WWotWW - Chapter 40 - Looming Shadows (Patreon)

With little to do until the girls returned, I pulled my rifle case out of my scattered belongings and hauled it over to the ridge. 

After channelling my magic through my weapons several times over the last few days I fully intended to give them a full inspection and cleaning to prepare for whatever came after us next; However, once I finally got settled, with the hard rock against my back and my rifle in my lap, I found I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

My eyes kept wandering towards the edge of the clearing, probing long shadows between the trees. I felt like I was being watched, and if that was true, there was no way I was going to disassemble my weapons right now.

“Mow?” asked, putting a paw on my leg and making me nearly jump right off my perch. I’d been so focused on the treeline that I hadn’t noticed her approach.

“I’m fine,” I replied slowly. “A little sore, and a little jumpy, but that’s all.”

She glanced between me and the edge of the clearing before finally scowling at me. “Mero?”

“I’m not looking at anything,” I grumbled. “I just decided to keep watch for awhile, is that so bad?”

“Muurrrrr?” 

“Yes, with my full gun cleaning kit out I just…” I sighed. “Look, I’m not going to lie, after I finished talking to Clara I started thinking. Do you know how many things are even capable of fighting a powerful spirit? No, here’s a better question: do you know how many things are even capable of touching a powerful spirit?”

My familiar cocked her head to the side. “Mow?”

“I can name maybe… a dozen things capable of driving off a spirit as strong as Play’s friend, and about five capable of fighting an incorporeal entity and only one that’s strong enough to wound a spirit as badly as our friend was last night,” I said. “But what really scares me is that in all my research, and all my encounters with the supernatural, I’ve never heard of anything even remotely similar to that corruption that latched onto the spirit.” 

Kaylee nodded sagely, before licking a paw and starting to groom herself. I just ignored her and continued my thought. 

“It would need to have some sort of spiritual basis in order for it to latch onto and meld with the spirit like that, but when we cut up that zombie yesterday, I watched that ichor spill out and splatter all over the ground, so I know it has a physical presence. The only two things that could meld the physical and spiritual like that, that I can think of anyways, are necromancy and alchemy, and those are so far out of my area of expertise it’s not even funny,” I muttered.

“Mer?” Kaylee asked.

“Well, if Clara knew anything I would expected her to have said something already, but you’re right, it might be a local phenomenon, so I should ask her. Maybe there’s a local legend or something,” I said, glancing over at my partner who was sitting cross legged next to the campfire, carefully creating effigies with sticks and twine while chanting. “Later though, it looks like she’s busy with the wards, and I want to get my thoughts together first,” I said, before shoving myself to my feet. “Ack! This is so frustrating! I feel like like I should at least have an inking of what this thing could be! I worked as a coven enforcer for years, and fought all sorts of supernatural beasties. What am I missing?”

Kaylee started to glance towards me lazily, but before she could finish she completely froze. She jumped to her feet, arched her back, and hissed louder than I’d ever heard her hiss before. 

“What? What is it?” I asked, raising my rifle. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Clara throw down her project and snatch up her rifle too, before glancing towards me. 

I shrugged helplessly at her, before turning sideways so I could see both Kaylee and the treeline. “Uhhh… you want to fill us in with what’s going on? You’re kind of freaking us out here,” I said.

“Mrrrrrrrrrrrrrrooowwwww” the cat yowled, batting towards the edge of the clearing.

“What do you mean ‘It’s right there’?” I asked frantically, scanning the treeline. “There’s nothing there but the trees!” 

I nearly gave up, and turned back towards Kaylee for more information, when I saw something. The faintest glint as a rogue sunbeam managed to penetrate through the canopy and reflected off something metallic. 

Clara had apparently seen it too because she reached into the bag at her hip, pulled out a spherical rock, whispered something to it, and chucked it as far as she could into the treeline. 

As soon as it hit the ground, the rock began to give off a dull blue glow. It wasn’t enough to completely illuminate the area, but it was enough for me to make out the silhouette of what had been hiding just out of view.

It was massive, at least ten feet tall, with horrifically twisted limbs completely bulging with muscle. It looked like it’s right arm ended in some sort of long, curved, three fingered claw, and it’s left was holding something long and cylindrical. A club perhaps.

“What is that?!” Clara yelled.

“How am I supposed to know?” I shouted back. “It’s living in your back yard! You sure you’ve never heard of anything like this before?” 

“The coven settled out here because there weren’t any dangerous mythicals in the area. I think I would have heard of a troll, or ogre running around,” she replied.

“Yeah, I’d hope so,” I muttered, before returning my full attention to the creature. It just stood there in the darkness, head slowly rolling back and forth, like it was too heavy for the creature’s massive neck. I couldn’t tell if it was observing us, or waiting for something, but after a couple seconds it let it’s head fall to the side, resting on it’s right shoulder, while slowly heafting the weapon in it’s left hand.

I frowned. It hadn’t tried to move forward so what was it…

Kaylee yowled in fear, bolting across the camp, and at nearly the same moment I heard something. 

Clack-Clack-Clack. 

It was rhythmic, but rapidly growing faster. It took me a second to figure out where I’d heard that noise before, and when I did, my blood went cold. “Get to cover!” I screamed as the creature unleashed a torrent of bullets into the clearing. 

I dove behind a rock that was too small to completely hide behind, but was the only decent option that didn’t require me to sprint across open ground for several seconds to get to. Not with what was out there.

“What’s going on now? Is that thing shooting at us?” Clara shouted from her far more secure cover.

“It appears so,” I yelled back, trying to make myself as small as possible. “You know, I don’t normally like to jump to conclusions; that’s why I gave Graves the benefit of the doubt earlier, but I really doubt that anyone else, sans the US army, has resources avaliable to import gattling guns to the area.”

“It’s a what?!?!” Clara shouted over the relentless barrage. 

I didn’t reply, I was far too busy keeping my head down. Thankfully the barrage didn’t last very long, maybe ten seconds top before the hail of gunfire was replaced by a slow ‘click-click-click’

Peeking around the rock, I watched as the creature looked at it’s weapon for a moment, before lowering the heavy weapon, turning and just walking away.

“Uhhhh…..” I muttered, dumbfounded. “That’s it? What was that? Was it trying to scare us?” I exclaimed, jumping to my feet.

“We’re just lucky that it was a terrible shot,” Clara said, as she crawled out of here cover. “It might have messed up the campsite, but I don’t think it even came close to hitting me.”

“That’s not a surprise,” I said. “That weapon is supposed to be mounted on a wagon, and manned by a two man team. The fact that that thing can carry, and fire it, with one hand is scary enough for me.” I spent a moment dusting myself off before wandering over to where I’d dropped my weapons. “Why do you think it didn’t try to follow up, and finish us off? We would have been easy targets while we were pinned down like that.”

“If I had to guess… because it couldn’t. It probably couldn’t pass through the spiritual protection,” Clara said.

“It’s took bad those spiritual wards don’t work against bullets,” I muttered. “Why would anyone give a monster like that a weapon of… ohhhhhhh…”

“What oh? Why’d you stop?” Clara asked.

“You know how we were wondering why the tribe would have abandoned the valley, despite the fact that their protections keep out both the miasma AND the creatures it’s animated?” I asked, gesturing to the torn up ground around us. “Like I said, the wards don’t block bullets.”

“And if that thing is capible of going toe to toe with a spirit…” Clara said, trailing off.

“Then one of the smartest moves the tribe could do is leave the area, and hope that monster didn’t follow them,” I finished. “I knew Grimes was a cold hearted bastard, but this…” 

“But why go to all this trouble? What could he possibly have to gain by releasing a monster here?” Clara asked.

“That my friend, is a very good question,” I replied. “I think we better have another talk with Plays when the girls get back.”