I turned to look at Josh, my eyes wide in shock. He looked just as scared.
Boy, were we in for it.
Chapter Twelve
I think we all took a second to just stare at each other. It was obvious we weren’t expecting an attack while visiting Richard’s seethe, but it seemed equally likely that our enemies hadn’t expected us to be present in such numbers. In an effort to show strength, Mikhail had brought a number of fighters and older vampires. Still, it was going to be an interesting battle.
By interesting I mean… ah shit!
Just when I was sure the standoff was about to end, Richard bellowed, “Fighters!”
At that same moment, the gryphon launched itself into the air, swooped, and picked up one of the vampires Mikhail had brought with us. We heard a scream as the man was carried high above our heads.
A mere second behind the gryphon, the minotaur charged forward, going from zero to sixty faster than a sports car. It ran toward the two primuses, who crouched down, ready to take the bull by the horns. Literally.
Not being sure what to do, I followed Josh as he moved forward to engage the giant dog. A vampire ahead of us, either being an idiot or thinking the lava was fake, rushed straight at the dog’s leg, stepped into the lava, and burst into flames. Understandably, we all slowed down as we eyed the enormous, multi-headed dog.
Of course the dog, being unaffected by its lava puddle, charged forward, its three heads taking turns snapping at us. To my shock and concern, the lava puddle followed his four gargantuan feet.
We scattered at the threat of its many heads. I felt a large glob of dog drool drop onto my shoulders and nearly gagged as I ran, two steps behind Josh. We reached the exterior wall of the flooring company and turned back to see the dog bite the head of a vampire clean off.
“How are we going to kill that thing?” demanded Josh, just as Nik joined us.
“Throw me!” I shouted without thinking.
“What?” asked Nik and Josh at the same time.
“We can’t attack it from the ground and I’m not strong enough to throw you. Throw me. I can jab something in its eyes.”
“Jab it with what?” asked Nik, disbelief coloring his voice.
Over protective jerk.
“The fire hydrant,” I suggested, nodding toward the red stump on the sidewalk between the parking lot and the street. “It’s made of iron, right?”
“Okay, let’s do this! To the hydrant,” added Nik in a louder voice.
I looked around, surprised to see we had gathered a large group around us, each using the wall and eave of the roof as a sort of protection. We moved as a group, staying low, but running as fast as we could. Nik and Samuel grabbed the fire hydrant and tore it from the pavement. A geyser of water erupted into the air, soaking us in seconds as it dropped back to the ground. Without asking, I took the fire hydrant from Nik’s hand, using the interior pipe as a makeshift handle.
“You sure about this?” he asked, shouting over the roaring water, which was currently shielding us from the dog’s notice.
“Hell yeah! Now get throw’n,” I ordered.
Nik and Samuel grabbed my feet and began lifting. I felt Josh’s hands reach for my legs to provide further support as they got me up near their shoulders, as though I was a cheerleader. Without checking to see if I was having second thoughts—which I totally wasn’t—they used their vampire strength to throw me across the parking lot.
I was just starting to descend when I collided with the dog’s side. Before I could slide too far, I flung the hand with the hydrant over the animal’s enormous back. The hydrant touched the beast’s side and I smelled a disgusting mix of wet dog and burning flesh. With the hydrant acting as a counter-weight I managed to climb onto its back and straddle it like a horse. I scooted forward, ducking as its two outside heads tried to turn toward me. The problem was that the two heads were trying to attack me at the same time, too dumb to take turns, and this kept them from actually reaching me.
I scooted forward on its back, determined to reach its shoulders and more fragile skulls before I started wailing on it. Though the two heads couldn’t reach me while both were attacking, they could still breathe and drool on me, and that was unpleasant enough. Their breath smelled of rotten meat, fire, and magic. Though I was already soaked from the hydrant, their drool stuck to my clothes and hair in great globs, slowly sliding down my face. I gagged but forced myself to stay focused.
Just as I was nearing the animal’s shoulders, I noticed another flying object shooting through the air. A second later Josh collided with the animal, only their aim hadn’t been as good. He landed on one of the dog’s heads, one hand holding onto an iron figure of a flamingo, which I vaguely recognized from the front entrance of the flooring company, while his other hand was grasping the dog’s ear. The head snapped at him, but did little more than tear his shirt. Josh kicked frantically with one foot while the other used the dog’s mouth as a foothold.
I stopped waiting for the right moment and began smashing the fire hydrant down onto the dog’s head until I felt the skull began to give to my efforts.
In record time, Josh climbed up the dog’s face, receiving only a few scrapes. He stopped when his feet were securely placed in the dog’s nostrils and drove the broken leg of the flamingo into the dog’s eye.
I’m not sure what I expected the animal to do, but die was not at the top of my list. The head we had been beating on dropped as though it was dead, causing Josh to slip from his precarious position and fall toward the lava. I lunged forward, dropping the hydrant in my panic and caught Josh by the wrist. By this time, I was straddling the dead head’s neck and barely able to keep my perch.
To my utmost relief, Josh did not remain dead weight. He used his flamingo poker like an ice pick and climbed back up the dog’s face. A second later, we had Josh straddling the same neck as me, his knees touching mine as we faced each other.
Had it not been for the giant two-headed dog and the battle raging around us we might have had a moment just then. I felt my stomach give a little flip as he stared into my eyes that I knew had nothing to do with the war.
Thankfully, at that moment the dog gave a mighty leap, knocking us again from our perch. This time it was up to Josh to catch me. He drove the flamingo into the dog’s dead neck with one hand while the other frantically clawed at my body. At the last minute he grabbed my shirt and kept me from falling into the lava.
I remember the game Hot Lava to be a lot more fun when it involved couches and plush carpet.
The heat from the lava below us rushed up and met my feet. Just when I was sure my feet were about to catch on fire, Josh gave an enormous heave and lifted me up to the flamingo. I grabbed the ostentatious decoration with my other hand and for an uncertain moment we both hung from it, our chests bumping into each other as the dog shook its heads again.
“We need to stop stabbing the head that’s already dead,” I shouted over the roar of the dog’s growl in an effort to lighten the mood.
It didn’t work. Josh ignored me, and instead he grabbed hold of the flamingo’s thin, arching neck and with one hefty jerk broke it from its body.
With this new skewer in hand, Josh heaved himself upwards so that he could stab the dog further up the dangling neck. “Climb,” he ordered after dropping back to his hanging position.
“You first.”
“Don’t argue,” snapped Josh.
His normally soft eyes were hot with fear and anger. I swallowed, pulled myself upwards, and grabbed the second skewer. This got me high enough for me to grab the dog by the scruff of the neck. Fur, despite how thick it is, is harder to hang from than an iron rod.
I didn’t stay there long, but kept climbing until I was lying across the dog’s shoulders, my arms and legs sprawled out on either side in an effort to stay astride it. I wanted to stay there and recoup but I knew Josh was still in danger. While trying to stay as much on my stomach as possible, I scooted in a circle until my he
ad was above the dog’s head and my feet toward its backside.
I’m not sure why I worried. Josh was using both flamingo skewers as claws and slowly working his way up the neck toward where I was settled. By this time, the dog’s dead neck looked more like raw meat, we had stabbed it so many times.
I made room for Josh as he reached the wide shoulders of the dog and handed me an iron flamingo neck. We both took up positions on the dog’s other necks, our legs wrapped as far around the necks as we could manage. The dog was shaking its two living heads, flinging us from side to side in an effort to remove us.
I felt a little like a rodeo bull rider.
I dug my hand into the animal’s fur and gripped it with all my might.
The dog continued to shake and jump around. I felt my head bash into Josh’s as we were both jerked toward each other. Despite the ringing in my ears, I held on and drove my iron skewer into the dogs head, trying to hit it in the eye. I missed and the head I rode gave a massive convulsion. I slipped from my perch and found myself hanging off the neck of the dog, my fingers frantically clawing at the fur in an effort to find a new grip. The head was swaying from side to side, as though I had done some sort of damage to its brain, just not enough to actually kill it.
“Ashley!” shrieked Josh from his spot on the middle neck.
“Kill it!” I called back as my grasp began to slip. The heat from its lava puddle was making the dog sweat, which I thought was very odd. Still, the result was its fur was damp, and I was slithering downward. From where I hung, I could barely see the top of Josh’s head, but I did managed to see his arm rise over his head and bring his flamingo bit down into the skull just as I lost my grip and fell.
Chapter Thirteen
I blinked, confused by my warm, hot even, surroundings. A large, furry blanket draped over my body. I laid prostrate on something that was hot and yet wet, and getting wetter. I felt a puddle of warm, gooey liquid spreading underneath me. I was pretty sure it wasn’t my blood; it smelled too bad for that.
Despite the smell and the gooeyness, I would have been happy to stay where I was if it hadn’t been for the extreme heat emanating from the ground. I shifted, struggling under the weight of the blanket pinning me to the ground. Then suddenly it all came back to me.
Shit!
“Ashley.” I heard numerous voices shouting my name.
I scrambled out from under the fur, which turned out to be one of the dog’s many ears. Thankfully, the ground was no longer covered with lava. I was just about to start looking around when multiple people reached my side, some grabbing my shoulders and giving me a shake, others clapping me on the back.
“You okay?” asked a strained voice.
I blinked a few times, suddenly realizing I was having trouble seeing. I wiped my hands across my eyes just as I heard a piercing shriek from somewhere near me; the battle was still going on. The hands holding my shoulders pulled me down. I wiped my eyes again, realizing my face was covered in dog saliva. After a few more wipes I got most of it off, and saw that it was Nik pushing me down into the dismal protection of the crook between the dog’s head and enormous paw.
“Where’s Josh?” I asked, looking around frantically.
“I’m here,” he said from just beyond Nik.
A few of our group were running off to join the others battling the bull-man-thing. From where I crouched, I spotted the gryphon dive and snatch up one of Richard’s vampires. The battle was far from over, I realized. The dog, while huge, was not necessarily the most dangerous of our enemies.
The bull jerked its head from side to side, its vast horns clotheslining a large group of our men. They collapsed, each one taking a different length of time to make it back to their feet. By the time enough of them were upright, the bull had charged away, turned, and was charging back at them. I spotted a few men dragging themselves away from the fight, their legs or backs too badly damaged to be of any use. Another man was searching among the wounded for his arm, the stub on his shoulder spouting large, graphic squirts of blood.
If anything, we were in worse shape than we had been when the dog was alive.
“Do they have weapons?” I asked as I watched a mob of men try to dog-pile the minotaur.
I guessed the answer before Nik spoke.
“No. Josh and I are going to take the iron to them,” he added as he ducked, barely avoiding the claws of the gryphon. It shrieked in defiance and zoomed back up to prepare for another attack.
“Stay here,” ordered Josh before they charged forward.
I was going to obey. I really was. Until the gryphon dove on Josh. At first I couldn’t even see him through the haze of fur, feathers, and claws, but then suddenly the gryphon took flight, Josh hanging from its deadly front claws. In the jerk of being taken airborne, Josh dropped his iron flamingo. I watched it clatter to the ground as Josh rose higher and higher.
Without thinking, I ran to where Josh had been and scooped up the flamingo. The gryphon gave a mighty, high-pitched shriek and dropped Josh. I looked up just in time to see the beast change directions and plummet toward me. I turned and ran into the crowd, hoping to lose it. I’m not really sure what I was thinking.
Mere seconds later, I felt its rough claws wrap around my arms, grazing my sides. I was lifted from the ground so seamlessly I wasn’t exactly sure when my feet left the ground. This allowed me to keep hold of the flamingo, but did not allow me to keep my thought processes.
I froze, panic turning my limbs to ice. What now?
I waited, assuming the gryphon would drop me or try to peck my eyes out. Instead, it just kept flying. We skimmed over trees, my feet getting caught in the branches. Evidently it had forgotten about me. I glanced down and noticed a small, dead tree limb hanging from my shoe laces.
It was then that I remembered the iron flamingo still clutched in my hand. It was a little awkward, what with its claws gripping my upper arms, but, with a little vampire might I managed to drive the iron flamingo into the gryphon’s side.
It gave a fatal cry, folded its wings, and dropped toward the ground.
What with being mortally wounded, it completely failed to hit the ground, which is impressive considering how much ground there was beneath us. Instead, the stupid bird-lion-thing got tangled in a tree. It screeched a few times as it battled the limbs of the deciduous tree, each cry growing more and more pathetic. Slowly, its claws released me, and I fell until a large limb caught me between the legs.
Now, I realize that it doesn’t hurt a woman as badly as it hurts a man—it still hurts!
I gasped, leaning my forehead against the trunk of the tree as I tried to catch my breath and not blackout.
I didn’t stay there long. I was too worried about Josh and Nik and the others. Once I could breathe without gasping, I climbed down the tree and began running back to the flooring company. The gryphon had only gotten us a few blocks before I had remembered my skewer.
By the time I returned to the scene of the crime, the battle was over. Nik had reached the minotaur and stabbed it repeatedly with his bit of the iron flamingo. I had just reached the parking lot in time to see the mighty beast topple to the ground, its wide horns taking three vampires to the ground with it.
The silence that filled the parking lot was so overwhelming I wanted to cover my ears with my hands, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t help any. We all looked around, taking stock of who was still standing and who had suffered. I spotted a few piles of wet ash, but not many. For the most part, we had survived with minimal casualties.
I felt a surge of unexpected relief when I spotted three werewolves trot up to my side and take up guard positions. Shawn limped a little, but otherwise they seemed fine.
I glanced back at the building to see how it had fared. Not well, to say the least. It looked as though the gryphon had taken a few swipes at it. The gutters hung at a precarious angle, one end resting on the ground while the other was still attached to the eave—barely. The roof was dotted with holes. I wo
ndered what they were from until I spotted a vampire jumping off the roof, a large gash running across his chest while another vampire was clawing his way out of one of the holes—they were made from falling vampire bodies.
Josh ran to my side, dodging werewolves, and flung his arms around me, capturing me in a smothering bear hug. He held me a second before letting go and catching hold of my shoulders.
“You okay?”
I nodded and shook his hands free from my shoulders. He was getting just as overly protective as Nik. We turned to Mikhail, Richard, and Isaac. Mikhail was sporting an impressive road rash across the left side of his baby face. I almost wished vampires could scar; Mikhail would look more impressive with a nasty scar down the side of his face.
Richard on the other hand looked perfectly fine. In fact, his ugly sports coat was barely rumpled. Had he helped at all?
Isaac sported a few wounds I couldn’t bring myself to care about.
Richard turned toward Mikhail. “Get out of here.”
“Richard, I’m so sorry this happened on your land,” began Mikhail.
“I said get out,” snapped Richard, cutting Mikhail off.
“I’ll send you a check for the damage,” responded Mikhail in a prim voice. “With me,” he added in a louder voice and started for the matching Yukon SUVs that were parked on the street. One had a broken side mirror, but other than that they were fine. I opened the back of the nearest vehicle and the wolves hopped in. I was going to go around to the side doors when I realized that the SUVs were full without me and the wolves so I climbed into the back with them. It was a tight fit. Werewolves aren’t small.
We struggled and wiggled in an attempt to find a position where we could all rest. In the end, we ended up with me sitting with my legs stretched out, and the wolves sitting with their hind paws on one side of my legs while their front paws were on the other side. It was difficult to reach this position and I received a few whacks in the face from their tails before we settled.
The Series that Just Plain Sucks: The Complete Trilogy Page 35