Read Vessel: The Demontouched Saga (Book 4) for Free Online Page B

them.”
    Bert leans over to shake Nal’s hand while Ralph shakes mine.
    “How do we contact you if there is a problem?” Bert asks.
    Nal pulls a metal case out of his pocket, then hands him a business card from inside. “Phone is on all the time.”
    Bert smiles, pulling a scrap of paper out of his pocket to hand it to Nal. “Here’s mine,” he says. “Wife’s rather. I hate technology.”
    Nal laughs. “Gotcha.”
    I stand up, ready to make the trip back home. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but feeling that this is a wasted day. Not that we didn’t get something important done because we did. But if I had known things would have gone down without a hitch I would have spent the day with Sara. Get a little alone time with her.
    “What the hell is that?” Bert asks, falling on the ground after tripping on a rock.
    I turn around, seeing what he is talking about. Behind us, approaching the north gate are three of the ugliest dogs I’ve ever seen. They are definitely the biggest. Not every day you see three dogs the size of elephants.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    - 7 -
     
     
     
     
     
    “Find some cover!” I yell, running away from the snarling beasts. From far away, they almost look like normal dogs. Until they were up on the fence, that is. Once their skin touches the metal it glows a bright red color, almost like it is getting hot. I watch in horror as I see the metal links of the fence turn a shade of yellow before slowly changing to orange.
    “They are melting the fence!” Ralph says, helping Burt to his feet.
    “Why didn’t you tell me about these things?” Nal says. He pulls his gun out, firing off a few shots while he backpedals towards the plant.
    “First I’ve seen of them,” I say, pulling out my sword. I’m not sure what I’m facing here, or if this will even work, but I do know I don’t want to risk losing my knife to one of them. With any luck, they won’t be able to melt whatever the hell metal they used to create this sword.
    It doesn’t take them long to melt through the fence, adding three large holes to the one we left in the back. Going to need to make a trip to Home Depot later to fix this.
    Saying we survive.
    Behind me, I can hear two distinct groups of gunfire. To my left, my team is mainly equipped with small arms weapons, so the shots are coming one at a time. To the right, I can tell they managed to find a cache of semi-automatic weaponry thanks to their rate of fire.
    The dogs seem to split up as they close in. One heading towards Bert’s men, another to our men, the last one wants me. Guess it’s time to see what these puppies are made of.
    Grasping the blade with two hands, I square up to the dog in front of me. It stops about five yards way to snarl, forcing me to jump back when it lifts its front paws up in the air. Some of its spittle rains down on the surrounding ground, causing it to smoke and burn.
    Well great. Not only can they melt metal by touching it, they have some lava-acid spit. One of these days I’m going to find whoever created these creatures and shove my angel blade straight up their ass.
    Just need to live long enough to do it.
    I rush forward, swinging my blade in a wide arc as the dog drops to the ground. The tip of the sword catching it in the leg sending some of its lava blood on the ground in front of it. The beast lets out a loud howl before bending over to lick the wound.
    I nearly shit myself when it finally stops, lifts up its head, and roars at me. Looking down, I notice his leg isn’t bleeding anymore. I guess I should be thankful that I don’t have to dodge those fireballs too, but it would be nice if I could add to the cut. Looks like you have to take these things down in one shot.
    The beast rears back again before leaping my way. I roll to my right, narrowly avoiding his claws. I hold my ground as he circles around me, waiting for its time to strike. After ten seconds of Ring Around the Rosie, it turns at me and charges,