Derek shifted his weight.

“Don’t bite it,” I murmured. “It’s poisonous, even to you.”

The hodag leaned forward. The wall shook as it dug into it from the outside. It arched its back, showing off a crest of horns protruding from its spine. Its thick body rode low on four powerful legs, each armed with absurdly long claws. A long dinosaur tail swung to the right, giving it leverage for a leap.

The world slowed down, turning sharp and clear.

The hodag sprung from the wall, aiming straight for us.

Derek leaped to the side. I jumped back, stabbing with Dakkan, and the beast went after me, swiping at the spear with its claws. Fast bastard. I whipped Dakkan around and smashed it on the creature’s nose. It bellowed like an angry bull gator and charged me.

On the left, Derek pulled off his shirt.

I dodged left. The hodag spun about, lashing its fat tail. The spikes rent the air six inches from my stomach.

Derek pulled off his boots. You’ve got to be kidding me.

I dashed left and leaped over the hole in the floor. The concrete gave under my feet, and I almost fell through the floor. Behind me the hodag pitched into the hole, caught itself, jerked back, and came after me like some giant mutant gecko chasing after a cricket. I leaped back and forth, dodging its swipes.

Derek had removed his jeans, folded them in half, and was carefully placing them on top of his boots.

I would strangle him. I would hit him in that smug handsome face with a brick. You think you got scars, buddy? Just you wait.

The hodag reared, trying to pin me with its bulk. I threw myself into a roll, sprang to my feet, and stabbed Dakkan between the beast’s fat toes. The hodag howled.

Derek gave me a thumbs-up.

“Dead!” I danced back, avoiding the hodag’s strikes.

“What?”

“You’re a dead man!”

He held out his hand. “Tag me in.”

“Eat dirt.”

I raced around the gap, hodag on my heels, and threw myself left, toward Derek. The enraged beast barreled past us.

Derek waved his hand at me. “Anytime.”

The hodag braked and turned, impossibly limber. Red eyes locked on me. A deep rumble gurgled in its throat. Oh please no.

The beast inhaled, sucking in the mucus.

I dashed to the side.

The hodag spat. A gob of mucus the size of a basketball flew through the air. Derek jumped straight up. The poisonous spitball splattered under him, splashing on concrete. He landed next to the puddle and glanced at his clothes. A fat drop of hodag spit rolled off his folded jeans and dripped to the floor.

I gave Derek a thumbs-up.

A hot werewolf glow sparked in his eyes. He opened his mouth and growled. It began as a human sound, and as it left his mouth, his body exploded. Bones grew in a blink, building a new oversized frame. Muscle spiraled up the new skeleton, and dense silver fur chased it, covering the monstrous body. Claws the size of my fingers burst from his new hands. Long lupine jaws jutted from his head, filled with fangs, and the final notes of that eerie growl announced an apex predator entering the field.

The hodag opened its huge maw and roared.

Derek’s black lips rose, and he snarled, wrinkling his muzzle, like a wolf in the woods defending its kill.

The hodag charged. Time stretched, impossibly slow, and I saw it all in excruciating detail: the hodag barreling forward, mouth gaping, eyes bulging, claws ready to tear and rip and Derek making no effort to move aside.

I moved without realizing it. I was five feet too far when the hodag reached him. Smoothly, almost casually, Derek swayed out of the beast’s path and thrust his left hand out. The awful claws ripped through the matted fur like it was tissue paper. Blood and alien guts spilled through the ragged wound. He’d split it from front shoulder to groin.

The hodag kept running, unable to stop, trailing its insides, and smashed into the wall. Chunks of concrete flew. The wall quaked, wobbling like a loose tooth, and collapsed, taking the hodag with it.

Derek sprinted past me and jumped after it.

*

I leaned over the edge and looked down. The broken body of the hodag sprawled on the rubble three floors below, where a ruined house was slowly sliding into the Gap. The nightmarish blend of human and wolf that was Derek crouched by its head, methodically carving through the hodag’s neck.

He had killed the hodag with one swipe of his claws. Even if it hadn’t fallen, it would be dead. The hodag had bigger teeth and longer claws and outweighed him ten to one, and none of it mattered. Of the two, Derek was the better monster.

There was something so beautiful in that combination of precision, speed, and strength. When I saw that strike, it shot electric needles through my skin. For a brief moment, I was both terrified and caught in admiration.

Derek grasped the hodag’s head and tore it free with a wet crunch. It was the size of a truck cab, and he was holding it with one hand.

What in the world happened to you, Derek?

He looked up. Our gazes met.

“What are you doing?” I called down.

He opened his mouth. Most shapeshifters had trouble maintaining their warrior form, and fewer still could speak in it. Their jaws didn’t fit together quite right, or their tongues were too long. Derek could speak, but his words sounded ragged. Combined with his permanently damaged vocal cords, he sounded like gravel being crushed, but he had no trouble carrying on a conversation.