Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Richard ignored the pain of the glassy tentacles that already had him and stabbed over and over, cutting into thick arms that looked to be only partly there. With determined and focused rage he slashed with the knife and was able to cleave some of the arms away from the core of the thing. Once severed, they writhed wildly as they fell away into the void around them, as if sinking into a bottomless sea.

It seemed to do no good; ever more of the twisting tentacles came at him from out of the darkness. It was like finding himself at the bottom of a dark pit full of angry vipers. Richard fought on with all his strength, cutting, stabbing, slashing. His arms ached with the effort. Nicci grappled with the thick tentacles with one hand, her other arm still refusing to let him go. He could tell by the way she arched and twisted that she was in agony. Richard abandoned the coils around himself and with all his fury hacked at the arms of the beast hurting Nicci as they tried to pull her away from him.

But then she was violently torn away from him.

Richard was suddenly alone in the middle of nowhere with a glassy, slippery, powerful creature trying to wrestle him in toward its center, toward something he could hear snarling, snapping, clacking.

There was no way to fight such a thing, no way to get an advantage over its power, no way to escape its multi-armed grasp. Ever more of the arms whipped in to capture him.

With all his strength, before his arm was captured, he thrust the knife toward the center mass that he couldn't clearly see.

He made solid contact. The beast howled with a sound that hurt his ears. The arms loosened just a bit — not letting go of him, but loosed just enough for Richard to give a mighty twist of his body that succeeded in spinning him out of the creature's grip. It an instant, like a pumpkin seed squeezed between wet fingers, he squirted away from the deadly grip.

Richard tried to swim away, to somehow escape the thrashing, translucent arms coming for him, but it was faster than he was, more powerful, and tireless.

"Here!" Six urged as she rapped her knuckles against the center of an emblem.

Violet raced with the chalk to the spot her advisor was urging her toward. Her fingers flew with swift and sure movements. With the back of her other hand, Violet swiped sweat off her face, then with her fingers wiped it from her eyes. Rachel had never seen Violet work so hard, or so fast.

Rachel didn't know what was happening, but it was obvious that something was not going the way Six had expected. She was in a state balancing precariously between panic and rage. Rachel feared whichever way it fell.

While Violet swiftly completed links, switching chalk and moving to each successive point, Six went back to softly chanting her incantations. The corrosive sound of those whispered words felt as if they were searing Rachel's soul. While she could not understand the words or their meaning, they were spoken with a sinister intent that terrified her.

She glanced toward the distant cave entrance, but with it being dark outside, Rachel couldn't see anything. She wanted to run but dared not. She knew that if she caused Violet or Six to have to stop what they were doing and come after her, it would go very badly for her.

Chase had taught her to bridle her impulses, as he'd called it, and to watch for true openings. He had cautioned her that if she wasn't in immediate mortal danger, she should act only when she had a deliberate plan that she had thought out ahead of time. He said that she shouldn't act out of blind fear, but work to find ways to increase the odds of success.

Despite how busy the other two were, Rachel knew that with both of them together and both in such a frantic state, they both would react to any misdeed by Rachel with swift and unrestrained violence. This was not the right opportunity; getting up right then and running was not a good plan, and she knew it.

As Rachel sat still and quiet, trying to keep from being noticed, Six gently tapped the side of her fist against several of the flaring nodes in the links Violet had already drawn. Each bright circle she tapped went dark with a low growling sound that ran a shiver up Rachel's spine. The cave seemed to hum with the rise and fall of Six's rhythmic conjuring.

Violet, drawing with bold, slashing strokes, glanced to the side, checking on Six's progress. Six, extinguishing the beacons in sequence, was catching the queen. Violet, as if in a trance, drew faster. The chalk made a clack, clack, clacking sound with each line that Violet threw down against the stone. The sound of the chalk matched the rhythm of Six's chant.