Chapter 373 - Bloodtrail

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A fractured moon peered at Thomas's back through rusted bridge supports, pushing his shadow closer to the door to the library. After his resurrection, the pale moonlight usually brought him a strange sense of comfort. Not this time. 'Doevm gave me an hour and it's nearly up,' he thought. 'This is do or die. Have I done everything I could?'

Thomas licked his lips, ashamed of the joy that both the metallic taste and smell brought him. At least it distracted him as he waited for Shay to emerge, drawn to the smell of blood like a moth to the flame. He glanced over his shoulder at a bloodtrail.

The children had dragged Mr. Fisher past the bridge, which acted as a divider, to the back of the garden. Thomas could still hear them over the whistling wind. They struggled to get their father past the snow, cursing Thomas's name and wheezing along the way.

Standing watch at the front was the only help Thomas could offer them since after he "helped" Mr. Fisher the first time, they nearly broke their fragile hands on his scrap armor.

He sighed and a bead of cold sweat rolled down his chin. His pistol, reloaded. His dagger, sheathed. Spear, hidden in his spatial ring. Vials in his belt, counted. Traps, placed.

Out of the fifteen vials of venoms and poisons Thomas entered the estate with, five remained on his belt. He unconsciously toyed with their corks. If he loosened them any further they would lose their potency. A single drop could kill a normal man. A lycanthrope was not normal, nor a man.

The door to the library cracked, and Thomas tensed.

Thomas could have hidden behind one of the many flower beds for cover but the lycanthrope would have sniffed him out.

Thomas heard the creature reer back and charge the door again, cracking the stone further.

He could have at least gotten a height advantage by standing on the bridge but, judging from how the structure shook as he stepped on it, it was just a hit from collapsing.

The door tumbled off its hinges. Slitted eyes peered out from the dark, gleaming with recognition as they all narrowed in on the seemingly lone Thomas.

Thomas stood front and center, taking as much space as he could get.

With one last charge Shay emerged into the open space, its weight alone cracking the very door that it sent toppling to the ground. That monster could probably run its way through the entire ruin and still have plenty of life essence left over. It wasn't a threatening charge nor a display of strength. It was simply how such a massive beast maneuvered through a place meant for man, in a time long past.

Shay looked him up and down. "You've gained weight," he curiously remarked.

Thomas shrugged. "This is what I normally look like. I just haven't eaten in a while."

"That reminds me of our deal," Shay said as he drew closer. "I see you alone are here, you claim to have eaten, and I smell my quarry's blood. Explain yourself."

Thomas silently pulled his spear out of his spatial ring.

Shay stopped and blinked, the motion eliciting what was left of his humanity; a small kindling of trust, extinguished. Thomas got the sickening sensation that, despite the pained hate Shay had built up over years of mistrust, the lycanthrope had genuinely offered its picture of salvation: to live in a pack. "You...You've betrayed me for them? The vermin?"

"They're not vermin to me," Thomas maintained. "No human should be treated as livestock." He crouched into a stance, his decision made.

Thomas thought the beast would leap but Shay eyed his figure. "Disregarding the blatant hypocrisy behind that statement, I couldn't help but notice your body shrinks as you regenerate. Could your hunger and your regeneration somehow be linked? If so, then that means you ate my quarry because you couldn't help yourself. Is that one of the features of your kind?"

"What's your point?" Thomas hissed.

"So you're just a fool after all," Shay growled. "I'm going to rip you limb from limb, then watch your body struggle to keep itself together as your mind breaks. Next I'll send you after the survivors in this ruin, then the next town, then the next. I'll break you until there is nothing left to break. You may have disrespected me but I swear to the god of Evil I will uphold my side of the deal if it destroys you!"

Shay bared his fangs. His essence shot out of its black fur before blanketing the barbed bone around his body.

"This time, things will be different," Thomas said as dark blue life essence flooded around his legs. He kicked off the ground with a spring in his step. Shay's claws were lethal but slow. He slid right under them before piercing a bloody hole between the creature's ribs. A dose of paralyzing venom shot into his torn muscle tissue.

Shay let out a howl of pain. Thomas dove over a flowerbed as Shay reared back but the wolf fumbled over one of his legs, slower to act. "Damn human tricks," he growled. He condensed his life essence around the wound and the flesh stitched itself back together, leaving a small bald spot. The blue mist around him thinned. He bent and extended his leg, adjusting to it in moments.

'That was five drops and it was only a leg,' Thomas thought, awestruck. He narrowed his eyes at the other back leg. 'I just need to give it more.' He shook his head, then flew back into the fight. Feigning left, he sidestepped Shay's bite. The lycanthrope tumbled over its paralyzed leg and onto his side. Thomas's target presented itself before him, begging for a dose of venom. He reeled back, then flew forward as a weight crashed into his back, knocking him off his feet.

In his haste he had forgotten the front claws. He paid by skidding across the ground like a rock skipping along the water. He couldn't feel pain but he felt his body cry out. He felt his limbs splay out each time he landed. He heard bones within his damaged body crack. His vision blurred as he grinded to a halt. Even his cold, metal armor had enough. It clattered to the ground, broken.

If not for the armor…

Thomas gritted his teeth and pushed off the wall to get up to his feet. 'Wait,' he thought as he glanced at the wall. 'I'm in a corner.' Whipping around, he barely took a step before he saw the inside of Shay's mouth, and all the pointy teeth inside. His hand flashed to his belt, throwing and shattering a vial of green liquid before everything went black.

Thomas awoke on the ground, covered in slobber. He tried to sit up but his body wouldn't obey him. Glancing down, he found lacerations all along his torso, quickly mended by jets of steam. His body fat shriveled to half its original amount, turning a comfortable sense of fullness into a peckish-ness. He leapt up. The lycanthrope was thrashing wildly about the front of the garden. Green mist floated out of its mouth. It coughed up blood between the howls of pain but it was still far from death. Its life essence slowly regenerated whatever the poison melted away, at a cost. It was weakening.

Thomas grabbed two more vials as he stepped towards the creature but his feet shifted under him. The vials shattered on the ground and he cursed as he spotted a bone jutting out of his shin. He pushed it back in and the bone reconnected within moments but if it broke, what about the other bones in his body? His regeneration had a limit, and he had no idea what was regenerated or not. He could only feel a certain "heaviness".

He counted only two vials left. 'Looks like I'll have to switch to plan B.' He put the two vials back into his spatial ring, changing them out for a pistol.

When the poison wore off and Shay got back up. He sniffed the air and two of his eyes focused on a blood trail going past the bridge to the back of the garden, where two defenseless children awaited.. The lycanthrope looked from Thomas to the children, then smiled.

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