I dropped the phone, no time to spare. The little dog scattered, finally, and I wished I could go with him.

In hurried movements, I dug out the power stones and tossed them on the ground as streams of magic rose from all around us, zooming toward Emery. My collection of raw power hovered above me, as usual when I was upset or in the midst of a battle, and I tore the elements down in harried clumps, thinking of the poor dummy in Reagan’s yard, which had taken so much abuse these last few days.

As if on cue, the spells we’d practiced rolled through my memory—the feeling of them, the intent behind them, and a new way to balance them. Not thinking, just reacting, I focused on what needed to be done, trusting in Emery, our balanced bubble, and my knowledge to have my back.

A spell blasted out from him, smacking one of the mages. She screamed, a high-pitched sound, and dropped to the ground, clawing at her chest. I let loose one of the nastier spells the poor dummy had suffered, feeding it power as it rose into a whirlwind before darting forward and slapping the mage directly in front of me with a series of magical razor blades.

Three people ran in from the messy park path, all mages with satchels open and casings in their hands.

“Faster, Penny,” Emery said, zipping off another spell.

Breathing deeply, I pulled power from Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, weaving and mixing in jerky movements, trying to work faster.

Emery let off a spell, which hit its target, but two more mages ran in to take the place of the fallen.

Another weave was ready, this one downright vicious, and I flung it out, waving my hands through the air as I did so, remembering the underlined directions in the spell book.

The magic wrapped around the three intended mages before invisible spikes punched holes in their bodies. Screams turned to gurgles as they sank to the ground.

I worked on another, not pausing, as still more people crowded into the clearing, one wearing a leather duster and stupid hat. A mercenary.

Emery fired off spells faster now, sacrificing complexity for speed. Mages fell, and the looming spell around us wobbled before stabilizing, more hands present to keep it alive. To finish it…

A spell from a casing streamed toward me. I caught and countered it easily, but it cost me the spell I’d been making.

Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky pulsed in impatience. The other rocks added their chorus, but I found it very strange that Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, usually such a happy fellow, should start a mutiny. When I got out of this mess, I was going to send it on a ride with the safest person I could find. That would piss it off.

Mages stood in a zigzagging line in front of us. One took a step forward, trying to find his way into the haphazard circle around us. Most of them stood ten feet away, working their magic. No one charged. No one had to fight from over their shoulders. No one had a weapon besides magic.

Briefly, an image of Reagan popped into my head. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but she’d brought a gun to a magic fight in that decrepit old stone church.

Still not thinking (Reagan’s training had finally seeped in), I was running at them with bared teeth and a very human and probably stupid growl.

“Penny!” I heard Emery yell.

The mage in front of me froze, his eyes wide, his spell dissipating on his fingers. Then I was on him, punching him in the face then pulling up my foot and slamming it into the side of his knee. Cartilage cracked and he screamed before I moved on to the next mage.

It took a special person to do magic while they were being throttled. Or so Reagan had said. Hopefully she’d been right and I was just as abnormal in this as I was everywhere else in my life.

I flung a grisly spell over my shoulder, one I’d used on her dozens of times. Unlike Reagan, the mage didn’t unravel the weave before the spell struck. It splashed him with skin-eating magic, ripping out lumps in his face and tearing through clothes and skin on his body.

I didn’t have time for a gurgling stomach. Upchucking at how gross it was would have to wait.

The next mage got a boot to the face, not fast enough to block my attack. Emery downed another mage, and my next spell took out two more. But more kept coming. We were kicking ass, but their overall numbers had barely dwindled. And most likely would barely dwindle until we were captured. They’d known where we were, and they’d been prepared.

“We need a Hail Mary,” I yelled, jabbing my fingers in the next mage’s eye. “Or to run.”

Emery countered a spell from a casing before firing off one of his own. Another spell came at us, then another. He countered one, threw up a screen made with his survival magic to stop another, and surged forward. His fist smashed into the nearest mage’s face, doing damage much more quickly than if I’d made the hit. He executed a perfect side kick Reagan would be proud of, dropping another mage like a stone before darting between two more and blasting them at close range with a spell.

My heart dropped when two more mages ran down the path, followed by another from the other direction.

There were just too many.

“We have to run,” I yelled, hitting two with another nasty spell. I didn’t worry about balancing my weaves. About finessing them. There wasn’t time. I zipped them off as soon as they were done. Thankfully, my power was so much stronger than most of these mages that it was enough to hold them off.

Lord help me if they brought in powerful mages.

“Emery, we have to run!” I repeated. He wasn’t answering me, and I suddenly realized why. He’d seen it earlier. There was nowhere to go. They’d completely rigged this area with traps and used themselves as bait. They must’ve had people stationed around the various exit points of the Quarter at the ready, just like the ones stationed inside the Quarter itself, their spells at the ready. That larger spell split into perfect little pieces.

The Guild had figured out how to combat the unpredictable.

“You run, Penny,” I barely heard as Emery threw a smaller man into a larger. They both went down. “You run. Back the way we came. Call for help. Come for me, if you can.”

My heart tore a hole in my chest. It lodged into my throat and choked me.

I’d only just gotten him back. Was I going to lose him again so soon?

“No,” I said, the next spell ripping through someone’s middle. “No!”

“Penny—” Emery started, intent on talking sense—even though we both knew he was bound to fail miserably—but a deep, earthshaking roar drowned him out.

The sound worked through my middle and froze my blood, the fear it caused primal and ancient. My movements slowed and my eyes widened. I couldn’t help but look for the source of the sound. Only Emery kept working, firing off spells as fast as ever, taking advantage of everyone else’s distraction.

Another roar, this time closer, made my teeth chatter. I backed up without being able to help it, envisioning a huge, lethal predator tearing through the bushes with its mouth gaping and teeth bared.

A moment later, that was exactly what happened.

A giant lion, larger than the ones that roamed the modern plains of Africa, surged into the scene with feline grace. It gave a loud grunt, blowing out of its nostrils, before pausing to stare at the mostly immobile group before it. Its huge, shaggy head swept from one side to the other, taking everything in.

The little dog from before scurried out from behind the great lion and headed off to the side, pausing to take everything in.

A few of the mages stepped away, unsure. Still more stood and stared with open mouths, like I was doing, taken aback by the sight of a big jungle cat within the city limits.

My brain shuddered to a start.

Big cat.

Shifter.

“Help!” I called into the uneasy silence, not at all embarrassed about freaking out.

Like a starter gun had been fired, the scene burst with activity again. Mages cracked casings and shot them at Emery, me, or the lion.

Wolves burst out of the foliage around us, synchronized and deadly as they began their attack. Vicious growls cut through the shouts and screaming. Wolf bodies slammed into mages. Teeth found jugulars.

Another roar, deep and powerful, and a large shape emerged from behind the fountain and lumbered into the mix, a giant bear.

“Work, Penny,” Emery shouted, grabbing a mage who had come out of his stupor and tried to run for it. “If they get away, they’ll try again another day.”

“Why are you rhyming at a time like this?” I blasted a mage making a run for it. He lost use of his legs…because I’d made him leave them behind.

Gagging, I used my rodent zapper on another, and a half-assed spell on one more, trying to get the spells out faster again.

The lion burst into the remaining mages. It swept a large paw across human bodies, opening gashes through their middles. He clamped his teeth on a mage’s shoulder and the side of her throat before ripping her head off, ending the haggard screaming.

The bear roared and stood on its back legs, swiping its claw as someone readied a spell.

The mages broke, sprinting for cover. The wolves were on it. Faster on four legs, and with the added benefit of improved sight in the darkness, they jumped onto the retreating figures, forcing them to the ground and ripping at their vital organs. Screaming and groaning mixed in with the growls and roars. Limbs flailed. Chaos reigned.

I danced from side to side, ready to help. Ready to shoot off another spell. But furry bodies kept obscuring my view. Then, in a matter of minutes, it was all over. The noise died down. The movement slowed.

My panting was unnaturally loud as I stood next to Emery, in the center of a disastrous circle filled with blood, bodies, and keyed-up animals.

My stomach finally gave out and I heaved. It wasn’t the most professional thing to do, admittedly, but I could no longer help it.

“Penny.” Emery wrapped his arms around me rather than holding my hair back, as befitted the situation. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” I wiped my mouth and pushed him so we could back away. “You?”

His breath dusted my face. “Yeah. Got a couple scrapes and bruises, but yeah.”

Waves of magic pushed at me, and I knew by feel that it was the shifters’ magic I was feeling. The space was no longer occupied by a bunch of downed mages and animals. Now it held mages and naked people.

“Uh-huh.” I dropped my forehead to Emery’s shoulder. At least I wasn’t the only one stuck looking unprofessional after a battle.

Someone grunted, and I couldn’t help but look. Steve, previously the lion, stretched in the moonlight before scratching his chest and dropping his hands to his sides in fatigue. “Two back-to-back changes will really take it out of you. Least you could’ve done was leave a few more for us.”

Emery pulled one of his arms from around me and stepped forward, dragging me with him. He reached out to shake. “Thanks a million. We were getting buried. You turned the tide.”

Steve, completely unconcerned with his lack of cover, thrust his hand into Emery’s. “Not at all, mate. We would’ve been here sooner, but we ran into some sort of magical wall. Lost one of ours trying to get through it.”

“Oh no, I’m so sorry!” I said.

“Nah.” Steve waved my sentiments away. “He was an asshole. A real know-it-all. That’s why I sent him first. Don’t tell Trixie, though. She didn’t like him much, either, but he was good in bed, apparently.”

I was pretty sure my face was frozen in a very strange look. I didn’t know where to go from there.

“Anyway.” Steve glanced around the ground and clucked his tongue as more men and women, all equally as unworried about the state of their undress, slowly made their way in our direction. “Red said they stole Reagan’s car and chased you two to this area.”

“How would Red know all of that?” I asked suspiciously.

Steve gestured toward the dog still off to the side, watching from a distance. “He followed you. He might only be a dog, but it gives him the ability to make more changes than the normal shifter without depleting his energy level.”

“But…we were invisible.” I remembered how the shifters outside the bar had sniffed me out the other night. “Ah. He followed our scent trail. But how’d he let you know?”

“Right? I told him, he needs to carry a little doggy fanny pack for a cell phone. He could be Reagan’s sidekick.” Steve boomed out laughter. Red lowered his head and snarled. “Yeah,” Steve said, “he didn’t think that was funny. But he’s got phones stashed around the city. Following and reporting is his job. He has to have a way to report. So when he saw what was going on here, he called me up.”

“And Reagan?”

“Is busy with the vampire. She’s apparently got a thing going with that elder.” Steve wiped his lip with his thumb and shook his head. “I didn’t expect that, I’m not going to lie. No one tells me anything. I mean, I get the sex appeal, but he’s a vampire. You should never trust vampires.” Emery and I nodded knowingly. “They’re questioning the mages. The vampire took all the live ones before Roger could get back to us.”

“They didn’t think this was more important?”

“We don’t work with vampires, love. They do their thing, we do ours.”

“They didn’t tell Reagan,” Emery said softly, his tone even. I couldn’t tell if he was making a judgment or not.

“Didn’t need to, did we?” Steve smiled. “Don’t get me wrong, if she wasn’t with that elder, we surely would’ve let her in on the fun. But as it was…” He spread his hands. “Roger sends his regards. He was happy to help, and he hopes you keep this situation in mind should we ever need something.”

“Ah. A forced trade.” I rubbed my eyes, not really able to deal with this right now. “And how are the vampires so different from the shifters?”

Emery huffed out a humorless laugh as Steve said, “That’s not very nice. For one, we’re cuddly when we change. Much furrier and nicer to look at.”

“That’s true, though I doubt you smell any better when you get wet,” I said.

Emery choked on his laugh this time, half turning away to wheeze out more guffaws.

A flare of green followed by a wave of shifter magic, weak in power, preceded the dog’s alteration into a thin, lanky Red. He stood and quickly cupped his privates, thankfully worried about propriety. “I told him not telling Reagan was a mistake,” Red said with a know-it-all air. “She’s going to be pissed.”

“Women are always pissed about something.” Steve glanced down, and I followed his gaze before I could stop myself, only to instantly shift it when I got an eyeful. “I better get going. The cold isn’t kind to my bells and tackle.”

“She’s not an ordinary woman,” Red muttered. “I’m not going to take the fall for this. I’m going to tell her it was your call.”

Steve hooked a thumb Red’s way, his smile almost infectious. “He’s awfully jittery, isn’t he?”

A younger guy wearing basketball sweats with buttons down the pant leg for easy removal jogged over and handed Steve a pile of sweats.

“Hey, is anyone driving?” Emery asked, looking around.

“Yeah, you need a lift?” Steve rolled back on his bare heels as he shook out the hoodie. “Of course you need a lift, what am I saying. Sorry about that. I’m always a little slow after fast changes. Come on, we’ll get you wherever you need to go.”

“But what about…” I pointed at the fallout of the battle.

“We’ll get someone on that,” Steve said. “We’ll use a cleanup service and bill the vampires.” Steve laughed again, though I didn’t get the joke.

Fatigue dragged at me after I collected my stones and phone. Emery slipped his hand into mine. Softly, he asked, “Can I stay with you tonight?”

I leaned against his arm. “Yes. Reagan can deal. We need to stick together.”

“I agree. This was only the force they had stationed in this part of New Orleans. We’d be naive to think they aren’t gathering in a temporary headquarters somewhere. They’ll have more. The question is, how many more?”

Red drifted in next to us. “That’s what I would have told Reagan if she hadn’t stood me up. In addition to calling in big numbers, I’ve heard that they are hiring anyone willing to work for them.” He glanced around warily. “If you ask me, they know what they’re up against, and they’re rising to the challenge. You might be more powerful, but they have the numbers.”