fingers. Katon moaned and crawled slowly to his knees as I cleared the weres off his back. His healing was kicking in now that he was free. Though he was immune to lycanthropy, it’d be a little while before he was whole and healthy. Somewhere deep inside my head I recognized the clock was ticking. It wouldn’t be long before the boost from Lucifer’s blood would start to fade. I’d crash a few seconds after and then we’d be right back in the world of shit we’d just dug out of.
It was time to get serious.
I spun around to face the shifting and uncertain mass of lycans and vamps and turned on the blowtorches. From my extended hands, jets of fire burst free and swept through the lines. Modeled after a flamethrower, I sprayed the room from left to right. After a moment of that, I pictured the inner workings of a pipe bomb to help cull the herd. Tiny balls of energy complied with my imagination and sprang up inside the flames. En masse, they hurtled toward the burning lines and exploded.
The weres that weren’t already crispy were pelted with a dump truck-load of magical shrapnel. With all the energy directed away from me and Katon, I pushed every ounce of magic I had into the assault and laid waste to the room. The howls of the wolves were drowned out by the shrieks of the vampires being shredded within the conflagration. It was all music to my ears.
With only one chance to do it right, I marched forward, leaving no room for any of the shitheads to creep past and flank us. They probably didn’t have it in them, anyway. Just a minute before they’d been chewing on our bones, now they were going up like an arsonist’s wet dream. If ever Hell had been unleashed, this is what it would look like.
When the screams and cries petered out, I turned off the fireworks and stormed forward. I heard Katon at my back, scraping along but there in furious spirit. The room was filled with roiling black smoke and the scent of cooked meat. Still caught up in the throes of Lucifer’s claret, it smelled divine; barbeque beast.
My hard-on throbbed as I strode through the carnage, my feet splashing in the puddles of boiling blood and melted muscle. It squished up between my toes and splatted soothing against my shins and knees. I stomped harder as I used magic to push aside the cloying black clouds so I could see.
Near the entryway, I came across what I was looking for: Mihheer.
He lay amidst the wreckage of his master’s grunt force. All around him were charred pieces of werewolf and vampire, arms and legs scattered everywhere as though I’d blown up a mannequin factory. Covered in blood and chunky pieces I couldn’t recognize, he looked up at me as I approached. Apparently, he’d managed to deflect most of the magic I’d thrown around, but he was clearly hurting. One of his hands looked deformed and a number of his teeth had been knocked from his mouth. I noticed that when he sneered at me.
I kicked him in the face for his defiance.
He tumbled back into the hallway, and crashed into the wall. I wasn’t done yet. Still under the influence of the blood, I was feeling feisty, know what I mean? If any of the weres or vamps survived the onslaught, they’d turned assholes and elbows and headed for home. There wasn’t a single one anywhere nearby. That left me free to focus on Mihheer.
The alien grunted and looked up at me coming toward him. I kicked him again, and again, and again, a brittle crackling sounding at every blow. He crumpled and spit blood across my foot. I kicked him for that, too.
“Where’s Scarlett?” I screamed at him, emphasizing every syllable with yet another kick.
He raised his hands to cover his head and I stepped over top of him. Had I been able to see things through Katon’s eyes, I might not have been so eager to have my naked crotch hovering so close to another man’s face, but Lucifer’s blood fueled a rage in me I couldn’t shut down. There was no reason or modesty buried anywhere in the deep murk of my primordial brain. This alien was getting tea-bagged.
“Where’s Scarlett?” I shrieked, pummeling him with my fists. Over and over I alternated from left to right, pounding and pounding. Subconsciously I heard the snap of his bones, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Katon shouted behind me and I felt him trying to pull me away, but his strength was like a gentle breeze. I shrugged him off and kept hitting Mihheer. At some point, the alien had gone unconscious, but I couldn’t say when.
Even more irate that he’d dare cheat me out of his agony, I reached down and grabbed ahold of one of his horns. I locked my fingers around it and leveraged my legs against the floor. I pulled. It came loose with a grinding crunch. Mihheer screamed into wakefulness and frantically clutched at the empty socket where his horn had been.
I stepped away triumphant, holding the horn over my head as a warm fluid rained down atop me. Katon shouted my name and I felt his voice worm its way inside my ear as I celebrated. It pierced the murk that churned inside. I paused and he called to me again. Flickers of light danced before my eyes. I turned to find Katon standing in front of me, his lips moving out of sync with his shrill voice. Blinking my eyes, I stared at him as he looked back. His face wavered from side to side and I couldn’t understand what he was saying anymore, his words oozing out of his mouth in slow motion. I tried to tell him to talk faster, but my own tongue wouldn’t work.
Lights popped in my head and Katon disappeared. There was a sudden sense that I’d stepped off the edge of the world, and then a cold solidness thumped against my cheek.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I woke up to the soothing sounds of Barry White.
“He’s coming around.”
Barry needed some serious help with his lyrics. No expectations he could ever top “Let’s Get It On”, “He’s Coming Around” sounded like it was a railroad song or about a guy with a serious bend in his crank. He wouldn’t be seeing the top ten with lyrics like that.
“I’m surprised he’s still alive.”
His backup singer needed to be replaced, too. The poor girl sounded as raspy as Froggy from the Little Rascals. The only mood she could evoke was the desire to develop lung cancer.
A jostling at my side sent sparks through my brain. I was suddenly upright, vertigo contemplating upending my guts. My head felt as though I’d been skull-fucked by King Kong. Pressure-a euphemism for icepick stabbing agony-bubbled in my brain and sent daggers of pain through my temples. Even with my eyes closed the lights were too bright. After a few minutes of listening to Barry and his band go back and forth about finding clothes to cover something up, which was a little catchier than the last tune, I dared to open my eyes.
Let me just tell you, a nuclear explosion would have been preferable right then. I screamed and fell back as streams of light seared my eyes. The hint of a shadow fell over me and cold hands were set alongside my cheeks.
“Relax, Frank. Open your mind,” I heard someone say, and shook my head in defiance. The pain that followed the motion set fire to my brain. “It’s me, Frank. Michael. Let me in.”
Too weak to resist beyond what I already had, I gave in. Anything to stop the agony. Seconds later a cold wave washed over me and put out the fire inside my head. My eyes sizzled in their sockets, and then settled as the sharp pains eased and disappeared. I drew in a deep breath and luxuriated in the chilly air that settled in my lungs. The lights faded and darkness flooded in to wash the last of it away. My thoughts scrambled into the shadows like roaches, and things started to make sense again.
Finally able to think, I opened my eyes. Michael Li kneeled beside me. He gave me a warm smile and helped me sit up. “Welcome back, Frank.”
I patted him on the shoulder before he stood and stepped away, allowing me to see the rest of the room. Katon stood there looking like he’d tried to buttsex a wolverine. He looked like a zebra, only with black and red stripes, his dark flesh doing its best to heal the damage inflicted on him.
“You okay,” I asked.
He nodded and gave me a shallow smile. Happy to see him alive and recovering, I glanced around the room for Mihheer. I vaguely remember him being there when Gorath set his cronies on us, but I had no clue what happened after that.
The alien was in the corner. Rahim held him down. In his human form, the wizard looked dapper as he clutched to Mihheer. He even spared me a smile with teeth showing. I didn’t have the heart to tell him about his prospects of being a successful singer.
