That’s when the magnitude of the situation hit me. The entire dozen hellhounds had made an appearance, and the departed, Reyes’s spies, whoever they were, fought beside us with a ferocity I’d never expected. I kicked at the hellhound dragging me into the brush, but my efforts served only to make my wound worse. Crying out in pain and fear for Reyes, I arched my back to get a better view of him. I could now see the beast’s outline better because it was covered in Reyes’s blood. Both of them were drenched in crimson. I heard a grunt in the darkness, but could no longer see Osh. Like a raging inferno, fear engulfed me.

I kicked at the beast again and it released me that time only to crawl over me, its mammoth body like a small house as it placed a paw on my chest. It spanned half my torso, the weight crushing me to the point of breaking.

Unlike the departed, the Twelve were even more invisible in the darkness, almost completely transparent, but the silvery black dust of their coats shimmered in the moonlight, allowing me to make out a shoulder here. An ear there. I looked to either side. My throat lay between two massive claws I could barely see past. The beast bent its head until we were nose-to-nose. His mouth quivered as he prepared to sever my head, but another growl mingled with his. I tore my gaze off the amber eyes of the hellhound and looked up. Another canine had materialized and was now in a deadly face-off against my captor.

Artemis pushed her head over mine until she was between us; then she rose up, forcing the hellhound back. Even if only inches, even if she bought me only seconds, I rejoiced at the borrowed time. Artemis quivered with anger, exposing her teeth in a vicious show of authority. She didn’t give their inconceivable difference in size a second thought. It reminded me of a scene outside my apartment once, where a Chihuahua had been attacking, mostly verbally, a huge pit bull. The adorable pittie didn’t know what to think about the miniscule assailant and seemed more worried about its ankles than anything else as the Chihuahua danced around it, snarling and nipping. But Artemis held her own. She slowly eased forward, David forcing Goliath back.

Artemis had distracted the beast long enough for me to get to my boot. I gasped for air as my fingers sought and found the hilt of the blade there. In one quick move, I pulled Zeus out of my boot and slashed at the hound. I felt resistance when the blade met flesh, when Zeus sliced into the hound’s side, but the beast whipped around and caught my forearm in its mouth with lightning-quick speed. Teeth sank to the bone. Pain rocketed through me.

With the beast’s attention averted, Artemis went for the jugular. She lunged forward and sank her teeth into its neck, but did they bleed? Could she really do it any harm? The weight of its paw on my chest was causing the edges of my vision to blacken; then a sharp, scalding pain splintered my body in two. The beast had cracked one of my ribs. I cried out as another gave way, my eyes rolling back as nausea roiled up like an ocean wave to drown me. I felt my lung fill with blood as fragments of bone punctured it. Breathing grew even harder as the beast fought Artemis, using me as its canvas.

I glanced across the landscape. Reyes fought as though unfazed by the beasts’ teeth and claws, by the massive amount of blood loss, by the fact that we were facing almost certain death. His expression void of emotion, his instincts on automatic, he finally untangled himself from the melee and sprinted toward me. Before he made it, however, another creature dived for him. He slid underneath it and caught two handfuls of its fur, then slammed it into the ground. It yelped as another of its kind tackled Reyes to the ground. They rolled farther away from me. That seemed to be their goal, in fact. To keep Reyes as far from me as possible, all the while ripping him to shreds.

Fighting through the pain, I welded my teeth together, lowered my lids, and gathered my energy, forced it to my core until the molecules compressed to the density of marble, until the pressure built like steam with no escape route. In one violent eruption, light burst from me, exploding into the atmosphere like the blast from a nuclear bomb.

The beast that stood over me winced and jerked away with a startled whine. It faltered and fell to its knees, but regained its footing just as quickly. Then it shook its snout and snorted as though it had sniffed something it didn’t like. Glancing about, I realized that was the extent of the damage.

It didn’t work. It had stunned the hounds momentarily, but they were back in full form in no time. Their disorientation lasted just long enough for Reyes to make it to his feet before one pounced again.

I lay there hopeless.

It didn’t work.

It didn’t work.

It didn’t work.

The beast sank its teeth as another dived for his jugular. Tiring, Reyes blocked its lethal jaws and hooked a leg around to break its neck. Instead, they both somersaulted, the beast ending up on top again, blood dripped from its snout as it watched him. Another one eased forward, and they exchanged silent glances. As though plotting. As though planning their attack. The second one crept around and crouched, ready to pounce.

Reyes glanced at me then. His face streaked with blood almost exactly like the first time I’d seen him, when I was in high school and Gemma and I were out in the middle of the night, trying to catch shots for a school project. He had the same look then that he had now: Acceptance of his fate. Approval of his impending death.

He whispered to me in Dutch, his voice soft and unhurried as it traveled over the terrain and into my ear. “Houdt haar veilig,” he said: “Keep her safe.” Beep. He was talking about Beep.

Then he relaxed against them, let his arms and his head fall back, giving them clean access to his jugular. When a black mist raised out of him, I realized he was going to keep them occupied with his physical body so he could fight them with his incorporeal one. But they would kill him before he could do any damage. The other departed were gone. The beasts were too strong. Too fast.