Tempt the Stars

“Don’t touch it!” as I recognized the problem. A filmy strand had wrapped its way across the front of his clothes, as well. Which wouldn’t have been an issue except for all the guns and belts and holsters he had holding said clothes to his body. And the fact that the strand appeared to have the tensile strength of solid steel.
    “Take them off!” I told him, grabbing the front of his jeans. “Take everything off!”
    “I’m trying!”
    “Try harder!” I said as he jerked to the left, sliding us around in a half circle on the slimy ground, just before another potion bomb exploded where we’d been sitting. Fortunately, it hit a rock and flowed the other way, trapping maybe three yards’ worth of leaves and making it look like a giant spider had been nesting in the area. And it was only going to get worse.
    Pritkin must have thought the same, because he grabbed my hands, which had somehow gotten his belt off and were working on the bandolier, and shook me hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Get out of here!”
    “Make me!” I snarled, and ripped the bandolier off, roughly enough to make him curse.
    Too bad; he’d recover from some bruises. Unlike other things, I thought, glancing up to see that the toddler two-step covered ground pretty damned fast. And worse, the creature was rearing back to throw again, and we were running out of places to go.
    I did what I should have done before and snatched one of the guns from Pritkin’s belt. It looked like a .22, little and silver colored and unremarkable. It didn’t look like it had any business fighting anything, much less demons. But maybe it would slow that thing down.
    Only not if it was slammed to the ground first.
    “What are you doing?” I demanded as Pritkin glared at me. “Shoot the damned thing!”
    “Yes, shooting something made out of battle potions is a good plan,” he snarled.
    Only it looked like somebody else thought so. The words had barely left his mouth when something pinged off the Tin Man’s shiny chest plate. And then something else ripped off its hat. And then Pritkin cursed and grabbed me.
    “Run!”
    “Where?”
    “Anywhere!”
    And I tried. But before I could move, three things happened at once. A bunch of dark silhouettes shot out of the tree line, the creature lobbed its potion, and Pritkin gave a massive jerk on what turned out to be the end of the line of party favors.
    And oh, shit.
    If I’d thought the last trip to childhood bliss had been hell, it was nothing compared to this one. I kind of wondered about magical parents who thought that giving their kids an acid trip as a toy was a fun idea. But then, I guess you weren’t supposed to set off a case all at once.
    It felt like my body was trying to turn inside out. It felt like all my internal organs had turned to mush. It felt like a fun-house mirror looks, with everything pulling into weird, distorted shapes and patterns. I’d have been sick if I still had a working stomach; I’d have screamed if I could have remembered how.
    As it was, I just lay in the muck and watched the vamps stumble around, because it seemed to work on them, too.
    The elegant, deadly horde had fallen out of stealth mode like they’d hit a wall. And were currently in wobbly-legged party mode, which was a lot less impressive. It would have been good times if the creature had been stumbling around, too.
    Unfortunately, the toys didn’t seem to bother it at all. Pritkin noticed, and slurred something drunkenly, but I didn’t hear most of it over the screaming toys and the yelling vamps. But the next second he was free, and naked except for the ass-kicking boots. Which I hoped were about to live up to their name. Because the latest potion bomb hit down as he reached for the weapons he’d shucked off, forcing him to jerk back empty-handed.
    He didn’t try again.
    He snatched me up, got an arm around my waist, and we stumbled for the tree line.
    And weirdly enough, the fact that neither of us could manage to walk in a straight line actually helped. Nets hit down in front of us, in back of us, and to either side, but not on us. Like maybe the creature couldn’t figure out where we were going, either.
    But while we might be drunkenly reeling all over the place, we were reeling fast. Pritkin put on an extra burst of speed as we approached the trees, and I was right there with him. We were almost to the thicker part of the woods now, where any net would tangle in the branches before it could