Her smile was . . . malevolent. “There will always be a human looking for a fight,” she said. “And they’re rarely the only ones.”

I assumed she meant Sups and realized I hadn’t seen any others beyond me, her, and Black in this chaos.

And then I heard a new sound. A different sound.

I spun around, sword raised. This time, it wasn’t humans or vehicles aiming for me.

It was a very big cat. Tall and sleek with black fur, and nearly eight feet of muscled power. A black panther, or so it looked to me.

I froze, trying to understand what I was seeing. Was it a shifter? A hallucination? Because I hadn’t seen many panthers in the South Loop recently. I swallowed as it advanced, teeth bared and hissing, and maybe for the first time thought fondly of the smaller Eleanor of Aquitaine.

“Stay back,” I said, and sliced my katana through the air, the move sending a fresh wash of pain through my hip.

The panther ignored it, swiped (its paw as big as my head), and made an unearthly sound that was eerily human and had the hairs on the back of my neck lifting.

Zoo, I belatedly thought. The South Side Zoo. I hadn’t been there in years—there weren’t many animals left out after dark—but they’d had big cats. Had Rose managed the zoo escape? Or had she somehow directed the panther here to this spot and made it eager to attack a person?

Or was it just more of the improbable being made . . . actual?

Monster was eager to fight this one and tried to urge me forward, dared me to slice the panther through.

The cat swept its paw through the air again, this time catching me on the arm, raking its enormous claws across tender skin. I must have screamed and loosened my grip enough to allow monster to take control, to turn my eyes red.

The panther hesitated only for a moment before stalking toward me, hunger in its eyes. Monster spun my sword as my blood plinked to the sidewalk. It managed a slice against the panther’s front leg, putting the scent of new blood into the air.

But that only pissed it off. Its growl was low and deep, the warning obvious.

Another sour breeze lifted—the scent of demon magic. And chaos struck again.

Something hit me in the back, sent me stumbling forward. The bright shock of pain sent monster into the back corner of my consciousness. A brick, I thought. I’d been struck by a human with a damn brick.

I nearly dropped into the panther’s waiting jowls but managed to pivot and hit the ground on my back. Close enough to smell the musky tang of its fur. It screamed again and bounded.

I managed to get my sword up, its spine against the panther’s belly, pushing with all my strength to keep its snapping teeth and those damned claws off of me. I gathered all my strength—and the strength that monster could contribute—and shoved it off me. It struck concrete, then rose again, limping on its wounded leg and hissing with fury. Rose might have been directing it before, but now it was genuinely pissed.