t think I could be.”
