by Kevin Wright
One gun went empty; Detective Winters flung it. With his last round, he took a step forward and shoved the gun muzzle into the lock of the cage in front of him. Blam! The bullet ricocheted, leaving a red trail across Detective Winters’s cheek.
The man inside the cage screamed.
He screamed as Detective Winters wrenched the cage open and seized his ankle, ripping him free.
The man screamed even more as Detective Winters hurled him ass-over-teakettle-wailing into the mass of high-bloods, knocking them back. They paused, engulfed him, ripped him down to the cold stone earth.
The man screamed and screamed and screamed.
“Marduk’s balls,” Detective Winters whispered. Turning, savage, he tore his watch from his wrist and flung it with a curse at the charging mass of junky-sucks.
* * * *
Despite the strength that flowed through her cold, undead bones, Pussywillow could not escape. The hatch was thick and strong. Her nails chipped and cracked as she scrabbled at the hairline seam between hatch and floor.
In frustration, she shredded the fur she wore, tearing it from her arms and wrenching it from her neck, hurling it into the night.
She paced.
She swore.
She kicked and spat. She gnashed her teeth in the most unladylike manner imaginable as she watched the fullness of the moon rise over the horizon and cast its pale cyclopean glow over the night.
* * * *
Their eyes were separated by a few inches and a set of sturdy steel bars. For the first time in the many days he had been captive, Nathaniel was thankful for those bars. Thankful as he watched the old man fall before him, thrust face-first to the ground, screaming in agony as ghouls piled onto him. The man’s head was pinned to the floor in horror and pain, and there was nothing Nathaniel could do except hope the man died fast.
“Leave him alone!” Nathaniel shouted, thrusting his fist out through the bars in a pitiful swat. “Get off of him! Get off!”
The ghouls, for all their finery, lace, and jewelry, for all their high-talk, giggled like rabid hyenas as they tore and chewed into the old man’s back.
He died then, blue eyes frozen, glazed, staring at Nathaniel.
“Bastards…” Nathaniel squeezed the bars.
The color bled slowly from the old man’s irises until cataract-scarred white. Nathaniel reached his arm out through the bars, quickly, towards those dead orbs.
“Rest in peace, old man,” said Nathaniel as he brushed the old man’s eyelids shut and quickly withdrew his arm back through the bars. As he did, one vampire, monocle in place, took notice, knelt on the ground and stooped, peering between the bars.
“You think he’ll dream nice-nice now?” the vampire sneered, his goatee dripping. He snagged the old man by the ear and dragged him close, wrenching the old man’s face up to the bars, so Nathaniel could see. Then he reached for the man’s eyelids and pulled one up. “Peek-a-boo,” he said, gritting his fangs. Growling, he tore.
Nathaniel cringed within his cage, cringed with fear, with hate, with pity, with anger, and spite.
“And now, for my next trick.” The vampire leaned forward in a half-bow. He reached. He grasped. He tore. With his face pressed now between the bars, he smiled. “Thank you … thank you.”
“Son of a bitch.” With his crooked leg, Nathaniel kicked out.
“My, my … feisty.” The vampire still held the old man’s head up. “And for my last trick…”
Nathaniel watched in fascination.
The old man’s eyes were yellow now, moving, Nathaniel saw, and locked on the vampire. Indeed, the old man hardly even looked the part of an old man anymore. Black lips curled back over teeth that put the vampire’s to shame. He snarled, rising. Now he was growing, changing, roaring, howling, rip-tearing, flinging, howling again, and howling more, as he dove into the vampires, biting, slashing, mauling, and flinging their corpses like terriers fling rats.
* * * *
High heels clicked on the uneven stone floor as the four women, creatures of the night, all, followed by a mob of others, lessers, pounded down the curves of the narrow hall, past untold numbers of men imprisoned within cages. Sallow faces quivered as they marched past.
They marched with purpose. They marched with spite. Towards the dying report of gunfire and the werewolf’s bite.
Then the werewolf was in sight, and Lil, unperturbed, nonchalant, even, simply stopped and pointed, and the mass behind surged forth past her, tooth and claw.
Her eyes and teeth gleamed as she watched.
* * * *
The junky-suck’s skull caved in like a rotten Jack O’ lantern face under the force of the blow and then was gone, tumbling through the air as Detective Winters swept it off with his bowie knife and kicked the corpse down.
The Werewolf Lord, arisen, somewhere behind, howled insane, and the world shook in his fury. Bodies were thrown crashing into walls, and cages rattled as bedrock rained down. Men screamed, a mad beggars’ symphony, begging for their lives, for freedom, and Detective Winters heard none of it.
Bowie and trench knife were in hand waiting as he braced, the tsunami of gray undead flesh breaking over him, and he was slashing and cutting and stabbing as orange chisel teeth and cracked nails rasped and clutched and clawed and bore him crashing to the ground.
And still Detective Winters had not found God.
* * * *
The madness of a rabid wolf would have paled in comparison to the madness of the Werewolf Lord as the black tide of night creatures crashed over him time and time again. And each time it broke.
Not him.
Never him.
For an instant he would disappear beneath a wave of grasping arms and teeth, and then rage back to the surface, crashing, clawing, breaking through a wave of cold dead flesh.
Lord Brudnoy roared and howled as bodies were flung, as fistfuls of fur were torn from his haunches, his neck, his back. Thick sharp teeth severed limbs in madness, and his claws split corpse flesh from bone as he hurled them back.
He hurled them all back.
* * * *
Winters!
A glimpse was enough. He hadn’t even seen the cages, the men screaming, pleading.
“Get the hell out of here!” Peter propelled Sid back down the hall toward the spiral stairs.
He turned.
The gray coat, the bowie knife, slashing, fighting from beneath a tangle of gray emaciated leeches was all Peter saw as he sprinted down the hall, into the fray, teeth bared in an insane smile. The gun was free, ready.
It blazed. It blared, ripping shockwaves through the close quarters, and even the ears of the undead quailed when they heard it.
Rapid fire, it was from near point blank range, and the gun did not miss, did not pause, it just kept mowing them down until Detective Winters, bruised and battered, bleeding, stood up alone, the sounds of battle raging down the hall.
* * * *
Lil’s eyes popped open as she heard the gun’s unmistakable report from far down the hall, past the rage of the Werewolf Lord. Her smile was gone. Her eyes were black, dead. So were the ones before her.
* * * *
Lord Brudnoy, all animal instinct, slavering, drooling, bleeding, had mastered them, had mastered them all. He gave chase. Roaring and snapping and tearing down the hall, he left a wake of bodies and parts. His onslaught continued, the scent of blood and flesh and close decaying bodies driving him wild as he roared, pounding after the fleeing ghouls.
From within the fast ebb of the black tide of undead, something emerged, a woman perhaps, and Lord Brudnoy leaped at her, and she met him.
Teeth bared, eyes shining, talons gleaming, they embraced. With a crash, the walls and floor shook, collapsing, killing men, entombing them. Walls and cages were shattered and undead fell to their knees as a chasm split the floor.
Lord Brudnoy was thrown back.
Dust settled.
Still the woman stood, though perhaps she looked le
ss like a woman now.
And though his ribs were shattered concave, and his leg flopped by tendons, Lord Brudnoy turned, turned and ran faster than he ever had run before.
* * * *
“Move!” Peter yanked Detective Winters back by the coat and stepped in front of him. Slam! Peter was battered aside, into the cage wall, as Lord Brudnoy tore blasting past.
Spinning in mid-air for a long second, somehow comforted by the feel of freefall, Peter crashed onto the stone floor.
“On your feet,” a voice at Peter’s ear whispered, and he was yanked, dazed, to his feet. “Now move. Faster. Pick your damned feet up.”
Stumbling and running half-blind down the hall, Peter realized it was Detective Winters. Detective Winters, who had him by the collar and was dragging him at breakneck speed down the hallway he had just come. Cages with arms dangling, men screaming within, leeches squirming, all passed in a blur then were gone. Vaguely, somewhere, Peter heard his name called out as he was hauled along, trying to slow, trying to stop…
* * * *
Lil stomped down the hall, ripping her earrings off with two quick tugs. She was not happy. Her entourage streamed past her like ants. He was near. She had heard him. She could smell his scent in the air.
He was so close.
He would not escape again.
* * * *
Like a report from a gun, Peter exploded out of his daze. Detective Winters stood before him, shoving a silver circle of metal into his hands and then pointing, shouting above the deafening ravenous screams from the hall.
“P-t t--s around --s n--k!” Detective Winters lips moved.
The screech of metal twisting back and forth pierced his eardrums — “What?!” Peter wiggled a finger in his ear.
“To save your father!” Detective Winters roared, pantomiming placing the collar over Peter’s head, and then pointing toward the spiral stair.
Peter turned. His jaw dropped when he realized what Detective Winters meant; he was pointing at Lord Brudnoy.
Before the spiral stair, stalking back and forth, amidst boulders and shale and felled rock, limping, was Lord Brudnoy. To either side he gnashed his teeth and snapped at invisible demons, muttering to himself as he shook his great coat. With each breath he let out, his great sides sucked in concave, bone grating on bone. His body was broken.
So was the spiral staircase, its bottom swinging free of the shattered ground, pendulum-wise, screeching from the invisible heights above as it bent and swayed.
Detective Winters dropped the collar into Peter’s hand then slapped him on the back, pushing him forward.
“You do it!” Peter turned but Detective Winters was gone. “Shit!” Peter glimpsed Detective Winters’s silhouette against the wall, in the hall of men, stabbing and thrusting with twin blades.
“Great.” He turned. “Nice, dog.” Peter took a step forward. “Uh, nice doggy.”
Why not just shoot him?
Reading Peter’s mind, apparently, Lord Brudnoy growled, snorting blood, rearing back, hackles raised on his blood-sopped coat. He howled, and Peter’s legs wobbled.
The gun was up then, suddenly, aimed at Lord Brudnoy’s forehead. Peter swallowed, advanced, fighting the gun down. “I don’t want to do this, Brud — Lord Brudnoy, sir.”
The iron staircase screamed, swinging past.
Lord Brudnoy growled deep, bone-rattling. His mad eyes focused on the gun for an instant then upon the silver collar. Recognition sparked then, within his eyes, and the madness entombed within erupted into the light of reason, sort of.
“And so, the Lord Tyr, he comes, comes to bind the wolf once more,” Lord Brudnoy said in a low throaty rumble, sucking in a deep breath then hacking out blood. “Debts to be paid, old boy, debts to be paid. Both parties are owed their due. Ragnarok comes.” The thick sharp teeth that could sever bone parted then, strings of saliva dangling.
“Easy … easy.” Peter edged towards Lord Brudnoy, drawn by the gun like a magnet, drawn by Detective Winters’s last words.
Lord Brudnoy backed against the wall, behind the inverted teetering of the broken spiral stairs.
Peter inhaled deep and sprung past the stair. It swung behind him now, screeching with each pass. Tentatively then, very, very tentatively he raised the collar out to place it over the tip of Lord Brudnoy’s snout. Duct tape? The gun went with it, close.
The sounds of combat played behind.
“Come on, easy, that’s it,” Peter said as the collar slipped over Lord Brudnoy’s nose.
Lord Brudnoy growled, lips rippling over dagger-teeth, saliva dripping. His jaws snapped, and Peter slid back, then forward as the stairs screeched past.
“Screw this.” Peter slung the silver collar over the gun and up his arm.
Yellow eyes examined his every move.
“Just relax, okay?” He stepped forward. “You’re hurt. I know.”
Lord Brudnoy growled.
“I’ll help you. I did before. Remember?”
Lord Brudnoy blinked.
Peter edged forward, gun muzzle in front of Lord Brudnoy’s mouth. “Don’t move, please. I won’t use it, I swear.” Sweat rolled down his face as his finger touched the trigger and stayed there, glued. Down his arm, towards Lord Brudnoy’s quivering snout, Peter slid the collar and met his eyes.
“Payment in full, old boy,” rumbled the Werewolf Lord.
“Easy. Easy. Almost got it,” Peter said as the Werewolf Lord lunged forth, jaws clamping down. Peter reacted, screaming, as his bone split like graham cracker, and he squeezed the trigger, blowing out the back of Lord Brudnoy’s head.
* * * *
Adrenaline alone kept Detective Winters on his feet as foe after foe attacked. Hurled staggering back, he lost his bowie knife in a leech’s neck. Stumbling back, retreating towards the broken stair, towards Peter, toward Lord Brudnoy, he tripped, rolled, got to his feet and stumbled again. Then a gunshot ripped through the air, and Detective Winters looked up.
“Marduk’s balls…”
* * * *
Against the wall, quivering, shaking, crying, Peter clutched at the bloody stump. This was not happening. He squeezed it, pressed it, but the blood would not stop, would not slow. He sank to his knees, clutching his vitals.
Crumpling to the hard earth, paralyzed, everything inside his body seized suddenly, twisting—
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrg!”
Spasms rocked him, an electric charge rattling every cell of his body as he convulsed, near unconscious with pain, feeling as though every organ and bone in his body were stretching and twisting and contorting and snapping.
His vision went dim, and he could see only black and white, then normal, then nothing, nothing at all. His teeth elongated from his gums, piercing his lip, and his fingernails grew long, long and sharp, slicing his palm as his hand contracted. Eyesight came back to him then as he felt his very skull contorting, shifting, cracking.
* * * *
Wielding only a sundered blade attached to brass knuckles, Detective Winters stumbled into the room, hacking and punching, pursued by a pack of ghouls. They took him then, overwhelming him, three sociopathic beauties hurling him to the cracked floor, followed by an armada of scum and high-bloods.
Orion the hunter and Cassiopeia burst before his eyes.
The staircase swung, pendulous, banshee screams echoing in the dark. Detective Winters shook vertigo from his head, prostrate on the ground, surrounded by leeches, and he … he was not dead?
He pulled himself up. Why had they not taken him?
They could have. He faced them.
But they stopped in awe, staring past him. They stood frozen in fear, a pack of rabid ghouls.
* * * *
Peter blinked. It was all he could do. Spasming, quivering in the fetal position, vomiting, he watched.
Lord Brudnoy’s corpse, past the swinging stair, nearly headless from the gunshot wound, twitched upon the ground. A harsh green glare spewed from his face-crater. The g
low grew brighter, harsher. Beneath Lord Brudnoy’s matted fur, huge bulges formed, stretching the skin from inside, heaving, pushing, breathing.
Then they began to move, slowly at first. Werewolf bones shifted and popped, dislocating and snapping as the bulges slid beneath the skin, faster, and then faster, like some great school of fish trapped within a net trying to escape.
Through the pain and the seizures, the dim knowledge that his life was at an end came vaguely. As his legs bent and twisted, and his ribs split, Peter squinted out past his clawed hand as Lord Brudnoy’s corpse vomited an explosion of black liquid tentacles over Detective Winters and the amassed leeches.
Then, beneath Lord Brudnoy’s fur, liquid black tentacles burst from within to without, macerating the Werewolf Lord’s coat, and lifting the unrecognizable carcass free of the stone floor.
Something massive took shape within, something dark, defiant, pouring. The screams of a thousand souls rent the air, shaking it, vibrating the stones, the earth. Above, the spiral staircase twanged then fell, crashing seismic against the ground, bending and contorting, screeching against the wall, its top hidden in the mists.
A spasm of pain rocked Peter, contorting and crooking his spine as he cried out in pain. The corpse-thing, an oozing amalgam of slick black tentacles and wolf carcass and rippling faces, human faces, other faces, turned towards him. Feebly, he scratched at the ground with his twisted claw hand, trying to move, trying to do something, trying to do anything.
He couldn’t.
So he screamed.
* * * *
It was not given to logic, or thought, or meanings, but only to the baser desires. Hunger, lust, pain.
Hunger drove It now, a hunger unsatisfied for the decades that It was trapped within the unholy fastness of Its steel prison. A hunger for warmth and life.
Sipping, tasting, waiting, biding time, energy, strength, all for one reason, to escape. To shatter Its bonds.
With the death of the werewolf, the grimgorgon broke free. Its animal mind, sharp, cunning, ruthless, would not be bound again.
As the demon grew, expanding Its massive squid-soft bulk within the womb-corpse of the werewolf, Its twisted beaked mouths tore at the carcass, consuming the animal flesh, along with the rot of the undead ensnared by its black oozing tentacles. Flailing arms and legs disappeared within the cavernous mouths, but the demon was not satiated, could not be and would not be.