The Kid Lich Book 2

The Kid Lich Book 2 10 Will P.

I Hate these Sphucking Sphinx

"Billy, wake up!" Billy woke up in the shotgun seat of their car to pure pandemonium. There was a cacophony of noise, the beating of feathery wings smacking the car, tons of ruckus and terrible squawking, the gods-awful sound of razor-shop claws scraping against steel and glass. Billy had instinctively thrown his arms up around his head; despite the creatures not having entered the car yet. The car was still moving, so that was probably a good sign.

"What the fuck are those things?!" Billy had to yell at Khonshu who was only feet away from him. "Swarm of baby sphinxes! I've never seen 'em in North America before!" Billy yelled back: "Anything I should know?!" "Especially vicious! They have ravenous appetites; they tend to swarm pray and rip them apart!"

After Khonshu said this, Billy nodded at him, and believed he successfully conveyed with a look: It's too damn loud to talk in here. Billy held up his hand in a stop sign. Stop the car. Khonshu shrugged at him and turned his palms upward: What? Why? Bad idea! Billy thought the charades would be funny if they weren't in such serious danger. If the chassis of the car gave out... Billy pointed at himself, then at Khonshu, then pointed his index and middle fingers down and mimed a man walking. Khonshu rolled his hand at him: Yeah, we go out... and?

Billy pointed and mouthed sharply: You, me. He mimed boxing, then pointed back and forth between them again, then sat forward square in his seat and adopted a dedicated fighting stance. The message was supposed to be: You, me. Fighting. Better at it holding still. Khonshu took a beat then comprehension dawned on his face, his eyes and eyebrows went up and he pointed up with his index finger: I get the message. He slowed the car to a stop.

It's worth noting that the quantity of these things was considerable. And what exactly were these things anyway? Billy had been thinking. With the car stopped and the two supernaturals prepping themselves for combat, Billy studied the creatures as best he could. They were the size of medium-small sized dogs, or teenage lion cubs. Most were all jet black; a few were dark beige or mahogany brown. Their body was similar to that of a jungle cat too, but only the back feet were like paws with the claws big cats have.

Their front feet were sharper talons, like those of a bald eagle. The wings were also like an eagle or large bird of prey, just large enough to make the creature fly. The head was awful, it mostly just resembled what Billy thought hyenas looked like? He'd never really seen one. The teeth, however, were much sharper fangs, like a cat's. The eyes were unremarkable only in that they were so totally black to the point one couldn't even discern any features like a pupil, an iris, or the whites. Just black glass balls.

Khonshu yelled over: "I'm gunna stay in the car! Kill them with cards thrown through a slit in a window!" Billy gave him a thumbs up and yelled: "Okay, good idea! Don't ever say naps are worthless! Check out what I just learned how to do!" Billy sat back in his seat, closed his eyes, and focused his magical energy into his skeleton, having it generate and light itself with his second natural brand of magic: endurance magic. Once he had the skeleton set, he started building out the hard black carapace, and after a few minutes, he looked exactly like himself except his skin was now dark black with dark grey tones and if one looked closely they could see a faint deep vermillion glow coming from out from openings like the nostrils and ears. Billy tried to lower the sun visor and flip the mirror out to see himself; he went to grab it like normal and just completely crushed and mangled the thing immediately. This told him his weight and density had vastly increased, easily 100 – 175x his normal lich body.

"Ohhhh, this is gunna work." Billy got out of the car and reshut the door, gently, before any sphinxes could fly in. They all started swarming him immediately, biting, scratching, clawing. Billy couldn't feel any of it at all. He felt fine. He felt like he was just standing outside. In fact, he looked closer and could see that the sphinxes were actually sanding down their teeth and claws on his armor. This confirmed the armor had an incredibly high hardness rating, like diamond.

Meanwhile, from the other side of the car, Khonshu had been downing one after another with a lethally accurate consecutive series of one-hit kills. His pile was easily past the 30s, rapidly approaching the 50s. Billy hoped he didn't run out of cards; though he supposed they were retrievable. Although, in his current state he'd probably ruin—"ARE YOU GUNNA DO SOMETHING?!" Khonshu bellowed from inside the now sealed again car.

"Huh? Oh, right. The dangerous thing that's happening right now. My bad." Billy did what felt intuitive: he just started grabbing sphinxes out of the air. Whatever part of their bodies he grabbed instantly crumbled crushed and fractured under the weight and density of the armor. This wasn't so hard, Billy would've estimated maybe 90 to 110, 120, sphinxes, after he and Khonshu carried on this way for a bit they were down to the last handful each. Billy crushed the last few and then did a pass on all their bodies to give a good stomp to anything that looked like it still had something in it. After this, he released his armor magic – it was incredibly demanding on one's mental focus to maintain – and approached Khonshu's window. With an attempt at brevity in light of what just happened, he mimed rolling it down. Khonshu didn't miss a beat. "What seems to be the officer, problem?" Billy gave a good chuckle at this comment which turned into a long outward sigh that ended "HAAhhhhhahhhhh..... yeahhhhhh...... We're gunna need a new ride." End of Pt. 10