Monster Mansion 2 by Dante King (best way to read ebooks .txt) 📗

“Got it,” she hissed in satisfaction. A gleaming light washed over the surface of the chest, and there was a satisfying jingling noise. Sarah grinned. “Just like in a game,” she said.

With a grunt, she stood and hauled the heavy crate lid open. It dropped back against the wall with a bang.

“It’s full of gold!” said Sarah with delight.

Todd and Josh ran over to have a look, and they both laughed out loud when they saw the stacks of heavy coins, all thick yellow gold and gleaming in the torchlight.

There was a popping noise from behind them.

“What the fuck…?” Todd said as three black openings appeared in the air ten feet away.

“More monsters!” Josh said. “You must have triggered them by getting the chest lid open!”

“They’ll be even more ‘triggered’ when I get through with ‘em,” Sarah growled. Her two-handed sword was in her hand again, as she turned to face the new enemies.

“What the hell are they?” Todd yelled.

“I don’t know,” Sarah said, taking up her battle stance, “but I’m gonna kill them anyway!”

From the black spaces in the air, three giant cat-like forms leaped. They were spitting and hissing as they came on, their mouths red and full of teeth. Blue lightning crackled over their fur, and their eyes glowed yellow.

Josh raised his crossbow, but one of the giant creatures raised its head and blasted him with a jet of ice-blue light, hitting him square in the chest.

“Arrrgh!” Josh yelled as he tumbled backward. The crossbow bolt fired, but it hung frozen in the air as if it had been caught there by some immovable force. Ice dripped from it.

“They’ve got a Frostbreath spell!” Todd shouted as he ran over to his brother. Josh was down, clutching at his chest. The upper half of his body was encased in ice.

One of the big cats— they were cougars, Sarah realized as they came closer— leaped toward Josh and Todd. The other two descended on Sarah.

She dropped and rolled toward them as the two Frostbreath Cougars blasted their icy breath at her. The streams crossed, creating a whirling vortex of freezing death above her head. As she rolled, she felt the freezing air just above her but managed to avoid touching it.

The Cougars were fast, but they weren’t expecting her to roll toward them. Sarah got under one of them and stabbed upward with her sword, taking the monster in the throat. Ice crackled down the length of her blade as she pushed it through the creature’s neck and then wrenched it back out. When her blade was free of the dying creature she leaped up and whirled, her blade just missing the second cougar by inches.

Behind her, Todd yelled out, “Help!”

Sarah had no choice; she had to turn and see what was happening. The cougar that attacked Josh had leaped on Todd and bowled him over. He had been crouched over his brother, healing him with a spell, but now he rolled away, grappling with the cougar hand to claw.

Sarah staggered forward as the other cougar’s weight hit her in the back. Her knees hit the ground, but the steep plating on her armor stopped the creature’s teeth as it bit her neck. If it wasn’t for her armor she would have been a dead woman.

Her sword was no use— she couldn’t reach the creature with it. She dropped it with a clang, reached over her shoulders, and grabbed the Cougar by its front paws. She wrenched it forward and over her head, slamming its back onto the ground.

It writhed up, ready to come at her again, but she kicked it hard in the head with her steel boot. There was a satisfying snap as her kick connected, and the cougar reeled backward. That was all the time she needed.

With all the speed she could muster, Sarah grabbed up her long sword and flew at the cougar, driving the point forward. The monster grappled with her, batting the blade away and then hitting her full in the chest with a blast of Frostbreath.

Sarah flew backward through the air. She lost her sword, then slammed into the wall above the chest of gold coins. As she slid to the ground, she fell into the chest and tipped it over, spilling coins everywhere. Her helmet came off and rolled away, releasing her long hair and leaving her face and neck exposed. She could hear Todd yelling in pain and fear, and the cougar that was attacking him growling ferociously, but all she could see was the other cougar bounding toward her with fury in its blazing eyes and its ravening jaws wide to rend her. The ice from the Cougar’s blast had chilled her to the bone, but her enchanted armor had deflected most of the actual damage.

There was a spear leaning against the wall next to her.

She could have sworn it had not been there before, and yet there it was now, four feet of straight ash staff topped with a vicious barbed point of gleaming steel. Her gauntleted fist closed around it and she rolled upward into a crouching fighter’s stance.

The cougar leaped through the air, all deadly claws and wide jaws. Sarah had one shot at this. With all the force she could muster, she slammed the point of the spear into the creature’s mouth. It punched through the roof of the mouth, into the brain, and out the back of the head.

At the same time, a boom reverberated through the chamber, and then another one. Sarah shoved the impaled cougar backward and flung it away from her before she turned.

Josh was on his knees, a smoking gun in each hand. He had managed to unsheathe his huge Colts and use the last rounds to shoot the cougar