by Rob Cornell
Markus sighed. “I suppose.”
Her knife jammed hard into the small of my back.
Chapter Fifty-Four
The pain was tremendous. She must have hit some kind of sensitive nerve or—worse—a vital organ. Maybe my kidney, based on the location. Whatever she did or did not hit, the stab hurt like a motherfucker. When she ripped the knife free, the pain doubled. I felt blood gush hot from the wound, soaking my shirt, running down under my waistband.
My legs went numb.
I sank to my knees.
The mayor in the corner let out a girlish shriek.
My pulse quickened. It was so loud in my ears, I thought my ear drums might tear open.
Pumppumppumppumppump.
My would-be killer stepped up and grabbed me by the hair. She yanked my head back to expose my throat. From the corner of my eye I saw her raise the blade as if she meant to pound it straight into my neck. She didn’t even have the courtesy to make it a simple slice, had to get all brutal about it. What had I ever done to her?
Bitch.
She must have wanted to line up her strike perfectly, because she took a moment before drawing the knife down in a killing arc. This gave me enough time to yank open the leather pouch still in my palm. For such a small pouch, it opened surprisingly wide. Wide enough, in fact, that when I lifted it into the path of the knife, the woman’s arm, knife and all, sank right in to her elbow.
She screamed so loudly, I felt her voice like a vibration through my body. She instantly yanked her arm free, but the only thing that came out was a charred stump. The woman had literally reached into hell.
“How do you like that?” I said and gave her a shove.
The pain and horrid sight of what remained of her arm had the woman off balance. She went down easily.
The spectacle had glued the rest of the party members to their seats in shock. The wide-eyed expression on Able’s face was especially priceless. He looked like a frightened little boy with a bearded man-face.
I jerked the pouch’s pull string like a ripcord and closed it up. A residual blast of heat rippled the air, then dissipated. My cheeks felt hot and dry.
I tried to stand, but the pain in my back shot down my leg. I fell onto my side, the side with the stab wound, and cried out against more pulses of agony that ripped straight through my whole body. The woman with the hellfire-burned arm lay beside me squirming. Her mouth opened and closed, but only a hoarse whine came out. She stared at me with wide and accusatory eyes. The smell of her flame broiled flesh wafted over to me, and if I hadn’t been so clenched with pain, I would have emptied my stomach.
By now, the rest of the crew had shaken off their initial surprise. All four of them rose, even Skunky (not so boring now, huh?), and gathered around me and the burnt woman. Their gazes collectively went to the woman. They wore matching expressions of horror.
Then Markus turned his gaze to me. “What is that?”
“Hell.” I grinded my teeth to near the cracking point, grabbed his ankle, and pulled.
He wasn’t expecting the move and toppled as easily as Stump Lady. These were old magicians, used to letting magic do their fighting. Able was the only one who looked at all physically imposing.
I pulled the bag open and shoved it up Markus’s right leg like a baggy leather sock. I wriggled on my side, the pain in my back begging me to stop, but my survival instinct pushing me on. I hiked the bag up until I reached his knee.
He thrashed and cried. His left shoe’s hard sole clocked me in the side of my face.
A beefy set of hands grabbed me by one of my legs and dragged me away from Markus. I clenched the hell bag, refusing to let my only advantage go. Able’s hands let go of my leg and descended toward my throat. I drew on my limited power to conjure a gust of wind and blew him off his feet. Then I cast another gust to lift me to a standing position. A sloppy maneuver, and it hurt like hell as the air jostled me around. But I didn’t think I could get to my feet any other way with that agonizing stab in my back.
I could feel the blood pouring down my back, some dripping down my hip under my pant leg. More of it drenched my shirt. Another outfit ruined. Good thing I got the cheap stuff from Meijer instead of shopping at Ralph Lauren.
I landed on my feet, staggered a few steps, and bounced against the nearest end table, knocking the lamp to the floor. On the way down, the lamp’s light whirled around like an out of control spotlight.
A haze of smoke hung in the room, smelling like a barbeque from hell. Which, I guess, it technically was. Even when I was bleeding to death, I was funny.
Markus rolled around on the floor howling. A bit of his knee joint peeked out of the blackened end of his stump.
The woman who’d lost her arm had regained her composure. With the help of Skunky, Stump Lady stood. That bite-my-face-off look she gave me when she answered the door looked tame compared to the way she looked at me now. Now she looked like she wanted to swallow me whole.
I pulled the bag open wider than before. It seemed to grow to accommodate me, and I felt I could stretched large enough to consume a whole person. “Come get some, bitch.”
She smirked, her eyes catching something behind me. I knew what it was the second before those big lumberjack arms wrapped around me and lifted me off my feet.
“Grab the bag,” he shouted to the three women.
Skunky made a move toward me, but when she looked directly into the hell pouch she shrunk away.
The woman with the platinum hair growled and pushed Skunky out of the way. She came at me, her eyes focused on my face, not the bag. I didn’t know what they saw in there, but it clearly disturbed them.
Platinum raised her hands up, fingers curled. Claws of ice formed around them with points that looked as sharp as Beastvamp’s had been. She thrust those ice talons at my face.
With my arms pinned against me, I couldn’t bring the bag up. Instead, I adjusted the angle of its opening. Enough heat poured from it to melt her claws some, turning to steam, before they reached my eyes. She still had enough to scrape some skin off my face.
Able started squeezing harder.
I struggled to lift the bag up a little higher. The heat drove Platinum back with a snarl.
She didn’t come at me again.
She didn’t have to.
The pressure around me felt too strong for Able’s arms alone. Sure enough, I had a layer of packed earth around my upper arms and torso, hugging me along with Able. An earth elementalist. I should have figured, with his whole lumberjack vibe.
The layer of dirt thickened a little, but it didn’t spread. Unlike heat, air, and even moisture, you didn’t find a whole lot of earth hanging around indoors. Able must have drawn from the few potted plants in the suite and whatever dust floated in the air. It didn’t give him much to work with, but it held me tight enough that he could let me go and kick one of his heavy boots right where Stump Lady had stabbed me.
I screamed and fell forward.
Luckily, I folded the top of the bag over before I landed so I didn’t accidentally burn myself. Based on Markus and Stump Lady’s reaction, it looked like hellfire hurt worse than a stab in the back.
Of course, stabbing hurt plenty. And between Able’s boot and the clingy dirt, the pain had tripled since the knife first went in. I couldn’t clear my head enough to call some fire or air or something. (Sure as hell not freaking dirt, though. How lame.)
I felt Able and the two women close in on me. Now that my magic bag was closed up, they weren’t so skittish. But before they started kicking me to death or carving me up with ice fingers or choking me with dirt, a resonant voice boomed, “No!”
They all stopped and spread apart.
Markus sat up against one sofa, glaring at me. His stump still smoked, and gristle snapped and popped around his exposed kneecap, but he hardly seemed to notice. “I’m going to kill this little fucker myself.”
Then he shifted into a cougar.
The cougar was missing
one of its hind legs, which corresponded to Markus’s missing limb. It made him look a little vulnerable and pathetic, if not for the pure hate in the cougar’s gray eyes. He opened his mouth wide and emitted a raspy cry.
I rolled onto my side so I could face him.
I pulled open the bag.
The cougar glanced at it and leapt back, fumbling to keep its feet with only three of them to work with.
The others backed away, too.
“Forget this, Markus,” Stump Lady said. “We’re done anyway.” I was faced away, but I heard the deadbolt snap and the door open, then slam shut.
Markus in cougar form shied away, pressed against the couch. I couldn’t see Able, Skunky, or Platinum, but Able’s earth trap crumbled. I wanted to see what was going on, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off Markus. I couldn’t trust that whatever frightened him in the bag would keep him from pouncing on me anyway.
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Will someone please tell me what’s so scary in—”
Something in the bag lurched, then kicked.
And that’s when the hellhound jumped out.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Hellhound was really slang for any kind of four-legged, somewhat doglike demon. Some of them hung low and slick, sneaking up to their prey. Others lumbered like monstrous horses, trampling whatever stood in their way. The one I had let out of the bag (har, har) was engulfed in flames, of course.
It had black skin with cracks full of molten lava. Its long, thin tail had a barb of flame at its tip. It had leapt out with its back to me, so I didn’t have a good view of its head, but as it growled at Markus’s cougar, I could see a black jaw the length of an alligator’s chomper.
Markus hissed like an oversized house cat. It was the last sound he would ever make.
The hound’s massive maw opened unnaturally wide and clamped down on the cougar, engulfing the cat’s entire head. The hound bit through Markus’s neck and ripped his head clean off before the cougar could so much as cry out. The cougar’s headless body tipped over onto its side and twitched, blood spurting from the jugular in long arcs that painted the flank of the hound.
Someone screamed.
The hound was too busy munching on Markus’s cougar head to notice. The crunch and squish the head made as the hound feasted pushed bile up the back of my throat and made me gag. But I didn’t waste time getting sick. I doubted it would take the hound long to devour Markus’s head. It was the only chance any of us in that room had to survive.
I wrenched the bag shut and it shrunk to its normal size. I shoved it in my pocket and struggled to stand. Platinum stood gaping at the hound, eyes wide and wet. I shouted at her. “Freeze it!”
She blinked, looked at me as if I had said feed it instead.
I figured her for a highly skilled water elementalist. Not only could she manipulate water physically, but she could change its temperature as well. I could work water, but nothing close to that.
I got in her face.
Behind me, most of the crunch had gone out of the hound’s chewing. Whatever remained of Markus’s head made slurping sounds as the hound ate.
I snapped in Platinum’s face. “Your water. Freeze it. My fire won’t work.”
My fire would probably make it stronger, in fact.
She snapped out of it, gave a quick nod, then turned toward the hound. Her face wrinkled with fear and disgust, but she didn’t look away. She raised her hand, fingers spread, and hard streams of water shot from her fingertips as if each finger were its own mini power washer. But when the water hit the hound, it froze instantly.
The hound reared around to face her even as she covered it with a smoky glaze that steamed like liquid nitrogen. It had big, black orbs for eyes, like shark eyes. Its ears were split down the middle like a pair of forked tongues on its head. Its snout looked like a hot coal on the end of its muzzle. But it was the sight of its black teeth that sent a chill through me. Three rows of jagged pieces of onyx surrounding its gray serpent tongue. Chunks of cougar head were still caught between some of them, bloody flaps of furred skin and a cracked slice of bone lodged toward the back.
The hound’s howl shook the floor, but it didn’t last long.
Platinum filled its mouth with ice until it couldn’t close its jaw.
The hound swung its head from side to side. Cold breath chuffed visibly from its nostrils. Platinum kept pouring on the ice. She sprayed until the beast’s entire head looked like a sloppy ice sculpture. The hound collapsed shortly after that. But Platinum kept shooting until the streams petered out and she fell to her knees. She had poured everything she had into taking down that hound, and had done a damn fine job of it.
So I felt a little bad drawing on the last shred of my magic to engulf my hands in orange flame.
I hobbled backward until I had Able and Skunky in sight as well. Once I did, I turned my flames from orange to blue. It was easy. All I had to do is think about Mom trapped in the next room. Or about Markus’s betrayal, not only for how foolish that betrayal made me feel, but how much it must have hurt Mom. I knew that feeling all too well.
I knew I couldn’t hold the flames for long, though. I simply had not had enough time to recoup my magic. Taking down this trio would spend what I had, and that was assuming I could take them without too much of a fight.
Able and Skunky were both breathing hard and staring at the cougar’s headless corpse. The soiled stink of fresh death hung in the air. The smell of hellfire and meat locker added a nauseating flourish.
Platinum stood on her hands and knees, panting, gaze on the floor. She looked ready to pass out.
Their shock had temporarily erased me from their minds.
I leaned against the wall, the pain in my back wanting to send me to the floor. I smeared blood across the cream paint and hit a Monet print with my head, knocking the frame askew. I would only have a few moments here before they turned their attention back to me, the guy who had inadvertently summoned a hellhound into our world and let it bite off their leader’s head. I don’t think the inadvertently would matter much to them.
So what could I do? I couldn’t run. I still needed to get Mom and Toft out of there. These three weren’t going to let me do that.
I had one choice. A choice I didn’t particularly like. So I didn’t dwell. I acted.
Three big blue balls of flame, one for each of them. They each might have heard the fire crackling its way to them, but I could fling flame faster than most. Three direct hits.
Platinum got the worst of it. She was closest and on her hands and knees. Her back lit up. For a moment, she looked like a blue-fired version of the hellhound. Her scream sounded animalistic, but not like the hound’s. An octave higher and she could have shattered the all the glass in the room.
Skunky took her fire bolt in the face. It struck with such force, it flipped her off her feet and sent her onto one of the sofas. Her momentum made the sofa tip backward, and Skunky went rolling across the floor, head engulfed in flame, her skin already sloughed off her skull.
Able reacted best. He turned and took the brunt of the fire on his shoulder. It pushed me back, but he went with the force instead of fighting it. He scampered sideways a few steps. Kept his feet. His mouth opened and let loose a deep scream like a Viking warrior charging into battle. He beat at the flame on his shoulder and put it out. His robes hung off that shoulder, his skin puckered with massive blisters, some of which popped and oozed. The sleeve on the arm he’d used to slap away the flames was singed off around the cuff. That hand also had bright red blisters.
Able’s eyes simmered as he glared at me. His lips peeled back from his clenched teeth. The angry grimace looked insane surrounded by his over-coiffed beard.
He charged at me.
I tried to pull up another flame. An orange flicker lit up my fingers for an instant, then died.
Able laughed. It came from deep in his chest and sounded like a bad cough. As he crossed the room toward me, he held out his h
and. Dirt and dust swirled into his palm and coalesced into a narrow rock with a sharp point, the kind of thing our primal ancestors used as cutting tools. The weapon suited the burly asshole perfectly.
He raised it over his head and swung it down at mine.
I dodged, tripping over my feet, and landed on the floor once again. I felt something tear in my back. A damaged muscle near the knife wound? I probably didn’t want to know. So much blood soaked my shirt and pants now, I felt like Platinum had sprayed me down like the hound.
I rolled onto my back in time to see Able’s pointed rock pierce the wall, while the force of his fist cracked the hole wider. He glared down at me with his crazy lumberjack eyes as if shocked he’d missed. He yanked his rock loose with a growl.
I shoved my hand in my pocket, going for the hell bag.
He dropped down on me, straddling my waist and pinning my wrists down with his knees. “Haha!” He clenched his rock knife in both hands and held it over his head with a proud grin.
I twisted my head to look for anything that might help. The only thing I would see was the knife Stump Lady had shanked me with. A rather plain dagger with a short blade and simple hilt with just a hint of medieval flair. It was a good ten feet out of reach, though.
I didn’t have enough energy to burn Able, but I’d had good luck with air magic lately. Just needed to keep the spell subtle, simple, and fast.
Not my strong point. But I didn’t have time to practice or take lessons. Do it or die.
“This city is still ours,” Able boomed like a heavy weight wrestler claiming victory for keeping his championship belt.
Not so fast, Paul Bunyan.
I focused on the air around the dagger, enveloping it with energy like I had while moving all that debris at Toft’s. It was smaller, would need a delicate touch. I couldn’t do it with my brain. I needed my instinct to take over. Something like muscle memory, even though I didn’t have a whole lot of memories stored away about doing stuff like this.
But Able looked ready to stop gloating and start smashing.
I let out a small grunt and whipped the air around the knife and tried to direct it at Able’s throat.
