Free Heartache High by Jon Jacks Page B

so that a part of her was briefly
visible here; just alongside you, though you didn’t know it. So we
made a grab for her, and dragged her in here with us!’
    ‘Is that
possible?’ It still doesn’t make any sense to me. ‘For her to be in
here?’
    ‘No, of course
it isn’t!’
    ‘What do you
mean? But she is here!’
    ‘Well, even the you standing here, Steph,’ Jassy explains, ‘isn’t the complete you, is it?’
    ‘Your body’s
still out there, for instance,’ Dave adds helpfully. ‘But what’s
here is just enough of you to fully represent the whole
you.’
    ‘And this is
just a small part of Panthia; but enough of her to control her. The
same way a brain surgeon can manipulate the whole body by tweaking
a minute part of the brain.’
    ‘When a hologram
smashes, each fragment still contains a picture of the whole
thing.’
    ‘Try it, Steph!’
Jassy urges. ‘See if you can get back control of your
body!’
    I look through
my eyes into the room once more.
    Iain has his
head tipped back.
    The incubus is
crouched over him, its hands holding him firmly as it gradually
forces its writhing, serpentine tail into his mouth.
    ‘Stop it! Let
him go!’ I say yet again.
    Lamia
laughs.
    I tense my
muscles, feeling them reacting to my thoughts at last.
    Then I throw
myself across the floor towards Iain.
     
     
    *

Chapter 26
     
    I crash hard
into Iain’s seated, sleeping body.
    It’s enough to
send him flying from the chair.
    I follow after
him, the chair tumbling across the floor with us.
    The lighter,
more insubstantial incubus hangs behind us in the air. Great
lengths of its immensely long tail come spiralling out of Iain’s
gagging mouth, but its end is still deeply embedded within
him.
    Iain wakes up.
His eyes widen in horror as he sees and feels the ghostly
monstrosity snaking from his mouth.
    I grasp the
strangely wet coils, pulling hard at them to pull the tail free of
Iain’s mouth.
    The wraith leaps
on me from behind, wrapping its arms around me in an attempt to
pull me away.
    Iain’s still
shocked, terrified. But he also begins to wrench the winding coils
from his mouth, until at last the tail’s thinner ends are spooling
out.
    With a
spluttering, gagging retch, Iain coughs the evilly barbed end
free.
    I’ve ignored the
clawing hands of the incubus clasped around my shoulders long
enough.
    I try and reach
up to pull him off, but he bats my arms away and shuffles to one
side.
    Unbalanced, I
begin to topple over until Iain rushes to my aid, grabbing the
writhing demon by what passes for its waist and fiercely tugging on
it.
    It screeches. It
lashes out.
    With a final,
vigorous wrench, Iain pulls the demon away from me. Whirling
around, drawing on the momentum of his hard wrench, Iain throws the
incubus off to one side.
    Almost
weightless, it flies through the air. It crashes against an
elaborate display of yard-long arrows, the shafts scattering,
snapping, interlocking and entangling.
    The incubus
wails as the massed arrows pierce it, pinning it amongst the
shattered display.
    ‘Fortunately for
you, my son can’t be killed so easily.’
    Lamia is calmly
making her way back from the potion cabinet.
    She’s carrying a
stoppered bottle of urine-coloured liquid, as if she’s been coolly
mixing a new potion as we fought the incubus.
    ‘The amusements
over, I think,’ she declares firmly, pulling her arm back in
readiness to throw the potion at us.
    ‘No, stop!’ I
shout, raising a hand. ‘Stop if you care for your
daughter!’
    ‘Panthia?
Obviously, dear, you’ve managed to briefly wrest control off her;
but she’s a big girl now, and perfectly capable of looking after
herself.’
    She says it all
completely nonchalantly, like she doesn’t care.
    But she hasn’t
just held back from throwing the potion; she’s lowered her arm,
giving me the impression that she’s prepared to talk.
    That she’s not
quite as confident about her daughter’s wellbeing as she’s trying
to make