by S. E. Smith
The Daktyloi had cleverly engineered slats with tracks at the top and bottom. Polished wooden shutters folded away into the window frame when they were not in use and were easy to close when needed. On the right side was a recessed set of vertical slats which slid across the windows while the left portion threaded a set of horizontal slats through grooves in the first set. This unique crisscross pattern locked the iron shutters and eliminated any weak areas in the event of an attack.
Asahi stepped into the room where he had found the dead woman. He glanced at her before he focused on sealing the windows. He was almost finished pulling the vertical blinds closed when a swarm of bright red beetles hit the window, cracking the thick pane of glass.
To his horror, more beetles appeared. They slammed into the glass, uncaring that the impact cracked their hard bodies and exposed their vulnerable internal organs. He understood why when a stream of black matter oozed from each dead beetle and was eagerly absorbed by another.
Asahi yanked the shutter closed and secured it. Sconces around the room, fueled by magic, illuminated the darkness. He backed away from the window.
“Ashure!” he yelled.
“I saw them,” Ashure grimly replied behind him.
“I suggest that we pick a room and barricade ourselves in,” Asahi asserted.
Ashure nodded before he stiffened and paled. Asahi turned to see what Ashure was staring at and stumbled back into the pirate in horror.
Standing in the doorway was the dead body of one of the male Daktyloi. Asahi’s mind flashed to the zombie movies and television programs he had avoided as a child. He had an intense dislike of horror films.
It took him a split second to realize that the blackness in its eyes was the reason it was moving. He muttered a curse. They should have inspected all the bodies for residual alien matter. They were trapped inside the house with zombies, and the longhouse was under siege by the alien-possessed beetles.
“I hope Nali and Pai are safer than we are,” he breathed.
“Dead Daktyloi to the left,” Ashure grimly answered.
“Do you have your alien killer handy?” Asahi wryly asked.
Ashure uttered a sardonic laugh and pulled his sword out. “I never leave home without it,” he replied with a malevolent smile.
“You take the one on the left, I’ll take the one on the right,” Asahi muttered, surging forward with the gryphon dagger in one hand and his pistol in the other.
Chapter 13
Nali swerved to miss a tree branch when the electric transport disappeared into a tunnel of trees. Her eyes narrowed in determination. She wouldn’t let the Daktyloi driver get away that easily.
Pai noticed what was happening and flew ahead to block the driver’s exit. Nali frowned when she noticed the vehicle was swerving left and right, possibly trying to make it difficult for her to land.
“Challenging but not impossible,” she muttered to herself as she followed the transport.
She closed the intervening distance, retracted her wings, and landed in the transport's cargo bed. The vehicle fishtailed, almost toppling her. She reached out and grabbed the headrest of the seat in front of her to steady herself before she swung into the back seat.
The transport jerked hard to the right, and she slid at the sudden movement, grunting when she slammed into the door. She grabbed the front seat to keep from being flung out. With her feet against the floorboard, Nali wrapped a stone arm around the Daktyloi’s neck and applied pressure.
“Stop the transport now,” she ordered.
Horror gripped her when the man’s head dropped back, and she saw empty sockets where his eyes should have been. She released her hold and fell back against the seat.
The transport picked up speed, heading straight for the edge of the road and the ravine beyond. The front of the vehicle clipped the top of an enormous boulder, and the transport flipped in midair. Nali felt the sickening sensation of weightlessness.
The alien spewed from the dead man’s mouth, disappearing down into the ravine. Briefly pinned to the seat by the centrifugal force of the spinning vehicle, she fought to escape before it crashed. The transport rotated again, and she pushed off the seat when it was beneath her, rising into the air as the vehicle continued to drop like a stone.
Their baggage was flung upward, too. At the edge of her peripheral vision, Nali glimpsed an enormous shadow. It raced by her, plucking the two bags out of the air and tossing them back up onto the solid rock along the cliff’s edge. Before she could call forth her wings, the speeding shadow swooped underneath her. She twisted to meet him when she recognized the smell of her favorite hippogriff.
She landed on Pai’s back, just in front of his shoulders. Leaning forward, she gripped the feathers surrounding his neck and frantically searched for the alien creature.
“We have to find it,” she shouted.
Pai shook his head. “The alien will have to wait. We have a more immediate issue to deal with,” he replied, veering back in the direction of the longhouse.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded.
“The alien left a gift,” Pai grimly replied.
Just then, Nali glimpsed smoke rising from the longhouse—and the surrounding mass of small red insects.
“Goddess!” she hissed in horror.
“What are these things?” Ashure snapped, tossing a bucket of water on the door of the bathroom to extinguish the small flames that were appearing.
“Fire Beetles,” Asahi replied.
Asahi ignored Ashure’s wince when he fired his pistol, stopping several beetles that were entering through a hole burned through the heavy iron door. He hated using his ammo, but it wasn’t like he had a lot of options available at the moment. The damn things had melted the iron like butter in a microwave.
He grimly smiled when Mr. Gryphon snarled and pounced on the tiny droplets of alien DNA that were trying to escape. They had quickly discovered that the Gryphon’s sharp teeth held the same magical properties as the dagger.
“Is there any other way to kill them than with that noisemaker?” Ashure growled.
Asahi lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Do you have a better idea?” Asahi retorted.
Ashure responded with his own shrug. Clearly, he didn’t have a better plan. Asahi raised an eyebrow in surprise when Ashure pulled a 9mm handgun from his coat pocket. Ashure fired several shots and touched the beetles’ remains with the tip of his enchanted sword.
Asahi stared at Ashure with an inquiring expression. Ashure waggled his eyebrows in return and shot him a grim smile.
“Tonya’s father is a police detective on Earth. After he heard how Mike’s weapon helped save the day with Magna, he decided it might come in handy for me too. We like going to the shooting range when we visit her parents,” Ashure replied.
“Well, unless there is a load of magical clips to replenish the spent shells, we are going to be in some serious trouble very soon. I only have three bullets left,” he stated.
“Unfortunately, no. I have two clips minus what I have used,” Ashure responded.
Asahi was about to reply when a molten drop landed on his shoulder, sizzling through his shirt and burning the skin beneath. He instantly sidestepped and looked up. Hundreds of tiny holes were appearing above their heads, dripping molten droplets of melted roof. He frantically looked around for a shield.
Ashure cursed when a droplet hit him. They backed as far into the corner as possible to get away from the rain of liquefied metal. Asahi fired his last two rounds and Ashure emptied his clip. It made no difference. They would be lucky to have an additional thirty seconds before the room was swarming with the insects.
“Tonya will be furious with me if these things somehow kill me—and that is after Nali gets done with me,” Ashure muttered, looking at him with an expression of resignation.
“Hold on,” Mr. Gryphon ordered.
“To what?” Ashure snapped.
Asahi frowned. “What do you mean if they are somehow a
ble to kill you? Can’t you die?” he asked.
“Cauldron of Spirits, Keeper of Lost Souls here. Death has a slightly different meaning for me,” Ashure wryly replied.
“Hello, Asahi, will you hold on to me? Ashure, you’d better hold on to Asahi. I’m not sure this will work,” Mr. Gryphon interjected.
“Not sure what will work?” Asahi asked with a confused frown.
“I’m going to release a burst of magic and try to fly you two out of here. It will be a miracle if it works, but hey, it’s worth a try,” Mr. Gryphon said.
“By all means, please try,” Ashure fervently encouraged.
Asahi reached out and grabbed the small winged lion by the feet at the same instant that the roof collapsed. He closed his eyes and hissed in surprise when a brilliant light flooded the room, and his feet left the ground. He opened his eyes and looked down when he felt Ashure’s firm grip on his ankles. The light was so bright, it limited their vision, but it seemed to be keeping the beetles from incinerating them as they escaped. Asahi hung on for dear life as they soared through the gap in the ceiling.
Once they passed through, they continued climbing higher and higher. Below them, millions of beetles fell into the bathroom like Lemmings falling off a cliff, and he gaped in alarm when he saw a mushrooming, orange-red glow rising from the hole.
“Ah, Mr. Gryphon, I think it might be wise to get us away from the house—NOW,” he shouted, lifting his head toward the tiny golden lion struggling to stay aloft.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” the gryphon snarled.
Out of the corner of his eye, Asahi saw a movement in the distance. He sighed when he saw Nali riding on Pai’s back. Worry for her briefly overrode his current predicament. It wasn’t until he felt a wave of heat rising from the longhouse, heard the tremendous explosion, and felt the resulting shockwave that he realized death might still have a better grip on him than Ashure did.
“No!” Nali’s cry was swept away in the wind.
She slid off of Pai’s back and fell several feet before she called forth her wings. Shooting forward, she flew as fast as she could until the superheated shockwave knocked her backward. She tumbled several times before she righted herself. Pumping her wings to stay airborne, she stared in horror and fear at the smoking remains of the Daktyloi’s longhouse.
Blackened framework, glowing deep red from the heat, reached up from the ground like skeletal fingers begging for help from beyond the grave. The explosion, initiated by the Fire Beetles and intensified by the chemicals stored in the house, had flattened an area of over a hundred yards in every direction. Tall trees lay like matchsticks in a circle around the house. Small fires burned in pockets of the debris. The metal roof lay in twisted sheets, buckled and distorted by the intense heat. The few surviving Fire Beetles sizzled and popped as they exploded in the remains of the once beautiful home.
“No,” Nali whispered. “Pai—”
Pai paused beside her, his eagle-eyes searching the ground for Asahi and Ashure.
“He can’t be dead, Pai. They can’t be,” she said, her voice catching at the thought.
“Hello! Uh, a little help here, please!” Ashure wildly called out. “Asahi! Nali! Pai!! Is anyone there? I’ll even take help from Mr. Gryphon! Anyone?”
Nali took a shuddering breath and swiveled in the direction of Ashure’s voice. She was half-laughing, half-crying when she saw them in a tree at the blast zone’s edge. Ashure was hanging upside down by his knees with his coat caught on a broken limb, making it impossible for him to pull himself up. Asahi was standing on the stump of a limb that had been sheared off by the explosion. He clung to the tree’s trunk. Below him, about twenty feet of the trunk had been stripped of its branches.
As Nali flew straight for Asahi, Pai grumbled, “No worries, Empress. I’ll save the King of the Pirates—you know, one of the rulers of the Seven Kingdoms and your long-time friend—even if I am only saving him from his jacket.” Pai snorted.
Nali wrapped her arms around Asahi, holding him like she would never let him go. That was a splendid thing considering that the force of her embrace had knocked him off his narrow perch and she was now the only thing keeping him from falling to his death. She kissed him hard. Her kiss conveying her relief.
When she ended the kiss, she gazed into his eyes. His expression was soft, filled with concern and another emotion that she wasn’t ready to deal with at the moment. Her heart was still pounding from fear. She leaned her forehead against his.
“I thought I had lost y—” she whispered, her voice breaking on the last word.
He gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “I did, too,” he confessed before he grimaced and peered around them. “Is this—? How long—? Mr. Gryphon!” he bit out.
“Yes, I’m fine. No, it was no bother to rescue them and deplete the magic inside me. Thank you for not asking. After all, who cares about a poor animated magical object that just saved the King of the Pirates—and a human—from certain death?” Mr. Gryphon loudly proclaimed his litany of grievances.
“You will be fine, Mr. Gryphon. Though you really should be resting,” Nali soothingly said with a shake of her head.
Mr. Gryphon gave Nali a pained look. “That’s fine for you to say, Empress. You have the powers of the Goddess on your side. Me—I’m doomed to a life of pain and suffering because I was given to an unappreciative—”
The unceasing complaints had started nearly a half hour earlier when Asahi found the winged lion stuck in a rivulet of sap oozing down the tree trunk. Asahi finally sheathed the magical dagger despite Mr. Gryphon’s vehement protest that he was fine and wanted to remain unsheathed until he knew the threat was over. The resultant silence was blissful.
“Thank you,” Ashure muttered.
“You’re welcome,” Asahi replied with a slight smile.
“So, why are we walking?” Ashure inquired.
“Because the entity destroyed the transport, and Pai is getting too old to carry anyone a long distance, much less both of you,” Nali retorted.
“Pai is hardly a frail old hippogriff, Nali. As long as he takes reasonable breaks, I’m sure he could carry Asahi and me in a pinch. If he did, we might get to the mountain in time to save the lives of the unicorns. Could you at least ask him?” Ashure asked.
Nali glared at Ashure. “No, I won’t. You know what Pai would say. He would boast how he could carry all three of us with one wing tied to his side. I won’t endanger his life any more than I already have,” she growled.
“Well, we can hardly walk the entire distance,” Ashure reflected.
“We won’t. Additional assistance is coming,” she replied with a wave of her hand to a group of approaching riders.
“What do you… oh! Those are some of your prized Fire-Breathers! Oh, sweet Goddess, just look at them,” Ashure practically drooled.
Nali shook her head and rolled her eyes at the envy in Ashure’s voice. “Don’t even think about it, Ashure,” she warned as they came to a stop and waited for the approaching riders.
Out of the seven horse-like creatures, four had riders. Each horse was far more massive than the largest Clydesdale. The beautiful beasts were midnight blue with long black stripes. Their red eyes flashed as they tossed their heads, and when one of them snorted, small flames flared out from its nostrils. Each horse wore a bridle of ornate silver with matching armor covering their foreheads and chests. As they got closer, Asahi noted that all the riders were male—and they were heavily armed. He blinked in surprised when he noticed his black duffel bag strapped behind an empty saddle on one horse.
They were an intimidating group. Their size and dangerous appearance was so distracting that one of the last details Asahi noticed was that each man had a single eye in the center of his forehead. While Asahi knew from his grandfather that cyclops existed, the impact of seeing them in person still sent a shockwave through him. The lead cyclops bowed his head in greeting, his attention focused solely on Nali.
; “Severene,” Nali greeted as she reached up and tenderly stroked the lead horse’s muzzle.
“Greetings, Empress,” Severene replied. “Pai arrived with the grave news about the Daktyloi and conveyed your urgent request for transportation.”
Severene dismounted and signaled the others to come forward.
As the other men dismounted and stood by their steeds, Nali replied, “Yes.” There was a world of grief infused in that single word.
She affectionately stroked the horse’s neck. As she did, Asahi noticed how its hair glowed.
Ashure leaned closer to him. “They are magnificent beasts. Strong enough to carry the weight of a cyclops, faster than any land transport, and deadly in battle,” he murmured.
“You appear to know a lot about them,” Asahi noted.
Ashure breathed a long, envious sigh. “Oh, yes. I had a dozen of the beautiful creatures in my stable for a few months. They are as mean as Drago, the Dragon King, but so amazing that I had to have a few. The damn beasts kept burning down the stable, but it was worth it. I swear, if you harness a dozen of them to a carriage, you could cross the largest isle in less than a day,” he said.
“What happened to them?” he curiously asked.
Ashure gave him a wry smile. “They were part of Nali’s prized stock. Some rather unscrupulous characters had taken them, so I re-appropriated the steeds, but alas, she requested that I return them to her,” he replied.
“Along with a case of his finest brandy as a ‘thank you’ for allowing the temporary use of her beasts,” Pai added behind them.
Asahi turned in surprise. He hadn’t heard the hippogriff land. Pai’s dark eyes twinkled with amusement.
“She should have been thanking me for saving the poor beasts from a miserable existence. I was going to return them to her—eventually,” Ashure grumbled.
