He turned to me and a smile slowly slid into place on his face.
I can do that.
I had to force my mind to continue concentrating. The sticky stuff was starting to invade my mind and I was getting woozy. I shook my head and prayed I’d have enough time to do what I needed to do. At the very least I was going to make myself taste very bitter, so if the thing ate me it would be
really
sorry!
I felt Dialle gather his power and pulse it out in a sort of power net that he settled carefully around the Orgick until everything but the tongue was held immobile.
The tongue loosened until I was almost able to climb out of its grip but then the Orgick jerked and the tongue tightened even more, suddenly squeezing me to the point that I was having trouble even breathing.
Dialle felt my panic in his mind and adjusted the power net to include the first six feet of the tongue, stopping just before where it started to wrap around my gasping form.
He slowly tightened the net until the Orgick’s froggy eyes bulged.
The tongue loosened again but not enough. I was able to take a few breaths and then focus on pulling a power bubble forward. I felt Dialle helping me with his power. Something he’d been able to do easily since he’d given me the daemon hickey. I was quickly learning that the mark joined us in many ways that I had no control over Something else I didn’t want to think about right then.
When I had the bubble in place I turned to him.
Okay, I’m ready. Hopefully it will hold
.
He frowned slightly.
I’m not sure this is the best idea, Astra
.
You got a better one?
He thought about this for a minute and then said,
Yes. I think we should redirect my power through you instead of at the Orgick, forcing it to release you
.
I turned to look doubtfully at the frog-like creature in front of me and was surprised to see its buggy eyes waggling frantically about, as if it understood what we were saying.
Imagine that.
I shrugged.
I guess that’s no worse a plan than having you blow it up while it’s clutching me. Okay, let’s give that a try
.
I immediately felt his power join with mine. When it had built to the point where I thought I’d explode, I let go of my protective bubble and allowed it to blast away from me.
The Orgick screamed as the power wall hit it and threw it across the cavern to smack against the far wall.
The tongue, which hadn’t gone with the rest of the Orgick, pulsed once or twice around me and then loosened slowly and slid down my body toward the rock floor beneath my feet. It left a slime covering on my body everywhere it had touched me.
I raised my arms and looked at them, “Bleurgh!” I said as the slimy substance glopped off my arms and legs and landed on my pretty boots.
Dialle was suddenly standing next to me again. “That’s extremely unpleasant, Astra.”
I looked up at him in annoyance. “You think?”
He shrugged. “I do, yes.”
Sarcasm is lost on the royals.
I tried a low-level burn of power throughout my body and it singed most of the slime away, leaving only a slightly pasty residue behind.
Pasty residue would have to do for the moment.
We turned to look at the Orgick. It was a mess of twitching and jerking flesh on the rock floor. We watched as it changed form several times, from gargoyle, to snake, to fish…
Fish? Who in Hades is afraid of a fish?
Then I laughed.
Dialle looked at me. “Do not say it, Astra.”
I bit my tongue and started walking again.
The first demon and gargoyle pair was only a few feet further down the tunnel. They were both dead, lying in a puddle of green blood. The stench was stomach-turning.
We moved on, hoping Girsch and Emo had been able to save the hostages.
The next pair were slightly less dead so we finished them off with a couple of jolts of power.
We were nearly to the end of the passageway when we heard the sounds of fighting and came up behind Emo and Girsch.
They had a small crowd of hostages huddled in a natural nook behind them. The humans were pressed as far back as possible into the niche to avoid the occasional, errant jolt of power that got past Emo and Girsch and hit the rock wall which barely covered them.
Dialle looked at me and resumed our mental communications.
Speak to Emo telepathically and tell him we’ll be shimmering to a spot behind the demon. He must stop firing or he’ll hit us.
I nodded and complied.
Then Dialle grabbed my hand and we were momentarily suspended in time and space. When we shimmered back to the physical plane we were looking at the back side of the superdemon I’d battled at Castle Gregg.
It was a very nice view.
Emo was firing at the thing’s feet to distract it.
I glanced at Dialle and he nodded, then we shot our combined power into the demon’s broad back. Emo joined us with his own power force which, I noticed, had grown considerably since last I saw it in the clearing during the witches’ black mass.
I guess that old, human adage is correct, practice
does
make perfect.
The force of our three-way jolt raised the demon off the ground about ten feet to crash into the rock ceiling. His pretty red-gold head shattered the low ceiling and created an avalanche of rock, which began falling into the narrow tunnel around him.
I looked around in horror, it wouldn’t take too much to bring the whole cavern down on all our heads. I reached out and placed a hand on Dialle’s arm. “Stop! If we have a cave-in the humans will die.”
We stepped back to a place where the ceiling wasn’t raining down and waited. Every now and then I’d hear someone cry out and I said a quick prayer to the Big Guy that we hadn’t just killed all the hostages.
That large holo-screen in the big house flashed through my mind and I smiled and waved, just in case.
When the dust finally cleared the demon wasn’t moving.
We walked over to look at it and Girsch reached down to clear some of the rock debris from its face. Its mask was gone and I saw it for the ugly sucker it really was.
“That really annoys me.”
The three of them turned to look at me. Emo arched a midnight colored eyebrow at me in silent question and I shrugged. “I’ve never been taken in by a demon mask before. I didn’t think I could be.”
Dialle kicked at the thing’s face just to make sure it was dead. “It isn’t a mask, Astra. At least not the type of mask you’re referring to. The superdemons have two forms. They use whichever one suits them.”
I looked up at him and grinned. “I learn such useful stuff when I’m around you, Dialle.”
He looked down at me. “Yes. That is true, Astra.”
A sound beyond the felled demon brought my gaze back to the huddled hostages. They had begun slowly moving out from the niche but they kept a careful watch on Girsch. Although he’d helped us save them, they weren’t at all sure he was playing for the right team. In fact, with all they’d endured, I wondered that they’d trust anybody, or any
thing
, at that moment.
They were a sorry looking group, covered with wounds and bruises and, in one case, what looked very much like a broken arm. The women’s clothing was torn almost completely off their bodies and they had dark indentations on their arms and faces that looked suspiciously like claw marks. Every last one of them flinched violently when anyone moved too quickly.
I looked at Dialle and he gave me a nod.
I can take care of their memories. The physical injuries will eventually heal.
Then he did something I thought I’d never witness. He turned to Emo and said, “I would appreciate having your help. There are a lot of them.”
Emo stared hard at him for a few beats and then gave a slight nod.
I turned back the way we’d come in and Girsch fell in behind me. I guessed he was my escort out of the caverns. We passed the huddled group of hostages and I tried not to look at them. The women stared at me as if they thought I was leaving them to a fate worse than the one they’d been enduring for the past several days.
Even though I knew Emo and Dialle would remove their frightening memories and start the physical healing process, it was all I could do to walk past them and leave them behind.
A small part of me wasn’t entirely sure Dialle had their best interests at heart. I was well aware that he had only helped save them because they kept popping up dead and it was causing problems for the royals. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be there with me otherwise. But I hoped like Hades I was wrong about that.
* * * * *
I was only back in my office for about half an hour before the outside door opened and I heard footsteps in the outer office. I stood up and went to the door of my office. I was surprised to see Margaret Coltran standing by the door, looking a little unsure of herself.
“Mx. Coltran. What a surprise. Are you all right?”
She nodded and gave me a small smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t call for an appointment, Mx. Phelps. I just wanted to come by and thank you for saving our lives.”
To my vast surprise she approached me and gave me a hug. When she pulled away I felt a slight tug on my hair and she laughed, showing me a pretty, metal bracelet on her slender arm. “Sorry, this thing gets caught on everything.”
My eyebrows arched slightly. “You said our lives, so the chattel lived?”
“Septra.”
I cocked my head in question.
“The girl. Her name is Septra.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I never knew her name.”
Margaret Coltran nodded. “I know you probably think my husband and I are stupid for what we did… And we endangered a lot of people with our actions. I… Well I just wanted to apologize to you for what it’s worth.”
I crossed my legs and arms, leaning against the doorframe to my private office. I stared at her for a beat, unsure whether I should try lecturing her on the dangers of taking the law into her own hands or leave well enough alone.
She certainly seemed to have learned her lesson.
I never got the chance to do either. A huge explosion in the street outside my office shook the walls of the building and threw debris high enough into the air that I saw large hunks of it flying by my window.
I ran to the window and looked down.
There was a huge hole in the street below and something large and mangled lay smoking in the center. Several air vehicles had been thrown off course by the explosion and were careening wildly down the street. Two of them hit head-on and plummeted toward the ground, adding to the mess and calamity in the street.
As I watched, a small air booger headed directly for the window where I was standing, a pale, young face visible behind the quickly approaching viewport.
I swore and dived under Emo’s desk, screaming, “Get down!” to Mx. Coltran. But the young flyer must have gotten the air vehicle under some kind of control because it missed a full-on crash with the building and instead hit the corner with a squeal and a wrenching noise and skittered away.
I jumped up and headed out of the office. I met my cute and helpful neighbors, Ralph and Bob, in the hallway and the three of us hit the flash elevator at a run. We took the flash down to the street to see what we could do to help.
When I returned to my office two hours later it was empty. Part of me regretted the unfinished conversation with Mx. Coltran and the other part decided it wasn’t that important.
Either the woman had learned a valuable lesson or she hadn’t. Either way I couldn’t do anything more about it.
Chapter Sixteen
Ugly Spies
Our lady and her friend do go, cavorting with their foes,
Soft and ugly in disguise, they sleuthed like a couple of pros.
There was a message from Raoul on my televisual when I got home. He informed me that he’d made an appointment for us with the Devil’s Glenn coven for midnight. Apparently we were invited to attend a new moon ritual to enhance healing and personal growth.
“Enhance this!” I murmured to the studious-looking face on the televisual. Raoul took his moon phases very seriously.
He also informed me that he’d pick me up at eleven o’clock that night and told me to look like somebody else.
I sighed and looked hopefully at the personal hygiene room. I would have killed for a few minutes in a hot cleansing tube and an evening in the prone position. But a glance at the clock told me I had less than an hour to prepare for my outing with Raoul.
I trudged toward my closet and started the process of disguising myself.
* * * * *
Raoul’s air vehicle was almost as cool as the Viper. His was shiny black and had shark tails on the wide, split backend and dual thrusters that made testosterone-inducing noises when he increased speed. I leaned back into a soft white leather seat and grinned at him.
“At least you don’t have a girly car.”
He grinned back. “It just doesn’t pay to have taste.”
My grin widened. “Taste? Is that what you call it?”
He chuckled and it made me feel like we were getting our comfort level back. “Just because my house isn’t decorated in early vehicle dwelling sale and traditional hate to shop.”
He had me there. “Hey, I don’t have
time
to shop. I’m a very important Tweener.”
“Right. I keep forgetting how important you are.” He turned to me and chuckled again. This time he was laughing at my face rather than my conversation.
I grinned and pressed my fingers into the slightly red hooked nose in the middle of my face. “You don’t like my disguise?”
He shook his newly blond head. “I have to pretend to be married to you. It’s not a comfortable position to be in.”
I shrugged, feeling mischievous. “So? You don’t want to be married to a short, corpulent woman with frizzy orange hair and a large hooked nose?”
He snorted and shook his head. “Don’t force me to comment on how you look. It wouldn’t be politically correct.”