Chapter Twenty-Five: Strut on a Line, It’s Discord and Rhyme

July 10, 2010

Silver City, NM

Marc stopped his truck well short of the location that Trey had given him. He didn’t want to spook the beast with the loud noise from the engine.

He looked at his partner in the passenger seat and asked, “You ready for this?”

Torren barked a response then scrambled out of the front of the truck behind Marc.

From the back of the truck, Marc pulled out two long bags. From one, he pulled out a large machete-like knife. He tied the scabbard to his belt and leg and slid the blade in at his side.

Then he pulled out his rifle from the other bag. He loaded it and checked everything quickly to make sure it would be ready to fire quickly. He doubted it would be much help, but it was better to be prepared.

He slung the rifle over his shoulder, then grabbed the other long bag. He looked at Torren.

“Let go!” He barked the order and started to run.

After five minutes of running at his top speed, Marc saw a crowd of men and vehicles in front of a large sheep shed. He frowned as he counted out the people who were gathered. Nearly a dozen men stood next to their vehicles, nearly all of them were carrying firearms.

Not even sweating after his run, Marc quickly found Trey and approached him.

“Thank God. Did you run here? Where’s the truck?”

Marc nodded a greeting, then placed the rifle and bag on the hood of a truck next to Trey Cutter, the landowner.

“Left the truck on the other side of the hill. Didn’t want to spook anything.” He explained.

The older man nodded hi understanding.

“It’s camped out inside the shelter. There should be another 50 head or so inside, but considering what we found out here…” He nodded to the carnage outside of the shed. The remains of several dozen animals were strewn all over the place. This was not a hunt. The animals were not killed for food or sport. They were demolished. Ripped to shreds.

“Yeah. I would consider them gone. I’m sorry Trey. I know this is the last thing you need now. What can you tell me?” He spoke solemnly, but directly.

“As I told you over the phone, we saw that monster wandering around outside the shelter without a care in the world. When we got here, it didn’t even seem to acknowledge us. Man, it really pissed me off. It just looked around at us like we were a bunch of rabbits or something. Then José got a shot off.

Marc looked over at the José, the senior foreman. He stood there holding his rifle, staring intently at the shed with a grim expression on his face.

“Let me guess. It shrugged off the hits?” Marc asked.

“Yup. You know José is a good shot. At this range, he couldn’t miss if he tried. He must have hit it at least two or three times. Clean hits too. With 223. I think all it managed to do was piss it off. After that, It started dodging. It was dodging rifle shots. Since when do wolves do that?”

“It didn’t approach you or any of the men?” Marc asked.

“Nope. Like I said, it was like we weren’t worth the bother. Damned thing. Just watched us a bit. Then it sauntered into the shed like it owned the place. After that…” Trey squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“The noise. It was horrible. I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life.”

Marc nodded, then took a moment to think it through. This was definitely another crossover. It wasn’t the first beast from the other world he had run across, but it was by far the largest. From Trey’s description and the scope of destruction on the field, this was a Dire Wolf. A full-grown one at that.

He opened up the second bag and pulled out what looked like a sword sheath and two metal tubes. He connected the tubes by inserting one into the other, then screwed them together at a reinforced joint creating a four-foot-long staff. Then he screwed that into the end of the sword-like weapon. He removed the sheath, revealing a thick one-sided blade. It was a Chinese style glaive over a foot longer than his height.

“What the… Are you nuts? You’re gonna face that monster with that? I figured you had an elephant gun or, I don’t know… a tank?” Trey was flabbergasted. “Do you have any idea what that thing is?”

“I know exactly what it is. It’s a dire wolf. They have been extinct for over ten thousand years. Even then, they never got to even half the size of the one in that shed.” Marc explained.

“Damned thing is the size of a car. How are you supposed to take care of it with that?”

“I can do it. No problem. But I’m going to need something from you.” Marc turned back to the other man with a serious look.

“Just take care of it. We can talk fees later. I’ll figure it out somehow.” Trey said with a worried look. The ranch was already on shaky ground and the loss of a second herd might very well be the end of them. Still, Marc had been a good vendor, never squawking about unpaid invoices or raising his rates. He would make sure to pay him, even if it was the last check he wrote.

“Don’t worry about payment. But I need two things from you. Well, One thing and one promise.” Marc spoke quietly, not a whisper, but quiet enough that the other men around would not be able to easily hear.

Trey nodded, then leaned forward to hear the terms.

“One. I get the carcass. The whole thing. You can take pictures for the insurance and everything, but when we are done, I’m taking the body back with me.”

Trey considered that. His first reaction was to just agree. The number one priority was to get rid of that monster. But after hearing the request, it occurred to him that the body would indeed be very valuable. Something like that must be a scientific curiosity at the very least. Who knows how much a university or a collector might pay for it?

The thoughts were spinning around in his head when Marc gave his second condition.

“The other promise is that my involvement here today is between you and me. Nobody else needs to know I was here. I mean it, nobody else needs to know. Got it?” Marc stared at Trey with a cool glare. Trey always thought Marc was kind of a strange duck. They were actually in school around the same time, but never shared any social circles. In fact, he didn’t recall if Marc even had a social circle.

Since taking over the management of the ranch from his father, Trey had heard about a consultant who had done wonders keeping predators out of some of his neighbor’s lands and was surprised to hear it was that quiet, bookish kid from school. When they met up, he was surprised to find that not only was it the same person, but that he had changed so much over the years. This person was a well-built, serious man who seemed more like an action movie character than the usual gun-happy “patriot” types who typified this kind of work. Since then, he had never felt like this was the kind of person he would hang out with socially, but he had no complaints at all about the professionalism and reliability of the man’s work.

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With that in mind, he nodded his head to the conditions Marc had laid out. He wasn’t exactly sure how Marc would deal with the problem, but after looking at his calm and serious demeanor, the panic that had dominated his mind for the last few hours was replaced with the certainty that Marc would, in fact, take care of everything, just as he had promised.

“Done, I can get a contract to that effect written up later-“

“All good. I trust you.” Marc said and picked up the evil-looking spear.

“José and the guys can back you up-“

“No. It’s better if I do this my way. Less chance of confusion. Besides, I already have a backup.” leaving the rifle on the roof of the truck, Marc started to walk toward the shelter. Then he called back to Trey.

“Hold on to my rifle for me? And keep everyone away from the shed until I come out. Shouldn’t be too long.”

With that, Marc whistled to Torren, who followed him as he approached the shelter.

Contrary to his outwardly stoic demeanor, Marc was a whirlwind of emotions inside. Certainly, he had beaten hundreds of beasts like this over the years, but that was with his immortal body and countless mana-supported abilities. He was also alone, lacking any of his trusted companions, Rynan, Meservi, Safan, Hee-deh and Hee-ssu, and all others. He was also missing his constant partner Kira. The thought of her absence struck him with a hollow pain as if he had just realized that he was missing an arm or a leg.

Still, If this was indeed a dire wolf from that world, and at this point he had no doubt that it was, then he knew exactly how to deal with it. This would also give him a chance to see if the training he had put Torren through had stuck.

Entering the shelter, Marc knew he would be fine, at least initially. The beast was still avoiding sentients. There was an instinctual response of beasts to stick to lower animals unless their hunting had failed to produce results. The utter destruction of the sheep, and the safety of the ranch hands indicated that the wolf would work its way through the livestock before it came for the men.

It would target them eventually, and likely soon. Marc understood that the beast was not searching for food. If that was all it wanted, it would have just grabbed a few sheep and gone on its way. It wasn’t looking for meat, noting the way it had meticulously eviscerated its victims. It was looking for something. Something it had failed to find in every single animal it had searched. It wanted Mana Crystals.

Those crystals were present in nearly every form of life on the other planet. Even certain plants could grow one in their roots. Humans had learned to harvest them as an energy and Mana source, but beasts consumed them whole, allowing them to grow far stronger than any animal on Marc’s Earth.

Having exhausted the easy prey without finding a single crystal, Marc expected the wolf would be getting terribly frustrated and would soon turn on the more dangerous targets nearby to satisfy its hunt. Had Marc been much later, he did not doubt that there would have been no survivors at the position outside. Now that he had entered the domain of the beast, Marc knew that all its attention would now be focused on him.

He unbuttoned the scabbard at his waist, giving him easy access to the large blade at his side. Then he took the handle of his glaive in both his hands and prepared for the approach.

It only took a moment. Angry that its domain had been invaded, and that its fruitless hunt had been interrupted, the wolf slowly stepped out into the open space. The shelters were large. This one was the size of a half a dozen tennis courts connected to each other, and could easily accommodate several hundred sheep at once. Now among the rotting piles of ripped-up flesh and bones, Marc regarded his adversary.

The dire wolf was huge. At least six feet tall and more than a dozen feet long. Its jaws could easily engulf Marc’s entire upper torso, and each of its claws was the size of the machete at Marc’s waist. But it had one weakness, and that weakness played right into Marc’s hands.

Beasts could instinctively “see” Mana. More precisely they could sense activity within the Mana core of another living being. Marc had a similar ability and could see even small animals as a tiny flickering candlelight. The stronger the Mana Crystal or Mana Core, the brighter the light. For a hunter who relied on that dynamic, every living organism on this planet was nearly invisible to that sense.

Marc used to be a bright bonfire of Mana. He had to learn and master an ability that would help him disguise his Mana aura so as not to intimidate weaker beasts or attract the stronger ones. Now, he had the benefit of having no Mana at all. While the wolf could see, hear, and smell him, the lack of Mana would confuse the beast and that should be all the distraction Marc needed.

They faced off and approached each other. As they neared 15 feet of distance, just two or three large strides for the beast, they both stopped and stared at each other. Marc bared his teeth and the wolf did the same. A battle to the death was challenged and accepted.

Suddenly a loud noise came from behind the wolf.

Torren was positioned far behind and to the left of the giant wolf. He was barking loudly, just as they had practiced. As predicted, it drew a quick reaction.

As a higher predator, the wolf did not flee or even spin around. It did however turn its head and allow the sudden noise to distract its attention. That was all that Marc needed. He rushed forward instantly.

The wolf reacted immediately to Marc’s charge, but having been caught off guard it made another mistake. It pulled back slightly and reared back onto its hind legs to compensate. Marc only took a fraction of a second to cover the distance and with all his strength he swung the glaive like a giant sword.

The fur and skin of a full-grown predator beast like the dire wolf could easily repel bullets from a standard hunting rifle. The sharp and heavy blade however swung with lightning speed and precision, slipping between the unprepared beast’s forelegs severing the poorly defended tendons on the front left leg cleanly.

The shocked wolf lost strength to the left side of its body and fell over with a shocked whelp. Marc spun around for another blow, this time cutting into the inside of the left rear leg.

Like a turtle flipped on its back, the beast was all but helpless. It screamed and flailed its jaws trying to find purchase on something to fight back, but Marc moved swiftly and surgically, two more strikes and all four legs were now useless. Marc stared impassively at the desperate animal biting with its last deadly weapon in defiance, then he struck forward at the throat, driving the blade up into the skull and ending the suffering of the giant wolf.

Marc whistled again, and Torren trotted over having completed his role. Marc moved behind the wolf, now collapsed on its side like a flipped car. Taking out the machete he shaved off a spot of fur on the back of its neck cautiously, then pushed the blade hard into the bald patch, allowing him to sever the nerves around the spine. That was it. The fight was over in less than a minute.

Before walking out, he needed to make sure of one more thing. Walking around the giant carcass Marc approached the chest, where its heart was located. Again he shaved the fur to give him a place to access the skin over the heart.

Pressing hard, he cut open a slit in the center of the chest, roughly eight inches long. Then, pulling back his sleeve, he shoved his right arm into the chest of the beast up well past his elbow. After a few moments, he pulled back his blood-soaked arm, his fist tightly gripped around a small object. He dropped the object into a small pouch on his belt, then pulled out a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped down his arm.

Marc had only disappeared into the shelter for a few minutes when Trey heard the commotion. Barking, then roaring came from inside, more terrifying than any noise he had ever heard before in his life. The sound of the devil coming to take you away.

Then the sound had stopped. Just as suddenly as it had started, it was now deathly quiet. A minute or two later, the door opened and Marc and his dog walked out like it was an ordinary day.

At first, Trey was worried. The arm that held the weird spear that Marc carried was covered in blood. He quickly ran over to see if the man was injured, but he just shrugged it off.

“Your arm?” Trey stammered.

“Not mine. I’m fine.” He said simply, in a cold and detached tone that unnerved Trey even more.

“It’s taken care of. I’ll need to go back and get some things to prepare the wolf to load up on my truck. I’d appreciate it if you could keep people away until I get back.”

“Uhh. Sure.” Trey answered, still in shock. Then he shook his head to ward off the shock. He went over to the window of his truck and pulled out a mostly full plastic bottle of water. He tossed it at Marc as if afraid to approach him.

“Use that to wash off the blood. You are looking pretty scary like that.”

“Thanks,” Marc said as he opened up the bottle and splashed the contents down his arm.

“One more question,” Marc turned back to Trey who quickly nodded.

“Have you figured out where the wolf came from? Any breaches in the fence?”

“Yes, actually. I just got a call from the guy I sent to check on that. He just told me the craziest story.”

Marc immediately focused on the other man with an intensity that was almost as terrifying as the giant wolf.

“Uhhh… Yeah. He said there was a breach on the southwest side. He followed it out a ways and found something. I don’t know quite what he’s talking about. He just keeps babbling some nonsense. I have to drive over and see what he’s talking about.”

Marc walked over and picked up his rifle.

“Let’s go then.”

Trey felt like the wind had been knocked out of his chest. The emergency was over, but why did he feel like he was still in danger now? Marc always seemed so calm and confident, but this was too much.

“José! We’re going to go check out the fence. Nobody goes inside. I mean it. Nobody! Mendes?”

“Si! You got it!” José was staring at Marc’s arm.

“I mean it José! Noone.” Then Trey hopped into the driver’s seat of his truck and Marc placed the rifle and spear into the bed of the truck. He ordered Torren.

“Stay! Keep people away from the wolf.” He motioned his head towards the shelter.

Torren barked once, then wandered back to sit by the door of the shelter.

Marc jumped into the truck and closed the door.

“So what was your man saying?”

“I don’t know. He sounded kind of crazy.” Trey said, starting the truck’s engine and pulling onto the road leading out of the property.

“He just kept saying ‘puerta magica’ over and over. I swear if he’s on something that’s it. I don’t care if he is José’s cousin.”