Sword and Sorceress XXVII (34 page)
Read Sword and Sorceress XXVII Online
Authors: Unknown
Uncontrolled, the light burst into
being, overwhelming Kiki with an unholy pain ripping through her head. She
barely heard the internal screaming or saw the light as she crumpled to the
ground. Her body began to melt, or so it seemed, as everything stretched and
pulled. Kiki had never called her power like this, and she wasn’t sure she would
survive it. Even if she didn’t, she hoped to take the blackness with her.
She came to with Bennita shaking her,
trying to wake her up. Kiki huddled on the ground, reveling in the coolness of
the earth beneath her. Her skin felt like it was on fire, and she was nauseous.
She struggled to her hands and knees to retch.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“Hey, Miss Kiki, do you need a drink?”
Jaz asked. “Someone gave us a juice box.”
“That was gnarly.” Kiki recognized the
irritating voice of Blood-Is-Us. His whine didn’t help her migraine, upping the
pain level to just short of unbearable.
Kiki emptied her stomach and wiped her
mouth when she was done. “Is that thing gone?”
She realized her clothes had ripped off
of her during the change, but she still had the sheet. Bennita had wrapped it
around her like a towel, and it covered her to mid-thigh.
“That gross, black thing? Yeah, when the
big light exploded, it got sucked into the ground. Boy, did it stink!” Jaz
emphasized by holding her nose.
“Here,” Kiki said. “Help me up. Then
help me get home. And I will take that juice.”
“What was that, Mom? And how did you get
here? Where did the other kid go?”
“First, Jaz, I’m going to lie down until
I can dump this migraine. Then I’ll talk to Benny, and she can tell you.” They’d
have to create a good cover story for Jaz.
As she sat sucking the fruit punch
flavored juice out of the tiny, square box, Kiki wondered what she would tell
Bennita. This was ahead of schedule, and she hadn’t prepared anything yet. She
hoped it would come to her like it had always done before.
The real question was how to get home in
a sheet with so many parents on the road. Oh, well, she thought with a sigh. It
was
Halloween.
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SWORD
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Copyright © 2012 by the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary
Works Trust
Cover Painting:
“The
Syracusan Bride” by Frederick Leighton, 1866.
Cover Design Copyright © 2012 by Vera
Nazarian
Introduction
copyright © 2012 by Elisabeth Waters
A
Hunter of the Celadon Plains
copyright © 2012 by Deborah J. Ross
The
Memory Box
copyright © 2012 by Patricia B. Cirone
Grave
Gold
copyright © 2012 by Jonathan Shipley
Forever
Is A Long Time
copyright © 2012 by Melissa Mead
They
That Watch
copyright © 2012 by Michael Spence & Elisabeth Waters
Straw-Spun
copyright © 2012 by Leah Cypess
Mahrut’s
Road
copyright © 2012 by Nathan Crowder
Storm
over Taktsang
copyright © 2012 by Catherine Soto
Airs
Above the Ground
copyright © 2012 by Michael H. Payne
Netcasters
copyright © 2012 by Layla Lawlor
The
Salt Mines
copyright © 2012 by Dave Smeds
Strength,
Wisdom, and Compassion
copyright © 2012 by Julia H. West
Dead
Princesses
copyright © 2012 by Steve Chapman
The
Rising
copyright © 2012 by Pauline J. Alama
Ghost
Pyres
copyright © 2012 by Jonathan Moeller
Jack
in Black
copyright © 2012 by Linda A. B. Davis
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