Page 44 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
I strained for my sword. Nabbed it. “Get off my dog!” I cried, then pitched the glowing blade like a javelin. Embedding it between a set of crimson eyes.
The bat slammed down in its death, burying Novus, still writhing, under its girth.
My triumph was short-lived. In winning one battle, I’d lost the other. My one-handed hold on the cane didn’t cut it. The bat trying to steal it tossed me off like a ragdoll. With a screech that split my brain, it flapped into flight with the stick—now anointed in my blood.
“Goddamnit!” I whined, then forced my body up off the floor. I jerked my sword out of the thing I’d killed, baffled at the thought, and hobbled after the bat with the cane.
The torn flesh of my leg bawled in torment. As did I when I sprang, snagging the crook with one hand. I whacked my blade into the shaft with the other.
Before the bat pulled me through the window, I anchored my feet on both sides of its frame. My searing calf and my battered ass bleated, but I clutched that damn stick, gritted my teeth, and leaned back with all my weight.
The bat railed at my interference, its wings flapping double-time, gaining force.
The walls fissured around my sneakers as I beat, and sliced, and sawed. Each swing sapped my adrenaline but conceding defeatwasn’thappening until—
The shaft broke apart!
The bat catapulted into the night, and I somersaulted back to the wall across from my father. My cane fragment, bloodied and jagged, fell beside me.
My sword clanged feet away. Just as the last two bats lurched back into the room.
Cornered, exhausted, and wounded with no weapon and no strength, I had no chance of survival. The bogeybats doubtless said as much in their bestial chatter.
Now facing my imminent death, my temperature rose like the burning sun in Phoenix. Sweat pooled on my skin as I snarled, “Just get it over with! Kill me already, so I can get away from your stank!”
Taking my advice, they dove for me together.
I cringed away, hands raising to deflect, and some hidden current within me blasted from my finger bones. Like dynamite dwelt in their tips.
The ghastly howls that followed would haunt my dreams for the rest of my life, and I wept into my forearms until I noticed just that—I was still alive.
I peeked, then gaped at a raging inferno engulfing the bats. They staggered, burning effigies, until they were nothing but charred hunks of meat on my father’s bedroom rug.
Hyperventilating their ash, I bleared around for the source of the fire.
What thefuckjust happened?
My heart thundered in my ears when something thumped to the floor. Briar stood by the window, winded but unharmed. I stared at him through the rising flames, wondering how he’d survived his fall.
Briar met my eyes, his own as wide as the bats were dead.
“I-I d-don’t know what happened.” I bungled an attempt to stand, my hand meeting the splintered cane at my side.
Trembling, I lifted the hunk of burnished cherry, now bleached like driftwood. With all I’d seen that night, believing the walking stick could start a fire wasn’t too huge a leap.
“I think it was the cane,” I croaked.
Briar’s expression softened; his shoulders relaxed. He raised one hand and waved in a fluid swipe. Mist issued from his palm, dousing all the flames faster than an extinguisher.
I could’ve vomited amid the steam and smoke.
“It wasn’t the staff, Amy.” Briar strode toward me through the brume, kneeling to inspect my punctured leg. “I’ve seen what that thing can do.” He took my hand, running his thumb along my palm. “It does a lot, but it doesn’t make fire.Thatwas all you.”
“Daddy,wakeup!”Ibent over his inert form in the smog, shaking him. My own wounds had faded to insignificance, his life my only concern. “Please wake up!”
Briar knelt beside me, one hand on my back. I didn’t dare look at him because I knew what his face would say.
My sore fingers gripped Daddy’s sweatshirt, willing him back to consciousness. He was still breathing, albeit faintly and rarely. If we could get him to the hospital, they could fix him. They could save his life! “I need a phone! We need to call 911.”
