by Sam Cheever
I felt Dialle gather his power and pulse it out in a sort of energy 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 breathing.
Dialle felt my panic in his mind and adjusted the power net to include the first six feet of the tongue, stopping just 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. The energy I expended flared and grew, and I sensed Dialle’s power intertwined with mine. In that moment, I thanked the Big Him for the daemon hickey Dialle had given me, which made it possible for us to share our energies.
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 it 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.
I shrugged. “I guess that’s no worse a plan than having you blow it up while it’s holding onto me. Okay, let’s give that a try.”
My power flared bright, the charcoal gray of his aura joining with my silvery life force. 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 wall of energy blasted into it, throwing the disgusting thing 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 slowly loosened and slid down my body toward the rock floor beneath my feet. It left a slime covering on my body everywhere it touched.
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 grimaced. “That’s extremely unpleasant, Astra.”
I looked up at him in annoyance. “You think?”
He shrugged. “I do, yes.”
Apparently 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 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? 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 farther down the tunnel. They were both dead, lying in a puddle of green blood. The stench was stomach turning.
We moved on, hoping Gerch and Emo had been able to save the hostages. The next pair of dark worlders we came across 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 Gerch.
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 alcove to avoid the occasional, errant jolt of power that got past Emo and Gerch, blasting the rock wall which barely covered them.
Dialle glanced my way. 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.
Apparently the old, human adage was 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.
It occurred to me that we were in danger of bringing the whole cavern down on 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.
The large holo-screen in the big house flashed through my mind and I put my hands into prayer form, mouthing the words help us. Just in case.
When the dust finally cleared the demon wasn’t moving.
We walked over to look at it and Gerch 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,” I murmured.
The three of them turned to look at me. Emo arched a midnight colored eyebrow in silent question and I shrugged. “I’ve never been taken in by a demon mask before. I didn’t think I could be.”
Dialle kicked at the thing’s face just to make sure it was dead. “It isn’t a mask, Astra. At least not the type of mask you’re referring to. The superdemons have two forms. They use whichever one suits them.”
I felt better. “I learn such useful stuff when I’m around you, Dialle.”
“Yes. That is true, Astra.”
A sound beyond the felled demon brought my gaze back to the huddled hostages. They had begun slowly moving out from the niche but they kept a careful watch on Gerch. Although he’d helped us save them, they weren’t at all sure he was playing for the right team. In fact, with all they’d endured, I wondered that they’d trust anybody, or anything, at that moment.
They were a sorry looking group, covered with wounds and bruises and, in one case, what looked very much like a broken arm. The women’s clothing was torn almost completely off their bodies and they had dark indentations on their arms and faces that looked suspiciously like claw marks. Every last one of them flinched violently when anyone moved too quickly.
I looked at Dialle and he gave me a nod. I can take care of their memories. The physical injuries will eventually heal.
Then he did something I thought I’d never witness. He turned to Emo and said, “I would appreciate having your help. There are a lot of them.”
Emo stared hard at him for a few beats and then gave a slight nod.
I turned back the way we’d come in and Gerch fell in behind me. Apparently he was my escort out of the caverns. We passed the huddled group of hostages and I gave them what I hoped was a reassuring smile. The women stared at me as if they thought I was leaving them to a fate worse than the one they’d been enduring for the past several days.
Even though I knew Emo and Dialle would remove their frightening memories and start the physical healing process, it was all I could do to walk past and leave them behind.
Though it had been undeniably kind for him to offer to wipe their memories, taking away the terror they’d otherwise live with the rest of their short lives, a small part of me wasn’t entirely sure Dialle had their best interests at hea
rt. He’d likely only helped save them because they kept popping up dead and it was causing problems for the royals. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be there with me otherwise. But I hoped like Hades I was wrong about that.
~S~
I’d only been back at my desk for about half an hour before the outside door opened and I heard footsteps in the outer office. When I went out there, I was surprised to see Margaret Coltran standing by the outer door, looking a little unsure of herself.
“Mx. Coltran. What a surprise. Are you all right?”
She nodded and gave me a small smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t call for an appointment, Mx. Phelps. I just wanted to come by and thank you for saving our lives.”
To my vast surprise she approached and gave me a hug. When she pulled away I felt a slight tug on my hair and she laughed, showing me a pretty, metal bracelet on her slender arm. “Sorry, this thing gets caught on everything.”
My eyebrows arched slightly. “You said our lives, so the chattel lived?”
“Septra.”
I cocked my head in question.
“The girl. Her name is Septra.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I never knew her name.”
Margaret Coltran nodded. “I know you probably think my husband and I are stupid for what we did... And we endangered a lot of people with our actions. I... Well, for what it’s worth, I just wanted to apologize.”
I crossed my legs and arms, leaning against the doorframe to my private office. I stared at her for a beat, unsure whether I should try lecturing her on the dangers of taking the law into her own hands or leave well enough alone.
She certainly seemed to have learned her lesson.
I never got the chance to do either. A huge explosion in the street outside my office shook the walls of the building and threw debris high enough into the air that I saw large hunks of it flying by my window.
I ran to the window and looked down.
There was a huge hole in the street below and something large and mangled lay smoking in the center. Several air vehicles had been thrown off course by the explosion and were careening wildly down the street. Two of them hit head on and plummeted toward the ground, adding to the mess and calamity in the street.
As I watched, a small air booger headed directly for the window where I was standing, a pale, young face visible behind the quickly approaching viewport.
I swore and dived under Emo’s desk, screaming, “Get down!” to Mx. Coltran. But the young flyer must have gotten the air vehicle under some kind of control because it missed a full on crash with the building and instead hit the corner with a horrendous wrenching noise and skittered away.
I jumped up and headed out of the office, meeting my cute and helpful neighbors, Ralph and Bob, in the hallway. The three of us hit the flash elevator at a run. We took the flash down to the street to see what we could do to help.
When I returned to my office two hours later it was empty. Part of me regretted the unfinished conversation with Mx. Coltran and another part decided it wasn’t that important.
Either the woman had learned a valuable lesson or she hadn’t. Either way I couldn’t do anything more about it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ugly Spies
Our lady and her friend do go, cavorting with their foes,
Soft and ugly in disguise, they sleuthed like a couple of pros.
There was a message from Raoul on my televisual when I got home. He informed me that he’d made an appointment for us with the Devil’s Glenn coven for midnight. Apparently we were invited to attend a new moon ritual to enhance healing and personal growth.
“Enhance this!” I murmured to the studious looking face on the televisual. Raoul took his moon phases very seriously.
He also informed me that he’d pick me up at eleven o’clock that night and told me to look like somebody else.
Sighing, I glanced regretfully toward the personal hygiene room. I would have killed for a few minutes in a hot cleansing tube and an evening in the prone position. But a glance at the clock told me I had less than an hour to prepare for my outing with Raoul.
I trudged toward my closet and started the process of disguising myself.
~SC~
Raoul’s air vehicle was almost as cool as the Viper. His was shiny black and had shark tails on the wide, split backend and dual thrusters that made testosterone inducing noises when he increased speed. Ginning widely, I leaned back into a soft white leather seat.
“This almost makes up for the girly house.”
He shook his head. “It just doesn’t pay to have taste.”
“Taste? Is that what you call it?”
He chuckled and it made me feel like we were getting our comfort level back. “Just because my house isn’t decorated in early vehicle dwelling sale and traditional hate to shop.”
He had me there. “Hey, I don’t have time to shop. I’m a very important halfling.”
“Right. I keep forgetting how important you are.” He scanned an amused glance over my outfit.
“You like my disguise?” I pressed my fingers into the red-toned hooked nose in the middle of my face.
Raoul grimaced. “I have to pretend to be married to you. It’s not a comfortable position to be in.”
I shrugged, feeling mischievous. “So? You don’t want to be married to a short, corpulent woman with frizzy orange hair and a large hooked nose?”
“Don’t force me to comment on how you look. It wouldn’t be politically correct.”
I bared crooked, yellow teeth. “You know you aren’t such a prize yourself.”
We’d agreed to look like a middle aged couple who were, shall we say, functioning on the outside edge of society. His disguise didn’t include any fat padding but the warts on his chin were particularly off putting.
“I really like the cut of your pants. Very appealing.” The aforementioned fashion disaster were a brown shade that, most unfortunately, reminded me of a certain biological function. They hung dangerously low off his narrow butt, bagging unappealingly in the seat. The shirt he had carelessly tucked into them didn’t fit across the middle, leaving gaps between the buttons, and had sleeves that stopped just short of his hairy wrists.
He waggled dark eyebrows at me that seemed at definite odds with his newly bleached hair and said, “Wanna have sex?”
I grimaced. “You should have bleached the brows to match.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
Just like a man.
Raoul stopped his air vehicle on the edge of a wide, grassy field beyond the Devil’s Glenn city limits and dropped it into hover.
We sat staring at the flickering lights of a huge fire and the robed figures that gathered around it in the distance.
The light seemed especially bright given the fact that the moon was new and the night was very dark.
“Ready?” Raoul asked.
Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I nodded. We stepped out onto the dense carpet of soft grass.
Raoul reached back inside the vehicle and pulled out a soft bundle.
He handed me a robe. “I hope it fits.” He said with a grin.
I smacked his inadequately clad arm.
We slipped the scratchy brown robes on over our clothes and lifted the hoods to obscure our faces.
Considering how we looked that was a kindness to the other celebrants.
Standing outside the air vehicle we could hear the rumble of light conversation from the coven. In direct contrast to the last ritual I’d attended, courtesy of Raoul, the coven members around the fire seemed happy and carefree. I doubted there would be any demons from Hell crashing the night’s events.
But there would be a couple of really ugly witches.
Raoul grabbed my elbow and grimaced. “It feels like a cooked sausage.”
I laughed. “Deal with it bony boy. At least I don’t have warts.”
“Where’d you get this fat suit anyway?”
I shrugged. “I’ve had
it for a while. Nobody pays attention to you when you look like this. It comes in handy.”
He nodded. “I can see why. I’m trying not to notice you right now myself.”
“Har, har.”
We made our way carefully toward the flickering fire. As we drew closer all activity stopped and dozens of faceless celebrants glanced in our direction. We stopped at the edge of the flickering light from the fire and lifted our hoods off our faces. Raoul raised a hand in greeting.
“Blessed Be. We’ve come in search of peace and joy.”
I slanted a look at him, my eyes narrowing. Peace and joy? What the hell was he talking about. I suddenly wished I could invade his mental drawers like I could Emo’s or Dialle’s. But alas. I was shut out. All I could do was nod stupidly beside him. Hoping I was smart enough to follow the play book since, from my perspective, it was written in invisible ink.
A tall figure stepped forward from the center of the crowd. The figure didn’t give us the courtesy of pushing back his hood but I could see a muscular forearm beneath the robe as he lifted a hand in greeting so I recognized it as a man, probably the coven’s Supreme High Witch.
“Blessed Be. Welcome. Come share our peace and joy.”
More peace and joy. I resisted the urge to stick my finger down my throat and gag.
Raoul moved closer to the fire and pulled me with him. Two servings of peace and joy coming up.
One by one the members of the coven stepped forward and clasped our hands, murmuring Blessed Be at us with a range of inflections, from bored to downright hostile sounding. I just murmured back and tried to peer under their hoods.
Once we’d been greeted by each and every celebrant, the coven turned toward the tall figure. He’d situated himself beside what looked like a round table, which was covered by a cloth of such a deep that it looked black in the flickering firelight. On the table’s surface were four candles surrounding a pentagram made from what looked like twigs. I strained my brain to remember the lessons in basic Wicca I’d learned from my mother, who’d insisted I understand the practice because I would never know when I would need to deal with a witch.
