“Did you hear what happened to the Navigators?” I asked Lord of Loss. To Nursery, I said, “Are you aware they’re putting kids in the line of fire?”

“If we talk, it’s going to be after we’ve captured you,” Lord of Loss said.

He shifted position, which prompted me to look back. Past the ground floor of the house, past kitchen, living room, and back stairwell, I could see the rear door, and I could see his bodily mass planted down there. Whatever form he wore, it was extended enough that he could cover two exits at once, and his oversized head was mobile, free to move where he needed it.

Foil, quiet up until this point, started shooting the crossbow, launching her augmented bolts. I’d known her as Flechette, back in the days when I’d thought my boyfriend, Eric, and Uncle Neil dying at the hands of an unstoppable giant lizard was the worst life was going to get. Back then, she’d had something elegant. Now she had something big.

The skewers were about as long my arm was from elbow to fingertip, tapered at both sides. They punched through Lord of Loss’s digits, where a hand or clawed foot had just touched ground to give him leverage.

He didn’t react to the pain. He did try to lift his hand up, only to jerk to a halt.

Our cue to go. I covered the rear flank as the others charged for the door. The headless spider with the crossbow strapped to its body was Foil’s mount. Parian slumped between Foil and the crossbow, leaning hard into Foil. She was, at least, managing the spider, despite her condition.

“Cut through buildings!” I told them. “Lord of Loss never seems to go indoors at any point!”

I heard crumbling and looked back. Through the narrow aperture of the front door, I could see Lord raising an oversized, clawed extremity, shedding debris. He hadn’t managed to un-impale himself or pull the needles from the stones, but he had managed to pull up the pavement.

Someone ducked underneath the hand, skidding on the ground. A cape, dressed in an all-covering orange bodysuit, who ran fast enough that they clipped the edge of the doorframe in their crazed run.

I raised my forcefield as I saw them fix their attention on me. I could fly backward without worrying too much about bumping into anything, so I kept the majority of my focus on them.

I saw them glance to one side. They aimed to go around me.

Half right. They leaped, power activating, to throw themselves at the wall. They collided in a shower of orange and amber light and sparks, and rebounded, no longer human. A swirling mass of energy.