Gerard and his group of hunters, who had been busy dealing with the corpse of the dead Omega, froze at the blood-curdling howl that slithered through the trees. They spun, weapons raised, peering into the ink-black woods to locate the source.
Gerard snatched a taser wand from his belt. "It's the Black Shuck! Chris, get your taser ready!" He glanced around, his brow furrowing. "Chris! Where did you go?!"
One of the Zima hunters, a brutish man with a scar across his cheek, sneered. "Maybe he got scared and ran. Or maybe, since he let that bitch Kate live, he made a deal with the Shuck to kill you, old man."
Another Zima, younger and colder, added, "Or perhaps he is a shapeshifter, too. He doesn't feel entirely human to me. Maybe we should help you kill him, old man."
"Chris is not a shapeshifter—I tested him myself," Gerard snapped, though a flicker of doubt passed behind his eyes. "And even if he were, it is my concern. I will deal with my own blood. Now focus!"
From their hidden vantage point behind the layered shields, Allison's eyes ignited with a furious emerald glow upon hearing Gerard and the hunters casually discuss murdering her father.
Jacob placed a calming hand on her arm. "Relax, love. That idiot won't survive the night. I promise. So please, calm down. Don't spook the Black Shuck."
Allison took a deep breath, forcing the green light in her eyes to dim.
Another howl tore through the night—closer, louder, and dripping with malice. The temperature in the clearing plummeted. Frost bloomed across leaves and soil. From the deepest shadows behind the hunters, the Black Shuck emerged.
It was a shaggy, monstrous black dog, its form wreathed in swirling darkness. Two points of hellish red light—its eyes—burned from within the gloom. Those eyes fixed unblinkingly on Gerard.
For a few seconds, the creature just stared, as if memorizing its prey. Then its gaze swept over the hunters surrounding Gerard, lingering on the three Bogatyrs who had already drawn their broadswords, the blades now sheathed in a crackling, white energy that hummed in the frozen air.
Gerard wisely shuffled backward, putting the three Bogatyrs between himself and the Black Shuck. "Come on! What are you waiting for?" he barked at the other hunters. "Throw the incendiary grenades! Now!"
The Argent and Laurent hunters fumbled with their gear, then hurled a volley of red canisters—incendiary grenades—toward the Black Shuck.
The creature didn't even try to dodge the explosions. Instead, its form dissolved into pure, liquid shadow. It became a blur of darkness, moving with a speed that defied physics. It streaked past the blooming fireballs and shot toward the line of human hunters.
The hunters had no chance. They fired their assault rifles on full auto, but the bullets passed through the insubstantial shadow-form without effect. They swung their taser wands in desperate arcs, but the Shuck was a phantom, always just out of reach.
Then it was among them.
A shadowy paw, solidified for a split second, swept out. A hunter's throat opened with a gush of blood that instantly froze at the edges, the wound both cauterized and flash-frozen by a touch of blue flame. Another hunter screamed as a shadow-claw punched through his Kevlar vest and ribs, tearing out his still-beating heart before it, too, turned to a frozen lump.
Efficient, brutal, and silent except for the wet sounds of tearing and the choked gurgles of the dying. Seven hunters fell in a few seconds before the Shuck changed its target. It reformed briefly, a solid nightmare of fur and fangs, and turned its burning red gaze on the three Bogatyrs.
The Bogatyrs did not flinch. The white energy around their blades flared brighter. They moved with their own supernatural speed, not to flee, but to encircle.
The Black Shuck lunged at the one on the left. The Bogatyr met the charge, his energy-coated sword swinging in a horizontal arc meant to bisect the creature. The Shuck twisted in mid-air, the blade grazing its flank. Where the white energy touched the shadow, a sizzling, painful bloody tear appeared, and the Shuck let out a pained shriek.
Emboldened, the other two Bogatyrs attacked from the flanks. The Shuck was fast, but they were coordinated. It dodged one sword thrust by dissolving into mist, but the third Bogatyr anticipated the move. He didn't swing at the mist; he thrust his blade into the center of the swirling darkness the moment it began to solidify.
A scream of agony echoed through the woods. The Shuck rematerialized, stumbling back. A deep, sizzling gash smoked on its shoulder. In retaliation, it unleashed a torrent of its blue, freezing flame directly into the face of the Bogatyr who had wounded it.
The hunter roared, throwing up an arm sheathed in white energy. The blue fire met the white energy in a violent hiss of steam and cold. The Bogatyr's defense held, but just barely; frost crawled up his arm, and he staggered back, his face pale with pain and shock from the intense cold.
Seizing the momentary distraction, the Shuck turned its full fury on him. It charged head on, ignoring a slicing wound from the second hunter's blade across its back. Shadow-claws, wreathed in that deadly blue fire, found their mark, tearing through the Bogatyr's energy-weakened guard and into his chest.
The hunter's eyes widened. He looked down at the frozen, burning ruin of his torso, then slumped to the ground, the light in his eyes and the energy on his sword extinguishing together.
One Bogatyr down.
The Shuck, now wounded and bleeding from multiple gashes, turned toward the Bogatyr that had slashed its back. It opened its maw and unleashed a torrent of its freezing blue fire breath.
The Bogatyr raised a hand, conjuring a shimmering energy shield. The blue fire crashed against it, pushing him back with immense force. Cracks began to spider-web across the shield's surface. With a roar, he poured every last drop of his energy into the barrier, forcing the fire back for a heartbeat—but the shield shattered.
He dove sideways, but not fast enough. The edge of the blue flame caught his leg. In an instant, the limb was flash-frozen solid. He crashed to the ground, screaming in agony as his frozen flesh cracked and blackened.
The Black Shuck ignored the fallen Bogatyr. It turned, its glowing red eyes locking once more on its real target: Gerard.
But the third, uninjured Bogatyr was already in motion. He gathered all his energy into his sword until the blade hummed and blazed with white light. With a guttural roar, he hurled it like a javelin across the clearing.
The blade shot with supernatural speed. The Shuck, its focus locked on Gerard, didn't dodge in time. The sword buried itself deep into its stomach.
The creature howled in agony—a raw, guttural sound. It stumbled, its shadow-form flickering and becoming more solid, more vulnerable. The white energy coating the sword sizzled against its essence like acid.
Seeing his chance, Gerard lunged forward. He didn't aim his taser wand at the beast itself, but at the sword's hilt—a perfect metal conduit now piercing the creature's core.
He jammed the crackling electrodes against the pommel and triggered a full, devastating charge.
Electricity surged through the metal blade and into the Shuck's corporeal form.
The effect was catastrophic. A violent, full-body seizure wracked the Shuck. The shadows bled away like ink in water. The monstrous dog form shrank, twisted, and melted, reverting to the naked, frail, gasping form of the old janitor, collapsed on the frosty ground with a sword still protruding from his gut.
Gerard let out a harsh, triumphant laugh. He dropped the spent taser wand and fumbled for the pistol at his hip. "Now you die, beast," he spat, raising the barrel.
But the old Shuck's eyes, though clouded with pain, snapped open. With shocking speed, his hand shot out and locked around Gerard's gun-wrist in an iron grip.
The old Shuck smirked. Blue fire flickered to life on his hand and raced up Gerard's arm.
Gerard screamed—a sound of pure, searing agony—as his flesh instantly flash-froze, the skin turning blue and brittle.
Just as the Shuck was about to finish Gerard with his other hand, the uninjured Bogatyr was upon him. The hunter's fist, sheathed in a final surge of white energy, slammed into the old Shuck's side.
CRACK.
The sound of breaking ribs was loud in the sudden quiet. The force of the blow launched the Shuck from his feet, sending him flying backward—and tearing Gerard's frozen arm away in his grip. The old Shuck crashed into the thick trunk of an oak tree with enough force to splinter the bark before slumping to its roots.
For a moment, he lay still. Then, slowly, he pushed himself up. He dropped the remains of Gerard's arm. Then, gripping the hilt of the sword in his stomach with both hands, he pulled it out with a wet, tearing sound. The wound beneath steamed, and the flesh began to knit itself back together at a visible, supernatural rate. His eyes, now just the milky, sad eyes of an old man, found Gerard's.
He saw the hateful, pained glint in Gerard's eyes. He saw the remaining Bogatyr readying another attack. He saw the few surviving human hunters closing in with tasers in hand. Then, his gaze drifted to the patch of darkness where Jacob and his group were hidden. Though he couldn't see them, he felt the wrongness there, the coiled threat. He decided Gerard wasn't worth the trouble.
With a final, weary sigh that fogged in the cold air, his body began to dissolve—not into the aggressive shadow-beast, but into a wisp of harmless, dark mist that started to seep into the forest floor.
Just then, Jacob teleported.
He appeared right next to the dissipating mist. His hand shot out, fingers crackling with raw, arcing lightning. He caught the mist in his electrified grip.
The Black Shuck's form snapped back into solidity with a choked gasp. The old man convulsed violently as Jacob's lightning coursed through him. In one smooth motion, Jacob shifted his grip, his lightning-coated hand closing around the old Shuck's throat, lifting him off the ground.
Jacob didn't say a word. With his free hand, he summoned his new reward from his pocket dimension.
The Sword of Gryffindor appeared in his grasp. It was a magnificent silver longsword with a gleaming blade. A ruby the size of an egg was set into the pommel. The name Godric Gryffindor was etched just below the crossguard. As Jacob held it, the etching shimmered and reformed, becoming Jacob Alexander.
He tested the weight in his hand. "Nice sword," he murmured. "Let's see if you can absorb his freezing fire." Then, without ceremony, he drove the blade straight through the Black Shuck's heart and released the lightning.
The old Shuck, freed from the electrocution, stopped convulsing. He looked down at the sword buried in his chest, then up at Jacob. A peaceful smile touched his bloody lips. "I had a vision of you killing me in the hospital," he rasped. "I thought I escaped it. It seems I was wrong."
Jacob met his gaze. "Yeah. You should have run when you had the chance."
The old Shuck coughed, dark blood coloring his lips, yet his serene smile remained. He looked not at Jacob, but past him, into the deep shadows of the woods.
"No creature outruns death, child… not even the hound who delivers it." He drew a shuddering, wet breath, his eyes growing distant. "How… ironic. To have ushered so many into the quiet… and now to fear the silence waiting for me."
His eyes focused back on Jacob. "The cold I served has come to collect its servant. And I find… I am as frightened as any of the souls I relieved when it comes to my own end and what's waiting for me next."
A final tremor passed through him. The light in his milky eyes dimmed, flickered, and went out.
He died with that peaceful, knowing smile still etched on his face.
Jacob shook his head. "What a crazy old man." He pulled the sword free and directed a concentrated stream of dragonfire at the body, reducing it to ash in seconds.
He looked at the sword in his hand. He channeled a trickle of his energy into it, and a beautiful, controlled blue flame—the Black Shuck's signature freezing fire—danced harmlessly along the silver blade.
He smiled, a genuine note of satisfaction in his voice. "You didn't disappoint me. From now on, I'll call you Griffin."
To be continued… 😊