“Get back to safety. And stay there.” She doesn’t wait to see if I follow the order. She spins, and with a bounding run, throws herself at the nearest Blood Servant. She raises the knife high and brings it slicing down into his shoulder.

I back up slowly, the woman’s ferocity transfixing me. The craziness beyond her also draws my eye. The battle is now a chaos of unfettered violence. Clashing metal punctuates harsh cries and gurgling screams as soldiers and Blood Servants work hard to kill each other. Is this mayhem truly about me, a random new Channeler? Somehow, I don’t think so. This is the raving passion of hate. An antagonism that runs deep. I’m simply an excuse for the two sides to tear each other apart.

My cracked rib needles me with every breath, but adrenaline protects me from the worst. I’m able to ignore it. My body has always been fast to heal, so a bit of damage doesn’t worry me. Thanks to Mason and the crossbow, or possibly Laasya and her fellow witches, there remains a good ten-foot gap around the car. The young woman is forcing a route back to her fellow witches. With a flick of her wrist, she sends any Blood Servant who approaches her flying through the air and landing on the concrete with a thud. She doesn’t even glance their way. That is not a woman you want to mess with. An unassuming lioness in glasses, that one.

I back up toward the vehicle and turn to eye the enclosed interior. It looks…small. Flanagan admitted it isn’t vampire-proof. I’ll be a rabbit in a hole, waiting for claws to rip my cover off. Instead, I search around to see where the big guy is. When I spot him, the sight is so astonishing I stumble to a stop.

He’s at the far side of the grounds cutting a path straight through the middle of the turmoil like some merciless creature from hell.

Painted in the crimson streaks of his enemy’s blood, his expression wild with savage joy, he vaults from one kill to the next, his long hair flying around him in a halo of burnt gold. He jumps, grabs a Blood Servant’s head, rotates it on his way through the air, and pulls it clean off the neck. Then with the sure-footed grace of a tiger, he lands, tossing the head away like useless rubbish before leaping at another.

It’s an impossible technique. A man would need the strength of three bears, but Flanagan executes it with brutally efficient ease. It’s kind of magnificent.

For a moment, I’m unable to tear my eyes away.

Until another impossible sight distracts me. Wolves. Six of them, spread out through the bedlam around the commander. Massive, gray-haired, vicious-looking creatures, fighting on the side of the Guardians. Are they war animals? I know dogs are sometimes used that way. But wolves?

One launches itself at a Blood Servant, pins his sword arm with its immense jaws, and holds him still while a Guardian takes him out with a slash to the neck. The pair pounce on the next Servant, executing the same move as though they’ve practiced it a hundred times. It makes me wonder which side is winning this craziness. Surely the Guardians if they have freaking wolves fighting with them. As well as Flanagan, the one-man killing machine.