by C. B. Ash
“Doctor, how are you feeling? Are you better?” Angela asked quickly, eager to change the subject from Mr. Wilkerson to a new target, for the moment. “Does it hurt any? Would that ointment you bid me use on my leg help you?”
“Ah slow down, Angela,” Thorias replied waving a hand at the eager girl’s questions. “I’m fine enough, and it does ache, yes. Though, your ointment won’t help. That is meant to work on werewolves to help ease pain and clean the wound while their own remarkable powers of healing take care of themselves. I packed it specifically in case you needed some. Which I’m glad I did.”
Abruptly, Angela sat bolt upright, clutching the brass monkey to her in alarm. She reached out, quickly tapping Dr. Llwellyn on the arm.
“Doctor,” she said in an excited whisper, “I hear something. Here, in the warehouse.”
“What?” The doctor replied. “Where?”
As if in response, the small flock of gulls that had been inhabiting the rafters far above suddenly all took flight at once. The air filled with feathers and screams of complaint, until as they all fled through a hole near the roof. At last, everything went silent.
Thorias started to push himself upright, but Tonks gently put a hand on the doctor’s shoulder. “Not this time, Doc,” the pilot whispered, “The bullet didn’t cut that deep, but ya still need yer rest for later. You stay put with Angela, I’ll go look about.”
Dr. Llwellyn nodded, settling back where he had been a moment ago. “You’re right. However, don’t be a bloody fool and take anything on alone,” he replied quietly.
The pilot grinned, “I’ll head back straight away if I find anythin’. Don’t worry about that.”
Tonks slipped out of their hiding place and into the warehouse proper. Overhead, the last gull, most likely a lookout for the others , sat far above on a rafter, watching the warehouse below. Nervously, the bird shifted its weight from one foot to the other.
The warehouse around him, at first glance, was like any other in Port Signal: two stories tall, easily over fifty yards wide, with plenty of storage space. In particular, this one had seen the passage of several years and suffered some from the exposure to the weather. Dust lounged faintly in the air like so much fabled faery dust, playing in muted light that streamed through dirt-smudged window panes.
It was not a well insulated building, being exposed to the weather through the occasional cracked window or hole near the rafters. Of the crates and bags that dotted the warehouse floor, some just glistened with the hint of old frost lingering on their surface. It was only a light coating, which indicated to the pilot that the warehouse was used infrequently by its owners.
Tonks stepped between shafts of dust-tinged light that lanced across the gray room. Quietly, he eased his way along, his hand drifting near the revolver at his belt. Slowly, the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. A sound, no more than a whisper, drifted on the cold air. A sound not unlike a large animal, breathing. Cautiously, he reached under his coat and pulled his .455 Webley from its holster.
As the pilot edged closer to a tall stack of crates, a shadow separated itself from the wall ten feet ahead. It was large, being at least seven feet tall and three foot wide. His first thought was of a bear, but what would a bear be doing on a station this high up? More importantly, how could a bear withstand the thin air?
Then, in the blink of an eye, the shadow moved, leaping across Ian’s path, and was gone. The pilot glanced rapidly around. The figure had moved so fast he hardly had time to make out any details. He eased forward again, more wary now as if he was tracking a wild animal to its lair.
Painstakingly, he avoided the feeble sunlight and stayed within the shadows until he came to a collection of shelves arrayed together in a corner. It was a section where smaller boxes and parcels, items too small to be stacked on the larger cargo pallets, could be stored.
The pilot hesitated next to the end of one of the shelves. He saw no sign of what had created the shadow a moment ago. Abruptly, the soft sound of a footfall on the wooden floor behind him sent a cold chill along his spine. The moment he spun around, he was struck full on in the stomach by a large fist!
Air exploded out of his lungs like a bellows, leaving him gasping for air. Instinctively he ducked, narrowly avoiding a second fist aimed at his head. He stood upright, ignoring the pain in his stomach, and aimed his revolver at the shape in front of him.
However, before he could fire, a massive hand three times the size of his own closed around the pistol and the pilot’s hand. With a sharp twist, the large hand turned both aside, as shooting pains raced along Ian’s wrist. Only then Tonks could see his attacker fully: a nightmarish giant of a man, dressed in clothes far too tight for his frame.
The man was barefoot, trousers ragged and torn with bloodstains along one thigh, as if he had been shot. However, Mr. Wilkerson could see no bullet wound, just the bloody hole in the fabric where there might have been one. The woolen coat the beast wore was torn, covered black powder and gray soot. His hair was an unkempt, dark mass on the big man’s enormous head. Scars lined the larger man’s face, and he seemed to suffer from a devilish deformity, although Tonks could not pinpoint what – despite the man’s nearly seven and half feet and wide bulk – the unsettling deformity was.
Slowly the giant leaned closer, his hand latched around Ian’s pistol and hand like a vice. “You have her scent,” the giant rumbled in a voice that sounded like gravel.
“No surprise really,” Tonks wheezed in reply while getting his breath back, “I’ve been leggin’ it about today, ya see.” He managed a grin, “I probably got all sorts of unpleasantness followin’ me around.”
The giant growled like an angry bear, not in the least amused. “The girl? Where is she?”
“Pardon?” The pilot asked with a confused frown, slowly trying to extract his hand from the giant’s grip. “Ya see, it’s been a busy day…”
“The girl,” the giant said, his mouth forming the words slowly, as if he were speaking to a simpleton. “She has something that does not belong to her, ja? It ist mein, and I wish it returned to me. Otherwise, I will become upset. As I have already had an unpleasant day, it will not take much for me to become … upset.”
Ian’s eyes watered just slightly, as the giant man tensed his grip. He was already losing feeling in two of his fingers.
“Oh, now we wouldn’t want that,” the pilot replied flippantly, his mind racing along, looking for options. “I might have something for ya,” he suggested.
The giant laughed. It was an ugly, guttural sound, that grated on the ears. “I thought you would,” the big man said, leaning forward. “Now, little bug, tell me where she is.”
Ian leaned closer. “Try this, then, wanker!” Abruptly, the pilot stamped down onto the giant’s instep with the heel of his boot. The giant howled, releasing his grip just slightly. Tonks jerked his hand and revolver free, and quickly fired twice! His hasty shots went wide and to the right, echoing off into the darkness of the warehouse.
“Oh, bloody hell!” Tonks exclaimed, quickly trying to step backwards.
In a wordless rage, the giant backhanded Ian across the face, jerking him around like a rag doll. The pilot staggered back drunkenly, his vision terribly distorted and blurred. He raised his revolver again, but could not see well enough to aim!
The giant quickly slapped the pistol out of Tonks’ hands, sending it skittering across the floor. Following that, the big man stepped in, hammering a massive fist into the pilot’s stomach, then another across his chin.
Finally, Ian was lifted into the air and flung five feet away into one of the shelves nearby. Wood cracked, giving way under the pilot’s weight as he crashed into the worm-eaten racks. Cardboard boxes overturned, glass bottles cascaded down in a deadly sparkling waterfall. In seconds, Tonks lay still on the floor of the warehouse, dimly aware of the big man walking towards him.
“Dummkopf,” the giant snarled in a low voice. “I can smell her. You’ve nein saved her
with your cheap heroics. It will take me longer, but I can follow your scent to her.”
“Piss off,” Tonks spat back with a slurred voice, then started to laugh.
“What are you laughing at?” The giant demanded.
“I’m laughing at ya, wanker,” the pilot snapped with a wheeze, “she’ll have heard the gunshot and be runnin’ for help even now. I knew I couldn’t beat ya. I just had to make enough noise. She’ll hear ya coming a league away!”
Tonks continued to laugh painfully until a well placed kick dropped the pilot into unconsciousness.
Chapter 18
The sharp crack of gunfire shattered the cold silence of the tool room. Angela, sitting as tense as a wound spring, abruptly leaped to her feet, letting go of her grip on the mechanical squirrel monkey. The monkey looked around, chattering idly.
“Blood and sand!” Thorias swore in frustration. “I’d say Tonks found whomever it was out there. Or they found him.” He grabbed his satchel, then struggled to his feet, keeping a hand to his wounded side. “Either case, we’re no longer safe here. Collect your little servitor. Best we meet with Tonks and be on our way.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Angela replied with a quick nod. She reached down for the monkey, who took her hand and quickly climbed up into her arms.
Thorias grimaced as he slung the satchel over his shoulder while walking to the door. “Now, if anything happens, you run for the dockside and look for the Griffin and stay there. Understand?”
“But,” Angela started to protest.
“No arguments, young lady,” The doctor replied, opening the door.
Abruptly a crate smashed against the door, knocking it loose from its hinges and ripping it from the doctor’s grasp. Thorias staggered back. Angela screamed in surprise, immediately transforming into her werewolf form on instinct.
Thirty yards away, a monstrous figure loomed out of the darkness, running toward them. Muscular and hunched, it ran with an ape-like gait, battering crates aside as if they were toys, and snarling like a rabid dog!
Startled, Thorias whipped his .44 LeMat revolver from its holster. Taking quick aim, he fired twice, the pistol stabbing flame towards the figure. Immediately, the doctor’s face twisted in pain as the vibrations from the pistol jarred his wounds.
The beast staggered, falling forward as two bullets found their mark. Slowly, the figure climbed to its feet. Blood oozing from the wounds, it screamed, lashing out in pain at a nearby create, and smashing it to kindling.
It was a giant of a man, easily seven foot tall, a veritable hulking figure that was three foot wide at the shoulder. Muscular to the point of grotesque, with woolen coat and clothes stretched tight across his frame, he was completely barefoot, despite the temperature. His pants were ragged and torn with a bloody hole ripped into one thigh, with fresh bullet holes in the coat on his chest.
The giant glared hot daggers at the doctor, shrugging aside the bullet wounds as if bites from a fly. “I … want … the … girl.” He snarled, panting, with a voice like gravel. “Give her to me!”
“Angela, run!” Thorias said urgently as the giant reached for another crate. “Run, now!”
The pair bolted away from the door seconds before another crate shattered right where they had stood. With another yell of frustrated rage, the giant leaped forward after them!
Racing across the warehouse floor, the unlikely duo dodged in and among the few items of cargo, using what they could as natural cover against their pursuer. Thorias looked around, gasping for breath, hand pressed to his wounded side.
“We need a place to hide, so I can reload,” the doctor said hoarsely. “There, across the way – those stairs. Go!”
“Going!” Angela said quickly, ducking as a section of pipe – obviously freshly torn from its housing – sailed over her head. Grabbing the folds of her dress, she hiked it up just enough to keep it out of her way while running.
While Angela ran for the stairs, Dr. Llwellyn spun around towards their pursuer. Twenty yards back the ape-like giant raced forward to a pipe that ran the length of a wall from floor to ceiling. Reaching out, the beast grasped the pipe with two muscular, hairy hands and pulled. Steel shrieked in a death scream as it deformed in his grip.
“What in Heaven’s name are you?” The doctor said incredulously, taking careful aim and pulling the trigger. His LeMat barked flame, but missed, instead striking the steel and sending hot sparks into the beast’s face.
The giant roared in pain, then with a single swipe ripped the steam pipe from the wall! Metal popped with a deafening sound, and pressurized steam exploded outward, knocking the beast back across the cold floor. His makeshift club skidded to a stop next to him.
“Three shots, that leaves six,” the doctor said, quickly checking his revolver. “However, I would feel rather better if he’d have the decency to at least favor a wounded arm after being shot.”
“Doctor!” Angela shouted in alarm from the stairs.
Thorias looked up in time to see the massive, twisted steam pipe descending in the air, seconds from reaching him! Throwing himself aside, he slammed into a stack of boxes, knocking them over onto a metal grate suspended over what looked to be a large drainage tube. An invisible odor rose from below that smelled of methane and charred refuse, as would come from an incinerator. The doctor collapsed against the grate as the boxes fell around him.
He had little time to think about the grate and pit further, as a thundering rumble alerted him to the giant, charging towards him at top speed! Thorias rolled to one side as the beast hurtled by, rushing towards the stairs for Angela. The doctor struggled to a sitting position, aimed and pulled the trigger twice. The bullets slammed into the back the giant’s thigh.
The beast howled in pain as its leg buckled, sending him crashing to the floor in a heap. It rolled over, giving the doctor a murderous look. Once again, the giant got to his feet, only this time it was much slower.
“About bloody time,” Thorias said bitterly, painfully getting up from the floor. “At least you’re slowing down. Now if I just had a proper cage to put you in.”
No sooner was the giant upright, than he rushed forward again, charging like a mad bull, blood streaming down his bullet-riddled leg! With every step, the giant’s gait became less of a bound and more of a limp.
At the last moment, Thorias threw himself aside, so that a stack of boxes and a steel steam pipe running from floor to ceiling stood in the giant’s way. The beast crashed through the boxes, scattering them in all directions and careened off the pipe, unable to stop in time.
With a triumphant smile, the doctor quickly hurried across the short space to the stairs, where Angela stood, clutching the rough wooden railing, eyes wide in fear.
“Angela, I …” the doctor began, but never finished as a box of metal tins slammed into him from behind, hurtling him into the wall. He bounced off with a dull thunk and slid to the floor, slightly dazed.
“Vile Tuatha Dé Danann,” the giant spat, leaning against a steam pipe, face contorted in pain while he pressed a hand against the bullet wounds in his leg, “you people … always in the way. I will relish killing you.”
“What? What did you call me?” He said sluggishly between waves of pain that radiated from his abused side. His mind, caught in the fog of the wounded, wandered among childhood stories that rose to memory. Myths of heroes and monsters, and of legendary creatures that stole the unwary. “Good God … a Fomorian,” he said in a horrified whisper.
The beast ignored the doctor’s question, but instead looked around. Picking a crate easily larger than a man’s head, he lifted it up, preparing to hurtle it towards the doctor.
As worry for her friend shattered her terror, Angela raced off the stairs, putting herself directly between the doctor and the giant. “No! Stop hurting him!”
Angela’s ears were flat back against her head, and her fur stood out, bristling at the bestial man a few feet away. Peeking out from beneath her torn skirts, her tail was hel
d low, twitching slightly with irritation. The girl flexed her fur-covered hands with their elongated fingers, forcing her obsidian-black claws to slide out just a fraction of an inch more than normal. She kept her feet apart, crouched slightly forward despite the pain in her leg. She growled nastily, flexing her claws.
“Brave girl,” the Fomorian giant chuckled, his voice ugly. “Also, very stupid,” he said, tossing the crate aside then slowly advancing on the little girl. “Werewolf or not, I will break you!”
“Angela, for Heaven’s sake, don’t be foolish. Run!” Thorias exclaimed, struggling to pull himself upright, then failing as pain wracked his body.
“No!” Angela snapped back. She glared at the giant, baring her wolf-like teeth. A rising terror clutched at her wolf instincts, prodding her to run. She deliberately ignored that feeling, instead taking a deep breath, then letting it out slowly with a long growl. “You will not hurt him again!” She snarled.
Bleeding, and filthy, the Fomorian loomed larger, closer. “Oh, I don’t have to,” he replied in his deep, grating voice. He smiled, baring his own animal-like canines amid very large white teeth. “I am here for you, fräulein not him. Just you.”
A bitter fear rose sharply, gripping the werewolf girl, and her hands shook slightly. Even so, she stood her ground.
“Then … “ she stammered, “then I won’t go easily!” She flexed her clawed and fur-covered hands again, crouching a bit lower, preparing to leap.
The giant laughed. It was ugly and evil. “Good. I was bored.”
“Hey!” A shout split the cold air. It echoed all around, slicing through both emotion and concentration as surely as a clockwork farming servitor could shear a sheep. Angela jumped back in surprise at the sudden sound, while the giant spun around, only to stumble to one side, favoring his wounded leg.
“That’s right ya stupid wanker! Remember me?” Ian Tonks Wilkerson shouted from a few feet away, bruised yet grinning widely. Before anyone could reply, the pilot shoved hard against a rust-stained lever protruding out of the floor next to him. Gears turned, wheels groaned in protest, and the grate fell open beneath the giant’s feet!