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Henry examined the amount of stuff in the cave. “Shit. This will take more time than you’ll have to move it, and I have no idea how you plan to do it,” Henry moaned. He looked back toward the tunnel to the door. “We’re going to need to stop them.”
“These are likely the same Humans who drove me out of my home! We can’t kill them, can we?” Alice asked.
Henry frowned at her. “Of course, we can’t! Besides, they’re not fully Human any… more.” Henry’s frown slowly became a smile, then a wicked grin. Alice couldn’t stop a smile of her own from appearing.
“Don’t leave me in suspense with you looking so mysteriously delighted!” she insisted.
“I have the perfect way to drive off the bigots and give them a taste of their own medicine,” Henry said and chuckled. He looked toward the tunnel leading to the sewer and frowned. “I’d rather not take a trip through the stinky tunnel. Can you think of another unlocked door nearby that’s rarely used? Up to a block away would be fine. Preferably without glass in it,” he added.
“My neighbor has a garden shed with a wooden door which he doesn’t lock,” she said pensively.
“That would be perfect! Let’s go reset my door, so I can get rid of these nuisances,” Henry said, heading up the tunnel once more, Alice at his heels. They stepped through into Henry’s outer office, he released the magic door, released the force fields, and he turned to his guest. “I need the address for your house.”
She blinked at him. “We were just there!”Têxt © NôvelDrama.Org.
He smiled. “Yes, I know, but I must arrange for many ambulances to rush to that neighborhood very soon.”
Alice’s eyes widened. “I thought you weren’t going to hurt anyone!”
He held up his hands. “I’m not! Trust me. This will ensure people stay away for enough time for you to transfer your treasures.”
She wrote it down on a pad on Marisa’s desk then Henry called Sigrid.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Hi! It’s Henry. I’m going to need you to send a bunch of ambulances to the following addresses as there’s going to be an outbreak of transformations in that location.” He read off the address.
“Henry, what are you doing?” Sigrid gasped.
“Protecting someone’s property after she was firebombed out of her home. Gotta go. They’re using jackhammers to dig through the rubble into her cave.” He hung up and turned to Alice, whose eyes were wide with surprise.
“Now, think about that garden shed and touch the door,” Henry said as he placed his hand on Alice’s forearm. She closed her eyes and reached out to the door. He felt the spell engage, and the link was made. He opened the door and saw some gardening equipment. They stepped inside, closed the door, and Henry dropped the connection. He eased the shed door open a crack and noticed it was dark outside. He could hear the noise from the jackhammer. He looked back at Alice. “It’s night there! Why isn’t someone complaining about the noise?”
Alice frowned sadly. “Most of my neighbors were run off by the same people who came after me.”
Henry frowned, then gestured for her to get closer. “Where are we, and are there any motion-activated lights we should avoid?”
Alice looked through the crack in the door and toward the dark home to the right. Finally, she looked straight ahead at the hedges between her property and her neighbor’s. She eased the door closed again. “My home was on the other side of the hedges. I never saw any lights in my neighbor’s backyard, but I didn’t pay too much attention to that.”
Henry nodded. “Let me go first.” He eased himself through the door and peered into the darkness of the empty yard. There were no lights at all showing from the house. Alice stepped out, and Henry relinked the shed door to his office door leading into his waiting room.
That done, he quickly crossed the yard and breathed a sigh of relief when it remained dark. Alice joined him next to the hedges, which were badly damaged from the fire. They eased themselves through but stayed just inside the foliage when they reached the other side.
Ahead, he saw the scorched remains of a large home. Lights surrounded a depression which was likely a basement. In the middle of this was a man operating a jackhammer, chipping away at the cement and stone.
Around this man was a group of others, also in workman’s coveralls, hardhats, and work boots. There had to be at least ten in total.
“Do you recognize anyone?” Henry whispered.
Alice looked closer, and her jaw clenched, “Yes. Those three to the side were with the crowd throwing the firebombs before I ran downstairs. I think they may have been leading the mob.”
Henry examined the depression they were all in and realized they were just where he needed them to be.
“It’s going to get a little crazy, so stay quiet. If it looks like someone spotted us, get back to the garden shed and go through,” Henry said. She nodded.
Henry positioned himself against the hedges, then reached inside and slowly turned the aperture over his internal rift until it was fully open. He wished he had Siobhan’s ability to see the magic. He could feel the flow, but seeing it would be really helpful at the moment. It felt like the energy was gushing when the aperture was fully open. He imagined it pouring into the basement to flood over and around the men. Now, to get them to expose their skin to the energy.
He looked to the available spells for something that would make them feel hot and disrobe.
One popped forward, and he frowned as its payload was the sensation of being bitten by bullet ants, not overheating. He examined the spell and felt no tinge of the evil energy, but it was nasty. Still, it would get the job done. He concentrated and focused the magic on the area over the burnt-out home.
The moment it struck, the men began crying out and screaming, tearing at their coveralls.
The fellow on the jackhammer pushed it aside and tore his clothes off.
Henry closed the aperture over his rift when the first man underwent the transformation. If there were any Humans amongst the incoming rescue workers, he didn’t want to put them at risk if he could help it.
The others began dropping unconscious as the Wild Magic soaked into their skin. One transformed dramatically before their eyes into a centaur. This caused the rest who hadn’t succumbed yet to scream in terror. Suddenly their priority was fleeing, but only a couple made it past the home’s foundation before they collapsed and underwent their own transformation.
“Oh my god!” Alice gasped.
One man wasn’t affected by the Wild Magic. He wasn’t tearing his coverall off, either. At Alice’s exclamation, his head turned to glare in their direction, and he ran toward the hedge. His eyes began to glow red.
“Get to the shed, now!” Henry said urgently and felt Alice spin and race away. He stepped back until he was out in the open grass of the neighbor’s backyard just as the Demon burst through the hedge.
Henry dropped his glamor and activated his shield. The Demon hesitated for just a second before leaping at him, claws aiming for his neck. Alice hadn’t made it to safety yet, so Henry just stood his ground and slammed his fist into the Demon’s cheek as they met. The razor-sharp claws found no purchase against his shielded body, but his punch didn’t take the Demon out as he’d expected. This one was far stronger than the one he’d met in the torture club.
When it slammed its clasped fists against Henry’s face, it actually managed to knock him down! He wasn’t hurt, but the surprise made him hesitate, and it leapt on him, pinning him to the ground. It was enormously strong!
He looked into the glowing eyes and saw intelligence there. This one wasn’t a puppet.
“A Satyr interfering with my work. Can’t have that, now can I.”
Its voice, complete with a thick, coarse British accent, made Henry snort in amusement. This brought a scowl to the creature’s face. “Do I FECK’N AMUSE YA?” it screamed.
The Demon began pounding its fists against Henry’s face. While his shield protected him from direct damage from the impacts, he discovered he was getting one hell of a shaking, which was scrambling his brain.
He managed a few solid hits of his own against the ribs of his opponent and felt the bones snap, but it didn’t stop hitting him.
Henry was in trouble, and from the Demon’s delighted smile, it knew it.
A brilliant white streak shot over his head, taking the demon with it.
Henry struggled to concentrate, but his brain was still dazed from being so badly jostled. He blinked in the direction of the hissing and fighting sounds and shielded his eyes from the intense glow from Sigrid’s wings.
When his eyes could finally focus, he managed to catch Sigrid’s coup de grace. She shot forward in a microburst of intense speed, slamming her shield into the Demon, causing it to stagger back, stunned. Sigrid spun lightning fast, her sword following an arc that passed through its neck.
For the first two seconds, the Demon was unaware that it was already dead. It tried to respond to her attack, but its body was collapsing. Shock appeared on its face as it suddenly realized its fate.
Henry felt a pull internally as evil magic surged before him, tugging at the spells in his head. He dropped a forcefield between the Demon and Sigrid just as the corpse exploded violently, releasing the magic as a massive shockwave. The fire-scorched hedges were blasted back across the site of the torched home.
Sigrid looked back at Henry in surprise. “What was that? I’ve never seen one explode before!”
Henry sagged back to the ground to rest on his elbows. “This one was pumped up with dark energy. The same energy that backs the bad spells in my head.”
Sigrid put her wings away, and Henry blinked in the sudden darkness. Alice was immediately by his side.
“What was he?” she asked breathlessly.
“A Demon,” Sigrid answered as she pulled Henry to his hooves and looked him over. “But not like any I’ve met so far.” She sighed as she looked into Henry’s eyes. “We have to talk about upgrading the other Valkyries soon.”
He balked as he knew what she was talking about. “You seemed to handle this one well enough.”
“It was favoring its ribs, which decreased its speed and strength. I could tell it was stronger than the ones I’ve fought before. The explosion was a surprise as well and would have hurt. You put a shield up, didn’t you.” Henry nodded as she held his eyes until he looked away.
“I’d like to try just exposing a Valkyrie to high levels of Wild Magic before we try the more… intimate method,” Henry said, but he knew she didn’t believe that was a viable plan.