The sunset ahead of them was gloriously colourful. Aindry watched it with a lingering sadness that it was only she and Jaisan to appreciate it.

There were no cars on this road, so little known, to disturb the peace of the moment. They could simply walk quietly, each lost in their own thoughts, Jaisan toying with his favourite amethyst.

Ahead, she saw orange lights blinking.

“Jais? Look.”

He pulled himself out of his daydreams to obey. “Looks like a car.”

“That's what I thought, too. It has the hazard lights on.” A number of times, she'd picked up extra cash by being in the right place at the right time when someone was stranded by car troubles.

Both quickened their strides to a walk that was just shy of a lupine trot.

It was a mini-van, in fact. A blonde woman in a stylish skirt and blouse was busy with two children, one about twelve and one a few years younger; she didn't notice their approach at first.

Aindry called a greeting; the woman spun around, panic flashing across her face briefly, then relaxing into wariness.

“Not a good road to be stranded on,” Jaisan observed.

Aindry gave him a dark look, then smiled at the woman. “Anything we can help with?”

The woman hesitated, then shrugged and said, “My car just up and died on me.”

“Can I take a look? It might be just something simple.”

Another shrug, this one followed by a helpless smile. “Please. I unfortunately know nothing about how cars work.”

“Do you have a flashlight?” Her night-sight was good, but not quite that good, and even if it were she wasn't about to give it away.

“In the glove box.” The younger child, Aindry thought it was a girl, tugged at the woman's hand, sniffling, and the woman made a gesture Aindry interpreted as, “Get it yourself.”

She found it, in the cleanest glove box she'd ever laid eyes on, and swept it over the dashboard. Still half a tank... she wasn't out of gas, at least.

It took only moments of looking under the hood to find the problem.

“I can fix this pretty easy,” she called to the woman. “The wires to the distributor cap are loose, that's all. Jais? Can you grab my backpack?” There were a few tools she kept in it for such purposes, stolen from various hardware stores.

He brought it to her, but leaned close and murmured, “Something doesn't smell right.”

“What do you mean?” She sniffed, found only the strong familiar scent of oil and metal and gas. Jaisan had been edgy to the point of paranoia lately, constantly tense; was he going to start jumping at shadows now?

“Them, I mean. Something's not right. I can't get close enough to really smell them. But I can't find any scents on the car, either.”

Come to think of it, he was right: even inside the car, she'd noticed no particular scent. Maybe this time it wasn't just nerves.

“I think we should get out of here,” Jaisan whispered urgently.

Aindry hesitated. She didn't like the idea of abandoning a woman and two children over paranoia, but in order to survive the increasingly frequent and tricky demon attacks, they had to suspect everything and everyone.

“Hey, lady?” she called. “Could you come here? I need someone to hold the flashlight.”

The woman started towards them, then the older child burst into tears, and she had to turn back. “I'm sorry,” she said apologetically. “They're just so frightened...”

“Let's go, Aindry!” Even at low volume, Jaisan sounded really alarmed.

Aindry nodded, and retied the knot she'd just managed to get undone on her backpack. Warily, they retreated away from the car and the woman and the two children.

“Where are you going?” the woman said. “Is it fixed already?”

“No,” Aindry said. “I was wrong. I can't do it. I'll call a tow truck when we find a phone.”

“At least let me thank you for that much. I don't have a lot of money with me, but...”

Aindry shook her head. “No thanks. It's no problem. Really.”

The woman strode forward, her children at her heels, with much more speed and force than either wolf expected. “Oh, I couldn't think of letting you get away without expressing my gratitude.” There was something grim in her voice now.

“Jais, change,” Aindry murmured, making sure she was between the strange trio and her brother. She heard his pack fall, heard him start to strip quickly.

“Oh no you don't.” The woman reached forward; Aindry grabbed her wrist before she could touch Jaisan, suddenly aware of the long stylish nails that gleamed blood-red and looked wet.

The woman tore away and growled, her form rippling and changing.

A creature that bore a superficial resemblance to a horse, save the clawed feet and tarnished-gold scales, reared above her and screamed a challenge, showing carnivore's teeth that did not belong in an herbivore's mouth.

Aindry held her ground, determined to keep it off Jaisan long enough for him to shapechange. She kicked off her boots, let her pack slide down her arm to her hand, and shrugged her jacket off her shoulders, without ever looking away.

The horse-like creature dropped to all fours, and snaked its head towards her, mouth open to grab her.

Aindry swung her pack at its head, and heard a rather satisfyingly meaty thunk as the tools inside connected and slammed the monstrous head violently aside, drawing a grunt from it and leaving it visibly dazed.

Jaisan darted forward from behind her, ears back flat and teeth bared, to crouch in front of her and return the favour. He snapped at the demon's neck, and it jerked back reflexively. Aindry abandoned her pack and peeled off her clothes as fast as she ever had in her life, and willed herself wolf, while Jaisan held off not only the demon-horse but two smaller demon-ponies as well.

Aindry launched herself directly at one of the smaller ones as it reared. It toppled over backwards, and by the time they hit the ground Aindry had her teeth clamped tight around its throat. It squealed and writhed madly, clawing at her. Jaisan raced over to help, and got a mirror grip on its spine from behind.

In seconds, it stopped struggling and melted away.

Aindry whipped around to face the other two, and they halted just out of reach. Jaisan shook himself, and turned to stand beside her.

Deadlock, each pair waiting for the other to move first.

The smaller demon broke it, by lunging at Jaisan. He evaded its attempted bite, but his own attack glanced off the hard scales. Aindry gathered herself, ready to go for its open side if Jaisan could just get it to turn a little more...

The other demon raked its claws down her side while she was distracted. She yelped, and had to leave Jaisan to his own fight and concentrate on her own.

Stupid, Aindry, very stupid. You are not doing well today. Get with it before you get both of you killed!

She and the demon-horse circled one another, never looking away. It darted towards her again, that deceptively long neck extended, and teeth penetrated fur and skin on her left shoulder, shallowly, scarcely damaging the muscle beneath at all.

Inspiration struck: she yelped in more pain than she really felt, and stumbled; when she caught her balance, she kept her left forefoot tucked up under her body. It would hold her weight still, but the demon didn't need to know that.

Clever though it was, the demon fell for it. She retreated, her tail between her hind legs, snarling defiantly.

You think you can drink this wolf's wild blood, do you? You're about to learn otherwise!

The demon feinted to her right, then attacked from the left.

She evaded it, made a point of staggering as she came down on her left foreleg, and the claws missed her with no room to spare.

With a high-pitched growl that made her wince in discomfort, it reared, the obvious intent to come down on top of her.

Aindry waited, praying to Cassandra and the Moonwolf.

At the last instant, she writhed her body out of the way of the descending forefeet, and twisted upwards to clamp her jaws on its throat. The scales were finer there but still tough, she couldn't puncture them but pressure alone should suffice if she could hold it long enough. She bit down harder, grimly resisting all its attempts to fling her off. The forefeet tore savagely at her, and she felt claws score more than once, but if she let go she'd be in worse trouble. She put all her strength into holding on.

Slowly, the demon weakened, and finally went limp.

She didn't let go even then; one of the first demons she'd ever fought had pretended to be dead, and she'd barely escaped alive.

Sure enough, after it laid quite still long enough that it realized she wasn't convinced, it began to thrash again.

Jaisan limped heavily over, favouring his right foreleg for real; as with the first, she held it and he crunched its spine.

It melted away into nothing.

Aindry shifted to human, checking her wounds. Only one shallow bite, mostly claw-marks, and since the faint cold fire she could feel was centred around the bite on her shoulder, she suspected only the teeth had poison.

Jaisan also changed, on command, and held still to be inspected. He, unfortunately, had a much worse bite on his right forearm, but otherwise like hers they were all claw-wounds, and none were serious.

“Get dressed,” Aindry said. “Once we reach a gas station or something we'll get cleaned up. Right now, since we can both walk, let's get out of here.” Two demon attacks ago, or maybe three, they'd had a narrow escape when another demon appeared on the battleground just when they thought they were safe. Better to get away from here.

They followed the road in the direction they'd been going, in hopes that civilization might be closer than they knew it was behind them. Exhausted, injured, though at least they'd escaped with little poison this time, even a short distance was going to feel like a very long way.

Aindry prayed that they'd have enough time to recover before the next attack; the intervals grew ever shorter. If they came much more quickly, the demons would soon win simply by exhausting them and wearing them down by inches.

That can't happen, she vowed to herself. We'll survive. This can't go on forever. Maybe we'll find Mom or Jess soon...