A second tentacle struck at Tag, landing with a hollow boom that echoed like a rumble of thunder. Charles leapt on top of it. He had to dig his claws through the thick slime to give himself traction. Bearing in mind the speed the last tentacle had shown, he wasted no time biting down, burying his fangs into the tough flesh—and releasing the flesh instantly. He jumped off the moving tentacle and landed on the ground not two feet from the steep edge of the lake.

He ran, coughing up slime that seemed to grow inside his mouth. When he was a reasonable distance away, he rubbed his face in the wet grass. The slime tasted vaguely familiar—and unpleasantly fishy.

Hagfish, supplied Brother Wolf, who never forgot anything they had tasted. To the others, Brother Wolf suggested, Use your claws.

He was right, though that effectively lost them half of their attack capability. But that loss didn’t bother Charles now. His earlier grim assessments forgotten, fierce excitement lit his veins as his focus, and his pack’s focus, narrowed to the here and now. Charles was always most alive when he and Brother Wolf fought a worthy enemy.

Brother Wolf threw them into the fight with a joyous abandon, wishing that this battle, this song, might last forever, an eternal dancing with the pack against an enemy that demanded every skill they had. Tag’s berserker spirit lay over them all, but spread out so that it only gave muscles more strength, speed, and endurance instead of the suicidal madness it could become.

A different sort of limb snuck out of the water and wrapped itself around Anna. It was darker colored and round, like the snakes children made with Play-Doh, maybe six inches in diameter—but at least as long as, if not longer than, the tentacles. It tried to haul Anna into the water, pulling her off her feet with a jerk.

Charles was on the far side of two of the big tentacles and couldn’t even see what had happened, but what the others knew, he knew.

It was Tag who got to her and bit down savagely on the rubbery flesh, which was devoid of slime. Had Tag known that, the hunting song understood, he would not have done a bite-and-release. But the bite did the trick, and the arm went momentarily limp, allowing Anna to scramble out of it. She freed herself and rolled to her feet as the Singer’s limb gave a sudden twitch, then withdrew to the safety of the dark waters.

They watched for those sneaky dark limbs after that.

Unable to use their mouths on the tentacles that were the Singer’s main physical means of attack because of the slime, and unable to stay for a concerted attack because of the danger of being flung or dragged into the water, the wolves were reduced to delivering minor wounds in the hope that they would eventually weaken the creature.