Fear Nothing

down in the living room, as we had left them. I dialed them up a little.
        One of the big windows had been shattered. Hooting wind drove rain under the porch roof and into the living room.
        Four screaming monkeys were perched on the backs of chairs and on the arms of sofas. When the lights brightened, they turned their heads toward me and hissed as one.
        Bobby had estimated that the troop was composed of eight or ten individuals, but it was obviously a lot larger than that. I'd already seen twelve or fourteen, and in spite of the fact that they were more than half crazed with rage and hatred, I didn't think they were so reckless-or stupid-that they would sacrifice most of their community in a single assault like this.
        They'd been loose for two to three years. Plenty of time to breed.
        Orson was on the floor, surrounded by this quartet of goblins, which now began to shriek at him again. He was turning worriedly in a circle, trying to watch all of them at once.
        One of the troop was at such a distance and angle that I didn't have to worry that any stray buckshot would catch the dog. Without hesitation, I blew away the creature on which I had a clear line of fire, and the resulting spray of buckshot and monkey guts would cost Bobby maybe five thousand bucks in redecorating costs.
        Squealing, the remaining three intruders bounded from one piece of furniture to another, heading toward the windows. I brought down another one, but the third round in the shotgun only peppered a teak-paneled wall and cost Bobby another five or ten grand.
        I pitched the shotgun aside, reached to the small of my back, drew the Glock from under my belt, started after the two monkeys that were fleeing through the broken window onto the front porch - and was nearly lifted off my feet when someone grabbed me from behind. A beefy arm swung around my throat, instantly choking off my air supply, and a hand seized the Glock, tearing it away from me.
        The next thing I knew, I was off my feet, lifted and tossed as though I were a child. I crashed into a coffee table, which collapsed under me.
        Flat on my back in the ruins of the ffirniture, I looked up and saw Carl Scorso looming over me, even more gigantic from thing is angle than he actually was. The bald head. The earring. Though I'd dialed up the lights, the room was still sufficiently shadowy that I could see the animal shine in his eyes.
        He was the troop leader. I had no doubt about that. He was wearing athletic shoes and jeans and a flannel shirt, and there was a watch on his wrist, and if he were put in a police lineup with four gorillas, no one would have the least difficulty identifying him as the sole human being. Yet in spite of the clothes and the human form, he radiated the savage aura of something subhuman, not merely because of the eyeshine but because his features were twisted into an expression that mirrored no human emotion I could identify. Though clothed, he might as well have been naked; though clean-shaven from his neck to the crown of his head, he might as well have been as hairy as an ape. If he lived two lives, it was clear that he was more attuned to the one that he lived at night, with the troop, than to the one that he lived by day, among those who were not changelings like him.
        He held the Glock at arm's length, executioner style, aiming it at my face.
        Orson flew at him, snarling, but Scorso was the quicker of the two. He landed a solid kick against the dog's head, and Orson went down and stayed down, without even a yelp or a twitch of his legs.
        My heart dropped like a stone in a well.
        Scorso swung the Glock toward me again and fired a round into my face.
        Or that was how it seemed for an instant. But a split second before he pulled the trigger, Sasha shot him in the back from the far end of the room, and the crack I heard was the report of her Chiefs Special.
        Scorso jerked from the impact of the slug, pulling the Glock ff-target. The teak floor beside my head splintered as the bullet tore through it.
        Wounded but less fazed than most of us would have been once shot in the back, Scorso swung around, pumping out rounds from the Glock as he turned.
        Sasha dropped and rolled backward out of the room, and Scorso emptied the pistol at the place where she had stood. He kept trying to pull the trigger even after the magazine