Duel Nature (15 page)

Grim, my second personality, is a savant. My
therapist, who is also my liaison with the federal government,
thinks that part of my mind split itself when I was eight. When my
family was axed to death in front of me. Somehow I
compartmentalized the primitive, savage part of my mind that a
million years ago help Grok, my caveman ancestor to fight and
survive. I packed that fighter-self into its own section and left
it to face the demon that killed my folks. Gina says that when
faced with traumatic horror people, especially children, may split
off a part of their personality to deal with it.

In my case, Grim sat silent for years,
absorbing every martial arts class, every defensive tactic, every
combat lesson I ever learned. And he (if I can, in fact refer to a
part of myself that way) assimilated and meshed those lessons with
genius. When I was exposed to demonic blood, it bound itself to the
Grim part of me, giving my savage self a boost of ruthless ability
that was, frankly, scary. Grim would have been a frightening
adversary in a normal body, being able to push it beyond human
limitations. In my V-squared riddled, metabolically jacked,
exponentially stronger vampire-like body, equipped with my God
given aura abilities, well, Grim was like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey
Dahmer mixed with Wolverine and Sargent Slaughter on steroids. And
he’d (I’d?) apparently been thinking about my/our last bout with
Cheeno beast.

I/we landed on the gray skinned rubbery
monster, my limbs and torso wreathed with mono-molecular aura
blades, including the forearm that was against its throat. The
Cheeno screamed a short abbreviated screech as its body exploded
into at least seven individual and highly disgusting chunks, plus
whole slew of smaller, mushier pieces, all liberally coated with an
oil thick, black blood-like fluid.

Knowing it was demonic in nature, I wrestled
back enough control from Grim to try and push the evil essence from
the body, er, chunks. But the particular spidey-sense that I use
with demons gave me some strange feedback. The demon wasn’t spread
throughout the body like the Hellbourne I was used to dealing with.
Instead it was all concentrated in the spattered mush that used to
be the thing’s chest.

Reaching my left hand into the black and gray
goo, I encountered a large hard lump. An ice cold pod the size of a
grapefruit. Pulling it out I found myself holding a frozen black
heart that practically screamed with demonic evil. I threw it
straight up into the air overhead and called to Kirby in my head.
My mental cry was answered with the mother of all raptor shrieks as
the giant, cloudy-dark form of the God’s Hawk flashed into our
realm of existence, snatched the demon heart in a talon that could
have been at home on the end of a logger’s Cherry picker, and
blinked back out of the sky. All told, the whole exchange took a
shade over two seconds.

Everyone around me was frozen in place,
staring with eyes wide, even the two remaining Cheenos that had
just crawled to the top of the leaf strewn tree trunks they had
knocked over to breach the wards.

A number of things happened at the same time
as the others unfroze. The moon chose that moment to break over the
edge of the forest, its cold white light making the resort daytime
bright to my enhanced vision. Jake, in his circle, Changed,
screaming with pain as his limbs and body first deconstructed then
rebuilt into something new. Britta, who had moved closer to the
circle that held Jake, screamed and whirled toward him, her right
foot scuffing the salt line that made up the magic circle. At the
same time, both Cheenos moved forward twenty feet in a blur,
keeping all Grim’s attention on them.

I moved to intercept the closest monster, but
they moved as a team, each as fast as I. There are tricks to
fighting multiple opponents at the same time, but it is very
difficult to prevail against coordinated fighters. But I didn’t
have to win, I just needed to stall.

Darting closer to the fire,
I grabbed two rounds of firewood, each oak and each about a foot in
diameter. The one in my right hand got flung at the far ghoul, who
jumped aside with liquid ease. That freed up both hands to piston
fire the second chunk like a super dense medicine ball. The
distance was shorter and the speed greater, so the monster closest
to me had to work a bit harder to dodge the projectile. Grim’s
throw was slightly off center, coming closer to the monster’s left
arm. Naturally it jumped to its right side, running into my aural
whip. The lash of energy sliced across the Cheeno’s chest and
abdomen, opening a deep gash that shone wetly with black intestine.
The wound started to close itself almost as soon as it was made,
but I was faster, using my left hand to
call
the monster’s digestive tract
toward me. A wet rope of black innards yanked through the open
wound, stopped from exiting by the self-zipping wound, which in
turn was kept from closing by the hose of guts. I didn’t know a lot
about Cheenos or Wendigos but I learned something that night….they
hate having their guts ripped out!

The seven foot ghoul
screamed in agony, then lowered its hate filled gaze and charged.
My left hand
yanked
again on the intestine leash, succeeding in pulling them out
far enough to trip the Cheeno.

That was as far as I got with that one, as a
freight train suddenly ran me over. The third Cheeno went right
over me, slashing with one set of razor claws. Fire flashed across
my back as I ate dirt. But the weight was momentary, as the monster
kept running straight for the circle that was now broken. The
vulnerable werewolf at its center was still finishing his
Change.

I bounced to my feet, but was too far away to
catch up with the awful speed of the Cheeno. It leapt for the
circle, mouth agape and ready to rend. A brown and black blur met
it in mid-air, Awasos in wolf form speeding to intercept the
demonic ghoul. The wolf was smaller than the demon, but that was
only momentary, because as soon as his hind feet left the ground,
Awasos Changed. The big wolf became a much bigger bear and the
Cheeno was knocked completely away from the circle by a half ton of
grizzly. Bones crunched and flesh shredded as my were bear-wolf
indulged himself in a rare blood frenzy. The gray monster literally
disappeared in multiple sprays of flesh and black blood.

Behind me, Jake stood unsteadily on four
heavy feet, shook himself and began to move unerringly toward
Britta and the breach in the circle. Gaining speed with every step,
the young were charged right out of the circle, knocked the blonde
teen over on his way and darted into the forest. The gutted Cheeno
screeched at the disappearing were, completely ignoring the fate of
his fellow demon. It slashed the rope of its own intestines away
with one set of horrid claws, then leapt after the running wolf,
even as its stomach finished healing. Moving much faster than the
wolf it sped into the forest. A black-haired, blue-eyed blur sailed
past me at full vampire speed, chasing the monster that was chasing
the wolf.

Moving over to the bear and the dripping
black mess he had made of the Cheeno, I reached into the mush and
groped for the frozen heart. “Help Tanya!” I said to Awasos. He
slapped the skull of the ghoul, crushing it flat with one giant
paw, then changed form to the faster wolf shape and flashed after
my vampire.

I wasted no time in finding
the demonic seed in the ruins of the Cheeno’s chest, hoisting it
high and calling
Kirby
in my mind.

The giant bird flashed in, grabbed the Cheeno
heart and flashed back out, leaving me free to race after my
bear-wolf and mate.

Chapter 17

The trail was clear. Jake’s wolf form wasn’t
the most graceful of weres and he had to weigh close to 400 pounds.
Smashed logs, broken saplings and piles of leaves that looked
bulldozed led me along his trail. The three supernaturals following
him left much less evidence but small signs of their passage were
still visible. In the thirty seconds it had taken me to deliver the
other Cheeno into Kirby’s iron grip, Jake had managed to cover the
better part of a third of a mile through the thick forest.

I caught up to the group just before the big
swamp. Sometime in the past few years, a storm of some type had
blown over a pair of old pine trees. Their root bases had been wide
but shallow and when they got ripped from the ground, the root
structures had formed giant discs that stuck straight up twenty
feet, forming a wall of sorts that the new werewolf hadn’t had time
to get past. Jake was on the far side of the little clearing near
the base of the root bundles, guarded by the smaller wolf form of
Awasos. Smaller doesn’t always mean weaker, as Awasos commands
strength beyond that of normal weres. At only 250 pounds, he was
still easily able to keep the bigger Jake away from the combat that
was occurring twenty feet away.

The Cheeno had met my vampire and her
tungsten swords and I got the distinct impression that it wasn’t
enjoying the introduction even a tiny bit. Every move it made was
countered at a speed that more than matched its own. Super hard,
razor sharp tungsten was clipping body parts from the demon faster
than it could regrow them. The whirlwind of gray monster and
black-clad vampire was moving almost faster than I could
follow.

The mayhem paused for a moment, the Cheeno
frustrated by its inability to get at the were. I had no idea why
they hungered for werewolves so much but that mystery was going to
have to wait, as the monster spotted me.

It moved my way in an awful blur, Grim
automatically moving up to the forefront of my consciousness to
meet it. Tanya started after it, which in hindsight was likely the
reaction it wanted. Stopping its forward momentum completely, it
whirled to face her, actually stretching back to catch her in its
claws as she barreled in our direction.

The Cheeno lunged toward my vampire, razor
talons open to clasp her arms before she could regroup to swing her
swords. In a micro second it became clear its intent and every
possible way that the whole thing could go wrong for Tanya flashed
through my head. I’m not saying that it really would have had her –
my vampire is really, really good in a fight, but I wasn’t happy
with the implications of her forward momentum and its grotesque
athletic performance. Grim wasn’t either. Fast as all of this
flowed through my head, Grim was moving.

The Cheeno was by necessity balanced on one
leg, the other pointing back my way to balance its reach. I grabbed
the outstretched leg in both hands and pulled, which first stopped
its lunge and then started to drag it my way.

Of course, Tanya was privy to most of my
thoughts, as our personal comm link had ratcheted up to full combat
mode in the blink of an Elder vampire’s eye. Anticipating my
action, she stepped sideways to her left, then spun
counterclockwise, letting her right leg sweep over the ground as
momentum did the work of turning her completely back around. Both
swords swept up, around and down, the right blade cleaving the
hands from the monster while the left blade snatched its head from
the trunk of its neck.

My rearward pull had enough power to yank its
body off the ground and my own spin sent the headless, handless
carcass flying through the air to crunch into a thick beech tree.
Oily black blood sprayed everywhere while the broken body convulsed
on the ground, while thirty free away the needle lined mouth
continued to snap and the disconnected hands clenched over and
over.

The body stopped its motion
when Awasos in grizz form landed on it with all four turkey-platter
feet. He growled as he stepped off (actually, it was more like
stepped
out
of) the
mess. I reached into the flattened chest and pulled out the
partially crushed and frozen black heart. A second later, Kirby
caught the third and last demonic organ of the night and screeched
in triumph as he flickered out of sight.

For a moment we all just looked at each
other, then we all turned looked at the remains.

I burned the body where it lay, blasting it
with aura till it came apart and blew away like sand on the beach.
I can’t always muster that much power unless I’m angry, but
fighting demonic monsters that consume werewolves apparently gave
me the necessary motivation.

Jake tried to take off, but Awasos, back in
wolf mode, brought him back in line. Jake seemed to think that
because he was bigger than ‘Sos he got to be boss. My wolf
disabused him of that idea right quick. Awasos was stronger, faster
and had spent enough time around the New York pack to pick up the
wheres and hows of establishing dominance.

We got back to the resort to find Garth and
Tom burning the Cheenos on one of the big bonfires. A pall of
greasy black smoke that stank of charred flesh stretched into the
moonlit night. Erika and Britta were spreading salt over the two
black blood soaked patches of ground where the demonic monsters
died. Everyone froze when the two wolves trotted out after us, but
‘Sos simply led Jake back to the circle and lay down next to him.
Jake got the idea and settled in while Quinby closed the circle
with fresh salt and re-invoked it, after letting Awasos back
out.

The Clevelands were gone. They had packed
their stuff in a flurry and left, something about trees falling and
demonic screeches in the night being too much for them. It was the
first smart thing I had seen from Cleveland.

Mitch and Gordon were up and watching the
cleanup with open mouths. No one had said a word to them so I took
them aside and had a little chat.

“You ever hear of Wendigos?” I asked.

“Of course!” Mitch answered after glancing at
his partner.