Jaz Parks 5 - One More Bite

bitching at Floraidh like she hadn’t just thrown him in the back of an overgrown golf cart and hauled him into the woods to act as her lab rat.

“Why didn’t you throw some kind of counterspell down there?” he demanded. “You’re supposed to be the big bad coven leader. Kick some ass already!”

“I can’t!” Floraidh cried. “All my powers are tied up in the resurrection.”

“I told you not to waste yourself on that brute!” Dormal screamed. “What will you have left when he returns? You’ll be nothing but an empty husk!”

“You don’t know that!” Floraidh yelled back.

Great, the cats are fighting and the snakes can climb trees, I thought as Dormal began chanting again and the Inland Taipans responded in force. I elbowed Vayl, pointed to a spot where I thought I could get a clear shot without endangering Cole. He blinked, nodded, even smiled a little as if everything was just fine. But he’d bitten his bottom lip as we’d watched the snakes advance. And while blood trickled down his chin, everything below his neck seemed to have frozen in place. I despise snakes, his wide eyes told me.

I nodded my understanding. Wished he hadn’t lent his cane to Albert. Though his innate powers kept him well armed, he’d have felt better with his sword in hand.

Aha! I reached into my pocket, pulled out my bolo, and offered it to him. A nearly audible pop as he took it and relief loosened all his major muscles.

Using the new skills I’d developed in my funky joinage with Trayton, I slunk to the new location I’d picked. Dammit! She’d moved, pressing her left side against a thick-trunked oak as if she needed the extra support while she conducted the slitherage.

I could keep circling. But I’d seen a couple of snakes move in that direction and I didn’t love the idea of surprising one of them. I could retrace my steps and try coming around to the other side of her. But that would take time I didn’t have. So I stepped into the clearing.

“Back those snakes off or I splat your brains all over the forest,” I told Dormal.

Chapter Thirty-One

As soon as Dormal’s mouth began to move and my bracelet shook I realized we’d run out of time. I shot her just as she drew back behind the tree. Instead of burying my bullet in her ear and ending the nightmare of Bea and her wiggly pets forever, I only managed to destroy the lower half of her face. She couldn’t talk, but she could gesture. And the abrupt shove of her hands resulted in a wave of air spinning me off me feet, sending Grief bouncing into the ravine. Dammit, Tolly! Why couldn’t you have given me two bracelets! Well, at least the snakes had stopped their progress again. Except some of them had decided to reverse course. Climb down into the ravine and see what they could find on our side.

Vayl’s cantrantia filled the glade, edging the leaves and our clothes with frost. As in the castle, the snakes shifted into slow motion, their heads reaching left and right, as if scouting for ground that hadn’t suddenly frigidized.

Dormal searched for the culprit. Not finding him, she turned her attention back to me. I saw the plan in her raging eyes. Finishingi' w me off would even the odds and give her such sweet revenge.

What she didn’t know was that I’d never been the big hitter. As had happened countless times before in my work with Vayl, my job was to cause fear, kill if possible, but mainly distract the target from my boss. Who stepped up behind Dormal, silent as the ice that had begun to form on the tips of her eyelashes, my bolo tucked into his belt like he was some misplaced jungle explorer.

One of his arms slipped through and trapped her elbows, preventing the motion that would lead to my last breath. The other shoved into her hair and yanked her head sideways. His fangs sank into her blood-soaked throat, making her jump. Just a taste. That was all he took before he raised his head and spit, coating the Taipans closest to them in red.

“You are foul through and through, woman,” he growled. “Let us have an end to you now.”

Despite the fact that she must’ve weighed twice what he did, he lofted and tossed her like a caber at the Highland Games. She landed among her creations, her screams choked with blood as they swarmed her, the only warm spot in a sea of winter. Her panic did her in, the jerky attempts to slap them away, to roll to her knees and crawl free enraged the torpor right out of them. By twos and threes, and then in groups too large to count, they attacked, many of them striking multiple times before they were satisfied their prey was no longer a threat.

The venom acted almost instantly. One moment Dormal was writhing in panic and pain. The next she was dead. And the second after that, the snakes shriveled into long lines of dust.

“Aaaah!” Cole’s yell yanked my head around. Floraidh had sunk her teeth into his shoulder. He tried to punch her, but his angle sucked and his blows weren’t hard enough to knock her free.

“Vayl!” I cried as I leaped to my feet.

He’d reached them before I’d finished saying his name, leaping into the tree as if he had wings. His arm was a blur as he brought it around to strike Floraidh, sending her flying. The bed of the Big Red broke her fall and, from the sickening crack when she impacted, her spine.

Vayl helped Cole down and leaned him against the tree trunk. I crossed the ravine to join them, getting a good look at Cole’s wound as Vayl pulled him around for a better view. She’d torn a chunk of flesh away and left a gaping, bleeding hole.

“Jesus Christ!” Cole said as he felt the crater with his fingers. I checked him for shock. Yeah, coming on slow but sure.

“Vayl,” I said, “I think he’s going to need your coat.”

“Of course. Let me see if I can stop this bleeding first.”

A low laugh from the vicinity of the vehicle made me turn to look. Though Floraidh’s legs twisted eerily beneath her, she still managed to raise her head. “It’s done!” she said triumphantly. “The way is prepared for my Edward’s return now.”

“Bullshit,” I told her flatly. “We killed two of your women back at the Cairns.”