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The second snake came for me, claws outstretched. I didn’t have time to get off the floor or anything else. I held the knife ready, my left arm only partially useable, and watched the thing fall on me like an iridescent nightmare. A smaller black blur hit it from the side, and they both crashed into the wall. It was Meng Die. The claws ripped into her pale flesh as I watched.

I didn’t have time to see more, because Coronus loomed up over me, blood dripping from his neck and shoulder, his shirt shredded. Sylvie was behind him, struggling with Marco, trying to get past him to follow Coronus. Her lovely hands had turned into claws, though the rest of her was still human. The really powerful shapeshifters could do that—partially change at will.

Jamil was in the far corner, fighting with two of the snake men. Gregory was flowing with fur, changing shape, helpless until he was finished. I didn’t have time to look at the other half of the room. Coronus was almost on me, and I was out of time. I did the only thing I could think of. I up-ended the knife and threw it at him. I didn’t wait to see if it would hit. I was already moving towards the nearest wall and the collection of blades. I had my hand on the hilt of a sword when Coronus slashed my back open. I fell to my knees screaming, but my right hand stayed on the sword, and I jerked it from the wall brackets as I fell. I turned, putting my left side to him. He sliced open my left shoulder, but it didn’t hurt like my back had. Either the wound was deeper, or I was losing the feeling in that arm. I used the seconds I had—the ones he used to cut me—and it didn’t hurt to turn the sword in my right hand and plunge it backwards, behind me without turning to see where he was. It was as if I could feel him behind me, as if I knew just where he stood. I felt the blade bite into flesh. I shoved upward, coming to my feet with the force of the blow, shoving the blade backwards, inwards, through him, as hard as I could. I had never done anything like that before, but the movement felt like old memory. And I knew it wasn’t my memory. It wasn’t my body that remembered how to turn the sword as I turned my body to do extra damage, scrambling internal organs as I drew the blade out, and raised it over the kneeling figure. I raised the sword one-handed. This I knew how to do. I’d been taking heads off of bodies for years. The blade was on its downward stroke when he screamed, “Enough!” I didn’t stop or even hesitate.

It was Jamil who launched himself into me, over the man’s bowed head. He pinned me to the wall, one hand on my wrist, while I fought him. “Anita, Anita!”

I looked up at him, and it was as if I was just realizing who he was, or what he was doing. I’d known, but only in theory, my body had been about to take the snake man’s head. My body relaxed in Jamil’s grip, but he didn’t let me go.

“Talk to me, Anita.”

“I’m alright.”

“He gives. We win. You get your leopards.” His hand went to my hand where it still gripped the sword. “Ease down, you won.”

I tried to keep the sword, but Jamil wasn’t happy until I let him take it. Then he moved slowly away from me, and I was left looking down at Coronus still kneeling on the floor, holding his claws against the blood that was flowing from his side. He looked up at me and coughed, a little blood touching his lips. He licked it off. “You nicked a lung.”

“It’s not silver. You’ll heal.”

He laughed, but it seemed to hurt him. “We’ll all heal,” he said.

“You better hope Gregory heals,” I said.

His black eyes flicked up to me, and there was something in that look that I didn’t like. “What is it, Coronus, what puts such unease in your eyes?” I went to my knees in front of him. My left arm hung nearly useless at my side, but it wasn’t numb anymore. A deep burning pain was working its way from the wounds at my shoulder and lower back. I purposefully didn’t look at them. I could feel the blood flowing down my skin in tickling lines. I kept my gaze on Coronus