Chapter 19
"Aw, heck," Xander breathed.
"What kind of granny eats kids?" Dani growled as she drew a knife from her belt. She hurled it at Lamia with trained accuracy, but Lamia reacted like a viper. The old woman caught the knife between two fingers just inches from her face.
Dani's eyes widened. "That's never happened before," she said, all bravado dissipated. She knocked over the dining table with a well-placed kick. "Come on!" She grabbed Xander by the hood when he didn't move fast enough and dragged him into the hallway.
"It is too late. This place is her domain." Rose pulled a dagger from her belt. It was more like a small gladius than like Dani's throwing knives, and she wielded it with as much skill as you'd expect a three thousand-year-old demigod to possess. "How many, Lamia? Hundreds? Thousands?"
Lamia grinned to show fang-like canines. "Sweetheart, you won't live long enough to care." Instead of returning Rose's attacks, the old woman lashed out with talons and cut into Xander's arm.
It sent him to the ground, but the drug kept the pain at bay for the moment.
The ex-Hunter's nostrils flared in fury. "Send Hades my regards."
Dani bristled. "Hey-"
The two lunged and clashed in midair. Blood sprayed across the floor as they landed, but it was impossible to tell who it belonged to.
Willard chose that moment to swallow the last bite of drugged pastry, hop up, and flutter out of the room as though he were a fairy.
Dani launched herself into the mix with her lighter-knife in hand and took a quick swipe at Lamia on her way to Rose, who had been dealt a nasty gash on her leg. She grabbed the smaller girl and pulled her away. "Get revenge later; right now, we need to get out," Dani commanded.
Rose stumbled, so she reached for Xander's arm to support herself. "Why are there four of you...?" The southerner felt her tight grip on his shoulder. Dani supported both of them enough that they were able to limp down the long hallway faster than the she-demon they heard scuttling just behind them.
"For the love of Hades! Where the heck did Willard go?" Dani exclaimed in a fit of exasperation. With a grunt of effort, she set the two delicately on the couch. "I am not about to be killed by some old lady in a Christmas sweater," she declared. Xander thought he felt his heart skip a beat, but that could just have been the effects of the drug. Maybe.
The woman completely transformed. Her torso was still that of an elderly woman, razor sharp teeth filled her mouth, and her legs intertwined and elongated into a scaly green mass. Her skin was wrinkled and reptilian, her eyes glazed with hunger and bloodlust. Dani somersaulted to the side to avoid Lamia's swipe. The girl leapt over the serpentine tail and managed to sink her blade briefly into the monster's shoulder. The demon shrieked in rage.
Xander watched the daughter of Hades struggle to regain her breath. He blinked a few times to regain control of his mind. I am not fallin'. I'm sittin' on a couch. Definitely not fallin'. "How... how... how do we kill her?" He stammered to Rose. Even if he knew, Xander wasn't sure he could do anything- the world was still tilting and fuzzy. But I have to try.
Rose had her head in her hands. "Thalia killed her last time. I...I think she's just like any other demon...But the poison is worse…" She slumped against Xander's shoulder.
"Poison...worse...worse... Rose? Rose? Rose!" Xander shook the girl desperately. She was out. He eased her to the other side of the plush couch and stood.
For the first time, Xander began to see how dangerous the situation was. Dani was still down. Rose was unconscious. Willard was...who cared at this point? That left him. Alone. Lamia was obviously thinking the same thing. The monstress raised a claw and licked the blood from it with terrible slowness. His gut twisted. She charged. "Sorry, Rose." Just as her talons clipped his cheek, Xander wrapped his arms around Rose and threw their bodies back with enough force to knock the entire sofa over. The tumble disoriented him further.
"Bad idea," he moaned. He could actually see stars circling his head. Lamia chopped the couch in half.
"The tassste of young love is ssso sssweet. I wonder which will be more tender, you or the girl?" Granny Lamb rubbed her scaly hands together greedily as her gaze flicked between the three teens.
Xander didn't want to give her the opportunity to find out. He racked his brain for something, anything, to come to mind. No plans. No tactics. Nothing. He was giving up against his will. He couldn't move a muscle. They were all going to die because he'd failed.
He vainly hoped for the possibility that their deaths would be painless, but he was kidding himself. Dani wasn't even drugged. The she-demon would almost certainly skin them alive. It would hurt, and he didn't figure "Granny Lamb" would care. In a last effort for dignity, Xander opened his eyes to face his final foe.
The sight wasn't what he expected.
The blood-stained tip of a Stygian iron blade poked out of Lamia's chest. Its exhausted wielder drove it deeper with a grunt.
Lamia wailed mournfully and exploded into ash. Xander leapt to his feet, suddenly totally alert, and Rose joined him with an arrow strung on her bow. It took him a few seconds to realize that the demon was dead.
As though it were a scene in a movie, Dani blew on the knife after the kill and returned it to its cigarette lighter form. She smiled knowledgably at Xander and pushed her hair out of her face. Pride glimmered in her eyes. "I told you you'd be dead without me."
Xander could think of very few points in his life where he had been so happy to see someone. He was admittedly embarrassed at that thought, but he grinned back gratefully.
"You okay?" She locked her dark eyes onto his. Genuine concern shone through them.
The boy felt his cheeks grow warmer because of her unusual attentions. He barely stuttered an intelligible answer. "Uh... yeah... Yeah, I'm doin'... I reckon I'm alright."
"I think you're lying to me, but that's alright," Dani laughed. "Ya know why? Because I was right. I was right and you, Mr. Genius Son of Athena, Mr. Boy Scout, you were wrong."
He sighed. She was gloating and it sucked. Xander hated being wrong with a passion. He so often relied on being undeniably right, but here he'd handed his group to a child-eating freak show on a silver platter.
Dani punched Xander's shoulder and winked, as if she were trying to share some of her endless confidence. He blushed and nodded in reply. "Thank ya for savin' us."
"Thank you, Dani," Rose met the eyes of the other girl as she re-braided her red hair, but the look they shared was odd. Not grateful, but somewhat friendly even as their postures exhibited defiance. A challenge? Girls. Xander dismissed the train of thought.
The brunette shrugged offhandedly and hoisted herself onto the nearby windowsill. "So what was with that chick, anyway?" She shifted her attention between Xander and Rose.
The ancient Hunter looked at her hands. "Lamia's legend is a sad one. Once upon a time, a beautiful queen fell in love with a certain god of the skies-"
"Figures," Dani snorted.
"-and bore children. Whether they were Zeus's or her king's, who knows? In any case, Hera grew jealous and stole them away. When Lamia cried out to the goddess in despair, Hera cursed her. Every time the queen closed her eyes, she would see horrible images of her children suffering, dying. Zeus, out of love and pity, bestowed upon her the ability to remove her eyes to ease her pain when the visions became unbearable. Lamia vowed revenge against the gods and ate other women's children in spite. Gradually, all that evil distorted her and transformed her into a demon."
"Cannibalism works wonders," Dani muttered, shaking her head.
"So that fulfills part of the prophecy." They looked to him in question. "In night, love triumphs and the cursed one dies." Xander skimmed the walls again. The pictures must have been her shrine to vengeance. It left him very relieved that that monster was in the Underworld, at least for a while.
Dani shook her head skeptically. "But it isn't nighttime, and there was no love to be spoken of. That witch deserved to die."
Xander thought for a moment. "Well, Rose and I were basically unconscious, so maybe that's what it meant by night. And maybe it meant the love you showed when you protected us. As, um, friends. Comrades in arms, ya know?"
Dani averted her eyes. "Yeah, that's probably it. Prophecies are screwy."
There was an awkward pause.
"So," Dani finally cleared her throat and spoke up. "How did the drug wear off so fast?
"It is a powdered version of her venom. It would have killed us within the hour, but all traces of it vanish with her corpse." Who knew Rose could sound exactly like a talking encyclopedia?
"I mean, you were...eh...kind of pathetic a minute ago." Dani had adopted that peculiar expression again.
Rose averted her eyes sheepishly. "My apologies. I have never used anything but medicinal herbs before, so I am more susceptible to high doses of poison than you might be. I am also a bit smaller than Xander or Willard." As she explained, Lamia's orphaned kitten had crawled stealthily into her lap.
Xander chuckled. "Hey, looks like ya got a free cat." The former Hunter looked down and smiled fondly.
Clanging and banging startled them all. Willard wobbled out of the kitchen, balancing deep dishes of Granny Lamb's cooking in his arms and on his head. "What?" he asked of their disbelieving expressions. "No meat here! I checked." He whipped a magnifying glass of unknown origin to his eye.
"Yeah, probably because she was planning to put US in them. She set us up from the beginning when she magically zapped into the middle of the road. I should have run her over when I had the chance," Dani lamented.
"How could ya have justified that? Ya didn't know she was a mon-" Xander stopped, suddenly aware of the blood dripping down his arm. Since the numbing effect of the poison was gone, the damage he'd sustained actually stung.
Lamia had sliced three jagged cuts into his upper arm. Xander carefully took off his stained jacket and applied pressure on the wound with his free hand. He spoke through gritted teeth, "We should prob'ly get outta here. This place gives me the willies."
Dani admonished, "For the love of Hades, Xander, I knew you were lying to me."
~O~O~O~
Monica: Rachel, I think it's time we gave the reader's a sneak peak of the next chapter.
Rachel: Are you sure? Something so incredibly serious and plot heavy might chase them off.
Rose: You two are terrifying.
Dani: Rose, show some backbone! Don't let them know how much they scare you or they'll do it again!
Xander: …They enjoy our suffering…
Monica: Come on, guys, you're exaggerating.
Rachel: Dani, you enjoyed it!
Dani: Until…Until…Oh, gods, my eyes!
Xander: *patting trembling Rose on the back* I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to! They made me!
Us: Willard, any comments on this?
Willard: GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FU-U-UN!
Expect Chapter 20 SOON in theatres near you!
*Willard's jazz hands*