Page 52 of Rifted Hearts
A terrifying snarl ripped through the night air, and Kaveh broke into a dead run toward the sound. The ranch dogs didn’t sound like that. The hellhound was here, and now he had to stop both it and any stray phantoms on the ranch. He didn’t have far to run. The noise emanated from the camp’s petting zoo, and when Kaveh got a good look, he stopped dead in his tracks.
There were two terrified children inside the petting zoo, surrounded by over a dozen phantoms—far more than Kaveh could hope to overcome.
Standing in front of the kids to protect them, bare-headed and holding a small furry animal in his arms, was Kat.
The gated enclosure that held the species Kaveh called his Riftworld animal ambassadors was lit up with the electric glow of the invertebrate monsters, all floating less than a meter above the ground. There was something odd about their movements. Instead of surging together to breach the guardweed Kaveh had planted, they were tangling their tentacles together, moving in a rhythmic fashion with one another.
Realization struck him. He was observing phantom mating behavior. Although the creatures weren’t well understood even by other Riftworld peoples, Kaveh was fairly certain they didn’t stop a hunting assault to have sex with one another. Something—or someone—had used a psychic attack to distract them from their assault on the petting zoo.
Strengthened by the rift storm, the strangling vines Kaveh planted around the ranch wove through the pettingzoo’s fence, darting out tendrils that struck any phantom tentacles that came close enough. The guardweed wasn’t powerful enough to hold back this many of the invertebrate attackers, but they had done good work. A few of the phantoms lay on the ground tangled in knots of plant matter, their unnatural glow fading.
One intruder floated away from the attempt of two others to engage it in a three-way coupling and attacked the fence, tentacles crackling with electricity as it burned the writhing vines.
Kaveh raised his hands to hurl summ at it, but a massive shape raced out of the shadows, pouncing on the translucent monster and taking it down in a swirl of matted fur and razor-sharp teeth. The hellhound tossed a severed tentacle to one side, spitting out jelly-like flesh with a disgusted snort.
It spotted Kaveh and froze with a growl of warning, hunching backward with its ears flattened against its head.
Kaveh stepped forward, trying to decide whether to attack or negotiate. The hellhound was one of the largest he had ever seen, and they were ferocious fighters who despised drakones. Worse yet, he had no idea how long the phantoms would be distracted by their unnatural mating behavior. If they all swarmed at once, they would kill both him and the demonic dog. He wouldn’t be able to fight off this many at once.
Kat spotted him and gave a yelp of alarm. “Kaveh, are you okay? Your hands are on fire.”
“Just protect the children and stay back.” Kaveh took another step toward the hellhound.
His assistant’s next words brought him up short. “The giant dog is Lyall. I know that sounds crazy, but he’s a Riftworld person and he’s trying to help us.”
Kaveh hesitated and dropped his hands—and the hellhound lunged for him. His reflexes were fast, but the dog monster was faster.
It leaped into the air, missing him entirely, and landed with a wet splat behind him.
Kaveh whirled around to find the dog tussling with a phantom on the ground, the invertebrate’s gelatinous flesh stained pink from wounds on the hellhound’s huge body. Kaveh grabbed at the phantom’s head, summ scorching out from his fingers and searing the creature’s oversized cerebrum into smoking jelly.
Lyall backed away and watched him with eyes glowing like coals, wary but not hostile.
Kaveh tried to project calm and a lack of threat. Hellhounds were famously ill-tempered but as intelligent as he was, and the beast had taken out a phantom that would have had its paralyzing tentacles around Kaveh before he even knew what was happening.
The dog swung its gaze at the fence and gave a sharp bark.
Kaveh risked a look back and saw a trio of the phantoms floating into the fence, electricity sparking around the enclosure.
The children screamed again.
Kat stepped forward, brandishing the furry animal in his hands with both arms extended in a remarkable replica of a famous scene from a Disney movie. He was holding a large chinchilla, which was odd, since Kaveh had placed the zoo’s only rescue chinchilla, a Riftworld hybrid, with a nice family in the monstertown three months ago.
It couldn’t be…
But it was.
This was Remi in his alter form, and he was using apsychic assault against the invertebrate attackers. He hadn’t told Kaveh about that ability.
The chinchilla kicked its legs furiously. The phantoms stopped their assault and began to stroke each other with their glistening appendages.
“Kaveh.” The hellhound was gone, and in its place stood a young man with silver hair, dressed in tight-fitting living leathers. The armor was popular with the Riftworld mercenaries when they were in humanoid form.
Kaveh realized with a sinking feeling that he had seen a similar version quite recently. On Remi.
“Remi can’t keep this goddamn jellyfish orgy going much longer,” Lyall said. “Light up as many of the fuckers up as you can, and I’ll do the rest.”
Kaveh didn’t process Lyall’s words right away. Then the full impact of them hit him. Remi had known his cute Scottish terrier was a hellhound. And he had lied through his teeth about it.
