raining toads

I flinched and slapped at my hair. Something small fell past my face and onto the ground at my feet. A toad. Not a big one, as toads go - it could easily have sat in the palm of my hand. It wobbled for a few moments upon hitting the ground, then let out a bleary croak and started hopping drunkenly away.
I looked around me and saw other toads on the ground. A lot of them. The sound of their croaking grew louder as I walked further into the park. Even as I watched, several more amphibians plopped out of the sky, as though the Almighty had dropped them down a laundry chute. Toads hopped around everywhere. They didn't carpet the ground, but you couldn't possibly miss them. Every moment or so, you would hear the thump of another one landing. Their croaking sounded vaguely like the speech-chatter of a crowded room.
"Weird, huh?" said an eager voice. I looked up to see a short young man with broad shoulders and a confident walk coming toward me. Billy the Werewolf wore sweatpants and a plain dark T-shirt. A year or two ago the outfit would have concealed the forty or fifty extra pounds he'd been carrying. Now they concealed all the muscle he'd traded it in for. He stuck out his hand, smiling. "What did I tell you, Harry?"
"Billy," I responded. He crunched down hard as I shook his hand. Or maybe he was just that much stronger. "How's the werewolf biz?"
"Getting interesting," he said. "We've run into a lot of odd things lately when we've been out patrolling. Like this." He gestured at the park. Another toad fell from the sky several feet away. "That's why we called the wizard."
Patrolling. Holy vigilantes, Batman. "Any of the normals been here?"
"No, except for some meteorological guys from the university. They said that they were having tornadoes in Louisiana or something, that the storms must have thrown the toads here."
I snorted. "You'd think 'it's magic' would be easier to swallow than that."
Billy grinned. "Don't worry. I'm sure someone will come along and declare it a hoax before long."
"Uh-huh." I turned back to the Beetle and popped the hood to rummage in the forward storage compartment. I came out with a nylon backpack and dragged a couple of small cloth sacks out of it. I threw one to Billy. "Grab a couple of toads and pitch them in there for me."
He caught the bag and frowned. "Why?"
"So I can make sure they're real."
Billy lifted his eyebrows. "You think they're not?"
I squinted at him. "Look, Billy, just do it. I haven't slept, I can't remember the last time I ate a hot meal, and I've got a lot to do before tonight."
"But why wouldn't they be real? They look real."
I blew out a breath and tried to keep my temper. It had been short lately. "They could look real and feel real, but it's possible that they're just constructs. Made out of the material of the Nevernever and animated by magic. I hope they are."
"Why?"
"Because all that would mean is that some faerie got bored and played a trick. They do that sometimes."
"Okay. But if they're real?"
"If they're real, then it means something is out of whack."
"What kind of out of whack?"
"The serious kind. Holes in the fabric of reality."
"And that would be bad?"
I eyed him. "Yeah, Billy. That would be bad. It would mean something big was going down."

Summer Knight Chapter 1, Page 9-11


"Good. Let's get out of here." We headed toward the Beetle. I picked up the cloth sack of toads on the way and started shaking them back out onto the ground. I put the toad I'd nearly squished down with them, then wiped my hand off on the grass.
Billy squinted at me. "Why are you letting them go?"
"Because they're real."
"How do you know?"
"The one I was holding crapped on my hand."
I let Billy into the Blue Beetle and got in the other side. I fetched the first aid kit from under my seat and passed it over to him. Billy pressed a cloth against his face, looking out at the toads. "So that means things are in a bad way?"
"Yeah," I confirmed, "things are in a bad way." I was silent for a minute, then said, "You saved my life."
He shrugged. He didn't look at me.
"So you set up the appointment for three o'clock, right? What was the name? Sommerset?"
He glanced at me and kept the smile from his mouth - but not from his eyes. "Yeah."
I scratched at my beard and nodded. "I've been distracted lately. Maybe I should clean up first."
"Might be good," Billy agreed.
I sighed. "I'm an ass sometimes."
Billy laughed. "Sometimes. You're human like the rest of us."
I started up the Beetle. It wheezed a little, but I coaxed it to life.
Just then something hit my hood with a hard, heavy thump. Then again. Another heavy blow, on the roof.
A feeling of dizziness swept over me, a nausea that came so suddenly and violently that I clutched the steering wheel in a simple effort not to collapse. Distantly, I could hear Billy asking me if I was all right. I wasn't. Power moved and stirred in the air outside - hectic disruption, the forces of magic, usually moving in smooth and quiet patterns, suddenly cast into tumult, disruptive, maddening chaos.
I tried to push the sensations away from me, and labored to open my eyes. Toads were raining down. Not occasionally plopping, but raining down so thick and hard that they darkened the sky. No gentle laundry-chute drop for these poor things, either. They fell like hailstones, splattering on concrete, on the hood of the Beetle. One of them fell hard enough to send a spider-web of cracks through my windshield, and I dropped into gear and scooted down the street. After a few hundred yards we got away from the otherworldly rain.
Both of us were breathing too fast. Billy had been right. The rain of toads meant something serious was going on, magically speaking. The White Council was coming to town tonight to discuss the war. I had a client to meet, and the vampires had evidently upped the stakes (no pun intended), striking at me more openly than they had dared to before.
I flipped on the windshield wipers. Amphibian blood left scarlet streaks on the cracked glass.
"Good Lord," Billy breathed.
"Yeah." I said. "It never rains, it pours."

Summer Knight Chapter 1, Page 18-20