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"Come on, then Let’s clean up You use my bathroom I’ve a shower out in my workshop I can use"

I raisedall ently, in response

"It’s going to be okay, Jane We’ll find a way to tell your father so he understands You’re doing the right thing He can’t live in ignorance and false hope for the rest of his life"

I nodded, finally Anyan stepped back so that I could hop down off the counter, and then ent our separate ways to clean up I’d already used his upstairs bathroo that took a while was finding soh I ca on his sofa and waiting forit like a backpack, and then plunked the helmet Anyan held out toas Anyan started to set his own hel the hel to wind up when he suddenly lowered his ar around with confusion written across his expression

"Why do I se humans?" he asked, a split second before ere attacked

CHAPTER TWO

If whoever attacked us had given Anyan even a s would have turned out differently Anyan’s a warrior with battle-honed reflexes and a healthy dose of paranoia

But there was no warning One ravel driveway, and the next Anyan smelled humans Then he was down, taken out by what sounded and looked, froh-ier the little rabbit heart that I’d been just h I was too late to stop the bullets, as soon as Anyan hit the ground, I had full ical shields up and ready to protect both of us… from the supernatural attack that never came

For instead of supes, I watched as half a dozen hued froe balls immediately, but I didn’t let fire Not least because I knehat the red laser bea over both my own body and Anyan’s uns--while I sensed not a single iota of e was almost preternatural These were professionals, even if they weren’t ical, and they’d drop me with a bullet before I could take out e ball fall to the ground and fizzle out, etting et is down," I heard one of the et is secure"

I doubted even a full et stood ure out a way to save our skins Meanwhile Anyan lay bleeding to death on his driveway

Powerful supes, like the barghest, are tough to kill They’re hard to get a bead on in the first place, and they can also heal thee The only way to kill so as Anyan would be to ensure his heart or brain had stopped in that first attack, or to knock him unconscious when he was full of holes, so that he bled to death My friend Daoud was nearly exsanguinated the ti Conleth, and I never wanted to see that happen again Especially to Anyan

"I repeat, priain as one of his cohorts strode over to where Anyan lay The crunch of gravel under his boots see I half-expected the barghest to spring up and attack, revealing that it had all been a clever ruse

But Anyan’s body stayed where it was, red blood seeping under gray stone

Meanwhile, there was only one thing I could think to do I kneas a risk, and I’d been told not to do it once before But I could feel, in ut, it washad a "listening" face, after which he nodded and said, "Yes, sir" Then he looked at thenext to Anyan and said, "Confir down on where the barghest lay, undefended He was ai a deep breath, but otherwise giving no outward indication, I sprangspecial I’, and everyone assumes--quite incorrectly, as with s are exactly what the na, and half as necessary

So while at least two of the men had their laser sites trained on me, they hadn’t incapacitated me in any way I was but a s

Praise be to the god who invented underestiather my power to me