Smoothing pulses ran through his body as he lay on the bed, the blood bag clenched tightly in his mouth, hands twisting and squeezing the last remnants out.

Finishing it, he threw it aside and took the second bag.

The sword wound still swung and bled, but he could see it healing.

A little overconfident. Seems like that blessed blade of yours isn’t so perfect after all.

Abe bit into the second bag, tearing it open, and gulped it down. His energy was returning, and he tenderly ran a hand across his wound.

Good enough, he grunted and pulled himself up.

Been quiet, too quiet. Maybe that big bastard didn’t follow me inside. And Ricky… I hope he’s okay. Abe chuckled softly. I care about a freaking skull now, do I? But not killing people that were actually alive? My brain is some special kind of fucked up.

Jumping back to his feet, it took him a second to steady himself. But strength was quickly returning.

I can do this, come on.

Abe walked over to the door and pressed his ear against it.

Groaning.

I recognize that sound and the smell.

He opened the door and walked downstairs.

Abe already knew what awaited him in the foyer. A half dozen ghouls swaying mindlessly with Ricky at their back.

“Friends of yours?”

“Backups,” Ricky smiled. “Don’t get comfortable though, they won’t do much against those slayers but slow them down.”

“I figured,” Abe grunted and turned toward the hall. “So, I take it you haven’t seen any sign of him?”

“Nope, nothing. Maybe he got cold feet. Or maybe Elissa took him out?”

“Perhaps, but I doubt he got scared,” Abe nodded as turned back toward the front door.

“Wait, where are you doing?”

“I guess I’m going to try and help. Why would I do this, I’m still trying to figure that out myself. But with any luck, I’ll avoid dying.”

“Spare me, please.”

Abe turned and narrowed on Ricky as he reached the door, “A bit rich when you’re hiding in here, isn’t it?”

Ricky shrugged, “That’s the wrong way, ain’t it pal?”

“I’ve got some things to pick up.”

“Whatever you say, pal. Well, good luck, I suppose.”

“...Thanks,” Abe muttered as he walked into the snow.

Turning around the building, he broke into a jog.

There you are.

He reached the corpse and dove straight into the pockets.

“Oh, thank you, buddy. Thank you so very much,” Abe mumbled, wrapping his hand around a frag grenade. “And what’s this?” He raised a brow, pulling free a blue, cylindrical grenade.

Manawarp Pulse Grenade

“Okay… no fucking idea what that’s supposed to be but it's mine now,” Abe shrugged as he pushed the grenade into a back pocket. There was a bag of herbs and a few other miscellaneous items on the man that didn’t look particularly interesting to Abe.

Rising to his feet, his eyes caught a metallic glimmer, “Oh, fuck yeah,” a smile curving on his lips as he walked toward it.

Bending down, he took hold of the pistol with two hands, “Smith and Wesson?” Abe mouthed as he read the engraving across the barrel. He threw it between his hands, and eyed the other side, “S&W Magnum.” His smile widened.

The ground shook as an explosion redirected his attention. Abe glanced down at the revolver tightening his grip around it, and placing his free hand on the longsword hanging from his belt.

Let's see how you deal with this, you big red bastard, Abe grinned as he ran toward the explosion.

He could hear voices uphead, toward the rear of the manor. Following the sounds and scents he created a mental image and charged toward it.

He passed garden beds and statues, rounding a row of hedges, and spotted the gap his senses had found.

He ran toward it but suddenly flung himself off course, skidded to a stop, and twirled around as a pungent scent of antiseptic hit his nostrils.

“Perhaps I underestimated you, fiend,” the red-beared captain said, shaking his head. “Somehow you managed to heal Mary’s wound. And look at you, you even managed to get yourself some new hardware,” he added, gaze drifting down to the magnum.

Abe raised the magnum.

It’s not going to be this easy, is it?

A bang thundered as he pulled the trigger.

Bursting into white mist as it shot toward the man, the bullet seemed to dissipate around an invisible barrier.

“Did you really believe that a bullet blessed by Micheal could harm someone bathed in his waters?” he said, holding his sword up in prayer. The man closed his eyes and said a few muffled words. “I come at thee, fiend of the living dead to cleanse these once pure lands. With your taint gone, the wells of death can be cured. And their energies purified and used to fuel the servants of the everliving.”

Oh, fuck.

Abe backstepped.

The red-beareded man dropped an inch and sprung forward.

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The sword came fast.

Fuck, not again.

Abe bounced back, reflexively blocking the sword with the pistol, which sent it flying out of his and into the snow.

Barely deterred, the blade came down, cutting between his shoulder and torso.

“Radiance, burn!” the captain calmly pronounced, and white light blasted Abe back against the manor wall.

Shit, that hurt.

Abe's vision blurred as the man approached.

Think I’m done, do you?

His fingers found the cold metal in his pocket and with one smooth movement whipped it out and flung it toward the slayer captain.

Blue glimmered through the air.

“How did you-” the captain’s eyes caught the object.

Shit, wrong one!

The blue grenade burst open a foot from the slayer, sending a sphere of wavy blue, lined by purple currents of energy expanding outward that nearly instantly consumed him, and continued to envelop Abe.

Abe felt the pain searing along the side of his chest calm almost immediately.

He looked down at the wound. It still looked as bad as before, but the stinging pain had dissipated.

The scent, that nauseating antiseptic odor—it’s disappearing.

He narrowed his gaze on the man. Rolling to his feet, Abe dove to the side, fumbling through the snow.

The slayer captain charged forward with a low growl and raised his claymore above his head.

Abe caught the glimmer of the raised weapon from the corner of his eye and rolled, avoiding the downward strike by an inch.

“Mary’s blessing isn’t required to slay you, fiend!” he sneered, swiping the claymore to the side and causing another shallow wound across Abe’s stomach.

Stumbling backward, Abe touched the wound. It bled, but there was no stick.

His eyes widened as he spotted a metallic sheen in the snow. He glanced back at the slayer as he closed, claymore leading the charge. Abe waited and rolled.

Timing his movement just as the slayer began to swing, he passed beneath the sword’s arc and leaped toward the magnum.

His hands dove into the snow, a wave of relief flooding through him as he felt the hard metal under his fingers. Taking hold of it, he rolled with his momentum, skidding backward with the gun pointed up and toward the slayer.

A thunderous blast shook his hands. Time stilled a moment as he refocused his blurred vision.

The slayer captain stood, brow twisted in disbelief. A hole had been blown through his neck, and a fountain of blood spurted across the snow.

“Not so tough now, are you?” Abe taunted and squeezed the trigger, blowing a hole through the man’s left eye.

For a second the slayer stood before his lifeless form collapsed into the snow.

Abe sighed, took several deep breaths, looked down at his trembling hands, and began to chuckle from his stomach.

“Big dumb fuck. So much for your ever-living cult.”

Abe’s nose began to tingle, the scent of the dead man’s brain wafting through his nostrils. It was delicious, sweet, and meaty. Better than a barbeque with garlic and herbs filling the air.

He inched toward the corpse, sniffing the air as he moved.

The captain wasn’t like that girl or the four-armed man. He was evolved, like the tentacle zombie. The scent was unmistakable. But he had been very much alive, no undead like they were. Did that mean the living could evolve into higher beings in this place as well?

Saliva was already filling his mouth, and Abe couldn’t wait another second as he took hold of the dead man’s head. Digging his nails through the flesh and into the bone, he plied the skull apart with sickening, tearing snaps that ran along the wound created by the bullet.

The rest of the slayers had smelled like nothing, just death. But the closer he got to the captain’s brain, the stronger the delicious aroma of power grew. His jaw widened, and he ravenously bit into the meat, savoring its juices like sweet fruit, the intoxicating flavors sending thumps of ecstasy coursing through his veins and healing his wounds.

Abe’s muscles tightened, senses heightened, and confidence peaked as he slurped down the last remnants of his succulent meal.

Consuming another’s power was the greatest sensation, and the time he experienced it was a reminder of the pleasure brought on by getting stronger.

This man had been considerably stronger than Abe, not to mention better trained, but it had been for naught because of a simple mistake—a miscalculation that had cost him his life. It was a lesson in taming one's own confidence.

Dropping the empty skull and rag-dolled body connected to it, Abe sniffed the air.

The intense swell of power from a recent feed heightened his senses, painting the map in his mind’s eye in vivid detail. He could see them, two. A man and a woman. Elissa was cornered, wounded by the blessed weapons, and unable to fight to her fullest. But despite that, she had still managed to take out another of the slayers since he last saw her.

He glanced down at the two bullets remaining in the magnum and searched the captain’s corpse quickly.

Unlike the others, the captain didn’t appear to carry grenades. Either that or he had already used his. There were a few strange vials strapped to the inside of his coat, but a pang of danger surged through him, and he perked his head.

Out of time.

Turned toward the direction of Elissa and the slayers. The Mistress’s seductive curves appeared in his mind.

Abe gritted his teeth, a pulse of power springing him into a charge. Any chance to impress her was worth it.

He rushed through the maze-like rear gardens and reached the brick wall beyond within seconds.

Turning to his right, he continued towards the gates illuminated in his mind’s eye and burst through them a moment later.

He spotted them, but he did not need visuals. Two slayers approached a gardening shed from opposite flanks, over a dozen meters apart.

“Company,” the four-armed man shouted, turning to hip-fire in Abe’s direction—littering the area around him with his MP5.

Raising his hands over his head, Abe dove to the side and ran while crouched toward a stone birdbath—the scattered bullets whizzing past his head and chipping stone as he took cover.

Across from them, the woman continued toward Elissa, taking aimed shots down the barrel of her assault rifle between steps. Dressed in black tactical gear, she stopped a moment, waved a hand signal to the four-armed man with the MP5, and fired another shot as she circled the shed.

“Shit,” Abe muttered, magnum in one hand, the other over his head as bullets slapped against the birdbath.

For a moment, the firing paused, and Abe peered through a gap in the angelic statues that frolicked above the bath—but the four-armed man reloaded in seconds, sending a new barrage of bullets spitting forth and forcing Abe back behind cover.

“Fuck this,” Abe groaned and pulled out his last frag grenade.

Pulling the pin free with his mouth, Abe focused his senses on the man’s location.

There.

He threw the grenade underarm, back over his head from behind cover. It might have looked like an aimless lob, but Abe had mapped the man’s position, and the grenade landed within inches of where he stood.

A bang sounded.

The slayer had seen the grenade mid-step—too late to stop, froze a moment and tried to turn.

The four-armed man lay writhing on the ground, and Abe could hear his groans. Smell his wounds. Shrapnel had torn flesh and opened arteries. It would be quick, at least.

“Eric!” the female slayer screamed, turning toward the groaning man as his movements slowed.

Abe swung around the birdbath and focused his aim. She was maybe fifty feet out.

He squeezed the trigger, and recoil kicked back. Sparks dinged on the garden shed at her back a fraction of a moment later.

She turned, eyeing down her barrel as she aimed for Abe, she paused for barely a second before firing.

A thud smacked into his shoulder, dropping him back behind the birdbath in the process.

“Fuck,” he groaned as he patted the burning wound. “That’s fucking blessed, too; of course it is.”

A chunk of stone inches from his head exploded into rubble.

Now what?

He patted down his pockets as if he might have forgotten something.

Abe’s ears perked as a feral scream filled the air. He turned to look over the birdbath just in time to catch Elissa bearing down on the woman and taking a bullet between her shoulder in the process—but it wasn’t enough. She rolled into the woman, tearing at her like an enraged cat, chunks of flesh ripping away as the woman began to shriek and convulse on the floor.

Feral, blood-filled eyes glared up at Abe as the woman stilled.

Elissa growled low, rose to her feet, and silently hobbled back to the manor.

“I, ah…” Abe let his words trail off, deciding it was best to let her go. “Never mind,” he mouthed.

He turned back to the corpses, “Well, more loot for me, I guess.”