Thank You For the Venom
The low grunt sent ice prickling up my spine as I pulled away, watching Blaine’s jaw tighten. We didn’t need to look down to know what runes had ignited.
“Go back inside,” he ordered. “Lock the door.”
I turned, and immediately regretted it. The being standing at the end of the hall appeared human in the dim lights, but as it emerged from the shadows, its full features proved it to be far more formidable. The creature didn’t appear to be much taller than Blaine, but its naked body was built of muscle upon muscle upon muscle. Every vein in its body bulged out, the color a sickly black over its hardened gray skin. The beast roared, stressing our eardrums as the tyrannosaurus howl bounced off the high ceilings of the corridor.
If its body didn’t do you in, its mouth certainly would. What was with these creatures’ aversion to clothes and penchant for serrated bites? The beast had what happened to be a human-esque nose, but its jaw jutted out into a sharp point like a reptilian snout, revealing an equally ferocious set of teeth, so massive that they rivaled a raptor’s. It even had an elongated tongue that wove around its notched bite, as if preparing to clean for its next meal.
The beast didn’t have claws, for those same serrated teeth made up the jagged ends of its fingers. They even protruded out from the muscles in the center of its chest. With the simplest flex, the teeth atop them shifted, stretching out like a Venus flytrap, ready to clamp its carnivorous snare shut the moment the beast’s arms locked you in. And same as the previous creature Blaine and I encountered, it wasn’t affected by the wave of magic the Dark Prince threw at it.
“Go!” Blaine demanded, but I didn’t move. Not when I saw an exact replica of the monster on the other end of the hall over Blaine’s shoulder. Each wielded a large tool of some sort in their hands, and as the flat metal end illuminated in the dim light, I could see that it was some kind of medieval sledgehammer. He wouldn’t have been able to take on both of these things alone.
And Blaine knew it. He shoved me over to the library doors and yanked me inside. To my relief, he followed after me, throwing the locks into place. The ornate bronzed doors prove to fend off the assault as the metallic material pounded and thudded from the opposing side as Blaine and I raced down the main aisle back to the study area. The remains of the Sagax’s smoke dissipated upon our arrival. Seriously? Was this woman really that useless when it came to confrontation?
Val appeared to share in the sentiment, because he suddenly cursed. “Gee, thanks a pant-load, lady.”
Before either of us could give the command to leave, Val and Reese immediately met us at the door.
“Don’t bother. We already know,” growled Blaine’s brother. “She just said as much before pulling her whole Keyser Söze vanishing act. How bad is it out there?”
The crash of metal exploded across the towering ceilings as the doors finally gave in, no doubt. “I don’t feel like staying around long enough to find out,” said Blaine, yanking me backward.
Val grabbed Carly as Reese barked at Mark to run the moment we reached the reading center at the end of the study hall. We all raced down the main aisle to the other end of the library, hitting identical bronze doors. Blaine threw all his weight into it, and it proved useless. The damn things wouldn’t give.
“Watch out!” I yanked him sideways as a sledgehammer suddenly swung right at him from behind. The mallet drove past us and pounded into the column beside the frame of the doorway. The annihilating impact sent bits of stone raining down on us as Blaine and I fell to the floor.
Quickly recovering to our feet, we looked up to see the other half of the Gruesome Twosome charging right for us from the other end of the library. A scream lodged in my throat as Blaine pounced up in front of the closest creature. The beast heaved its arms to the side, preparing to drag the hammer right into him. Blaine lunged rearward, his back hitting the library doors.
The club drove precisely into his position, but Blaine managed to sweep out of the way with not a second to spare. The bronze doors thundered as the hammer obliterated a hole right where the locks had just been. Blaine swooped into action, grabbing the handle of the sledgehammer. The creature and he fought for its possession as the beast tried to pull him in. Val hauled Carly away from the assault and dove right into the other creature’s path as it, too, tried to make a play for us. He wasn’t as lucky as his brother. The beast barely managed to haul him up against its chest, allowing its secondary set of teeth to snap shut. The serrated chompers clamped down on Val’s right arm, pinning his blade to his side.
The Mage cast the creature his darkest smile, not the least bit affected as the ferocious bite drew blood from his bicep. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”
Seeing where his knife was positioned, I grimaced. Bad way to go.
Sure enough, Val pressed the blade against the beast’s exposed genitals, and with the flick of his wrist, he sliced the entire package clean off. The creature bucked and roared, snapping its jaw at anything and nothing as it crumpled down onto the floor in a blithering heap of cries and moans and pooling black blood. Blaine nailed the other creature in its jaw, snapping its head up before it could take a bite out of him. He’d lost his blades in the midst of the scuffle, and I immediately snatched out my own, leaping on the creature’s back as it prepared to pull Blaine in for a second time.
Before the beast could haul him to its chest, I jabbed Reese’s pocketknife into the creature’s brainstem, just as Blaine had demonstrated with the creature in the mall parking lot. The beast lurched backward, hurling its weight into the end of the book aisle. With me still clinging to its back, the wind was ripped clean out of me from the crushing impact. When I didn’t let go, it threw itself forward, and repeated the maneuver. Only this time, I did let go. I barely managed to snake myself out of the way just as it rammed itself again into the end of the bookshelf. Without my body providing the necessary space, the creature had inadvertently thrust the handle of my blade only deeper into its brainstem. As soon as we heard the sickening squish, the beast collapsed onto the floor, not five feet from its creepy companion.
“What the hell were those things?” bellowed Carly, shaking like a leaf as she cowered into the corner.
I’d forgotten. This had been her first encounter with such a thing. Sure, Hellhounds were terrifying, but they still just looked like black wolves on a massive scale. These beasts were the things from your darkest nightmares.
“Lich,” said Val, using the fabric of his pants to wipe the blood from his knife. “They’re hired trackers, meaning whoever hired them shouldn’t be far behind.”
Blaine tossed his weight into the doors again, and with the lock busted, they flew open. The six of us hurried our way through the labyrinth of hallways. Unfortunately, in our desperation to escape, we seemed to have lost track of where we were. It wasn’t very hard, seeing as how every hallway in the second floor was identical to the one we just came from. Eventually coming across an unfamiliar stairway, we decided that getting to the ground floor was the best objective.
Blaine suddenly cussed, looking out through the second story window. “We’ve got a problem.”
“What?” Amid the suffocating darkness outside, I couldn’t distinguish much of anything.
But then a shadow zipped across the lawn. Then another. And another.
“We’ve got company,” the Prince growled. “And lots of it.”
***
The only way to reach the other wings of the school was from the main hall, forcing us to retrace our way back to the front entrance. I started to race across the foyer when Blaine suddenly pinned his arm against my chest, forcing me to a stop. I looked over at him, seeing his gaze fixed upward. My eyes drifted from the dark pool staining the lobby floor up to Blaine’s line of vision. Everyone else followed in suit. Carly threw a hand over her mouth to catch her scream as Reese and Mark cursed.
No, no, no, no!
Blood trailed off the ends of Madsen’s fingertips as he lay strung upside down from the rafters, his face frozen in a state of primitive horror from the gaping wound sliced in the middle of his chest.
All our gazes fell to the fallen bulletin sign for Madsen’s seminar. The word “Traitor,” was painted in crimson red smears across his picture.
“As the good ol’ Bible says, ‘Show no mercy to wicked traitors.’”
The six of us whirled around to face the unwelcomed lilted voice, finding no one in any of the adjoining hallways. A soft, birdlike whistle followed, pulling our attention back up to the lower half of the rafters.
“Same goes for you, boyo,” the stranger added, gesturing to Reese. He swept the cap off his head, swinging off the beam beneath him. The Irishman landed as gracefully as a cat onto his feet, despite the fifteen foot drop. His pinstriped vest and matching shirt were pressed with such deep wrinkles that it looked like he’d just woken up from a two-day bender and hadn’t bothered to change his clothes.
Normally, it would have been next to impossible trying to determine if he was a Mage or not. Unruly dark hair framed the Irishman’s forehead and cheekbones, the only parts of his body I could see that weren’t covered in tattoos. With his sleeves rolled up, the pale blue lights emitting from his left forearm highlighted the remaining ink on his skin. Strange tendrils snaked up his neck, their intricate designs crawling up over his jaw and chin. The one side of his neck had a seared handprint of black and red with the warps in the palm made to look like the outline of a ghoulish face screaming. And the other side…a snake wrapped around two crossed blades, consuming fire. My drawing.