Grendel. Curran must’ve brought him with them.

The lizards froze, shocked.

The massive dog spat the lifeless body and grinned at me, showing huge white fangs. Blue fire rippled on his fangs and danced along his shaggy fur.

“Good boy.”

Grendel parked himself on my left side and snarled.

The headache singed my brain again. Vertigo clamped onto me and acid burned my throat. Screw it. I bent over and vomited. Endorphins kicked in and for a brief moment the headache retreated.

The lizards hesitated, their pupil-less eyes glowing with cold hungry fire. So me killing them wasn’t scary, but a black shaggy mutt was clearly outside their frame of reference.

“Meat,” a lizard mouth roared.

The others caught the cry. “Meat . . . meat . . . meat . . .”

The lizards rushed me as one. I carved and sliced, kicked, thrust, and stabbed. Bodies fell around me. Grendel and I retreated, fighting for each inch. Fangs snapped at me. A lizard caught Grendel’s flank in its mouth. He snarled and I buried Sarrat in the lizard’s back. Claws raked my legs. I spun and sliced another beast. An arrow sprouted in its throat. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alix behind me, his bow in his hands. He drew and loosed the arrows in a smooth fast glide that looked as natural as breathing.

“All hands, fall in!” a woman roared across the lot, somewhere behind the lizard horde. “Form a perimeter! Melee to the front! I want a mage here and a mage there. Light them up. Archers, form up on mages. Give me intersecting fields of fire. Act like you’ve been to a party before.”

A foot. Another foot. We kept going. My breathing evened out. My mind cataloged the injuries and ignored them. Grendel bled but he still fought, ripping into reptilian bodies. The horde tightened the ring around us. They were keying on Grendel now, judging him the easier target. They wouldn’t get my dog as long as I breathed.

I chanced a glance over my shoulder. Twenty yards to the Guild. They would be a hard twenty yards. I was about to throw up again.

A lizard crashed in front of me, its body broken.

To the right the reptilian bodies flew up and aside, as if bulldozed. Someone strong and very motivated was tearing down the battlefield.

“What the hell is that?” Alix said.

“That’s my honey-bunny.”

Curran burst into the open, a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall monster clothed in steel muscle and gray fur. Faint stripes crossed his limbs like dark whip marks. Blood dripped from his clawed hands. On the left side, a patch of his skin was missing, muscle exposed and raw.

He grabbed the nearest lizard, twisted it with a loud snap, and tossed it aside. “Hey, baby.”

“Hi.” I beheaded a lizard. “Where are the kids?”

“With the MSDU.” He disemboweled a beast with a quick swipe of his claws. “You’re having all this fun without me.”

“I’m not doing much. Just having tea and cookies.” I cut at another lizard. “Thinking deep thoughts.” I love you.

“Then I’ll join you.”

He loved me, too.

We backed away together. The Guild doors loomed behind us.

“Down!” Ken barked.

I grabbed Grendel into a bear hug and dropped. Curran landed next to me, his arm over my back.

A jet of foul yellow steam tore above our heads and slashed into the front row of lizards. They convulsed, their scale hide blistering, and died. I jumped to my feet and ran the last ten yards to the Guild. Grendel dashed between the metal doors, I was next, and Curran was the last. He and I spun around and blocked the narrow gap between the doors. With only twelve feet between the doors, the lizards couldn’t come at us more than three at a time. Juke took position next to us, her spear in her hands. Behind her Alix drew his bow.

Curran put his arm around me and I hugged him, gore and fur and all. The feel of his body wrapped around mine was indescribable. There were few moments of true happiness in life. This was one. I hugged him harder, enjoying every moment of touch.

“Get a room!” Juke growled.

We broke apart in time to see her jab the first lizard.

God, my head was about to split open.

“Where were you? What happened?” I carved a chunk out of another lizard’s face.

“I just took the kids to fight some ghouls,” Curran said.

Oh, so it was fine, then . . . Wait. “You did what?”

He kicked a lizard. It flew into the others like a cannonball. “I called Jim before we left the house to talk about ghouls, and he said they found some in the MARTA tunnels. So I grabbed the kids and did a little hunting.”