The man who asked Felicity to call an ambulance got his teeth into the woman helping him before the call could connect. Felicity caught the woman by the belt and hauled her backward. All three of them went down on the riverside path, and the phone skidded under a bench, still trying to find somebody in Sydney who could help.
The woman kicked him in the mouth and scrambled away on one hand and both knees. Felicity wanted to go after her. Then the man spat half a tooth onto the pavement and got up with his head at an angle no living man could have managed. She decided the woman had the right idea.
Ten minutes ago, the worst part of her Tuesday had been going for a jog in shorts that kept riding up her ass. Now every step hurt deep in her hips, and the jacaranda beside the coffee stand had put a root clean through the counter. A teenager still had his phone up. When the root lifted the bench with her own phone underneath it, she left it there. If anyone survived to watch his video, she sincerely hoped he got her good side.
She made it as far as the grass before the pain forced her onto her hands. Something pulled tight against her waistband. She reached behind herself, felt warm fur, and nearly crawled out of her skin when whatever she had grabbed felt her hand right back. Her shorts tore at the back seam. A thick, pale gold tail came free, and the relief was so good she almost forgot to be horrified.
A dog barked beside her left ear. The dog was actually halfway across the river. She put a hand to the top of her head and felt one enormous soft ear turn under her palm. In the dark glass of the coffee stand, she caught a flash of blue eyes, honey-blond hair and a pair of ears big enough to pick up the evening news. She would have given a great deal to hear an ordinary traffic report.
The man with the broken neck hit the far side of the counter. Her ears picked up the scrape of his shoes before she saw him, and this time she had a whole second to get out of his reach. She ducked under the tilted bench and came up on the street side. By the time he got around it, she was three cars ahead.
A woman with short blond hair was trying to pull a backpack out from under an overturned car. She had small round ears, claws and dark stripes down the backs of her arms. When she pulled, the car rocked toward her. Felicity could hear glass grinding under the roof.
"Let the bag go a second," Felicity called. "You're kneeling on the other strap, and that thing's about to come down on your foot."
The woman moved her knee and fell on her ass with the bag in her lap. "Thanks for telling me about the car first. I'd have hated to die knowing it was because I was sitting on my own luggage."
"I'm Felicity, and I'd really like to get off this street." She pointed to the corner store, where the front door stood open and the little green exit sign at the back still had a light. As they crossed, something with scales on its neck turned away from a stalled bus to follow them.
"I'm Rose. If you hear anything coming up behind us, I'd appreciate the same warning you gave the bag." Rose caught the door and pulled a wire rack across it while Felicity went looking for the back exit. A delivery cart had rolled in front of it. She released the brake and shoved it aside, then grabbed two bottles of water. Rose swept a handful of candy and batteries into the backpack. Apparently the end of the world still ran on triple A's.
The rack hit the floor before either of them reached the exit. The thing from the bus had shoulders too wide for the door, but it squeezed through sideways, one yellow eye fixed on Felicity. "Pretties," it said, almost kindly, and reached past Rose to get at her.
Four cuts opened down Rose's arm. Felicity threw a bottle at its eye, cap and all, and it turned just far enough for Rose to drive a loose steel bar up under its jaw. It fell against the rack with its feet still trying to walk. Rose dropped the bar. Blood ran off her fingertips faster than Felicity could wipe it up with the hem of her shirt.
A man with white fur along his forearms filled the front doorway. His pale eyes went from the body to Rose's arm, and he took a clean cloth out of his pocket. "My name's Finch. Put that on her arm and go out the back. You have about six seconds before his friends get here."
Felicity took the cloth because she could already hear them. She held it hard against Rose's arm as they ran down the delivery lane, with Finch between them and the street. Under the overpass, Rose's fingers went slack in hers. Felicity caught her against the wall. She had met this woman five minutes ago. She knew the stupid story about her bag, and that she had stood between Felicity and a set of claws, and she wanted very badly to know something else about her tomorrow.
"Stay with me, Rose. I didn't drag you all this way to inherit a bag of batteries." Her palms grew so hot she expected Rose to pull away. Instead, gold light shone through the bloody cloth, and four deep cuts closed under her thumbs. She peeled the cloth back in time to see the last one vanish.
Rose opened her hand and closed it again. Finch was staring at Felicity. She might have enjoyed the miracle for another second if her new ears hadn't picked up the feet on the street above them. At the first flash of gold, every single one had stopped. Now they were coming down the ramp.