Page 120 of Jay's Silence

I let out a curse in four different languages and had to pick a team. The building was likely just as empty as the first three. I charged after Tyson and Lux just as a dragon’s roar split the air, sending even the distant elephants charging in the opposite direction.

Chaos erupted in front of me. Demons surrounded Lux and Tyson, snarling and flinging acid into the air. Behind the fight, a fluorescent-green portal snapped shut, leaving behind the impression of possessed brown eyes.

A line of poison streaked toward me, and I rolled before coming back to my feet. I still had no weapons. It hadn’t even occurred to me to take some of Drukpa’s defensive jewelry. Fuck me. I didn’t need shit when I had my magic, and after hundreds of years of not carrying a purse, I just couldn’t fucking remember to grab one.

I reached into the ground and called on Og’s earth magic, creating a club of pure stone, before lighting it on fire.

Fire sword – er club.

We’re a little obsessed with that.

I screamed and charged the nearest demon, madly swinging with all my strength. The club connected with the demon’s side. The demon bellowed and turned, grabbing the bat. I forced Tyson’s fire magic to engulf its entire body, which hissed and bubbled, filling the air with the smell of burning eggs. The demon melted like chocolate and pooled at my feet before bubbling with new life. A hard ball condensed in the center of melted demon and rapidly formed a leafy texture.

For a brief moment, I honestly thought a cabbage was growing out of the dead demon. Magic liked balance, it just fit so perfectly. But my cabbage didn’t stop expanding until it was the size of a small toddler. A football-shaped head took shape over a gremlin-like body. The new demon-gremlin thing flashedhundreds of sharp, pointed teeth at me and blinked it’s too-big black, pupilless eyes.

“What the fuck?”

It lept onto my thick boots and sunk its teeth into my toes. One pointy tooth made it through the layers of leather and socks to poke me.

I swung my bat like a golf club, and the little fucker went flying.

A window shattered at my back, and I spun to face it.

Rehan rolled on the ground, shedding little gremlins like patches of unwanted fur. He stood, and dragon scales replaced his bleeding human skin.

“Og,” he bellowed and jumped back the way he came.

A gremlin streaked out of the broken window and collided with my side, knocking me to the ground. Two more balls of blurred movement shot out. One hit Lux in the back, throwing him into the demon he fought at his front. While the other took out Tyson at the knee.

It was pure chaos and with every dragon for himself. And worse, me and my unscaled magicless ass for myself.

Another gremlin rose out of the demon’s bubbling entrails and leaped at my face. I dropped my club and threw myself backward, bringing up one of Lux’s air shields. The little gremlin bounced off the layer of spinning air, only to hit the ground and come at me again, this time with one of his friends. Something sharp sank into my butt, and an uncomfortable burning spread through my ass cheek.

I turned Lux’s air magic into a spinning disk and sliced at my backside. Blood spurted as I cut the gremlin in half, but its teeth didn’t release my backside. Two more gremlins came at me. I managed to cut the one aimed at my side in half, but the one that hit my thigh bit and held. I wasn’t winning this.

Fuck it.

It had been a joke, but I put my hands up in the air and jumped up and down. “Help, help, fucking help!”

For a moment, I thought no one heard me. Then Lux put his head up and roared swiftly, followed by Tyson’s matching bellow. Clothing exploded, and cybernetic limbs hit the ground as the two shifted into their massive dragons and charged through the demons to get to my side.

Although it kept the gremlins off of them, and me, it also made their attempts to eat and swat at the fast little buggers as effective as flies.

Tyson opened his mouth, intent on destroying everything with his flame, only to close it as if remembering our warning about fire. Although his dragon lips couldn’t form human words, I swore I still heard him say ‘feck.’

The entire side of the hut exploded at my back. Unlike the first two huts, the third was a kitchen and dining area. Water pipes gushed from the broken wall, and tiles littered the ground. Someone had thrown a table against what looked like a weapons rack filled with large rifles.

Rehan and Og, both covered in their scales, ran towards me. Earth magic streamed out of Og’s fingers. The ground rumbled as he churned the entire battlefield, burying living and dead demons under layers of dry dirt. Rehan didn’t slow his charge toward me. In one too-smooth motion, he lifted me off the unstable ground and into his arms.

“We aren’t running from this!” I thumped Rehan’s scaly shoulder. “Bradly was here, so we need to know what he was doing. Work together. We can do this.”

Rehan’s dragon-slit eyes wavered before he nodded. “Work together.”

He set me down and helped me pull teeth out of my ass and thigh. Blood dribbled down my pants. Lux and Tyson darted toward me and shifted into their scaled human forms. Og joinedus, his gaze still on the battlefield where gremlins and demons were digging themselves out of the dirt.

“Would the thick clay we made hold them?” Rehan asked.

“No.” I wrinkled my nose. We needed all the little gremlins in one place and, ideally, as still as possible. “I’m going to pull them all to me. As soon as I have them, Lux will make the air thick to slow their movements.”

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