…frog?
I blinked hard, but nothing in front of me changed. Shit. That vortex was turning people into frogs. Why would a demon want to turn people into frogs? Was the vortex a one-way portal from the other sidetohere, or was it a portal from heretothere?
Jean wasn’t bothering with the whys and hows. She was bending, scooping up as many frogs as she could carry before they hopped away and burrowed into the sand.
The frogs were a little stunned to find themselves suddenly of the amphibian persuasion, so they were easy to pluck up.
But her arms were full, and she was leaking frogs as fast as she could bend and replace them.
“Damn it!” she yelled. She shucked off her outer shirt, scooped up the edges of it and used it as a satchel in which to dump frogs.
“You okay?” I yelled.
“Yes! Go, go! Shut that damn thing down!” There were two more people just ahead of Bathin marching hypnotically toward the vortex.
Bathin put on speed to reach them before they entered the light. He launched himself at the man and took him down in a tackle that would have made a line backer proud.
But the other person was a little girl, probably the man’s daughter. Bathin rolled up from his dive and reached for the girl, trying and failing to catch her as she juked and jogged nimbly past him.
No little girl was going to turn into a frog on my watch.
I dug deep, wished I’d skipped the second half of the sandwich, and plowed toward the girl. I pushed hard and leaped, grabbing for her and tucking into a roll so that we would land with me on bottom and her on top.
It was not an easy move, but I’d been on the roller derby team long enough to know how to land safely, and how not to kill someone in the process.
We collided in a tangle, and I heard the surprisedwoofof air escaping her lungs as we hit the squishy sand.
“Shut it down!” I yelled, at Bathin, at Jean, at anyone. Only there wasn’t anyone there who knew how to do that. Even I didn’t know how to do that.
Then I heard it. A pattering gallop. Sharp, tiny hooves churning sand. And ragged on the wind, a battle cry like I’d never heard before.
“Aaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiii!” The hooves tapped out louder and louder, and the cry rose to a magnificent screech.
Then I saw it, a tiny pink unicorn, head down and extended at full gallop, horn shattering light into ribbons of rainbows, glossy mane and tail flowing in the wind. She was churning sand like a monster truck and picking up speed with every step.
I quickly checked the little girl in my arms. She was about ten, all legs and puffy, corkscrew ponytails. “You okay? Anything hurt?”
But she just stared at the sky like she could hear a song way up there she had to follow.
I eased up on my hold, and she wriggled, trying to get out of my arms, reaching for the vortex with one hand.
“Okay, nope, that’s not gonna work.” I grunted and got to my feet without letting go of her, pressing her back tight against my chest. “Don’t let him up,” I called to Bathin.
“Yeah, I got that.” He had the man on his knees and was keeping him there with a very neat half-Nelson. “What the hell is she doing?”
I followed his glare to the unicorn who had almost reached us.
“I’m saving the day, you dumbass!” the unicorn shrieked.
Then she pulled up to a hard stop, spraying the vortex like a hockey player snowing the goalie.
“We need a rope, a thread, a lasso,” Xtelle said breathlessly, like she was calling out the instructions for how to disarm a bomb. “One of you must have bondage gear on you.”
“I have cuffs,” I said. I thought about cuffing the girl to keep her safe, but that wouldn’t stop her from walking. I was working up a sweat trying to keep her still and not hurt her as she leaned and pushed toward the vortex.
“Cuffs won’t work,” the unicorn said. “Something longer, something loopy. Bathin, are you telling me you have nothing on you that can be used to tie up someone?”
“You don’t know me, old woman.”
