Free Blood of Retribution by Bonnie Lamer

burrows deeper into the brush.  “No.”
     
    “I can pull you out.”
     
    With a groan, he drags himself over to me like I’m a guillotine about to take his head.  “Go ahead,” he says, “torture me with your magic.”
     
    I roll my eyes.  “And you say I whine.”  Okay, I do, but still. 
     
    When he’s close enough to me, I stick my hand out and touch him tentatively.  As soon as I do, I feel a great rush and a lightening of my soul.  As Taz takes the darkness inside him, he rises about three feet off the ground and every hair on his body stands straight up like someone just rubbed him all over with a balloon.  He is a floating ball of black fur.  He’s actually kind of cute like this.  Except that nasty snarling he’s doing.
     
    “That hurt!” he bellows.
     
    “Oh, please.  It was a little shock.  I felt it too and I think we’ll both survive it without scarring.”  It was the equivalent of a static zap and it only lasted a second.
     
    “Will you put me down now?” Taz asks, still dangling in the air; his short little legs flailing.
     
    “Sure.”  I reach out to him and push him down.  He floats right back up as soon as I draw my hand back.  I try again.  Same thing.  As soon as I let go, he floats back up.  “Um, let me try magic.”
     
    Pulling magic from beneath, I send it out to Taz.  When it hits him, he sails about twenty feet away from me until he hits a tree.  Face first.  Ouch.  That had to hurt.  I try again.  This time, I use my magic to pull him towards me.  Unfortunately, it’s like his body has become weightless, and he comes zooming at me so fast, I have to duck.  He hits another tree.  It’s kind of like I’m playing pinball and he’s the ball.  An angry, screeching ball that will soon have a flat face if I keep this up. 
     
    Okay, I have to be a bit gentler with my magic.  As carefully as I can, I reach out to him again.  This time when my magic hits him, he only floats a couple of feet away.  He doesn’t float downwards at all, though.  I guess magic isn’t the answer here.
     
    Walking over to him, I put my hand on his back away from his snarling mouth and gnashing teeth and push down.  I can get him almost to the ground but not all the way.  I push with two hands and use all my strength.  Nope, his legs that are flailing around so much they could be used as an outboard motor on a boat are still dangling six inches from the ground.  Too bad Eliana’s not here, with her strength she could probably do it.
     
    “What is going on?  Put me down!” Taz screams in that irritatingly high pitch he gets when he’s upset.
     
    I scowl at him.  “What do you think I’m trying to do?”
     
    “I think you are trying to kill me slowly and painfully.  First you fill me with dark magic and now you are going to float me away, doomed to starvation since I cannot scavenge for food from up here!”
     
    “Quit being so dramatic.  Just give me a minute to figure this out.”  Where had the spell gone wrong?  Usually when spells pop into my head, they do the right thing.  Not today obviously.
     
    “Oy, I don’t feel well,” Taz says.
     
    He doesn’t look well.  If I could see his skin under all that black fur I bet it would be green.  He’s foaming at the mouth and his eyes are kind of cross-eyed.  He starts a hacking cough like a cat with a hair ball and I back up a couple feet, not wanting him to throw up on me.  “Are you going to be sick?” I ask.
     
    He doesn’t even bother to look at me.  His cough intensifies to a crescendo and then a horrid smelling black smoke comes out of his mouth.  A lot of it.  I take a couple more steps back, not wanting to get the smell or the smoke on me.  I’m assuming that’s the smoke is the darkness I gave him.
     
    After a final hack, Taz falls to the ground with a thud.  He’s so exhausted from his coughing fit, he doesn’t even complain about the three foot drop to the