AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A creeping sense of horror builds up inside my mind, manifesting as a tingle down the back of my neck. It’s the way most normal people feel upon walking into a morgue, not realizing where they are, and then noticing all the dead bodies.
Seconds later, I pick up on something else: a sense of mental energy coming from all seven victims. Okay. Whew. Alive, just unconscious. Stasis of some kind I guess. Good. I can work with that. Much easier to fix sleep than death.
I set my hands on my hips and look down at myself, shaking my head in mild disbelief of yet another unreal situation.
“Great. I’m going to be on the cover of theNational Enquirer… ‘Aliens Abduct Vampire’.”
Chapter Twenty
Flight Speed
Tammy hadn’t spent near as much time as an eagle as she did with the panther spirit.
Flight was, however, mostly instinctual. Her urge to go faster translated into subconscious action—and screaming from Allison and Annie—who lost her grip and tumbled to the left. A quick swerve and tiny dive tossed Annie back into place before she fell. Allison conjured neon pink tethers for all three riders, attaching them to the feathers at her neck. They didn’t interfere with flying, so Tammy tolerated them. Allison noted they each wrapped the tethers around their wrists and held on.
Since they’d already been spotted—and her passengers now had something keeping them secure—Tammy decided to climb, flapping hard. Allison, Annie, and Maple clung to their conjured nylon cords. Annie’s chirpy voice yelled something about it not being fun to fly anymore. Tammy did her best to avoid flying too close to any branches that might sweep the tiny people off her back as she made her way higher and higher. Near the treetops, she tucked her wings in and sailed through a gap in the canopy, bursting out to open sky above the forest. Swarms of dark faeries rose like locusts from the black forest below.
She climbed as fast as she could. Seconds into her rapid ascent, altitude made the clearing around the rotten tree quite obvious: a gap in the endless evil woods stretching to the horizon in every direction.
She hadn’t gotten quite as close as she hoped, but now had the advantage of flight speed and an unobstructed path. No trees in the way, no roots, no titanic wooden monsters… only distance. Power climbing so soon after overextending herself earlier wore her out fast, but the sight of the exit reinvigorated her as effectively as any magic she could tap.
Upon reaching the height she aimed for, Tammy went into a dive, tucking her wings in and using gravity to accelerate. Annie and Allison continued screaming but didn’t sound terrified anymore, merely like people going on a rollercoaster for the first time.
The cloud of dark faeries stopped climbing after her, instead zooming horizontally right above the treetops. They seemed to be trying to catch her on the way down… but they couldn’t hope to keep up with her eagle form’s hundred-mile-per-hour dive. She aimed for a spot of open ground about halfway between the forest edge and the center that would give her enough distance to slow down before crashing into the rotten tree and breaking her neck.
Actual eagles could divebomb prairie dogs or rodents and snatch them into the air. Not only had Tammy never practiced such a maneuver, she also had made herself about twice the size of an ordinary eagle. Magic or not, she still had to—mostly—obey the laws of physics.
As the ground drew near, she instinctively flared her wings out, leaned back, and stretched her taloned feet forward. Having a bird tail that could fan out feltweird.Allison and Annie stopped screaming as free fall morphed into gliding flight. She narrowly skimmed the treetops at the edge of the clearing and swooped down to sail over grass, barely two feet off the ground while angling her body to bleed off speed.
Seconds before she felt comfortable enough to attempt a landing, a tangle of black thorny vines burst out of the ground and grabbed her, yanking her to a midair halt. Inch-long thorns bit into her back, stomach, and left wing. She gave off a screeching cry part eagle/part her voice as momentum swung her forward and down to eat dirt. Allison, Maple, and Annie spilled off and went tumbling, undoubtedly losing their grip on the tether.
The ground came alive. Hundreds more roots emerged, gathering into humanoid shapes like morbid semi-human sculptures made of dead rose bushes.
Grr. Dammit!
Struggling in her present shape would only do damage, grinding the thorns deeper into delicate bird flesh. The time for wings had passed. As the horde of faerie-possessed thorn fiends closed in on her, she shifted to panther form. While it might have been more effective to throw nature magic at them from her normal human self, she’d about reached the limit of her endurance. Clawing and biting as a cat took much less out of her than channeling life-energy into little fireballs.
She erupted in a frenzy of ripping and slashing while trying—with too little success—to free herself from the entangling spell that initially grounded her. Even in her powerful panther form, the thorny tendrils lashed her back legs together and wrapped most of the way up her body.
Still, she fought... until a bright blast of lightning overhead made Tammy realize Allison had gone back to normal size, as had Annie. Both tried to fend off the incoming army with a barrage of magic.
Meanwhile, the black trees at the distant edge of the clearing seemingly melted into an endless incoming swarm of dark faeries, root fiends, and various furry creatures—twisted mockeries of animals ranging from rats to dogs to bears. Tammy had about thirty seconds to get herself out of those roots and run or she’d be hopelessly overwhelmed.
Unfortunately, it would take about fifteen seconds to open the portal back to the faerie realm.
“Allie, take Annie and get out of here!” shouted Tammy, struggling to move her tied legs. “I’m stuck. They got me already. Too many of them are coming in too fast. I’m not gonna make it. Just go. I’ll keep them busy as long as I can.”
“No way!” yelled Allison. “There is no way in hell I’m leaving you here.”
“You have to! Take Annie and get out! Come back after she’s safe if you want, but I’m gonna do this.” She ripped another two root fiends in half, sending bits of wood, splinters, and battered little faerie bodies flying. The panther roar she let out after intimidated a handful of creatures into hesitating. “Go. Don’t waste the few seconds I’m giving you.”
She savaged another dark fey monster, no longer caring how many thorns poked the roof of her mouth. Pain didn’t mean much in the face of certain death. If Annie made it out, she’d be happy. Out of nowhere, she felt foolish for semi-seriously thinking about killing herself a few years ago… when the constant telepathic assault on her mind—hundreds upon hundreds of voices that would justnotshut up—became too much to bear. How ironic that she’d gone from wanting to die to wanting to live forever… only to have her time come up at only eighteen.
Tammy didn’t exactly want to stay there and die, but fate didn’t appear to be giving her much of a choice.I’m screwed anyway. Might as well make damn sure Annie gets out of here.She roared again. “Come on, you bastards. I’m gonna take three hundred of you with me!”
Allison and Annie shouted, seemingly arguing with each other, for a few seconds.
The roots binding Tammy’s lower half suddenly disappeared amid a flicker of yellowish-gold light. As if fired from a giant slingshot, Tammy’s panther form flew forward into a crowd of faerie-possessed roots and near-demonic wildlife. She bit the fake animals and ripped apart the roots in a wild frenzy of desperate abandon.
