AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I let out a strangled cry of disgust, gave it a solid shove with my free foot and ripped my gun from its holster. It gave a piercing shriek but dug its claws harder into my ankle. It writhed into the form of a blue-furred crocodile then a dragon-ish thing with pearly white scales and wet wobbly wings. The shit? I brought my gun to bear on it then registered the blob that dangled from it by a cord of flesh—a blob that dripped blood and had remained constant during the shapeshifting.
Aghast, I gaped at the creature, then snapped my gaze to Jill—and her not-pregnant belly—then back to the creature. As I stared, it caught up its umbilical cord, bit through it then let the placenta splat to the asphalt. No, not a creature. The bean. Blinking up at me with huge violet eyes. Hanging onto my ankle. After biting off her cord. Which wasn’t bleeding.
“Kara?” Jill, out of it. “What . . . I don’t—”
“Hey, Jill! Just relax, okay?” I said, super brightly and super freaked. “Everything’s great!” Nope, wasn’t going to say, Oh, by the way, your baby just teleported out of you.
Instinct surfaced and pushed my gibbering what-the-fuck shock out of the way. I holstered my gun and reached for the bean where she clung to my leg. “You can’t do that!” I sputtered to her in horror. What if she lost her grip and fell on the hard asphalt? “Come here!” I needed to get her into the truck where she’d be safe, right? Nothing else made sense, but taking care of a newborn had certain inviolate rules.
Apparently the bean didn’t give squat about rules for babies. She ducked away from my grab and dropped neatly to the ground then swiveled her head toward the valve. Like a miniature dragon. Holy shit.
“Jill I’ll be right back everything’s fine you stay put okay?” I babbled then climbed out of the truck and crouched by the bean. “Is that why you brought your mama here?” I asked. “So you could get to the valve?”
She focused her luminescent eyes on me. A nictitating membrane flicked over them, then she hop-climbed onto my knee. I thought maybe she wanted to be held, but before I could move to do so she clambered awkwardly around to my back, clung to my shoulders, hooked her back claws onto my bra and wound her sinuous tail around my waist.
Gulping, I stood with caution. In our reflection in the truck window I saw her extend and wave wings that still dripped with baby-ooze. “You do know this is really creepy weird, right?” I muttered then started toward the valve. A shower. If I didn’t die in this crap, I was going to get a shower if I had to use a garden hose in the middle of town.
I heard Jill call my name from the truck, questioning at first then with more urgency. Yep, she’d just seen the dragon-demon thing clinging to my back. Please please please, I silently prayed, don’t let her realize it’s her baby yet! “Jill, it’s okay!” I called back to her. “I promise!” I gave the bean the side-eye. “Can’t you make her take a nap or something?” I muttered.
The bean extended her neck until her wickedly horned head was jaw to jaw with mine. She tick-growled softly, gaze riveted on the valve as we approached. Idris and Pellini continued to work feverishly. I had no idea how much progress they’d made, but their expressions told me things were bad.
“Um, guys?” I said. “I brought help.”
Pellini flicked a quick glance up then did a double-take, eyes widening. Idris kept his attention glued to the patch of asphalt. Katashi’s arm lay beside him, mostly covered by the cloth with only the fingers sticking out.
“Can’t defuse it,” Idris said voice strained. “People need to get clear. We’re holding as best we can.”
“No, seriously,” I said. “We got a ringer.” Damn, but this was surreal. I glanced to the bean and let
out a weak laugh. “Okay, kid. Do your thing.”
Her claws tightened on my shoulders as she told me to get closer. Not in words, spoken or otherwise, but there was no mistaking her desire. Much closer. On the valve itself.
“Shit.” Heart pounding, I stepped cautiously forward. Eyes still on the ground, Idris sucked in a breath, probably because of the reaction of the flows to the bean’s presence. He jerked his gaze up at me.
“Kara! No! You need to get back—” The rest of his sentence died away as he stared at my piggyback passenger.
A strangled laugh escaped me. “Hey, guys. Meet the bean.” Then I took a hurried step forward as the bean gave me a clear Get your butt on the valve before I have to do it for you! nudge. Pushy kid.
Pellini stood, eyes on the not-a-baby, then flicked a glance at his truck. The bean’s back claws strained my bra band as she shifted her weight and flapped her wings. Her grip on my shoulders tightened, and she brought her wings in close as I stepped into position on the center of the valve. A vibration ran through her, all the way down to the tip of her tail. I startled as she let out a long, piercing wail.
The arcane blazed into life around me, and I gasped. The valve appeared as a bottomless shaft of coruscating blue beneath us, unlike any view of a valve I’d experienced before. I saw the charges attached near the lip—eleven grey, egg-shaped lumps embedded in the blue, like tumors.
Concepts flowed through my thoughts. “Green. Stripes?” I asked the bean, trying to understand her instructions. An image flashed in my mind. “Green stripes. Got it.” Too weird. “Pellini. There’s going to be some green potency spewing out in a minute. Catch it and shape it into strands. Idris. You connect each strand to an egg-thing, then run it straight down the shaft. Uh . . . straight into the valve. Like candy striping the walls.”
Pellini remained silent, acknowledged with a nod.
Idris looked up in grief and dismay. “Kara, it’s going to blow! I can’t hold it.”
“I know,” I said calmly. “It’s all right. Just do what I tell you, okay?”
The bean shifted, and her tail snaked under the waistband of my jeans and over my lower back. The twelfth sigil ignited in a blaze of peacock blue that dominated my senses as if someone had shoved a blue filter in front of the sun. Gooseflesh raced over my skin in waves of hot and cold. “Be careful, kid,” I said under my breath. “That thing is dangerous.”
Emerald green potency fountained from the valve. Pellini seized it, worked it into strands which he passed to Idris. Jaw set, Idris gingerly attached the strands to eggs and ran them down the shaft as directed, fluorescent green stripes against the blue. To dampen the blast through the valve system. This was one brilliant baby. Dragon. Demon. Whatever she was.
“This isn’t going to work,” Idris said. His expression showed exasperation, but aching fear shone from his eyes. He swallowed. “I should’ve tried dis—”
“It’s not going to stop the blast, but it will dampen it,” I insisted. “It will. Just finish the last one and trust me.”
