bedeviled & beyond 07 - beset & bewildered by Sam Cheever Page A

the two Hellhounds could probably tear me to pieces and I’d barely notice.
    Darma!
    My head shot up as the single word slammed through my consciousness and the pain stopped. I lay very still for a moment, listening to a series of explosive crashes and leaning into the wall behind me as the scow trembled under each one.
    Skin-melting heat throbbed against my skin, thickening the air to the point that sound became muffled. I pulled energy forward and blanketed myself in protection. Muted shouting continued all around me. I slowly opened my eyes, gasping at what I saw.
    A foot away from me, the smaller of the two hounds lay bleeding, her black eyes unblinking. Behind her, the larger hound flung his massive head from side to side, a thick-skinned brown leg with massive curved claws between its jaws. The heat I’d been feeling was coming from a crack in the floor that the creature whose leg was currently being gnawed off by the Hellhound had apparently wrenched open in the scow.
    Beyond the thick, metal walls of the air vehicle, a roaring sound finally ended my confusion.
    We were under attack by dragoyles.
    I shoved to my feet, stumbling as the scow shuddered under another blow. A voice, far away and faint, called my name. I looked around for Slayer, not seeing him. I panicked. A hand touched my shoulder and I spun. Caninra said something to me but I could barely hear her. Then something popped in my ears and the world came flooding back in at full volume.
    “Slayer needs help!” Caninra shouted.
    “Where is he?” I yelled back.
    She pointed to the front of the scow, where a sizeable crack had been ripped in the shell and Slayer’s legs were dangling, his feet kicking at the slippery wall as if for purchase. I took off running, eyeing the tear as Slayer continued to jerk. My impulse was to grab his legs and pull, but I had a feeling what was on the other side of that crack was much stronger than I was. So I did the next best thing. If I couldn’t pull Slayer back inside, I’d have to take the inside to him.
    Not bothering to focus my power, I ripped it forward and flung it into the ceiling above my head. Beneath my silver energy, the metal of the scow melted away like butter, accompanied by the throaty roar of Slayer’s nemesis, who’d taken the remnants of my power across the belly and was bleeding green goo onto the scow.
    Bonus.
    I leapt upward, grasping the torn edge of the roof and pulling myself outside. Even with a power bubble wrapped tightly around me, the heat above the pits was beyond suffocating. It was like a living force, pulsating against me like waves of death.
    I pushed the thought aside and starting running along the scow, heading for Slayer, who, I was dismayed to see, was bleeding from several deep lacerations. The dragoyle flying above the slowly moving scow had one clawed foot wrapped around Slayer’s neck and, if it weren’t for the shimmering lasso of energy Slayer attached to the thing’s other three legs, hobbling it, he would most likely already have been ripped out of the scow and flung to his death in the pits.
    I sent energy boiling upward, my silvery power hitting the foul, black energy of Hell and igniting a colorful line of explosions.
    The concussive force made the scow shift under my feet and I fell sideways, scrabbling at the slippery metal scow as I tumbled off into mid-air. In my panic I forgot to hold onto my protective bubble. Searing heat wrapped me in suffocating arms. Flailing wildly, I tried to scream but the heat had melted my lungs closed.
    Something flared next to my ear and I realized it was my hair. I plunged downward through fire drenched air and smoke so dense it had an actual physical feel against my skin. High above me, Slayer screamed my name and, with a final jolt of energy, dispatched the dragoyle in a blast of fiery sparks.
    Then, as my vision blurred from the acidic smoke, I watched in horror as he leapt from the scow, his heavy body falling quickly toward