One of the bird chimeras burst through. Cantrell took two steps after her, then reached out with the shock baton. There was a faint crackling sound, and the chimera crumpled into a ball. I gasped at the sudden violence. Cantrell prodded her again and again, making her convulse on the ground. The other bird chimera ran through the door, followed by the fox, Sly. They tried to slip past on either side of him, but Cantrell reached out with his baton and tripped the other bird chimera. Before she could get up, he was on her, pressing the baton into her midsection and holding it there as she squirmed and shuddered and made strange warbling noises. “Stop it!” I yelled. “You’ll kill her!” He finally pulled the baton away, but only when he spotted Sly running toward a shallow stream that fed into a storm drain and charged after him. The first bird was up on her hands and knees, but the second one wasn’t moving. I ran over to her and saw her mouth frothing. The way she was lying on the slope, her head was lower than her body. I was afraid she was going to choke. I grabbed her arms and dragged her around so that her head was elevated. She was surprisingly light. I was wondering what to do next when she coughed and opened her eyes, deep black orbs that seemed wide and innocent. She looked up at me and smiled. We were both startled as Cantrell yelled, “Freeze!” Sly was zigzagging through the trees toward the stream. Cantrell was standing with his legs braced wide and his stun gun out in front of him. Del was running toward him. I didn’t know what he planned to do, but before I could call out, the cat chimera appeared from behind another tree, twenty feet away. His arm was cocked, a rock the size of a baseball in his hand. Then he whipped it forward. The rock flew like a bullet, a straight line with almost no arc. It hit . . . 35. . .
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