“Eldon.”
There was a hint of challenge in both her tone and her expression as she said his name that told Lee everything he needed to know.
“How many times have I told you that I go by Lee now?” he asked slowly.
Harper raised an eyebrow at him, as though daring him to try to make her say it. Lee pulled the blankets back and eased himself forward, closing the gap between them as easily as one magnet snaps into another.
And then Harper’s phone rang. She moved on reflex, rolling toward her nightstand and slapping her hand down on it. Lee winced as the LED screen illuminated her face, and he noticed the way her eyes had narrowed and her mouth had tightened.
“Get dressed,” said Harper. “Daryl has a lead on one of the escaped inmates. We need to follow up on this right now.”
“As in, right right now?” asked Lee.
She didn’t bother answering him, instead disappearing into her walk-in closet and shutting the door hard behind her. Lee scowled and started pulling on his jeans, a process made annoying by a certain part of his body that hadn’t caught up with the situation.
Five minutes later, the two of them were pulling out of the driveway in the borrowed sedan. Harper had twisted her hair into a simple bun and pulled on jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. She ignored both the speed limit and the dubious quality of the road they were driving on, gunning the car up to a speed that made them catch air on every pothole.
“Where are we headed?” asked Lee.
“Mount Fellmore. Exactly where I expected at least one of them would hole up. There’s a trail leading up to the summit. We’ll have to approach on foot for the last stretch.”
At the speed Harper drove, it only took them fifteen minutes to make it to the mountain. Several cars were already parked at the trailhead with headlights on, and the beams of a half-dozen flashlights panned over bushes and trees composing the perimeter.
Daryl was waiting for them, and he hurried over as soon as Lee and Harper had climbed out of the car.
“One of them is up there,” he said. “Direct confirmation. Two of my men got into a scuffle with the escapee and had to dodge out of the way of an energy blast.”
“Any casualties so far?” asked Harper.
“None. I had everyone pull back, and I called you as soon as I was sure.”
“Good,” said Harper. “Keep a tight watch down here. My apprentice and I will handle this.”
Daryl nodded to them both. Harper gestured for Lee to follow her, and the two of them started up the trail. It was pitch black outside, and rocks and tree roots proved to be an issue.
“Cast a dark-vision spell,” whispered Harper. “You’ve learned that much in alteration, haven’t you? It’s not difficult to manage.”
“Instructor Daniels covered it in passing,” said Lee. “I, uh, haven’t managed to pull it off yet.”
It was a lie, but he couldn’t tell Harper the truth. He felt a sudden pang of anxiety at the knowledge that she’d be expecting him to hold his own during the oncoming fight. Without Tess enabling him to cast his spells, he’d have to get creative.
“Stay close to me, then,” whispered Harper. “I’ll alert you to anything you might trip over.”
Lee did, and they began making quick time. It was still a rugged, uphill hike, and it took them half an hour to make it to the summit of the small mountain. They stepped out of the tree cover onto a wide, rocky plateau covered in moss and thin sections of grass. A figure in a hooded robe was crouching behind a boulder ahead of them, positioned on the wrong side of it to effectively hide from view.
Harper didn’t hesitate as she strode out into the open, casting an illumination spell that sent a sphere of pure light hovering over the area. It lit up the mountaintop like a spotlight, and the escaped sorcerer immediately spun to face them.
“My name is Harper Black. I’m an Arcane Striker with the Order of Chaldea. Surrender and come along quietly, or I won’t hesitate to use my magic against you.”
The hooded figure stood where he was for a moment, and for a couple of seconds Lee thought the escapee might be considering the option. It was a fleeting thought, and the sorcerer dropped into a conjuration casting stance with a sudden ominous movement. Lee barely had time to get his hands into position for a spell shield before magic was hissing through the air.
It was just a reflex and, of course, his spell did nothing. A set of conjuration bindings much like the ones he’d been trying to cast during his last class snapped into place around his wrists and ankles. Harper’s spell shield had worked as intended, and she quickly freed Lee with a volley of carefully aimed fireballs that shattered the magical chains of his restraints.
He pulled his kris dagger free from his jacket and fell into formation next to Harper, who was already preparing another fireball to cast at the sorcerer. There was a flash of orange light as their opponent prepared their own counter, and the smell of brimstone and sulfur filled the air as the hulking shape of a summoned monster coalesced in the space between them.
“A fire elemental,” muttered Harper. “Interesting.”
The monster was at least eight feet tall and generally humanoid in shape, but with flames coating its entire body and glowing eyes the color of rubies. It started forward, each movement whooshing through the air with a sound that reminded Lee of gasoline being poured onto a fire.
The sorcerer wasn’t done. As Harper split off from Lee to confront the new threat, their opponent proceeded to cast another spell, this one conjuring three more summoned monsters into existence. All three of them were lamias, human-snake hybrids, with slithering lower halves and upper bodies that looked like partially scaled, naked women.
Each of the lamias let out low hisses as they slithered toward and subsequently surrounded Lee. His kris dagger didn’t seem nearly threatening enough to keep them at bay. The three lamias looked nearly identical, with blue hair, full breasts, and yellow eyes. The one nearest to Lee smiled and extended an overly long, forked tongue.
“Youuu… loooook… fuuunnn…” hissed the snake girl.
“And you look like something out of The Island of Doctor Moreau,” said Lee.
CHAPTER 11
Lee couldn’t keep all three of the monster girls in his field of view at once, so he had to keep turning in a slow circle, slashing out with his dagger when any of them tried to draw too close. Harper was busy dealing with the fire elemental, dodging its attacks and retaliating with water spells. Lee wasn’t sure where the sorcerer had gone, which didn’t bode well for the battle to come.
“Relaaaaax,” hissed one of the snake girls. “We won’t biiiiiite.”
He didn’t take her assurance at face value, swinging wildly with his kris dagger as the lamias attempted to close in on him. It was a losing battle, both because of the imbalance in numbers and their incredible reflexes.
One of the snake girls crashed into him, and the other two soon followed. Lee let out a surprised shout and tried to stab downward with his kris dagger. A firm hand pried it out of his fingers and tossed it out of reach. He tensed, expecting venomous fangs to stab down through his chest.
The bite never came. The monster girls began wrapping their long, smooth bodies around him, completely stalling out his movements. They didn’t squeeze, however. They undulated, and it wasn’t nearly as unpleasant or painful as Lee had been expecting. In fact, it felt kind of good. Kind of… really good.
He had a sudden recollection of the way certain types of snakes mated, twisting into messy balls for the messier business of getting down and dirty. Fingers were pulling at Lee’s jeans, dropping the zipper and sliding them down. He tried to use the opportunity to roll to the side and only ended up aiding one of the snake girls to remove his boxers.
He wasn’t aroused and was in the middle of promising himself that he wouldn’t let them have the satisfaction when one of the lamias leaned her face into his field of view. She let out a gentle, purring hiss, extending a foot-long forked tongue wh
ich ran over Lee’s chin and lips.
An incredible sensation of slimy, hot wetness played over his cock. He knew what it was before even needing to glance down at the situation. When he did, he saw that the other two lamias had oriented themselves so that their upper halves were on either side of Lee’s lower half. They were directly across from each other, with Lee’s cock jutting upward and serving as the focus point of their attention.
One had her tongue wrapped twice around the base of his shaft, and the other was sucking on the tip. It was horrifying. It was also extremely hot. The conflict made it hard for Lee to think straight, especially as the third snake girl began alternating between kissing his cheek, sucking on his earlobe, and caressing her face with his tongue.
“Fuuuunnnn,” she hissed. “Maybe master will let us keeeeep you.”
Fun was both the wrong and the right word for it. Lee had never experienced fellatio from two simultaneous mouths before, let alone ones with tongues like this. He tried to push away the lamia nearest to his face and ended up pulling her into a deep kiss. His cock was throbbing with pleasure made even more intense by the tight squeeze the lower tongue was keeping around the base of his shaft.
Hopefully Harper isn’t watching, he thought to himself. It was another of those Trojan horse realizations that served to arouse him further as much as it brought him back to reality. The snake girls working his tool started moaning as they sucked and licked even faster. Weren’t they supposed to be fighting him?
A cold premonition ran down the back of his neck as he felt the levees of his sexual willpower begin to crack under the tide of tongues, lips, and pleasure. Weren’t there a few types of snakes where the female killed and ate the male after mating?
Lee let out a gasp as he came, spraying seed into and across the mouths and faces of his monster-girl seductresses. His climax struck him with the sort of intensity that only comes from a delayed, partially unwanted release. He’d made the mistake of going along with their game instead of keeping his head in the fight. Now, he had only seconds to figure how to find his way out of an encounter he’d basically already lost.
“Taaaasty,” whispered one of the lamias in the process of licking up his seed. “So sweeeet.”
Lee pulled one of his arms loose from the coiled snake bodies restricting him. Tess wasn’t anywhere nearby, but maybe he could still manage an extremely basic spell, not something to win the fight, but to buy himself space. He exhaled, finding a state of calm, and then gripped the wrist of his right hand in the conjuration casting stance and whipped his palm forward.
He attempted to cast his force spell to knock one or all of the lamias away from him. Nothing. One of the lamias let out a cackling laugh and licked his stomach. Her tongue felt nowhere near as enticing as it had a few minutes earlier.
What else could he try? The only other ability of note that Lee had was his mystic stream, but that was useless against summoned monsters. The way his mystic stream gave form to ghostly entities was close to the opposite of what he currently needed. He did have his innate ability to see through minor illusions and reveal auras, but it was a limited effect.
Could he make it into something more? He wasn’t sure, but one of the lamias dragged their needle-sharp fangs across the inside of one of his thighs, which heavily emphasized the need for him to take action, any action. Lee exhaled again and felt first for his mystic stream.
Instead of extending it, like he would have normally, he tried to do the opposite and pull it further in than it already was. It was a complete inversion of the ability, the difference between a shining star and a black hole. He sucked in a breath and forced the sensation deeper, feeling the magic of the summoned monsters begin to waver. He knew what it was now: a counter to a spell, a dispel.
There was a distinct, immediate shift in the air, and all three of the lamias let out shrieking cries of pain. The noise cut off abruptly as Lee put more of his focus into using his dispel, the monster girls collapsing into coiled, defeated heaps. They hadn’t been completely banished, but Lee was free from their entanglement, which was enough for the moment.
He hurried to fix his pants and make himself decent. He was looking downward when he saw a drop of blood hit the grass. He felt first for the places where the lamias’ fangs had touched before reaching to his face and finding that he had a fast-flowing nose bleed. That usually only happened when he held his mystic stream for an extended period of time. The fact that he’d gotten one off a single usage of dispel meant that the ability’s usefulness might be limited by the toll that it took on his body.
The battle was still ongoing, however, and there was no time for Lee to worry about himself. Harper was still fighting the fire elemental, though the bulk of her focus had shifted to putting out the small forest fires the summoned monster seemed to enjoy starting amidst the thicket of trees.
He scanned the mountain’s small summit and spotted the sorcerer watching the fight taking place with a surprising amount of confidence. He hadn’t realized that Lee had dealt with the snake girls, either because of the trust he placed in them or out of a desire to avoid peeping on their lewd battle tactics.
Lee found his kris dagger on the ground and took off at a sprint. He got within fifty feet of the sorcerer before being noticed. The sorcerer immediately adopted a casting stance, though it wasn’t one that Lee recognized.
He had a plan for that. He lifted his dagger and slid to a stop, bringing it back behind his shoulder in preparation for a throw. The sorcerer immediately stopped his current spell and shifted to a new casting stance. Lee started running again, not bothering to actually throw his weapon, as his aim would have been abysmal at that distance, regardless. It had just been a feint.
The sorcerer hesitated before shifting back into an offensive stance. He got his spell off this time, sending a barrage of purple conjured arrows flying toward Lee. They were high up, aimed at his face and head, so he ducked low and rolled under them. He was close enough to strike now, and they both knew it. The sorcerer took a step backward, but the summit cut off into a steep slope behind him.
Lee snarled as he leapt forward, tackling the sorcerer at the waist. He got his dagger against his opponent’s neck, pinned his arms above his head, and then waited for him to stop struggling before pulling back his hood.
The sorcerer was a sorceress. Lee stared into the big brown eyes of a relatively young, tanned-skin girl with straight black hair. She had full lips, a small nose, and a tribal neck tattoo that made it look as though black tendrils were reaching up to caress the edges of her face.
The girl tried to buck upward and knock Lee loose. He gritted his teeth, knowing that it was too dangerous to stay in the position he currently had her in.
“Sorry about this,” he said, as he slipped around and pulled his arm across her neck. She grabbed at his wrist and elbow, digging in with her fingernails.
He wasn’t trying to kill her, just to daze her or possibly render her unconscious. The girl lost strength after just a few seconds, and he loosened his hold, not wanting to risk permanent damage if he didn’t have to.
Harper had finally finished dealing with the fire elemental, and she hurried over to him. The lamias were still collapsed on the ground where he’d left them, and Harper smiled appreciatively at Lee as she surveyed his handiwork.
“Nice,” she said. “What spell did you use on them?”
“The force spell you taught me,” said Lee. “I guess I just hit them at the right angle.”
Harper nodded. “Slide back from her. I’ll use a minor illusion sleep spell to make sure she stays out.”
Lee did as requested and Harper took care of the rest. The lamias faded out of existence as the spell took effect. Harper folded her arms once it was done and frowned at the sorceress’s unconscious face.
“I was worried when the fight first broke out,” said Harper, “that the fire elemental would have been a difficult opponent for you, but three lamias were not something I would want for
you to take on by yourself, either. You held your own.”
“Thanks.” He nodded to the sorceress. “Should we call the Warden and have his people come take her back to the Upper Valley Penitentiary?”
“She’s coming with us,” said Harper. “It’s too dangerous to bring her back to the same prison until Daryl has identified the security breach that let her escape in the first place.”
“We’re bringing her to Primhaven?”
“Yes,” said Harper. “There’s a small jail behind the First Tower. It’s seldom used these days, but I remember one of my old instructors talking about how Primhaven used to be a prime location for housing certain types of supernatural threats. It’s secluded, and the various mages and instructors on campus make for effective guards.”
Lee nodded slowly, but a nagging suspicion brought another question to mind.
“That’s not the only reason we’re bringing her with us, is it?” he asked. “You think this might have something to do with Zoe.”
Harper glanced away from him and let out a long sigh. “It seems awfully coincidental that my mother would claim to have seen her in this area around the same time as a prison break. I’m not jumping to any conclusions. Zoe is just about the last person I can imagine getting involved with a supernatural gang. But I can’t ignore the circumstances.”
“She might have been one of the prisoners, or an unwilling cooperator,” said Lee.
“True,” said Harper. “We also can’t rule out the possibility that it’s as Michael suggested, and my mother just got one of her dreams confused with reality. The sorceress comes with us, and we’ll see what, if anything, she has to say.”
CHAPTER 12
Lee took on the responsibility of carrying the sorceress back down the mountain, which was a pain, even though the girl was on the petite side. When they reached the trail head, they stopped to briefly discuss the situation with Daryl, who agreed with Harper’s decision to bring the girl to Primhaven.
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