As Five rummages through his Chest, Six thrusts her hands in the air. “Marina, watch my back while I do this.” I hear the first droplets of a rainstorm working their way through the foliage.

Five pulls some kind of leather sleeve out of his Chest. He slides it over his forearm. When he flexes, a sleek one-foot blade extends from the underside of his wrist. Five grins. “Missed you,” he says to the sleeve contraption, the blade sliding back down when he flexes again.

“Let’s hurry up on that lightning, Six!” yells Nine. The monster is bearing down on him. It’s everything he can do to get his staff up, deflecting a series of bites from the trio of fanged mouths. Backpedaling blind, Nine trips over a branch and goes toppling onto his butt. The beast is about to leap right on top of him when Eight shape shifts, assuming the form of a massive half-man, half-boar, one of the avatars of Vishnu, I presume. He grabs the creature by its alligator tail and yanks it backwards, keeping it from devouring Nine.

The beast swivels around and sinks its teeth into Eight’s shoulder. He bellows through his boar snout and his form begins to flicker. I can see he’s having trouble keeping his concentration with the pain from the bite.

“Eight!” I scream. I want to go to him, to heal him, but I can’t leave Six while she’s focusing on creating a storm.

“Go help him,” she says through gritted teeth. “I’m good to go.”

I race forward, intent on getting to Eight. Before the flying gator can take another chunk out of him, a lightning bolt slices down from the heavens. It strikes the creature and knocks it flat, the thing convulsing and smoking. It’s raining harder now, Six really amping up the storm.

Nine is back on his feet. He barrels forward while the beast is still struggling to get its two legs under it. Nine bludgeons the creature with his staff but the blows hardly make a dent in the scale-covered hide.

With Nine back on the attack, Eight staggers away from the monster, still in his Vishnu form. He transforms back to normal when I reach him and I can see deep and jagged lacerations covering his right shoulder. I press my hands to Eight’s shoulder, let the icy feeling flow through me and into him, and watch as his wounds close up.

“I could kiss you,” Eight says.

“After we kill this thing, maybe,” I reply.