As we walked, I grew colder.

  No one else seemed to be getting colder.

  Then I noticed things.

  Beings.

  Shadow people peeking out from between the trees.

  No one else saw them.

  I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered.

  ‘I do not usually speak,’ a dark voice—like twilight pressing in—entered my mind, ‘but you cannot stay here much longer.’

  ‘Who—’ I began.

  ‘Shadow,’ he said quickly, like I would in the middle of combat. ‘My children are drawn to heat. Your companions attract them like flies. Your humanity depletes the longer you remain here. Leave now.’

  I didn’t argue.

  I flung us out of the Shadow realm and back within sight of the hotel.

  Warmth slammed into me. I dropped to one knee and shifted out of hybrid form to get heat circulating properly.

  ‘Be warned,’ Shadow said. ‘The Guardianship of me was broken once by one who lingered too long in my realm and lost himself. I refuse to see it happen again. Farewell.’

  “Fuck. Magic needs a manual,” I muttered.

  It felt like I couldn’t get warm.

  I rubbed my arms as everyone gathered closer.

  “What happened?” Carter asked.

  “Shadow people wanted your heat,” I said, my teeth chattering as the chill refused to leave my body. “I can only stay there so long. I’d lose myself.”

  Raj reached out and gripped my shoulder—then jerked his hand back.

  “Shit,” he hissed. “You’re freezing. Like something straight out of a freezer.”

  Warmth was coming back too slowly.

  “We don’t know when one of those creatures will find us,” Drac said, scanning the treeline.

  Carter let out a heavy sigh, stepped over to me and—

  hugged me.

  Heat rolled off him like an old-fashioned radiator, steady and deliberate. I leaned into it with a quiet sigh of relief as warmth spread through my body, chasing the cold from my bones.

  Only then did I realize my heart had been beating too slowly before the heat took hold.

  Everyone formed a loose circle around us as I thawed.

  Carter stayed until I nodded.

  “That sucked,” I said as I rose to my feet, still shaky.

  “Wait until the hangover from getting fear-drunk on Halloween,” Frankie said. “That’s why we never booked shows the week after.”

  Carter and I just stared at him.

  “Glad I’m not one of those,” Carter muttered.

  “I thought you were just human, but…” Wanda gestured at him. “Humans can’t do magic like that.”

  He scowled and crossed his arms.

  Several howls echoed through the trees.

  “Drac?” I said.

  “Yes?” the vampire replied.

  “Tell me you packed my flashbangs and earplugs.”

  “If it looked useful, I brought it.” He swung the duffel bag down and unzipped it.

  I caught a glimpse inside. Something in my chest eased at the neatness and order of the packing.

  ‘Thought I’d get over that,’ I sent to Chaos.

  ‘You probably always were neat and orderly,’ Chaos replied. ‘That’s why it got taken to the extreme.’

  ‘What would have happened if I’d been like my son?’ I watched Drac quickly pass out flashbangs to everyone except Albert, and earplugs to all of us.

  ‘Ever heard of a hoarder?’ Chaos said.

  I shuddered.

  Creatures moved in the forest.

  Twisted beasts—half human, half two animals fused together.

  All wrong.

  With earplugs in and flashbangs in hand, we ran for the hotel while Wanda went airborne with several flashbangs.

  I watched her arc over the treeline and drop one toward a cluster moving between the trees.

  The trees shifted as they moved.

  Not like predators.

  Like puppets tugged by strings that didn’t understand joints.

  One creature stumbled into view—a man’s torso twisted sideways into the body of something antlered and canine. Its human arm ended in a hoof. The other ended in fingers too long and jointed backwards. Its mouth hung open, panting in shallow, anxious bursts.

  Another skittered low across the ground, ribs visible beneath stretched, translucent skin. Two heads shared the same neck—one whispering frantically to itself, the other staring ahead with glassy obedience.

  Something taller moved between them.

  It walked upright.

  Mostly.

  Its spine bent too far back, shoulders hunched like it expected to be struck. The face was human—almost kind—except the lower jaw had split into a hinged maw, as if something larger tried to grow out and stopped halfway.

  They weren’t stalking.

  They were waiting.

  Watching.

  Permission-seeking.

  Like Davis.

  The canister vanished into the trees.

  The world went white.

  Even through closed eyes and earplugs, the pressure punched through bone. The air folded inward and rebounded like a slap from something enormous.

  The creatures reacted wrong.

  Instead of scattering, they froze.

  Heads jerked upward in perfect synchronization.

  Then the screaming started.

  Not pain.

  Overload.

  Their fused bodies spasmed violently, muscles firing out of sequence. One tore at its own face. Another convulsed as sparks crawled under its skin like trapped lightning.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  One of them ignited.

  Not with flame.

  With heat.

  Steam burst from its back as something inside it reacted violently to the shockwave.

  The asphalt beneath us trembled.

  Barely.

  Not enough for the humans to notice.

  But enough that my tail twitched.

  Fear flared like a flare in the dark.

  And something deeper stirred in my chest.

  Through the drifting smoke and ringing silence, one creature slowly straightened.

  Its broken jaw snapped back into alignment with a sickening pop.

  It turned its head.

  Too far.

  And smiled.

  Dragoon was snarling and pawing inside my chest, even though we weren’t close enough to anything to justify it.

  Carter had a strained look on his face as we ran.

  Red scales were breaking through his skin in small, involuntary patches along his jaw and wrists.

  That wasn’t conscious.

  That was reflex.

  A stray thought cut through the adrenaline—sharp and unwelcome.

  Reptiles are sensitive to vibrations.

  Not just sound.

  Ground-borne.

  Low frequency.

  “Fuck.”

  I ran faster.

  Everyone kept pace.

  Creatures surged from the trees.

  Not running.

  Launching.

  Jake moved first. His daggers elongated mid-swing, bone stretching into curved blades as he sliced and thrust, movements precise and brutal.

  Raj didn’t hesitate.

  He ripped a flashbang from his vest and hurled it straight into the mass.

  I saw it leave his hand.

  And my stomach dropped.

  “Don’t—”

  Too late.

  Without thinking, I dove for Wolfman and slammed into him. “Carter! Get to Frankie!”

  Carter was already shaking — red scales breaking across his arms like fractures in glass.

  Wolfman caught me out of reflex, confusion flashing across his face as the flashbang detonated.

  The world turned white.

  Even through closed eyes and earplugs, the pressure punched through bone.

  Sound didn’t matter.

  Vibration did.

  Dragoon lost his mind.

  He slammed against my ribs, claws raking inside my chest like he was trying to tear free. My hybrid body convulsed, tail lashing wildly.

  Wolfman locked his arms around me like he was restraining a rabid animal.

  “Hoard,” I snarled inside my own skull.

  I lunged mentally for the bonds.

  Jack.

  Chaos.

  The anchors.

  I wrapped myself around them like chains.

  Dragoon roared.

  Not fear.

  Rage.

  Something answered.

  Not inside me.

  Outside.

  An enraged, thunderous roar split the clearing — deeper, hotter, bigger.

  “Oh shit!” Raj shouted.

  “Run!” Drac’s voice cracked — the first real panic I’d heard from him.

  My claws dug into asphalt as my body jerked forward.

  Not by choice.

  Something enormous moved behind us.

  And I was still in hybrid form.

  The threat of a larger predator snapped Dragoon out of blind rage and straight into survival instinct.

  His thrashing shifted.

  Not dominance.

  Avoidance.

  I seized the opening and slammed control back into place.

  Breathing hard, I risked a glance over my shoulder.

  Two things registered at once.

  One —

  The hybrids were no longer a problem.

  White fire devoured them.

  Not normal flame.

  Not orange.

  White.

  Hot enough that the air itself warped around it. Bodies didn’t burn — they collapsed inward, flesh turning to ash before it could even scream.

  Two —

  Carter was gone.

  In his place stood something medieval and mythic and very, very wrong for our side of the battlefield.

  A massive red dragon towered over the clearing.

  Scaled in dark crimson, plates edged in black like they’d been forged in a furnace. Wings half-spread, not built for grace but for intimidation. His horns curved back like a warlord’s crown. Fire arched off him in sheets, dripping from his jaws, spilling from between his scales like his blood had ignited.

  He finished the last hybrid with a contemptuous sweep of flame.

  Then he lifted his head.

  And looked at us.

  Fuck.

  The temperature didn’t rise.

  It dropped.

  Predator focus.

  Not frenzy.

  Target acquisition.

  I didn’t hesitate.

  Shadow snapped around us and the world smeared into grayscale as I hauled the entire group forward — not far, just enough to put the hotel doors at our backs.

  We reappeared hard against cracked stone and rusted barricade.

  “Albert!” I barked, staring at the reinforced entrance. “Blow the door!”

  Behind us, something massive moved.

  Half-run.

  Half-flight.

  Each step cracked asphalt.

  Each wingbeat shoved hot air forward like a blast furnace.

  I swallowed.

  ‘Dragoon?’ I sent tightly. ‘Does Alpha authority help at all here?’

  Silence.

  Then hysterical panic.

  ‘Dragon Lord trumps Alpha every time!’ he shrieked.

  He clawed at my insides like he was trying to tear his way out and flee on his own.

  ‘He is not thinking! He is ruling!’

  Another thunderous step.

  Stone fractured.

  Albert fumbled with something metallic.

  Raj swore.

  The air started to shimmer from heat distortion.

  And I realized something else.

  Carter wasn’t raging.

  He was asserting.

  Then something split the fire.

  Not wind.

  Not impact.

  Something inside Carter surged outward.

  Tentacles erupted from between his scales.

  Unlike Attwater’s.

  Those had stuttered and flickered like a glitch.

  These were solid.

  Dense.

  Dark as obsidian but gleaming like oil under moonlight, every surface etched with faint, moving sigils that pulsed in slow rhythm. They didn’t phase in and out of reality.

  They belonged to it.

  They wrapped around the massive red dragon in spirals — wings pinning, jaws restraining, forelegs forced inward as if binding a war god.

  The ground cracked under the strain.

  Carter roared.

  The sound shook my bones.

  The tentacles tightened.

  “oh fucking Hell,” Jake whispered.

  They weren’t attacking us.

  They were restraining him.

  Holding him back.

  Fire bled between the gaps, white and red flames licking against the dark bindings. The sigils flared brighter where they touched dragon-scale.

  The air smelled like ozone and molten iron.

  Then a voice rolled out of the dragon’s throat.

  Layered.

  Not Carter.

  Not entirely.

  Disembodied and resonant, like something older speaking through a furnace.

  “Hurry. I cannot hold him long without injuring my host.”

  Host.

  Not vessel.

  Host.

  Fear.

  The word settled heavy in my chest.

  “Albert!” we all shouted at once, spinning toward the barricaded hotel doors. “Blow that door faster!”

  Albert stood back from the entrance, fingers flying as if he were conducting an orchestra.

  Brick-sized slabs of C4 had appeared along the frame and hinges — precise, evenly spaced, professional.

  The careful kind of professional that worried me more than chaos would have.

  A manic giggle bubbled up from him.

  “Oh this is beautiful,” he breathed.

  “Do I want to know where he got all those explosives?” I asked, staring at the amount of firepower currently attached to the door.

  “Explosions are kind of a mad scientist magic power,” Frankie sighed like this was Tuesday. “He can synthesize any volatile compound if he understands the chemistry.”

  The tentacles groaned under strain.

  Flames burst through one gap.

  The red dragon’s eye rolled toward us.

  Focused.

  Calculating.

  Not gone.

  But not contained.

  The sigils along the bindings began to crack.

  Albert looked over his shoulder, wild grin flashing in the firelight.

  “Stand back!”

  Oh.

  Fuck.

  I threw up a barrier of chaos magic and forced it into shape.

  Not a shield.

  A dome.

  Layered. Spinning. Interlocking probabilities bending around us like a warped mirror. Every stray variable shoved outward. Every explosive outcome redirected.

  I didn’t trust neat magic.

  I trusted stubborn magic.

  “Down!” I barked.

  Then I turned inward.

  Dragoon was still clawing at my insides, thrashing, panicked by the presence of a Dragon Lord.

  Fine.

  If he wanted primal, I could do primal.

  I grabbed him by the horn in my mind.

  Not gently.

  I imagined dirt under my boots. Rope in my hands. A rancher bracing against a bull that outweighed him by a thousand pounds.

  “You do not get to run,” I snarled inside our shared skull.

  Dragoon roared, smoke and shadow flaring around us.

  I slammed him into the mental ground.

  Pinned.

  Knee on his neck.

  Hand twisted in his horn.

  “You are not prey,” I hissed. “And you are not subordinate.”

  He thrashed once more.

  I tightened my grip.

  “We are not fighting him. We are surviving him.”

  The chaos barrier flared—

  Albert pressed the detonator.

  For one split second—

  Silence.

  Then—

  The world folded.

  The explosion didn’t just detonate.

  It inverted.

  C4 charges erupted in synchronized brilliance, shockwaves colliding and amplifying in a contained directional blast. The reinforced door didn’t splinter—

  It disintegrated.

  The hinges vaporized.

  The frame blew outward in a perfectly carved rectangle as brick and steel were peeled away like paper by controlled fury.

  The shockwave slammed into my chaos dome.

  Energy rippled across its surface in fractal lightning, branching, dividing, dissolving into harmless probability spirals.

  Behind us, windows along the hotel fa?ade shattered inward from pressure alone.

  The blast didn’t roar.

  It boomed — a chest-compressing detonation that shook dust from the trees and flattened the grass around us.

  And then—

  Air rushed back into the vacuum left behind.

  Smoke billowed outward in a controlled plume.

  Where the barricade had stood—

  There was now a doorway.

  Clean.

  Open.

  Firelight from Carter’s body reflected in the drifting dust like a war scene painted in red.

  In my mind, Dragoon went very still.

  Not submissive.

  Focused.

  “That,” I muttered, staring at the newly created entrance, “was excessive.”

  Albert beamed.

  “It was efficient.”

  Behind us—

  The sigils around Carter cracked louder.

  Fear’s bindings were failing.

  And the Dragon Lord was almost free.

  I dropped the chaos shield.

  “Move!”

  We sprinted through the blasted doorway and into the hotel lobby.

  The air inside was colder.

  Still.

  Wrong.

  Then it got weird.

  Behind us, the doorway began to… rewind.

  Not rebuild.

  Rewind.

  Brick fragments lifted from the ground and snapped back into place like film running in reverse. Twisted metal straightened mid-air. Splintered wood fused seamlessly together.

  The frame stitched itself closed in seconds.

  The reinforced door slammed back into existence with a final, decisive thud.

  We were sealed inside.

  An enraged roar detonated outside.

  The entire building shuddered as something massive hit the door.

  Talons scraped.

  Metal screamed.

  Flames licked under the threshold, white at the center, red at the edges.

  The door did not burn.

  It did not buckle.

  It held.

  The fire retreated.

  Another impact.

  Harder.

  Still it held.

  “I do believe,” Albert said thoughtfully, brushing dust off his coat, “the hotel allowed me to demolish the door.”

  He smiled, delighted.

  “What else can I blow up in here?”

  Frankie lunged and grabbed him by the collar.

  “No.”

  My head snapped toward Albert.

  “What,” I said slowly, “do you mean it let you?”

  Drac was already studying the walls, eyes unfocused in that eerie vampire way of his.

  “I’ve been here before,” he said calmly. “This building is sentient. Magic similar to Haven Town constructs.”

  He paused, gaze lifting toward the ceiling.

  “But older.”

  “And temperamental.”

  Raj swore softly.

  Drac continued, almost politely, “It is the earthly seat of the King of Halloween.”

  The lights flickered.

  Somewhere deep inside the structure, something shifted.

  Not pipes.

  Not settling wood.

  Breathing.

  I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose.

  People needed to give me all the variables before we started any mission.

  Outside, Carter roared again.

  The hotel did not respond.

  It didn’t need to.

  It had already made its choice.

  hindered.