“You are an inconvenient lot,” Ripper agreed. “But this town is my home as much as it is yours. I’m here to protect it.” He held up a horn with a twisted mouthpiece that Jonathan immediately recognized. “And if I ruin that twat Angelus’s precious club while I’m at it, then all the better. Someone ought to get their money’s worth out of this thing.”

Ripper pressed the Ram’s Horn horn to his mouth. His cheeks puffed with a huge inhalation and then deflated in a piercing shriek that sounded unlike any instrument Jonathan had ever heard. Ripper and Jonathan stood frozen for a moment, the only two people inert in the chaos.

From concrete floor to corrugated iron roof, the Bronze shuddered. In a room full of Californians, everyone knew the feeling of an impending earthquake. Some demons shunted themselves into doorframes or dove beneath the bar tables. But most just rode out the wave, hoping that today wasn’t the day they broke off into the ocean.

Beneath the Mayor, the stage cracked apart. The podium and Jeff the secretary fell into the newly opened abyss. The Mayor levitated to save himself, although not even floating above the wreckage could save him from the inescapable stink that emanated from the fissure and filled the club. Sulfur and manure and wet fur.

And then out poured a stampede of horrible, hellish animals. Sheep, goats, cows, llamas, pigs, and—

“Bunnies!”

Anya’s bloodcurdling scream drew Jonathan’s focus. He could see her, climbing up on a pool table to escape a throng of giant rabbits that tore into anything that dared get close enough to them. The loan shark Bro’os let out an agonized scream as one of the bunnies chomped a hunk out of his leg.

Leaving Ripper cackling with delight, Jonathan ran as fast as he could, praying that he had enough extension cord to stay plugged into the wall. He dove out of the way of a midnight-blue cow with a shrieking bone bat impaled on its horns. A screaming alpaca unhinged its jaw so that it dropped open to its waist like a PEZ dispenser ready for loading.

The berserk bunnies loped and growled below the pool table Anya stood on, seemingly scenting her fear. The curved ax she’d been carrying before the battle lay on the floor, out of her reach. The bunnies tromped on it, unbothered by the blade. Twitching blue-gray muzzles were stained with blood of all colors. Jonathan tried not to think about the cartoon rabbits of his childhood nightmares. Not even when the bunnies bared their sharp buckteeth at him.

“Anya, get back!” he called, aiming the shrink ray low to the ground at the vicious fluffies.