Dreameater, Part Five

         The giant quilled monster barked a vicious cry and lunged for the group hovering around Isaac.  Naomi wrapped her arms around him and rolled, barely dodging the talons as they raked the patch of dirt where they had been a second before.  The wolf twins dove clear and came up into fighting stances, ready for action.
         Sam and Johanna radiated waves of wild energy that Naomi could sense like a hot pressure on the inside of her head.  The twins doubled over, muscle and bone cracking and rippling beneath their skin, growing.  Their forms distorted, faces elongating into wolf muzzles and grey-brown fur coating their bodies.  The transformation from adolescents to snarling, super-strong beasts was finished in the space of a breath.
         The two werewolves were blurs as they leapt onto the nightmare creature, claws ripping into the thing’s arms and sides.  The hyena-demon roared its fury at the two, striking out with heavy clawed hands.  Each time the monster made a move at one of the twins, the other would leave deep claw marks in the creature’s exposed flanks.  Green-black blood oozed like syrup from the wounds and gave off a foul stink.
         Naomi was on her feet, dragging Isaac across the grass and away from the raging fight, his head lolling to the side, eyes open and staring, but unseeing.  The grove shook with the struggle between the wolves and the creature.
         “Come on, Isaac,” Naomi said, “snap out of it.  We could really use some of your wizard tricks right about now.”
         Naomi looked back at the struggle going on by the pond.  The hyena-faced monster was gashed in several places, green blood running from the deep gouges in its chitin, but its quilled mane and armored plates protected it from the worst of the damage that the two werewolves could inflict.  Naomi could see the deep barrel chests of the werewolves heaving as they panted for air, fur matted with blood.  The twins looked ragged and beaten, despite their supernatural fortitude.  They couldn’t go on fighting the huge demon much longer.
         Naomi laid Isaac onto his back in the grass a good distance away from the pond and the creatures doing battle around it.  She looked down at the apprentice wizard one more time, but he hadn’t improved.  Isaac would have known what this thing was and what it could do, but he didn’t seem like he’d be snapping out of it any time soon.  Naomi looked back to the fight, wishing she knew what to do.  She had a measure of mystic muscle, but without knowing what she was up against, Naomi knew she would get in the way of the wolf twins’ pack tactics.  Besides, she had no weapons and was, for the most part, as vulnerable as any human.  She had to think of something that she could do to help Sam and Jo, but couldn’t.  Naomi felt powerless and she hated it.
         The hyena monster made a lunge for Sam, who seemed to be favoring his left leg, and sunk its razor claws deep into the muscles of his arm and shoulder.  Sam let out a lupine howl of agony and his sister roared in response.  Johanna made a dash for the thing’s throat, berserker fury in her eyes.  With a lightning-fast sweep of it’s free arm, it caught Johanna in the ribs and Naomi could hear bones crack from across the grove.  Johanna flew back from the hit like a returned serve, landing twenty feet away with a yelp like a kicked dog.
         The creature’s taunting laugh filled the air as it looked down at the collapsed Johanna, amber eyes glowing with malign fire.  A tormented howl ripped from Sam, who was still held in the creature’s claws.  He opened his powerful jaws and bit down hard in the space between the talons in a desperate attempt to break the creature’s hold on him.  The hyena thing wailed in pain and pulled its giant paw away, ripping free from the meat of Sam’s shoulder.
         Naomi couldn’t stand by any longer.  She had to do something.  She felt a hand on her leg, cold and clammy.  Naomi looked down to see Isaac struggling to sit upright.  Isaac’s mouth worked, but no words came.  Naomi bent down, her ear close to his face.
         “-gotta use,” Isaac stammered, “gotta…”
         “What? Got to use what?” Naomi said urgently.
         “I-I..” Isaac couldn’t complete the word.
         Naomi put a hand under his head and leaned even closer.  His eyes seemed far away and a fresh slick of sweat ran down his face.  Naomi felt like shaking him until the word fell out.
         “What?” her voice seemed to shriek in her ears.
         Another scream of pain came from one of the werewolves as the demon laughed its grating laugh.  Isaac’s hand wrapped around Naomi’s arm in a vice-grip and his eyes were focused on hers.  The muscles in his arm and chest spasmed as he held on, cold sweat shining on his face.  With a monumental force of willpower, Isaac spoke into Naomi’s ear.
         “Iron,” he panted.
Isaac held Naomi’s eyes until she nodded a quick understanding and promptly fell onto his back, exhausted.  Naomi remembered that some creatures from the spirit world, faeries and their kin, were vulnerable to iron.  It cut through their defenses like a hot knife through butter and could even poison them.  She searched around the field for a piece of iron.  Her eyes fixed on the porch of the old house a hundred feet away.  Its railings were ornate, twisting bars of iron that were held in place at the top by a piece of carved wood. 
Naomi took off toward the house, speeding across the heat-baked ground, dead grass stabbing into her bare feet, covering the ground quickly.  She reached the porch in a matter of seconds, crashing into the railing with arms outstretched.  Naomi took hold of one twisting iron rods and began to pull, straining to get it free.  The iron didn’t bend or come loose, it merely rattled against its seating in the wood.
         Desperation clutched at her heart, but she tried to pull against the iron again, this time reaching out for her magic.  Naomi was one of the Spellbound, familiars and consorts to mortal magicians who gave the Spellbound a portion of their magic, usually in exchange for protection or knowledge.  Naomi had been Spellbound when Isaac had used the surge of magic in the Spellbinding to fight a spiritual poison in freshmen year. Where Isaac, as a wizard, could use his magic for any kind of spell in theory, Naomi’s was much more limited.  It was mostly confined to a limited set of effects, namely giving her supernatural strength and toughness.  Now she reached for this mystic strength to free the iron rod from the railing.
         The seal over Naomi’s heart flared with a blue light as she used her magic to give her strength.  She could feel the muscles along her arms and chest growing hot with the channeled energy.  Naomi pushed back with her leg and pulled with her arms and was rewarded with a cracking sound from the wood holding the iron upright.  With an unlady-like grunt of effort, the wood splintered and the iron rod was free.
         Naomi turned on her heel and began to sprint back toward Sam and Johanna, who had managed to harry the giant behemoth to the edge of the pond.  The two werewolves didn’t look so good.  They were both bleeding heavily from wounds hidden beneath matted fur.  Their muzzles were stretched into rictus snarls and a deep growling could be heard as Naomi hurtled forward, legs pumping and hair whipping out behind her.
         Naomi was coming up on the side of the hyena-demon now, jagged iron rod held on her shoulder like a short spear.  Sam and Jo were still circling, pushing the thing back toward the water.  As she ran, Naomi started to open herself to her magic and she felt the surge of power rush into her muscles.  Her vision became sharper and her speed increased as she closed in.
         “Sam! Jo!” Naomi yelled, “Hold it down!”
         The wolves heard her and leapt forward, using the last dregs of their strength and speed to catch hold of the demon’s arms and drag it down into the shallows of the pond..  The nightmare bellowed and roared, lashing out with snapping teeth and wicked claws.  Naomi hit the edge of the water and leapt, Spellbound power propelling her forward with tremendous force. She gripped the iron bar over her head in both hands, its ragged point aimed for the soft flesh of the thing’s neck.  Blood sang in her ears as Naomi opened herself to the magic fully, shunting it through her arms and chest, to bring the iron home in a powerful blow.
         Where the iron touched the horned hyena-thing, its flesh spat and smoked, melting away like candle wax.  It screamed an otherworldly wail of anguish as the cold iron burned into it, flailing and biting.  Naomi was on top of it and pressed her advantage, pushing the rod deeper into the searing meat of the creature’s neck.  The stink from the creature’s blood was overwhelming as it sizzled against the metal and vaporized.
         The demon thrashed with phenomenal strength and Sam lost control of the claws he was holding down.  It rolled, swiping the huge claw at the girl that was stabbing burning iron into its neck.  Naomi felt ribs crack and hot blood snake down her arm as the giant hand batted her away, sending her flying to land on the ground in a heap.  The demon kept rolling, bringing its quilled mane down on Johanna, who still held its other arm.  Jo dodged out of the way with a burst of speed, but was forced to let go of the monster.
         An explosive roar tore from the creature’s throat as it flailed in the shallows trying to pull the toxic iron spike from its neck.  One of the massive claws gripped the iron rod and began to smoke in reaction to the metal.  With another bellow of defiance, it ripped the iron out and flung it into the pond, where it sank with a hiss.
         Johanna was still on her feet, her teeth bared in a lupine growl.  Sam was struggling to his feet too,but he looked to be in bad shape.  One of his ears was torn mostly off and deep gashes leaked blood into the pond, making a red haze in the water around his feet.  The demon staggered like a drunk in the shallows as it turned to face the two werewolves, but it didn’t seem to have a fight on its mind.  Magic gathered around the demon’s claws, rippling a nauseous yellow.  It slashed the air at the two werewolves, and they recoiled, expecting an attack, but the air in front of the thing tore like a curtain.
         “Stop it before it goes through!” Naomi yelled as she regained her feet.
         The air split like a knife cutting cloth and dark wisps of ground fog seeped from the tear.  Through the rip, Naomi caught sight of a twilight landscape blanketed in mist.  It had to be the Otherworld.  The demon tore the rip wider to accommodate its massive bulk and slipped through, spines bending and rattling as they disappeared into the dimensional hole.
         The weight of the air began to knit the hole closed after the demon.  The werewolves made mad dash to follow through the hole before it closed fully, but they couldn’t make it in time.  Their claws stretched as the final breath of fog wafted from the unearthly realm, but grasped only air.  The portal had closed.  The nightmare demon had escaped.