Clawed by Zoo Demons

I had been so intent on the pursuit that I almost didn’t sense the warlock’s demons before their claws and fangs reached me. They were not large creatures, being perhaps a third my size—but they were equipped with hideously wide jaws and ripping claws, coupled with a squat and extremely powerful body. The nearest struck at my spine just above my tail with its jaws, and only a desperate roll kept it from getting hold of me. Instead, its teeth raked my haunch, slicing and burning with hot, bright pain.
The second demon simply clamped its wide jaws down on my right foreleg, all serrated sharpness and horrible pressure. I roared with pain and whirled to seek its throat—only to have My Shadow slam into my shoulder with his and send me sprawling.
The demons seized the opportunity with unearthly hunger, leaping onto me, fangs and claws tearing while I desperately tried to fend them off.
Worse, a third demon, driven by dark energy, bounded off into the brush.
“Good-bye, brother,” My Shadow said, his voice thick with satisfaction. “Three demons would certainly have ended your wizard, but I suppose one will do—as long as fortune is on its side.”
And he turned and vanished into the brush, already fading from my senses. I roared, a sound not too unlike the roar the lion had made for us earlier in the day, except that my roar was full of bright energy. That energy, focused all in one place, smashed into the demons’ false flesh like a sandblaster, stripping away the outer layers of the bodies they’d built from energy in order to walk in the mortal world. The impact shoved them back, and I used the brief opening to seize one by the throat and shake it in the ancient technique of my kind. I whipped it back and forth, once, twice, thrice. There was a satisfying sensation as I felt the demon’s neck snap, and then suddenly the demon was gone and my mouth was full of transparent, flavorless gelatin—the ectoplasm the demon had used to build its mortal shell.
But the second demon leapt onto my back as I did. Claws sank into my shoulders and haunches as its lethal jaws snapped down at the back of my neck. Pure terror washed through me along with the primal sensations of pain.
I didn’t give those jaws a chance to get hold of me. Instead I crashed out of the brush and flung my back against the nearest tree, smashing the demon into the trunk. I heard people scream and begin to run as, clear of My Shadow’s clouding influence, they saw plainly what was happening.
Uh-oh. Bad dog, Mouse. The demon let out a croaking scream at the impact but only clamped down tighter. So I slammed it against the tree again, dazing it. Then, harnessing energy in my breath once more, I bounded against one tree trunk, then another, then straight up into the air. Sometimes when My Friend and I went camping, I would do that and leap out over the lake, just to see how high I could get. My record was nearly twenty feet.
Of course, I hadn’t been terrified then. This was more like thirty. And I came down on my back.
There was a crunching sound, and suddenly the claws were gone and my back was marinating in ectoplasm.


Brief Cases, Zoo Day, Page 431-433