* * *
As the beetle stopped moving, and its high-pitched scream grew, Tom became aware of another sound behind him. A feline protest of pain. He turned, in time to see the beetle get a claw into Rafiel between shoulder and front leg.
For a moment, for just a moment, Tom thought, Good. He deserves it.
But an immense feeling of shame swept over him. Why did Rafiel deserve to die? Because he'd bested Tom in winning the affections of a woman?
Hell, by that criteria there would hardly be any males left alive in the world.
Shame made Tom jump forward, toward Rafiel, tree branch in hand, beating at the beetle. Just in time, as Rafiel was crawling away, bleeding.
And now Keith scrambled up on the back of this beetle. He looked like nothing on Earth and certainly no longer like the hard-partying college student. His clothes were a mess, he seemed to have bathed in greenish-brown ichor, and he'd lost his cap somewhere.
But he had an insane grin on his face, as he started digging up chunks of this beetle. And Tom concentrated on keeping the beetle from stabbing his friend, by beating the beetle's limbs away. Kyrie joined in on the other side.
Soon the beetle had stopped moving.
But from behind them there was still a high-pitched sound, like the beetle's scream.
Tom turned around, expecting to face yet another beetle. Instead, he saw Rafiel desperately clutching his shoulder and struggling to get up while pale, white, giant worms swarmed over him.
Tom didn't understand where the worms came from, but they had big, sharp teeth and were biting at Rafiel.
Tom ran toward Rafiel and started grabbing at the worms trying to eat Rafiel, while Kyrie ran up to smash the ones that were merely around Rafiel.
A second later, Keith and his hoe joined in.
* * *
Grubs, Kyrie thought. The more advanced grubs on the corpses beneath the thin layer of soil had come alive at the smell of Rafiel's blood, and were swarming him.
She saw Tom jump ahead and start to pull the grubs off Rafiel. As mad as she was at Rafiel, she didn't want him eaten alive by would-be insects. And besides, Rafiel had got in this trouble by trying to help her in the first place.
She jumped into the fray, gleefully smashing at the grubs with her heavy branch.
And Tom had got the last grub off Rafiel—who seemed more stunned than hurt, and was swinging the huge piece of tree he carried, likewise beating down the bugs. Keith joined in with his hoe.
There were a lot of grubs, more and more—pale and white and writhing—pushing up out of the soil, as soon as they smashed a dozen or a hundred.
So absorbed in what she was doing, her arms hurting, while she kicked away to keep the grubs from climbing her legs, Kyrie didn't keep track of Rafiel.
Until she smelled gasoline and realized that Rafiel had got a huge container of gasoline from somewhere and was liberally dousing the clearing and the surrounding vegetation.
* * *
Tom had just realized what the worms were. They were grubs. Babies. It seemed odd to be killing babies who were acting only on instinct.
But . . . were the babies human? He couldn't tell. They looked like white grubs, featureless, except for large mouths with sharp teeth. With which they'd probably been feeding on decaying human flesh.
Would they ever be human? How could Tom know? Except that, of course, their parents had been human. At least part of the time.
He swung the tree branch and smashed little beetle grubs while wondering if with time they would learn to be human babies and human toddlers. But . . . would they? And even if they did, when adolescence came, when most people started shifting, would they be able to control their urges to shift? And their urges to kill people so they could lay eggs in the corpses?
He just decided that he'd hit all of them who attacked him, but he would not, could not, kill any that might still be asleep beneath the soil. They should take those, and see if they became human babies as they developed. If they did, chances were they wouldn't shift again till their teen years. And meanwhile, they could see that they got a good education, and didn't believe they could kill people for their sexual gratification.
If shifters would look after punishing their own criminals, then they had to look after educating their own young, didn't they?
He'd just thought this when he smelled gasoline, and, looking up, saw Rafiel spreading gasoline over the entire area and the surrounding vegetation.
Tom had to stop him. He had to. He was going to kill all the babies. And themselves with them, probably.
As tired as he was, he didn't realize he'd shifted and flamed until he saw fire spark on the gasoline-doused tree on the other side of the clearing.
Oh, shit.
* * *
"Run," Kyrie screamed, managing to grab at Keith's arm, and making an ineffective grab at Tom's wing, as she scrambled ahead of them toward the back entrance of the garden—the nearest one.