I stood up, blasting rod still in hand, and found the remaining beasties wounded but mobile, their yellow, rectangular-pupiled eyes glaring in hate and hunger.

I ditched the blasting rod and picked up a steel-headed snow shovel that had been left lying next to one of the children’s snow forts. Charity raised her nail gun, and we began walking toward them.

Whatever these things were, they didn’t have the stomach for a fight against mortals armed with cold steel. They shuddered as if they had been a single being, then turned and bounded away into the night.

I stood there, panting and peering around me. I had to spit blood out of my mouth every few breaths. My nose felt like someone had superglued a couple of live coals to it. Little silver wires of pain ran all through my neck, from the whiplash of getting hit from behind, and the small of my back felt like one enormous bruise.

“Are you all right?” Charity asked.

“Faeries,” I muttered. “Why did it have to be faeries?”

Chapter Two

“W ell,” Charity said, “it’s broken.”

“You think?” I asked. The light touch of her fingers on my nose was less than pleasant, but I didn’t twitch or make any sounds of discomfort while she examined me. It’s a guy thing.

“At least it isn’t out of place,” Michael said, knocking snow off of his boots. “Getting it set back is the sort of thing you don’t mind forgetting.”

“Find anything?” I asked him.

The big man nodded his head and set a sheathed broadsword in a corner against the wall. Michael was only a couple of inches shorter than me, and a lot more muscular. He had dark hair and a short beard, both of them peppered with silver, and wore blue jeans, work boots, and a blue-and-white flannel shirt. “That corpse is still there. It’s mostly a burned mess, but it didn’t dissolve.”