Lycan Legacy - Paladin: Tales of Luna White - Werewolf Veronica Singer (children's ebooks online txt) 📖

Maybe I could do something with the remaining gold coins—use magic to form them into a rod…

Then Silkworm stiffened under my hand, becoming rigid as a wooden rod several feet long.

Her knotted head popped up and wound around until she was in front of my face. The knotted ball had no eyes or features, but I felt she was looking at me.

Can you do this, Silkworm?

The tiny head nodded emphatically. In less than a second, Silkworm had formed a stiff horizontal loop with her knot in front. Her body stiffened until I had a three-foot length I could use to move her around. I stuffed her loop into my hijab and poked her out at head height.

After a two-second pause, I thought, Maybe they won’t shoot now that they know it’s a woman here.

A fusillade of shots rang out. Many missed my headpiece, but several whipped through the fabric, leaving holes where my head used to be.

Okay, not a chivalrous bunch. Maybe they would waste all their ammo on the decoy. I waved the headpiece around to attract more shots. That worked for a while, until one of the officers shouted a command and they held their fire.

They still had plenty of ammo and I didn’t have any more ideas. I pulled Silkworm back to safety and stroked her in thanks. “I’ll put you back in the bag,” I said. “They might ignore you after and you can get away.”

The knot shook her head strongly. Then she pulled more line from the bag and formed a triangle with the section of herself below the hijab. The rest of her length stiffened, making a pole almost six feet long.

What was she trying to say? The triangle and pole looked a lot like a coat rack. But I had no need for a—

As if exasperated, the tip of Silkworm’s tail tugged at my buttons, pulling my abaya open.

“You can do that?” I asked as understanding dawned.

She nodded again. I leaned her against the pillar and stripped off my abaya, leaving me in panties.

As I pulled the abaya over Silkworm, she formed two more horizontal loops, one at breast height and one at hip height.

“I think the loops should be smaller,” I whispered. Silkworm shook her non-existent head and forced them larger. We ended up with a comically exaggerated wire-frame mannequin wearing my clothes.

“You’ll look stiff; they’ll know right away that you’re not—”

The head, breast, and hip loops shifted in a supple movement, as if dancing to unheard music, and for an instant I was convinced the outfit held a real woman.

“But you can’t walk,” I protested.

Instead of answering, Silkworm pushed herself upright away from the pillar. Her remaining length slithered on the ground as if she were a giant snake and the mannequin was her head.

Then she slid out from behind the pillar and started strutting toward the armed groups.

She was four or five meters away from my hiding spot when multiple shots rang out. The thwipping sound as the bullets passed through the fabric of my outfit sent shivers down my spine. How many shots could Silkworm take before her rope body was ruined?

“Luna, we’re coming out!” shouted Mike at the sound of the shots. My crazy hero was ready to rush into a hail of bullets to save me.

“No, Mike,” I shouted. “They’re shooting at Silkworm. I’m still safe. Give it a minute.”

“Who the hell’s Silkworm?” muttered Manny. There would be a lot of holes in his memory when this was over.

I crouched and stuck my head out from behind the pillar. Silkworm had made it another five meters, but the shots were continuing. Concentrated fire was shredding my outfit—and Silkworm. No matter how slim she was, a few of those shots had to be hitting. I thought she must be ready to drop.

But no, she had merely waited for them all to open fire.

She zipped forward with inhuman grace and speed to place herself directly between the two groups.

I shook my head in amazement as the two groups continued to fire at Silkworm. Only now, any shots that passed through her form went on to hit the opposite group.

Target fixation was forcing these men to shoot each other. My inner wolf snorted with glee.

Silkworm finally collapsed. My heart dropped at the sight of my teammate collapsing. Could she recover?

There were three armed men remaining in the leftmost group, and two on the right. All others were down, bleeding out from friendly-fire wounds. They all appeared to be in shock at this turn of events. They just needed a little push.

“Manny! Set off the demo on the inner and outer walls and prepare to get out of here.”

The outer wall went first with a thunderous blast that blew stone and cement hundreds of feet through the air. I hoped no innocent bystanders were in the path.

All the soldiers jerked around at the sound. They must have thought a mortar round had struck nearby.

Then the inner wall erupted in an equally thunderous explosion. Now it appeared the ‘mortars’ were getting closer. As one, the remaining men threw their arms to the ground and fled screaming.

I was thankful for the automatic sound-dampening spell that protected my ears from the noise. In the ringing silent aftermath, I stood and stepped from behind the pillar.

“Come on out, guys,” I said. “I think we’re clear to go.”

Mike exited first, followed by Manny. Logan was stirring, and Alisha was sobbing uncontrollably under her hood.

True to their training, each moved to stand behind one of the pillars. I stepped to Mike’s position and stroked Logan’s head, crooning him back to sleep. His head drooped back down, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Manny shook his head, like a fighter who had taken one punch too many. “You’re naked. Where are your clothes?”

“I’m not naked; I still have my panties on,” I said with a sniff. “Anyway, I used my abaya as a decoy.”

“And you were naked underneath?”

“What? It was hot out, and I never