RED WOLF

By I. M. Quilty

Land Fall

USA ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF RENSHIRE. MONTH OF THE RED FOREST.

RENSHIRE TIMES

REPORTS FROM LOCAL FARMERS INDICATE SIGNS OF UNAPPEASEMENT OF OUR IDOL TAÖ. CURFEW HAS BEEN ENFORCED BY SHERIFF CAIRNS AFTER THE DISSAPPEARANCE OF 14 YEAR OLD MAYHEW WETHERS. ANY SIGHTINGS OR INFORMATION PLEASE REPORT TO THE RENSHIRE STATIION.

Alexander drew his sword, but the demon simply grinned and leant in to hug an old friend.

“You took your time,” The demon sighed. “Biking up to the farm-lands isn’t as easy as turning into a cloud and flying over, Krass,” Alex smirked, tapping the point of his sword against the dirt. The demon’s spikes bristled at that.

“You make it seem like I have so many advantages over you. That you deem it unfair,” Krass hissed, his voice echoing as was common with his kind. Alex glanced around briefly, fully aware that the two old friends wouldn’t be so alone soon. “Unfair is one way to put it. Flight, sight, super-strength and a bad habit of moving into already occupied houses, your kind is charmed, truly. Tell me, can you use one of your advantages and tell me how many Scorned are crawling about the tree line?” He asked. Krass grinned, black lips peeling back to reveal his needle-thin, long teeth. When he wasn’t flashing his oil-black pearly-whites, Krass could almost pass as an old man. Hunched over, grey, wrinkled skin and a mop greasy grey hair. He was also quite temperamental when it came to strangers on his property. But the strangers hiding in the shadows cast by the descending sun weren’t kids from the neighbouring village come to cast stones and see who dared to cast the furthest throw at the lonesome demons’ nest. They were a group of raider marauders turned professional marauders. Cursed flesh they’d bound with hastily blessed dusty cloth, long, sharpened nails stained black from the ink drops of their souls that had escaped the cracks of taut flesh. With sharpened obsidian daggers and golden-threaded woven hilts, they would come slinking through trees and flicker through the pumpkin patch, wisps of their cloth trailing quietly behind.

“Six. No. Seven.” Krass spat. Alex dug the tip of his sword deeper into the soil. As the sun sunk further, the sword glowed a deeper, brighter red. His eyes darted about, but in the fading sunlight it was almost impossible for his eyes to see the shadow-men.

“Where?” Alex asked, his free hand wiping away the dust and farm-grime that had accumulated in the stubble of his beard. Even with his dark waves tied back, strands of hair still managed to wander over his eyes. With a huff of annoyance, the investigator combed them back with a gloved hand. He pulled the sword that thrummed with crimson neon light from the dirt into a swing. The blade whistled in the evening air, looking as though it should be burning right through his gloves. As the last slither of sunlight returned behind the horizon, Alex heard them approach. A faint patter of feet lightly thrumming against the pumpkin patch, approaching the demon and the detective at an alarming pace. He readied himself, a foot placed behind him with one hand gripping the sword hilt, the other began to glow its own breed of neon.

The first of the Scorned to strike was the stupidest. Alex simply swung his blade upwards in a lazy arc, enjoying how easily it glided through the creatures body and out the other side. It landed beside Krass with a satisfying thud. Alex gave his friend a small shrug, the hiss of black blood boiling on the heated flat of the blade slowing the advancing Scorned. He eased out of his stance, instead sticking the point of the glowing blade into the dirt and leant against with a certain ease that the Scorned hadn’t witnessed on any of their prey before. An ease that, though they didn’t quite know it yet, spelt that Detective Alteir would make quick work of them with the same interest a wolf has for the flea on behind its ear. The second growled, more irritated than mournful of its fellow creature’s swift death. Alex spat into the patch, inviting them to come closer. Just a few steps. With such a little nudge two of them surged forth, faster than most could anticipate such horrid things could move. But Alex took two steps back and with a kick to the head sent one of them flying back. The other met the hungry hiss of his blade melting into its side, tearing across its middle with the same heat of a hot poker ripping through flesh. The fallen Scorned leapt onto Alex’s back, eager to sink its rotten teeth into his nape. With a grunt he rolled forward and smashed it into a pumpkin. As it struggled into the orange goo he slammed a boot down onto its feral, cursed face and finished it with a sword to the throat. It moaned for only a second, and collapsed into tar. Getting all over Alex’s boots.

‘Welcome to the club, mysterious liquid,’ He muttered, tapping the tip of the sword to sole, home to all kinds of dirt, gum and albeit mysterious liquids. More groaning and hisses sounded by the shadows of the woodland, the shadows bending as the sun continued to sink beneath the horizon. As the darkness fell, Alex’s gloved hand glowed brighter. A fierce red burnt bright, so bright it outshone the blade in his right hand. But the Scorned surged forth regardless, hungry for terror and fiendish delights and whatever silver and gold an old demon might be harbouring beneath his floorboards.

Alex let out a deep sigh.

They ran at him on all fours, feral and beastly creatures as they were. He tore off his glove, and with a hand that burnt bright with twisting, wispy arrays of red, orange and yellow, slammed it down into the ground. A wave of brilliant neon fire and heat rushed forth from where he’d planted his fist, and all fell beneath the wave. Scorned. Pumpkins. Dirt and worms. A wave of ash and the tail-tips of the wisp-flames curled and disappeared into the air where they’d once stood. Ash and embers rained down on the patch, and all Alex had to offer Krass was a small shrug and sheepish smile. Krass just stared blankly at his once perfect pumpkin patch, unable to process the sudden vanquishment of most of his seasonal wage. But before Alex could offer a half-hearted promise to maybe some time in the future pay for the damages, he was slammed to the ground by a Scorned that had lagged behind the rest of its pack. Winded and struggling beneath its snapping, drooling jaws Alex began to let his flames form – only to quickly realised he’d used it up for the time being in his attempt at finishing this job quicker than he should’ve. Snap, snap! With every smash of its rotten teeth the Scorned drew nearer and before he could shout to Krass for help, a shot of familiar blue light blinded him for a moment and sent the Scorned tumbling off into the patch, litter more than shreds of cursed rune-cloth.

‘Got carried away, huh?’ Naros Alteir, his wife and partner detective stood over him, and taunted him instead of helping. Her smoking gun rested at her hips, her cocked head the only sign she wasn’t hiding anger behind her face hidden beneath a permeant gas-mask. Alex bit his lip.

‘Alexander,’ She said, lower this time. To be married from such an age as they were and for so long, they weren’t puzzle pieces to each other, but little lights on a control panel, each little light a tell of any emotion. In this case, Alex was prone to biting his lip whenever he was guilty of whatever Naros had recently accused him of. And right now that little light was glowing green. She offered him a gloved hand, and he took it despite the heat that eradiated from it. But Naros did not flinch at his touch. She never did. But she did have habit for apologising on her husband’s behalf.

‘I’m very sorry, Krass. I’m grateful Alex managed to wipe out the Scorned Marauders but – well – also managed to wipe out your patch. We’ll send a cheque after our next assignment with the Proto Guard,’ Naros said, louder than she probably needed to. A habit of hers. A habit born from being stuck in her impenetrable grey suit and gas-mask, seeming only to trust Alex with her normal raspy voice.

Krass gave them both a frown but followed it with a grunt and a nod. As the sun continued to dip and the shadows lengthened and enveloped them, Krass turned to a black mass of smoke and ash and crawled back to his hovel, disgruntled but grateful to be rid of the marauders. Alex reached into Naros’ left pocket and stole a stale stick of gum he’d left there half a week ago, and hit a small indent on the shoulder of her suit that lit the green-blue lining that ran all over her grey body. Despite the sigh that lifted and dropped her shoulders, Naros pulled him close into a forehead touch, thumb running down his cheek. She had a special sort of kindness to her. A caring and protectiveness that sometimes came in the form of taunts and showing him up, and other times it was soft coos to urge him back to sleep after nightmares he refused to acknowledge the next morning, or a forehead touch to remind him he had her back. Naros was the only one he ever wanted at his back, from her sharp shooting trigger finger to the powerful muscles of her calves, back and arms, all earned from years of perfecting hand-to-hand combat to replace what had been taken from her.

Alex chewed louder than he had to, enjoying the small flick she gave him to the shoulder. ‘You said the Proto-Guards gave us an…assignment?’ He asked with a touch of disbelief. Half of his answer came in the thrum and sound of a ship sailing above. Against the purple-black sky, just as the stars were beginning to let themselves shine, a ship of white and rippling blue soared overhead, headed down to the forests border to the east.

‘I was in Renshire when I was approached by a small-fry officer, gave me a summons from General Youssef. It was vague but it’s something to do with the local Idol, some kind of disturbance that’s messing with the locals ‘round here,’ Naros said, waving a red-white tag about. A high-clearance pass.

‘A rare treat.’ Alex thought with a small internal smile. A high-ranking officer of the Proto-guard, the white cloak army of America summoning two private supernatural investigators in the backwater that was Renshire? Unusual, and curious enough that it had Alex excited, already jogging over to the family car. A 1967 Impala Hardtop, red lining circling the lights, bumper and edges of the hood. Without a single scratch on it – that being thanks to the repeated services and re-paints from the mechanics both Alex and Naros had gotten to know well in any town they’d visited in the past ten years. Strapped in and already revving the engine, red lines retreating and glowing as he feathered the accelerator, Alex ushered her over.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

‘C’mon, moonlight’s burning!’ He said with a wide grin.

Naros wound the windows down as they drove out from the demons’ farm, much to Alex’s quiet resentment. But as always, he never protested. Sometimes the night air and the rush of Alex’s need to speed even on the dirt roads sometimes tricked her into feeling as though the night air was racing against her skin, cold and fast as it was. So he never said a word against it, or brought up how the wind made the stray strands of hair whip against his face. No. He simply enjoyed how it made her feel, and offered his bare hand to hold her gloved one as they drove through the winding dirt roads and highways of Renshire county. There wasn’t much out here, save for a handful of farms and the town itself populated by old mining families from the days of the Coldwell mines that had closed fifty or so odd years back. In fact it was made up of entirely dirt roads, save for the main road in town and the Red Spider Highway on the southern border. A seemingly quiet town with no reason for the White Cloaks to have any presence, now swarming with Guards and a high ranking officer. Alex tore through the night, a blur of muscle car and red light.

They arrived at the White Cloak encampment in a mere hour. Even into the night, the camp was a hive. Proto-Guards, all dressed in both white armour and the cloaks of their namesake, their staple staffs on their backs bustled about the small ravine at forests edge. Some carried crates, others tended to the Megaris that had just made landfall, whilst the rest patrolled the forest border. The queen of this hive, Arnold Youssef stood at what looked like a command tent, pouring over maps and a make-shift radio as a flood-light enveloped him.

Now. What’s got Whitecliffe so rigid he’s sent Youssef to guard some trees in the middle of nowhere?’ Naros thought to herself as they parked before the hailing Guards. After a quick flash of their security pass and an exchange of looks between the two young guards, the Detectives were ushered through. Making straight for Youssef’s tent, Naros made a point to ignore the pauses and sideway glances, even the handful of glares some of the older Guards drilled into the back of her head. Alex ignored them in the same stride, not because he was ignorant to their looks and the thoughts swimming in their stew-filled skulls but because in such things he had learnt to follow his wife’s lead. There was a way to handle such things, a way Alex wanted to handle them, but he would always follow whatever path Naros took if only to walk alongside one another even if their feelings on such things had met a fork in the road long ago. Despite the urgent nature of his call, Yousef greeted them both with a grunt. White-haired, Korean, far-too-young for his position in the White Cloaks – Naros expected such treatment. But she was taller, older and with little patience when money was promised.

‘Tao. You sent out an inquiry for our services?’ She stated loudly, the rasp in her voice catching the attention of the guards milling about them. Thumb and fore-finger stroking his non-existent beard, the young general finally deigned to look to them. He hovered a hand over the map of the county in front of him, a finger tracing a circle around the forest.

‘We’re experiencing a wide-spread minor issues with idols starting from the east coast to Renshire. Units have been dispatched to deal with them, but there’s little explanation and no follow ups as to what is aggravating them.’ Tao paused to fold his arms and give them both a look. Up, down. He scanned them, sizing them up one at a time.

‘I intend to produce results with a ten page report detailing how I solved this problem resourcefully. In short, I want you two to solve this and I’ll pay you a handsome sum for it. You’ve got a good past working some smaller White-cloak issues out when locals were less than happy with their help and a shiny track-record with your independent contracts from what I’ve read. However this contract…it will be twice the money, but under the table. Complete silence on your role.’ Youssef explained, pushing a single slip of paper with a thick black line at the bottom towards them. Naros and Alex exchanged a look, and then another when they both noticed the paycheque that would await them upon completion. A hungry look that said vacation. The two signed after a moment of pretending to ponder, clicking the pen again and again to Yousef’s obvious irritation. With a sigh he handed them both folders, each containing newspaper clippings from the past two weeks, black and white snap-shots of a family and a report of the local idol Avondekai. Yousef picked up a picture of the family and circled a small child sitting on the church steeps, staring at the ground.

‘This is Mayhew Wethers. Son of Elizabeth and Jonathan Wethers he’s an only child, black hair and of Asian-American descent. He went missing two weeks ago. Civilians went searching, eventually they tried to scour the forest but found themselves walking into the wood and walking right out a second later. General consensus from the Sherriff and civilians is that Avondekai was keeping them out, having angered him in some way. Some of the older residents we spoke to suspect he’s the kidnapper. Why? No one can say. But its obvious it all leads back to Avondekai, with the recent rot that’s been spreading through all the farms. They say for years they kept the forest and its surrounds healthy and without any industrialisation, in return he gave them bountiful and healthy crops every harvest.’ Youssef pinned the picture to a board behind him. After a moment, he turned back around to face them.

‘What will you need?’ He asked.

It was Naros that spoke up. ‘We know two of the locals. An older demonic resident says when the people first moved into Renshire there was a monster in the woods, a monster that took children when they wandered into the fields for revenge for invading its home and destroying it. An older brother of one of the missing children went into the woods and tracked down the creature and offered him a trade. If he stopped taking children, the towns people wouldn’t come near the forest and keep it safe, never taking anything from its grounds unless with permission. He got his brother back, too. He offered the creature a name, in return for his younger siblings life.’

Naros and Alex exchanged a thoughtful look Youssef couldn’t quite decipher. Alex took a glance around the camp, thrumming his fingers against his crossed arms.

‘Do you have any squires, interns or uh, assistants running around here?’ He asked with only a grain of sarcasm to it. After a quick look of puzzlement, Youssef summoned his assistant Walter with a bark at some guards walking past. Just as Alex had hoped, Walter the assistant was young, floundering and sweating in the presence of his boss behind a mop of brown curls.

‘Why do you need my assistant, Detective?’ Youssef asked flatly, a clear fear for Walter’s life in his eyes.

Alex shrugged with a grin.

‘We need to be able to get into the forest, General,’ Naros said in her way of dismissal.

The torch-light was barely able to cut through the darkness of the forest. With only two torches on hand, there was scarcely a ring of light around the three of them. But they moved quick as they could through the utterly silent forest, the only sounds being Walter’s heavy, laboured breathing and the crunch of dead leaves underneath. In the season of the Red Forest it should’ve been a moon-lit walk, but it seemed in a place such as this the canopy remained just as stalwart in the month of renewal. It looked as though Walter took each step with two pylons stuck up his legs and one up his spine.

‘Can I…go back now?’ He whimpered, fists clenched. There was a part of Alex that didn’t blame the kid for his fear. This place was oppressive, even for him.

‘You can go back when we have Mayhew. You’re fourteen, just like him. You should be able to hear the same call…like a whisper in your mind that isn’t your own voice,’ Alex said stiffly, shining his torch on the kid. He flinched with a small grimace, but clenched his eyes shut and did what he was told. It was the reaching back into the folds of his mind, into the dark and cold recesses that he heard it. A voice, low and cold and with a part of it that lacked humanity. It was odd. There was no threat, nor malice to it. But it was simply a mimic of the human voice. A charade with no ill will yet with an allure Walter could simply not deny. As though in a trance, he walked straight into the darkness, leaving the detectives to follow at either side of the boy. And they walked, and walked. They walked for so long over dead leaves and roots that for a while Alex feared the idol had sent them into a mind-breaking trap of walking in circles until they collapsed. It was only when the ground turned to rock and gravel and they began to follow a set of tracks and abandoned carts that he realised where the Idol had made his home. At the near collapsed entrance of the mine, Naros stopped Walter and drew him back. Murmuring a quick apology she bound him up and leant him against a mining cart, all without a word of protest from the glassy eyed assistant.

Without a word, Alex gave Naros a small nod. Side by side they plunged into the seemingly impenetrable darkness. Alex curled his hand to intertwine with Naros’, and both flicked off their torches. For a moment, both were cloaked in the heavy darkness. Feeling as though his breath was being choked from him, Alex concentrated his fear into an energy that flowed up his arm, and formed into a ball of brilliant flames. The strange runes on the back of his hand glowed, and the ball of fire flickered happily in his palm, providing a light that easily sliced through the crawling darkness. As through drawn by the light, a scattering sound echoed throughout the mouth of the mines and before them within an instant loomed a long-limbed creature that took up the entire space of the tunnel width. Four long, grey, clawed hands each dug into the grey rock, a veil of moss and roots covering its wooden skull and jaws. It peered down at them both, with no end to its long lizard-like body in sight.

Alex stepped forward.

‘Avondekai? We’ve come to ask - ’ He was interrupted when the Idol began to convulse, and violently vomited a thick, black tar substance all over the both of them. As the creature continued to convulse and bring up the strange liquid, a muffled scream could be heard from the inside of the Idol. In a moment of electric impulse, Alex ignored what would’ve been his better judgement and crushed the flame in his palm and let it light up the rest of his body. Ignore Naros’ shout for caution, he encouraged the flames to build faster and hotter until even his hair and clothes were engulfed in the brilliant shine of the red, yellow and orange. The pupils and white of his eyes melted away, the empty sockets replaced with bright red flames. With a strength that was not his own, Alex surged through the tar and skidded beneath the shaking, raging creature to its wooden ribcage. There, cramped between moss and tar was the Mayhew Weathers, weak and filthy but alive. He tore at the branches until the boy came lose, and caught him as he fell. To the boys utter amazement, he did not burn. With inhuman speed, Alex in a yellow blur appeared outside the mine and placed the boy gently beside a now awake (and terrified) Walter. Alex gave him a small nod.

He returned to the mine shaft, taking Naros into his arms. The tar had risen so rapidly they were in danger of drowning in the stuff.

‘Avondekai!’ Naros cried. Only its heard remained, a single clawed arm desperately clawing at the tar. Now as if suddenly awoken from its fear, the drowning Idol cried out to them in a desperate warning.

‘FEAR THE COMET – THE CORRUPTION – SPREADING….SHE WILL NOT REST UNTIL SHE HAS – THE COMET!’

And with its final warning, the creature akin to a god died before them.