When the ambulance flew into the air, the driver was still honking.
Its rear scraped a streetlight, its siren trailing a long, distorted wail as it hurtled toward three officers carrying a stretcher by the roadside.
Thwip! Thwip!
Two strands of webbing stuck to the vehicle in quick succession.
Peter swung in from the street corner, planted both feet against a stone pillar, and snapped his arms taut. A second web caught the chassis and anchored it to a load-bearing column of the bank opposite.
Boom!
The whole ambulance hung less than half a meter above the ground, its nose still sinking.
"Don't stand underneath!"
Peter pried open the mangled cab and pulled the driver out of his seat belt. The man was missing his right shoe and still clutching half a steering wheel.
"My partner-"
"The passenger seat's empty. He already got out."
Peter delivered him to the officers. Just as he turned back, a prickling sensation stabbed the back of his neck.
Not overhead.
Left.
A thick tail swept across the spot the ambulance had just flown through, shoving two police cars together and sealing off the intersection.
Peter looked up.
Firelight illuminated the welfare institution's sign. Someone was waving a bedsheet from a second-floor window. An elderly man in a wheelchair was stuck beside it, unable to raise his hands a second time.
Three Lizard Men stood below the building.
The largest charged into the police-car barricade through a hail of gunfire. Another crawled up the wall toward the third floor, where a sniper scope had just flashed.
The last wasn't pursuing the officer fleeing in front of him.
He ripped the antenna off the mobile communications van, thrust his claws through its window, and tore out the equipment still glowing inside.
Static exploded in Peter's earpiece.