“Excuse me?”

The gas station attendant jumps with a little squeak at Nathan’s voice, before fumbling her phone under the desk.

“Hum, welcome! How can I help you?” she says with a guilty voice.

“Do you have any jerky?”

“Oh yeah! In the back just next to the beer.”

Mathan feels like laughing. After so much shit, the teenager’s freckled face and bashful look are a refreshing change, a hint of normalcy in an otherwise crazy day. The fact that she has not been jaded by months of retail work helps.

“Thanks.”

As promised there is a jerky stand filled with local products. Some of it will go to Orog, and the rest he will keep for Gwahin. The Yol is still in a growth spurt, and overtook Sarah a week ago.

“Hello, and welcome! How can I help you?”

Nathan wonders how long it will take for the teen to get bored shitless again. Fifteen minutes, at most, once Barrett and him…

Nathan freezes.

A vile aura smashes against him, cold and implacable. Nathan had not felt so much scorn since the stalker first laid his eyes on him. The cashier gasps.

For a moment, Nathan is overwhelmed by the same disbelief and horror he had experienced so long ago, when he found his father’s corpse: the feeling that he is living a nightmare, because the world would never be so cruel.

It passes. Nathan is no longer a child, and he knows the world is not cruel, it just doesn’t care.

In complete silence, Nathan trots the back exit. He needs weapon. A quick glance towards the entrance stops him in his track.

There it is again, the profound impact of watching something that shouldn’t be.

A month earlier, local newspapers and even a few channels had shown the face of Anton Kohr, kidnapper and murderer. Some had compared him to an accountant or a math teacher with his bushy gray hair and weasely face, Nathan had thought it was bullshit. The two accountants in his firm were a bodybuilder and a goth girl respectively. All his math teachers had been ex-hippies. No, to him Anton Kohr looks like the kid diddler, the nazi bureaucrat who orders the death of thousand from behind an exceptionally tidy desk. In short, Anton Kohr looks like the slimy asshole and sociopath he is.

And he is standing in the middle of the store in the store with a smug grin, heedless of the nightmare at his side.

All otherworldy creatures they have encountered so far have been at least somewhat humanoid. This isn’t one of them. From a bulbous head standing taller than a linebacker emerge three inverted legs ending in sharp points. A pair of arms currently holds the struggling cashier while a single scythe-like appendage hangs menacingly, all coming from the side of the creature. Its body is the color of obsidian and the only variety is a collection of pustule-like globes that look suspiciously like eyes. The smell is revolting.

Fuck.

Seren is asleep. She is asleep in the car and she is not in immediate danger, and so they don’t know. Nathan is alone, and that asshole has a hostage.

What do.

Nathan takes up his gun to line a shot but before his arm is even raised, the monster twists and extends a single oversized leg to block the shot. A tortured gurgle escapes the cashier as she is dragged across the counter.

“You! Turner, you fucker, you ruined my life, you piece of shit!”

Nathan opens his phone behind him with one hand and presses a series of buttons from muscle memory alone. An instant later he pockets it and move forward. He needs to buy time.

“I think siding with cannibals ruined your life.”

“I had no choice! All of you judging me, thinking you know what I have to do! My responsibilities! And even then I would have told them to leave you alone but no! You had to fuck up my plans to save a whore, a catholic and your precious kike friend.”

Wow, ok.

“So you’re racist too huh, I thought you were just a pedo.”

Kohr is growing more and more agitated. His flaccid face jiggles with each spiteful sentence.

“With all those sluts wearing makeup like ten dollars hussies instead of being home helping their mothers I might as well. All of you degenerates have been fucking with me long enough! I’m going to show you now, show everyone that they should respect me! And fear me! Now, you little turd, you’re going to tell me where my tattoo implements are or I’ll butcher everyone around you, starting with that little bitch.”

The black entity gives a weak shake and the teen whimpers in pain. A trickle of blood is already staining her cheap uniform and her face is purple. The monster is slowly choking her. More worrying, it is always interposing its captive between Nathan and its master, even before he starts moving. Either the thing is fast, can read thoughts or it can see the future.

Either way it’s bad.

“I don’t carry them on me.”

“But you know where they are?”

“I think so.”

Korh takes out a small glass sphere from his pocket and inspects the clear surface.

“Huh, you spoke the truth. Color me surprised.”

“I won’t help you if she dies though.”

Nathan just needs more time and so does the girl. Kohr just scoffs.

“Like you would care about anyone but yourself and your depraved friends. But you made a mistake…”

He smiles ominously.

“You assumed I needed your consent.”

The abomination throws the cashier his way.

Can’t dodge, or she could die.

The girl’s body hits his own with a dull thud and he is smashed backward and down. By some miracle he manages to protect his face and the girl’s neck.

It still hurts.

He grabs her under the shoulder then into a firearm carry, then rushes to the back entrance. It hurts too much to even breathe but he can’t stop. She is crying.

“Get him! Don’t let him escape!”

He kicks the door open and emerges in a small concrete square behind the gas station. In front of him is a small copse of trees, fields to the right and left. There a few other buildings but they are on the other side.

He sprints along the left wall, finally able to drag a few painful breaths in his lungs. He probably doesn’t have anything broken but the girl needs help. As he reaches the front of the station he hears gunfire. Barrett’s rifle. There is a crash and the wall buckles outward behind him.

Nathan doesn’t turn, he runs forward and emerges on the parking lot and gas pumps at breakneck speed. Barrett’s rifle turns to him but lowers immediately. The man has some real trigger discipline. Seren stands beside him looking tired but resolute.

“The fuck was that?”

“It’s Kohr, he got something with him.”

Nathan lowers the girl as delicately as he can manage against a SUV. Barrett hands him his armor and spear. He takes out a compress and presses it against her wounded neck.

“Here, maintain pressure ok?”

She nods weakly and he stands back up. Besides them, there are only two other cars. An older couple is already legging it, the woman on her phone, but a bunch of college students is just gaping at them and even filming the scene. Fucking idiots.

There is a quality to the silence when Kohr’s aberration walks on the lot with the man himself right behind it.

“You assholes can’t run forever, just face me like true men if you think you’re so tough!”

Nathan realizes a few important points now that he has a second to breathe. First, Kohr’s weakness is that this irredeemable piece of human garbage really never shuts up, the second is that the black creature is not hiding. At all.

The college students are looking at the monster in disbelief with their phones out.

Well it doesn’t matter.

“The thing will block our bullets we need to flank it and plug Kohr.”

“Alright, crossing your line.”

Barrett runs to the right and himself to the left, Seren rushes forward, blade drawn.

“Paths are acting weird.”

They probably are. It’s time to do some tests.

Nathan pulls the trigger and the bullet dings against the thing’s scythe, he does it again with the same result. Barrett’s single fire bumps harmlessly against one of the hands.

Nathan does something he was told to never do. He shuts his eyes and fires where he thinks the head would be.

Three bullets later, there is a shriek. Nathan stares back to see one of the red eyes closed and dripping white fluid. If it were fast or if it could see the future it would have stopped this bullet like the others before, which means that the shot landed because Nathan himself didn’t have line of sight.

“It’s in our head, literally.”

His speech is cut short as something is about to land on him.

Kohr’s vile aura washes over him and he ducks right by instinct, and not a moment too soon.

A glass vial splashes against the bitumen and spreads with an acidic hiss. Kohr is lobbing small glass spheres at them. Nathan jumps back up and keep trying to flank the monster. Seren has now fully engaged the being but apparently her blade cannot penetrate the thick skin of its arms. Another flash of aura warns him that something is wrong.

Strange, skeletal appendages emerge from the acid pool and whip around. Nathan sidesteps it at the last moment, his shot going wide. A curse indicates that Barrett wasn’t so lucky and a quick glance confirms that his leg is stuck. With a cackle, Kohr throws another vial. It splashes harmlessly against Barrett’s shield.

Nathan reloads. Several of his shots now would have hit the asshole were it not for his grim bodyguard. The creature always blocks the shots with one of its numerous extremities even while being harried by Seren and Barrett both. Worse, he cannot shoot inaccurately or he could hit Seren.

Nathan has two clips left. Fleeing is not an option or the girl is dead, besides he has a chance to kill Korh here and now.

There is nothing he can think of that will protect against mind reading, the only way to win somehow, is to overwhelm the creature.

Nathan charges forward with his spear and strikes at the alien body with perfect form.

Seren screams “No!”

With contemptuous ease, the scythe appendage cuts down on Nathan’s left hand. A blinding pain makes him flinch and the spear wavers. One of Barrett’s bullet pings uselessly against the body and the creature’s two remaining hands fend off Seren.

The scythe backswings.

In desperation, Nathan closes his eyes and misdirect while still falling forward. It is enough. The spear hits the body of the monster with enough strength to skewer a Varog.

The impossibly sharp spike reaches the creature’s dermis and… Bumps back, leaving behind a benign cut, not even a fingernail wide.

A piteously small drop of black ichor rolls down.

Well, fuck.

Maybe because of the surprise, maybe because of the pain, the scythe misses Nathan’s jugular and hits him in the shoulder instead. The armor holds. Both the creature and Kohr are shrieking now and the thing boots Seren with one of its leg. She manages to block, and still the strength propels her backward.

There is a single instant when the creature’s extended leg reveals Kohr’s lower body.

Through the pain and the fear, Nathan shoots. Only three bullets make it before the leg retracts but his training pays off: one of them clips Kohr in the foot.

Their enemy lets out a girly scream, soon joined by a demented howl.

“You moron! You are supposed to protect me! Idiotic… Thing! Save me! Save meeeeeee!”

The monster grabs its master and falls back. Garrett finally frees himself from the bony tentacle by hammering it with his gun’s stock. As he aims again, Kohr’s hysteric voice sounds one last time.

“Here, a parting gift!”

Nathan watches helpless as a rain of vials falls down on the asphalt. At the last moment, Garrett’s interposes himself with his shield up. An instant later, Seren rolls to safety.

The parking in front of them erupts with disgusting bony tentacles. They lash and they trash and they whip around, shattering glass and bending metal in their aimless fury.

From within the safety of Barrett’s transparent half dome, the trio witnesses the obscene forest in silence. Seren collapses and grasps frantically for her mana tea flask. Garrett helps her swallow it in silence before she falls unconscious. Nathan removes his left glove.

The pain almost makes him faint.

This is not the low burning pain of migraine or the devouring feeling of a second degree burn, it is a sharp pain, blinding white. It cuts through his mind like a sharp knife, severing his grasp on awareness. His hand is clothed in a red glove. His ring finger is also shorter.

Not by much, there is still a bit of fingernail left, but it is shorter.

“Fuck…”

Nathan uses his right hand to find a compress. The first pocket is empty. Strange. The second pocket still contains one and he manages to wrap it around the… the stump… The white cloth is soaked red on contact. The pain is beyond any words he knows

Nathan takes shallow breaths and clings to consciousness. The pain washes over him like a tidal wave. The fading adrenaline saps his strength and his will. The ordeal leaves him weak and shaking. Terror makes him gag. A distant voice in his mind tells him he’s in shock. It doesn’t help.

Nathan rests his head against the cold concrete. He fights against the agony. He does not allow himself the succor of unconsciousness, because something nags him, the impression that he is forgetting something important. Not the Orog, it is still in the car. So what, exactly, has his exhausted brain omitted?

When he manages to open his eyes again the parking is deserted. The remains of the bone tentacle litter the ground in small yellow heaps. Seren is on the ground, in fetal position and Barrett is gone. Sirens yell in the distance.

Wait a minute.

The girl.

Nathan stands up slowly. Everything hurts so much. After some efforts he manages to remain upright and half walks, half lurches to the car.

Garrett is standing in silence.

“Why aren’t you helping her?”

The teen comes into sight. Her skin is white as snow. A red colored hand still grasps a saturated cloth. Nathan grunts.

“You have to maintain the pressure, silly, I told you!”

Nathan grabs a third compress and kneels in the pool of blood. He reaches for the neck.

“There.”

It takes him a few seconds to register the lack of bleeding, the half-lidded eyes marred with tears and the utter lack of movements.

“No…”

Silence.

“But why? I carried her out. I gave her the compress.”

Barrett puts a hand on his shoulder. The hand is heavy. It grounds him.

“They got the artery. I’m sorry.”

“No, wait, wait. That makes no sense. I gave her the compress, and she nodded. She was alive. She answered me.”

Silence.

“She… She was just there? So why?”

Silence.

“I fucking got her out! I carried her and all! We made it outside!”

Silence.

The hand is still there. It is still there when law enforcement arrives. It only lets go when they are shackled and taken.