[Demonworld #4] Shepherd of Wolves

by Kyle B. Stiff

  The laughter died slowly, and Jake said, “Did any of you ever wonder what the dogmen are?”

  “They are part man and part dog,” said Justinas. “In my country, there is story about their first ancestor - he make love to a dog, and a hairy girl, she is born-”

  “Come on, man,” said Wodan. “Things never happen like that. That’s just something some guy made up and everyone thought it was funny.”

  “Yes, that may be my friend, but it is not common for man to make love to dog. Perhaps any time such love is made, a child is born.”

  “If that’s the case then humans and dogmen could interbreed. They can’t.”

  “Plus,” said Jake, “they don’t even really look like dogs, do they?”

  “Their teeth kind of do, and they’re hairy,” said Wodan, “but you’re right, they don’t really look like dogs. From what I’ve heard, they’re most likely a genetic offshoot of humans like us. They were isolated over time, and developed in some situation where strength and speed and hairiness were more important than intelligence and individuality.”

  Jon cleared his throat, then said, “That’s right, about the individuality thing. My dad, he’s actually fought with dogmen before. He said when one of ’em starts barkin’ about some shit, they all tend to join in.”

  “Your dad fought dogmen?” said Wodan.

  “Yeah... well, kind of. My dad, he was tough as nails, a farmer. But this was back when he was a kid, see. He said mostly he would just shoot an’ run. That was the only way to deal with them. ’Cause man, believe me, you don’t ever wanna get caught by those sons of bitches.”

  “They torture people?”

  “Worse, man. If you get caught by a dogman, you better believe you’re gonna get raped.”

  “They rape men?”

  “Rape men, women, kids, animals - anything alive enough to kick. They’re animals themselves.”

  “Don’t they have some kind of spiritual belief that forbids that sort of thing?” said Jake.

  “They execute their own, all the time, for being homos,” said Jon. “But when it comes down to it, any of ’em will do it to anything. Anything.”

  Wodan thought about the matter, then said, “Just another gang of bullies who like to say one thing, but do another.”

  “You said it, man. They’re even worse than all the creeps back in Pontius, the way my dad told it. That’s why he got off the farms when he did.”

  While there had been some talk about setting up a watch that night, they all passed out at about the same time and trusted that the mines would act as an alarm clock.

  Late the next day, Wodan woke and saw Jon and Justinas sitting in the shade with the machinegun. As Justinas spoke of it and pointed out several features, Jon nodded curtly, mouth clasped shut in quiet reverence. Wodan shared a can of beans with Jake, then a cigarette, then gathered his things and went off on his own.

  Wodan stepped lightly through their dusty minefield, then found one of the holes that marked the entrance to the underground waterway. Rust from the rickety ladder grinded into his palms and, down in the quiet darkness, where the heat could not penetrate, his mind cleared. He drifted through the dark passages, dipped his hands into the cool waters, and washed his face. Now that he was alone, he felt more at home.

  Wodan placed his back against a wall, slid down to his knees, then laid his head back. He relaxed and concentrated on his breathing. Within a few seconds, the insistent pains and nausea of his sickness made themselves known with shocking vehemence. The stress of keeping a lid on the pain around the others was relentless. To distract himself, he thought of his old heroes Korliss and Didi, who had also lived with hidden pain from hidden lives. He was afraid to dwell on the memory of his parents, so he imagined the dining table near his kitchen, with its old, cheap, familiar placemats. But as Wodan thought of home, his thoughts were soon pulled to a dreamlike, grainy image of a horned bovine skull wreathed in flowers. He saw the lights along the walls of the cave in the Black Valley. His guts kicked in remembrance. How could that place be home? It was a place of monsters.

  After a long time he seemed to wake in the darkness, his eyes fully adjusted, and realized that he had been taking apart the Hargis sniper rifle and putting it back together over and over again. The process felt natural and comforting. He put the thing back in its case, set it aside, then removed the Coil Magnum that had served him so well in the past. He twirled the massive thing in his hand, then replaced it in the holster at his side. Then he tossed the Blade of the Engels into the air, caught it, and swung it about his body in convoluted circles of death. Even though he could see its comic coloration flashing in the darkness, smeared in long trails behind the blade, the thing itself moving faster than the eye could follow. He no longer felt pain as his body meditated, playing with the weapons as a child plays with toys.

  For several hours Wodan crept through the dark tunnels and, whenever he saw a sunlit opening, he would investigate. He found openings near both of their hideouts and in the surrounding avenues. It was difficult to visualize the layout of the winding tunnels. However, when he stopped trying, when he only moved and felt out the place with his body, he could always end up where he wanted.

  * * *

  There came a red dawn over the city of the dead, and Ganson rolled in with five jeeps crammed full of dogmen eager to end their hunt. They had followed the trail of the scouts of Pontius out of the southern reaches of the fogland quite easily, but the trail was soon swallowed by the wasteland. But the scouts had gone in very nearly a straight line, so Ganson was betting that the human scouts would lay low at this cursed place of legend. The dogmen growled and whined in the shadows of the empty towers; only Bloodnose and Frigidskin, the pariahs, seemed unmindful of the ghosts that clung to this place. Even the three humans, dim-witted mechanics and murderers, seemed on edge.

  The roar of their engines echoed throughout the cold valleys. All at once Bloodnose stiffened, lifted his nose to the air, and then his brother took up the scent. Bloodnose nudged one of the men who held a radio.

  “What?” said Ganson, holding his radio awkwardly in large hands.

  “Boss,” said one of the humans, “the brothers - they smell cigarette smoke.”

  At once the dogmen in the jeeps barked, produced weapons, loaded ammunition, bared fangs and kicked at dashboards.

  * * *

  “Yep, they know we’re here,” said Jon, ducking beneath the window.

  “What did you see?” said Wodan, kneeling in the center of the room.

  “Buncha jeeps, buncha dogs,” said Jon. “Lookin’ right at us, man.” They heard engines revving below, hollow echoes, then the sound shrank as the jeeps drove past.

  A radio chirped, then Sylas said, “Guys, I think they saw me. Sorry, I think I gave our position away.”

  Jon grabbed his radio, then said, “No big deal, Sylas my man, they already knew.” He set the radio down and laughed strangely.

  Jon lay still for a moment, then scurried toward the heavy machinegun. He motioned toward Justinas, who had already begun carrying boxes full of belted ammunition toward him. “Justy!” said Jon. “Throw that ammo out and stack it away from the windows, then stack them boxes up under a window, and when we hear ’em comin’ back, I’m gonna set this gun on top, real quick, an’ blast ’em.”

  The radio squawked again. They heard heavy panting, then Chris said, “I’m haulin’ ass up to the roof. Jon, you set up that machinegun at-”

  “I already am!” Jon hollered into the radio.

  Wodan rose quietly, and said, “I’m going out.”

  “Goddammit, man!” said Jon, but Wodan was already gone.

  * * *

  The jeeps wheeled around some distance from the two buildings and a crew of dogmen leaped out even before the jeeps stopped. Ganson stood in his seat, tossed two radios into the crowd, and said, “The two places we saw, they will try to cover one another. Split up. One group, run distraction for the other. Remember: Cap
ture a leader. If you can’t find one, capture anyone. If you can’t do that, kill them all.”

  He snapped his finger to a human at the wheel of a jeep and said, “Drive around, see if you can find other hideouts.”

  “Well how the hell I’m s’posed to do that?” said the driver. “These buildings, they all look the same, don’t they?”

  “If someone shoots at you from a building, then you know it is a hideout.”

  “Shit!” said the driver, looking away.

  Ganson signaled to another dogman, and said, “You stay with me!”

  The dogman growled, then nodded curtly.

  Ganson watched as two dogmen wrapped belts full of grenades around their torsos. The grenadiers joined the others, who ran in a crouch down the avenue. In total, they numbered eleven.

  “Remember!” said Ganson. “They have mines.”

  He turned to give orders to the two blood brothers, but they were already gone.

  * * *

  Five dogmen ran in a crouch near the walls of empty towers, kneeling at each corner to peer around, then signaled to the six who ran parallel to them across the street. They knew that the human nests lay just ahead, across the avenue. One of the five signaled to those across the street to stay and cover them - then the five streaked across the avenue.

  One of the dogmen saw movement, then Jon slammed the machinegun into place and laid on the trigger, waving the thing back and forth as it shook wildly, screaming and spitting out shells. Justinas fed the belt into the monstrous weapon while Jake peeked over a windowsill, rifle in hand, and shot without aiming. Two of the dogmen were blasted by the machinegun, their torsos shredded wide open, while a third dogman’s leg was drilled through with heavy metal that ripped open veins and destroyed bone. As he spilled into the ground, two of his brothers streaked ahead. One rolled and slammed against the side of a wall and the other dived in through an open window - and fell right on top of a cluster of landmines. The crouching dogman felt a massive shock, then saw dust and chunks of hair blast through the open windows on either side of him.

  The team across the street raised their weapons to fire even as they saw Jon set up the machinegun, but Chris, atop the second building, had kept his eye trained on them for a long time. As soon as he saw the chaos erupt, he fired, once, and a dog’s head was run through with a bullet that passed neatly from the crown and out through the base of the skull. The other dogmen scattered and leaped into the opening of a nearby building. Chris crouched against the stone rim that ran along the top of his building, the thrill of pure fear racing in his blood.

  The cries of the horribly wounded dogman tore through the avenue as he rolled around, blood pouring freely from his ruined leg. The surviving dogman from that strike team, who had just seen his buddy evaporated by landmines, pulled two grenades from his belt, freed the pins with his fangs, then rose from his cover and tossed them into the window up above, where he’d seen the machinegun sitting. He ducked just before the blast shook the walls of stone. He glared across the avenue at the five dogmen on the other team, barked, and pointed at the other human hideout across the avenue.

  The others leaped from their cover and ran toward the building. Gunfire spat from a second story window as Sylas and Cedrik shot down at the runners. A dogman in the rear fell and rolled, then brought his submachine gun up into his armpit and fired at the windows. The two boys leaped back for cover, and the other dogmen reached the cover of the stone wall. Growling and glaring through the windows, they slowly made their way inside, mindful of the terrible mines.

  * * *

  Chris peeked over the side of the rooftop as he heard an engine roaring far below. He saw a jeep wheeling about so wildly that he wondered if it would crash on its own. He brought his rifle up, tracked the jeep, then focused the scope as best he could. “The hell you think you’re doing?” he whispered. The shot seemed impossible, but the other dogmen down below had either scattered or taken cover inside, well out of range. He felt his eye connect with the driver’s shoulder and neck, and he knew that if he could make this shot, then he would surely become legend.

  He tightened the rifle against his shoulder and waited until the jeep turned a corner, then drove in a straight line nearly vertical to his position. He focused, relaxed, moved along with the jeep, then led it ever so slightly... he fired, then fired again without pause. He heard wheels squeal and lowered the rifle, then watched, amazed, as the jeep careened out of control, flipped, and slammed into a distant structure. He watched in shock as a single tire slowly rolled away from the smoking wreckage, the lone witness to his incredible feat of death-dealing.

  High on adrenaline, he ran about the lip of stone that covered his rooftop and looked for another victim. He saw a single dogman crouching near the other hideout. He raised his rifle, fixed his sights, then...

  Bloodnose knelt beside his younger brother on a rooftop across the street, and whispered, “Take the shot.”

  A sharp crack tore through the air and Chris was flung backward as if thrown. The pieces of his shattered rifle clattered about him; without thinking, he rolled and hugged the lip of stone. He could hardly breathe through the terrible shock but, feeling himself, he realized that he was whole.

  * * *

  The five dogmen crawled through the dust and darkness of the minefield, hissing and spitting and ignoring a thousand instincts that cried out for speed and for blood. They came to a dark stairwell, rose into crouches, and clambered up the steel platforms. Gunfire shrieked from above, biting against steel and stone as Cedrik and Sylas fired down at them. The dogmen leaned against walls and fired upward. The boys scattered and fled and the dogmen immediately raced up the stairs, barking like mad as their fury was unleashed. The dogman in the rear stopped as he caught a glimmer of movement down on the first floor. He peered into the darkness, saw nothing, then the side of his head blasted open as Wodan’s Magnum Coil hurled lightning.

  The other dogmen ran back to their dead companion and saw, as if in a dream, the ghostlike apparition of Wodan standing before them. By the time they leveled their guns and fired, he was already gone down the hole to the underground waterway.

  The lead dogman growled in frustration, then the other three followed him higher into the stairwell.

  * * *

  Justinas woke with Jon’s foot kicking the air back into his lungs. He saw that Jon’s face was covered in dust and blood running from both nostrils, and he remembered the grenades coming in through the window and he knew it was a miracle that either of them was alive. Jon shouted at him but he heard only a high-pitched whistling. While he felt about to see if any of his limbs were missing, he saw Jake stagger about, tripping over his rifle with Jon shouting at him the entire time.

  Justinas pulled himself onto his knees. He saw Jon haul the heavy machinegun away from the ruined window, and he wondered how the thing could still be in one piece.

  “Jon,” he mumbled. “Jon, my friend. The machinegun, it must be damaged.”

  “The hell it is!” screamed Jon. “I picked it up before I moved.”

  “But... my friend, how could you have time to cover me and gun at same time?”

  “You survived because you got your own ass out of the way. As for me, I was just worried about the gun.”

  “My friend!” cried Justinas, deeply hurt.

  “No time for that shit!” said Jon. “We gotta get to a new position, higher up, now! And grab that box of ammo, will you?”

  Jon tossed the gun onto one shoulder, then grabbed Jake by the arm and pulled him toward the stairwell.

  * * *

  From the darkness of the tunnels, Wodan could feel the engines of several jeeps humming overhead. He crept around a corner and saw a shaft of sunlight piercing through an opening overhead. He knelt and quickly assembled the Hargis rifle, then tucked it under one arm and climbed the ladder.

  He poked his head out quickly and felt a rush as he saw a cluster of jeeps idling, each driver staring away from him and
toward the battle. Without conscious thought, he raised the rifle and focused on the back of a furry head. Pulled the trigger, felt the shock and heard a deafening blast, then saw pink mist drifting away from a limp figure slumped beneath a filthy red spider-webbed windshield.

  The others panicked and wheeled about and Wodan blasted shots into one jeep; it jerked as a tire blew out, then Wodan raised the rifle and released his grip and fell back into darkness before anyone could set their sights on him.

  Without pause he moved on. Through the entire encounter he felt little more than a light singing in his blood, the rush of taking back something that was lost, of discovering something both new and long forgotten.

  * * *

  Cedrik and Sylas tore across the third story, desperate to get away from the stairwell, panting and near mad with fear. They knew another stairwell was nearby and they hoped that surely, surely they could pick the attackers off as they climbed higher.

  Just as they reached the far stairwell entrance, a pair of giant dogmen flew at them as silent as the grave.

  In terror, Cedrik realized they must have maneuvered there while their two brothers had distracted them; one dogman slammed into him and Cedrik dropped his rifle. He grappled with him and was amazed at the raw power, the hairy limbs seemingly everywhere at once. They spun around the room, and Cedrik felt fangs bite into his shoulder just as he wrapped his arms around the beast just to gain some leverage. Cedrik saw the burning red sky for one moment before they both slammed into the stone windowsill with such force that they immediately tipped over the side, hovered in the air for one sickening moment, then fell over the side.

  Wind whipped past Cedrik and the dogman as they fell, embracing one another like long lost relations, then the wind stopped and Cedrik felt pins and knives all along his body as they smacked into the hard avenue. His body grew numb and he passed in and out of agony and oblivion.

  Through a thick gauze of pain he heard barking and gunfire far above. He smelled a foul stench, then remembered his foe and saw him lying on the shining glass pavement nearby. Cedrik forced himself to crawl away, his limbs slow and unresponsive and peeling as if the skin had melted and stuck to the superheated pavement. He dug a small revolver out from its holster and the dogman suddenly sniffed, then its head whipped about. Beady eyes rested on Cedrik, a thick brow furrowed with hatred, but the dogman did not bother to rise. The body must have been shattered, but the dogman’s rage still lived.