His expression shifted—into something like confusion? Like my reaction surprised him. “Oh, I can tell you didn’t like my answer.”
“Fuck no, I don’t,” I shot back. “You crazy man, do not go into a fight you’re likely to collapse from!”
Davina fake coughed to cover her laugh. “Like you’re one to talk.”
“Hush, you.”
Davina cackled like the little gremlin she was. Fuck me, cousins were worse than sisters some days. Always reminding you of the mistakes you’d made. Or the stupid shit you’d somehow survived.
Seiji lifted to smack a kiss against my cheek. It was the first time he’d touched his lips to me, and it was a nice little zing. Put a happy smile on my face. “I’ve got you two this time. I’ll be fine. All right, let’s get this done.”
I still wasn’t happy about this idea of him being in danger and not a soul around to help him. We’d revisit the topic later, see if we didn’t. Hopefully in bed, after a nice shag. We hadn’t gone anywhere near that level yet—no time or energy, and I wanted to properly romance him a bit first. But after this, oh, I’d spend time getting to know this man. Every inch of him.
I had post-celebration ideas, you could say.
He was right that we should just get this over with. But now I knew this thing could phase through walls, I was paying strict attention with all my senses. Seiji led the charge but did so at a normal walking pace, not hurrying. Davina, I noted, was texting.
“Updating those up top?”
She nodded without looking up from her screen. “Just in case, so they know what we’re facing. There, updated.”
It was smart of her. I should have thought of it. I wished we had better signal down here; I’d get them on a vid chat if I could. I was amazed she had enough signal to get a text out at all.
Time stretched out and it felt like I’d been walking an eternity. With no sun, nothing but stone surrounding us, I had no way of marking time. It couldn’t have been more than a half hour, but without checking my phone, I couldn’t be sure. And with a beastie who might leap out at us at any point, I wasn’t picking up my phone. The dirks stayed planted in my hands.
The tunnel widened a little ahead and then we stepped into what seemed to be a natural cavity. Tool marks marred the walls, but the miners had clearly taken advantage of a cavern already here. There was thedrip dripof water, too, which wasn’t too much of a surprise with the river nearby.
Oh! That oriented me some. We must have walked more westward if I was hearing water. Air didn’t feel as stale, either, and a breeze blew from somewhere—
Realization and intuition flared and I dropped, and just in the nick of time. Somethingwhooshedright where my head had been. I didn’t see it, but I felt it, like a static charge brushing up against my skin.
Years of fighting made me spin in place, my heels crunching against the stone floor, and I lashed upward with one of my dirks. I grazed it—I felt the impact—and an ungodly sound soon followed. Like if Godzilla had a cold and was trying to roar and sneeze at the same time.
Davina shouted, and she threw one of her dirks straight at it, even got a score in. I scrambled back to a guard position, only to see the tail end of it disappear into solid stone. It looked almost… Its tail was whip thin, at least five feet long, and wispy at the ends, like it was on fire? Sort of?
I whirled, putting my back to Seiji’s and Davina’s. We stood in triangle formation, covering each other. It was incredibly natural to move so with them, and I was pleased Seiji fell into place without needing a prod.
“I’m very, very glad I have you two.” Seiji sounded more than a mite stressed. “I didn’t even see it coming.”
“Heard the wind,” I admitted. “Didn’t see it either. You get a visual?”
“Yes, but it won’t help you. That’s the strangest looking beast I’ve ever seen. Energy beasts are formed from cobbled-together energy and whatever is around it. It—”
“Here!” Davina snapped out.
I tilted more in her direction and saw what she meant in a minute. The beastie dropped straight from the ceiling, coming down hard toward her. Davina already had her bow out, arrow nocked, and she fired the second she got a fix on it.
And hit the mark dead in the chest.
Damn, that’d been a good shot. Davina was the best shot in the family, for sure. She’d just proved it all over again.
Despite her excellent shot, the beastie roared and flew up again before hovering right out of reach. I finally got a good look, and the sight of it churned my stomach and turned my nice lunch into an acidic lump.
“Eww,” Davina said, making a face.
I had to agree.
The beastie shifted forms constantly. It had wings, it didn’t have wings, it had a tail, it didn’t have a tail, the head was round in shape, now it was more like a bird’s. And the colors ofits “skin,” or whatever it was, fluctuated like a kaleidoscope on crack. Staring at it made me nauseous, and I wasn’t sure if that was some human instinct recognizing this thing shouldn’t exist or if the ever-shifting shapes were playing havoc on my senses.
