I couldn’t see anything over his big head, so I shifted to the side to look between him and Drake. The shadows were monsters, but they didn’t look like any monsters I’d ever seen. A messy meld of plant and animal parts, the beasts were shaped like lions, but instead of fur, they had shimmering green scales. And in place of a mane, a wreath of tangled vines and leaves had grown out of each monster’s neck.

The monsters were about the size of a large dog. But there were a lot of them, at least fifty by my count. And they didn’t look like herbivores.

“Snap dragons,” Nero said. “Watch out, they spit.”

One of the beasts chose that moment to leap at Nero. A glob of mucous-colored goo shot out of its mouth. Nero darted out of the way. Instead of hitting him in the face, the steaming goo smacked against the street. A patch of pavement split and sank, leaving a pineapple-sized pothole.

Drake and Morrows drew their guns and shot at the snap dragons. The bullets bounced off their hard scales. They switched to swords, but their blades didn’t penetrate the beasts’ armor. And one of them retaliated by spitting fire.

“They spit fire and venom. And they’re immune to guns and swords? How are we supposed to kill these things?” Morrows demanded.

Claudia tossed a grenade into the pack. The magical cocktail exploded, igniting the spell that turned six snap dragons to stone. She pulled out her gun and shot the beasts in quick succession, shattering their petrified bodies.

“Hey, Vance, what kind of bullets are you using?” Morrows asked her.

Her lips curled back. “Big ones.” She hurled her second grenade.

“I love that woman,” Morrows laughed, shooting the new monsters she’d left petrified.

The rest of us followed suit. Except Nero. He charged at the monsters, drawing them away from the Pilgrims. Monsters were drawn to magic. The stronger the magic, the more they wanted to consume it. Nero’s angel magic must have looked like an all-you-can-eat buffet to them. Telekinetic waves pulsed out of him, gluing the monsters to the ground as he unleashed a thunderstorm upon them. Tendrils of lightning licked at their scaled bodies, slowly, stubbornly. He was cracking their armor like a nut.

Snap dragons streamed out of the buildings in an angry river. There were so many I couldn’t even count them all. Hundreds and hundreds.

“The floodgates have opened. It looks like that first group was just the welcoming party,” I commented.

“How many petrifying grenades do you have left?” Drake asked me.

“This is my last one,” I said as I threw it.

“I’m out too.”

A quick look around told me the rest of our team was out too. And the tsunami of snap dragons wasn’t showing any signs of letting up. Where had they all come from?

Captain Somerset ran forward, swinging her sword. Flames burst to life on the blade, which she sank into the beast’s body. She hadn’t been kidding earlier when she’d said her fire sword could cut through anything.

She kicked the dead monster off her sword. “Lawrence!”

Lieutenant Lawrence’s sword caught on fire too. Together, she and Captain Somerset stood against the wave of monsters, hacking them apart.

The pack turned away from Nero, drawn to the combined magic of the two fire swords. They overwhelmed Lieutenant Lawrence, and she stumbled, the sword falling out of her hand. Her eyes darted to the sword still burning on the ground, as though she were considering going after it. But the monsters were too close. She lashed out with her electric whip. She was good, hitting her target with every snap of the magic-charged coil: the soft flesh of the beasts’ noses.

I dug into my potion pack, looking for something useful. I settled on a corrosive potion. Maybe it would be strong enough to break through the beasts’ armor. Holding my breath, I tossed the pale orange powder at one of the snap dragons. Dark smoke rose from the monster’s scales. It squealed and ran off. Ok, so maybe that wasn’t as spectacular as I’d hoped for, but at least it did something, which was better pretty much every other one of our weapons.

Two snap dragons slammed into Captain Somerset, knocking the fire sword from her hand. It disappeared into the pack of monsters. She kept fighting, tossing corrosive powder at them like the rest of the team was doing by now. Minus Nero. He was splitting them open with telekinetic slashes, then setting them on fire.

I caught a glimpse of the two fire swords amidst the monsters. They weren’t too far from me. I had to get to them. They worked better than any weapon we had except for Nero. The flames were still going strong, but for how long? I had to act fast. I didn’t have the magic to relight them. That required elemental magic, a level four spell.

The snap dragons were packed too closely. I’d never make it through if I didn’t thin the herd, but I was all out of corrosive powder. Hmm. I grabbed a vial of sticky potion, uncorked it, and tossed it at the monsters in my path. Then I grabbed my magic flare gun and fired. I knew it wouldn’t penetrate the beasts’ armor, but that wasn’t the point.

The flare, bewitched by witches, was a beacon of magical energy, designed to attract the attention of monsters. We sometimes used them in the wild lands; if you shot one into the distance, the monsters sometimes chased the flare instead of you. Sometimes. The more magic you yourself had, the less likely the monsters were to run after the decoy, which is why Legion soldiers didn’t carry them around.

The flare did its job today, though. It stuck to the monster’s rear end, held to the scaly hind by the sticky potion I’d thrown at it. Immediately, the snap dragons around it turned, attracted to the flare’s magic. The beast let out a yelp of alarm, then ran off, trailing a stream of ignited magic after it. Its pack mates took chase.