Fiends and Familiars - Debra Dunbar Page 0,55

was the dead.

Or undead, rather. Babylon stood with her head thrown back and arms outstretched. Her bright red hair whipped around her face in some wind none of the rest of us felt. Bones rose from the ground, connecting and assembling into skeletons of the animals they once were. I shivered, somewhat unnerved by my sister’s very creepy power. Bone birds took to the air, bone rats joining my mice in attacking the demons’ legs. My skin crawled as I saw actual zombies, far from shambling, join the fray. I briefly wondered how the owners felt about having their ancestors brought up from the family graveyard.

Ty was battling one of the demons. Fire rose from their skin, leaving trails of burning grass and corn stalks as they grappled and rolled. Their horns were locked, their bellows shaking the ground. Each swipe of their clawed hands left huge furrows that burned with flame rather than bled. Ty seemed to be getting the upper hand, but that still left two demons for Lonnie and me to manage with our magic.

“You take the one on the right and I’ll focus on the demon to the left,” she shouted to me. I watched as her zombies and skeletons swarmed the one demon. He tore them apart, but as soon as the parts hit the ground, they reassembled and renewed their attack.

Damn, my sister was scary.

Determined to be just as formidable, I pushed my awareness out as far as I could, bringing even more animals to the fight. The beetles completely covered the demon. Flame licked out from the wounds their bites caused, but none of the beetles seemed injured by the fire. The mice swarmed, biting and darting away before the fire could get them. Flocks of birds answered my renewed call—everything from barn swallows and mockingbirds to hawks and eagles. They swooped in, tearing into the demon with talons and beaks, swiftly evading his flailing, clawed hands. The demon stumbled around, blinded by the birds, overwhelmed by the other animals attacking him. With a roar he vanished and the beetles and mice fell to the ground.

I spun around, expecting to see the demon appear somewhere else and renew his attack. When I didn’t see him, I sent my animals over to help Lonnie. No sooner had they begun to crawl up the demon’s legs, than he vanished as well. I turned to Ty and saw him standing with empty arms, a perplexed expression on his face.

I ran to him and asked, “Where did they go?” reluctant to send my animal army away until I was sure the attackers weren’t about to jump us from another angle.

Ty’s eyes glowed like coals as he scanned the field and barnyard. “They’re gone. They’ve returned to hell.”

“Then we won!” I did a fist-pump, adrenaline still racing through my veins. I’d never battled demons before, and knowing that I’d helped defeat three of them gave me a heady feeling of power.

“We didn’t win.” He scowled. “They left.”

I eyed him, confused. “Yeah. They left because we won.”

He shook his head. “We were holding our own, but the fight was still balanced and could have gone either way. There was no reason for them to leave.”

“Unless.” My heart stuttered. “Unless they were here to just distract us. Maybe that Abraxas wasn’t trying to capture me after all.”

“He was.” Ty growled. “But Abraxas wasn’t one of the three demons fighting us here in the open. He’d tried to grab you in the corn maze, and when that didn’t work, he went with a plan B.”

I stared at him in horror, having a good suspicion what that plan B was.

“Come on.” Ty grabbed my hand and started to haul me toward the cars.

“Wait.” I yanked my hand free, looked around, and saw that Babylon was helping the others put out the fires. “Lonnie! I have to go home. Ty’s taking me.”

“Be safe,” she called out.

Rita was next to her, spraying a fire extinguisher. She paused and raised a hand to wave to me. “Best, most realistic zombie chase ever!” she called out. “I think you may have won. I’ll send your prize home with Lonnie.”

I waved back, then ran to keep up with Ty. It was so weird that the humans still thought this was all an elaborate production, with the pyrotechnics getting a little out of hand. But nothing about humans should surprise me.

But there was no time to wonder about humans or the fire or if Lonnie returned the zombies