“John?” Neridia rolled over, roused from her fitful dreams by a breeze over her bare shoulder. Rubbing bleary, sleep-sodden eyes, she sat up. “What is it?”

The hulking figure at the open window straightened, turning.

It wasn’t John.

Neridia screamed, rolling frantically as the stranger lunged for her. His fingers missed her by bare inches as she fell off the far side of the bed. Still screaming, Neridia grabbed the nearest thing to hand—a 1969 hardback copy of Fishes of the British Isles and Northwest Europe—hurling it at straight at her attacker’s face.

All seven hundred pages caught him right between the eyes. He staggered back, momentarily stunned.

Neridia had never before considered her mother’s collection of vintage natural history books in terms of their use as offensive weapons, but now she was grateful for her somewhat eccentric reading tastes. She snatched up more hefty tomes from the bookcase next to her bed, pelting him with them as she scrambled backwards.

He ducked his head, taking the brunt of the barrage on his armored shoulders as he came at her again. He moved in utter silence, not making even the slightest grunt of pain as the weighty books smacked into him.

There was something nightmarish about his utterly expressionless face and flat, emotionless eyes. Something nightmarish…and also something familiar.

She knew that angular, heavy-browed face with its wide, brutal jaw. She’d only seen him once before, for a brief moment, but those rough-hewn features were unmistakable.

She’d met that grey, chilling stare once before…looking out from her father’s window, the day before the fire.

The day before he’d died.

Her attacker hesitated for a moment, looking back over his shoulder as if he’d heard something. Neridia didn’t pause to see what had caught his attention. Throwing the last book at him, she dashed out the door. He didn’t follow, but she was hardly going to stop to find out why.

Intent only on escaping, she didn’t notice the wet, slippery puddle at the top of the stairs until it was too late. She cried out as her bare foot slid out from under her, nearly sending her tumbling. She only managed to save herself from breaking her neck by grabbing hold of the bannister. As it was, she landed badly on her ankle, twisting it.

“John, John!” she sobbed in pain and terror. Where was he?

*NERIDIA!* His mental roar filled her head.

She sobbed out loud again, this time in relief. She could feel every muscle in his legs burning as he sprinted flat-out to reach her. In only a few moments, he would be at her side.

Something wet trickled over her hand. The puddle she’d slipped in was spreading, fed by a trickling stream running impossibly up the stairs. A harsh, chemical reek filled the air.

Gasoline?

There was a soft scraping sound, and a light flared in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. A face leered up at her, lit from below by the flickering match. It wasn’t the intruder from her bedroom, but a different man—leaner, wirier, but with the same brutal cast to his features.

“Die, monkey scum,” he hissed, and flicked the match into the gasoline.

* * *

*JOHN!*

John’s pounding heart lurched at Neridia’s mental scream of pure terror. He exploded into his true form, tearing away the roof of the house even as fire exploded through the lower level.

*I have you!* He snatched her up just in time, lifting her out in one forepaw a second before the flames could reach her.

Fire licked around his other foreleg, braced in the smashed, burning rubble of the staircase. He recoiled as heat gnawed at the thin, unprotected webbing between his long toes. Awkward as ever on land, he shuffled backward, trying to extricate himself from the ruins of the house.

“Look out!” Neridia yelled.

He roared in pain as burning liquid hit his flank. The stuff clung, roasting his flesh even through his armored scales. A moment later, a second burst of agony lit up his shoulder.

He was under attack. But where was it coming from?

Blindly, he lashed out with his tail, and was rewarded with an abruptly cut-off scream as he smashed someone into the side of the burning building. But it was clear he faced more than one opponent—yet another jet of fire shot through the darkness, missing his muzzle by mere inches.

The blazing inferno turned the night into a confusion of stark orange light and dancing shadows. His vision was adapted for the dimness of the ocean; this stabbing blaze seared his sensitive eyes as painfully as the smoldering oil still clinging to his hide.

He coiled protectively around Neridia, shielding her from the fiery blasts with his own body as he desperately searched for a way out. He had the advantage of strength, but his very size crippled him on land. He made an excessively easy target to hit.

Neridia pounded her fist against the side of his claw. He couldn’t even feel the tiny impact, but her urgency poured down their mate bond. “Shift! Before they burn you alive!”

*One moment!* he replied telepathically, clenching his teeth in pain as another gout of fire lashed his flank.

Despite the smoke swirling in the air, he breathed deeply, filling his mighty lungs to full capacity. Then, at the top of his voice, he sang.

It was not his finest work. The circumstances were hardly conducive to the reflective, calm state of mind required for truly great poetry. But what it lacked in finesse, it made up for in passion, and in desperation. And, of course, in volume.

And, in volume, the rain answered.

It fell like a hammer blow, shocking and brutal. Every cloud in the sky gladly came at his call, pouring out their hearts in the name of the Empress. The blazing house spat and fought against the downpour. Flame ran in rivers as still-burning oil was washed away.

Water slicked his scaled hide, soothing the pain of his burns. But more importantly than that, it ran over everything. Nothing could hide from it.

Here! sang the rain as it found his attackers, each individual raindrop a tiny, triumphant note as it struck their flesh. Here! Here! Here!

Now he knew where they were. There were ten of them, though two were already crumpled and dead. The eight remaining were spread out around him. They’d evidently been closing in, but the unexpected assault of the rain had shattered their formation.

John took advantage of their momentary distraction to shift back to human form. He caught Neridia in one hand, drawing his sword with the other. “Can you run?” he shouted over the din of the downpour.

“I twisted my ankle.” She clung to his side, struggling to stay upright on her injured foot. “What’s happening? Who are they?”

He very much wanted to know the answer to that question himself. With the rain’s assistance, John located the nearest one—a man crouching behind Neridia’s vehicle, separated from the main group.

John squeezed Neridia’s hand, silently sending her a mental image of his plan down their mate bond. She nodded in understanding. She moved behind him, holding onto the straps of his scabbard for support. Together, as quickly and silently as they could, they circled the vehicle, relying on the torrential rain to hide their movements.

As he crept up behind the lurking man, John saw that he had one hand outstretched. Liquid fuel gathered in a floating ball over the man’s palm, running out of the open cap of the car’s tank.

A hiss of disbelief escaped John’s throat. Only one group had the power to manipulate oil in that way…and they were meant to be dead.

The Brotherhood of Extinction!

They were an outlawed cult of plesiosaur shifters, who mourned their long-extinct kin and were filled with hatred for the humans that had inherited the world. They had an affinity for fossil fuels, thanks to their own prehistoric nature, and could manipulate oil the same way he himself could manipulate water. They were assassins and arsonists, happy to whore their skills out to the highest bidder…especially if it gave them the chance to spread destruction and chaos on land.

The Sea Council had finally authorized the Order of the First Water to exterminate them several years ago, on the advice of the Knight-Commander. John had gladly assisted in wiping the ocean clean of the honorless pond scum.

Evidently the Order of the First Water had missed some.

The plesiosaur shifter whipped round, eyes widening as he caught sight of them. He ignited the oil and flung it, but John dodged, spinning Neridia safely out of the way. Before the assassin could launch another fireball, John was on him. His blade passed through the plesiosaur shifter’s neck with barely a hint of resistance.

Neridia cried out as the body dropped, blood mingling with the mud. But there was no time to comfort her—they’d attracted attention. Six jets of fire lit up the rain, homing in on their position. John pulled Neridia down, covering her with his own body as the fireballs hit the car. Heat washed over his back as the vehicle ignited.

The remaining seven assassins were closing in fast, moving through the rain as smoothly as sharks. Tugging Neridia up again, John desperately tried to keep his armored form between her and the circling assassins, every sense alert for the next attack.

The odds were very bad. The Brotherhood of Extinction were vicious beasts who fought without honor, stopping to any low trick to ensure victory. Even without Neridia to protect, he would have been hard-pressed to take down this many of them single-handed. Hampered by the need to shield her, he was badly outmatched.

*My brothers, assist me!* he called out reflexively in his mind. But his fellow firefighters were too far away to reach telepathically. And even if they had been closer…they thought he had returned to the sea. They would not be listening for his call.

He could not seek refuge in the lake; with Neridia still unable to shift, they would be even more at a disadvantage there. He would be constrained to stay on the surface while the assassins would be free to harry him in their agile plesiosaur forms.

I must rush them, he decided grimly. Force them all to focus their fire on me, and endure long enough to slay them all.

Neridia’s fingers dug into his arm as she sensed his intention down the mate bond. “John, no!”

He pushed her forcefully away, toward the ditch that ran alongside the road. “Hide! Find what cover you can!”

He spun on his heel, sword poised and ready. At his command, the rain lifted around him. The fierce light from the blazing car backlit his form, highlighting every edge of his pale armor. He was as exposed as a pearl in an opened oyster.

“Primitive throwbacks!” He hurled the taunt into the night, contempt and derision clear in every note. “I shall send you to join your pathetic kin in the oblivion of extinction!”

As he had hoped, his insults maddened the Brotherhood. Hissing in outrage, they closed in on him, flinging blazing balls of crude oil.

He dodged and spun, fighting for his life, for her life. His sword cut down one, two, three—but the last deliberately clawed his way up the blade even as he died, fouling John’s backstroke. In the two seconds it took him to free his weapon, the remaining four had regrouped.

The assassins raised their hands, uttering an ugly, guttural chant. A great wave of crude oil swirled up before them, drawn from the tanks strapped to their backs. John sprinted toward them—but too late.

One of the plesiosaur shifters tossed a lit match. John flung up an arm in futile reflex, shielding his face as the towering wall of fire roared over him.

The hungry flames flowed around him like water parting around a rock. The inferno swirled barely inches from his skin, yet he could not even feel its heat.

*My apologies for the abrupt intrusion,* said a familiar cool, calm voice in his head.

Blinking, John looked up. A large, bird-like shape hovered over him, wings spread protectively, every feather burning brighter than the firestorm raging all around.

*I do not wish to imply that you need aid,* Fire Commander Ash continued, as politely as if this was a mere social call. *But if you permit it, we would very much appreciate the honor of sharing this battle with you.*

Dumbfounded, John could only incline his head in wordless assent.

The Phoenix turned incandescent eyes on the Brotherhood of Extinction. Shock was clear in the assassins’ pale faces. One broke and fled, but the remaining three stepped up their chant, pushing with their hands as they tried to force the fire to obey them.

The Fire Commander’s eyes flared white-hot. The fire doubled back, embracing the plesiosaur shifters in their own blaze. They didn’t even have time to scream before they were nothing more than drifting ashes.

John hesitated, torn between chasing down the last fleeing assassin and running to Neridia’s side. His dilemma was resolved by two more winged forms swooping down out of the sky.

*We’ll take care of your mate,* Griff sent to him. The golden griffin spread protective wings in front of Neridia. Hugh slid off his back, hastening to support her. *You get the last one!*

*This way!* Chase was already pursuing the fleeing assassin, his black hooves flashing over the stony ground. *He’s heading for the water. Cut him off, Dai!*

“Do not kill him!” John shouted, as Dai—in red dragon form—came hurtling out of the sky like a thunderbolt. “I want him alive! I want to know who sent them!”

Dai rumbled acknowledgment. Opening his huge jaws, he breathed out a blast of fire, trying to cut off the assassin’s escape route—but with a final, desperate burst of speed, the plesiosaur shifter dodged around the leaping flames. John cursed as the assassin plunged into the lake, form blurring into a long-necked, finned shape.

John splashed into the water himself, intent on pursuing the assassin in his own true form—but the lake swirled urgently around his legs, current grasping his ankles like hands trying to hold him back.

*What are you waiting for?* Chase demanded, cantering up to him. The pegasus spread his wings, preparing to launch himself after the fleeing plesiosaur. *Hurry, he’s getting away!*

“Wait!” John caught a handful of the pegasus’s long black mane, stopping him from taking off. “The water is warning us away. Something is lurking in wait.”

The plesiosaur shifter was already nearing the middle of the lake, swimming for its life. Suddenly it thrashed, its paddle-like fins flailing at the water as if attempting to climb out of it.

Dai landed behind them with a thump, spines bristling and teeth bared. *What the-?* he began.

With a last despairing shriek, the plesiosaur vanished backward under the water, still struggling. Blood swirled on the surface of the lake.

The dark, triangular shape of a shark’s fin emerged, rising up.

And up.

And up.

*I have an idea.* Chase’s usually swift, boisterous mental tone was subdued as the monstrous fin sank silently back into the depths once more. *Let’s not go into the water.*