Excerpt:
It was Matthew, they recognized him
from the photos. He wore jeans and nothing else. Every part of him
left bare was smeared with blood and his eyes were panicked,
terrified. It took him a moment to register both that the kitchen
light was on and two strange men sat at his table, then he freaked
out. In the space of perhaps two seconds, the jeans disappeared, his
body grew muscles and fur and claws, his head reshaped with a fanged
snout. He was easily nine feet tall and the scariest damn werewolf
Bobby ever saw, probably because he was in the room with it, and it
wasn’t just a costume.
The swarm was a much better place to
be, and Bobby went there. Stephen, though, seemed calm, saying, “How
apropos that a vampire and a werewolf should fight this close to
Hollywood. With dragons, to boot. I wonder if we’ll attract any
orcs or fairies.”
Matthew let out a loud roar and jumped
at Stephen, the two of them started fighting. Bobby, unable to get
into it much without causing a problem for Stephen, got the dragons
to open the door a crack so ten could slip out and keep watch. If
someone was coming, he wanted to know about it before they arrived
and got involved. It seemed clear that Stephen could hold his own
against this thing, but who knew how much they’d beat each other up
before one of them lost. To try to help the odds, the dragons went in
for the werewolf’s legs.
The little critters couldn’t really
do much more than annoy Matthew, they found his skin to be much too
tough for their little teeth. He’d be scratched up later, but not
really injured from this assault. They had to be careful, too, to
avoid getting hurt themselves. Stephen threw the werewolf into the
fridge, Matthew returned the favor by tossing the vampire through an
inner wall, putting Stephen in the bedroom unexpectedly. They did
what Bobby thought of as wrasslin’, except for the fangs and claws
and superhuman strength they both apparently had. It carried them
back through the apartment, wrecking it as they went, until Stephen
was thrown through a window and Matthew chased after, like a dog
going after a stick.
Now it was public. There was a very
real chance that one or more of Matthew’s neighbors noticed the
initial noises and already called someone about it, but Bobby was
willing to bet this spectacle would get some attention. He could
almost imagine the call to the police. ‘Officer, there’s two
costumed freaks wrasslin’ around outside, making a heckuva ruckus!’
Or however the locals would say that. The swarm followed them out,
keeping a watch all around. There just wasn’t anything he could
think of to do that would actually help Stephen directly. Aside from
how much nothing he could do to harm or even distract Matthew, he was
terrified of what would happen if a dragon got crushed.
They were horribly loud. Matthew
sounded like a giant angry dog, Stephen sounded somewhat like a
person making large cat noises. Stephen made an effort at keeping
them close to the apartment, but Matthew really enjoyed tossing the
vampire for distance and chasing after him. Bobby suspected that
Stephen would just have flown out of reach, but the goal was actually
to subdue the werewolf, not just get away from him. As a result,
Bobby discovered that Stephen could heal himself, but every time he
did, he looked a little more haggard.
Things, of course, got worse. A police
car screamed onto the scene, brakes screeching as it halted sideways
to block their passage farther down the street. Bobby saw it coming,
but couldn’t think of anything to do about it. Really, he was just
as helpless as any other bystander here. When he had some time to
breathe, he’d try things and see what he could do with his dragons
in this sort of situation, but for now, he had nothing to contribute.
It was an unpleasant feeling, one that reminded him a lot of how he
felt when that needle went into his leg at Jasmine’s apartment,
except that this just kept going on and he didn’t get the luxury of
blacking out for any part of it.
Out of the car with his gun drawn, the
cop shouted for the two men to freeze and get on the ground. Matthew
had his attention drawn by the command, and Bobby reacted as he saw
the werewolf bolting for the car. This was stupid, but he couldn’t
let the cop get hurt just for being the one to show up. Faster than a
speeding werewolf, Bobby re-formed right in front of the cop so
Matthew could hit him instead. When the claws swiped through the
space, Bobby exploded into dragons again, causing the sharp claws to
pass right through empty air.
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