bedeviled & beyond 05 - bedeviled & besmirched Read Online Free Page A

up she’ll have trouble engaging all of us.”
    Slayer made a noise that I took for agreement.
    Darma made a noise that sounded like an orgasm. She’d be worse than worthless in there.
    Rolling my eyes in disgust, I sent a focused beam of power into the door and covered my face as it blasted inward, sending splinters and sparks in all directions.
    Moving with preternatural speed, Slayer stepped around me and was through the door before I could even stir.
    He was immediately engulfed in fire.
    Slayer held his hands out in front of him and the fire roared just beyond his fingertips. His power shield was big enough to cover me as I slipped in behind him and moved along the wall, beyond the green’s fiery spew.
    As I cleared the thick flame and moved past the roiling clouds of smoke, I scanned the area for the best way to get behind the massive lizard.
    The enormous space had been trashed.
    The back third of it had been turned into a nursery for giant, flying babies. The air vehicles that had been in the building when the dragons arrived were pushed into a semi-circle at the back, each one smashed concave at the top and filled with mud, cloth and dried vegetation to create a nest. In the center of each nest sat a baby green, its bright, curious gaze following my progress along the wall with unblinking fascination.
    Mama stopped spewing at Slayer and jerked her head toward me. As she sent a thick stream of fire in my direction, Slayer gave her a painful but non-fatal shot to her massive, green chest.
    The dragon lifted its head in a roar, scoring the wall over my head and the roof with her flesh-melting fire. The ceiling over my head exploded, sending chunks of heavy wood and razor-sharp metal plummeting toward me.
    I leapt away, diving behind a large, rolling tool cart just as a beam of fire found me again. I was surprised when the cart didn’t explode or melt away in front of me.
    That was when I realized it was coming from a different direction. I peered carefully around the cart and my heart sank.
    The largest of the four babies, obviously a male given his darker coloration and other...erm...attributes, had decided to join the fight.
    Mama was busy with Slayer, but every few seconds she’d send a burst of fire in my direction too, trying to keep me pinned down.
    The baby male’s bright eyes were narrowed on me with childish malevolence and smoke puffed from his small nostrils as he took a deep breath to summon more fire. At his age I was surprised he could even fire up. It seemed doubtful he’d be able to send any more flames in my direction.
    However, I decided not to risk it. If he managed to put me into a dangerous position I’d have to hurt him. That was the last thing I wanted to do. When I looked into his determined little face all I could see was Glynus at his age.
    Pulling my power forward, I visualized the area directly behind the baby and shifted, praying I didn’t embed myself into the air vehicle beneath him. I was still perfecting my space-shifting skills. Amazingly, I seemed to do better work shifting long distances than I did with short, focused jaunts.
    I shimmered back to the physical plane just where I’d envisioned, looking at the backside of the babies.
    Yay me.
    A horrendous roar told me mama had noticed my disappearance. She flipped around, dragging a squashed air vehicle around with her tail, and smashed it into the doorway where Slayer still crouched.
    He leapt out of the way as the car hit the wall with a terrible ripping sound. The vehicle tore a chunk out of the wall and further weakened the roof on that part of the building. With a thunderous groan and a screech, the broken end of the long building started to crumple inward, spraying giant splinters of wood and twisted shards of metal around the space.
    Slayer scrambled away on hands and knees and I looked around frantically for Darma.
    Mama threw her head back and roared, sending a thick stream of fire into the remaining ceiling above her