Moonstone Shifter (Demon Lord Book 8)

by Morgan Blayde

  I glowered. “Who are you to demand? You crashed my party, remember? You attacked my people because you were too stupid to see through a skin-walker’s disguise.” Alright, so that last is a cheap shot. “You will take what I give you, and be glad I am not a vengeful soul.”

  Some of my guys snickered.

  They know me so well.

  Kat and Josh pushed through the were-cats. Kat remained human, but had ditched the dress to move unhindered, her dancer’s body toned and supple, with a fine detail of muscle that impressed me. I diverted my appreciative stare before the were-liger noticed and ripped off my face. Zahra rode on the were-ligers broad back, smiling happily. Josh’s wrathful glare and bestial rumble shut up the were-cats that still wanted to argue with me. With Gemma dead, Kat was ranking cat present. Josh’s attitude left no doubt about it.

  I called out to my First Sword. “Imari, keep everyone in the ballroom area, inside the pillars. Set up watches. Don’t let anything native sneak in here and run amok.”

  She called from somewhere back of the crowd. “Already on it.”

  In wolf form, Angie and Winter padded up to me, staring curiously at the passed-out witch. I gave the skin-walker a once-over, checking the severity of her wounds. There didn’t seem to be any. She’d left them behind in the dragon body she’d abandoned, that had degraded into skin.

  Selene knelt beside me. She scraped the last of the cake off her plate and set it down for someone else to pick up. Who’s going to tell a goddess she can’t?

  Not me.

  She said, “Fatigue, systemic shock from so many drastic changes, and the constant drain of her power.” Selene pivoted to look me in the face. “Can I have her? There are a few experiments I want to try with bloodless biochemistry.”

  I held my hand out. “Cuffs.”

  She stared back. “What?”

  “I want your cuffs.”

  “I was planning on using them—tonight.” She packed the last word with heated sensuality.

  I kept my voice firm, my hand extended in demand. “I’m sure you have back-ups. Give.”

  “Fine.”

  I don’t know where she pulled them from, and didn’t want to ask. A pair of red-chrome handcuffs dropped in my hand. Between loops, there was a six-inch chain with a big pink heart in the middle. In the middle of the heart was a red moon image, a trademark. I studied the restraints. “Don’t tell me you have a chain of adult stores in Talon City, too.”

  She smiled. “I’m counting on you to help me test out a number of items in development.”

  Love is hell.

  Without answering, I cuffed the unconscious witch’s hands behind her back. I drew a field knife from its sheath on my belt, and cut off the bands of skin she wore, disarming her.

  Selene handed me a roll of duct tape.

  I took it, looking at her.

  “If she can speak, she can do magic,” Selene explained.

  I tore off some tape and sealed the witch’s lips shut. I yelled. “Jada, Leah?”

  They came running up together. Leah’s D-cup rack bounced nicely. She said, “Yeah, boss?”

  “Keep the skin-walker under close guard. There are things we’ll probably want to know before we decide her fate.”

  Jada held her Desert Eagle in one fist, covering the sleeping witch as if expecting her to be playing opossum, and a moment away from lunging.

  I nodded. Commendable caution.

  Leah grabbed the witch’s bare feet and dragged her ass first way from the angry spectators.

  Oooo, she’s going to have some killer rug burn there.

  I stood and gave Selene a hand up. And felt a sudden deep cold chilling the air. I turned to find Izumi, my fey queen, glaring at us both. She still held her broadsword of ice. Given the surrounding hell-dimension, I didn’t blame her caution whatsoever. “I don’t like this place. When are we going home?”

  Selene stared back. “You want to leave now? But the real killing is about to start.”

  I hate it when she suddenly spouts stuff like that. It never entails anything good. I smiled at her. “Selene, dear lady, just what are you talking about?”

  She stared beyond the ballroom, over at one of the cooling towers. Don’t those look something like anthills. We’ve brought a lot of sugar with us. I get the feeling something will soon be coming for cake and coffee—and maybe blood.”

  “Selene,” I kept my voice light, “is this a place you’ve brought us on purpose?” It occurred to me that with her power, landing here might not have been accidental.

  “Well, I didn’t my get my floor show before, and what’s a wedding reception without a little entertainment? Surely, you want this to be an event the bride and groom will never forget?”

  Izumi stabbed with her ice sword, going for Selene’s white throat.

  Selene grabbed the ice sword, stopping it with a hand that crackled with red electrical jags. “Now, that’s the spirit.”

  I ran through the crowd, noticing that it had already been thinned by Imari’s redistribution of our demon soldiers into a perimeter guard. She came running up, having torn away her fancy clothes for ease of movement. Imari’s black skin danced with an orange coating of flame. More of it leaped high off her bald scalp. My First Sword held a sword of fire in one fist. She saluted with the other hand. “Enemy movement on those towers. I can’t quite tell what’s coming, but it’s a lot of something.”

  “Best guess?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Maybe a thousand. With modern weapons and demon magic, we can probably take them, but…”

  I knew that but. “But we don’t know their natural weapons and what form the local magic might take. It could be something quite nasty we’ve never seen before.”

  Imari leaned in, softening her voice. “Any way you can sweet talk Selene into portaling us the hell out of here?”

  I glanced over at the closest tower. A froth of oval-bodied, stick-limbed creatures dripped down the sides, coming on like lime-colored lava. “Not much time. I’ll try. Proceed under the assumption that bloody carnage will be necessary.”

  She nodded curtly. “Understood.”

  I watched her flaming ass as she ran off to order our defenses. One should always stop and smell the roses on the way to a good genocide.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  “Death’s fun to hang with, just

  don’t turn your back on him.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  “Selene!” I yelled. “No argument. Get us the hell out of here, now!” I tromped back to where I’d left her. She was gone. The Old Man and Cousin Kinsey were in a huddle with Izumi, who leaned on her ice sword as ice armor grew over her luscious body.

  Shame to cover that up.

  The Old Man turned toward me, blue face forbidding. “Selene’s miffed. We tried to assure her we appreciated the, uh, entertainment, but that it was a little too stressful.”

  “She vanished in a dusty blaze of red stars.” Izumi raised her voice sharply. “The bitch!”

  I grabbed the Old Man by the arm. Under the sleeve, it felt like solid steel. “You, Izumi, and Colt can all open portals. Can’t you just pool your power and—”

  “Jump blind?” Izumi said. “That could make things infinitely worse.”

  The Old Man nodded. “As hell-dimensions go, there are worse places out there. Let’s not lop off our heads to spite our necks.”

  Damn. “Okay, so we fight to win. Old Man, you and Izumi take this end of the ballroom. Julia and I will take the middle. I left Imari heading toward the other end. Kinsey, I want you to work with Colt. As dragons, you can lend aerial support. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for the pterodactyls from that floating island. Don’t get blind-sided. They could be drawn in by the fighting.”

  A coughing grunt sounded close behind me. I jumped in place, spinning around. It was Josh, the were-liger. I told him, “Give Zahra to me. I’ll keep her safe while you and Kat take command of the were-cats.”

  Kat gave me
a threatening glare. “You’d better watch her close.”

  I pulled Zahra into my arms and held her as Kat and Josh rounded up their charges, forming strategies. The two silver dragons were together, talking calmly. Carrying Zahra, I marched up to them. “Are you guys going to help us fight, or pick lint from your bellybuttons?”

  Talla frowned at the question. “Dragons are hatched from eggs. We don’t have bellybuttons.”

  I pulled out one of my Storm PX4 semi-automatic Berettas and shoved the muzzle in her face. “Those that aren’t part of the solution are part of the body count. Think very carefully about your next stupid comment. It may be your last.”

  Talla looked at the child I held. Her expression softened. “We’ll help.”

  “Go with Kinsey and Colt. We’ll have enough dragons to cover all four sides.”

  I ran on to gather Julia, finding her still standing on her table, which gave her an excellent view. Her shoes and socks were gone. A red-scaled tail dangled down out of her pink dress. Her feet had morphed into dragon talons capable of some deep slashing. She had her guns in hand, and a wide smile in place that reminded me of Selene.

  I sat Zahra on the edge of the table, at Julia’s clawed feet. The two wolves loped up to join us.

  “Julia, Angie, Winter, I’m counting on you to protect Zahra in case the perimeter gets overwhelmed. I need to be able to move freely.”

  Amber eyes burning, Angie huffed agreement.

  Julia looked down at Zahra. “We really need her?”

  “She’s mine, and by extension yours. You’re at least half-dragon. Are you fine with losing a valuable treasure? Besides, Colt will say you weren’t up to the job if you fail. He’ll throw it in your face every time you have an argument. Are you going to give him that kind of ammunition?”

  Julia’s face hardened with grim purpose. “Hell no. Little Brother’s too annoying as he is.”

  I smiled, glad to see her properly motivated. I put a finger in Zahra’s face. “Stay. Good girl.” I backed away and concentrated. The weapon harness I wore over my stretchy combat suit was specially design not to interfere with wing movements should I grow wings for my human form. I started the process, feeling my shoulder blades soften like hot wax. Bone spurs grew out, shredding the material over my back. More struts fanned out. Blood seeped down my back, into the material at my waist. New muscles, blood vessels, tendons, and leathery skin layered the struts quickly.

  Zahra clapped furiously, as if I’d been putting on a show just for her.

  I was so glad Selene had modified the partial shift process for me so it no longer took minutes because a chittering sound filled the air, telling me our time was almost up. I fanned my wings, drying them, and drew a second semi-automatic. Across my skin, I had shadow tatts soaking up golden dragon energy, ready for multiple spells to be fired.

  Someone yelled, “Here they come!”

  And the fight was on.

  I lifted myself into the air, using a lot of strength to get high fast. The ballroom dwindled under me. The main flow of the attack was from the two closest towers. The lime green insectoids spilling from them had met and merged, and approached with all the mindless frenzied hunger of army ants on steroids.

  Colt was the closest dragon to that side. He was small as dragons go, not having his adult size yet. His tail lashed with rage. Red-copper lighting danced over his red-and-gold scales as his fanned wings, pumping hard to hover. He roared a greeting as I shot past him.

  I kept going. Our defenses were solid. Now, we needed an intercepting attack. The insectoids might discover caution if I could hit them hard and hurt them fast enough. Shock and awe. I streaked across the gray rock, heading for the ragged advancing line.

  The composition of my eyes shifted, becoming more dragon than human. Manipulating eye muscles caused details to leap at me in waves of clarification. The milling insects were strongly ant-like, the size of horses, with six legs, and compound eyes for detecting motion. They had the usual three sections: heads, thoraxes, and oval abdomens. There were larger, spider-style eyes on the top of their heads, and frond-like antennae that might have looked better on moths. Wings jutted from thoraxes, but looked vestigial, more decorative than anything else. Mandibles clashed as they ambled over each other. It was hard to understand how they moved at such a large size when physics dictated that they should have been crushed under the weight of their exoskeleton armor.

  And how they got enough oxygen through their pores was a total mystery. There’s a reason why insects are small in nature. Of course, in this hell-dimension, ants might come with lungs and an inner skeleton as well as an outer one. Whatever, they just needed to die.

  I super-charged the shadow-tatt pattern for Dragon Fire. Burning incredible hot, clingier than napalm, fire globbed over my body. Spells woven into my gear safeguarded harnesses and weapons. Whooshing ahead of me as I flew, the flames caused insect eyes and bodies to burst, spraying ocular fluid and clear plasm, the ant version of blood. Antennae fronds curled, blackening, crumbling. The swarm in back screamed as the fire spread to them, those in front consumed. I swerved to spread the fire out along the front line.

  Most living things fear fire. These guys were no exception, turning and fighting back into their own ranks. They piled up in a high ridge. The pressure from behind created a high ridge of interlocked lime insect bodies. I pulled up and used the new updrafts to sail higher, crossing back the way I’d come, swinging in deeper across the swarm. As I paralleled the high ridge of ants, I slung fire all along it.

  Some of the insects on top leaped out into space to intercept me. Some misjudged my speed and passed by harmlessly. Others became crispy critters, clawing at me briefly as fire consumed them. My skin, toughened by transformations into full dragon form, took little damage, a few scrapes here, some impacts that would later become bruises.

  I turned toward the ballroom, pulling back to assess the effectiveness of my strategy, burning to know how the rest of the struggle went. Approaching my people, I dropped the Dragon Fire spell, conserving magic. I didn’t see Colt. That concerned me. Beating dragon wings, I kept my human body high in the air, turning to look back at the battlefield.

  Way past the raised ridge of lime-colored ants, where even I hadn’t dared to venture, I saw eruptions of red-copper lightning shoot up from a hidden source that had to be Colt. “Selene,” I yelled, “you better be keeping an eye on our son.”

  I got no answer.

  Except, mingling with the red-copper discharges, crimson lightning kicked up.

  Elsewhere, it seemed that many of the ant towers had been heat-fused into glass and were now sagging from the top down, closing off the lower levels from the surface. Since we had this side of things under control, I retreated into the ballroom, dropping to the side that faced the hill and its stone castle. Imari and Zero-T were close. I yelled at my First Sword. “Any sign the castle folk are going to come down and help us out?”

  Zero-T answered. “There’s more of them on the walls, more torches burning, but no sign of the portcullis rising or of a mounted force coming closer.”

  Such poor neighbors. “Good thing we’re not depending on them. The insects look manageable, as long as we can keep them at a distance.”

  I heard the crack of revolver fire, then semi-automatic fire. I jumped for height and flew toward the table where I’d left Julia. She was there, Zahra clinging to one of her legs. The wolves were nearby, but not having wings, their turn to attack would have to wait. I went higher, looking to see what Julia—and others—were shooting at. A dozen of the white pterodactyls were swooping down on us like post-apocalyptic seagulls after the last French fries in the world. They started shying off as head-shots thinned their numbers. A few wounded fliers hit the ballroom and were pounced upon by the were-liger and were-cats.

  I emptied my clips into the retreating pterodactyls. The exploding magic ammo proved highly effective. Soon, the last survivors were hauling leathery ass for the floating island.
I holstered my guns.

  Julia grinned at me. “This is even more fun than shooting rats at the landfill.”

  I gave her a thumb’s-up, and went looking for more trouble. I found it at a red crystal pillar where one of the tank-sized black beetles was scrambling to invade the ballroom while demon magic hit it with fire and wind. A couple of my stone-type demons had transformed into walking statues, and were fighting the beetle, grabbing it by the horns, trying to throw it to the ground. The beetle hinged open its wing-covers. Iridescent wings blurred. Instead of lifting the insect into the air, the wings acted like electric knives, slashing at my people. A rock demon went down, cut in half. His body softened in death, pouring out blood that the beetle paused to drink with a kind of hollow, straw-like tongue.

  Rage flushed through me. My people pulled back as I went in, tossing golden lightning from my hands. The beetle’s armor cracked and shattered. Pieces of shell flew like shrapnel. I kept lightning dancing off my body until the beetle became a smoking pile of ashes.

  “Caine!”

  Jada? It was her voice calling.

  I back-winged over the ball-room until I found her kneeling by Leah, who’d taken a hit to the head from flying debris. Blood dripped from her hairline. Jada helped her up.

  “What happened,” I asked. “Where’s the witch?” There was no sign of the skin-walker in sight.

  “I caught a piece of that beetle’s shell,” Leah said. “Went down. Jada was checking on me when the witch somehow slipped her cuffs and jumped into the crowd.”

  Zahra! The witch might still be after her. No, we disarmed her. She’d need a skin to… Suddenly, a thought occurred: Dead pterodactyls have skin.

  I yelled in Jada’s face. “Give me your gun!”

  She hesitated.

  I glared. “I’ll give it back, damn it!”

  She handed it over.