A hissing sound came from the ground in front of her. Through the high grass she glimpsed two purple eyes flashing in the moonlight.

Her hand darted in front of her face just in time. Cold shot through her from palm to elbow, as if long, icy needles had been thrust deep into her arm. Jessica leapt to her feet and stumbled away from where the snake had been hidden.

Her eyes widened with fear as she looked down at her hand.

The snake was attached by black filaments that wrapped around her fingers and wrist, her hand grasped by a spreading cold. The filaments came from the snake’s mouth, as if its tongue had split into a hundred black threads and twisted itself tightly around her. The cold was moving slowly up her arm toward her shoulder.

Without thinking, Jessica swung the snake against the fence. The chain links lit up again, though much less explosively than when the cat had struck it. Blue fire shot toward her hand, then ran down the length of the writhing snake. The creature puffed up for a moment, its sleek black fur standing on end. The filaments unraveled, and the snake dropped lifeless to the ground.

Jessica leaned against the fence, exhausted.

The metal was warm and pulsing against her back, as if the steel had become alive. Feeling rushed back into her arm painfully, along with imaginary pins and needles, like blood returning after she’d slept on it all night long.

Jessica sagged with relief, letting the metal hold her weight for a moment.

Then, from the corner of her eye, she spotted movement. There was a narrow gap under the fence, like a dog would dig. More of the snakes were coming through.

Jessica turned and ran.

The backyard of this house was small, bounded by high fences. She might be safe from the panther within them, but in the uncut grass the snakes could hide anywhere. She climbed over the locked gate in the back, dropping to the ground in a narrow, paved alleyway.

The big cat had headed back the way Jessica had come, so she ran down the alley in the opposite direction. She wondered how she would ever get home.

“Just a dream,” Jess reminded herself. The words brought her no comfort at all. The adrenaline in her blood, the sharp pain in her fingers from climbing the chain-link fence, her heart pounding in her chest—the whole experience seemed absolutely real.

The alley led out onto a wide road. A street sign stood at the next corner, and Jess ran toward it, casting her eyes around for the panther.

“Kerr and Division,” she read. That was on the way to school. She wasn’t so far from home. “If I can just make it past the hairy snakes and the giant predator, I’ll be fine,” she mumbled. “No problem.”