After the Uber dropped them off at their destination, at some random spot off the side of the road overlooking a vast wall of forest, Sindra and Koda were ready to hunt.
Koda advised that he lead the way, since he was the one wielding the charms, so Sindra had no choice but to agree to that. The woods were dark and foreboding the further they delved within, and even the full moon hardly shone with the thick cloud cover over it. It was also a little chilly, but nothing two hunters couldn't handle.
The forest grew eerily silent, but that didn't bother either of them. In fact, it only benefited them in their search to better find the werewolf, because it was silent enough that even Sindra's thoughts were too loud.
And for some reason, Sindra had a feeling that this couldn't be her true quarry. Once more, it seemed too good to be true.
"We're getting close," Koda announced after an hour. As a confirmation, the charms around his neck were glowing brighter than ever before, illuminating the trees around them. As an experienced hunter, Sindra could sense the werewolf's presence even without the charms. Koda had that skill too, but the charms were beneficial in allowing them to find it that much quicker.
After about fifteen more minutes of walking, the charms dimmed slightly, then completely grew dark. Koda frowned, holding the beaded necklace in one hand as he turned back to face Sindra. "I've never seen them do this before. What the hell does it mean?"
"I'm not sure either, I'm not a sorceress." She meant that with only a little bit of snark.
"Well, it would sure be nice if we could get any witchy person to help us," Koda mumbled half to himself, scratching the back of his neck. Sindra felt the same way, but when had she ever needed a sorcerer or sorceress to help her on her hunts? The answer was significantly close to the negatives. "Alright, come on. Let's just keep going in the same direction. Obviously it means that we're pretty damn close, or else it wouldn't have stopped glowing."
"Unless it's broken..."
"You know as well as I do that charms can't break," Sindra muttered as she strode past him. She knew the werewolf was very close, because goosebumps were rising all along her arms and a familiar chill ran down her spine. That meant that the hunt was coming to its end, because they should be right on top of the beast by now.
Then, like the charms, the tingling in her arms faded away until it stopped completely. Sindra frowned, stopping in her tracks as she slowly watched her surroundings. "That's a new sensation," she said to herself.
Koda stopped right next to her, still fiddling with the charmed necklace. "What's a new sensation?"
"You know how I always get that tingling feeling whenever a werewolf is near? It stopped all of a sudden... almost like it got snuffed out somehow." She slowly pulled out her handgun, which was loaded to the brim with silver bullets.
"Yeah, that's odd. Well great, now I've got a really bad feeling about this." Koda unsheathed his silver knife, glaring into the darkness. He now stood back-to-back with Sindra, so the two of them could watch each other just in case they received a surprise attack from the beast.
But nothing jumped out at them.
It was after some time that Sindra's worry and caution faded away to annoyance and frustration. "Damn. Is this thing gonna show or not? I still can't tell what's going on."
"Wait, shh," Koda whispered, placing a finger in front of his lips.
They both stood there and listened for the longest time, and then they both heard the sounds of muffled footsteps padding somewhere through the trees. The hairs began to raise again on Sindra's arms as she held up her handgun, now scanning the dark shadows in front of her and around her. A chilling howl resonated through the woods, seeming to come from all directions, but the birds flying out from the trees northward gave Sindra her answer. Danger had arrived.
"Brace yourself, man. It looks like we're about to get hit real hard by this thing," Koda said, his voice not wavering a single second, despite the sheer gravity of the situation. Neither of them were afraid, but it wasn't as fun hunting a werewolf whenever you couldn't find it.
The beast didn't show itself for a while, but when it finally did, Sindra was not prepared to see it.
It was a hulking raven-furred beast with scars all along its sides and across its muzzle, as if past hunters had failed to kill it before. Those eyes were a fathomless yellow-gold, and the fangs were bloodstained with a previous kill. Blood dripped from the snarling teeth and onto the ground, creating large red puddles in the grassy dirt, and its tongue licked those teeth hungrily.
It somehow managed to sneak up directly behind Sindra, and Koda was the first to notice it. He suddenly raised his silver knife in the air, poised to strike if needed, and that triggered the werewolf to attack.
Sindra just barely managed to dodge it, and she was only able to do so because of her hunter reflexes, but even so it was nothing compared to that of a werewolf. She felt one of its claws snag the edge of her jacket, tearing a small hole through the back of it, and she mumbled a swear. Just a couple more inches and the curse could've been transmitted to her.
"Sindra! Two o'clock!" Koda suddenly shouted a little ways away.
She whirled around and shot a bullet into the werewolf's chest as it leaped at her again. The force of the bullet seemed to stun the werewolf into place, preventing it from making a further move. It had snuck up on her again. She wouldn't let it happen a third time. Clever beast.
Unfortunately the bullet wound didn't penetrate the heart, because while it was weakened, the werewolf clearly wasn't dying. It staggered a little, a mass of blood oozing from the wound, but it was close to attacking again. This time Koda intercepted it and managed to stab it in the hind leg while it was distracted. The beast roared and whirled on Koda, its slavering fangs snapping, but the other hunter was fast enough to jump away again. He stood at Sindra's side again, panting just a little. "Alright, clearly this thing's beefed up enough to not die from silver to the chest, so what the hell should we do?"
They were lucky that they even had time to talk, but Sindra had no time to respond nor formulate a plan, because the beast began to charge at them.
"I recommend running first!" Sindra exclaimed.
She grabbed Koda's arm and they dodged the werewolf, the snapping of its teeth breaking the crisp quiet of the night. It was nothing short of a miracle that they had evaded it once again, but this time it was only because it was weakened by the silver bullet.
They climbed a very tall tree that was sure to withstand even a werewolf's rage, or at least they hoped, and watched as it paced and snarled below. Every so often it would look up at them and stop pacing, then resume pacing while still glaring up. It didn't even bother attacking the tree, which given any average werewolf would do anything to get to its prey, no matter how impossible. It just proved how sentient this particular wolf was, and how experienced it could be to not slam its body into the tree this very instant. It was toying with them, possibly aiming to make them believe that it couldn't bring the tree down to get to them.
"Okay, now we can talk about how we're gonna kill this thing before it kills us," Koda said. "This thing's smart, so we need to figure out a plan before it figures out how to reach us."
"Relax. We'll just kill it like we have with every single other werewolf that we've encountered, alright? This one seems to be pretty sentient, but that's not a problem for us." She gave him a knowing look.
"I know, but I haven't been this... unsure in a very long time. I just want to make it clear that we keep our skins intact tonight so we don't become werewolf chow before sunrise."
They fell silent after that. Sindra began to formulate a plan as the werewolf continued to pace and growl far below them, and Koda fidgeted every once in a while. It took a minute for sure, but Sindra eventually thought of something that was at least half decent. Koda was all ears, listening intently despite the sound of the werewolf's claws raking against the bark of the tree. It reminded Sindra of a gigantic feline stretching.
And it almost seemed to be grinning up at them as Sindra whispered the last of her plan to Koda.
Then, they prepared to get into formation. Koda, looking slightly distressed but more than ready to take on the challenge, prepared to move from the tree. The trees were close enough together that he could travel from branch to branch undetected, until he would reach a position somewhere behind the werewolf and drop to ground level again. Then he would create a drawn spell in the ground that would be similar to a demon-trapping sigil, except it would be meant to trap a werewolf. Koda was far more adept at magic and spells than Sindra, although he was a hunter and not a sorcerer. But she had to admit, those skills certainly came in handy when called for, and could easily rival an actual sorcerer's.
Sindra would be the diversion. She would attract the werewolf's attention, which wouldn't be very hard at this point, and get it to follow her to Koda's sigil trap. It was foolproof.
By now, Koda had traveled through the thick trees until he was now in one of the trees across the massive clearing. Sindra could see the flash of his white t-shirt through the thick leaves of the canopy, even from here. She let out a quiet sigh of relief, then blew the hair out of her face as she stood up on the thick branch, staring down at the werewolf. She rested one hand on the branch above her and one on the branch next to her to keep her balance. The wolf had stopped pacing for some reason, still glaring up at her, but it had no idea that Koda was missing. So far so good.
Koda had mentioned that he would send a silent text to Sindra as soon as the sigil was ready, but after ten minutes, she received nothing. Sigils took a little while sometimes to prepare, so Sindra knew not to be discouraged, but she couldn't help but feel a twinge of worry for her hunting partner. All the while, she was thankful that she would be the diversion instead of him.
The moon rose higher and higher in the sky. A chilly breeze blew through Sindra's hair in the tall tree canopy. The wolf paced below, snarling and growling, raking its claws on the tree every so often. By now there was a bare patch of wood where it had clawed it over and over out of absolute agitation.
Then Sindra's screen lit up, and Koda's text had a simple thumbs-up emoji, signaling that the sigil was ready for action. She knew it was go-time now.
Sindra began to move lower and lower down the tree until she was at least another werewolf's length away from the beast below her. She could've sworn that she spotted a hint of confusion in those yellow eyes, but it quickly resorted back to relentless fury. It leaped up in the air, using the power of its hind legs, but it was still nowhere near Sindra. It bared its bloody teeth at her and snapped them, waiting for her to do something.
At first she didn't move again, but then she dug around in her pocket and threw a huge rock squarely in the wolf's face. It was a momentary distraction, but it was enough for her to leap onto its back and stab her silver knife into it over and over again. She would've used her handgun, but she had given it to Koda to take with him to the sigil in case he needed it.
The werewolf howled and tried to buck her off, kicking and flailing wildly. Sindra held on tight, then she eventually let go and allowed herself to be flung to the ground a little ways away. Then she took her chance and bolted across the clearing, right into the direction of where Koda's sigil would be. She could hear the werewolf let out a roar of rage, and giant paws thundered after her right as she emerged into the tree line. Koda and his sigil were visible through the trees, she just had to make it a little farther...
She sharply turned and momentarily changed her direction as the werewolf flew behind her, those bloody teeth clacking together as it collapsed into a tree. It was small enough to shake from the sheer force of the wolf's strength, but it remained upwards. Sindra kept running, having bought herself more time to get to the sigil. The beast quickly recovered and gave chase again, but it suddenly faltered the closer it got to the sigil. Sindra couldn't turn around to watch, but she could hear it loudly sniffing the air, followed by a low growl. It seemed to be suspicious of something.
Sindra skidded to a halt by Koda at the far side of the sigil, gasping for breath and wiping a bead of sweat off her brow. Koda gave her a quick glance before looking at the forest again. "You okay? Did that thing give you any trouble?"
"Damn right it did," she breathed out. She quickly recovered and stood up straight, her eyes narrowed as she watched the forest. "What the hell is it doing? I thought I heard it stop for some reason."
"I don't know, but once again I've got a pretty bad feeling about this," Koda said softly. He was gripping silver knife tightly in one hand, and the charmed necklace in the other. The sigil before them was neatly drawn out in the ground and was waiting to trap an unsuspecting werewolf. But something wasn't right.
"Do you think it knows what we're up to?" Sindra demanded. "This wolf is a nightmare to kill, you've seen those scars from those other hunters! If it recognizes this to be a sigil, I don't know what we're gonna do. Hell, I've already stabbed it multiple times with my knife, and it's still not going down." She began to pace next to Koda, her eyes flickering up to the forest every now and then in case the werewolf surprised them again. But the forest was dead silent, as if holding its breath to watch the showdown that was about to occur.
For once, Koda had nothing to say, and just remained standing there and staring at the forest. The handgun was in his back pocket, and Sindra took it back and stuffed it in her own back pocket. Her hand remained on the hilt, ready to fire on the werewolf if it showed its face through the shadowy trees.
"Sindra, this isn't good at all," Koda finally said, and Sindra just gave him an 'Oh really?' look. "You're right, I think this wolf knows what we're up to. We should step inside the sigil, because if it won't approach, then surely it won't try to get us and risk getting trapped."
They both stepped inside the boundaries of the large circle, and as soon as they did so, it was like the forest came alive once again.
The werewolf didn't step out from the shadows until it saw them do this. It was no longer snarling, still angry of course, but now it held a calculating look on its face. Sindra could tell that it was trying to decide whether or not it wanted to trap itself inside the sigil and kill them, or stay free outside of it with no hunters to maul. It licked its chops hungrily, those intelligent yellow eyes wavering between indecision and fury. Sindra could feel her own anger rising as she watched the werewolf, wondering what it would decide to do.
She was even more angry whenever the wolf turned tail and vanished back into the quiet night, as if its quarry wasn't standing right in front of it.