Page 53 of Rifted Hearts
A fairy hound and mothcat hybrid—how had he fallen for that?
In retrospect, it was obvious. The most powerful hellhounds could create mini-hellmouths and translocate through them, and all of them could disguise their form, taking on the shape of an Earth canine with ease. Remi had even told Kaveh that his “fairy hound” had recommended he obtain living leathers. All the evidence had been there, but Kaveh hadn’t put it together because he wouldn’t have thought Remi capable of that level of deceit.
That meant the argument inside the base with the three ratkind—no, thefourratkind, Remi among them—had been between a group of Colony enforcers and the ratkind spy they had sent in ahead of time.
Fury replaced shock, and he was about to demand moreinformation when Remi’s psychic assault faltered and the floating monsters attacked. A group surged toward the fence, their focus again on killing and eating. Electricity crackled over their translucent bodies, and as Kat staggered back, Remi wriggled free and dropped to the ground.
Kaveh sent two balls of swirling green fire toward the mass of invertebrates, and Lyall raced forward and leaped, transforming into his hellhound alter form in midair as he set upon the phantoms. The two of them fought in tandem, Kaveh sending out flames that channeled the floating monsters into Lyall’s snapping jaws.
It was an effective tactic. But the phantom’s delicate-appearing bodies were surprisingly resilient, and there were far too many of them. Kaveh and Lyall were soon forced into standing with their backs to the fence. The guardweed was dead or dying, and exhaustion was taking a toll. Kaveh’s poisonous green flames were the most effective, but he didn’t have the stamina to continue using it.
Lyall was panting, his savage attacks slowed by fatigue. He drew closer to Kaveh, snapping at any glowing tentacles that came close but unable to take the fight directly to the monsters.
They would all die here.
The phantoms would use their paralyzing power to immobilize Kaveh and Lyall then move in for the easier targets of Kat, Remi, and the children. In the best-case scenario, the beasts would be hungry enough to finish off their prey. In the worst, their bodies would be dragged back to the phantoms’ lair, conscious but unable to move as they were fed on by the nymph larvae of immature phantoms.
One of the invertebrates sent out a jolt of electric power, and Kaveh shoved Lyall aside, the crackling ball of blue barely missing them and hitting the fence instead. The lastguardweed vine shriveled, and then the limited protection it had provided was gone.
Something small and furry raced by Kaveh’s feet, and he spotted Remi’s chinchilla form dodging and weaving between the phantom’s trailing appendages.
Despite everything, Kaveh hoped Remi would make it out of this alive. It was becoming clear that none of the rest of them would. He dragged Lyall into the yard of the petting zoo, joining Kat in putting the two crying children in the center of their three bodies.
Sensing victory, the phantoms massed together for one final push.
Kaveh called up a weak crackle of summ and braced himself for the end.
An awful, alien shriek broke through the hum of the phantoms’ electric hunger. Amanita’s colt appeared out of the darkness, and even Kaveh winced as horrific images and emotions of fear and torment poured out of the baby repoequus. Kat let out a gasp and fell to his knees, and the two children shrieked in terror.
The new psychic attack enraged the phantoms, who turned from their frontal assault on the petting zoo to move toward the colt, their tentacles twitching with electric power.
The colt bolted away, and Amanita struck.
Back in human form, Remi clung to her back as she charged into the group of invertebrates, who had bunched close together as they prepared to go after Amanita’s foal.
The effect resembled a bowling ball hitting a pile of balloons. The phantoms bounced around in the air, many reeling from bites delivered by Amanita’s venomous fangs. Her poison hit the jellyfish-like creatures hard, paralyzingtheir tendrils and causing them to drop into glowing white mounds on the ground.
The surviving phantoms flowed away through the air, leaving their fallen where they lay. Off to look for easier prey, Kaveh guessed.
A burst of wind swirled through the piled-up bodies of the dead or dying phantoms, hurling them in multiple directions. The gusts caused Amanita to stagger to one side and Remi to fall off.
Kaveh ran forward, his earlier fury replaced by fear that Remi was injured. The streamer climbed to his feet when Kaveh reached his side, and without thinking, Kaveh drew Remi in toward him.
He was still holding onto him when Rhys descended from the storm clouds above, his sinuous aerial alter form creating eddies and bursts of wind before he regained his humanoid shape and landed in front of them.
“That”—Rhys pointed at Remi, his lip curling in disgust—“is a ratkind spy. You’ve been taken for a fool, brother.”
Two other air drakones dropped down from above and transformed. Tarasque, Xiang Jao’s first husband, and the matriarch herself, red-and-gold scales glittering in the dimming light from the dying phantoms around them.
“Great, the flying snakes finally decided to make an appearance.” Lyall’s words dripped with scorn as he limped over to stand on Remi’s left. “Were the three of you waiting for the phantoms to eat their way through the humans at the ranch before you showed up? This disaster is your fault.”
Rhys bristled with anger, never a good sign. He had a vicious temper when provoked. “That creature is the rat’s hellhound bodyguard. They are both enemies on our lands and deserve to be treated as such.”
Kaveh found his voice.
“Remi and Lyall were protecting the humans here.” As angry as Kaveh was about Remi’s falsehoods, the man could have left them all to die. Instead, Remi had risked his life to find Amanita and her colt and convince them to help. “I knew about Remi’s background. Not every one of the ratkind means us harm.”
“He’s Arimanius’s son.” Xiang Jao’s voice cut through Rhys’s splutter of outrage. “Isn’t that true, Mr. Gatti?”
