I felt rough fingers on my legs; then they found the fastening of my shorts and broke the zipper in their haste to get them off. I barely noticed, watching in horror as Mac writhed on the ground, trying to pull out the wooden mass that had pierced his thigh. He managed to get the slender spike out with steady hands, ignoring the abrupt wash of blood that stained his clothes, but another immediately wound itself around his neck, choking him.
'No! Leave him alone-you're killing him!”
The roots either didn't understand or didn't care. The creature on top of me yanked at me gaping material of my shorts, baring my upper thighs, then in one swift movement jerked them halfway down my legs. I kicked at him, but it was like hitting wood instead of living flesh and I don't think he even noticed. I looked around wildly for help, but Tomas' limp form was being shoved less than gently into a large sack. And although Marlowe had regained consciousness, he was being held down by three giants while another tried to get a sack over his head.
Mac had managed to get the root loose and was struggling one-handed to unwind it from around his neck. His other hand was held over the ragged wound in his leg, which had already drenched the ground beneath him as if it had nicked an artery. But at least the other roots had backed off. If he wasn't struggling, he didn't seem to interest them. I could only hope he'd stay down, and maybe play dead before he really was.
I realized in a rush of adrenaline that I was on my own, and that none of my usual defenses would work here. My bracelet was no more than a decoration, and my ward was useless. Sheba had disappeared after attacking the Consul, and the
The skinny creature tore the shorts the rest of the way off and flung them aside while the fat one started pawing at my top. The tank was a stretchy knit that resisted tearing, and his clumsy fingers couldn't seem to get it off. He paused to lick my face as if tasting me, and a rope of saliva dripped from his mouth onto my cheek. It slowly trickled down my neck, cold and viscous, completely unlike bodily fluids are supposed to be. I tried to scream but got only a mouthful of grimy, foul-tasting hair instead of air.
I was temporarily blinded to what was happening, trapped under the suffocating mass on his head, but I felt the tug of fabric and the sudden shock of air against me when my panties were ripped away. I tried to shift, at that moment not caring about the consequences, but although I felt a deep, sluggish pull of my power, it wasn't enough. I couldn't grasp hold, and it remained a lifeline hovering just out of reach.
I turned my face as far toward the path as I could, desperate to find some air, and then I saw it. One weapon did remain nearby, if not exactly within my grasp. The rune must have fallen out of my shorts when they were thrown into the bushes, and it was so small that no one had noticed. It lay tantalizingly near my head, a pale sliver of bone half buried in damp leaves. But although it was only inches away, I had no way to grab it.
While I struggled to figure out how to cross those few inches, two slender but strong roots wrapped around my ankles and started twining upwards. When they reached my knees, they began pulling outward. The living bonds curled up to my thighs, biting into the skin as they brutally forced my legs so wide that, for a minute, I thought they meant to tear me in two. They finally stopped when my hips would give no further. I tried to fight, but nothing I did made the slightest difference, and my rising panic made it almost impossible to think. A stick bearing a few bright green leaves tumbled through the air from high above and landed on my face, a whisper of a caress, while the things above me started to wrestle over who would get to rape me first.
It was a short fight. The skinny one picked up his companion and threw him against a tree, the branches of which trapped him in a wooden embrace, like a cage. Then he turned and fell on me. Two coarse, knotted hands grabbed my shoulders painfully and I stared up into flat gray eyes that had nothing human in them. He wriggled down my body, his tough, uneven skin scraping against mine except where the tank protected me.
I ignored the pain his movements were causing and grabbed the stick, my only tool, in my mouth. My eyes zeroed in on the thong threaded through the top of the bone disk, despite the fact that it was brown and barely poked out of the scattered leaves. I knew I might get only one chance at this, and I had to concentrate. I managed to get the end of the stick through the small loop and began trying to work it closer. If I could get it to touch my skin or even just my aura, it might be enough. Then I heard a squelch, and something slick and clammy nudged my belly. I froze.
It felt like something old that had been left underground to rot for a very long time, spongy and moist and bloated. But it moved sluggishly, twitching against my lower stomach. I couldn't see anything except my attacker's shoulder and the small patch of path, but my brain conjured up images of an enormous white grub or a fist-sized slug. When its chill dampness slithered eagerly between my legs, I swear my heart stopped.
I was so paralyzed with horror that I just lay there as the inhuman thing swelled against me, like a rotten fruit about to burst. Its sodden cold raised goose bumps across my entire body as it leeched away my heat, numbing me as if an icicle was being rubbed over sensitive areas. Through the shudder-inducing revulsion, I understood that the horrible gelatinous shifting was it changing forms, trying to find one compatible with my body. But the one it came up with bore no resemblance to human virility. It suddenly grew firmer, its slimy consistency congealing into a fat, rigid shape as unyielding as a wooden stake. If the thing pierced me, I knew I wouldn't survive, that it would eat my heat and replace it with its damp chill. The green man, some part of my brain recalled: the old Celtic peoples had sacrificed one of their own to the land, so it would grow rich and fertile off his flesh. Only it looked like this forest preferred a green woman.
When the parody of an organ began to thrust, the action so very male, so very
I don't know whether that was the right procedure, but it did the trick. Sort of. With no warning, I found myself, not twenty minutes back in time, but maybe two. The oak men were coming for me, and Mac was leaping to intercept them, so focused on saving me that he didn't see the roots straightening themselves into spears, coming for him. I didn't hesitate this time, but yelled a warning and fled down the path towards his discarded backpack.
I was sobbing now that I could breathe freely again, and my hands were shaking so hard that I wasn't sure I'd be able to get the pack open. The shorter creature reached me when I had only one buckle undone. He grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled, and he must have had better leverage on his feet because this time, the tank ripped. My amulet tumbled into view, jostling Billy's necklace for space between my breasts, and my attacker let out a screech and jumped back. He cradled the hand that had brushed against the charm as if it had been burned, and a black mark appeared on his skin in the shape of the rowan cross. I plunged my hand into the half-open pack and finally clutched the gun.
I am not the world's greatest shot. In fact, I suck. But even I don't usually miss when my targets are three feet away. I didn't worry about aiming, just let off a barrage of bullets that splintered the barklike skin of the oak men as if I was firing at actual wood. The taller let out a squeal and took off down the trail, while his fat companion huddled on the ground, hands over his mossy head. The iron bullets obviously caused them pain, but although they were oozing a syrupy substance from every wound, they were both alive and moving when my clip ran out. I stared at them in disbelief; what did it take to stop one of these things?
The coat Pritkin had given me was lying nearby, where I had dropped it alongside the pack when we stopped to rest. But I had no time to search for the right bullets. The short Fey realized that I had stopped shooting and grabbed for me. I flattened the rowan charm against his forehead, pushing it into his skin as hard as I could. The flesh around it immediately turned black and start smoking, giving off a smell exactly like a burning campfire.
He tore away from me, clutching his head and screaming. I don't know whether he would have tried again, because the pixie suddenly appeared and, despite the fact that he was momentarily incapacitated, slapped him with the flat of her sword. The blow must have been more forceful than it looked, because he went sailing into the forest until he was stopped by an overhanging limb. He hit the ground hard, unconscious or worse. I didn't wait to find out, my only thought to get to Mac.
Huge hands descended on me at the same time that a scream reverberated through the forest. I looked down the path in time to see a root as large as a small tree erupt from the scarred ground right under Mac's feet. Time seemed to stop-I couldn't even feel my heart beating anymore-and then everything suddenly sped up. The root
