Got you! Panther thought gleefully as he saw the effect their weapons were having. He continued firing, advancing on the beast. Cheney had dropped away, crouching and snarling to one side as the three Ghosts fired round after round into their target, the loads tearing into it. Panther heard Hawk cry out, saying something now, but the words were lost in the blast of the weapons and the scream of the wind. Then all of a sudden the monster was gone, disappeared into the haze of the storm. For an instant Panther and Bear kept firing, even after Sparrow screamed at them to stop. Neither could believe that the creature wasn’t there, that somehow it had vanished. But when the wind rippled the curtain of the haze and it was still not visible, the pair held up again, swinging the muzzles of their weapons this way and that, searching frantically.

“Panther!” Sparrow screamed, and opened fire to his left.

He swung about, but by then the Klee was on top of him, attacking with terrifying speed. One huge arm knocked him flying, his weapon lost, his head spinning. He crashed to the earth and rolled hard, heard Bear roar in response, heard the boom of the flechette, heard Cheney’s deep snarl. Then everything seemed to jumble together, and he couldn’t make sense of what was happening. He hauled himself to his feet, swaying drunkenly. Blood was running down into his eyes. He looked around, saw that Bear lay sprawled on the ground, a motionless lump. Sparrow was yelling at Cheney, who was attacking the monster once more.

Feebly, Panther cast about for Bear’s flechette, caught sight of it a short distance away, and staggered toward it, wiping the blood from his eyes. Cheney’s shaggy body flew past him, nearly taking his head off, thrown like a paper doll by the monster. Sparrow was firing again, standing all alone in front of their attacker, her warrior mother reborn. She wasn’t enough by herself, Panther thought, reaching down for the flechette. None of them was.

He snatched up the flechette and faced the monster, bracing himself for another attack. It registered then, a sudden frightening realization, that all the damage their weapons had inflicted had been for nothing. The creature looked as if it hadn’t been touched; its wounds had healed over. How could that be?

He started forward, intent on helping Sparrow before it was too late, and heard Hawk calling his name. The Bird-Man was beside him, grasping his shoulder, holding him back and calling off Sparrow, too. Tessa was still clinging to him, eyes wide with fear. In the span of no more than a handful of seconds, Hawk had brought them together with a dazed and bloodied Bear, all of them watching as the monster turned for another attack.