The shades were already in the hallway of the first floor.

  “Do not blow them up inside… We have the corridor that goes around… bait them to us… slowly…”

  The team put on their gas masks. Joseph was very happy that it was still in one piece.

  They kept backing away into the kitchen. The human shadows had no brains, but it was the only advantage three (well, four, but Lady Edna was untouchable anyway) of them could make use of right now. The numbers were quite in the favor of invaders, and then there is that whole deal with them being volatile…

  Joseph praised the architects for their foresight in making corridors loop around. The shades couldn’t move any faster as well, which made the situation resemble a weird game of reserve hide-and-seek. Their team couldn’t run and lose these shades so that they would not scatter, they also couldn’t walk through them, because the gas masks were protecting only their faces. As a living gas, these things could travel laughably easily through gaps and holes, as the metal fence outside demonstrated during the previous night.

  So they were slowly walking around, keeping shades in sight.

  Truly, just a casual stroll around the house. Something always goes wrong during those tense moments…

  But luck had their back and they made it to the other side.

  Joseph touched Irfan’s shoulder and pointed at the flamethrower, still lying in front of the house. Hunter nodded. Joe waved to Pat, and three of them finally left the building.

  The car was still there, in one piece, but the problems were not over just yet. The reinforcements had arrived on the enemy side, approaching from behind the brick shack.

  Joseph shouted as loudly as he could.

  “We have to make a stand at the square, as far from the car as we can!!”

  They seemed to have heard him. Irfan pressed the trigger, pouring a flaming oil and making a line, crossing off the approaching shadows. They stopped.

  The doctor jerked his head.

  “Wait, what in the void is going on?! They are afraid of fire now?!”

  No, it wasn’t an illusion. The shades were indeed standing right there, not daring to move an inch.

  “They got some brains after our last meeting! Either something happened, or they were always afraid of it, we just didn’t see!”

  Irfan cut off the approaching horde, that was coming from the mansion. The shades over there stopped too.

  Everything went quiet. Only the sounds of burning oil, periodically renewed by Irfan, and light wind were disturbing the eerie stillness. Their group was surrounded from all sides, with a silent audience watching their every move. The red moon in the sky was grinning in bloodily delight.

  Joseph pulled out the last liquid fire bomb.

  “What’s your plan even?!”

  “I’m thinking, thinking!..”

  They had one tank full of oil, but that wouldn’t last for a full night. Irfan stopped firing, but for some reason shades were still frozen, not daring to move any further. Even worse, like some weird hivemind, all of them were standing right where they stopped before Irfan began to fire, even the ones the furthest away from a ring of flames. Which meant that their only working vehicle was still in danger.

  That was an unsolvable stalemate. Joseph was flipping through options in his mind, and none of them were appealing.

  Shoot the mansion group - car goes bye-bye.

  Shoot the shack group - They will be hit by a blast wave.

  Shooting the ones that came from the forest, that lead to their landing spot, meant to light up the entire island. It would look awesome, sure, but their deaths would be a guarantee by this point.

  The path to the worker’s warehouse was open, but it was an even worse option. This place was stuffed full, from top to bottom, leaving a very small space for maneuvering, with only one way out.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  They could, potentially, run to the second floor and make a wall of fire in front of the building… the oil barrels were still there inside, still waiting.

  As he was thinking about that, some shades began to move closer. Irfan scared them off again, but a couple of them were almost in front of the door to the warehouse.

  Their window was closing.

  “Second floor! Oil barrels in the warehouse!”

  His companions nodded. But as Joseph prepared to run, the group of shades near the house turned in unison in the direction of the building.

  “They did get some brains, for sure…!”

  “Not them! The mastermind! Somebody is controlling them, I'm confident!” Pat exclaimed.

  Some shades have gathered in front of the building. The way through was not cut just yet, but now they had to fight for it.

  They were ready for it.

  But the night had only just begun.

*****

  The mansion “squad” synchronously turned in the direction of the hill behind the white warehouse. Then they started walking in that direction, completely ignoring their trio altogether.

  “What are they doing?!.. Pat, Irfan, you see something?!..”

  “Not a thing!..”

  Hunter tensed up.

  “It came back?! That fast?!”

  A thunderous roar erupted through the night veil, completely destroying an entire horde of shades with a single gust of a powerful wind. The remaining shadows turned away from the pirating group, walking behind the workers' building.

  Joseph pulled out his pistol. He had five bullets in the magazine since he forgot to reload. His gaze was intently looking for any detail in the darkness, beyond the flames.

  Irfan held his weapon ready, closer to his chest. Just like all of them, he was searching every angle that beast could come out of.

  Pat was the most scared of them all, holding a blunderbuss in shaking hands. He didn’t let his guard drop down one bit, however.

  The Archrhyder was hiding. The shades were gone for now. They did not hear any more roars.

  “Watch-!!”

  Irfan saved his ass once again. He pushed Joe down with his shoulder and instinctively pressed the trigger without aiming.

  Beast flew from the forest they arrived from. It jerked the body in midair, miraculously avoiding a stream of fire, fell down on the side, jumped up, and dashed away behind the brick shack with a speed of a car. All completely silent.

  “Shit! It’s fast!!”

  “And tough too! It didn’t heal completely, yet moves! Remember the Teleport!”

  First round was won, but the Archrhyder could attack from any direction. They were slowly moving towards the warehouse when the beast dropped down in front of it from the roof. It’s claw scratched the flamethrower, as Irfan barely dodged and fired again, almost torching the beast’s head. The predator jumped sideways and disappeared behind the building, which was now covered in burning oil.

  It attacked again, from the shack. Joseph and Pat both shot the beast, stunning it for a moment, but before Irfan even hit the trigger, it was gone again.

  “Is it playing with us, Irfan?!” shouted Pat, reloading his weapon.

  “No! It’s afraid of fire! It knows the source! And tries to destroy it!”

  Irfan encircled them inside another flaming ring. The Archrhyder was nowhere to be seen, but there was no doubt on their mind - this time, the beast will fight to the bitter end.

  “Told you, it hates fire. Now it will not let us go. It’s grudge is strong.”

  Joe nodded. One had a hard time imagining, how badly the beast was wounded after his improvised self-destruction plan. He still remembered his own pain from hours ago. It had to be much, so much worse than anything he felt back then.

  And yet, the Archrhyder still came for them. In the middle of the night, disregarding the shades, the dead nature around and it’s own injuries.

  Just for them.

  This was shaping up to be one long night.

  Now it was Joseph who noticed the danger first.

  “Down!!!”

  He pushed both of them on the stone and fell himself. A rusty carcass of the truck flew right above their heads, almost scratching Joe’s cheek on the way. It crashed into the shack, spilling its parts around.

  They jumped up, weapons ready. Now games were truly over. The Archrhyder wanted them dead, and it wanted them dead this very second.

  Nobody said a single word.

  The shades came back from the woods at the worst possible time, now, for whatever reason, capable of jogging. It was ridiculous and completely unexpected. Joseph did chuckle internally, but they had no time for laughing. Irfan fired right in front of them, stopping them from coming any closer, but now it became a three-way fight.

  A roar came from the forest where their boats were, and shadows over there were gone once more. The group gathered in the middle of the ring. Joseph tossed his last shrapnel bomb behind the corner of the white building, eliminating a group of shades that showed up there, too close for comfort.

  The arrow flew from the mansion, blowing up something further away from them, on the right side of the house. They saw a familiar silhouette waving at them, illuminated by the light in the room. They waved back and concentrated.

  They needed an opening. They had to get the car away and get themselves away. If only they had another air pressure device…

  “Irfan! Can you make us a road to mansion?!”

  There was a short opening. Hunter nodded and made two walls of fire. They jumped over the still burning ring.

  The shades were running to the very end, cutting them off.

  There was no way to make it in time.

  “Now what?!”

  A roar came from the spot behind them, right where they were a second ago. Joseph cursed.

  “Well, we can’t go back and forth all the time!”

  “What time is this even?!”

  “Almost four! Just an hour at most!”

  Oh, if only.

  They turned around to face the beast, who was gone once more. Both the Archrhyder and Nature’s Bane were throwing everything they had at them. He could understand the beast’s reasons, but why the forest suddenly joined in?!

  Amidst it all, Joseph forgot the very first warning about the Archrhyder, that Irfan said before.

  “Joe!!!”

  He unknowingly turned his back to the beast.

  Irfan grabbed his right hand to pull him away, but the Archrhyder, completely losing it’s cool, simply dived through a wave of shades, jumped over the wall of flames, and grabbed Joseph by his left arm.

  The fangs jammed around his armor, yanking him from the group. The black beast dived into the forest behind the shack. Joe briefly caught a glance at the face of this opponent, before he was dragged along for the wild ride at the speed of a good sports car.

  …Later, when Joseph was telling this story to his crewmates, he recalled the eyes of the Archrhyder he saw at this very moment.

  They were filled with a burning hatred. The hatred, that the beast was nourishing exclusively for him.