AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My stomach lurched. Watching the movement and shifting shadows against the silvery surface of the orb made me queasy.
Smoky took another whack at the egg, and Morio and Trillian joined in. Again, the violent movement, and again the high-pitched shriek. I started to back away, a sick feeling rushing over me.
Meanwhile, Delilah, Menolly, and Rozurial were engaging the skeletons in an easier-than-usual battle, since their main goal was to get to the egg and feed it. In fact, the two shrieks seemed to have spurred the bone-walkers on, and they were frantically trying to fight their way past.
It was making for easy pickings. Menolly swung in from behind, and as long as she was carving them up as they ambled forward, and didn’t try to stop them from moving, the bone-walkers ignored her. Delilah and Roz saw what she was doing and adopted the same strategy.
I turned back to the egg. Fractures were beginning to show in the skin. Raising my dagger, I waited. Smoky landed a tremendous blow to the top of the orb—this one was only about six feet compared to the ten-foot diameter of the one we’d fought earlier—and one last shriek rang through the air as the egg shattered. Shifting shadows began rushing out, but they were malformed—looking like blobs compared to their fully gestated brethren we’d already killed.
The spirit demons swarmed over us, feelers wriggling out of the holes where their hearts should have been, but this time, the teeth weren’t fully formed. One managed to land a hit on me, but instead of latching on, it scraped against my skin. A jolt startled me, but the demon couldn’t gain full purchase and I managed to skewer it with my blade before it could try again.
We fought. There were probably about thirty in this egg, and this time we managed to wade our way through without calling for outside help. After a few minutes, Roz and Delilah joined us, leaving the rest of the skeletons to Menolly. Now, with the egg broken open, they were attempting to get to the demons themselves.
One of the spirit demons managed to land on one of the bone-walkers, and it struggled, finally making contact. The bones began to crumble as the demon drained the magical energy from it, and then the shattered remains fell to the ground, once again a mere framework of what had once been a living person. The demon looked stronger, but it still looked malformed.
As it came toward me, Roz swung in from behind and landed a firm blow to it with a long silver spike. The spirit demon turned on him. I raced forward and plunged my dagger into its back, and this time it vanished with a silent hiss.
The stillness of the creatures still bothered me. Other than their egg shrieking, they made no noise, fighting in an eerie silence, never screaming when hit, making absolutely no noise.
I ducked another attack, wading through a snarl of weeds in order to parry again. Once more, I brought down one of the shadows. I was getting pretty damned good with the dagger. As yet another spirit demon moved in, I moved to attack, but the toe of my boot caught on a rock that was hidden by the patch of dandelions and tall field grass and whatever else was tangled in the mire of undergrowth.
Losing my balance, I fell forward, landing hard on my knee. With a groan, I rolled over onto my back, just in time to see the shadow of the spirit demon come barreling for me. I dodged to the side, rolling to the right, quickly enough to avoid the feelers seeking to latch hold of me. As it came in again, I turned to the left and this time it managed to clip my arm, but again, it was too immature to do anything but graze my skin.
And then Smoky was standing there, his sword thrusting through the demon, and it vanished in the night. He leaned down and took my hand, lifting me to my feet.
I looked around. Nothing in sight. No bone-walkers, no spirit demons.
“You’re kidding. Did we get them all?”
“I believe so,” Smoky said. He draped his arm around my shoulders. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go home.”
As Delilah called Yugi to ask him to send out a team in order to clean up the remains of the egg and the scattered bones, we set off for the car. I was tired, and irritated. Enough was enough.
Tomorrow night, I was headed into the Aleksais Psychic Network, and I wasn’t coming out until I had Gulakah’s head on a stick.
Chapter 15
On the way home, we stopped to pick up some chicken. All I could think about was grabbing a bucket of KFC and diving into it as soon as we got home. It was late, but there was still one open near the Belles-Faire district.
I leaned out the window and shouted into the intercom. “We want four twelve-piece meals.”
A silence, then, “Did you say four twelve-piece meals?”
“Yes, extra crispy, with mashed potatoes and coleslaw for sides on all of them.”
Another pause, and then he gave me my total and I pulled up to the window, handed him two fifties that Smoky handed me, and passed the chicken into the backseat with Morio.
By the time we got home, I’d managed to shake off the lingering creeps that the bone-walkers and the spirit demons gave me. We hauled our treasure trove of chicken into the house. The kitchen smelled like lemon, and Iris and Bruce were busy putting the finishing touches on the swoops of meringue covering several lemon pies.
The guys set the chicken buckets and sides on the table as I peeked into the parlor. Nerissa was there, helping Hanna as they finished making the bed for Iris and Bruce. Everything looked cozy.
“You’re home safe!” Nerissa asked. “Is Menolly with you, or did my wife head down to the bar?” The blond bombshell who had married my sister was the most annoyingly happy newlywed I’d ever seen. And Menolly had become more cheerful than I ever expected her to be.
Menolly squeezed past me and threw herself into Nerissa’s arms, planting a huge kiss on her. Nerissa breathed in a contented sigh, and when she looked over at me, the glow in her eyes was almost blinding.
“Come on, dinner’s on the table and we need to talk over plans.” I motioned for them to follow me back into the kitchen.
As we entered the kitchen, I saw that everything had been laid out, along with plates and forks and knives.
