LITMIR.BIZ

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stared down muzzle-boy—AJ—once already. That memory gave her just enough courage to ask again, “And that thing under the bus...it wasn’t human, either.” She had known that already. Mostly. Guessed it, at least, even if she hadn’t let herself acknowledge the insanity of it.

      “Gnomes,” he said. “Nasty little bastards, all teeth and greed.”

      “Gnomes.” All right, then. “And Tyler? He’s been taken, you said. By...”

      “Not by us, or ours,” AJ said. He watched her carefully, not the staring contest of before, but cautious, judging. “Our enemies. Yours now, too.”

      “This is a joke, right? Tyler set this whole thing up. That’s some kind of costume—a good one, you got me, but the joke’s over.” She looked between them, shaking her head. “Is this being filmed? ’Cause it’s not funny anymore and there’s no way in hell I’m going to sign any kind of release form for you to use the footage. And Ty’s still a shit for pulling this.”

      AJ growled again. “For pity’s sake, Martin, you show her.”

      “Me?” Black Nails sounded...worried?

      AJ had pulled his hoodie back up and looked up at the sky, as if that was supposed to mean something. “I can’t, you idiot.”

      “And you want me to—” He—Martin, Jan reminded herself—waved his hands, the black-painted fingernails catching light and sparkling slightly.

      “We’re running out of time. And so is her Tyler. Come on, you swish-tailed wuss. I know damn well you can control yourself when you want to.”

      Martin sighed and heaved himself off the bench and— There wasn’t any warning, just a drawn-out groan and the sound of things crackling, the sound you’d hear when you stretched after sitting for too long, bones protesting and muscles stretching and the urge to close her eyes as though water was pressing against them, swimming underwater, and when she opened them again, Martin was gone.

      And a solidly muscled pony, russet-coated with a black mane cropped short, was regarding her with deep brown eyes that were disturbingly familiar.

      Jan had been the normal horse-mad kid, but that stage had worn off years ago. Still, she couldn’t help but reach up to touch that nose, then slide her hand along the side of its neck. The pony lowered its head and turned slightly, as though inviting her to continue. Without meaning to, she found herself standing by its side, contemplating how difficult it would be to tangle her fingers in that stiff brush of a mane and haul herself onto its back.

      AJ let out a harsh, rude growl. “Martin, stop that. I swear, we should have left you behind, if that’s how you’re going to behave.”

      The pony shook its head and whickered, and Jan stepped back, the spell broken.

      She stared at it, and then at AJ, who was suddenly, bizarrely, the lesser of two weirdnesses. “That’s...oh, my god.”

      “No, just Martin.” AJ still sounded disgusted. “Don’t get on his back. He really can’t help himself then, and we need you intact.”

      “What?”

      “We’re— Oh, so help me, swish-tail, if you relieve yourself here, I’m going to pretend I don’t know you. Go do your business elsewhere if you can’t wait.”

      The pony—Martin—gave an offended snort, and the crunchy-snapping noise made her close her eyes, and when she was able to open them again, he looked human again.

      Looked. Wasn’t.

      Jan thought she might pass out.

      * * *

      The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the bench again, with Martin on her left and AJ pacing again, looking up and down the street and occasionally stopping to scowl into the gutters. Keeping guard against those...things from the bus, she guessed. Or whatever else was about to come bursting through the sidewalk, or popping out of a mailbox. As insane as it all had to be, as insane as she had to be, somehow Jan couldn’t doubt it, not any of it. Not after Martin had done...what he had done, and not with the memory of those moldy-looking fingers reaching up to where she had been sitting, forcing their way through metal to get to her....

      “They’ve always liked human meat.”

      Neither of her two rescuers were exactly knights in shining armor, but they had to be better than that.

      “No knight, but the steed,” she said, and a slightly hysterical giggle escaped her. Shock. She was in shock.

      “What? Oh. No.” Martin smiled, picking up the joke. “A sense of humor, that’s good. You’re going to need it.”

      As unnerving as the transformation had been, she still felt herself lean toward him, moving like a flower to follow the sun. AJ was unnerving and dangerous. He...AJ said Martin was dangerous, but instead she felt comforted. Protected. Safe.

      That was insane. Not human. Hello, not human!

      A were-pony? Jan closed her eyes, shook herself slightly, opened her eyes again. Martin was still there, watching her.

      Jan had always been a practical sort: she worked with what she could see. There was no way to believe— no way to convince herself to believe that this was a hoax or a prank, not anymore. She had seen Martin change form. She had seen AJ’s face, heard him growl, a noise that couldn’t have come from a human throat. She had seen...something tear through the bottom of a city bus as if it was cardboard.

      God, she hoped everyone on the bus was okay. There hadn’t been any sirens or screaming, so she had to believe her two rescuers—captors—were right, that it had abandoned the uptown bus the moment they left....except that meant that thing was looking for them.

      Why? What had she been yanked into?

      “Okay.” She breathed in and out once evenly, the way her doctor had taught her, calming her body, telling it to relax and stand down, and sat straight-backed on the bench, watching a squirrel balancing on the bike rack opposite them, nibbling at something. “Not human.”

      Martin nodded once, approvingly, and she heard a muffled snort coming from AJ, that they both ignored.

      “You know Tyler. You said something had taken him.... Something like those turncoats?” The thought made her cringe inside—maybe they were hurting him, maybe... Oh, god.

      “No.” Martin shook his head this time, the thick black hair falling over his eyes exactly the same way it had done in his other form. Somehow, that small detail made it make more sense in her brain. “Not them. We could have stopped them, if that were it. Or, we could have tried to stop them, anyway. They’re just...turncoats.” The way he said the word made it sound like a curse. “They’ve sold out their own kind.”

      “You...your kind...?” She made a gesture that was meant to indicate him and AJ, who was pacing again, but instead came out as a wimpy hand-circle.

      “Us, and you.” AJ’s muzzle twitched. “Look, there’s natural folk, you humans, and us, the supernaturals. That’s...there are different species, all scattered around the world. Some you’ve heard of, some you haven’t, some don’t come out much anymore. Mostly we get along because we ignore each other. And humans like to pretend we don’t exist, at all. It’s better that way. Safer.”

      Safer. Jan wondered if he used the word the same way she did. None of it mattered; she only wanted to know one thing. “What happened to Ty?”

      “Your leman...he’s....” Martin stopped and considered her, as though gauging how much more she could take. “Not much” was the answer, she suspected, but she’d do it, she’d deal with it. Her hand slipped down to touch her inhaler, reassurance, even though she didn’t need it just them.

      “We didn’t know about him specifically,” AJ said, his pacing taking him away and then back to stand in front of Jan. “We were tracking the preter, found her in time

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