bedeviled & beyond 07 - beset & bewildered by Sam Cheever Read Free Book Online Page B

upright and his scaly red face stoic. He nodded when Slayer motioned toward the ground below, where Caninra and her two warriors easily kept pace with us. As I looked down, I saw another line of thick, gray bodies approaching them. Unless I missed my guess, the gargoyles had been sent out from Dialle’s castle. “Torre.” I frowned, my heart still hurting at the thought of him. Especially after learning he was having a crisis of conscience. I couldn’t help feeling as if I was to blame for him embracing the darker side of his nature.
    An answering roar speared the super-heated air in front of us and my gaze jerked skyward again. A handful of enormous, winged creatures flew toward us in the distance. The dragon-gargoyle hybrids had massive, brown bodies, wings that looked too small to be effective, and huge heads sporting oversized, tusk-like teeth. I remembered the strange creatures from the last time I’d been in Hell. Astra had dubbed them gargoyle surprise and the name was apt. They were Hell’s response to the absconding of the green dragons from Hades when the sulfur levels began to threaten their very existence.
    “Gargoyle surprise. Wonderful,” I murmured.
    Slayer lifted his arm, pointing toward the charred black husk of a castle. Gerch barked a command to his two soldiers and they swung in that direction. I knew what they had in mind. They would circle the broken carcass of the building and come in behind the attacking dragoyles, creating our own version of gargoyle surprise.
    We’d used the same maneuver the last time we’d invaded Hell. I only hoped it worked as well the second time. At least, unlike that last battle, we didn’t seem to be as severely outnumbered.
    No sooner had I had the thought then a pain-filled cry rose up, reverberating on the smoky air. I glanced down and saw two more dragoyles dropping down on Caninra and her hounds, slicing at them with razor-sharp claws. “Damn them to Hell.”
    Slayer turned a grim smile in my direction. “Too late for that.” His muscular thighs tightened around the red. “Hold on.” We dipped sideways on a tight turn and I grabbed him around the waist with a yelp of surprise.
    His answering chuckle made me wonder if he’d done it on purpose. “Very funny.”
    “Sorry. But it was necessary.” He jerked his chin toward the spot where we’d just been.
    An inverted vee of nearly featherless birds was heading directly toward our bubble. About ten feet across from wing tip to wing tip, the large birds had charcoal-colored scales coating their bodies rather than feathers. A few bent, ragged feathers stuck out on the crowns of their pointed heads and at the ends of their pointed butts.
    “Snapes.” I grimaced, resting my hand on Seraphim’s hilt. Though the rare Hell-living birds were goofy-looking creatures, they had razor-sharp claws and beaks and could be especially aggressive when hungry or scared. “They look mad.”
    Even as I said the words, one of the gangly creatures speared upward, driving its beak into the red dragon’s soft underbelly. The red twisted sideways, roaring in pain, and spat fire toward the snape, setting the feathers of its butt aflame. It shot away with a cry but two more of its friends speared toward us.
    “Hold on tight, Darma. This is gonna get squiggy.” The red flapped its wings and shot skyward in a near vertical climb. I held onto Slayer as tightly as I could, but still found my butt sliding out from under me.
    A beat later the red flung its wings out and slammed to a halt. My butt crashed back down and I barely had time to catch my breath before Slayer was flinging power arrows into the sky around the snapes.
    I joined him, pulling my own power forward and sending it toward the nasty things with such adrenalin fueled exuberance I turned the first one to ash with my power bolt.
    Slayer killed the one behind it and the last three swung off and flew away.
    Unfortunately, we weren’t out of trouble yet. The dragoyles