England, West Coast
Devonshire, Dartmoor
Unknown place - Somewhere in the woods
5 November 1898, 10:18 pm

Kyle Crowford stood alone amidst darkness and wisps of mist. Dr Archer had dropped off the face of the earth and panic gripped him so violently that his legs went weak for a moment. He felt as if the ground had been pulled out from under his feet.

"Be brave." He said to himself. He had to pull himself together. He had always managed on his own. He would manage this time too. Though he told himself that with all his might, the words felt stale and insubstantial even in his own mind.

"BEN!" His voice literally barked into the fog. Kyle staggered a step forward. His footwear, however, to his own amazement, did not bump into piles of feathered fowl. His gaze dropped and clung to the forest floor. Brown leaves with jagged edges next to yellowish foliage. Grass bent beneath his shoes, where mud stains hung scattered and speckled his trousers. But there were no carcasses at his feet. Not even a single feather. If it weren't for the warmth of his blood mingling with the cold sweat on his forehead and skin, he could almost have believed it was just a terrible nightmare. The shattered lantern was gone, not a shard of glass gleaming in the dull moonlight, and Kyle stared stunned for a moment at the image at his feet. His arm sank down and the mage's gaze flew around as if he were a startled sparrow.

Stumbling wildly, his heart raced and he breathed deeply in and out. "Think," he said to himself in his mind, again and again. "Stay calm." His gaze flew around. Expecting a new attack, a new spell at any moment. His mind just didn't want to realise or accept that now, suddenly, it was all going to be over. It seemed impossible for him to fix his gaze on one spot. The rushed pounding of his heart thudded all the way into his head, beating a different beat in its own pulse in the wounds and causing the adrenaline to bubble in his veins.

"BEN!" he repeated aloud, but his voice alone echoed between the trunks of the conifers and was lost there in watery haze and shadow. The ring of mist was now so incredibly dense after only a few metres of the copse that he could see nothing beyond it.

"Bloody hell!" he groaned, digging his fingers into his hair, which was already rumpled by the ravens. All over his skin were bloody scratches and the holes of sharp beaks. The wounds were not deep, but they burned like hell - as such cursed little injuries always did. The cold, which was still chilling in the air and, unlike everything else, had not dissipated, plucked spitefully at the torn open areas. Through the deeper scratch on his cheek, he smelled the metallic tang of his blood with every breath. Kyle ran his sleeve over his eye again to wipe away the blood that flowed from his temple into the corner of his eye. It caked the strands of black hair around his temple and even now he managed to wrinkle his nose unconsciously in disapproval because of it.

Clearly, he was no longer in the same place. Everything here seemed silent. Any trace of the struggle had simply disappeared. The typical forest scent of moss, resin and damp earth were in the air. Residual wetness from the rain covered the leaves lying on the ground at his feet with small drops that shone like little pearls in the dappled light that fell through the tree canopies. Was it an illusion or perhaps even really a travelling spell? Such magic existed, but it was extremely rare and very powerful. They far outstripped his abilities and those of most magicians. If this black magician had mastered such magic...

Kyle felt sick at the thought. Dr Archer never stood a chance alone! He might be a soldier and certainly anything but defenceless with two revolvers, but against a black magician with such abilities...? The thought turned his stomach. For some reason, he couldn't bear the image of finding Dr Archer in his own blood.

No. He had to get to him now! What was he supposed to do now? The first thing he had to do was to remain calm. Headless, he would not make wise decisions. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.

The mage rubbed his left hand, which continued to stubbornly grip the staff, across the palm of his right. An offshoot of his restlessness and a habit he could not break even now. His palm itched, tingled and distracted him. But in the end, either way, he always came to the same conclusion: he had no choice but to keep looking. And that meant both Benjamin and Annabeth. It would do no good for him to linger here in place. Turning into a bird would make no sense either. Even as a human, he had noticed the effect on his organism in the presence of this depraved individual. An animal - especially a smaller one - had no chance. The black magic that weighed on this place would most certainly kill him as an owl.

Kyle thought hard and racked his brain. Then he took a deep breath and exhaled, reaching inside his jacket. Silently, beads and bones rattled and clattered together. Bones of various shapes, some pale and whitish, small and delicate, others larger, lined up next to black beads and teeth on the thick thread. At first glance, it looked like a black magic rosary, which a speck of moonlight also groped curiously.

An obscure accessory, the kind probably stereotypically worn by charlatans on the streets or wizards in filthy parlours who predicted the future or sold curses for a few pens. Kyle turned the wreath of bones in his fingers, looking at the runes and symbols carefully carved into each bone and meticulously chosen until he found the one he was looking for. In a ritualistic act, slowly and unhurriedly, he slipped the bracelet over his wrist. Although he did not open his lips, his mind, trained in the art of transformation, was already reaching out into the fabric of reality. Kyle took the curved, yellowish tooth between his thumb and forefinger and closed his eyes.

Liquid fire poured into his veins, setting him on fire inside from head to toe in an instant. Kyle clenched his teeth until they hurt. Cracking and grinding, his bones shifted. The mage contorted his face sorrowfully under the sickening yet familiar sensation and reared up under the spell. He felt his jaw crack, the magic crackle in his veins. He threw his head back, felt the tug of every muscle and felt every inch of his skin. His body suddenly seemed too small and too tight, misshapen and wrong.

In the past, the magic had sometimes slipped away from him at this point. By now, however, he knew how to meet the burning longing for a new form, to end the spell and give himself redemption and the triumph of success. This time, no feathers thrust piercingly through his flesh, but fur sprouted and settled over his body in a thick, black sheen. He sank to his knees, feeling the earth beneath the heels of his hands, smelling the more intense scent of each nuance. Kyle's fingers curled, broke and reshaped until large paws touched down on the ground. Sparkling yellow eyes flashed into the darkness as his boiling blood slowly but surely calmed.

Kyle shook his large head, following it with his renewed body, blinking a few times to adjust to the new form. The ears of a wolf twitched and listened strained into the silence that continued to lie around him as a tightly woven curtain in all its eerie ways. Still, it was silent, no rustling or chirping of crickets, no bird in the thicket... but then, finally: a sound in the distance! Kyle started to move and dashed on all fours through the undergrowth. If this bastard thought it would be enough to put him under a travelling spell to the other end of this goddamn forest, he was wrong!

As a wolf, it was so much easier to move forward, jumping over obstacles and dodging roots. The tree trunks passed him by, blurring into streaks, and panting, he sprinted until his lungs burned towards the source of the sound. Foliage puffed up under the wolf's paws and puddles sprouted drops, but he was many metres away in the next moment. Muscles strained under the thick fur as he covered whole metres with great leaps and always far-reaching movements. Sometimes a twig or low-hanging branch tried to stop him, but the lithe body slipped easily from the small claws and continued on its way through the thicket. Claws dug into the soft earth, dashed away over mud and moss, and sometimes churned up leaves and dirt while drumming footsteps carried him on at breathtaking speed.

The dense rows thinned out as Kyle slowed. Panting, his long tongue hung over his pointed teeth as his lungs pumped the air with rapid bursts into his wiry chest. The shaggy fur quivered with each of his breaths when, amidst the dense greenery and withered leaves, an old, decaying well hugged by a tree suddenly appeared.

Not far away, a few ruins seemed to represent a collapsed, long-weathered house that today consisted of nothing more than the remains of the foundation. Nature had reclaimed this place, growing tendrils and moss over the stones and blurring the grey with the green of the forest. Suspiciously, he set his paws aside and his yellow eyes measured the new, unknown terrain for a split second. But what wiped aside his initial wariness was the wild splash that came from the well within.

"Help me! Kyle!" gurgled Ben's shout from the depths. Gurgles and gasps accompanied the sounds, planting panic in his mind like a poison that threatened to paralyse his caution in a second. Kyle sprinted towards the ring of moss-covered rock and braked so sharply that he almost bumped into it. 

Large paws braced against the edge of thick, old rock and his eyes darted anxiously down the well. A few small pieces of stone came loose from the unstable edge and fell clattering down into the black water.