Julius made sure to pay the pilot as Dick's men exited the plane, making sure to take the flamethrowers, explosives and all of the food they would need for the journey ahead.

"Thanks for the tip, sir, but I'm going to warn you now. I'm turning around and heading home. There is supposed to be another blizzard coming, and I can’t be here when it hits.” The pilot said.

Julius frowned.

“I thought the weather was supposed to be clear by now. What happened?” Julius asked in confusion.

"That's what I thought too. But apparently, some big old storm up north took a turn south, and now it's coming down towards us. It was almost like magic." the pilot said.

"Yeah, magic. Anyway, when can you get back here?" Julius asked.

"Two, maybe three weeks, somewhere in between those. Assuming nothing happens," the pilot said.

"Thank you for your efforts. I hope to see you soon." Julius said before handing the man a stack of cash.

The pilot's eyes lit up as he accepted the stack of one hundred dollar bills.

"You aren't into drug dealing, are yay." the pilot asked suspiciously.

"Oh yes, the reindeer pay big bucks for crystal meth," Julius joked. " We work for Black Gold Global. We're an oil company, and we've heard that one of our rigs isn't responding on the radio. The boys upstairs are just overreacting if you ask me; I've done this trip three times, and every time I come up here, it's because a blizzard wrecked the dish, but it's okay because they got the spare up and running before we even got there. But what do I know? I'm just paid to be here."

The pilot smiled at Julius' story. "Seriously. Well, ok, then, I wish you guys a good time on your trip."

Julius smiled and waved as the man walked off before turning back to where teams were hooking up the dog sleds. Dick was showing Ramona how to hook up the sleds as he approached them. Julius frowned again as he wondered what Baker was playing at sending a civilian on a BPA operation.

He turned back to Dick and Ramona as they finished hooking up the dogs.

"I really like the dogs, but why aren't we using snowmobiles," Ramona asked.

"See all of the well-muscled guys we flew in with," Julius asked.

"Yeah"

"They're all werewolves. If something happens to the dogs there, take over." Julius said, enjoying the small panicked look that flashed across Ramona's face.

"Werewolves?!" Ramona asked.

Now that Julius was closer, he could feel her magic rolling off of her. He could even recognize it. The Aura of Growth ability was pretty common among druids. But most of those were subtle. Ramona's aura felt like a miniature sun force feeding the plants vitality, causing them to grow out of control.

Even as she sat there, the tips of grass were growing out of the snow.

"Relax, not every paranormal creature is going to be like Mathias. In fact, most of them are just refugees looking for a better life."

"Refugees from what?" Ramona asked, "I can't imagine someone like Mathias being afraid of anything."

"That says more about your imagination than anything else." Julius teased. "Mathias was a small fish. The deep sea leviathans can cause tsunamis and shrug off nukes."

Ramona's face went pale at the idea.

"That could happen."

"No," Dick said soothingly. "Earth is pretty mana-deprived, so a lot of the really nasty stuff can't come here for any length of time without dropping dead. But you are going to want to read up on old BPA case files. It will help you form a better picture of what to expect in the future."

"So what are we doing now?" Ramona asked.

"We’ll move out in twenty minutes towards a town called Copperton, spend the night there and then move on to the facility. Once we get there, we can plan our actions will be based on what happened to the facility," Dick said.

As Dick finished, snowflakes slowly began to fall.

"I hope you backpacked your long under, kid," Julius said, for once without an ounce of sarcasm as he pulled his winter coat around him even tighter.

"Um," Ramona began. "Apparently, there weren't any spare coats sent along. So I don't have anything to wear."

Julius looked at her for a long moment. "God fucking dammit!" he swore.

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Julius was violently shivering from the cold. Julius had given Ramona his special winter coat and switched over to his standard coat, which didn't have as many protections against the harsh cold as his winter coat did.

"Where is global warming when you need it," Julius muttered bitterly through chattering teeth as they came upon the town. It had taken them sixteen hours of sledding through light snow just to get to Copperton. They had arrived at four in the afternoon local time.

The town was locked in on all sides by the silent mountains. Snow lightly fell over the town, covering the roofs in white. They wandered the abandoned streets, and the crunching of their footfalls was the only noise they could hear.

"This is wrong," Julius said. "Search the town in teams of three. Dick, Ramona, you're with me."

The soldiers nodded and split up with efficient ease. Julius turned to Ramona.

"Have you ever fired a gun?" he asked as his teeth chattered.

"No," she answered dejectedly.

Julius let out a defeated sigh or tried to in the cold.

"Of course, you haven't," he muttered.

Pulling out a flashlight and crowbar out of a coat pocket far too small to fit them, Julius pressed both items into her hands.

"Since you don't have any firearms training, you can use these for now," Julius said.

"How did these fit in your pockets?" she asked, dumbfounded, as she hefted the crowbar, getting a feel for the weight.

"They're bigger on the inside," he said with a smirk before pulling out of his pistol from a different pocket that was also far too small to hold the weapon.

Dick, on the other hand, pulled out a fully automatic military-grade shotgun out of a rucksack that was appropriately sized for the weapon.

Walking towards the nearest building, which had the words general store over the door. Julius jiggled the lock.

"Locked," Julius said.

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Julius yanked the handle downward hard. A snap echoed throughout the town as the lock brakes, and the trio entered the general store.

"Hello," Julius called out. "Is anyone here?"

"Plenty of food. Nothing has been moved off the shelves. So where is everyone?" Dick asked as he began to wander around.

Ramona followed Julius as he moved to the back door. It was also locked. However, unlike last time this time, he turned to Ramona.

"Time to learn how to force open doors," Julius said. "Give it a kick."

Ramona nodded and kicked the door. The door exploded off its hinges, flying into the room as a pile of splinters than anything close to resembling a door.

"Too much?" Ramona asked.

"Too much." Julius agreed.

Ramona raised the flashlight looking inside the dark room and screamed.

Julius raised his weapon in reflex, ready to fire on whatever was on the other side, as Dick raced over to them, his heavy shotgun at the ready.

What was inside nearly broke Julius' heart. Four skeletons were huddled on the floor. Two were clearly adults huddled protectively over the remains of two children. The parents had clearly tried to protect the children, and they had failed.

Julius knelt down next to the skeletons. Fortunately, they didn't appear to be undead. Julius traced his fingers across the tiny marks across the bones. It almost looked like they had been sanded down.

"Empus," Julius muttered the magical incantation.

Immediately the bones glowed an emerald green with flecks of pink inside of the green.

"Eldritch magic," Julius muttered.

"What eldritch magic," Ramona asked as she regained some of her composure.

"Parasitic magic. It feeds on life and death. It corrupts and twists everything it touches. Spellcasters use it in small amounts in hex craft, but these people were bathed in eldritch magic. If he hadn't been stripped to the bone, they would have been twisted into a living abomination." Julius said as he ran his fingers across the bones. "The problem is I can't tell what did this."

As Julius ran his fingers across the bone, motes of magic flecked off the bones. As he continued to examine the bones Dicks second in command, Oak, barged into the general store.

"Sir, you need to come and see this. We found something."

The trio left the general store and moved across the street to one of the bungalows. The windows were broken. Peaking inside, Julius could see two more skeletons sitting in a pool of old brown blood.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Ramona said, holding her stomach.

"Don't do it near any evidence," Julius said.

Julius lept through the broken window and into the bungalow to examine the bodies more closely.

"What do you think? Wendigo? Yeti? Maybe some crazy is just going around killing people and hiding their bodies around town?" Dick asked.

"No, Wendigo’s are messy eaters. they tear out the liver, eat the heart, the brain and then leave everything else. A yeti would have taken the bones for tools. These things ate anything remotely edible. look at the blood. it’s not even black yet, and whatever it was, it left traces of Eldritch magic all over the remains." Julius said as he examined the bodies with detached professionalism.

"The point being?" Dick asked, making a get-on-with-it motion with his hand.

"I have absolutely no idea what did this. Which is terrifying."

"Should we leave?" Ramona asked, almost hopeful.

"Can’t. Night's almost here. We leave now, and we risk getting caught in the storm." Dick said

"How do you know a storm is coming," Ramona asked.

"The nose knows," Dick said, tapping his nose the same way as when he was trying to impress his kids with intelligence. Julius rolled his eyes at Dicks insistent need to parent.

"If you're done showing off, we need to finish the sweep and secure Cooperton before nightfall."

The trio checked two more houses, much the same as the first house: bare skeletons littered the floor with little to no evidence of what might have done the deed. It wasn't until they came to the last house that something changed. The house was boarded up. Its windows and door were covered in wood planks, nailed up from the inside.

With a nod, Dick and Julius ripped the wooden planks off the door, breaking in. the house is pitch dark. They could hear muttering coming from the back room and explored to find a man rocking back and forth, covered tightly in a blanket, looking up at the ceiling. He didn't even acknowledge the group as he muttered to himself.

"They come… they come at night… they take… they take… they take everything. The noises that they make … hmm fi eeegg" his words quickly devolved into unintelligible mutters as he continued to rock back and forth.

"Every night, they come again."

Dick slowly backs away from the man.

"OK, sure, um, just you hang out in here. We’ll be in the next room if you need us. Fucking creepy." Dick said.

"Scardy cat," Julius muttered.

"I have four wives. I'm smart enough not to touch crazy." Dick protested.

A soft clap of thunder can be heard in the distance, rumbling across the sky.

"It's starting to get late. And whatever scared our friend here might show up soon."

Julius turned and walked out of the house towards where the rest of the team was as he began to shout out instructions.

"Oak!!" Julius got the attention of the second in command quickly.

"Yes, sir," Oak said.

"We found one survivor. Potential hostiles at nightfall. I want you to set up a perimeter. if something is coming, I want to know at least ten minutes before it gets here. I want those claymores planted and armed. You get a spotter up on top of this house. You move all the supplies into this building, figure out which structures haven't been broken into and put the sled dogs in there. Bust out the flame throwers and get ready for a fight, I don't know what this is, but we got less than an hour to sunset to prepare."

"Yes, sir," Oak said before immediately turning to his men.

"Well? What are you dogs waiting around for?! We have our orders. Get to it!" Oak roared at his men. Immediately the wolves got to work.

"Um. Julius. Why are we listening to the crazy guy inside? I mean, for all we know, he killed them." Ramona asked.

Julius turned to her. "Hey Ramona, remind me what your life has been like for the last week."

"I was attacked by a vampire, got superpowers, broke into a hospital, and then I got recruited into a secret government agency that polices the paranormal," Ramona said, her voice petering off as she finished.

"Sounds pretty bat shit crazy, doesn't it" Julius pointed out.

"Yeah, when I just come out and say it, it sounds pretty crazy. If I hadn't been there myself, I probably wouldn't have believed it." Ramona admitted. "Ok, but why are we staying with crazy?"

"Do you see anyone else alive in this town" Julius pointed out. "This house should be safer than anywhere else."

"Now come on, we've got some time, and you need to learn how to shoot," Julius said as he led her away from the group.

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Julius led Ramona to the abandoned general store. It didn't take him long to find a couple of bottles inside the store. Picking them up, he lined the bottles on the store counter and led her twenty paces away to practice. Taking a pistol out of his pocket, he handed it to her. As Ramona handled the pistol, the first thing that stuck her was how much heavier it was than she expected. In TV shows, guns never looked quite so heavy.

"You need to learn how to protect yourself. Your first lesson is don't be afraid of the gun. It's just a thing." Julius said.

"Okay," Ramona said as she palmed the gun.

"Make sure always to know where your finger is at all times, and don't put your finger on the trigger unless you're going to shoot something," Julius said in a calm and reassuring voice.

"Okay," Ramona said as she did as Julius said, pointing the gun at the bottles but not touching the trigger.

"It's surprisingly heavy," Ramona voiced her thoughts.

"It should be. It's a tool designed to kill. You shouldn't ever feel completely comfortable with it." Julius said. "Now, to aim, you need to look down the top of the gun through the notch and line up the sights at the end with your target."

"Is there anything else I should know?" Ramona asked.

"Don't point at anyone you don't plan on shooting," Julius said in a way that broked no argument.

"I don't know if I want to hurt anybody," Ramona admitted.

"You ripped Mathias apart with a tree." Julius pointed out.

"Yeah, but that was different!" Ramona protested.

"No, it wasn't." Julius chuckled.

Ramona turned to argue, but Julius grabbed the gun in her hand and pointed it down to the ground.

"Keep the gun pointed at the ground when you're facing me!" Julius said.

Ramona turned back to the bottles.

"Now, Aim at the bottles."

Ramona lined up the gun with the bottles.

"Don't lock your elbows. Alright, squeeze the trigger smoothly." Julius instructed her.

Bang

The bullet impacted the wall right next to the bottle.

"A little to the left," Julius said.

Ramona adjusted her aim.

"Fire," Julius said.

Bang

The bottle shattered as she shot it.

"That hurt my hands," Ramona complained.

"You get used to it," Julius said. "We're going to keep going until nightfall. You need the practice."

Julius set up three more bottles and ordered Ramona to shoot them. As Julius taught Ramona how to use a gun, the sun set upon the horizon as storm clouds rolled over the town, snowflakes fell softly as dusk turned to nightfall, and a soft buzzing began to fill the air.