An insect leaped over the pile, aiming for me. I swung the shotgun up. The impact exploded the creature’s gut, spraying foul liquid over me. Bug juice burned my lips. Ugh.

A smaller insect dashed toward me. Sharp mandibles sliced at my leg. You bastard! Chief rammed the creature, ripping into the thing before I could sink a slug into it.

Boom! Boom!

I kept firing. Finally the revolting flood stopped. I waited, listening, but no more skittering came. My calf burned. The pain didn’t bother me too much, but I’d be leaving a blood trail, which would make me ridiculously easy to track. I had five shots left in the AA-12. No way to know if I had killed them all or if this was the calm before the second wave of insects. I had to get Mr. Haffey out of here.

He was sitting in the coal bin, staring at the pile of insect parts. “Damn. That’s some shooting.”

“We aim to please,” I told him.

“You aim like you mean business.”

Funny thing, praise. I knew I was a great shot, but hearing it from the PAD veteran made me all warm and fuzzy anyway. “Have you seen Mrs. Truman?”

“I saw her body. They ripped her to pieces, the assholes.”

Poor Mrs. Truman. “Can you walk?”

“The fuckers got me in the leg. I’m bleeding like a stuck pig.”

That’s why he’d hidden in the coal. He’d buried his leg in the coal dust to smother the scent. Smart. “Time to go, then.”

“You listen to me.” Mr. Haffey put some cop hardness into his gruff voice. “There’s no way for you to get me out. Even if I lean on you, I’m two hundred and twenty pounds and my weight will just take you down with me. Leave me a gun, and you get out of here. Kayla must’ve called over to the station. I’ll hold them off until…”

I swung the shotgun over my shoulder and picked him up out of the coal. I wasn’t as strong as a normal shapeshifter, although I was faster and more agile, but a two-hundred-pound man still wasn’t a challenge.

I double-timed it to the hole, Chief at my heels. The bulldog had a death grip on a chitinous leg as long as he was. He had to lean his head back to carry it, but the look in his eyes said no army in the world could take it away.

“This is embarrassing,” Mr. Haffey informed me.

I winked at him. “What, Mrs. Haffey never carried you over the threshold on your wedding night?”

His eyes bulged. “That’s just ridiculous. What are you?”

I’d spent most of my life pretending to be human. But now the hyena was out of the bag, and sooner or later I had to start owning up to it. “A shapeshifter.”

“Wolf?”