The Howl of War

You stood, shell-shocked, unsteadied, locked onto Rudolf's cadaver as if your mind was sucked in by some black hole of grief and boiling rage.

"RUDOLF!!" Two voices cried in synchronicity, the Ghost and the Phantom, the Identical pale bone-heads who were often Rudolf's shadows. The shallow beauty of their pale faces twisted into abomination as their eyes flashed with wrath.

But it was not they that went to charge and avenge their friend.

Instead, the hulking blooded, often quiet and ever Rudolf's quiet companion: Barnebus, lurched his bulbous form in the direction of the Crusaders who were already reassembling their ranks. Your hand swept out, as if casting an invisible barrier in front of Barnebus.

He halted on the spot, his heavy brows quivering with an unspoken lividity. "Master..." His voice boomed low. You felt their pain, you wanted nothing more than to up them apart, but this was a time for strategy and cunning, not brute ****.

That much was made very clear.

"Belle and her Yellow-Jackets have made the perimeter, Master, I can feel it. They have nowhere to run." Moonie whispered as she gripped your arm, tense with fury.

You nodded "Listen, all of you. Half will stay and protect Vicky and Diana, the other half with me. Stay close. Don't make a move until the time is right."

The fifty or so Nox nodded in silent agreement, as a cluster of them broke off in a tight formation at your side. You walked slowly and with great deliberation towards the Crusaders.

"FORMATION, NOW!" Requiem dusted off his compatriots, dragging them into a line. From between the holy warriors who stood as pillars of silver and steel, Father Angelous, disheveled but wholly intact, headed the four dozen Crusaders.

You paused, shouting into the charnel smoke "For Hallowed Warriors, you guys suddenly don't strike me as all that holy, that is unless you've been breeding with Axolotl?" You called, trying to dissuade the seething rage bubbling within.

The Father, was quiet... the Parish seemed not without it's own broken limits "Timothy... 6:12 'Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called' As is our right, as the blades, sharp and unsullied of our Righteous Lord..." Angelous' voice was lower than a whisper, the rumble in his larynx resonated with a deep devotion, and no small amount of zealotry. "...And so spoke Zechariah 13:7: Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts... SMITE THE SHEPARD, AND ALL THE SHEEP SHALL BE SCATTERED!!"

From beneath the scarlet cloak of the revered father, came the matte glint of carbon-steel. The long muzzled barrel of a what appeared to be a modified flintlock pistol stared you down. In a flash of black powder, the silver bullet streaked into air, promising to greet the center of your brow.

...But the night had long fallen, and in the night, yours was the keen senses and dexterity of an undead lord.

"M'hailia!"

The tip of your claw pierced your skin and within the seconds that the Father shot, the textured grip of your 1911 pistols solidified in your hands. Your two bullets whizzed viciously into flight, and tore through the Father's silver shot.

Your eyes widened, as the Nox at your side tensed to move in at you side. Three dozen shields were planted at the Crusaders feet, and at their blinding white hems, rested three dozen gun barrels, half pointed at you and your team, the others, squared towards the Nox who stood guard by Vicky and Diana's unmoving corpses.

_"Scatter, protect the girls!!" _Your telepathic command was luckily, faster than the automatic fire... if only by half a second.

The dark was disturbed by the roar of gunfire.

White flashes strobed through the smoke as the Crusaders’ formation barked in a disciplined fury, automatic fire ripping into the dirt and rubble where you and your group once stood, replaced by a dense cloud of skirmishing mist.

Although you had dematerialized just in time, you had no chance to react to the spray of lead which hurtled towards Vicky and Diana's guardians.

"NO!" You cried as several of the Nox, your Nox were hammered under the metal shower. They fell like bowling pins, one by one, and as they were blasted away and the shell of flesh that protected your girls was brushed off in quick succession a penetrating whistle echoed - from above.

It was not the shriek of artillery nor the scream of something fired.

Something, or someone, was falling.

You barely had time to look up before the earth collapsed.

The impact struck like a thunderclap.

A violent crack unleashed a halo of debris as a body slammed into the killing ground between the Crusaders and your half-fallen ranks, the shockwave knocking silver-clad zealots off their feet and rattling you and yours so badly that you were flung into the ground, **** out of the mist and back into your flesh.

You **** yourself up, wiping the dirt from you eyes as the others reeled beside you “They shooting fucking rockets now?” One of yours groaned.

“Nah… ugh, no explosion. It was just an impact.” Octavia spoke, wrapping her pale hands around you arm and helping you to your feet.

Your eyes traced the field and was surprised to find the Crusaders just as shell shocked and disoriented as you were.

As the dust began to settle, and the last pebbles—still hanging like rocky stars—fell back to earth, only then did the scent hit you.

A brutish silhouette stood from the small crater, his form dense and lean. His bronze skin bereft of armour or cloth, stretched over rippling muscle carved with brutal symmetry.

Save of course, for the gargantuan mantle which sat on the crags that were his shoulders.

Crimson fur stirred in the dull breeze, His nakedness was unashamed—his manhood heavy, tense, and unmistakably alive. Power rolled through him in every flex of sinew, every slow breath drawn.

The immense hood that swallowed his head was no cloth at all, but the taxidermied skull of a monstrous wolf—jaws forever snarling, glassy eyes locked in eternal fury—as the man turned to survey the virgin battlefield.

The full moon, hovering above, crowning the beastly silhouette. Its light cast a shadow that reduced everyone beneath it to ants—And him… A colossus.

His yellow eyes, peered first at Father Angelous, unsettled, put-upon and greatly discouraged. Second his eyes rested on you, it was a heavy, barely relented gaze, filled with malice.

He spoke. His tone was severe "Leech Lord. The girl, you will tell your creatures to unhand her. You will give her to me."

What a god damn shit show. His focus left you, piercing through the Nox who crouched guarding Diana and Vicky, and latched unto Vicky herself "You will give me the girl, or you and the fanatics will share this place in your eternal rest."

"Her blood runs thick with my venom, it will not be long before the Breaking takes her. I want no more quarrel with your kind. She belongs with us. I do not wish to be your enemy." You said.

This was turning into a horrible mess, and it was clear that neither of you were willing to back down.

"The time for dispute has passed. Your kind will violate us no longer, and your final chance has come and gone. This is the night of war - the hour of vengeance, and our jaws shall wet with flesh, cold and warm alike!" His roar echoed in the night, eardrum shattering, and with it, came more of them.

One form fell, then another, then another. Over a dozen bodies smashed into the earth, wood and stone, sending a shower of earthen dust around you. The figures arose, some men, some women, all nude as the day as they were born, all built like tanks sewn in skin and bones. Every single one of them wore the canine mantle.

They looked, and they hated and barely restrained something that bulged and tugged just under their skins.

“KILL THE BEAST!” Angelus roared like a mad prophet. “THEY CAN DIE WITH THE DEAD-FILTH—EXTERMINATE THEM ALL, IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!”

The Crusaders obeyed without hesitation.

You and the Nox ducked as the formation opened fire in unison. White muzzle flashes strobed through the smoke, and a storm of lead screamed toward the wolf in the crimson pelt. The rounds struck him squarely—hundreds, then thousands—tearing into his body, punching through muscle and bone, ripping flesh apart as if he were made of soaked parchment.

The LMGs howled until their barrels glowed.

Then—silence.

When the smoke thinned, he was still standing.

The Wolf leader had not even staggered.

His body, however, was ruined. Flesh hung from him in flayed ribbons, bleeding in thick, steaming sheets. Skin and sinew fluttered loose, torn open so completely that you could see deep into him—into the hundreds of wounds where something else moved.

Something vast. Something wrong.

From within the gashes, crimson fur began to **** its way outward—not growing, not spreading, but pushing, as though the wounds were mouths **** on it.

His head or -what remained of it, split wider. The bullet-riddled ruin of his face stretched and peeled back, meat tearing wetly from bone. His eyes slipped free and dropped to the dirt with soft, obscene sounds, still steaming as they rolled.

With a violent surge, a massive, bestial torso **** itself out through the shattered shell of the man. Blood erupted in a geyser as the creature inside him clamped its enormous jaws around the host’s legs and bit down—tearing them free so that its own hind limbs could kick loose.

The human body collapsed into a useless heap of meat and rags.

From it rose the thing that had been wearing him.

The beast was colossal—eight, no, nine feet tall even as it hunched low on all fours. Its forelimbs were long and narrow, splayed wide like a spider’s, ending in massive, scythe-curved claws black as pitch. Its hind legs were shorter, digitigrade, built for springing ****.

Its back arched unnaturally, the spine bowed like a broken bridge, and from it rose a crooked, elongated neck that held aloft a monstrous head.

Huge, bloodshot eyes burned with feral yellow.

Saliva poured from endless rows of jagged teeth, the tongue slick and red as it dragged between them. Its muzzle pulled back in a permanent snarl, curtains of flesh drawn wide to bare the weaponry beneath.

The crimson mane along its spine bristled, standing on end as the creature inhaled— and ruins of your home shook with the haunting echo of his howl.

The Howl kissed the full moon above, and the other Werewolves began to shift out of their skins.

In a split-second decision, you ordered the Noxium to regroup on your person. zipping with furious speed, the fifty or so vampires flanked into you, in a fan-like formation.

The Mansion's wounded formation protected your back.

Huginn, clutched Diana's limp body in his arms, Naomi, with Victoria's corpse in hers. You looked over your friends with concern, although the group had been mowed down only moments ago... the black bullets holes and desiccated flesh had already begun to repair.

None showed signs of Silver Poisoning. Curious.

The LMGs could cut the Noxium in half... but not for long, if they were only normal bullets.

"They must only have packed silver ammunition for their side arms..." Hughie said, coming to the same conclusion as you.

"What's the POA, Boss?" Moonie asked, slapping her neck until a bullet fragment pushed out of her nape.

You took a second to think. The screams of pain as gore from the werewolves' eldritch transformations seemed to **** the Parish into a stalemate, noting that the gun fire would only speed up the process.

You were easily over half-a-hundred undead strong in this unit, Cleo’s Butlers had withdrawn into the mansion ready to come at your command, and another-nearly thirty of Belle's Yellow Jackets prowled the edged of the estate. One werewolf was strong enough to down a handful of blooded vampires with ease, but you still outnumbered them and their attention would be divided with the Crusaders laying down a wall of oppressive fire.

That's when the idea hit you and a bloodthirsty smile, crossed your lips. You relayed the idea into the aether, opening up your mind so that the Noxium could read your thoughts like a book. You felt a general sense of approval and mischievous excitement.

The Plan was set.