Twenty-Four
Five of Io’s drones circled overhead, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.
I strode into that football stadium looking for a fight, and I found one. No words were exchanged. Kevin paused, scepter in hand as he stood over his girlfriend’s open coffin, and looked my way. His face flickered away, revealing a sickening glowing skull beneath the ghostly flesh. I raised both of my pistols and started firing.
He pointed his scepter my way and erected a shield of necrotic energy, but my bullets weren’t meant for him. No, I was going to rip his heart out with my bare hands god damnit. Instead, my rounds found their way into the skulls of his undead posse, scattering his crowd of collegiate cultists as they started dropping left and right.
Kevin chattered out a command, and suddenly all the footballers in the crowd charged towards me. My rounds bounced off their helmets as sickly green sigils blazed over their ram’s horn artwork of their team mascot. Protection sigils. Fourteen of the bulkiest dudes I’d ever seen all lumbered my way. All of them had been transformed into zombies, and all of them were wearing enchanted protection around the one area of their bodies I could actually damage.
I fired off a hail of bullets, emptying both clips into the animated corpses lumbering my way without even slowing them down. I cursed under my breath as I did a stylish double reload, flipping my jacket back to reveal the enchanted pouch filled with dozens of spare clips. I flicked out the empty clips and reloaded both guns in record time (just because I’m in a tight spot doesn’t mean I can’t be cool under pressure).
Now, I’ve fought monsters larger than these undead humans, but usually only one at a time. A whole team of them that were functionally invulnerable was going to take me time to cut through. Time I didn’t have, as Kevin was already packing up the coffin and getting his frat bros and groupies to pick it up and cart it off the field.
Luckily, I wasn’t alone.
Io, I need those helmets off.
Got it, Io’s sultry voice replied. Three of her drones broke formation and dive bombed the pack of undead athletes. Their talons carved through the protection sigils and ripped the helmets off one at a time.
I fired two rounds at a time into their skulls, dropping the footballers down in short order. The only problem now was that these fuckers were to fast for me to take out all fourteen before they closed to melee range.
Autumn, I need you to slow these guys down with some heavy roots or something.
Autumn reacted in shock, as if she had not been expecting me to call on her so soon. But she still did her best to comply.
Over on the other end of the field, the fleeing cultists stumbled and dropped the coffin as branches shot up and tripped them.
While this slowed down their escape and served to distract Kevin, who shouted out a curse in some language I did not know and pointed his scepter over their way, holding the coffin aloft with a wave of necrotic black energy and clearing away the roots that Autumn had sent to trip up his followers; it really didn’t help me deal with the remaining nine football freaks.
Did I do good? Autumn asked innocently.
You did great, I lied.
Dropping my guns and drawing my sword, I gritted my teeth and went on the offensive.
The lamia-like agility I’d absorbed from Io kicked in automatically, and I snaked my way through the first three with ease. My sword flashed out as the first one approached, removing its head with ease. I sidestepped the second one and dragged my blade through its (thankfully uncovered) skull. The third one required an extra second of work to shoulder-check and then stab through the brain. That extra second cost me big time.
Did I mention that zombies pack a much bigger wallop than normal humans? Something about our brains always giving us inhibitions to protect our bodies from damage, and if you remove the necessity for those inhibitions you’d have easily twice the strength of a normal human. Well, I can attest to the fact that zombies four and five tackling me at full-speed with their zombified super-strength felt like what I’d imagine getting run over by a pair of motorcycles would feel like.
Bad news, I was now on my back facing down six super strong and super heavy zombies. The good news was all of these idiots were still wearing those enchanted helmets, meaning at least they couldn’t bite me.
Thanks to Aleksei’s tailor, all of my super snazzy clothing was also immune to their scratching. And thanks to Autumn, what little skin was exposed was reflexively coated in a light bit of wooden armor that kept me safe from infection.
But I was still pinned.
Which is where Tabitha’s powers came into play.
I had only wolfed out twice before. Both times it was extremely painful and both times I had said, “never again,” yet here I was doing it again.
With a feral cry of rage that quickly morphed into a defiant howl, my body erupted into a new form altogether. My hands became closer to claws. My mouth became a snout. My senses sharpened even as my sight lost a few colors. It was a fair trade in my opinion.
Zombies number four and five went flying as I rose up to a standing position.
Io’s drones darted down and removed their helmets. Both drones took aim and built up a magical charge, firing point-blank spells into their brains to silence the armored zombies.
Number six took an angry swipe from my claws to the face that tore its head clean off even with the enchanted helmet, sending both skull and helmet flying across the field as I charged at Kevin.
I tore zombies seven and eight apart as I got up to speed, knocking their heads off with a few well-placed claw attacks.
Zombie number nine pissed me off, trying to tackle me from the side. I juked it and let it fall to the ground, where I pulverized its skull with my heel and kept running.
Their spirits stir and attempt to rise. I shall remind them they are only a small part of a greater balance, Autumn said. Roots shot through all fourteen zombies and golden light purified them. Their phantoms burst free of each corpse and suddenly burst into a thousand green particles each, like they’d swallowed a heavy-duty firework rocket.
Surprised at her display, I shout out a Thanks, Autumn! and kept running.
I sprinted across the football field still on two legs. Unlike Tabitha, whose wolf form was far more bestial and even harder to control, I looked more humanoid, minus the fur, snout, and ears. I was even taller (well over seven feet) and way stronger than my base form, and looked an awful lot like a human with the head of a wolf. And I was still the best-dressed werewolf in all of Eastport thanks to Aleksei’s tailor and his ability to plan ahead and make adaptable clothing that re-sized with me. Which was badass. Unfortunately, the painful transformation usually made this my absolutely last resort in a fight.
Wolfing out made it a lot harder to focus on the big picture stuff. Like right and wrong and what to eat for breakfast. But the simple stuff, like tearing the motherfucker who killed my fiance apart with my teeth and claws? That stuff was easy. I could handle that all day long.
Kevin turned to me and I saw panic flicker across his eyes as he took in my new appearance and the lack of any of his footballer zombies left standing to act as a barrier between him and my unstoppable retribution.
His eyes darted towards the coffin, which his cultists were only just starting to get a handle on now, then back to me. Cursing in frustration, he fished into his letterman jacket with his off hand and pulled out a revolver; leveling it at me with a shaky grasp and firing.
One of Io’s drones swooped down alongside me and projected a shield out, easily deflecting the first bullet. Kevin cursed aloud and fired again, aiming for the drone. Io’s little machine projected a new shield, but this bullet came hurtling at us with a crackle of black energy and punched clean through the drone.
He spent his remaining four shots taking out the rest of Io’s flock, then cast the revolver aside and dropped his girlfriend’s coffin onto the shoulders of his followers so harshly that they almost buckled under the sudden weight.
With a little flourish like he was an old west gunslinger, Kevin brought his scepter around towards me and fired off a beach ball-sized necrotic blast that I had a strong inkling could’ve torn me apart better than any shotgun blast, silver or otherwise.
I slid under the incoming spell like a hitter coming into home plate, feeling a deathly chill crawl over me as the writhing energy passed over my wolf-snout by fractions of a centimeter.
Then I was up again and charging the final distance, and it was all about to be over.
Kevin roared in anger and shunted the scepter out towards me, no longer pointing the business end my way but holding out like he was brandishing a cross at a vampire.
A blastwave detonated across the football field with Kevin at its epicenter, and I was hurled through the air like a ragdoll.