Personal Work - Werewolf: The Apocalypse flash fiction

[This is a piece of flash fiction I wrote surrounding a long-running Werewolf: The Apocalypse character that I have been playing for the better part of five years. Some exploration of his origins predating the Chronicle proper, The Blood Red Moon]

 Lewis & Clarke County Wilderness, Montana

Sept of Blue Mountain Shadow

July 28

There is a kind of reverence to honest work. A clean honesty in the sweat of one’s brow, serving a greater whole. In the dappled, umbral shadows of the aspen trees, an unseasonably bitter breeze rasped through the nettles and boughs. The cold didn’t easily bother Hector Creede, but still his supple spine shivered. Shoulders squared, hackles bristling, his calloused hands closed around the haft of a felling axe, smoothed to a polish with use.

“You can take the Ahroun out’a the battlefield…” rasped a sardonic soprano.

“But you can’t make ‘em unclench,” a different voice resumed, tenorous and soft. “Gaia bless ‘em for that!”

“Amen to that, sister.” The first voice replied. Creede could hear the Cheshire smile curling those patchy peach-fuzz cheeks, and rolled his eyes. Matt and Millie McTroy, the twin-terrors of the Sept.

“After shittin’ the two a’you out I pray for all our sakes your poor mama went to a nunnery,” Creede responded in a basso rumble and a shake of his shaggy head, splitting a log with a swing, a grunt, and a thwack. Millie clucked her tongue,

“Sticks n’ stones, biggun.” Creede rounded, his split eyebrow arching. 

“And fists, an’ boots. No need fer a reminder.”

“Well, shit. Let no one say y’all never learned nuthin’,” Creede smirked, tugging his axe free of the stump, resting it across one shoulder. Wiping his brow on his forearm, Creede’s eyes shot skyward to the pastel swathe of twilight, the gold of day fading to a deep vermillion, just starting to dance with starlight. Luna waxed near full, her pull on Creede growing. The sight of Her alone made his pulse hammer, disquieting the Wolf. The last rays of sunlight splayed in radiant fingers around the looming obelisk of the Blue Mountain. Once a coal mine during the turn of the century, long since abandoned after a series of mysterious cave-ins. The surrounding mining town had been repurposed into the Sept of Blue Mountain Shadow, and for a Sept without a Caern, had quietly survived ever since. Not quite prospering, but the people that called it’s Bawn home got by with the smiles of honest, hard-working folk. 

“Finished already, biggun?” Matt asked after a brief reprieve of McTroy chatter as Creede bound a bundle of wood in twine, responding gruffly,

“Mm-hrm.”

“Damned fast work for such a slow feller.”

“Imagine if you took all the energy you spent flappin’ your yapper and put it to work, all the things you’d get done,” Creede said, hefting the wooden bundle under an arm. “Y’all wouldn’t want to miss mess, now. Chop-chop!”

“Was that a fuckin’ dad joke?” The twins groaned in unison, harmonizing, and Creede’s bellowing laugh echoed back at them, the large man waving goodbye over his shoulder. 

Classic oil lanterns were lit all along the serpentine road of packed dirt, hung on porch pegs and posts, leading the way to what could best be described as a plaza. Crowned with a rickety chapel and girdled by more shacks and houses, a bonfire was being erected in the center, surrounded by long wooden tables. Passers-by waved and greeted Creede, which he returned with his usual rough charm and manner. The silken voices of the Galliard’s circle tittered in their warm-ups, the cherubic cheers of children rang like silver bells. Rummaging a few wedges of wood from his burden, Creede added them to the growing pyre. 

“Uncle Hector!”

“Cruncle!”

“Daddy!”

They descended like jackals. Adorable, giggling jackals. Running at full tilt, bare feet and padded paws hammered the packed earth behind them, then ceased as they leapt. Two small bodies crashed into his back, spindly arms and tiny hands wrapping around the trunk of his neck and pulling at his hair and ears. The third, a little Lupus pup with red-gray fur, jumped up from under his arm to fervently lap at his cheek and nip at his beard. 

“Curses! My one weakness!” Creede cried, careful not to bite the fingers that had somehow hooked his cheek. “Tiny… fierce… ferociousness!” Creede leaned back with a groan, letting them pull him to the ground. All three of the little rogues clambered atop Creede’s barrel chest, and all three howled their victory. 

“Behold!” Kelly cried, standing atop her father, fists thrust skyward in triumph, “The Tuatha de Scáthach conquered a mighty foe!” Creede mustered all his willpower to not smirk. Ten years old and already coming up with pack names. Damn good ones, too. Onlookers clapped and whooped, the tail of Dawnrunner, the Lupus child, thumped wildly against his ribs. 

“Sláinte! All hail the Tuatha de Scáthach!” Cried one of the Galliards, and many glasses were raised. Creede creased an eye open to see the ivory grin of his little girl over him. 

“Good job, peanut,” Creede whispered, and she beamed even brighter.

“My, my…” a familiar voice purred, just out of view. Creede’s ears reddened. “Quite the hunt, little ones! Now, I think I’m in my rights to take the first share of the kill?”

“Mom, ew!” The mighty hunters; Kelly Creede, Patrick Callahan, and Dawnrunner, scattered. Murphy’s deceptively strong hands pulled Creede up as she sat on his lap, kissing him deeply. Catcalls and wolf-whistles drowned out all other noise but the thundering of Creede’s heart in his burning ears.

As the last traces of daylight fled, the bonfire roared to life, joining the succulent aroma of rosemary, thyme, and mesquite on charcoal cook fires. Kegs of nutty ale were cracked wide open and quaffed deeply. Songs were sung in earnest, plates piled high with bounty. Creede sat among his folk, cheeks cramped with laughter, his daughter seated in his lap, face smeared with barbeque. Murphy leaned on her husband’s shoulder, arms encircled with his, fingers brushing through the hair of his forearm. Lupus-kin gnawed on bones and lapped and bowls. Carie Callahan, a friend of the Creedes and Theurge of the Sept, danced with her son, Patrick, balanced on the toes of her boots. Millie McTroy cradled her infant child in the crook of her arm, sandwiched between mother and father in a lazy waltz. 

“Hector!” Bellowed a rough, wizened voice. “Why haven’t you gone with the other warriors on their Hunt this night? Not getting soft, I hope…” Papo Moral, a Philodox and as unpleasant an in-law as Creede could ask for. A surly old man with a wizardly beard and slate-hard eyes, he had always been a critic of Creede and his… unconventional marriage to Murphy. Creede’s hands clenched stiffly, the fork in his fist bending over backwards. Murphy’s nails dug into him, quicker on the verbal draw, Gaia bless her. 

“My husband just returned from a raid in the Rockies, Papo. He was bringing enough fight for three of your sons while you, what? Sat pretty and played cribbage?” Murphy smiled, catlike. “He’s deserved a reprieve, with a wife to welcome the conquering hero with a warm bed.” Creede raised his mug to his lips to hide his smile, and Kelly just grinned. 

“Watch yourself, girlie,” Papo Moral growled, shaking a steak knife her way. “I abide your tongue for your blood, and I tolerate your partner for his… talents.” Old Man Moral clucked his tongue, contemplating his meal. “Blunt instruments have their uses, that I can’t argue, but they’re far from few, and easily replaced. You’ll see that eventually, my girl.” 

It was Creede’s turn to squeeze his wife’s hand, feeling the wave of wrathful, furious heat radiate from her. Clearing his throat, Creede swallowed his Rage and his pride, and gazed level with the old Philodox. 

“If I may, Morgan-ryah,” Creede spoke evenly, temper checked with every syllable. “My old man, wicked as he was, had a poignant little prose he hammered into my head early on. ‘If you ain’t carryin’ your weight, then you’re dead weight’. We’ve done all’s asked of us since we came here. Carried our weight. Least you could do is not drag us through the mud when you make an ass of yourself at supper.”

“Hector!” Murphy chided, Creede sliding Kelly into her lap as he rose. Matt McTroy, sitting across from them, snapped his head hither with a rapt grin. Out of everyone involved, he was the only one apparently enjoying the exchange of verbal bombardments.

“Sit down, Cliath!” Morgan Moral bellowed loud enough to shake the very air. Creede stopped, breathing deeply. The din of the table went silent, the tension electric. Creede’s eye twitched, the crescent scar burning irritably. 

On the other side of the bonfire, Millie McTroy continued to waltz softly with her husband, the Galliards still dedicated to their craft. They knew enough of Old Man Moral to ignore his feast tirades. That same wind from earlier raked through the aspen, carrying the scent of the hunt. Somewhere, in the darkness, a muffled crack, like the break of a branch. Scott MacTavish, Millie’s wiry and ruddy-haired husband, fell. Onlookers laughed, jeering at the boy unable to hold his drink. Millie laughed the hardest, nudging Scotty with her boot. 

“Baby, c’mon, don’ be a bitch.” she giggled, rolling him over. Odd, she never remembered him drinking wine. A spreading stain on his chest. 

“Baby?” Scott didn’t move, slack against her prodding. Millie took a knee, leaning to shake Scott with her hand, which came away slathered in sticky scarlet. Their little girl, with her wild ginger curls, slumped in her mother’s arms. 

Millie’s raw, horrid scream ripped through the night. Her husband and little girl both were pierced by some ghostly slug through the heart. Scott was dead before he hit the ground. Little Cassidy never felt a thing. One of the young Ahroun sprung from his seat, rushing to the source of the scream. 

Another snap, a delay, and the Ahroun’s head burst just above the jawline. He never made it past the bonfire. More screams. 

“Stations!” Creede roared, snapping back to the table to see bodies slumped. Color had drained from Murphy’s face, a splatter and smear of kin-blood upon her cheek. “Murph, to the chapel. Low and fast.” Surging to the table, Creede gripped it and with a grunt, upended it on one side. Now with cover, Murphy clutched Kelly to her breast with one hand, her .38 in the other. Others had followed suit, putting the thick wood between them and the thunk, thunk, thunk of high-velocity impact. 

The rich songs of the Circle were broken, only cries remained. Cries and the ragged roars of Rage. Little Patrick Callahan sat on his knees in a spreading puddle of his mother’s viscera, smattered in dirt and gore. Breaking into a sprint, Creede ran for the little boy. No sooner than he had his arms around him, a sharp agony ripped through Creede’s forearm. A polymer arrow shaft, its fletching halfway to his skin. 

“Gaia, no…” Creede shuddered, daring a glance down. The broad head arrow had gone clean through, glinting through Patrick’s slender neck. “No…” Another stab of pain, this one distant. An arrow sprouted from Creede’s shoulder, silver burning dully. Looking up with bloodshot eyes, Creede saw them. Dozens of them as they entered the furtive lamp-light. Men in fatigues and ghillie suits, faces painted for war in red and black, wolf skins worn over their heads. Fresh, steaming in the cool air. Creede could not see the eyes of the bowman, but he found them. Snapping the arrow shaft from his arm, he rose. 

Creede didn’t scream. He didn’t unleash a war-cry. He charged. 

Long legs carried him in a thundering stride across the plaza, another silver-tipped arrow slashing against his temple. Knife drawn, Creede tackled the bowman. Steel scraped against the man’s sternum, then drove upward with such force, the guard was inside his mouth, pinned beneath a twitching tongue. Eyes rolled back, his last breath gurgling as pink foam as the tip of the knife burst from the crown of  his skull. Creede cast him aside, ripping the arrow from his shoulder, he perforated the neck of another hunter with the razor edge, snarling into the gurgling fountain. 

Ka-chack

Pivoting on the ball of his foot, Creede put the exsanguinating hunter between himself and the shotgun report. Boom! Ka-chack, Boom! Closing the distance as the hunter slam-fired his shotgun, Creede let his Rage burn. Sinew swelled and his blood roared. Seams split against the Glabro frame as it crushed the hunter through the adjacent wall. Wrestling the shotgun free, Creede pummeled the huntswoman with the stock again, and again, shattering it against the paneled floor of the cabin.

Meanwhile, Murphy gathered other kinfolk to her, prickling with their own firearms as the Garou ran into fray. Kelly was frightfully silent, shaking and clutching her mother tight, cheeks shining with tears. She must have seen poor little Patrick. Murphy’s eyes burned, but her own tears would have to wait. Clear eyes meant clear shots. Keeping low, Murphy led the Kinfolk to the chapel in a militant leapfrog. Those with guns covered the unarmed to their refuge. Once inside, there was no shortage of barking irons for use. 

Dashing to the chapel stairs, Murphy snapped off three shots with her .38. Groin, chest, neck. No time to confirm her kill, not with precious cargo. Shouldering through the chapel door, she set Kelly down beneath the cover of the pews, away from the windows. 

“Stay down, baby. Mama’s gonna keep you safe.” Looking up to a one-armed Kinfolk calling her name, Murphy caught a rifle, tossed her way and worked the lever-action smoothly. 

“Dawn…” was all Kelly said, her voice like gossamer. Murphy felt a ball of ice sink in her gut. Daring a glance, she saw little Dawnrunner hobbling their way with savaged hind legs bent at horrible angles. Fires spread behind her, chemical in nature, rapaciously consuming hearth and home, and the innocents inside. How did this happen? 

A hunter approached the crawling Dawnrunner, a cruel Bowie knife drawn, glowing golden in the firelight. 

Murphy didn’t hesitate. 

Gloved hands clutched at Dawn’s scruff, pinning the cub to the ground as the knife rose. A thunderclap tore from the church, and the buffalo-bore bullet from Murphy’s rifle caught the hunter in the sinus. His head snapped back, his face a twisted, featureless mass, and fell. 

“Dawn, come on, baby!” Murphy hollered, snapping the lever of the rifle and firing again from the doorway. “I know it hurts, baby, but you gotta keep going!” Little Dawnrunner, whimpering and trembling, dragged herself as fast as she could. Automatic fire rattled against the church, heavy 7.62 lead tumbling and tearing through the chapel’s structure. Two bodies dropped inside, ripped open and twitching in shock. White-hot agony hit Murphy in the shoulder, the force of the impact throwing her to the ground. 

“Mommy!” Kelly shrieked.

A silver slug ripped through Creede’s abdomen, driving a howl from his blood-flecked lips. Rolling from his last kill, he pumped the action of the stockless shotgun and fired just as the shooter ducked for cover. 

“Motherfucker!” Creede snarled, scrambling to his feet. Keen ears heard the smooth motion of a bolt action, and rolled through the hole in the wall. Shot flying wide, the hunter worked the bolt again, but Creede was already upon him. Pinning the rifle to the hunter’s chest with the frame of the shotgun, Creede racked the pump again and squeezed. Brains flew, painting the wall. Motion blurred in the corner of Creede’s eye. Snapping around with another smooth pump of the shotgun, he leveled the weapon at a reedy hunter, frozen in place. He couldn’t have been much older than Kelly, maybe fifteen at the oldest, a burning Molotov shaking in his hand. His eyes were wide in horror as he looked into the burning, inhuman golden eyes of the Garou before him.

Creede hesitated, finger hovering over the trigger. Before him stood one of the enemies numbers, painted for war, but little more than a terrified child. Growling, Creede threw down the shotgun and wrenched his knife free from the bowman’s corpse, turning away just in time to see Murphy go down. 

“Mommy!” Creede knew his daughter’s cry anywhere, the way only a father could. The seal broke. Frenzy flooded the world with red, hatred burning pure in Creede’s veins. His body swirled and shifted; titanic and terrifying. Turning on the boy, his eyes milky with delirium, the massive fist of the Crinos enveloped the hunter, and squeezed. There was no cry, just a brief gasp and the chorus of pulverizing tissue. Gore wept between his massive, furred fingers. Gouging the earth with his claws, he ran towards the firing line amassed before the chapel, a primal roar ripping from his throat. 

Pinned in a corner, Murphy grit her teeth as she tore a sleeve from her shirt to improvise a bandage. The barrage of hunter’s suppressive fire was unending. Professional. Stray rounds had taken down two more kinfolk, and the shrill canine yelp from outside broke her heart. 

“Everyone keep low. Behind the podium, under the rug is a bootlegger passage. One by one, trickle out to the Blue Mountain, try and lose them in the mines!” Midway down the chapel, a window shattered as a furred body leapt through. Red-gold fur, matted in glistening black patches. Murphy released a breath she didn’t know she was holding, lowering her pistol. Thin and wiry with eyes almost cartoonishly large for its head, but they were hollow, haunted, teetering on the boundary of harano. Painfully slow, the wolf shifted back to the familiar whipcord shape of Matthew McTroy. 

“They’re dead…” he sobbed. “Millie…” Matt panted shallowly, each breath bubbling and wet-sounding. Poor, poor Matthew… Setting her teeth, Murphy sat up. 

“Matt. Matt!” Murphy called, snapping her fingers, but the young Ragabash stared into nothing, half-lucid. 

“Matthew Roberts McTroy, I’m talkin’ at you!” He jerked, as if shocked. 

“Yes, miss?”

“Where are the other Garou?” Murphy called over the rattling din of gunfire. Matt, horrified, shook his head. 

“Don’t rightly know, ma’am. Some went to their homes to get family or arms, only to get hammered by incendiaries. The Old Man led a party of interference westward, I was with Liam’s posse…”

“And?” Murphy asked, afraid of the answer. 

“More silver than motherfuckin’ MacBeth. LMGs, ball-bearing mines. Liam went out taking out a flamethrower. Went up like a human firecracker in his gob...” Liam Kissane, Fianna by birth, but a Child of Gaia in temperament, one of the Galliards with a heart of gold, even if he wasn’t the sharpest tack out there. She was like a kid brother to Murphy, a dear friend to Creede, and the fun uncle to Kelly. His death was an icy dagger in her chest. 

“Damn it…” he spat bitterly. Keeping low, she scuttled across the rickety chapel floor. Reaching to the well of gnosis inside of her, Murphy placed a hand on Matt’s flank. Mother’s Touch, the spiritual essence of life and healing, rippled through the Ragabash, pushing silver slugs from his torso and closing the wounds behind them. 

“Yer a damn fine woman, Missus Creede,” Matt sniffled, his breathing clearer. 

“Don’t think me yet, boyo. I need you to help the others through the bootlegger tunnels, and get them out through the mines.” Murphy’s cerulean eyes regarded Matt stoically, who nodded. 

“Count on it, ma’am,” he said, grunting as he sat up on the balls of his feet, his converse sneakers stained with gore and dirt. 

“Matt…”

“Yeah, Murph?”

“Where’s my husband?” Murphy dared to ask, having lost track of him in the chaos. Seeing the unknowing look in Matt’s face, she thought she might fall apart right there. No, not Hector… 

Then came the roar. The primal, hateful, frenzied roar of an Ahroun that made the air itself tremble. Her Ahroun. 

“Right there, ma’am.” Matt said, a sense of impending retribution in his tone. 

“Kelly, baby, close your eyes!” Murphy shouted, spying her little girl curled beneath the pews arrayed as barricades, her eyes wide. She couldn’t look away. 

Kelly was witness to the lumbering, bristling nightmare-shape rushing at the firing line from behind. Backlit by inferno, larger than any bear she’d ever seen with eyes glowing the frenzied predator-gleam. Shuttering, strobing muzzle-flashes reflected sharply off impossibly large teeth and cast demoniac shadows along a snarling maw. Creede’s savage claw ripped the hunter’s squad-gunner in half, sending the torso sailing, streaming entrails in an arc as the body hit the wall of the chapel with a sickening crunch. A second hunter, armed with an M4, was unzipped from crotch to collarbone

“Jesus Christ!”

“Contact left!”

Another hunter was savaged by Creede’s crushing jaws, shaking with such force that the hunter’s legs landed twenty feet apart. Twin thunderclaps barked as a hunter double-tapped his Mk17 rifle into Creede’s center mass. 

“Contact right! Right!” Another hunter screamed as a grey-coated Hispo, lumbered gracefully through the smoke and ruin, snatching another rifleman in his jaws, shaking him, then threw him into the inferno consuming one of the shacks. Old Man Moral, with two younger Crinos in tow. They paused, remaining poised as Creede took the last hunter of the firing line by the legs and broke him like a wishbone. 

Come back to us, Hector, said Old Man Moral in the High Tongue. Creede snarled, brandishing his bloodied snout. 

They’re gone for now, boy, but more are coming.

Creede roared in response, wordless. The Garou flanking Old Man Moral flinched, but the grizzled Philodox remained unshaken. All three of them had seen the same thing; wounds from silver partially absorbed, enough to kill one of them a few times over.

Please, my boy. Please prove me wrong… Moral’s muscles shifted and bunched beneath his grayed hide, but slowly, reason returned to Creede’s eyes. Gaze falling, he saw a wolf pup with broken and burnt hind legs, a bullet in her side and her tail hacked off, but she breathed. Slowly, Creede resumed his breed form, staggering and shaking from unspent adrenaline and Rage, and from the cold horror of… everything. 

“Stag protect us…” Creede breathed, running a hand down his face, smearing blood down his haunted features. Bodies lay strewn, friend, foe, and too many innocent. Shrugging out of his shirt, Creede swaddled Dawn and cradled her in his arms, keeping pressure on the gunshot. 

“Hector!” Murphy cried, her voice hoarse. She was wounded, but still tough as nails, and holding herself together, if only barely. She and him, both. Kelly clutched her mother’s neck desperately, and when he tried to check on her, couldn’t bring her to look him in the eyes. Weeping silently, the poor child suckled on her thumb. Looking to Murphy, she tipped her chin to the grisly display in the plaza. 

“She saw all of it,” Murphy whispered. 

“Baby-girl, I’m so sorry…” Creede sighed. He wanted to hold his daughter, kiss her, tell her everything would be okay, but how could he tell that lie in their surroundings? In his state, smattered in blood and death?

“What now?” Creede asked.

“Matthew made use of your timely entry to get the rest of the kinfolk to the mines through the bootlegger tunnels. If we can wait them out or lose their trail in the mines, we can round about to Helena and get some transportation.” 

“Abandon the Sept? We’ve been living here for nearly two-hundred years!” Old Man Moral objected, resuming his homid shape, his companions returning to their breed forms; human and wolf. 

“Liam’s dead, Papo!” Murphy cried, “Liam, Millie, Zoe, Alester… all the kin we lost? And we don’t even know about the hunting party! If we stay here, we’re all dead!” Murphy’s bright eyes welled, but the tears didn’t break. Kelly flinched at the raised voices, biting her thumb with a whimper. 

“Murphy’s right,” Creede said. “We cut our losses, split up to divide their forces. Spread ‘em thin enough, they might overextend.” Old Man Moral paced, tugging his beard angrily. 

“Shit. Shit! Fine… Hector, you take the kinfolk eastward to Chicago. We’ve got family there. Distant relation, but honest. The kinfolk will be safe there” Moral said. 

“I’ve got a cousin in Chicago, too. I’ll make sure our people settle in” Creede responded, and Old Man Moral nodded with a grunt.

“I’ll take Jamie and Dorothy,” Old Man Moral said with a gesture to the Garou behind him, “Matthew, as well. Bigger threat, better game for these hunter bastards, try taking them off your scent.”

“Where will you go, Papo?” Murphy inquired. 

“West, maybe Washington or Oregon.”

In the distance, engines rumbled, and the warble of a helicopter beat the air. 

“We need to go!”

Through the earthen bootlegger tunnel, the Creede and Moral families twisted and turned through the subterranean passage. Deep brown earth gave way to dusty black and gray stone, marking their entry to the Blue Mountain. Garou glyphs danced on the walls, etched by tool and claw through the years. Creede passed little Dawn off to Jamie, a Child of Gaia, who ebbed the healing powers of the Mother into the lupus kin. Ascending rickety wooden ladders and slithering through half-collapsed tunnels, they caught up with Matthew and the rest of the kinfolk. Bloodied and battered, they bandaged those in the least need. A matronly kinfolk woman had succumbed to her wounds in the climb, clutched somberly by her successors. 

“Hector? Holy shite, you fuckin’ animal…” Matthew breathed in disbelief. “You beautiful, bloody, bastard.” A spindly hand clapped Creede’s neck, but no smiles were exchanged between them. Creede had seen Millie’s body, and seen what happened to her husband and child in the beginning of the assault. Creede could only touch his brow to Matt’s. 

“We don’t have a lot of time, Matt. More of those fuckers are right behind us, complete with air support. We gotta git before they close us in.” Creede said lowly, not wanting to panic the already shaken kinfolk. 

“Yer fuckin’ me, right?”

“If only.”

“Jaysis… alright, what’s the plan?”

So Creede, Murphy, and Old Man Moral laid out the plan to divide and survive. Dorothy, the lupus Get of Fenris who had been with the Old Man’s party, insisted they take Dawn with them. Dorothy could care for a lupus kinfolk cub easier than a homid could. It was a gamble, and it was a risk. The kinfolk were already so few, now. Ten in all. There was no time to waste. 

Moving as quickly as they could with the wounded, they traversed the coal-black tunnels of the mountain’s mines. Glyph markers showed the way, their journey lit by a few personal penlights and an appropriated lighter. It was quiet as the grave within the bowels of the mountain, so the echoing rumble came as a surprise. 

“What in sam-hell?” Creede growled, once again in rear guard. Another booming rumble that shook coal dust from the tunnel ceiling. Then, voices. Echoing voices. 

“Double time it, boys n’ girls!” Creede hissed. 

“What is it?” Murphy called back.

“Bad company.”

Doubling a snail’s pace through dark and dangerous terrain wasn’t going to be enough. The voices got closer, the booming more frequent. Whole segments of wall crumbled loose, showering the ragged band in fine black dust. 

“Here it is!” Matt called, “The exit fork!” Their passage split up ahead, leading to two narrow shafts, the draft evident as it tugged gently at the group. Thanks was given to Gaia, to Stag, to all manner of spirit, when, 

BOOM!

The mountain shook, the rundown mine buckling with a crash. An overhead crossbeam fell free with a rain of dense, dark stone right over Murphy’s head. Creede didn’t even think. Dashing forward to mid formation, Creede shoved Murphy and Kelly out of the way, and braced. The oak beam fell across his broad shoulders as stone piled atop it. Bones broke as Creede was driven to a knee, almost crushed. 

“Go!” He shouted before forcing the Change back up to Crinos. The kinfolk trickled between Creede’s legs as he hoisted the beam and stone. Another boom, and another rush of loose earth. Teeth clenched, Creede mustered all his strength, all his will against the mine, the mountain, collapsing upon him. 

A gunshot. Two. Five. Creede felt the bite of silver rip through his back, but it didn’t pass through his massive torso. Creede never thought he’d be thankful for hollow points.

“Hector!”

“Daddy!” Murphy and Kelly at once, seeing Creede shake and threaten to buckle. Another boom, and more falling earth. Blood smeared Creede’s fangs, stung on his short breath. Golden eyes half lidded, he saw Kelly gazing up at him with her brilliant, beautiful eyes, her little hand reaching for him. Forced to his knees by his burden, Creede pushed his muzzle to her hand, his nose hot, blood running from his nostrils. 

I love you, little one.

Creede’s eyes fluttered, lazily wincing as another volley ripped into him. Creede’s eyes rolled back, and for a brief moment, darkness took him. No more pain, no more anything. This is it, he thought. Sweetest Murphy, you deserved so much more… 

Not done… rumbled a ragged, primal thought. The Wolf. Endure. Survive. Hunt them. Kill them all. Revenge. Protect… Not done. Not done. Get up! WAKE UP! Searing hot Rage lanced through the center of Creede’s being, physical and spiritual, as his eyes snapped open with a rakish breath. 

“We got a cantankerous motherfucker, here!”

“Reloading!” The hunters. Damn them… On shaking legs, Creede pushed himself up to two feet, a bloody roar foaming through clenched teeth. Old Man Moral was frozen in place, aghast as he watched Creede.

A hand tugged on Creede’s abdominal fur roughly, a hoarse, sobbing shout. 

“Hector Joshua-Lawrence Creede, never do that again!” Murphy, radiant as a queen, shining with gnostic power as she poured Mother’s healing Touch into him. With a final effort, Creede shrugged his way free from the beam. Collapsing stone raked and scored its way over his broad back, falling harmlessly around Murphy as he scooped her up and stumbled free. He and the Old Man met eyes, and exchanged a last nod of solidarity. 

“Take care of my girl, Hector “Shoulders-the-Mountain” Creede.”

The two parties split ways. Creede and Murphy stole away through the cover of the forest, reaching a trailer park just outside Helena before dawn. For emergencies or prolonged assignments, the Sept had a Ford Bronco and Winnebago camper set aside, marked subtly with a glyph on the bumper of each. Piling in, they drove like the hounds of hell bit at their heels, for the surely did. Racing desperately down sprawling country roads, Hector Creede lead his ragtag survivors to the hope of sanctuary in Chicago.

A desperate hope beneath a blood-red moon.