She looked up. Raz had pulled the tarp from the fallen woman and thrown it to snare a clutch of demons. Legs and mandibles pierced fabric, but before they could fight free he smashed the tarp against the deck. Glass spines cracked. A bug landed on Raz’s scalp and clawed bloody strips away. He screamed. Cat leapt, clubbed the thing off him, and it burst into a shower of sharp dust. Blood streamed down his forehead.

They stood ringed by unconscious former demon-hosts, and twenty-five glass insects, now the size of toddlers and still growing. Spindly limbs merged and thickened. Plates of mirrored chitin sprouted between joints. Ruby eyes grew further facets. Claws lengthened and serrated.

Too many to fight.

Raz bared his fangs.

She didn’t know how strong he was. But he could bleed. And they could cut him.

They could cut her, too, even through the Suit. This many, they could tear off her arms like children plucking daisy petals. But she could kill—not all of them, the distributed tactical mind of Justice told her. Skill, speed, and strength went only so far against sheer numbers. But she could take many with her.

She spread her arms in front of Raz. In one hand she held her truncheon. Her other hand’s fingers lengthened into claws.

Come on, she told them in the Suit’s silver-coated nightmare voice. Maybe demons had bad dreams too. Show me what you’ve got.

They stared at her, opened mandibles, wriggled razor mouthparts.

She tightened her grip on the truncheon.

The demons’ wings snapped wide, and as one they flew.

They boiled toward the opening of the hold, still growing. Claws scrabbled against timber, and they were out. She ran after them. With a leap she caught the slowest demon’s trailing leg; if she’d touched it barehanded its edges would have laid open her palm, but the Suit let her hold it, let her catch its wing too, both of them spinning above the deck of the Dream. The demon’s head rotated on its neck; fangs snapped, but she was too close for them to bite deep. Its claws, though, could. They tightened like a diamond-tipped vise. One talon tore a line in her Suit. The fluid flowed free of its claw to mend the gap, but not before its talon plunged beneath, exploring her flesh.

She wrapped her arms around the demon’s belly and squeezed. Glass squealed, popped, shattered. The Suit closed her wound. She fell, turning, turning, and slammed into the deck. Glass shards rained onto her, melting as they fell. Above, unfolded demons flew. Their wings rainbowed streetlamp light and beat dragonfly fast, gaining altitude, flying inland.

“Ma’am?”