Two streets east, low in one of the rubble walls that had sealed the side roads since noon, a mail slot had been cut at knee height, and the barrel was back inside it before anyone found the flash.
Every eye in that square had been on the skyline, because snipers go on roofs. They had spent twenty seconds naming every roof in Kawanami. The thing had spent that time cutting itself a hole in a wall.
The round took the pachinko sign off its pylon a meter from Aria's boots. And the sealed streets opened again, three chutes this time, shell-boars in front like rolling shields with the hounds flowing behind.
Nyx folded the lead boars' charge back into their own front rank and said nothing about it.
Bastet's dominion flattened one pack into the asphalt without her rising from her crouch. "It watched us choose those three locations. So it cut itself a slit we would never think to watch."
