But he was useless as a man in this fight. It took a full minute to dissolve a kangaroo as a man, while his wolf could use his jaws and take one out in a matter of seconds. Since there were almost two dozen in the place, he chose the faster option. Just as Walter stepped into the open space between judge and jury, Bing leaped forward as well.
His wolf body shimmered, and he landed on the nearest kangaroo. Walter began swinging his cudgel, knocking back creatures who leaped into the breach between him and the judge. It didn’t take long. He’d been training for weeks to fight as a wolf, and he and Walter meshed like a perfect team.
Walter bashed the phantom kangaroo aside while Bing leaped into the breach. Then Bing took out whoever came next, which allowed Walter to advance as well.
There shouldn’t have been so many kangaroos in the way. Where were all of them coming from? Worse, Auntie Sand started knocking kangaroos into them, all the while screeching, “No! This is not the way!”
It didn’t matter. Monkey wasn’t stopping, and neither was Bing. It felt too good to fight like this, especially with Walter watching his back. They progressed, step by slow step, to see the judge squatting over the chained-up doe as she pulled pattern after pattern of phantom kangaroos out and threw them into the fray.
Damn, she was fast with that. Fortunately Walter and Bing were faster. It took time for the patterns to stabilize into fighting kangaroos. At first they had to wait before killing the creatures. But then Walter simply leaped through one of them before it coalesced. Once he’d done it, Bing followed. Finally, they were close enough. They both struck at the same time, and it was a near thing for Bing to avoid getting a cudgel upside the head. But they’d timed it well, Bing at the judge’s torso, Walter at the judge’s head.
A split second later, the bitch was dead.
Hooray!
Until the woman coalesced again, this time on the other side of them. Bing saw it happen. He’d been watching with his special sight and saw her pattern not so much unravel as fly away. He turned his head, watching it go, only to see it draw back together again behind Walter.
He leaped. He had to or Walter was going to get whacked in the head. He knocked the bitch back and tore out her throat, but the same problem happened again. Her energy threads dissolved and fluttered away, then came back together close enough to swat his wolf behind. Fortunately Walter had spun around with a muffled, “What the—?”
He swung his cudgel and the bitch went flying again, only to dissolve and reappear, this time in front of a dozen more kangaroos.
Suddenly Bing and Walter were trapped by the dying doe and an entire courtroom of pissed-off kangaroos and their riders.
“We tried to tell you,” Cara called from the back. Rather than fight toward the judge, they’d gone for the back door, and they’d made it, thanks to the distraction Bing and Walter had provided.
“Hang tight. We’re coming back,” Nero said as he dragged Cara out the door just as some of the kangaroos noticed them. But the creatures were too slow. Nero and Cara were gone, as was Gelpack, leaving Bing and Walter trapped in a courtroom with a couple dozen angry phantoms.
Walter took a breath and spun his cudgel. “Let’s get to it, then,” he said. He began to fight with true joy, his booming laugh filling the courtroom. Until he got punched from the side. He landed with a heavy thud. It took longer for them to overpower Bing, but the end result was the same.
He took a blow to the head and the lights went out.
