Rob pointed his shaking barrel but didn’t dare fire with Elizah in the crosshairs.

“Eli-El-E” Black struggled to say the name, his jaw dropped and a seething pain swelling at his heart.

The beast spat Elizah’s shredded body to the ground, her head and her eyes blankly stared up at the moonlit sky.

The monster turned to Elijah, a sadistic satisfaction dancing behind its crimson eyes. Its black tongue licked mockingly around its gray lips and collected his partner's dripping blood back into its mouth.

A burning feeling rose within Elijah, a searing mixture of hate and anguish brimming from the deepest part of him.

The fang-littered mouth started to hang, growing wider and more menacing, while its legs bent and coiled preparing to spring. Its eyes locked firm on the numb gunslinger before him, and then, it lunged, leaping high into the moonlighted sky.

“Move!” Rob yelled.

Elijah didn’t move, he merely stood and spoke silently, yet the words he spoke were forbidden by decree of his ancient order, but this did not stop a young and stubborn Elijah and a troubled researcher from etching the rune onto him. He did not know what it would do, only being told that whatever or whoever stood before it when cast, would be there no longer. Now that researcher is gone and Black’s only daughter lay in a pool of blood, he did not care for the consequences, he didn’t give a damn.

The beast was above him now, its fangs and claws within striking distance.

The researchers said that it would cost the user more than its target, some even say driving them to madness. He didn’t care, one way or another he’d take this monster to hell.

Elijah’s brow lowered over his gray eyes as he raised his revolver and aimed at the falling beast. He squeezed the trigger and the barrel of the cold steel erupted in a fiery blaze. He felt a sudden loss of control like a dark force taking over, filling him with its unsatiable urge to kill.

The werewolf was engulfed in infernos flames, which like the fires of hell wrapped and burned the gray monster.

Elijah dived out of its way and the massive body crashed to the ground, its skin charred, and a faint whimper escaped its wolfish mouth. Pain swelled behind its crimson eyes, the beast appearing as if this was the first time it had felt such a sensation. Its black pupil rolled back slowly, leaving only the lifeless crimson.

"Wake up!" Rob shouted.

Black turned and saw the young gunslinger shaking Elizah, yet the sight did not trouble him as deeply as it should have.

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“S-Shit no not that o-“

“Shit not that it-“

“God damn it“

He watched Rob recite chant after chant, as he desperately searched for a way to heal her.

Elijah's eyes fixed on her body and his mind started to recount everything they had gone through, recalling everything they had done together. His hands began to shake.

“All those year-“ he stopped himself.

Suddenly, he felt his mind whirl and a dizzying sensation began to take over and claw out from the depths of his thoughts.

“More, and more, the words!“ echoed the words in his pain-stricken mind.

“What the hell is this,” he clasped his head with both hands, attempting to relive the growing pain. The voices were getting increasingly louder, as they stabbed at his brain.

"More what!” the Texan shouted.

Then, silence, the voices vanished, and the pain he had endured left. Black lowered his hands from his head, his thoughts slowly coming back to him.

He looked around the garden, feeling an urge to distract his mind with anything to overtake his sadness filled his body. He stared at a section of the garden’s stone wall, at first believing the surface to be painted white.

He walked to it and on closer inspection, he realized it was paint covering a door that stood before a gap in the surface.

Wind from behind, he felt it as he pressed the surface of the door.

Offerings, he mumbled, gently pushing against the door.

It opened, revealing a dark passageway behind it which was scarcely lit by hanging torches on the wall. His mind imagined what horror was in store for him at the end of his passage. He stepped through slowly, believing it better if Rob were left with Elizah.

“Elizah,” he mumbled.

Strange, he thought, realizing that her name did not pain him to say.

He emerged from the passageway, and then, stopped, reality proving to be far worse than he initially imagined.

He entered a candle-lit room, larger than the garden and stretching up to a ceiling that was nothing but darkness. At its center, illuminated by the torches surrounding it, stood a grotesque monument built with naked human bodies.

“Dear god,” Elijah whispered.

He stared at the debased idol, the bodies it was built with were young, disgustingly so. All of them were girls, their bodies twisted and mangled in some grotesque fashion.

The idol reached up to the ceiling, a savage fusion of flesh and bone that contorted into a sick ritualistic statue similar to those that stood in the garden.

A foul stench filled the room like a cart of carrion that invaded the senses and made him wish for the clear air of the garden.

He noticed one of the poor dead souls sewn into the monstrous drape. Her body twisted into an insufferable pose, her blue eyes positioned to appear to be looking up at right at him.

Suddenly he felt a cold shudder, “No your not real-, how could you still be –.”

At first, he thought his mind had tricked him, but now he regretted proving that it wasn’t the case. Elijah gasped and a tear swelled in the staring pale blue eyes.

“Still alive,” he said.

The eyes watched him with pain and suffering swelling behind them.

“Who did this to you,” he asked, his voice soft like a parent comforting a lost child.

A faint moan left her but no words.

There was no saving them from this and he knew it, the damage done couldn’t be reversed, and something in Elijah told him he already knew what she wanted.

He raised his gun and pressed it gently against her forehead. He nodded slowly and softly closed her eyes. His revolver roared and her eyes stayed closed.

A numbness filled his mind, drowning out everything else.

He slowly pulled back his sleeve and raised his revolver again, slowly and emotionlessly uttering a chant. And then, he squeezed the trigger.

An inferno consumed the nightmarish idol, engulfing it in its flames and lighting up every shadow in that cursed room.

The sound of paper in the air gradually grabbed his attention and he turned, catching the drifting piece of paper that moved across the blood-smeared floor. He knelt down to pick it up, starting to read the carefully written black ink that filled the paper.

"They lulled in cotton beds

forgetful of primal fright

Now they are completely bled

displayed in the cold of night

Lycaeon will rise

werewolves will reclaim their might

Our deity will be at our side

so the man’s world will fear our bite

Your resolute leader and brethren

Edward Stout – England Birmingaham