“Hold still,” Julie ordered. I froze in place. All I could see around me was the wretched churning fog. There was a solid THWACK ten feet in front of me. Something hit the ground. “Got it. You can keep going now.”

I found the body of one of the warrior demons just ahead. Julie had shot it through the vulnerable juncture of neck to body. Steaming goo had sprayed everywhere. It was still twitching as I went around it. “You on thermal?”

“Sure am. Told you I was switching rifles. When the fog rolls around it’s the only way I can see.” Anything that emitted body heat would positively glow in this cold mess, and these demons always seemed feverishly hot. “The wind keeps changing, so this might get tricky. There’s an external stairwell to your left.” I couldn’t see a damn thing. “Keep turning. Turning…Okay. Head that way. I’ll cover you. The garden’s crawling with monsters.”

I set out with a sort of hopping, hobbling jog. The demons were shrieking and clicking at each other. There was a trumpetlike bellow from one of the big acid throwers. “They know you’re there. There’s more coming.” It took a moment for her bullet to arrive. THWACK. There was a gurgling noise as another creature choked to death on its own blood. THWACK. “Two down, but they’re surrounding you. Hurry.”

Hurry was a relative term when all you could feel from one foot was lightning bolts whenever it touched ground, but I ran like everyone’s lives depended on it.

“Monsters on your right. Two. Don’t have a shot.”

I turned and lifted Abomination. The rapidly moving fog was so wet that rather than raining, water just accumulated out of the air and soaked you. Gusts were like being smacked with a damp towel. The water picked up the blood and ran off me in pink rivulets. The mist swirled. I was ready. The instant a bit of orange broke the fog I shot it to death. Its companion pushed by, only to have a pile of silver rip through its thorax, spilling it in a wet heap.

“Clear. There was a tree in the way. Didn’t have an angle.” THWACK. “That time I did.” Julie was an absolutely lethal shot. “Hit the deck!” I did exactly as she said, diving forward and landing on the soft grass. Several spines passed through the air where I’d been standing. There was a series of loud impacts as Julie opened up on them. “They’re down. Move.”