And then the rest were giving chase again.

“Petra!” I called out, hoping she’d had time to recharge.

I kept my eyes on the monsters until she lit a spark—a bright blue flame that burned in her palm—and threw it at a charging rhinoceros that was a yard away from her. It jagged through the air on a strangely angular path before striking the rhino in the head.

With a tremendous crack, its head split from its body and dropped to the ground, its lifeless eyes staring up. Both pieces went still, frozen into stone again.

“Damn,” Petra said after she’d walked over and looked down at the granite carnage. “That’s more horrifying than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah,” I said, and tried not to think about the call the mayor was going to make about ruined sculptures.

“Duck!” she called out.

I did, heard the whoosh of air as something big and heavy swung over my head. I hit the ground and rolled just in time to avoid the gorilla’s pounding fist. It had made no sound in its approach, and I hadn’t even heard the grinding rock over the near-constant thunder.

The pounding left a foot-deep hole in the soil, right where my head had been.

I vaulted back to my feet, ducked again as it swung its other arm. As it shifted its weight, I pivoted close enough to smell its sulfurous stench, tried to shove it onto its side.

It didn’t move an inch.

It flung back an arm, and then I was airborne. I hit the ground hard, was glad at least for rain-softened grass, but still needed a moment to unscramble my brain.

These things have to have a weakness, I thought, climbing to my feet again and immediately jumping to the side as it ran toward me. A path here rose to crest the central hill in a series of steps . . . and I realized the creatures’ fundamental flaw.

Physics.

I jumped over the rail and began to climb the stairs, heard only the light swish of grass as the creature tracked me. We reached the top nearly at the same moment. I stood there, watching as it pivoted to face me, and opened its arms to take me down

I waited until I could hear the slide of stone against stone, until it was leaning toward me—and then I dropped back. With nothing but air to grab, it tripped down one step, and then gravity picked up the fight, pulling it down riser after riser until it moved like a boulder, rolling head over feet. It hit the pavement with a bright, tremendous crack and shattered into a shower of pieces.

I took one breath, turned back toward my companions just as Petra sent a bolt into a wild boar that shattered it right down the middle. But I didn’t see Theo.

“Damn,” I said, and ran to the lookout at the edge of the hill.

Relief swamped me when I saw Theo climbing toward me in the grass, the bear close on his heels. But the rain had slopped up the grass, and the animal couldn’t get traction on the incline, which put a gap between them.