Robert carefully drove the van into the fog. We could see through the windows how at the ambiguous border where the fog became impenetrable, there were barely visible dark shadows, both humanoid and not, creeping along the edge of the road. Our group, with some had to be bandaged up, was more or less fine after the first encounter with the in-your-face supernatural. I would even say that it was unexpected that nobody had yet broken down in hysteria.

Oscar, who was revealed to be the most efficient shooter with his super eyes, got assigned to be on the lookout and was given the most ammunition and the best rifle. Meanwhile, the rest were trying to decide on what to do next. The suggestions varied from gathering everyone’s families in some suburban manor or one of the castles that had been converted into hotels to taking over a large supermarket or a shopping mall as it is often done in apocalypse movies.

But right when we entered the city, we reached the point where the shockwaves had pushed all the water and fog away. Everyone was rendered speechless, as it became obvious that all prior discussions were moot. Crushed vehicles, broken utility poles, shattered windows and shop fronts, with numerous bright red splashes starkly standing out on the walls and pavement still gently steaming in the chilly grey Scottish morning. What was worse, was the screaming. From where we were, we could not see much, but within the hundreds of meters that I could cover with my senses, I felt dozens of human energy signatures being chased by a variety of something else, obviously non-human. And once that “something else” caught up with a human, the latter’s energy disappeared within moments, obviously marking the death. Tiny streams of energy, barely distinguishable, entered me, making me ponder again about the nature of myself. I ran through a few words, that could be my Word - Hunt, Attack, Raid, Slaughter. Nothing seemed to change.

As I scowled, feeling annoyed, a person, or rather, a young-looking man with woodcutter beard and tattoo sleeve jumped out on the road from the left side, running west. After a few seconds, the owner of the non-human energy revealed itself. A stooping humanoid, almost completely covered with murky blue-green messy fur or hair. It’s limbs were long, and it was oddly agile, using a sharp-looking spiky tail to push off the ground to add to it’s speed. Just as it prepared to take a jump after the man that had disappeared behind the houses, Oscar raised his rifle and shot it. Bright blue hole blossomed out of the creature’s temple and it fell down, it’s limbs and tail continuing to flail around for several seconds before stopping.

“Ugly fuck.” - complained Oscar, rubbing his face. However his super-vision was working, the active use was obviously straining his eyes.

Max stretched his head out of the window that had previously been broken with a stone axe: “Is it draugr that you talked about?”

“Nope. They look like dead humans, and bleed purplish blue.” - I shook my head.

Remembering the stuff I had read about in Depository, I added: “It looks similar to an afanc or eachy, but those live in lakes and have been pretty much exterminated in eighteen hundreds. Since it does not have obvious animal features besides tail, it can not be one of the kelpies like glashtyn or each-uisge. On the other hand, if it is actually a fae like fuath or glashtyn, but that would be a majorly bad news.”

“I know, I know!” - Max nodded: “I remember reading about some of those in folklore. But aren’t those just goblins?”

I shifted in my seat to look at him: “Sure, except that I would not recommend to rely on printed fairy tales for information. Goblins are fae, and quite nasty. You might imagine Lord of the Rings sort of small, dumb cannon fodder, but in reality they are supposed to have massive influence even among real Sidhe, who are high elves. And if they are hunting people that brazenly, it means that quite a bunch of old agreements, different pacts and so on have been affected. They MUST know how powerful are humans, and there are quite detailed and complex treaties and pacts ensuring that we do not, for example, nuke them or dump tons of napalm into wherever they crawl out from. Which, in turn, should guarantee that they do not ruin all the world’s crops, cause floods or even simply overrun us with billions of hive-creatures that some of them are”

“And that means, they do not care…,” - Chris seemed to have understood the implications: “...or know that we won’t be able to do anything? Premeditated attack?”

“Might be.” - I nodded, but made sure to add: “However, that should not be the full truth. Even Sidhe often fight each other, especially Winter Court, so those could be some renegades.”

We were interrupted by Dolores: “That is not important right now! I say,” - she stressed: “we drive and gather our families and stuff, starting from the closest ones, and do something!”

Everyone agreed with that, but we immediately faced a problem - cell phones had no signal, so it was impossible to contact anyone. Even when Greg pulled out a walkie-talkie, it had zero use with all channels flooded with shouting and a mess of noises.

But since we returned the same way we left the city, soon we reached the house of Peter and Andrea, as the meeting spot was near their house by the highway. Their child had grown up and was supposed to be in Glasgow, but they tried to act normal despite looking obviously worried. However, that did not affect their efficiency, and soon our supplies were boosted by two golf bags full of dull training swords, a few dozen arrows and some small packs of shotgun and rifle ammunition. Both of them also put on fencing protection, made of resilient stab-proof padded cloth and some carbon fiber protectors. They also had some old extras, that fit Robert, Mike and Dolores. Greg and Chris were simply too large to fit and Max refused since the tight jacket would aggravate the cut on his shoulder.

Max, Greg and Dolores were living alone and had no important gear in their homes, Chris was divorced but had lots of useful equipment, but then Mike, and Oscar had families in the city. Oscar had parents nearby, and Mike had a girlfriend, so it was decided that the priority was to ensure their safety. Since it would be inefficient and there was simply not enough space in the van, we decided to split - the MacEwens couple had a Toyota Highlander, which solved an immediate problem with our transport capacity.

After a discussion and reevaluation of available gear and resources, it was decided that Mike and Oscar will get their family members with help from Chris and Greg on crossover borrowed from Peter and Andrea. Due to the unknown situation at their destinations - Dalry and Morningside, on the other side of the city, their group got most of the ammunition and serious guns. Meanwhile the rest of us - namely me, Andrea, Peter, Max and Dolores were expected to gain a foothold in one of the churchers near the crossroads of Princess Street and Lothian road - either of Saint John the Evangelist or of Saint Cuthbert, depending on our ability to secure them.