Sasha heard Pablo's shouted warning and immediately reassessed the battlefield. She'd just caved in a Raptor-Hound's ribcage—its health bar blinking away before it collapsed—but now she was scanning the garage's shadows for the source of the crossbow fire. There. On top of a parked truck, maybe thirty feet away. Another Raptor-Hound, this one clutching a crude crossbow. As she watched, it cranked back the string and loaded another bolt.

  How many of these things are there? Even as she had the thought, a second crossbow-wielder revealed itself on the opposite side of the garage, perched beside a concrete column. Then a third, positioned near the exit ramp they'd come down. Reaching out with her Tremorsense, amplified with Bedrock in her hands, she was pretty sure there weren’t anymore. But then, she wasn’t able to feel the one standing on the truck.

  "Three shooters!" Sasha called out.

  “I don’t know what Deflection Field will do in here.” Pablo had placed himself between the wounded couple and the monsters, Razor at wary middle guard as two of the up-close monsters fanned out, snarling and baring their pointed teeth.

  Sasha immediately saw his point. Out in the open, Pablo’s Metal Deflection Field power would have been a slam dunk for protecting them from metallic projectiles. However, the power wasn’t very selective, and between the parked cars and the rebar in the cement, they were surrounded by metal. A lot of their training in the last several months had been about when not to use their powers, not just how to use them.

  In an eyeblink, her mind raced through options. She could throw Bedrock at one of the shooters, but that would leave her without a weapon for several seconds. Too risky with the melee Raptor-Hounds still active. She could try to close the distance, but they were pretty well spread out and crossing thirty feet of open ground while being shot at was asking to take a bolt to the chest. Fortunately, she had a new trick to help with that.

  “Protect the civilians and buy me a second. I’ll go long!"

  "On it!" Pablo wove a whirling curtain of steel around him with Razor, driving the Raptor-Houds back several hissing steps.

  Sasha knelt to press her free hand to the concrete floor of the parking garage and reached out with her earth affinity. The structure responded immediately. This whole building was her domain: steel-reinforced concrete, aggregate stone, the bedrock of the Napa Valley far below. All of it singing in harmony with her power. She focused on the stone component of the concrete around her feet and pulled.

  Gray-brown material flowed up her legs like living rock, coating her shins, knees, and thighs in irregular plates that looked like natural stone armor. It spread across her hips, up her torso, covering her vital organs in overlapping stone scales. Ablative Rock Armor was an upgrade she'd unlocked last month after a particularly grueling training session and some coaxing from Delta.

  The entire process took maybe two seconds. A crossbow bolt whistled toward her. Pablo missed intercepting it with Razor in favor of defending the civilians from a lunging monster. Sasha didn't dodge the bolt. She raised a forearm, and the bolt struck the stone scales. The iron tip bounced off and went skittering across the garage floor harmlessly. She barely registered the impact, but the armor cracked where the bolt hit—a spiderweb of fractures spreading across the stone—but it still mostly held. That was the nature of the ability. Each hit would chip away at the armor, flaking off pieces until it failed completely. But in a concrete parking garage with abundant stone, she could reform it almost instantly.

  "Sasha!" Pablo shouted. "On your six!"

  She spun to find a Raptor-Hound lunging at her back, claws extended. No time to swing Bedrock. Sasha dropped her shoulder and let the creature's momentum carry it onto her stone armor. Claws scraped against rock, finding no purchase. The Raptor-Hound's surprised hiss cut off when Sasha grabbed it by its muscled throat and slammed it into the concrete hard enough to crack the floor.

  Its health bar satisfyingly dropped to 31%, but she could do better. Taking a step back, Sasha brought Bedrock down in a two-handed overhead strike. The hammer's head connected, channeling all of her enhanced might into the striking surface of the warhammer. The Raptor-Hound's skull burst apart like an overripe melon. The health bar vanished as the creature went limp.

  Two down. Five more to go.

  Finally, Sasha turned her attention back to the crossbow-wielders. The one on the truck was reloading. The one on the support beam was already aiming at Pablo, who was keeping two remaining melee Raptor-Hounds at bay while keeping himself positioned between the creatures and the terrified civilians.

  Sasha focused on the concrete beneath the truck-mounted shooter. The parking garage floor was poured concrete; it felt sluggish to her commands but remained workable. She found the aggregate stone within the mixture and activated Earthworks. An angled pillar of stone erupted from the floor beside the truck, rising fast and catching the Raptor-Hound mid-reload. The creature squawked and tumbled off the truck's roof, landing hard on the concrete. Its crossbow clattered away.

  Before it could recover, Sasha had charged and was on it. Bedrock caught it in the ribs, the impact lifting it off the ground and sending it crashing into a nearby minivan. The van's windows shattered. The creature didn't get up.

  "Sasha, help!" Pablo's voice, strained.

  She turned to see him bleeding from a gash on his thigh—one of the Raptor-Hounds had evidently gotten through his guard. Pablo was still standing, still fighting, but slowed by a pronounced limp. The two Raptor-Hounds were pressing their advantage, coordinating their attacks with disturbing intelligence. That wasn’t their only problem, because Sasha saw the remaining two crossbow-wielders were lining up clear shots on him.

  Sasha made her choice. Bedrock gripped in both hands, she thrust the head toward Pablo's position. The concrete between her and Pablo rippled like water just before a wall of stone shot up from the floor, a foot thick and eight feet tall, directly between Pablo and the crossbow-wielders. A split second later, the crossbows twanged in release, and the bolts thudded harmlessly against her wall.

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  Someone’s going to have a hell of a time explaining what happened here. The thought crossed her mind even as Sasha charged the nearest melee Raptor-Hound from behind. The creature sensed her coming and tried to dodge. Sasha caught it with a rising uppercut from her hammer that sent it flying fifteen feet, even without her Knockback power. It hit a concrete pillar with a wet crunch and slid to the ground, health bar flickering to zero.

  The last melee Raptor-Hound, already wounded and seeing its pack decimated, turned and ran for the exit ramp.

  "Oh no, you don't," Sasha muttered. She reached out with her Rooting power. The floor rippled and flowed up around its digitigrade legs mid-stride before solidifying. Caught firm, the Raptor-Hound lurched to a stop and crashed snout-first to the ground. In an eyeblink, Pablo was there. Razor came down in a clean execution stroke.

  That left the two crossbow-wielders. Sasha watched them exchange what looked like meaningful glances—insofar as reptilian alien faces could express meaning—then both turned and bolted toward the exit ramp. They moved with surprising speed, abandoning their elevated positions and hitting the ground running. Sasha took a step in pursuit.

  "Let them go," Pablo said, breathing hard. "We need to help the civilians."

  Sasha nodded and dismissed Bedrock to her Inventory even as Pablo did the same. Together, they hurried over to the older couple, who were pressed against their minivan, staring at them with expressions somewhere between terror and awe.

  The man was still bleeding from his arm. The woman had a gash across her cheek that was going to need stitches. Both were trembling.

  "It's okay," Sasha said, trying to make her voice calm and reassuring despite the fact that she was still partially covered in rock armor and had just killed three alien monsters with a magic hammer. "You're safe now."

  "What—" the woman managed. "What were those things?"

  "We're not entirely sure," Pablo said, which was technically true. His hands began glowing with soft white light as he activated Lay on Hands. "But they're gone now. Let me help with those injuries."

  "Who are you people?" the man asked. His eyes kept darting between them, the corpses of the Raptor-Hounds, and the impossible stone structures Sasha had yanked from the ground. "Are you... government? Military?"

  "We're..." Sasha trailed off, realizing they hadn't actually prepared a cover story for something like this. What would they say on Buffy when civilians saw vampires? 'Gas leak' or 'PCP gang,' neither of which will work here…

  Improv skills more on point, Pablo jumped into her silence.

  "We're with a special task force. I’m Agent ##, she’s Agent ##." Pablo said smoothly, his hands already pressed against the man's wounded arm. White light pulsed. The bleeding stopped, and the torn flesh knitted together enough to be no longer life-threatening. "We’ve been investigating these strange attacks."

  "Those weren't animals," the woman said, her voice shaking. "They were—they looked like—"

  "Animatronics," Sasha said, the lie coming easier than she expected. "Someone's been using them to terrorize people. We're tracking down who's responsible."

  "Yeah, very advanced animatronics, basically robots," Pablo added, moving to heal the woman's cheek. "Movie-quality special effects. The people behind this are very sick."

  The woman nodded slowly, like she was trying to convince herself. "Animatronics. Right. That makes... that makes sense."

  It absolutely did not make sense. Absolutely nobody should have believed that as a cover story, but the older couple seemed desperate to believe something that made sense, and Sasha wasn’t about to argue with them.

  "You should go to the hospital," Pablo said as he finished healing. "Get checked out properly. Tell them you were attacked by aggressive dogs. Large dogs."

  "Dogs," the man repeated.

  "Large dogs," Sasha confirmed.

  They helped the couple into their minivan. The man's hands were shaking too badly to hold the keys, so Sasha gently took them and started the vehicle for him.

  "Are you going to be okay to drive?" Pablo asked.

  "I think so," the man said, though his voice suggested otherwise.

  "We can call someone for you—" Sasha started.

  As if on cue, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Then Pablo's. Then hers again, rapid-fire. They exchanged glances. Simultaneously, they pulled out their phones. Delta's name flashed across both screens. Sasha's stomach dropped. Delta didn't call them often, sometimes when he was bored or lonely, but he wouldn’t call both of them at the same time unless something were horribly wrong.

  "We have to go," Pablo said abruptly to the couple. "Get yourselves to Queen of the Valley Medical Center. Tell them what I said—dog attack. Don't mention anything else."

  "But—" the woman started.

  "Please," Sasha said, her voice tight. "Trust us. Go now."

  They backed away from the minivan as the man—still trembling—backed out, put it in drive, and carefully drove toward the exit ramp. Sasha watched them go, then answered her phone.

  "Delta, what's wrong?"

  "It’s about time you answered!" Delta practically shrieked. "I hope I called before you two began fumbling your way through—”

  “—Get to the point or I’m hanging up,” Sasha said, her temper flaring.

  “Wait!” Delta cried. “We have a situation. A wild dungeon has manifested near Paladin Eden's employment location. She has entered alone in pursuit of civilians already inside. I have been unable to contact Paladin Warren. Paladin Zoe is en route but is still fourteen minutes away. Wait—my sensors just locked on your location—were you two engaged in combat?"

  “Fighting a couple of things called Raptor-Houds. They’re mostly dealt with, but two got away," Pablo said.

  “By the readings, I would say they were occupants of the dungeon.” As Delta spoke, the Raptor-Houd corpses were collapsing into mounds of dust, motes of multi-colored light drifting up from them before zipping into Sasha and Pablo. “Given how recently the dungeon opened, its monsters can’t remain in this layer of reality for long. I would expect the two survivors to be retreating toward the dungeon.”

  Sasha and Pablo froze, looking at each other.

  "How many could have made it out?" Pablo asked.

  "Unknown. The dungeon stabilized while my systems were still detecting the initial aperture formation. There could have been multiple incursion parties."

  "How far are we from—"

  "—Using surface streets, your current location is approximately two-point-five miles from the dungeon entrance.”

  “We’re on our way,” Pablo shouted as they both broke into a run toward Pablo’s truck. "Tell Eden to wait for backup."

  "As I said, she has already entered the dungeon," Delta said. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she hung up on me!”

  "Shit." Sasha grimaced. "Okay. Keep trying Warren."

  "Acknowledged. Be advised—preliminary scans suggest this is a Tier 3 wild dungeon. Recommend extreme caution."

  The call ended. Sasha and Pablo were just reaching his truck, their footsteps echoing through the now-silent parking garage. When they were still several feet away, the truck unlocked itself and the doors flew open on their own. They practically dove into the cab, and a second later, the engine roared to life. Already backed into the space, Pablo threw it into gear and they peeled out of the parking garage, tires squealing.

  "I can’t believe Eden went into a dungeon alone," Sasha said, gripping the door handle as Pablo took a corner too fast.

  "I know." In defiance of the downtown speed limit, the truck continued to accelerate down First Street, heading west toward Browns Valley. Toward whatever waited for Eden inside the dungeon.

  "Warren's not answering."

  "I know."

  "We're not ready for this," Sasha said quietly.

  Pablo's jaw tightened, and his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. "Sounds familiar. We’ll figure it out."