Page 119 of A Chill in the Flame
“What?” Ophir couldn’t think. She could smell sulfur, and spoiled eggs, and roses. This had to be a nightmare. None of this was real.
The two-legged demon with the body of a man took one step toward them, then another.
“Stop,” Ophir tried weakly, but it did not.
“Killll…” it hissed, its head twitching from one side to theother like an insect as its horrible, black eyes looked between them.
“Firi!” Tyr demanded. She wasn’t even sure what he was trying to ask of her anymore.
“Beast!” Zita screamed, throwing up her hands once more. She spread her shield to create a wall between the demon and those on the platform. The demon extended a sharply pointed hand to the wall to test it for weaknesses, thick, tar-like drool dripping from its mouth as it looked among them.
“A door…” Dwyn said again, unable to reopen her eyes.
Zita kept her hands aloft. She was confident in her shield until the demon called for the dragon. When its head struck out, it hit the shield, shaking its head violently against the impact. Zita cried out, absorbing the blow as if the shock flowed through her directly.
“Go!” she called to them. “Get to safety!”
“Zita!” The imposter turned to her, but she wasn’t looking to the woman in orange.
“Where’s Sedit?” Ophir looked around blankly. Screams filled her ears. The serpent’s blackened, wormlike head struck the shield again. She looked into the bottomless trench of its maw, horrified at what she’d created. Chunks of flesh and cloth remained stuck throughout its rows of bloodied, needle-like teeth from the last man it consumed.
“Firi!”
The two-legged demon reached a hand toward Berinth, grabbing him around the throat. “Your massster will pay for your crimesss.” Ophir heard the sickening crunch as Berinth’s neck snapped in the demon’s hands. It faced Ophir, taking one step, then another toward her. It extended its hand for her, running into the shield.
Tyr shook her too hard, too violently as he desperately tried to make her see the pandemonium. The lives of Midnah and everyone in it were in Ophir’s hands, and she was frozen. His voice hitched with something near tears as he criedout for her to hear him. “For the love of the goddess, try something, Ophir!Anything!”
The dragon hit the queen’s shield again. This time when Zita groaned, Ophir knew she wouldn’t last much longer. The dragon satisfied itself with a distraction as it grabbed a wailing woman who’d dodged between buildings, nearly escaping the massacre on the palace grounds.
“Sedit?” Ophir cried, a little louder this time. She wasn’t sure why she called for him, only that she knew he would help. He was her baby, her son, her beloved creature, her loyal companion. She needed him. “Sedit!”
Tyr released her and grabbed Dwyn by the scruff of her neck. “Don’t you have a power left? Use a healer’s power! Do something!”
“Door…” was the last thing Dwyn said before falling utterly limp. Her body doubled in weight as she went dead to the world.
Ophir saw it then. Like the serpent and the humanoid demon, her hound came bounding down the city streets for her. Seeing him filled her with a relief so tangible that it helped bring her back into her body. She took a deep breath, inhaling through her mouth for the first time since she’d smelled the sickening scent of roses. Sedit was nearly to the platform when a Midnah guard lifted his sword to protect his queen.
“No!” Ophir screamed, but it was too late.
The guard brought the sword down over Sedit’s head, severing it from his body. Her bloodcurdling cries were as horrible as the dragon’s. The creature joined her in her shrieks, a legion of ten thousand demons screaming from within its belly as it flapped its wings again to mirror her pain. This time when the dragon struck, Zita was thrown back against the force of her shield shattering.
“Tempus!” she cried out, and the imposter ran for her. Before the others could blink, Tempus had stepped from a woman in a gown into the shape of a horse. Zita grabbed onto its mane, and they took off away from the dragon as the city fell into chaos.
Tyr cursed as he released Ophir, pushing himself to his feet with a purely angry grunt. He sprinted past the two-legged demon without giving it the chance to reach for him and leapt from the platform and into the crowd. He pushed past the guard who’d killed Sedit and told the man to stand down, grabbing the dog’s body and its head as thick, viscous blood began to stain his hands, his shirt, his very skin. He tossed the dog’s torso onto the platform before swinging himself up.
The humanoid demon took several steps toward Ophir. She pulled Dwyn into her lap and raised her arm, smelling roses. She didn’t see Dwyn; she saw Caris. She didn’t see a demon, she saw men and their blades and the red, pooling blood of her sister. She heard the screams from the party. She felt the nausea, the fear, the need to drift into the ocean.
“Murderrrerrr…” the demon hissed. It would be standing over them in the next ten seconds unless Ophir did something.
Tyr rolled Sedit’s head toward its body, and white, parasitic tendons began to stretch from one part of the beast to the other as it reconnected.
“Ophir! He’s fine!” Tyr grabbed a sword from a guard who’d run and swung toward the two-legged demon. It hissed as it advanced toward Tyr. “Ophir!” Tyr cried out again.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sedit stand.
Her heart began to beat once more.
That which had died could be brought back to life.
