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.