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The guys all moved to cluster around me, guns raised, eyes on the gateway. “We gotta go,” Hawk said. “Jules.”
“We need Sylvan,” I said, taking one of the steps.
“Fuck this,” he said with a shake of his head, and then strode towards the seer.
“Hawk!” Jack shouted as his mate grabbed Sylvan, slinging him over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold, then brought his rifle to his shoulder. As did everyone else, because in they came.
Could we still call them Tirian? They were definitely wolf-like, though that stream-lined form had become something twisted and mutated in whatever was left of the former city. The flame like drifts most Tirian sported flickered and spiked in erratic fits and starts, and their eyes glowed a sickly green—the colour of putrescence.
“No, no…” Jack muttered as he ran over to the portal, gun pointed at the newcomers.
“Fucking hell, we don’t just rush in!” Aaron snapped. “Brandon, stay here with Jules and see if you can take them out. Clean shots through the skull if you can. Slade, Finn, back me up.”
“On it,” they replied.
I stood there, helplessly, watching those I loved approach something that looked like a gross distortion of what we were, and then heard the guns fire.
The beasts slunk closer, their lips curled back in angry snarls.
“No!” Sylvan said, recovering now. He thrashed within Hawk’s grip until the other man was forced to dump him on the ground.
“You’re coming if it takes all six of us to drag you!” Hawk said, giving him a shake, unaware of what was sneaking up behind him.
“Oh no, you fucking don’t,” Jack said, sending a spray of bullets into the stalking wolf. Which should have been the end of it. The beast crumpled, its yelp piercing as blood bloomed on its flanks, but that of course, was not it. The bloody thing pulled itself to its feet, shaking its body as it struggled to stay upright. Then everything got weird.
I’d always wondered why our fur was all wispy and smoke-like, and now I knew. The thing seemed to…shift somehow. Bullets clattered noisily on the stone floor and the wolf stood, whole again.
“What the fuck…?”
I ran down the stairs as the two beasts stalked my men, only a hand on my collar yanking me back, stopping me from blundering in.
“Jules, you need to stay safe,” Brandon hissed.
“No, we need to stay safe! The pack stays together!”
And they did, in a way. Jack just stood there, aghast, staring at the beast as it stalked closer. Its eyes flashed brighter for a second, then it attacked.
“Fuck!”
Jack’s voice rang out through the ruins as he was slammed onto his back, the wolf’s jaws slavering as it fought with all its might to rip out his throat. I jerked free of Brandon’s grip and ran forward as I saw Jack’s arms shoot out, hands closing around the animal’s windpipe. He held it off, but even I saw the effort it was costing him.
“Brandon, get her back!” Aaron snapped.
“Jack!”
Hawk’s shout was scored by fear and anger. He turned his back on Sylvan and the other wolf, then darted towards his mate, grabbing his rifle as he ran. His gun was at his shoulder, and he looked down the sight, firing off one shot as he moved with terrifying precision. The bullet blasted through the brain of the beast, and made it instantly go limp, having no capacity
now to turn to smoke. I had to fight my body to breathe. The animal’s head had been thrashing. A few centimetres to the left and…
Jack scrambled to his feet, eyes going wide.
“Hawk!”
He’d ignored the other wolf, and so had we in all the fighting. Now everyone’s head swung around. It sent up a mournful howl, answering ones coming from deep within the portal, and then it attacked.
Hawk seemed to move so slowly. Time decelerated down to a crawl as he turned, as the wolf launched itself at him. I got a frame by frame view of the animal’s terrible arc towards my love, his arm going up instinctively, which of course, was where the wolf’s jaws connected.
Hawk was thrown to the ground, the animal’s growls muffled as it chewed into his flesh. I ran down the steps two at a time, no idea what I was about to do, but doing it anyway.
