Chapter 3
Rob waved away the bellow of thick cloud in front of him and turned the safety of his revolver off, exhaling
to prepare for what was about to happen. He went silent and concentration filled his blue eyes. He started to utter the chant, closing his eyes to ignore the hail of bullets quickly turning the wooden floor into splinters.
Black had thought of burning the savages out of the building before his mind was changed, but now, cowering from a hail of bullets, he wished to god he had followed through.
“How much longer, Mr. Researcher?” he asked.
Rob looked at him and continued to speak the chant, his eyes giving the Texan a sharp and annoyed look.
Despite his complacency, Elijah couldn’t doubt the man was a hell of a partner in a fight that required quick thinking, coming up with the best of plans for the worst of times. Black would never have considered him so, especially when the two gunslingers were given their first assignment together, which took them to the shores of the Caribbean in search of mermaids or as they knew them the water witches, whose beauty lured many men to the sea and to their deaths.
The fool, Black remembered, was so enamoured by the foul bitches that he was almost dragged to the depths, fortunate for him Black was not so easily bewitched. Since then, his knowledge had grown expansive and no longer limited to the witches who, through the course of dark magic, adapted to the briny waters but all beasts that their ancient order had the misfortune of recording.
He was a walking encyclopaedia of monster knowledge and the smug bastard knew it, Black thought.
Rob stopped his chant and tightly gripped the revolver in his hand. His right arm writhed, and then, coiling like snakes, winding black smoke trailed the surface of his skin, slithering down to his revolver which quickly became smothered in the black mist.
“That’ll do it,” Black said.
Rob turned to him with mist coated eyes that shifted and coiled like the smoke pouring from his arm and weapon. Slowly, he crept past his partner, avoiding the hail of bullets, still firing down from above.
Positioning himself, he peered up and levelled the revolver's smoking barrel that pointed up to the gaping hole, and then, with one firm squeeze he pulled the mechanical trigger. A dark shadow spewed from the end of the barrel and enveloped the room in complete darkness.
The gunfire ceased and the savages howled, blinded by the traveling smoke that slowly made the decaying building its domain.
The Texan grinned viciously behind the mist, raising his revolver high which like the markings on his arms seared and glowed with red-hot fire.
“The savages will never see me coming,” he said softly.
Quietly moving his lips, he began uttering a second chant that, unlike the first, was better suited to provide him the advantage he wanted in such an obfuscated environment.
A warm sensation flooded his eyes as he finished the chant, which stung slightly. His vision blurred and the objects before him became unfocused, while the shroud cast by Rob gradually started to fade, the blackness slowly pushing back into clear and sharp outlines of the lightest and darkest of purples.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Much better, Elijah thought, immediately testing his new sight and looking at the giant hole above, where six confused werewolves loomed, staring down into the chaos of Rob’s smoke.
Standing well over eight feet tall, he saw the beasts clearly now and saw their towering stature on full display. One of the savages snarled violently at the growling kin next to him, poorly attempting to communicate in its inhuman tongue.
“We go in – find intruders – and kill - them,“ it snarled.
The beast spoken to opened its wolfish mouth, pulling back and revealing its black gums as it spoke which made clear the unnatural pattern of jagged fangs and human molars which filled it, giblets of flesh still clinging from a fresh kill.
They were no longer men, Black could not imagine as once human, his mind believing that all resemblance of humanity, both physical and mental, had disappeared the day they turned. That was the line they crossed, and that was the price they paid. Time seemed to take its toll on man greater than we care to think, he pictured the Neanderfals of older ages being driven to extinction by that early species of man from which he descended, and then, he wondered if they too had viewed them in the same way.
Two birds of the same feather, he thought.
The gunslinger carefully aimed his revolver at the beast and held his aim high at the monster's fur-coated head. With a deep breath, he squeezed the trigger and the revolver roared, while his quick eyes shifted to his next unfortunate target.
The first werewolf instantly burst into flames, a pain-ridden howl leaving its onyx lips. Black, now pointing the gun at the other, had him in
his crosshairs before it even had a second to react. He breathed deeply and with one well-placed shot killed it about as quickly as he did the first.
Both lit up in a fiery blaze and their Gray skin began to sear away. The Texan would have savoured the kill, had he more time, but the apparent gust in the shroud indicating that two heavy objects had dropped to the ground floor, warned him to remain alert instead.
He saw them, the towering werewolves blindly searched for their kin’s killer, both holding a murderous rage behind their purple-filtered eyes.
Elijah raised his arm and prepared to shoot, hoping to kill them as easily as the others.
But he needn’t waste the effort.
Undetected, Rob stood behind the unaware pair and accurately locked his revolver at one of them. He fired quickly, blowing a hole in the first target's head and then the other, both shots sprayed werewolf blood onto the wall. Smoke trailed from the blue-eyed researcher’s revolver and the fur-covered giants tumbled lifelessly to the ground.
He turned to Black, “pretty good for a resear-“
Then suddenly, with an expression of shock, his eyes widened. Elijah felt a great pull from behind which sent him crashing to the ground, his revolver firing off a shot as it dropped out of his hands and rattled on the floor in the distance.
He was put on his back, his head bruised and facing the moon above. Something heavy was over him, reeking of wet fur and panting furiously. He looked down to the sight of a pair of wild raging eyes and bare crooked fangs preparing to bite.
“Elijah!” shouted Rob, raising his weapon.
Elijah quickly lifted his left arm and the fangs sunk in, the beast's powerful force pulling violently against his skin and dragging him several inches on the floor. A gun roared and blood sprayed across the bitten man’s face. A newly formed hole existed where its right eye should have been, yet the beast's grip tightened and its growls only grew louder.
Black quickly looked at his partner, spotting another lurking werewolf reaching out for an unaware Rob as he prepared to shoot again.
“Behind you!”
He was too late, the giant gray hand yanked his partner from behind, causing his stray shot to graze the beast over black, and then to explode on the loose floorboards beside him.
The gray hand lifted the man violently into the air and launched him straight to the adjacent wall, where the gunslinger crashed loudly and broken wood clattered on the floor.
Elijah’s mind whirled and his heart raced with an overwhelming urge to help his partner.
Still bitting down on his arm, the werewolf above Black slashed with its right claw, a mad anticipation growing behind its eyes. Had he been slower he would have died, but Elijah reacted with the speed of a demon and quickly grabbed the gray monster’s arm with his right hand and fought as best he could to keep it from tearing into his face.
“Shit,” Black cursed, realizing his predicament.
His arms were used up, both his hands already fighting to protect him from being mauled. The savage snarled and its eyes widened with excitement. The beast lifted its left claw high into the air, its claws like the guillotine of old that prepared to land the coup de grace.
Quickly, it swung its synth-like claws and a sudden stabbing pain dug into Black’s left shoulder, yet he did not shout in pain, only gritting his teeth. The werewolf growled hatefully, applying further strength to its bite on his arm. The gunslinger returned a mocking and defiant smirk, his leg pushing back against the beast's striking claw and keeping it from digging any deeper into his shoulder’s flesh.