Banshee paced her breath and concentrated her full power to her legs. She was showing all her favorite tricks: from the sudden change of pace, to the jumping on fire escape ladders to jump on another building, turn around it and run on a parallel street. They weren't joking when they said they had closed down a huge zone. She had been running for minutes and hadn't seen a single car or pedestrian passing by along the road.

She turned back to check on the agents, and saw that they were keeping up, but not completely. She had gained some ground on them, and if she kept that speed, she'd maybe even had enough time and peace to cast a Displace spell to double back and go to help her colleagues.

The noise distracted her.

When she heard the first cracking noise, she thought one of them had a truly bad fall and broke a leg. But then, other cracking sounds followed, and that was too strange. She turned to watch, just before getting into an alley on her right.

And she wished she hadn't.

They were breaking their bones all right. But not because they had suddenly fallen one over the other in some kind of comic mess. They had started to change. Deeply. In fact, all the bones in their bodies have been broken and had instantly repaired themselves, as thick fur of various colors covered them, and their faces melted into long and ferine muzzles.

Finally, she understood the need for the seemingly eye candy suits: they were made of a material that could expand and adapt at their alternative form. They were now completely turned in a half-human half-beast form. They were at least two feet taller than before, and two feet larger for that matter

A tiger and a mountain lion. Their eyes shone, reflecting the city lights around them.

«Fucking hell! Werepeople!»

This time, Banshee felt the cold shivers of panic run up and down her spine like lightnings, with the same fastening effect.

Fly, she had to fly.

She tried to focus enough to pick at the fluxes around her feet, and after three or four steps she felt the power lifting her upwards

She felt a sudden tug at her stomach, and the magic around her feet suddenly dissipated. She fell on the ground hard, relying only on her instincts to roll on a side, spring up with a sharp tension of her abs and start running again. A sharp look behind her showed the tiger holding something that look like a wand in her hand.

The situation was grim. Very grim. The werepeople were rapidly gaining ground on her, prompted by their now superior muscular prowess.

She couldn't keep up for long.

She reached in her pocket and picked out her phone.

Luckily, she didn't have any fast calls but that one.

«I hope that "direst emergency" had been a well understood yardstick when I gave you this number, Banshee, because if this call has anything to do with some kind of...» after six, infinite rings, Garaham's sleep-slurred voices answered the phone.

«I'm running from a pack o' werepeople who'll arrest me ass if they get me! I don't know if that qualifies in yer range o' "direst emergencies" but it surely fucking does in mine!» she screamed in the phone. Some seconds of silence followed. She was starting to feel the steps behind her closing in

«Where are you.» Garaham's voice turned into a serious tone, as cool as ice.

«I'm going to run towards Humboldt, but there's police all around the streets o' this block!»

Some other seconds of silence. She could feel the stomping behind her getting louder, and the faint panting of the werepeople way too close to her neck. Her legs were starting to hurt and her lungs weren't happy either.

«Turn in Ruthven, then jump in the taxi parked along the road.» said Garaham.

«Wait, wha...» the call disconnected. Banshee cursed in a very loud voice, thrusted the phone in her pocket and tried to accelerate her pace to reach Ruthven.

She thought better to try and get there with some zigzag, so she took a sharp left, getting into an alley. After some seconds, she stopped hearing steps behind her. She turned. The werepeople were gone.

She looked forward. The street continued, she only had to turn right again, and she would be on a parallel track to Ruthven, and another alley opened on her left.

She braked abruptly and doubled back as fast as she could.

Just in time to see the tiger come out of the two lateral alleys, as the mountain lion jumped down from the building right where she was going to run by.

«Hah! Fuckers!» she allowed herself a scoffing smirk.

She kept going, losing terrain after gaining some for her trick, but she couldn't keep that pace on for long. She was scraping the bottom of the barrel of her last energies, and she still couldn't understand what Garaham's plan could be.

But she trusted him.

Finally, she turned in Ruthven, a long straight road leading right to a shiny police block. Behind her, the werepeople were closing in.

She spotted the yellow taxi just a few feet ahead.

Silently praying in her head all the saints she remembered from Summer School, she reached it, tugged at the door handle and launched herself inside.

And she found herself staring into a barrel for the second time in a matter of minutes.

«What the...!» she instinctively raised her hands towards the sky, bumping them badly, and hurtfully, against a car ceiling. The barrel she had been looking into was the double barrel of a large rifle. Behind the rifle, now looking at the road while driving, there was the last person she would have ever imagined. With brown bed-hair spread all around his head, crusty eyes from the sudden sleep interruption, a dull white wife-beater and grey old man's shorts, Garaham looked like Prince Charming's grandfather come to the rescue.

«Chief?» Banshee took some time before she could believe her eyes. He lowered the rifle and brought back both his hands on the wheel. «Huh... nice rifle...» she was desperately trying not to stare at Garaham's night attire. His boxers were grey and the most sex-repelling item of clothing after Crocs with socks, but they were kind of revealing.

«I had to have something to react with, hadn't it been you to enter the portal.» he explained. Banshee tried to look around. The car's interior was as well-kept as an art museum. The black leather seats looked new, the dashboard was so clean it shone, and there was a good smell of wood wax and loved car. Vintage loved car. «I set a long-distance portal inside the taxi. I would have opened it in front of you, but you were moving too fast.» Garaham explained, strangely calm. Maybe he was still half asleep. «Now please do explain to me how the bloody hell did you end up chased by werepeople!»

«It's a long story for later, we have to get Chico and Vopros!»

«Of course, you were all together. Ok, where are they?» growled Garaham.

Banshee looked around trying to find their bearings.

«I don't know where they are. I left them in Perch Street, but they could have escaped.»

«Werepeople coming up against you and you left those two behind? Think fast, where could they...»

An explosion tore the clear Boston's night air.

«There.»

Garaham muttered something terrible and started driving in that direction.

«Chief?»

«What.»

«You're going at 30 mph.»

«It's a 30 mph zone.»

«Yes, but we're kinda in a hurry here...»

«I won't risk the integrity of my Bentley in a rat race or a police chase, so deal with it and hope they could manage until we get to them.» he grumbled.

Truth was that his Bentley S1 was quite the work of art. Perfectly kept, black with silver details, well cleaned and waxed. Banshee noticed just that moment that smooth jazz was faintly coming from the speakers.

So, she sat tight, while Garaham moved through the traffic with the rushing passion of an old man with a hat.(*)

(*) Fun fact: it's a common way of thinking in Italy that old men in hats drive particularly badly, as in extremely slow, always on the most annoying side of the road and stopping too early on traffic lights.