She blasted the nightmarish creature again and again with her energy spheres, stepping slowly backward across the grass. A shadow loomed over her from behind the portal wall, then a thick, snaking tail with a curved bulb and a sharp, glistening tip sailed through the air toward her.
Cheyenne darted aside again and sent more attacks crashing into the huge tip of that hard-shelled tail. Great, now there are scorpions.
The tail tugged itself free from where the stinger had lodged in the ground, spraying dirt and grass in every direction. Then it struck out toward her, and the halfling shoved it aside with both hands this time. The creature’s body lurched sideways. One of the legs still speared into the soil broke free with a crunch, and the thing screeched again.
Next trial ability. Use it.
She thought of the Nimlothar seed again and used that fresh burst of magical energy to pull her hands away from each other. The nightmare-scorpion shivered and split down the middle, one gaping red mouth tearing in half, but the two thicker tentacles bursting through the portal wall from either side of the thing’s twitching body wiped the halfling’s smirk off her face.
Cheyenne blasted one with a black sphere as the other wrapped around both her thighs. No barbs this time, but it squeezed tightly enough to make her cry out. She clamped her hands around the tentacle and summoned up more black energy, but the second tentacle cracked against her hands like a metal rod.
“Ah!” The halfling jerked her hands away, her legs and hips aching from the growing pressure. The second tentacle whipped around her torso and both arms, pinning them to her sides.
“Fuck you!” Cheyenne struggled against the tightening grip as the pulsing black tentacles squeezed, sliding farther around her. She pressed her palms against the underside of the nasty appendage pinning her arms down and almost managed to summon more spheres. Barbs shot from the tentacles beneath her hands, slicing through her palms, and all she could do was roar and jerk her hands away.
The nightmarish creature rose on newly sprouted legs, lurching and dragging itself out of the newest Border portal in Bianca Summerlin’s backyard. Two more pairs of glowing red eyes shimmered behind the wall, blinking slowly at her as the tentacles lifted Cheyenne slowly from the ground.
She grunted, gritting her teeth, and tensed every muscle against the increasing pressure. Her breath came in short gasps and she clenched her hands into fists, ignoring the searing sting of her pierced palms. I’m not going out like this. No fucking way.
The ground trembled again as the rest of the tentacled scorpion-beast shoved itself through the portal opening. Then the thing lifted itself onto thick, squat back legs and opened the split Cheyenne had ripped in its body into another red mouth. Pulling its tentacles back toward itself, the thing squeezed the halfling even tighter and started to pull her toward the rows of razor-sharp teeth in that gaping mouth.
The halfling couldn’t breathe. She could barely move. She closed her eyes and focused on the image of the glowing Nimlothar seed as she remembered it. I’m not done.
Black tongues of flame burst to life across the half-drow’s skin. The creature shrieked and lifted her back into the air, but it was too late. When L’zar Verdys’ daughter opened her eyes, their golden glow was replaced by a black light even stronger than that coming from the ripped portal. Black fire burned around her eyes, and as her lungs screamed for air, Cheyenne gave herself over to the drow magic coursing through her.
The flames covering her erupted into one massive, churning ball of dark light. They consumed the tentacles squeezing the life out of Cheyenne, racing down the undulating flesh of the in-between nightmare until there was nothing left. The tentacles crumbled into ash, and still the halfling was suspended in the air at the center of drow fire.
Cheyenne pulled a searing gasp of breath into her empty lungs and screamed.
The flames burst away from her, streaming toward the screeching beast and blowing it away in glittering fragments of black shell and charred remains. Every piece of the thing that had entered this world from beyond the portal disintegrated, cutting off the last piercing screech before there was nothing left.
The halfling dropped to the ground and crumpled when her legs wouldn’t hold her up. The fire was gone, and when she opened her eyes with another gasping breath and a groan, the golden glow behind them had returned.
“Cheyenne!” Bianca’s shout echoed across the swath of green lawn between them.
Growling, the halfling pushed to her feet and fought to catch her breath. She had to bend over and prop herself up with both hands on her knees, but she lifted one of those hands toward the house.
“I’m fine.” The words croaked out of her. “I’m fine!”
The shallow echo barely made it back up to Bianca Summerlin, who stood at the edge of the veranda, gripping the railing with both hands. She swallowed and pulled herself together, but she didn’t move until she saw her daughter straighten and head back toward the house.
The woman’s eye twitched as she walked toward the open French doors into the house. Eleanor stood beside Ember just inside, their mouths hanging open as they stared at the dark ridge of stone and the drow halfling walking away from it. Bianca gave them a perfunctory glance before slipping inside. “She’s fine.”
Eleanor shut her mouth and cleared her throat. “I’ll just…” She patted Ember’s shoulder and turned in a daze to head toward the front of the house.
The fae watched Cheyenne until the halfling disappeared beneath the wide edge of the veranda, then she slowly wheeled the chair around. One of her sweaty hands slipped on the wheel, but she caught herself and tried again.
At the bar, Bianca filled her glass with vodka and didn’t bother with the soda water or the lemon.
