“Cereboo, ravage whichever fool sticks his head out first!” Wolfe yelled.
Cereboo woofed in acknowledgement and ran in a loping curve toward the enemy’s cars,
rapidly pulling ahead of Wolfe.
“Malviere, keep behind me and boost your brother,” Wolfe continued.
Malviere took a few steps behind him.
Wolfe glanced down at his deck. As expected, his second Obsessed Infernal Cultist card was available, thanks to his library building card. He saw that he also had one of his Demonic Portal cards.
Normally, his perfect set up would be the Cultist followed by the Portal which would cost four-power for five power worth of creatures.
But Wolfe wasn’t sure ‘mo’ monsters’ was the play he should be making. He was pretty sure he was about to be wildly outnumbered by people carrying guns, which would chew through his creatures before they could get unbeatable synergy going.
He had two other cards, one of which was the card he planned to use instead—Cerberus’ Home for Wayward Hellhounds.
As the van tore at him, he rushed forward and to the side, praying to his patron that the woman driving wasn’t an actor pretending to be scared to ambush him. Two people leaned from the back of the leftmost car and fired at him with pistols. Wolfe’s stomach clenched as the near misses stirred his hair.
Well, now I know who my enemies are for sure. Plus, I’ll have no trouble with the police when I waste these fools.
From behind Wolfe, Malviere whispered, “Get him, brother.” Cereboo sped up wildly, almost as if he were a movie on fast forward while everyone else was just on play.
Wolfe’s dog cut in front of the leftmost car, behind the van, and leapt up and snatched one of the gunman in midair and dragged him to the ground. Both rolled across the parking lot, a pile of screams, snarls, and barks.
Wolfe was glad one was down, but kept his focus. The cars were right on the Van’s tail, a mere hundred or so feet back—the timing was going to be tricky.
As soon as the van passed him, he touched the card at his chest, trying to put it perfectly into the gap between the van and its pursuers, where it would muck up their attack the most.
Cerberus’s Home For Wayward Hellhounds
Unique Tier-1 equivalent Persistent
1 Infernal, 1 Beast, and 1 Any power
Special: Puppy Power: Any Beast with ‘Puppy’ or ‘Rescue’ in its title has +50% Attack and Defense.
Special: Summoner [Lost Hellhound Puppy L/5]: Generates a Lost Hellhound Puppy at no power cost every 30 seconds until Level/5 are on the field, rounded up.
Special: Savior [Beast]: If any opponent ‘sacrifices’ a creature card type Beast, that card joins you instead of being destroyed until the fight ends.
Special: Heart of Gold [Beast]: You cannot sacrifice Beast cards.
“This card is the only pound in existence that tries to find homes for the few Bad Doggos in the universe. Perhaps with proper attention, they too can be Good Boys.”
As the card triggered, rocks rose from the asphalt without damaging it, and rifts of flame and cages formed in the middle of the rocks—the physical manifestation of the card.
The three cars skidded, the two outside ones turning left and right to avoid the obstacle. The last guy that had been hanging out of the car to shoot Wolfe dropped his gun and grabbed the side to keep from flying from his ride.
But the middle car smacked into the rocks, denting the front of the black sportscar. An airbag went off, and Wolfe guessed he had a few minutes before those jackasses rejoined the fight.
He stepped forward, putting a rock between himself and the rightmost car and rapid firing his STI Edge into the front windshield. Fortunately, the thugs hadn’t gotten bulletproof windows. The windshield collected tiny, spiderweb-crack ridden holes, and the thugs collected red spots on their chests.
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Neither moved, and the car slowed a bit as it rolled past Wolfe, drifting away without a driver. Wolfe stepped back into cover.
Wolfe was tempted to immediately go on the offense for the other cars worth of thugs, but didn’t want to leave an enemy behind him.
He waited for a couple seconds behind the rocks of Cerberus’ Home for Wayward Hellhounds. The instant the card summoned the first Lost Hellhound Puppy, Wolfe knew thirty seconds had passed.
He instantly played his second card. The Obsessed Infernal Cultist appeared—a woman appearing roughly eighteen with long black hair who wore gray robes with vague pentagram-esque symbols on them and carried a dark grimoire.
“Stay behind the rocks!” Wolfe called out.
Heavy gunshots sounded out across the parking lot.
Wolfe risked a glance. Liam—who looked like red haired, red-bearded dwarf, only taller—was running from the garage. Two angry hellhounds were running at his side—Wolfe figured he must have heard the fracas and started summoning the same time Wolfe did. He had an automatic rifle in his hands and was firing at the rightmost car. Wolfe grimaced as a bullet from the return fire caught his mechanic and driver in the thigh, and Liam went down with a yell.
Shit!
To buy his ally—and friend—some time, Wolfe switched out the magazine and fired at the other side of the car, plinking the metal and wounding a thug in the back driver seat. Everyone took cover.
The Hellhound Puppy rushed at the rightmost car, barking cutely. Cereboo picked himself off the asphalt, blood from the throat-torn corpse at his feet dripping from his central mouth. He ran at the middle car, leaping at the first thug who opened the door and stumbled, face already bloody and cut, from the backseat.
Wolfe serviced targets as he walked closer, relying on the STI Edge held in two hands to keep people down. He ran out of bullets and rapidly switched his last magazine in. Liam fired from the other side as his two Angry Hellhounds reached the car.
But the driver’s side thug had a feel for the flow of combat. In the seconds that Wolfe left as he switched his magazine, the man leaned out the window and fired rapidly. Wolfe bit back a yell as sudden pain flared through his right bicep, and he dropped his gun just as he was bringing it back up to fire.
Wolfe followed his gun to the warm asphalt and swiped his cards, cussing when his second Demonic Portal wasn’t in the pull.
But he did get his mantle, which might have been even more important. He slapped that on.
Master of the Infernal Hunt
Unique Tier-5 equivalent Infernal Persistent [Mantle]
2 Infernal Power
+10 Health, +3 to all remaining stats.
Special: Cerberus’s Champion: All other [Canine] Cards gain +5 Health and +1 to all other stats, and all [canine] cards gain advantage against Infernal cards.
Special: Versatile [Infernal]: This card alters to fit its wearer so long as they have at least 2 Infernal Power
Special: Grand Pack [Canine]: [Canine] cards do not count against cards on the field
Special: Favorable Façade[Canine]: Count as a Beast[Canine] card for all purposes except type match penalties.
Special: One of the ‘Gate to the Underworld’ cards. If all 6 are possessed in the same deck, the bearer will gain 7 Legendary Infernal or Beast card pulls. Additionally, the deckbearer may either gain the Mythic ‘Gate to the Underworld’ Building Card or evolve Cereboo. One card is held by each of the crime families of Noimoire, and the sixth is held within the city by another.
“Sometimes, the demons call a hunt on other demons, and a hunt master is always chosen to lead the chase.”
Wolfe felt power as the mantle settled over him, and a faint red glow covered him. His wounds hurt less, the blood staunched, and Wolfe knew he would be far, far harder to hurt.
But it was nothing compared to what came next—He heard Malviere’s voice in his mind, wordless but urging him to great feats in Cerberus’ name. His movement accelerated and he snatched his gun from the ground. He fired rapidly upward, his hand tracking almost effortlessly at the heads barely visible over the windows. In just a few seconds, Wolfe executed both the back seat thugs with his gun.
It took him a moment to realize what had happened. I turned myself into a ‘canine’ card for all purposes… which includes Malviere’s ability to double the attack rate of any canine cards I’m guessing.
Wolfe assessed the battlefield as he placed his now-empty Edge on the ground and then rose to stand again. He raced toward the car that had slammed into the newly-grown rocks. Five thugs left at the most—two on the other side of the rightmost car unless Liam and his pups have already killed them. Then three left in the car that smashed into Cerberus’ Home for Wayward Hellhounds.
It would normally be suicidal to charge gunmen in a car, even stunned ones in a crashed car, but Wolfe knew his mantle made him far more resilient.
A yip came, and a notification told him that one of his Hellhound Puppies had died.
Another surge of power hit Wolfe. He had a base eight in his attack and defense, modified by four each from the combination of mantle and his perks—and for thirty seconds, he got an additional fifty percent because his Puppy card had died while he was counted as a canine card himself.
He reached the car, and with his double attack rate from Malviere and current eighteen attack with his bare hands, double-punched straight through the back and front passenger side window, killing both thugs by caving their skulls in.
His hands were undamaged.
The battlefield stilled, and Wolfe glanced around.
Cereboo had finished off the driver as well, and Liam and his dogs must have killed the two on the far side of the rightmost car, as there weren’t any more shots being fired.
Wolfe headed around the car he had just attacked and then ran toward Liam. As he did, he pulled his phone and put a call into his friend, Lieutenant Rhett Walker of the Joliet PD.
“Hello? Wolfe?” The uptight but masculine voice of Rhett answered on the other side.
“Hey Rhett,” Wolfe said. “I’ve got a bit of a problem here at the Hellmouth Institute, and I’d prefer if you were first on the scene.”
“Lovely,” Rhett muttered through the phone. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes. It’s a bit of a drive.”
“Thanks,” Wolfe said, and hung up.
It was gonna be a day.