Rafiel let out shots as he ran, aimed at the beetles, and from the high-pitched whining of the one that Tom was beating, Kyrie would guess at least one of the bullets had found beetle flesh. Whether that meant it had also found any lethal points was something else again.
Behind Rafiel, Keith came, running up, with what looked like a hoe in his hand. Where had he found the hoe?
* * *
Tom heard a bullet whistle by and looked up to see Rafiel running into the garden firing wildly. Still beating on the beetle—smacking it repeatedly on the head seemed to make it too confused to either fight, flee, or put out green powder—Tom wondered if he was the intended victim of the beetle.
But the next bullet lodged itself solidly in the beetle's—Frank's?—flesh, and the creature emitted a high-pitch whine. And then it went berserk, limbs failing up toward Tom, trying to dislodge him, trying to stab at him.
Tom hit at the limbs, wildly. Keith was running up, behind Rafiel, and as Rafiel leapt toward Kyrie's beetle and shifted shapes mid-leap, his clothes falling in shreds away from the lion body, Keith grabbed the falling gun and aimed it at Tom's beetle.
* * *
Kyrie was grateful when Rafiel, now in lion form, joined the fight, but—though the panther was having trouble seeing clearly—she could see enough to see Keith grab the gun and point it in the general direction of Tom.
She didn't think that Keith would hurt Tom. Or not on purpose. But from the way Keith was holding the gun, she could tell there was no way in hell he could hit the broadside of a barn.
Unfortunately, he wasn't aiming at the broadside of a barn. He was aiming at a general area where Tom was a prominent feature. Without thinking she leapt, hitting the still-human Tom with her weight and bringing him rolling off the bug and onto the ground, with Kyrie just by his side.
Just in time, as the bullet whistled through the space where he'd been.
* * *
Kyrie was attacking him, Tom thought, as he hit hard on the ground, just barely managing to tuck in his head enough that he wouldn't end up unconscious. Why was she?
And then he realized that Keith had a gun and clearly had no idea what to do with it, as several erratically fired bullets flew over the beetle's carapace. Just where Tom would have been.
Still stunned by his fall on the ground, Tom put out an hesitant hand toward the huge mound of fur beside him. "Kyrie?" he said.
A tongue came out and touched his hand. Just touched, which was good, because it felt just like a cat tongue, all sharp bits and hooks.
A nonfeline hissing sound, a scraping, and Tom saw the beetle was turning around and was aiming sharp claw-like things at Kyrie.
Before he could think, he knew he was going to shift. He had just the time to kick off his leather boots as his body twisted and bent. And he was standing, as a dragon, facing the bug. He did what a dragon does. He flamed.
* * *
First, Kyrie thought, flames weren't particularly effective in these circumstances. Tom's flame seemed to glance over the beetle's carapace, without harming it. And second, if Tom continued flaming, he would hit a tree and roast them all alive.
But before Kyrie could change shape and yell this at Tom, who was clearly addled by adrenaline and change, Keith came flying out from behind them, hoe in hand. He had dropped his gun. Which was good. But Kyrie wasn't sure that a hoe was the most effective of weapons.
Only she couldn't do anything, except shift, in a hurry and scream, "Don't flame, Tom," as Keith landed on top of the beetle and started digging into the joint between the neck and the back carapace. Digging, as if he were digging into soil, making big chunks of beetle fly all over.
The beetle went berserk.
* * *
Sometimes the only way to stop a flame that is doing its best to erupt from a dragon's throat is for the dragon to force himself to become human. This Tom did, forcing his mind to twist his body into human shape. Just in time to avoid burning Keith to a crisp atop the beetle. Which was good, because Keith seemed to have hit on something that worked. He was digging up large chunks of beetle flesh, throwing them all around in a shower of beetle and ichor.
And the beetle was stabbing at him, fortunately pretty erratically. The beetle's arms weren't meant to bend that way. Not upward and toward something on its back. Only, even an erratic blow was bound to hit, eventually. Unless . . .
Tom grabbed the tree branch he'd let drop, and started beating at beetle limbs. From the other side, Kyrie was doing the same.
Kyrie was back to her human form, and Tom couldn't look at her with more than the corner of his eye. Not if he wanted to continue fighting in any rational manner at all.
But, damn, that woman could swing the tree branch with the best of them.