Southwest Days (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 2) by Kal Aaron (best book recommendations TXT) 📕

Lyssa pointed her guns at the wall and ran to the other side of the room. “Looks like we’re not done, though I wonder if whoever made these things made them that purposeful about guarding the eggs.”

“Does it matter?” Jofi asked.

“If I kill them all, I guess not.”

Another thud sounded. A huge hole blew open in the wall, and a large dark pointed leg came through. It looked similar to what she’d seen on the snake-roaches, but the curved tip alone was the length of an entire leg of the egg guardians. The monsters came in small, large, and super sizes.

The chamber shook as something pounded the wall, raining down dirt and rock. An avalanche buried one side of the chamber as the wall gave way and a massive snake-roach crashed through to reveal a vast cavern beyond the hatchery. Unlike the other monsters, this one had a bulbous end. At least she’d found the source of the eggs.

“They keep you locked up in another room and just carry the eggs out?” Lyssa looked over the length of the creature. “It sucks to be you, Your Highness, but hey, we all have our problems.”

She looked behind her. The tunnel she’d used to enter the hatchery was partially buried, leaving a narrow slit. The necessary spells would take too long to cast with a monster going after her. She needed to finish off the queen with what she had available.

Lyssa aimed her guns at the queen’s mouth. “No, turns out it sucks to be me.”

Chapter Eleven

Whatever doubt Lyssa had about a rogue being involved had vanished. The setup of the colony was unnatural, even before considering the creatures. There was no way they’d dug there from another location with so many creatures and bred so quickly without someone noticing. The convenience of them being in a mine was hard to ignore.

She didn’t have much time to think about it as the queen lumbered toward her. Each step was a loud crunch in the remnants of the hatchery. This abomination needed to be ended.

Lyssa grimaced at the huge mouth. The damned thing could swallow her whole if she wasn’t careful. She fired a couple of shots, hoping the queen was as weak as the rest of the swarm. The creature twitched and reared back before crashing forward and almost crushing the Sorceress.

“Damn it.”

Raking her side with gunfire didn’t help much. Her attacks left dripping wounds, but they weren’t slowing the queen down. The monster whipped toward Lyssa and charged with its mouth open. She sprinted out of the way.

The queen collided with the wall, knocking off more rocks and shaking the chamber. Lyssa fell but rolled back to her feet and took a couple of shots at the rear of the queen and what she assumed was an ovipositor. The attack provoked another angry charge.

The giant monster wasn’t any more intelligent than her progeny, but her size made up for it. Lyssa couldn’t risk being careless, and right now, the only hope she had was to put more rounds into her royal opponent.

Lyssa sprinted toward a nearby remnant of a mound and hopped on top with a grunt. She spun and jumped toward the queen, clearing the top of her head and running along her back while firing her pistols into her body. The queen reared back and bucked Lyssa off, sending her hard into a wall.

Pain shot through the Sorceress’ back. With a hiss, she slid down the wall. Her opponent thrashed, flinging thick green blood everywhere.

She had no idea where the brain was in the snake-roaches or if they even had one. Firing through their mouths had killed them, but she’d put plenty of rounds into the queen’s mouth without doing anything but annoying the creature. The queen wasn’t even slower than before.

Taking advantage of the queen’s distraction, Lyssa rushed toward the open chamber. A sickening odor greeted her arrival, along with the splash of her boots in the shallow pool of thick green fluid covering the floor. There were no eggs left in the chamber except for the rapidly deflating victim of her earlier attack.

The bleeding queen battered through a cracked mound and turned toward her original chamber. Having to jog backward in deepening fluid slowed Lyssa’s progress, but it gave her enough time to eject her empty magazines and load ablative rounds into one pistol and penetrators into another.

Lyssa expected another charge from the queen. Instead, the wounded monster swayed, its mouth half-closed as if waiting for something. Was it charging up some sort of attack?

“It’d be really helpful if you would die already,” Lyssa said. “You’re just embarrassing yourself now.”

She backed up some more, grateful to find the fluid shallower toward the other end of the chamber, but that left her soaked to her waist. After this was over, she’d need to down every herb she had from Tricia and ask for a few more to make sure she didn’t end with some nasty disease.

The queen advanced, taking one slow step toward Lyssa. Her mouth opened again. Without an attack in progress, Lyssa could see the sheer size of her fangs. She didn’t want to test her regalia or vest against teeth that were half her height.

“Okay, you don’t regenerate, and you’re just big.” Lyssa scoffed. “You’re not even that fast. I’m not some unarmed twenty-year-old internet star, you slimy bitch. I’m going to die someday, probably violently and doing Torch work, but damned if I’ll let myself get swallowed by an overgrown snake-roach. Even if you do, I’m going to make sure you have the worst case of indigestion ever.”

The queen advanced, her tail swishing behind her and knocking rubble and dead kin out of the way. All her earlier hurry had vanished.

Was she dying? Lyssa didn’t believe it. But she also wasn’t mindlessly charging like earlier.

No. She was being careful.

The monster thought she had the advantage in her chamber. She’d felt