Page 74 of Of Flame and Fury
The creature falls, laughing at the water stripping the skin from her legs when she tries to rise. I punch her in the boob so hard, I’m almost shocked Sparky doesn’t fly out of her back and wave.
I snag her by the hair and shove her down, adding more heat to the furious boil. She splashes, her webbed hand slapping at my arm.
Claws graze the side of my face. I hold tight, knowing it’s going to take more power to kill her. I throw out more heat, mashing my teeth from the savagery I release through my magic.
“Come on, Taran,” Emme says, struggling to catch her breath. “You can beat this thing.”
Steam canopies the ceiling, dripping down like rain. The water in the tub evaporates almost halfway when the creature explodes in a mini andvery swampytsunami.
We’re hurtled across the bathroom and into the door, gagging and hacking on the chunky water. I wipe my face, spitting out more fishy nastiness and what resembles a tiny webbed foot.
I leap up when I spot more tiny webbed limbs floating along the water. “What the hell are those?”
Emme drags herself to her feet, gripping the door to keep from falling. “I told you she laid eggs.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emme and I don’t exactly walk out of the bathroom; we stagger and limp down the hall.
“Do you know where we’re going?” she stammers.
I spit out what might be another limb. “No.”
“Does your arm?”
“Probably not,” I admit.
The light from my right arm strobes in and out, reflecting Sparky’s annoyance. “Oh, like I’m the asshole?” I ask. “Who led us into that disaster?” The strobing lessens in severity, and the light dulls. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
She guides Emme and me a few more feet and turns me where another door just suddenly materializes.
Emme shudders with how cold she is. “This is it?” she asks. She glances up and down. “Aren’t we still on the bottom floor?”
My shoulders droop. “Yeah, but this is where she wants us.”
Emme takes several steps back and holds out her arms, ready to strike. I grip the knob with my left hand and fire up Sparky. I breathe in, hoping this is the right door to somewhere good.
I push it open and…we stumble into Genevieve’s quarters.
“God, you stink,” Catholic schoolgirl Liz informs me. She stops filing her nails just to give me the once over. “Did you get the crackers?”
“No, I didn’t get the fucking crackers,” I snap. “Haven’t you noticed we’ve been gone forever.”
“Bitch, please, it was a few seconds at best.” She tosses back her white-blonde hair and struts into the next room. I suppose I’m boring her. How will I ever get over it?
Shayna stands with her sword at the entrance to the main part of the residence. She appears disturbed by our state. “You dudes okay?” she asks slowly.
She doesn’t quite finish asking when theweresat her back cringe, covering their noses and racing to their perspective rooms.
“We’ve had better experiences,” Emme answers truthfully.
Shayna nods and swallows hard, the reek we’ve returned with evidently too much for her too. She does her best to remain calm and ignore the swamp goo we’re covered in while doing her damndest to get away from us. “Um, how’d it go?”
Isquish, squish, squishafter her and into the living space. “Oh, it went.”
Celia slaps her hands over her nose and drops the small bag of nuts she was given on the table. “What…” She takes a few breaths through her mouth, working, it seems, to hang tight to what she’s eaten. “What happened?”
Emme wipes her hands on the remains of her dress. Like that’s going to do anything. “We were locked in the downstairs bathroom where a swamp creature, capable of laying eggs and spawning mini-mes, crawled out of the tub.”