Page 23 of Bite Me

All to protect her. She was barely worth saving.

Jada had to do something.

Ky roared and rolled across the floor, squashing a dozen beasts on his back.

She yanked open the display case and chucked raised glazed donuts at the demon dragons’ heads. The baked goods in projectile form wouldn’t hurt in the least, but maybe it would distract them long enough for Ky or Ninsy to kill them. Besides, raised glazed were not her favorite anyway. Pulling out the tray of snickerdoodle cake donuts with cream cheese glaze was harder.

She took a bite of one and then flung the rest, Frisbee style, at the three demon dragons climbing on Ky’s shoulders, tearing at his scales, ripping them off, exposing new chinks in his armor.

Each wound to Ky, Jada felt, not on her body, but on her soul. He was weakening under the onslaught. One of the beasts opened its mouth wide to bite into Ky’s flesh. Jada took not so careful aim and tossed a whole tray full of cinnamon rolls at it.

By sheer luck, one went straight down its gullet. It quirked its head to the side, licked its lips with a disgusting slithery tongue and jumped three feet across the room toward her. Its claws clacked on the tiles with each step.

Shit.

Ky was buried under another pile of demon dragons and Ninsy was fighting her own hoard off with a fire extinguisher, her sword lost in the melee.

Jada backed away. The coffee urns were only a few more feet. They’d make a better weapon than baked goods. Slowly, slowly. A sudden move might provoke the thing into attacking.

Ky tossed one of the demon dragons across the café, knocking it into the coffee urns and splatting them against the wall.

There went that plan.

The demon dragon stood up, shook itself, and zeroed in on her.

The only thing left to defend herself was that pile of strawberry-rhubarb cream cheese Danishes. She backed away and tossed two Danishes at the demon dragon.

It snatched both out of the air with its teeth and swallowed them without chewing, and stepped closer, narrowing its eyes at her. Then it stood up straight, its eyes went wide, and it exploded, covering her in dragon demon guts.

Gross. Awesome. But gross.

She wiped the black slime off her face and grabbed for the remaining Danishes. It was probably total coincidence, but when battling evil incarnate, she’d take any chance she had.

Another demon dragon bounded over the counter, narrowly missing being taken out by Ky’s tail. It stalked her the same as the last one.

If they were going to kill her, why didn’t they just get on with it? This one tried to grab at her arms and then her hair. “You come now. AllFather want.”

They weren’t trying to kill her. They wanted to kidnap her. Big mistake. Huge.

Jada threw an arm over her face and in her best damsel in distress voice she said, “Oh no, don’t take me.”

The demon dragon took her bait and lunged for her. She gave him a face full of strawberry rhubarb.

The bastard screeched, clawed at the pink goop on its face. Too late, its face melted right off and before she could say yippee, it disappeared in a pile of goo and ash on the floor.

Well, hell yeah.

Jada bolted for the walk-in cooler where she knew Ninsy had more of the filling stored. She yanked the door open and found eight-quart containers of fresh home-made strawberry-rhubarb filling.

That seemed like an inordinate amount. They never sold any of those Danishes. Ever.

She grabbed a handful of disposable pastry bags and slopped the filling in with her hands. Three bags took her about sixty seconds and in a battle for life and love, that was too long.

A snip of the end of the bag and her weapons were ready. She hefted one of the full containers under her arm and piled the bags on top, then she ran and slid behind the counter.

This time she aimed more carefully. She had limited ammunition and a lot of demon dragons to destroy. One big squeeze of the first bag landed half the filling down the front of her, but a stream of the red stuff hit the nearest demon dragon. It shrieked, and its arm melted off and fell to the floor.

“Ninsy, catch.” Jada tied the end of her second bag and tossed it through the air to her badass boss. Ninsy didn’t catch it, because she was in the middle of running a demon dragon through with her sword. The tip of her blade sliced the bag and coated the steel with the fruity filling.

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