The black goo was flowing over my skin as though it were alive and was already making a corrosive path down from my face beneath my clothing.
Everywhere it touched me; I burned.
My eyes were the worst. I hadn’t had time to close them and it felt like acid was dissolving my corneas.
I screamed in pain.
More of the goo flowed up my nostrils and into my mouth, burning everything it touched.
My healing tat flared to life, but it wasn’t stopping the burning of my flesh. I clawed at my face, trying to pull the goo off me, but my gloved hands couldn’t grip it. My shield winked out, as I could no longer concentrate enough to keep the tat active. Falling to the pavement, I writhed and tore at my clothing, trying to get to the black goo that was spreading down my chest and back.
I screamed again, which came out as a gargle as the goo flowed down my windpipe and shut off my breathing.
The goo had already reached my belly, my elbows, and my knees. I tried to concentrate enough to come up with a way to stop its progression, but logical thought was impossible.
Finally, I focused on my lightning tattoo, summoning down the power to burn the goo off me.
There was the crack of tremendous current as a bolt sundered the sky and struck me where I lay spasming in agony.
I blacked out from the pain and lack of oxygen.
Chapter 14
Therese
The explosion was a total surprise. One second I was standing near Rafe, smiling at the night clerk and the next I was out the front windows and flying across the parking lot. I triggered my shield before I hit anything more solid than glass. I bounced once off the pavement and then rolled to a stop against the side of a pickup truck. Its alarm began to scream.
No, it wasn’t a car alarm. It was Rafe. He was screaming.
Bruno’s tail had tightened around my neck, nearly choking me. I put a couple of fingers between his tail and my throat and loosened his grip. Getting my feet under me, I shifted my shield into a dome over me. Both Maia and Beast had been blown onto their sides by the force of the explosion and they were now shifting forms and roaring in their different voices their anger and their fear.
I shook my head trying to clear it. My ears rang from the blast, but Rafe’s screaming drowned out all other sounds. Running toward him, I saw he was covered in some kind of black substance. It looked too much like one of the night magic spells he wouldn’t let me try.
Rafe was tearing at his face and then at his clothes. All the while, he screamed, until the scream turned into a gargling, which rapidly choked off.
I wondered what I could do to help, but then his left hand formed into a fist, and he raised his arm toward the sky.
“Shit!” I cried and flinched back as a bolt of lightning crashed to the earth and struck him where he lay.
The energy behind the bolt was great enough to throw me farther back from him and my shield popped back into a sphere as I went airborne again.
Bruno was chittering in my ear, but I didn’t speak wyvern.
Falling back to the pavement, I moved my shield back into a dome and hurried back toward Rafe. His body practically glowed beneath the power of the discharge. The pavement around him was beginning to bubble and smoke.
Before I reached him, the bolt died away and I could see him lying unconscious on the smoldering asphalt.
Without thinking about anything but getting him away from the boiling asphalt, I stopped beside him. Within a second, I could feel the heat, but my leathers were spelled to protect against fire, impact, and magic. I grabbed Rafe’s wrists and dragged him clear of the circle of molten material.
As soon as he was clear, I dropped his wrists and knelt beside him. Black material–or was it skin?–covered his face and neck. I brushed at it with my gloves and it flaked away revealing raw, red skin beneath it.
I lowered my ear to his mouth. Holding still, I waited for some sign that he was breathing. None came.
“Damnit, Rafe,” I cursed. I cast my healing spell on him and then started CPR. As soon as I compressed his chest the first time, a cloud of black dust popped out of his mouth and he coughed.
Beast and Maia moved close, standing to either side of us, but looking outward for any additional threat.
“What was that?” Beast growled.
As Rafe was breathing again, I brushed more of the black powder from his visible skin while he coughed and hacked for breath. His skin was the red of an intense sunburn, but I could feel the power of the healing spell working to restore him.
“I don’t know. We were talking to the night attendant when there was an explosion. There was no warning; at least my ward didn’t detect any. Rafe must not have had a warning either or he’d have gotten his shield up.”
As I mentioned the woman, she appeared in the opening of the motel’s shattered door. “Oh my God! Those are the things from Colorado Springs.”
I ignored her. I think everyone would recognize Maia and Beast, even if they didn’t really know what they were, and that explosion was loud enough to wake everyone at the motel.
“Rafe, can you hear me?” I
