A Storm in the Making

Chapter 29--Darbeast Attack!

  I swear, I never sensed anyone in the room with me until an overpowering fishy smell warned me I was no longer alone. Before I had time to react,  something heavy leaped  up on the bed, then fell on top of me, smothering me in the slimy wetness of its body. It was like being plastered to the bed by a giant flounder.   Even if I had been able to move—which I couldn’t-stark terror immobilized me. I couldn’t imagine something so hideous attacking me.

Had I been laying face-up I have no doubt I would have been unable to breathe. The odor of ammonia, and fish was so nauseating, I felt like vomiting. I wasn’t sure breathing was a good thing.

However I changed my mind about breathing when a fishy-smelling hand clamped down over my mouth and nose, pinching my nostrils together while pressing my lips so hard against my teeth I tasted blood in my mouth. 

When I realized I couldn’t breathe, I totally panicked.  Help!  Anyone! I cried out with my mind, even as I bucked and rolled, trying to throw my attacker off of me. I might as well have been trying to free myself from a giant roll of duct tape.  I had always considered myself strong for a girl.  But, compared to the strength of whatever had attacked me, I might as well have been in the wimpy kid category. 

The pressure in my lungs to expel the stale breath of air was overwhelming, but there was no place for the air to go.  The pressure behind my eyes was growing.  Dancing yellow spots multiplied behind my eyelids.  I was losing consciousness.  I could feel the spots growing fuzzy around the edges.  Then suddenly, the weight was gone from my back, and I heard a squishy-sounding thud against the wall where William Helm had flung my attacker.

William Helm flipped me over on the bed like I was a bundle of rags.  “Do you live, My Lady?”  He demanded to know in a harsh voice filled with anger.  We both felt the faint tingle of power and looked to where the attacker should have been, but wasn’t.  Whoever it was, they had translocated out of the room.

 I couldn’t speak so I nodded and then William Helm poofed out of the room right behind my attacker, the same way I assumed he had poofed into it. 

Dazed, I just lay there on the bed catching my breath and letting my heartbeat return to normal, glad to be alive and able to breathe.  I wasn’t ready for the imperious knocking at the door a moment later.

“Cut the latch,” I called.  “I’m too weak to get up.”

I smelled the faint ozone smell I was already coming to associate with magic use, when the door fell inwards.  There stood the Hermits, wands extended, eyes blinking in the aftermath of the flash.  They gingerly made their way across the felled door, and stood beside the bed staring at me with puzzled looks on their faces.

“Did you not call for help?” Natos asked gently, wondering why I was lying there apparently unharmed.

“Where is your guard?” Vorst demanded at the same time.

“I smell a Darbeast!”  Varak cried in alarm.

Natos and Vorst stiffened and sniffed the air.  “Yes.  One has been here,” Natos agreed.

“Who would dare to call upon those foul creatures?” Vorst growled.

Julius showed up just then with Dr. Spinner right behind him.  Julius rushed over to me.  “Storm, I heard your call.  What has happened?  Are you all right?”

“Is this how you guard the child?” Vorst spoke for the three Hermits.  “She could have been dead by now.  A Darbeast has been in here.  What do you say for yourself?”

“He was with me,” Dr. Spinner spoke up for the first time.  “That is too far to translocate in one jump.”

“Where is the guard you hired to protect Storm,” Julius demanded to know.

“Do not question us, or our representatives, Lithian,” Vorst spat at Julius.

“He’s been here and gone,” I managed to squeak out at last, reaching up to touch Julius’s arm.

Julius looked down at me.  He saved my life, I told Julius mind to mind.  He’s gone after my attacker.

The Hermits heard me, however, and folded their arms across their waists, looking smug.  The atmosphere became so charged in the room, it could have provided electricity to a small city.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate politics? 

As if on cue, William Helm poofed back into the room.  A raw fish odor filled the room immediately.  William Helm stood behind his sword and propped his hands across it.  The blade glistened wetly with a phosphorescent-green ichor.

“The Darbeast is dead,” he announced unnecessarily.  “However, I lost the trail of whoever called upon him to attack.”

About this time, Uncle and my brothers had heard voices and came to investigate.

“What’s going on, Storm?”  Uncle asked, puzzled by so many people in my room.

“She was attacked.”  Varak hissed at him.

“By a Darbeast,” Natos clarified.

“What the heck is a Darbeast?” Andrew wanted to know. 

“Are you all right?”  Luke asked, coming over and standing on the far side of my bed.

I nodded at Luke and gave him a watery smile.  I closed my eyes then.  I just really wanted to be left in peace.  It was too hard trying to put a brave face on things.  What I really wanted was to quietly go to pieces in private.

William Helm went up a hundred percent in my estimation when he sensed my need before even Julius did.  Although, I believe Julius knew what I wanted but had ignored me because he didn’t want to leave.

“Perhaps what Darbeasts are, and where they come from, could be explained downstairs.  I will keep watch over my Lady,” William Helm announced.

As he had already done such a good job of guarding me, no one could find any objections to that.

Together they heaved the heavy door upright, and leaned it so that most of the doorway was closed. That gave me a semblance of privacy.  After being attacked, that partially open door was a comfort to me.  Knowing William Helm would be standing watch was even more of a comfort.

“Shall I send for water, that you can bathe, my Lady?” William Helm asked after the others departed.

About then the fishy odor permeated the shock I had been feeling. One good sniff, and I nodded mutely. Would this day from Hell never end?

William Helm poofed out of the room. It didn’t seem strange at all that he did that so easily. He poofed back with a stone basin filled with steaming water, a towel, and a lump of what I guessed was soap.

It hardly surprised me at all that Chloe poofed into the room right behind him with a change of the white garments. Right behind her appeared Princess Ranaloxa holding a gatzu robe. For once I did not protest their administrations. They quickly rid me of the icky-smelling garments that stuck to my back and had to be peeled off me. I let them scrub me and wash my hair with the pleasant, if unusual, scented soap.

The new gatzu robe smelled of freshly-mown grass and sunshine instead of the musty smell of the other one. I was grateful to both Chloe and Ranaloxa for their fussing over me. Slowly I felt my terror and shock subside enough they felt comfortable leaving me tucked into my bed.

It was only as I drifted off to sleep that I realized William Helm had heard my mental cry for help the moment the attack had begun. Now I knew without a doubt he could read my mind. That was my last conscious thought before I slept.