Dusk Territories: Always Burning (7 page)

Graham smiled before pulling himself back. A lure was needed and he just happened to have one. With a small kick, Heath’s body flipped over, allowing just his arm to jut out of cover of the purple leaves and shadows.

The woman approached the arm carefully. “Heath? What are you doing out there? Are you trying to get yours—“Her sentence felt to silence in her mouth. The curiosity was rewarded with her neck being snapped, and simultaneously tossed into the shadows.

Two were dead in a matter of a couple of minutes. Killing and protecting was what he did, and he knew he was as much as a weapon as he was a man.

Graham grabbed the gun now. The four men had probably realized that something was terribly wrong by now, and was preparing themselves for a fight. Too bad they would have to deal with a present first. He pulled a grenade from his hip.

Wheeling out of the cover, Graham quickly gauged his distance between himself and the party. In a flash of instinct, a lot slower than he would have wanted without adrenaline, pulled the pin on his grenade and tossed it. The perception was a bit wrong, given that he wanted to take out all three of the forerunners. Instead, the cooked grenade that erupted into a fiery explosion claimed only two lives. The third, the gaunt yellow beast, survived, though showered in the blood, guts, and brains of his fallen comrades.

That didn’t stop his charge. Unaffected by the deaths of his brothers, the savage started to spray bullets towards his attacker. Fire from his weapon was sloppy, but still almost slammed Graham in the chest. If he hadn’t kept moving, using a large boulder for cover, he would have been shot. But untrained was untrained, and he would pay the price.

Graham made him pay for his ill gun use with a calculated fire of his own. There was a difference, a gap as long as a canyon. Where the cannibal’s fire was wild, Graham’s was precise. Years of marksmanship training with guns like these were child’s play. Where the cannibal’s missed, the Marine had hit with little effort. All nine rounds, fired at three burst a piece, made contact at the chest and the head. He would have made that hit every time. Riddled with holes, the attacker fell to his knees; dead before gravity could even bring him down.

One more, twenty or so rounds left.
The man named Beastmaster still lived…and was smiling.

“You’re what I felt—“Beastmaster’s words were cut off by the M16A2 shots.

Death didn’t take him. The small, feline-like man stood unaffected by the bullets. A smile sat on the corner of his lip as two grey birds, almost as wide as bucklers, sat twitching at his feet. Their stomachs had taken the blows from the bullets, under a dense layer of fat. Blood leaked from their beaks and open wounds, slowly soaking Beastmaster’s bare feet in a puddle of red. He took some steps forwards, dark soil sticking to the soles of his feet. “Rude creature, aren’t you?”

Graham loaded his gun, tossing aside the empty mag for a fresh one. He poised himself for another round of fire, only to be knocked to his side. His head struck the ground, seeing nothing of what struck him at first. A weight of two-hundred or more pounds pressed itself on his chest, more than enough to crush the gun into lump of metal in his hand.
The blue-furred monster bellowed, drooling globs of saliva on his chest. It was some sort of cat, none li
ke he had ever encountered in his life. And, it was under the Beastmaster’s control.

“I don’t know what you are and what this was. But it’s over. Goodbye, Mister Dragur. Thanks for dwindling the idiocy of our clan. Kill him, Dagon.”

In a fuzzy mind, all Graham saw were the teeth of the monster biting down.

4

Cold-Snap

“Remove wild emotions; put them in a box until after the battle is over.”

“You make your largest mistakes in fear, gentlemen. Never forget that!”

Graham never forgot what Gunnery Sgt. James Rudolph said and never would. That was why he could stare at Dagon in its black eyes with no fear, making no hasty movements. Even peering into the glossy white fangs of the beast as it descended, he made no mistake. With just a tilt of his head, the beast’s jaws slammed into the ground where his head once was, causing a small crater in the ground. Dust and chips of dirt of showered the side of his face as the beast back pedaled from the sudden movement. It and its master stood shocked, both reeling from the impact.

“Dagon!” Beastmaster cried out. “Kill
him
!”

The order was the same, but much louder, much more panicked than before. Dagon tried again, this time with its claws. And again, Graham moved his body at the right times. It wasn’t completely reaction time. No. It was a deep set discipline, training under the right conditions. The beast tried viciously to cause mortal wounds, but was rewarded with superficial ones instead. Scrapes here and there lined Graham’s upper shoulders, and even a long slash down the bridge of his nose. No matter what, Graham still drew breath. Frustration of the master seeped into Dagon’s mind, and Graham gave a cold stare. “
The beast is completely under the man’s control. Its emotions are his. That’s why—“
Graham dodged another claw. “
That’s why I can dodge them like I would a human. He doesn’t trust the instincts of the animal.”

That brought a smile to the soldier’s face. “You’re a pathetic fucker,” he said aloud, as calm as a breeze.

He didn’t even need to see Beastmaster’s face to know that he was livid. Under the façade of coolness, Beastmaster had a temper. He was as much of an animal as his beast. Outside of battle, he moved majestically, walking through his own personal savanna as the king because he was the predator. But as soon as the tables turned he would grow angry and fierce. Graham heard this in the way his animal growled. Dagon let out a powerful roar before bending back for a strong swipe. That was a mistake and Graham wasn’t about to let the opportunity slip.

Graham slammed his right knee into the beast’s rib cage, earning a crunch of a rib. Dagon doubled back in pain, blood oozing out the creature’s mouth, and whining pitifully like a small house cat. It rolled to its feet, taking some more steps back,
trotting in almost disbelief. That gave Graham time,
time to slip from underneath the creature’s weight, and jump back to his feet. Now, he could see Beastmaster boiling from a safe distance.
“
Is there something wrong, bitch?” he asked, mockingly.

Graham, hunched over and staring at Beastmaster with those pale eyes, must have been a fearful sight even for a cannibal. Dark red, deoxygenated blood stained his decayed skin. He remained upright. He balled his fingers into a fist, showing the bone of his index finger. Graham had every intention of punching this man in the face, not just once or twice, but repeatedly. Having a hostage was one thing, eating flesh for the innocent that was a cardinal sin. Where else could a man go after that?

“Why aren’t you dead yet?” Beastmaster shouted, seething. “Dagon! Kill him!”

Bound to the man’s orders despite its condition, Dagon charged forward. Graham shook his head. He was too close for a grenade. He could get himself killed in the blast. There were other factors inside of battle. For example, noting the environment held certain perks. In his rage, did Beastmaster forget that they were at a lagoon? Graham took stepped back to the shoreline. Did he notice that Graham didn’t necessarily have to breathe? He had all the weapons that he needed to kill Dagon. Beastmaster’s fear was the last piece that he need, and that was graciously given to him. Dagon pounced, and was unsurprisingly propelled into the water with his prey under him.

They entered with a large splash. The water around them was dark, warm, and clean for the most part. Fish swam around them, hurrying to avoid the confrontation. Flakes of wood and other flotsam, either from the war or the cannibals, drifted in the purpled waters. There wasn’t a floor to the lake, only abyss.

Graham held his breath, keeping a good grip of Dagon’s head. He twisted the creature’s neck. It wasn’t enough. He fought the beast off for a moment, gaining a free hand. Before he even knew it, he had removed shemaugh from his neck. His fingers and arm did the rest of the work, tightening the cloth around the neck, and twisting it like a lever. The bone on the creature was far too strong to break, but the maneuver did cause the creature to yelp in pain. Or at least try to yelp. The water quickly entered the feline’s mouth, choking it better than Graham could ever could. It went limp in a minute, life sucked from it eyes.

With a margin of pride, Graham grabbed a tooth from the elongated fangs and tore it from its gums. Blood rose to the surface. Graham stabbed the animal over and over again. This wasn’t an act of cruelty, but persuasion. The Beastmaster—assuming that he couldn’t connect visually with the beast—would think he was dead. If he could, oh well. If he couldn’t, well that would be nice. Battle was brutal, and he was about to show him how different the two of them were in battle. He swam up to the surface, hand grasped tightly on the fang of Dagon. It was a perfect makeshift knife. Not as good as a KA-BAR, but it would have to do.

      
Graham emerged from the water, pulling himself to the surface. His clothes were heavy, but mental anger fueled him. Beastmaster was still a healthy length away, but he could see the eyes of the man getting larger and larger with every step. Apparently, he couldn’t connect optically with the beast—only emotionally. The moment that Dagon’s connection was gone shocked him, but he probably assumed that both were dead. Blood of that volume would convince anyone of that. He was wrong, and Graham was right.

“How did you--?” Beastmaster mouthed. He knew he had to act and he had to act fast. The charmer sent sharp beaked, mutated ravens soaring towards Graham.
He should have quit.

Graham dashed towards his target, moving out of the way of their flight lines. A flash of white stabbed each of them. Head, stomach, and their wings had been taken down with almost inhuman like movement. He knew wasn’t quite human, not anymore. His actions knew what he had to do. He forced himself to think as well. A man couldn’t let his thoughts rule his movement completely. There needs to be some consciousness.

A shower of black feathers and pink inners ended the aerial assault. Graham gave one last stab, chopping a long mutated raven in half through the open beak to the tail feather. By the end, his entire body was covered in blood: his own, Dagons, the birds. But there was one that he didn’t have on his palette. He planned to correct that, now.

Alas the chance escaped him. Beastmaster was nowhere to be seen.

“The bastard ran.” Graham couldn’t doubt the man, in retrospect. Proficiency in combat of both the gun and hand to hand stacked the odds in his favor. The master’s power over animals would become irrelevant without said animals. Dagon was probably his favorite, the birds a good secondary. Graham had one weapon, but could use it in a thousand different ways. That weapon would never leave him, until it rested forever.

He wiped the entrails of the birds from his body, and let his mind calm. He had to admit, he wasn’t used to not having pure adrenaline running through his body. But something had replaced it, something deadly. It was a calmness that you couldn’t achieve with life pulsing through you. Death stayed with him. It cuddled up beside him, kept him safe with its dark black coat and long scythe. His heart never raced, fatigue didn’t course through his veins. It was too good to be true, it had to come with some sort of—

And he felt it then.

Graham was hungry. It wasn’t like a normal hunger. His mind and body starved. He fell to his knees, writhing in the abyss of that desire. “What the hell,” he said pushing back the need, only for it to get wider in his attempt. He didn’t want a cooked meal, but something raw, natural, and filled with life. That unnerved him. Why would he want that? That would make him no different than the cannibals. He struggled with the thought a bit more. “You have to survive,” he told himself. Survival had coupled with death as his protectors.

His mind wandered for a while looking at the dead corpses that Beastmaster’s team was feasting on. He shook his head. He looked to the dismembered bodies of the cannibals.
They were undeserving animals.”
Graham slammed his fist to the ground.
“Damn, you’re not like them. They don’t deserve that, even though they’re pigs.”
His fingers graced on one of the black birds, not quite dead. “ Dammit,” he growled. If he didn’t eat something, whatever this blood haze was, this abyss would drive him insane…or kill him.

With resentment, he grabbed the black bird by the tail. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the futile cheeps from the bird.
You have to survive. Don’t think about it.
He took his first bite with a horrible crunching sound as he bit into the large breast of the bird. His teeth, crushed through bone, muscle almost too easily from a man of a human jaw. Layers and layers of the flailing creature fell by the sheer strength of his yellowed teeth.
The taste was almost euphoric. The flavor was strong; almost intoxicating unlike any food that had ever settled in his stomach. He could taste the pulse of the creature in its stringy meat. It was like he was reliving the creature’s life as he crunched through the body. He could feel it fly, the way it moved, the way it lived throu
gh his chewing. Nothing was left after he was done.

He tore through several more, mind ignoring the dead ones for the living ones before none was left. At the end, he sat back, belly full. The growing abyss in his stomach and brain subsided, giving life renewed back to his body. A pang
of guilt accompanied him soon after.
He needed life to live. The films never explained that. Maybe because it was fiction and this was Graham’s reality. But he knew, a small part of him knew, that if he didn’t eat he would go mad or die. He didn’t want either of those, especially while people needed him.

This is just great,
he thought getting to his feet. For now he needed to focus.
The hostages, right
. He needed to save them. That would get his mind off that moment, if for a little while.