“Your time has run out, pasty man!” yelled Genghis as his unicorn spat a gout of flames at Poe.

Poe dove out of the way in a flutter of black coattails and swiped the unicorn’s nose with an upward spin of a Ravenchuck. The unicorn bellowed angrily. Its form shifted and grew as it transformed into a mighty werewolficorn, a lupine creature with a single gore-drenched horn. Genghis grinned down from his perch on its shoulders.

The writer attacked, his Ravenchucks striking with a bell-like sound that would have spelled the tintinnabulous doom of any other creature, but the werewolficorn swatted his Ravenchucks from his hands.

Suddenly a voice with a French accent yelled, “I’ll save you, buddy!” Poe looked up to see an enormous baroque airship fly in low, its decks bristling with cannons. He could just make out the figure of Jules Verne through the cockpit porthole. A rope ladder emerged from the ship and Poe grabbed on tightly. The ship swung past and pulled Poe out of the werewolficorn’s reach just in time.