“Challenging but not impossible,” she muttered to herself as she followed the transport.
She closed the intervening distance, retracted her wings, and landed in the transport's cargo bed. The vehicle fishtailed, almost toppling her. She reached out and grabbed the headrest of the seat in front of her to steady herself before she swung into the back seat.
The transport jerked hard to the right, and she slid at the sudden movement, grunting when she slammed into the door. She grabbed the front seat to keep from being flung out. With her feet against the floorboard, Nali wrapped a stone arm around the Daktyloi’s neck and applied pressure.
“Stop the transport now,” she ordered.
Horror gripped her when the man’s head dropped back, and she saw empty sockets where his eyes should have been. She released her hold and fell back against the seat.
The transport picked up speed, heading straight for the edge of the road and the ravine beyond. The front of the vehicle clipped the top of an enormous boulder, and the transport flipped in midair. Nali felt the sickening sensation of weightlessness.
The alien spewed from the dead man’s mouth, disappearing down into the ravine. Briefly pinned to the seat by the centrifugal force of the spinning vehicle, she fought to escape before it crashed. The transport rotated again, and she pushed off the seat when it was beneath her, rising into the air as the vehicle continued to drop like a stone.
Their baggage was flung upward, too. At the edge of her peripheral vision, Nali glimpsed an enormous shadow. It raced by her, plucking the two bags out of the air and tossing them back up onto the solid rock along the cliff’s edge. Before she could call forth her wings, the speeding shadow swooped underneath her. She twisted to meet him when she recognized the smell of her favorite hippogriff.
She landed on Pai’s back, just in front of his shoulders. Leaning forward, she gripped the feathers surrounding his neck and frantically searched for the alien creature.
“We have to find it,” she shouted.
Pai shook his head. “The alien will have to wait. We have a more immediate issue to deal with,” he replied, veering back in the direction of the longhouse.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded.
“The alien left a gift,” Pai grimly replied.
Just then, Nali glimpsed smoke rising from the longhouse—and the surrounding mass of small red insects.
“Goddess!” she hissed in horror.
“What are these things?” Ashure snapped, tossing a bucket of water on the door of the bathroom to extinguish the small flames that were appearing.
“Fire Beetles,” Asahi replied.
Asahi ignored Ashure’s wince when he fired his pistol, stopping several beetles that were entering through a hole burned through the heavy iron door. He hated using his ammo, but it wasn’t like he had a lot of options available at the moment. The damn things had melted the iron like butter in a microwave.
He grimly smiled when Mr. Gryphon snarled and pounced on the tiny droplets of alien DNA that were trying to escape. They had quickly discovered that the Gryphon’s sharp teeth held the same magical properties as the dagger.
“Is there any other way to kill them than with that noisemaker?” Ashure growled.
Asahi lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Do you have a better idea?” Asahi retorted.
Ashure responded with his own shrug. Clearly, he didn’t have a better plan. Asahi raised an eyebrow in surprise when Ashure pulled a 9mm handgun from his coat pocket. Ashure fired several shots and touched the beetles’ remains with the tip of his enchanted sword.
Asahi stared at Ashure with an inquiring expression. Ashure waggled his eyebrows in return and shot him a grim smile.
“Tonya’s father is a police detective on Earth. After he heard how Mike’s weapon helped save the day with Magna, he decided it might come in handy for me too. We like going to the shooting range when we visit her parents,” Ashure replied.
“Well, unless there is a load of magical clips to replenish the spent shells, we are going to be in some serious trouble very soon. I only have three bullets left,” he stated.
“Unfortunately, no. I have two clips minus what I have used,” Ashure responded.
Asahi was about to reply when a molten drop landed on his shoulder, sizzling through his shirt and burning the skin beneath. He instantly sidestepped and looked up. Hundreds of tiny holes were appearing above their heads, dripping molten droplets of melted roof. He frantically looked around for a shield.
Ashure cursed when a droplet hit him. They backed as far into the corner as possible to get away from the rain of liquefied metal. Asahi fired his last two rounds and Ashure emptied his clip. It made no difference. They would be lucky to have an additional thirty seconds before the room was swarming with the insects.
“Tonya will be furious with me if these things somehow kill me—and that is after Nali gets done with me,” Ashure muttered, looking at him with an expression of resignation.
“Hold on,” Mr. Gryphon ordered.
“To what?” Ashure snapped.
Asahi frowned. “What do you mean if they are somehow able to kill you? Can’t you die?” he asked.
“Cauldron of Spirits, Keeper of Lost Souls here. Death has a slightly different meaning for me,” Ashure wryly replied.
“Hello, Asahi, will you hold on to me? Ashure, you’d better hold on to Asahi. I’m not sure this will work,” Mr. Gryphon interjected.
“Not sure what will work?” Asahi asked with a confused frown.
“I’m going to release a burst of magic and try to fly you two out of here. It will be a miracle if it works, but hey, it’s worth a try,” Mr. Gryphon said.
“By all means, please try,” Ashure fervently encouraged.
Asahi reached out and grabbed the small winged lion by the feet at the same instant that the roof collapsed. He closed his eyes and hissed in surprise when a brilliant light flooded the room, and his feet left the ground. He opened his eyes and looked
