Page 57 of Wrongfully Magicked
One particularly big bastard refuses to go down. The man is a beast, easily five hundred pounds of muscle. The bulky weight looks awkward on him, more like lumpy cysts. His ears are stretched, and his nose is so wide and exaggerated, it’s almost comical. When he bares his teeth, they are big and square, each one wider than the width of my thumb.
The texture of his skin is rough, the color ash gray, and he seems to stomp more than walk.
Maybe a rhino or an elephant?
His beastling form is misshapen or mutated somehow, as if his figure is too big to transition to an altered human form.
Though Porter is doing his best to take him down, he’s just wearing himself out, and I wonder how many more jumps he can do before he exhausts himself. After each hop, he becomes a little less solid, almost like it’s harder and harder for him to take physical form.
Part of me wonders what would become of him if that happened.
Would he become stuck in an incorporeal form forever or just cease to exist?
If I squint hard enough, I’d swear that I could actually see his skeleton beneath the ever shifting smoky fog.
Porter must realize the dangers at the same time and immediately stops fighting. He flashes one last time, appearing behind the asshole, then wraps his arms around the beast. He pulls him into the aether, and they both vanish.
When they reappear, they are thirty feet in the air. The man lets out an alarmed bellow, the trumpet sound giving him away—definitely an elephant—and then they plummet to the ground at an alarming rate. Just as I take a step toward them, Porter vanishes seconds before they would hit. He reappears yards away, already fighting a new opponent.
The hellish version of the Ganesh wannabe isn’t so lucky.
He goes splat and doesn’t get up again.
Turning away from them, I locate Soren…or what I think is Soren.
There is a fucking three-headed hellhound tearing into any beastling trying to get past him. He’s a rare breed, one of the few Cerberuses in existence. The three heads should make him look awkward and malformed, but his beast is so massive that it works. His chest is deep, his shoulders broad enough that thethree heads look natural, his thick muscles giving him a sleek physique despite his size.
The three heads give him a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the world, a true apex predator. Cinders rise in the air around his form, his feet burning the ground wherever he stands. Though his hide is black, fire moves under the skin, looking like he has molten lava in his veins instead of blood.
No wonder they are MID agents.
The guys are amazing in every way.
Gripping my baton, I take a step forward to help when the snap of a branch behind me causes me to whirl.
I bring up the baton, but it’s too late.
The rock meant to bash me in the back of my skull now cracks across my face.
Instead of feeling pain, my whole body goes numb. As I drop to the ground, I yell at myself to fight, but it’s like the connection to my limbs has been severed. Before the ground can smack me in the face, darkness swallows me whole, and my last thoughts are of the guys.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DARBY
Alarge beastling slings Anita’s unconscious form over his shoulder, and dread sinks its claws into my chest at seeing her limp body. When the feral creature turns toward the woods, fear plows through my gut like a fist, and instincts warn me that if I let her out of my sight, I will never see her again.
I’m so distracted, I barely duck in time to avoid taking a fistful of claws to the face. They are lethally sharp and could have easily pulled my skin off with a single swipe. Needing to finish the fight so I can go after Anita, I stand still and wait for my opponent to come for me.
Though I can hold my own in normal hand-to-hand combat, I don’t stand a chance against beastlings. I’m not a defensive mage, able to sling spells and curses at an opponent. I’m not as strong as the others on the team. I can’t shift into a hellhound, I can’t turn anyone to stone or poison them with a touch, and I sure as fuck can’t turn myself into smoky vapor and disappear, but that doesn’t make me weak.
Get me in front of a computer screen, and I can slay any foe. I’m well aware of my physical disadvantages in a proper fight, but that doesn’t mean I’m not deadly in my own way.
Many people foolishly underestimate me.
They forget technology often goes hand in hand with electricity.
When birdbrain lunges for me, I clamp my hands around his beak, then draw down hard and fast on every bit of energy in his body. He jerks and shudders, then he flops to the ground, twitching but unable to move otherwise.
