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Veti clung like a giant red tick to the face of the blinded anubus, ebony claws buried unshakably in its face. She groaned deep in her throat, in dreadful time with the blast wave that followed, losing any hope of sight of Daisy and Artie, Semyon, Nestor... The golem? The strangely gentle-seeming rusalka and that idiot mummy and the pale, high-strung elf he couldn't stop himself molesting? All lost beneath rock and rubble, hidden even from her sight and senses. 

From her perch on the anubus' face, she was spared the worst of the magical fires, but none of the panic that threatened to squeeze her heart in a vise of terror. 

[i][b]"Daisy? DAISY!?"[/i][/b] she howled, though she might never know if even her powerful voice could carry over the tons of crumbling stone and plaster, and the supernatural inferno created by the anubus' khopesh. [i][b]"Nestor? SEMYON!?"[/i][/b] Amber eyes frantically scanned the settling rubble and - 

[i]"Tamarind!"[/i] If she weren't a giant, heavily-muscled bad-ass werewolf bitch on a mission, she [i]might[/i] have teared up, just a little, with relief. Semyon still stood at the least - and Nestor! Nestor was doing some crazy ass damn thing or other just beyond her sight, but when the hell [i]wasn't[/i] he a fucking lunatic? It was half his charm.

And if he needed a distraction to do whatever the hell it was that crazy bastard had in mind, Veti had his back. In a single swift motion she holstered the Desert Eagle and then pulled her freed up arm back, cocked with all the unspeakable, obscene strength and power in a werewolf's limbs, and slammed her fist into the stone giant's head. Again. Again and again and [i]again.[/i] 

Veti had no idea if these constructs actually had anything like a brain within these seeming skulls, or could feel anything like pain, but the werewolf's every blow tore away great chunks of its head, as if she'd drill straight to its brain. Whatever the hell Nestor was up to back there, Veti was going to make [i]damn[/i] sure, this thing had no chance in hell of noticing any goddamn thing at all, but the werewolf knocking oh-so-politely at its fucking skull.

It was the voice of a goddess ringing through her head, the words of Isis the only thing that could have pulled Veti at that moment from drilling herself straight through the anubus' head if she had to. 

[i]The Guardians.[/i]

[i]Smash all of you to dust.[/i]

Yeah, that got through. From the corner of her eye, the werewolf saw the divine kite swoop and dive, attacking the construct her very self. In that instant Veti the woman knew she might always regret never having the chance to spend more time in Her presence, but the Wolf obeyed without question. 

In a flash she was up and over the back of the anubus' onyx skull, knowing she'd find Nestor on the other side. Without even so much as a 'salutations and how do you do?' Veti leapt for the demonspawn, enclosing him in her powerful arms, wrapping his body to her chest protectively and taking the most direct route to the ground below she could think of.

Straight down.

The impact from such a height with the broken marble floor would have shattered the spine, the skull and the pelvis of any natural creature in the known world. Thank every unnatural magic known to her lover's prodigious and brilliant mind, werewolves were anything [i]but[/i] "entirely natural." The breath whooshed out of her in a rush, the agony burning like hellfire to tell her there'd be great, purple bruises for days and days the length of the woman's back - but Veti rolled to her side, releasing Nestor from her cradling grip to the floor beside them. 

The werewolf groaned deep in her throat, managing to get to all fours as she shook her head, clearing it swiftly before her eyes scoured the choking clouds of ash and plaster. [i][b]"Daisy!? ARTIE!?" [/i][/b]she cried, straining to catch any sight of bubblegum pink and ebony.