So, I shot him.<\/p>\n
You’re not surprised.\u00a0 You know what an amateur with a gun is like, and, well, in the words of Xander Cage, “I had my leg in a cast for about three months. All I did was play first-person shooter video games.”<\/p>\n
Which isn’t true, but it’s kind of relevant to the story, because a lot of what I know about shooting I learned from beating all the versions I can of “House of the Dead.”<\/p>\n
It didn’t prepare me for the feeling of pulling the trigger, the sudden way time stood still (I grasped “bullet time” in a way “the Matrix” hadn’t prepared me for) as the projectile (what was in that spell, Viktor?\u00a0 An arrow of Apollo and Artemis?) did this crazy shimmery rush towards the Wolf (it was coming at me – that gave it the capital letter) and my instincts suddenly made war on each other, one set demanding, “This isn’t real fighting!\u00a0 You need to engage!\u00a0 Go bite it!” and another saying, “Run!\u00a0 Run while you still can, doughboy!” as well as an actual moral objection, “You’re going to hurt something!\u00a0 Something that lives and breathes!” along with a dash of, “Wow, it looks like your aim wasn’t that bad,” hubris, and all the mundane bits like, “Whoa.\u00a0 That had a kick,” and catching my breath from the pace Viktor had taken into the valley, and another beat of Ivan’s ailing heart as his domain began to fail, and well, I was overwhelmed.<\/p>\n
Only for an instant, less than a heartbeat, and then some victor was declared in my head because I started running toward and shouting at the beast.\u00a0 I don’t even know if I had managed words in my first exhale of noise, but I did see Viktor turn, surprised.\u00a0 I ended up yelling, “You stupid mage! It’s a waste of a good talent!\u00a0 Why are wizards such idiots?”\u00a0 I went on in that vein, as the inky darkness of the wolf started to shrink, black shadow turning into black hair, white teeth into drawn skin, only the eyes remaining the same until they closed in pain.<\/p>\n
“Stupid sorcerors,” I muttered.\u00a0 Yeah, I lapse perilously close to alliteration when I’m grumpy.\u00a0 Or should that be “annoyed and angry?”\u00a0 Nevermind.<\/p>\n
Viktor just grunted. “You spoke his name,” he said. He stared at Artur.<\/p>\n
“And he appeared?\u00a0 That’s not one of my usual tricks,” I said.<\/p>\n
“It is a signature of demons,” Viktor corrected.<\/p>\n
“It’s a small world,” I pointed out.\u00a0 “Besides, you have to speak it with will and purpose.”<\/p>\n
“It is, as you say, a small world.”\u00a0 He looked out.\u00a0 “It gets smaller.”<\/p>\n
A lot can happen in a heartbeat, they say.\u00a0 “What did I shoot him with?”<\/p>\n
“It is, as they say, complicated.\u00a0 A simple enough spell, but it draws on many sources.”<\/p>\n
Artur managed something.\u00a0 I didn’t recognize it, and hoped Viktor understood it.\u00a0 He nodded.\u00a0 “He said, `If you are afraid of wolves, don’t go into the woods.'”<\/p>\n
“`If you can’t stand a cooked man, don’t go into the kitchen?’\u00a0 It’s not going to make it into a book of phrases.”\u00a0 I looked down at Artur.\u00a0 Then I kicked him, hard, in the side.<\/p>\n
“What was that for?” Viktor looked confused.<\/p>\n
“They say never to kick a man when he’s down.\u00a0 I disagree.\u00a0 It’s the best time to kick him because he’s near my feet.\u00a0 Besides, I can’t hold him.\u00a0 I couldn’t explain to the police why there’s a bunch of dead bodies in a restaurant down the street and how Artur, here is involved.\u00a0 But I can make him take me to Nellie, and I will if I have to kick him every step of the way.”<\/p>\n
Artur raised an eyebrow.\u00a0 “Art going to kill her?”<\/p>\n
I shook my head.\u00a0 “No one’s going to kill anybody.\u00a0 I’m still sick in the gut from what I’ve seen and done tonight. ”\u00a0 I kicked him again, and he groaned.\u00a0 I was making sure to kick him where the shot broke his spell.\u00a0 “But I’m human and my real power is in adapting to change, so no promises.”<\/p>\n
Artur curled up a little, and I aimed for him a third time before Viktor put up his hand.\u00a0 “Enough!\u00a0 He is in no pain from your kicking.\u00a0 He has lost his sense of connection between forms.”\u00a0 The huntsman looked at me.\u00a0 “We still must find Ivan.”<\/p>\n
Artur started spitting out something more, but Viktor only kicked him in a way that made him really curl up.\u00a0 Yeah, I was a bit of a wuss.\u00a0 Viktor didn’t seem worried about say, breaking a few ribs.<\/p>\n
“Do you want to stay here?” Viktor asked, ignoring Artur’s whimpering.<\/p>\n
“Unless I can leash him, I don’t want to go where I can’t see him.”\u00a0 I glared at Artur.<\/p>\n
“I can leave him with the hounds, but we must hurry.\u00a0 If he is to be believed,” he gestured to Artur, “Ivan is not far, but he is in not good shape.”<\/p>\n
“Hurry back,” I decided.\u00a0 “Do you have any more of those guns?”<\/p>\n
“The wolves, they will have dissolved with Artur’s spells.”\u00a0\u00a0 Viktor pointed at one of the borzoi and gave it some commands.\u00a0 “This one, I named Nikolai.\u00a0 He will protect you.\u00a0 Whatever Artur is,” and he showed teeth, “Nikolai will rip out his throat if needed.”<\/p>\n
I felt a little better.\u00a0 “Like I said, hurry.”<\/p>\n
Viktor nodded and was gone.<\/p>\n
I got out of where I judged was Artur’s reach, and crouched down a little.\u00a0 “So,” I said.\u00a0 “In English, this time, are you a demon?”<\/p>\n
Artur grimaced.<\/p>\n
“Not much of an answer.\u00a0 Guess you weren’t needing that throat, which means to me that yes, you’re an Outsider.\u00a0 Humans like that not-bleeding-from-the-jugular thing.”\u00a0 I started to get up.<\/p>\n
“No.”<\/p>\n
“So many things you could be answering, but not very helpful.\u00a0 Nikolai?” I asked, and I pet the hound as he came near me, eyes never straying from Artur’s form.<\/p>\n
“No, I am not all demon.\u00a0 I helped you.\u00a0 I thought you would see the beast for what she was and close her gate.”\u00a0 His words were punctuated with gasps for air.<\/p>\n
“I was working on it.\u00a0 Not all demon, so, what, vampire?\u00a0 Cursed?\u00a0 I just ask out of curiosity.”\u00a0 Well, curiosity and because it meant something more to research how to stop.<\/p>\n
“Scry says you were eating with…” he breathed out a few words.\u00a0 “Witches, not working.”<\/p>\n
“My work habits don’t leave innocent folks drained of life force.\u00a0\u00a0 Besides, I don’t like people scrying on me.\u00a0 I’m entitled to my privacy.\u00a0 It’s in the Constitution, I think.”<\/p>\n
He managed an aborted chuckle.\u00a0 “No innocents.\u00a0 Ivan called them to trap me.\u00a0 Took shadows to shape, look like people.\u00a0 He speaks with the dead.”<\/p>\n
I had to admit, it was possible.\u00a0 I didn’t poke at them and do any lab tests or anything.\u00a0 “I heard that.”<\/p>\n
“I’m… hunter.\u00a0 He has…bad heart.”\u00a0 I couldn’t tell if it was any easier or getting worse for Artur to speak.\u00a0 I wasn’t coming any closer, though.\u00a0 I’d seen, like, at least one horror movie in my life.\u00a0 Artur convulsed, and his skin started to crack and peel like flakes of…<\/p>\n
Oh, bleepin’ demons.<\/p>\n
He was beginning to burn.\u00a0 “Nikolai, pee on him or something.\u00a0 I need him alive!”<\/p>\n
The dog looked startled, and moved away from me.\u00a0 I followed the direction he was going, in part not to watch Artur.\u00a0 It was a good thing I did, because I saw Viktor and Ivan returning from wherever the huntsman had been fetching the necromancer.\u00a0 Yeah, that’s probably the term for it.<\/p>\n
I saw Ivan’s eyes smoulder, literally, from where he was leaning on Viktor.\u00a0 He looked…old and grey.<\/p>\n
“No, seriously, the gate’s still open.\u00a0 Ivan, don’t–”<\/p>\n
He pulled away from Viktor and I saw one of Viktor’s guns from where he had hidden it behind the other sorceror.\u00a0 It was small in his hand.\u00a0 He smiled at me, and pulled the trigger.<\/p>\n
A lot can change in a heartbeat.<\/p>\n
Like Viktor slugging Ivan, and Artur shedding his skin, and the bolt was still coming at me, and I saw it, it was so slow?\u00a0 Why couldn’t I just move out of the way?\u00a0 And then as the last of Artur’s skin came loose, and my eyes wanted to make sense of the being underneath it, but then he grabbed me, and Nikolai licked my hand, and I saw all of the light – so much light, light that blinded rather than illuminated, and I felt the gate open and all of us being swallowed, as if the gate was something alive…<\/p>\n
…and in my head, all I could hear was a single heartbeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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