The siblings offered each other a lazy high five as they loped towards the small cabin. Smoke coming from the chimney let them know someone was certainly home, and the scents they tracked right to the door gave them a good idea of who it was. Trip ran up to the door, taking a few steps back and lowering his shoulder, but Sally Mae held out a hand to stop him.
“No, bro… we are guests here… the least we can do is attempt the civilized method.” She knocked on the door, her hand making a booming sound that echoed around the small area.
“Whoever that is, go away!” A voice came from inside. “Just forget what you saw here and go home for two weeks!”
Sally Mae crinkled her forehead in thought before stepping back out of the way of her brother and with a sweeping gesture indicated to him the time for civilized banter was at an end. He charged the door, barely slowing as the wood barrier was reduced to little more than splinters as he passed through it.
The interior of the cabin was comfy, probably set up as someone’s getaway vacation complete even with a fireplace in the corner crackling happily. Seated on the couch was the golem girl, Laverne, who had been the source of so much bother of late. Her eyes went wide in shock, dropping the bowl of popcorn she was snacking on and jumping over the back of the couch to hide behind it.
“What the heck! I told you to go away!” She screamed as the werewolf sibs took in the room. “You are going to mess everything up!”
“Sorry, sug, I couldn’t hear too well through the door… there’s a couple of friends of mine that would really appreciate a word or two with you since you seem to be free.”
“I don’t know who you are…” The split-faced golem girl popped back up from behind the couch. In one hand she held some sort of ornately wrapped scroll, and in the other a lit lighter that she waved under the parchment. “But I am guessing you are here for this, come any closer and you will never get the spell.”
“Easy there… we’re not here to hurt you.” Trip moved off to her side, trying to split her attention between the two of them.
“Then you should have just left enough alone. If you can find me, then so can he. You probably led him right to me.” She extinguished the lighter. “I have to find a new place to hide, I just have to keep this out of his hands until after the equinox and everything can go back to how it was.”
“Who? Who are you even talking about?” Sally Mae moved closer to her, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.
“He doesn’t have a name… or doesn’t anymore… he promised to get me a real family if I helped him but he is a liar.”
“A liar? What do you mean?”
“No, he said we wouldn’t hurt President Revi but she ended up dying. Once I found the book of rituals I started doubting he was going to keep his word. Miss Glimmerclaw thinks the school will return to the old ways she was more in tune with but I couldn’t risk him going back on his word again.” Laverne slumped a little as she let her words spill out. “I thought if I could keep the spell out of his hands until after the equinox next week we could forget about the whole thing… but if you found me, then so can they… if you didn’t lead them right to me, that is.”
The wind in the valley outside the cabin picked up… going from a quiet stillness to near-hurricane conditions in the blink of an eye. Sand, small rocks, and all kinds of brush battered against the outside of the walls… propelled by the violent wind. Some debris even blew in through the destroyed door Trip and Sally had entered through.
“They found me…” The golem’s face went pale in fear at the realization.
“Good.” Trip grinned as he cracked his knuckles. “I was wondering if there would be any action on this little jaunt.”
“That’s not what we are here for Trip… but we can’t exactly get any answers out of two-face here if they take her away. You… keep out of sight and we’ll do the best to get you out of here in one piece.” Sally Mae waited for Trip to rejoin her before turning and going back out the splintered door into the windy valley.
The wind outside was swirling in a vortex around what looked to be a jagged tear in the air in the middle of the small clearing overlooking the roiling ocean far below. Smoke poured out of the tear, gathering and forming into a large hazy humanoid form. The smoke solidified, gaining shape and texture until an immense eight-foot-tall minotaur. He looked around, gathering his bearings, spotted the two werewolves, and smiled darkly.
“So this is where the little one has been hiding. Such a naughty little runaway, I am glad to finally see you once again.” The minotaur stepped from the chaotic portal and walked towards the cabin. Sally Mae looked back inside over her shoulder.
“This the guy you were talking about? He doesn’t look all that tough.”
“No…” Laverne shook her head. “Just one of his lackeys that fancies himself the muscle of the operation.”
“Oh? Then let’s dissuade him of that notion, shall we Trip?” Sally and Trip high-fived each other once more as they charged at the minotaur, each of them angling off to come at him from different directions. The minotaur paused in his stride, glancing over them with feigned interest.
“You don’t need to get hurt for her, She sold you out as quick as anyone, you have no need to defend her.” His voice was a low rumble that seemed to shake the rocks lining the backside of the area, pebbles spilling down the slope.
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“Can’t do anything about it, student handbook says gotta defend my fellow student.” Sally Mae nodded to Trip and he charged… a manuever the siblings had used hundreds of times.
As Trip ran he pulled a long blade from his back. Not having undergone his first transformation yet, he still had to rely on man-made weapons. The minotaur shifted his weight, ready to take the young man’s charge… but at the last minute Trip dropped to his knees, sliding past their opponent. The minotaur turned, following his trail only to get a face full of Sally Mae’s claws as she leaped at him. His hands came up to defend his eyes as Trip stopped his slide and spun to cut at his legs.
His strike was met with a dull thud as his knife failed to make it through the bull’s thick hide. At the same time, the minotaur uncrossed his arms, striking Sally Mae and sending her to the ground. The huge bull-man laughed.
“Come, come… certainly you can do better than that. Here, try again.” He held out a hand to Trip, offering to help him back to his feet. Trip scowled and got to his feet on his own, Sally Mae by his side once again her hands half shifted into claws better for battle.
“You okay, sis?”
“Yeah,” She said, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. “Uncle Jobe hits harder than this guy.”
“Ah… good, you both have spirit… makes it all the more satisfying when despair takes over. Now… show me what you can really do pups.”
With a scream Sally Mae let her change wash over her, leaving a slathering jet-black wolf creature where the small blonde once had been. They both charged at the minotaur, moving in sync from years of fighting each other and alongside each other. In a flurry of blades and claws, they moved with an almost primal furiosity. The minotaur’s face only showed a sadistic grin as they threw themselves at him.
“Yes… yes… much better! Fight as if your very lives depend on it!” He kept them at bay with a frustrating lack of effort, blocking and dodging the best they could throw at him without giving up a single inch of ground. “Because it very much does.”
Suddenly the minotaur’s head snapped up, his hand coming up to catch a knife mere inches from his face. Sally Mae and Trip used his momentary distraction to their advantage, cutting and slashing and scoring their first real damage of the battle. As the shallow scratches appeared on the bull’s sides he just smiled as he searched for who threw the weapon.
“There you are, little one. I was so worried you were too afraid to come out and see me after so long away.” The knife in his hand vanished, reappearing in Laverne’s hand as she stood in the doorway to the cabin.
“Well, I am not about to just stand around as you all fight to decide what kind of fate I deserve. I get a say in this too.”
The minotaur looked down as if only just then remembering the two werewolves attacking him. “I am very sorry but I cannot waste time playing with you any longer. I have work to do now.”
In the blink of an eye, he caught Trip’s arm and took the long knife from him, plunging it back into the boy’s chest. Sally Mae’s wolf form screamed as she redoubled her efforts to kill the horned monster. He simply lifted her off the ground and flung her across the small clearing, head first into the rock wall. She fell, unmoving to the ground… Her body slowly reverted to human.
“Sis!” Trip screamed, clutching at the knife piercing him… his hands sharpening into claws and fading back once again. The pain and fury seemingly triggered his change too early for his body to handle it, sending it into a feedback look of changing constantly. The minotaur laughed to himself as he dropped the long knife, Trip’s body falling to the ground along with it.
Laverne threw the knife again, only to have it batted aside as the bull charged at her. He closed the distance between them at a speed she had never seen before, barely having time to recall her knife once more before he was on her.
“No more of that!” He shouted, grabbing the arm with the knife in it and twisting. The stitches holding the golem girl’s arm in place creaked and stretched before giving way, her entire arm coming away in the beast’s grip.
“Oopsie!” He shrugged, tossing the limb away. “Sometimes I get over-excited. Now, little one, where is the scroll?”
“Like I am about to tell you… “ Laverne snarled.
“Oh goodie, I was hoping you would want to do this the more entertaining way.” With a quick movement, he tore her other arm from her body, casually tossing it over the cliff into the surf below. Over the next minutes, he took an inordinate amount of joy tearing her limbs from her body, almost completely reducing the golem back to her component parts but still, she told him nothing. With a great sigh, the minotaur dropped what was left of her to the ground.
“Fine… I will find it myself then.” With that he kicked her head over towards Trips, spasming and shifting body before entering the cabin himself. Sounds of crashes and destruction drifted out into the air as he ransacked the cabin. He had all the time he could want, however, and in under an hour, he came back out with the scroll clutched tightly in his hand. Black smoke followed him out the door from the fire he had set, the heat warming the air around him. He walked back over to where Laverne’s head lay, whatever magic had been used to make her kept her alive even after all that and she riddled him with every curse she had ever heard… even going so far as to make up a few new ones on the spot.
“You never should have left us, little one… we have already won and there is nothing you or your puny friends can do about it. All you do by denying that is cause yourselves more pain.” He strangely almost sounded sad, a huge contrast from the almost crazed look on his face as he fought them earlier.
“He’ll betray you too, given the chance, Gregor. You are only safe as long as you are useful, the moment that time is up… that’s the end of you.” Laverne shouted at him, spittle spraying from her mouth.
“Then I best make sure I am always useful, yes? Goodbye now… should you survive this, leave here… before it is too late. Staying behind is a lost cause.” With that, he strode over to the area where he first entered the clearing. With a few gestures, he reopened the portal and stepped through, leaving the three of them alone to their fate.
Nearly two hours later when Dana, Cherri, and Kasa made the climb to the clearing that is how they found them… beaten and broken with the remains of the cabin not much more than a smoking pile of charred wood. They quickly split up and moved to help who they could.
Cherri went to Sally Mae, changing her body structure to something closer to water to try and bring her back to consciousness. Kasa ran around the area, gathering as many of Laverne’s body parts as she could find, accompanied by the golem herself complaining the entire time. She was pretty sure she could stitch the girl back together once they got her back to the campus. Dana, though, had a hard enough time just dragging Trip away from the cabin, his constantly changing body made it hard to get a handhold on. Sally Mae finally sputtered back to consciousness, looking around frantically for her brother.
“Dammit,” She cursed, seeing the state he was in. “Something in the fight triggered his change, probably the need for the healing ability… people come through this occasionally but it is rarely easy and almost never clean.”
“What even happened up here? Did Laverne really put up this much of a fight?” Dana looked incredulously around the carnage of the clearing.
“Not her… a minotaur… swooped in and handed us our asses on a platter.” Sally Mae spit out a loose tooth from her mouth, feeling its replacement already starting to grow into its place. “Sorry, boss man, we lost the scroll.”