Book Five: Chapter 36

“Velvet?” It was Dana. “Are you in there?”

Velvet ran to the door and threw it open. Impossibly, her friend had come for her. She would have hugged the zombie, except for all of the arrows sticking out of her.

Dana flicked the sword a few times to knock the blood off of it, then folded it up and handed it over.

“I probably should have brought this back sooner,” she confessed.

“Yes. You should have.” Velvet smiled, then looked over Dana’s shoulder. The yard was covered in a thin blanket of snow, and all around were several nirumbi-sized lumps beneath it. The air smelled of blood and ozone, and she walked outside with Emery right behind her.

The fox woman knelt down over one of the lumps, her nostrils flared as she sniffed the air. Nearby, the gargoyle thudded into the ground and rose, her features twisted in disdain, then indifference.

“Thank you,” Velvet said. “You guys saved us. Please, you have to help me. Bigfoot is hurt.”

“Poison?” asked