And chunks began to fall off the thing. Bullets shattered it like it was made of ceramic, holes drilled in, cracks spreading, and sections falling off.

Except the sections that fell off weren’t anywhere near the part of the body they could see. Ten feet away, eight feet away. Bullets chewed into parts of it they couldn’t see while leaving the part they could see untouched.

“—Typo!” Early said, the first part of his sentence drowned out by the gunfire.

No, I don’t trust that it was a typo they covered up. That’s two bits of weird in short succession. Coincidences in this world get you killed.

Three bits of weird. Cox wasn’t flinching at the gunfire. She didn’t even seem bothered. She was supposed to be a rookie and she seemed less spooked than even Marcial.

He couldn’t dwell on it too much. Marcial was shouting over the din of the gun.

His time to shoot.

The gun fired with a force that jolted up his arms to his chest, made his head move, teeth shifting against one another. He focused, aimed, and pulled back on the trigger.

He’d timed it right. He ran out just about at the same time Marcial did.

Too much time at the range, getting an instinct about that sort of thing, while training his officers.

The silence and the ringing in his ears that came in the wake of the gunshots was their starter pistol, in an upside-down, fucked up kind of way.

The others were shouting, but with the hearing damage he’d sustained from the collective gunfire, they sounded far away.

He stepped beyond the safety of his section of the room, joined Rain. Colt was running over to stick by Rain. Love Lost was near Marcial.

He braced himself. Don’t trust your heart. Love Lost uses anger and rage, and the rule of thumb for anger has always been to wait six seconds. After six seconds, the worst of any bout of anger will be gone.

Just endure for six seconds.

The beast, pieces of it still falling away, its head bowed, growled.

Gilpatrick felt his heart leap in his chest.

Love Lost screamed, at the top of her lungs, as if she could out-scream the giant red and blue blade-wolf. It gave the thing pause, drew its attention.

Bought then more running footsteps. Five to ten paces closer to the door, as the woman communicated with this thing that had given her powers.

That same thing opened its mouth, as if to howl.

Emotions surged in Gilpatrick’s chest, but they weren’t any one emotion, nor were they every emotion together.

They were emotions like words were noise. They searched, they carried meaning, and they demanded response.

One by one, they had gone down, losing their senses, sprawling to the floor. All but for Valentin, Cox, Rain, Colt, and Love Lost.