Chapter 27 #3
He was right that we should just get this over with. But now I knew this thing could phase through walls, I was paying strict attention with all my senses. Seiji led the charge but did so at a normal walking pace, not hurrying. Davina, I noted, was texting.
“Updating those up top?”
She nodded without looking up from her screen. “Just in case, so they know what we’re facing. There, updated.”
It was smart of her. I should have thought of it. I wished we had better signal down here; I’d get them on a vid chat if I could. I was amazed she had enough signal to get a text out at all.
Time stretched out and it felt like I’d been walking an eternity.
With no sun, nothing but stone surrounding us, I had no way of marking time.
It couldn’t have been more than a half hour, but without checking my phone, I couldn’t be sure.
And with a beastie who might leap out at us at any point, I wasn’t picking up my phone. The dirks stayed planted in my hands.
The tunnel widened a little ahead and then we stepped into what seemed to be a natural cavity. Tool marks marred the walls, but the miners had clearly taken advantage of a cavern already here. There was the drip drip of water, too, which wasn’t too much of a surprise with the river nearby.
Oh! That oriented me some. We must have walked more westward if I was hearing water. Air didn’t feel as stale, either, and a breeze blew from somewhere—
Realization and intuition flared and I dropped, and just in the nick of time. Something whooshed right where my head had been. I didn’t see it, but I felt it, like a static charge brushing up against my skin.
Years of fighting made me spin in place, my heels crunching against the stone floor, and I lashed upward with one of my dirks. I grazed it—I felt the impact—and an ungodly sound soon followed. Like if Godzilla had a cold and was trying to roar and sneeze at the same time.
Davina shouted, and she threw one of her dirks straight at it, even got a score in.
I scrambled back to a guard position, only to see the tail end of it disappear into solid stone.
It looked almost… Its tail was whip thin, at least five feet long, and wispy at the ends, like it was on fire? Sort of?
I whirled, putting my back to Seiji’s and Davina’s. We stood in triangle formation, covering each other. It was incredibly natural to move so with them, and I was pleased Seiji fell into place without needing a prod.
“I’m very, very glad I have you two.” Seiji sounded more than a mite stressed. “I didn’t even see it coming.”
“Heard the wind,” I admitted. “Didn’t see it either. You get a visual?”
“Yes, but it won’t help you. That’s the strangest looking beast I’ve ever seen. Energy beasts are formed from cobbled-together energy and whatever is around it. It—”
“Here!” Davina snapped out.
I tilted more in her direction and saw what she meant in a minute. The beastie dropped straight from the ceiling, coming down hard toward her. Davina already had her bow out, arrow nocked, and she fired the second she got a fix on it.
And hit the mark dead in the chest.
Damn, that’d been a good shot. Davina was the best shot in the family, for sure. She’d just proved it all over again.
Despite her excellent shot, the beastie roared and flew up again before hovering right out of reach. I finally got a good look, and the sight of it churned my stomach and turned my nice lunch into an acidic lump.
“Eww,” Davina said, making a face.
I had to agree.
The beastie shifted forms constantly. It had wings, it didn’t have wings, it had a tail, it didn’t have a tail, the head was round in shape, now it was more like a bird’s.
And the colors of its “skin,” or whatever it was, fluctuated like a kaleidoscope on crack.
Staring at it made me nauseous, and I wasn’t sure if that was some human instinct recognizing this thing shouldn’t exist or if the ever-shifting shapes were playing havoc on my senses.
Either way, I was quite all right with killing it and my uncertainty remaining an academic question.
Davina fired at it again, and it seemed to realize it wasn’t safe, as it dove again. She hit it, and I could see the impact on its skin. The energy was black in that spot. Like the arrow had created a patch of void.
Sever with light. Seiji’s spells were succinct but accurate, it seemed.
Then the beastie appeared again, not from the ceiling, but from the side—no, wait, it was smaller? Less substantial, somehow, the colors muted. Like a poor copy. The same second I spotted it, Davina cursed.
“On your left!”
“Right as well,” I called out.
Fuck me, there were two of ’em. Only thing worse than one of ’em was a damned twin.
Shite, please tell me there wasn’t a nest down here. I could only handle so much fun in a day. I was nearly vibrating out of my skin already; much more fun than this, I’d be worse than them kids in the Willy Wonka factory.
That said, as much fun as I was having, I did worry about my Seiji. “Leannan, tell me there’s not more of these things!”
“There’s only one,” Seiji answered, steadying his aim and firing off a shot of his own.
The fact he could summon, shape, and fire off pure energy straight from his palm was sexy as fuck.
The calm expression he had on his face was just a cherry on that sexy cake.
“The other you’re seeing is a phantom copy—fuck. ”
A third shot out from the side. This thing could make two clones of itself? That was annoying.
Fun, too.
I grinned like the maniac my family accused me of being even as I moved, getting something of a jump start and managing another score against the beastie as it flew overhead. It screamed in pain and anger before flicking straight up into a stalactite.
Wait, was that right?
“Is it the stalactite that’s coming down? Or stalagmite?”
“Lachlan,” Davina snapped, “will you fucking focus?!”
I’d have to Google it later.
A rush of air came from my right side and I spun, this time throwing one of my dirks and scoring directly dead-center mass.
The dirk sank right into the chest, torso, whatever you want to call it, and I saw what Seiji meant then.
The dirk’s energy clashed with the beastie’s, and it spread out like a poison, leaving dead-looking skin behind that turned grey as stone.
Wow. Now that was quite the lethal weapon.
The beastie veered off, losing all momentum as it crashed heavily into the ground. The second it impacted, it flew apart, energy scattering in a million directions. My dirk clattered to the stone in a sharp drop, the metal ringing as it struck the floor.
“Good job!” Seiji tossed me a delighted grin. “Now, my turn.”
Davina snorted like he was being funny and she lifted her bow, aiming for the beastie’s second clone as it rushed us. I had a hand on my claymore, ready to draw, but I could tell from her stance, she was sure of the shot. The second her arrow released, I had a gut feeling it would land.
Her arrow flew true, piercing it right through the side, and with the same devastating effect. It grew cold, dark, then blew apart like a bag of flour dropped off the roof. Davina’s arrow also clattered to the floor. None of us tried to pick up those weapons.
The main body was still around here somewhere.
Now, I wasn’t chasing a flying thing in an unstable cavern underground.
Seen too many horror movies to believe that a good idea.
The beastie seemed more cautious now we’d so handily dispatched its clones.
Time to draw it out and make short work of this fight.
So I took two dirks and banged the blades together, taunting it.
“Come here, you motherfucker,” I called to it. “Come ’ere, you nyaff. Hackit! Scrote!”
Schoolyard taunts, in a way, but it worked! The beastie didn’t like being called dirty or annoying, and it dove straight at me. Aye, that was more like it.
I grinned in delight even as I braced myself. It would be in range in three, two, one—
Davina’s arrow hit it right in the side, even as I sliced one dirk right along its neck (or whatever that was), and this time, I felt Seiji’s magic like I never had before.
It hummed, like a glove around my hand and wrist, and when my blade met beastie, its hum became so audible I found myself humming along with it, a deep-pitched note.
The beastie screamed, this otherworldly sound, and it thrashed as it hit the stone floor hard. It skidded for just a few feet, but I would not let it get back up.
It was staying down.
I was on it in a second flat, and using my claymore this time, I stabbed it right next to Davina’s arrows.
The patches of void grew and started intersecting with each other.
Encouraged by this visible progress, I withdrew my sword and stabbed it again, in the head this time.
I expected something—not blood, but ichor, or…
anything, really—but Seiji was right. There was no hint of flesh or bone in this creature.
“Lachlan, back!” Seiji ordered sharply.
I had no notion why, but he sounded alarmed, so I’d best do as bid. I jumped back a foot, then carefully backed away until I reached where my cousin and boyfriend stood once more.
Only, Seiji moved up even as I fell back. I didn’t like that one bit, but he made a staying motion with one hand, so I stayed. Maybe he was seeing something I wasn’t. In fact, that was very possible.
Now, I knew Seiji as this very darling man who had more brains than me, and courage to match.
But in that moment, I saw him as the chaos magician he was.
He seemed cloaked in power, and it rose visibly, whipping around him like a mini dervish.
He extended his arms to either side of him, I swear like he was calling power to him, and then he sliced both hands together in a chopping motion, energy following and striking the beastie head-on.