"Her name wouldn't be Tess, would it?" Teige said brightly. At that moment, behind him, the flaming wreckage of a mangled tank slammed into the pavement, streaming bright fire. "She's about."

The figure in the corner of the truck had not moved, merely huddled quite still with a sack tied around their head. Hawk reached for the sack, intending to cut it free, when a hiss from the girl beside him stopped him.

"Don't," she whispered. She was the one whose legs weren't tied; she lay against the dog-like creature with the yellow eyes, who was now watching Hawk's hand hover over the hunched figure's face with apprehension. The girl's lipstick was smeared across her chin. "He was half-human, dude. They bashed his skull in straight off. I-it ain't pretty."

Hawk withdrew his hand dumbly.

The noise outside was rising--with the wreckage of the tank burning in the streets the fighting appeared to be turning against the humans. Throngs of people were spilling past the truck, silhouetted in the smoke that had blotted out the dusk sky. Humans were losing their helmets and firing point-blank at massive animal-shaped monsters that thundered after them wielding teeth and claws and baseball bats. The gunfire, brassy and sharp, rose above the din of roaring voices.

Teige glanced over his shoulder. "Sunshine?" he said, warningly, "They're all flooding back this way."

Hawk had sawed off the ropes that muzzled the dog-like monster and was now cutting the girl's arms free. "Okay, okay,"� he said.

The next bang that came seemed louder, closer, than the rest.