England, West Coast
Devonshire, Dartmoor
Forests of Dartmoor
5 November 1898, 03:03 hrs.

A rustling accompanied the movement of the heavy body. A huge, beastly wolf pushed itself out of the mist as if it had just escaped from the Otherworld and was ready to hunt. Teeth thick as fingers, drool flowed from its mouth and fell to the ground in thick, red drops. The eyes were a glowing yellow color, and the fur was disheveled and looked matted, giving it an even more sinister appearance. In some places, the fur had fallen out or thinned, and scaly, wrinkled skin looked pitch black in the dull moonlight. Here and there on the massive body, a few wounds were visible, as if the beast had recently been in a fight. Blood caked the pitch-black fur in several places. But the beast did not seem to mind. Either it hadn't been wounded badly enough, or it wasn't its own blood.

Kyle swallowed hard. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, tightening his nerves and muscles. Beside him, he could perceive the doctor's posture changing as well. Slowly and deliberately. And yet he shifted his leg to the side and spread the fingers that still rested on Kyle's shoulders. He could feel the tension in the doctor's body through his fingertips. Unspoken warning and a silent countdown to the inevitable confrontation that would follow.

The beast lowered its head and pulled its chaps even higher, then without warning leaped forward and charged at them. Kyle pushed at Dr. Archer. He in turn pushed at him. As a result, they both staggered apart. Kyle almost went down from the force, while Dr. Archer was able to catch himself easily. The doctor dodged and a few leaves flew up as he rolled across the forest floor. The lantern that Dr. Archer had been carrying fell over with a clang and what little light there was going out. The wolf's attack came to nothing. Cracking and crunching accompanied the impact of the massive body, which caused the fallen tree trunk to tremble. Roots and dried branches cracked like logs in a fire as the beast's glowing gaze turned back to the searchers. The movement came into Benjamin's body.

A gunshot shattered the silence of the night. With a loud bang, the projectile detached itself noisily from the revolver. Blood and fur splattered as the bullet found its target. With a dull, then smacking sound, it tore a deep wound in the beast's shoulder. The sharp claws churned the ground as the monster continued towards the doctor, intoxicated with pain and blood lust. The doctor pulled the trigger again and pulled the cock back again and again. Shots rang out from the barrel. With a noisy crack, a bullet slammed into the fallen trunk. Wood splintered and a deep hole remained in the spot. A second narrowly missed its target.

Then another bullet hit and smashed into the massive body of the beast. But as if out of its mind, the wolf stayed on its course and started to pounce again. Benjamin wanted to retreat, but he hit an obstacle: a tree at his back.

His arm moved forward, and he took aim and aimed the barrel right at the mouth of the huge monster. Then something clicked, but no bang released the next bullet. The click sounded false, crunched, and died away. The doctor's eyes widened in horror as he understood: a jam! The cartridge had jammed in the loading mechanism! His heart slipped into his pants. The mouth of the beast slavered towards him, a jaw peppered with sharp fangs that lusted for his throat.

אני מצווה על אדמה וסלע. אני מחליט אם הם הולכים או נשארים. תסתבך, שטן. לשקוע בגוף האדמה (1)  

Suddenly the head of the beast drove down and crashed noisily to the ground. Powerful jaws snapped and teeth clashed like a clanging leghold trap. First a short yelp, then an angry growl escaped from the wolf, whose body reared up strangely. Dr. Archer stared - barely more than a step away the beast writhed on the ground, growling, barking, and snapping at him again and again. He pressed himself against the trunk, then, taking advantage of the moment, leaped to the side. Only now did he recognize Kyle behind the monster.

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!" blasphemed Kyle's voice, "GET OUT OF THERE YOU IDIOT!"The Seeker had crouched down and dug his left hand into the soft ground. The beast's paws had sunk into forest soil as if a bog had suddenly opened up beneath him. Mud pulled smackingly at fur and the heavy body. Benjamin quickly sought distance as the wolf's body wriggled to the side and its snout snapped at him again. He felt the breeze that passed him by and with long strides he put meters between himself and the beast. Wild thumps drummed in his chest and for years he had not longed so much for a drop from his cursed flask!

At that moment the massive, monstrous body trembled and gathered its strength. Mud and earth smacked and crunched, then the beast abruptly broke free of the spell and tore its paws from the earth. The effect released as suddenly as a rubber band that had been abruptly released from one side. The recoil of the spell hit him so unexpectedly that Kyle was thrown back. He landed on his back, a larger stone poking him in the small of his back and taking his breath away. A scream escaped his throat as the beast wheeled around and let out a loud, wild howl. Kyle scrambled to his feet, leaves trickling from his clothes, his palms tingling. Eyes wide, he saw the beast now turning towards him. His heart was beating up to his throat, enclosed in cold claws of sheer panic. Now he had an inkling of how a deer must feel in the chase.

The doctor simply tossed aside the malfunctioning revolver and let out a loud battle cry, hoping to attract the beast's attention. His fingers reached under his coat in a mechanical, rehearsed movement. Crudely, the leather strap snapped as he tugged the second revolver from its holster. His eyes narrowed, sharpening his senses and vision. In his mind, the orders of the times boomed in the hot desert sand. "Aim. Aim. Fire." echoed in his head and Dr. Archer followed that order without realizing it.

There was a bang and the leaden bullet plunged into the flank of the accursed beast. It paused in its sprint, head averted, and now it shook its furry body. Perhaps in pain or in quivering anger at its prey, which turned out not to be so easy to take down. There was no fear in the burning eyes, only the desire to murder it, to tear it apart and rend its flesh.

Hectically, Kyle crawled backward a little, then got to his feet again and struggled to his feet. He reached forward and concentrated. Hot fire flowed through his veins, scattering sparks into them, and the mage mentally grasped at every last source of arcane power. He felt a significant tingling in his fingertips...

Then another shot rang out. The loud bang made Kyle's ears ring, numbed his senses and the formula slipped away.

"Slainte Naomh!"(2) Kyle groaned out, feeling as if he had run a sprint without moving a step. His body was heavy, but the strength was gone. Like spilled water that had simply slipped from one's fingers and was now seeping away.

Another bullet bored into the wolf's side. "What the hell kind of beast is that?" the doctor groaned and pulled the trigger again. But the monster was not distracted any further, its bloodthirsty eyes settling back on the target in front of its muzzle: Kyle.

It didn't fall through the wounds, barely staggered, and the only sign that the injuries were affecting it was red drool collecting in the foam around its mouth.

"Now shoot the son of a bitch already!" groaned Kyle, as if the doctor was deliberately stalling. There was no point like this! He needed...

His gaze darted searchingly around. Started across the grass, the leaves, until he finally found what he was looking for: an inconspicuous silver glint amidst tall grass. But it was some distance away.

So he cursed again and pulled his hand forward once more. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead by now from the exertion. The sweat ran with the dirt down his face and into his eyes. He squinted one eye. No time to nitpick.

"You picked the wrong man to prey on, filthy beast." his voice came out much cooler and Dr. Archer hardly recognized the pampered snoot. The angry growl made it clear to him that now was no time to be distracted. Instead, he aimed again as the beast went on the attack. The beast was superhumanly fast and smarter than most of its kind. As another shot rang out, it jumped for cover behind a log.

Kyle took a deep breath. He gritted his teeth and fixed the beast. He felt his body quiver as he did so, yet it washed a touch more calm into his thoughts. He waited. The sprinting sounds of paws pattered on the forest floor like drumbeats. The beast drew closer, eager for flesh.... and leaped.

כוחות עליונים, אויב שלי, הוא רוצה להשתולל. להעניש אותו, לשבור אותו ולהפיל אותו (3)

The syllables strung together, forming intricate words with hard ends and harsh sounds. The foreign language rolled off Kyle's tongue, sounding exotic and so incongruous to the Englishman. Color of sound, not from rainy plains and the white cliffs near Dover, but from the Middle East. All at once something crackled in the air and a brief burst of light illuminated the scene. The sudden light unexpectedly dispelled the darkness and blinded his eyes. No rumble of thunder preceded the flash of light that crashed against the massive wolf. The lightning caught the beast directly in the front and with a yelp, it flung the hairy beast out of its leaping path and several feet away from him.

Dr. Archer blinked against the spots before his eyes. White flickered against the gloom of the forest and the other Seeker. Kyle Crowford held his hand out in front, three fingers folded in and index and thumb splayed as if he were aiming at something.

"NOW BEN!" yelled Kyle and Benjamin responded. He pulled the trigger and the blast rang out in such quick succession that the volley emptied the barrel with booming thunder. Smacking, it tore wounds in the furry body and blood gushed up as if from an oil well. At last, the damn beast howled in agony.

Benjamin and Kyle both reacted. Kyle sprinted off and almost threw himself on his walking stick on the ground. He grabbed the silver knob with both hands, the long shaft with the other, and twisted it. Clicking, the latch unlocked, snapped out of its holder and Kyle plucked a hidden wand from its casing. From the hollowed interior now sprang a long, black-brushed wand with exotic, alien textures on it. A crystal tip adorned the end and flashed ominously in a patch of moonlight that fell through the treetops.

Dr. Archer, meanwhile, reached into the pocket of his coat, pulled out a handful of cartridges, and with a clack the cylinder slid out of the revolver's body. He reloaded one after the other, so quickly that one could hardly have blinked three times, then the drum snapped shut again. The hammer clicked as he pulled the trigger again. Three bullets found their target, and only one missed. Dirt and leaves surged from the force of the impact, leaving a small crater in front of the beast before red blood again hit foliage and the trunk of a beech tree behind it like black ink splatters. Growls, yelps, gunshots. A symphony of battle. The beast buckled and sank to the ground with one leg, but it tried to pick itself up again. Kyle flashed his wand forward and set his sights on the wolf. With the arcane catalyst, it was much easier to cast the spell, to reach into the fabric of reality and reshape it.

"Now I'll send you back to hell, you bastard!" the mage rumbled, his eyes narrowing as he fixed his target.

Then a loud crack sounded. Rattling and rustling, the crown of the beech trembled and leaves sailed down like a shower of yellow-red leaves. A groan like a giant moan deafened other sounds. It even eclipsed the banging of gunshots.  

Dr. Archer's eyes widened as he watched the trunk of a beech tree suddenly begin to twist in the middle. Wood splintered, the bark cracked like a wound and then the mighty trunk creaked. Splinters rained like shrapnel into the nearby undergrowth. The beast turned its head and Benjamin Archer dived even further away to avoid becoming a victim of the beech himself. A shadow fell over moss, ferns, and the black beast, engulfing it with a darker shadow as the tree fell with all its mass. Briefly, the earth shook branches and leaves swirling in the air, simply wiping the mist aside like flour on a countertop. The grey-white haze rippled, and the veil pulled away, leaving the fallen colossus - and a black behemoth, slain beneath its trunk and gnarled branches. Foliage sailed like scraps of paper, carried trundling by the wind slowly towards the ground and the whole forest seemed to hold its breath.

The heavy breath left little clouds in the cold in front of their lips. Doctor Archer and Kyle paused for a few more seconds while silence slowly stretched over the place like a cloak. As if nothing had happened, the gunshots had faded, and the rustling and cracking of branches had died away. Breathing heavily, Kyle took slow steps toward the tree. The staff stretched out in front of him like a weapon, he aimed at the dense branches. Yet he was not prepared for what happened. All at once, branches cracked and a mouth shot toward him.

A bang. The shot flew so close to him that Kyle felt the breeze as it did so. He hit the middle of the beast's head. The skull cracked and burst blood splattering and speckling his face. Kyle stared, unable to move, as Archer was suddenly beside him and pulled him back a step, half behind him as if he had to cover him. Although the creature was probably already dead, two more shots drove straight into the massive head. One eye burst, the back of the skull tore away and the mixture of blood and brains splashed away over the foliage. Only gurgling sounds came from the wolf, then its head sank and it no longer stirred.

"It's... It's over," Kyle said breathlessly. A trickle of blood ran down his cheek and fell from his chin.

"No," replied Doctor Archer, his eyes scowling at the creature and thinking of the silhouette he had seen. "I'm afraid it's not."

(1) Hebrew: I command earth and rock. I determine whether they give way or linger. Sink into the mire, devil. Sink into the earth's body. 

(2) Gaelic: Bloody shit.

(3) Hebrew: Higher powers, my enemy, he wants to rage. Strike him down, break him and bring him down.

Unfortunately, I do not speak Häbrew :D Therefore I do not take any responsibility for the correctness of the translations.