Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Malik! He was here—he had finally come to save me!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Malik had gotten big and scary again, but the Ogre was still bigger.
“You fucker,” the Incubus growled and I saw the Hellfire burning in his black eyes as he glared at Goremouth. “I told you if you ever touched her again you were going to pay! Now you die.”
He lunged for the Ogre but spun away at the last minute just as Goremouth was reaching out long arms to grapple. Instead of closing with his much larger adversary, the Incubus whipped his tail around.
In a moment of slow-motion clarity, I saw that the pointed triangular tip at the end of the tail had grown incredibly long and sharp—almost like a dagger. And was that a droplet of bright green poison I saw on the end of it?
Then the moment was over and I saw the tip of Malik’s tail plunge into one of the Ogre’s beady little eyes.
“Arrrgh!” Goremouth howled. Clapping one meaty hand over his hurt eye, he staggered backwards. His big body hit the countertop I was on, nearly knocking me over but somehow I kept my balance. And I saw an opportunity.
I’ve never been much of a fighter—I’d rather stay inside and bake cookies than stand up to a bully any day. But this was a matter of life and death and they say when you get into that situation it’s a fight or flight scenario.
I chose to fight.
Picking up the machete-sized butcher knife, I swung it as hard as I could at the Ogre’s thick neck. Probably it would have worked better if I had sliced with the knife instead of chopping like it was an ax, but the wound I made was still pretty deep. A river of black, ichorous blood began to ooze out to make his greasy orange fur even dirtier.
“No! Hurts!” the Ogre screamed, grabbing for his neck with the hand that wasn’t clutching at his eye. Apparently being in pain made him forget to rhyme—how interesting.
I drew back and hacked at him from behind again. Goremouth turned to face me, grabbing blindly with the hand that had been holding his eye. I noticed that it was nothing but a slit now, oozing black blood just like his wounded neck.
“I’ll get you, bitch!” he grated, his voice gravelly with pain.
I was trying to slide out of the way and hack at his reaching hand with the knife at the same time when Malik took a sudden leap and landed on the Ogre’s back. He gripped the green necktie and pulled—hard.
The big Incubus was strong enough to do what I hadn’t been able to. Goremouth’s ugly face went purple almost at once as the lime green tie cut off his air. He tried to roar but it came out as a breathless wheeze and then Malik’s tail whipped around and stung him again, in the other eye.
The Ogre howled in agony but it came out as a gasp. Completely blind now, he blundered around the kitchen, knocking over the chairs and running into the table. Malik clung to his back like a rider determined not to be bucked off an angry bull. Gripping the necktie, he somehow steered the Ogre back to the stove and the pot of water, which was now at a rolling boil.
“Celia, get out of the way!” he shouted at me.
I barely had time to hop down from the kitchen counter—the machete-knife still in my hand—before Malik grabbed the Ogre’s head and forced it forward and down, straight into the pot of boiling water.
Goremouth went crazy! His long ape-like arms started flailing and his big body was fishtailing helplessly. Somehow Malik kept him in place with his head in the pot. I noticed his tail whipping out and stabbing down, stinging again and again with vicious speed as he incapacitated the Ogre with his venom.
At last Goremouth stopped struggling and the big body slumped forward over the stove. His fury pelt came in contact with the red-hot surface and his greasy pelt began to burn, which only added to the nauseating scent that permeated the kitchen.
“There, you fucker!” Malik stung him one last time—a vicious stab to the back of his thick neck. Then he jumped lightly away from the Ogre’s corpse and came to find me.
Somehow I had ended up under the enormous table and that’s where I was huddling when Malik bent down to look at me.
“Celia, are you all right, baby?” He was breathing hard, as though killing the Ogre had been an effort, but his hair still looked ridiculously perfect. And his eyes—his eyes were full of emotion. “There you are—come here. I need to hold you,” he said.
And then he was pulling me out from under the table and wrapping me in his arms.
“Oh, Malik!” I moaned into the side of his neck, as tears of shock filled my eyes. “Oh, I was so sure he was going to k-kill me and eat m-me!”