From the corner of Elijah's eye, he saw the body of the other beast turn and shift its savage gaze to his direction, watching his ongoing struggle with his kin. The gray monster took a slow heavy step towards them, then twitchingly turned to the hole of the wall.
Black knew its lust for blood was not quelled, yet rather than share its kin's quarry it preferred to seek its own kill, Instead. The werewolf howled loudly and leaped into the hole in search of Rob, tearing wood at its edges and creating an even larger outline to its violently made entrance. Inside the darkness beyond the wall, its wolfish head twitched as it sniffed the air in search of Black's partner.
Good, he's hidden, thought Elijah, feeling the teeth of the beast's mouth which wrapped around his arm growing tighter.
Elijah's mind fixed on Rob's location, picturing the young gunslinger making his way around the beast to surprise it. No, he told himself, realizing now was not the time to worry. Besides, Black knew he trained him as well as he could, trusting him to find a way out on his own now was the highest form of respect he could show.
The thick shroud his partner had cast started to fade, dissipating and disappearing into small patches in the air until finally it was gone and the light and shadows of night returned into view.
"Shit," he cursed, feeling the sensation that had granted him vision returning and causing the purple outlines to fade. The chant was always poor at adjusting to changes in light, fading away at the sudden illumination.
If the snarling savage could be pushed off, Elijah thought, even for just a second, then his revolver would be his again and he could easily finish it off.
He breathed slowly, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, then mustering as much strength in his arms and legs as he could, he attempted to push the beast off. He felt himself dragged and the monster's grip tightening, the smell of the savage's breath and fur which was like a wet corpse became increasingly harder to ignore.
With his free leg, he kicked the beast, who surprised by the strength loosened its grip and reeled back off the gunslinger.
The silver surface of his revolver gleamed in the distance and the man dived after it, reaching out for the weapon with outstretched arms. He crashed to the ground, a dull pain ringing in his ribs, but the gun was firmly gripped in his hands once more. The werewolf, already recovered after being struck, sprang towards him, claws and fangs bare.
Two thunderous cracks roared across the room and the monster crashed to the ground in front of Elijah, sinking into the floorboards which creaked and then cracked under its weight.
Elijah was on his back and his gun barrel pointed to the air where the beast had been, yet no smoking trail escaped its barrel, and his trigger finger pressed tightly.
Who the hel-
"Was that you Robert!" he shouted, picking himself off the ground and turning behind him.
"Not quiet old man," A husky voice belonging to a woman answered.
A tall young woman in a standard gunslinger duster coat stood, smoking gun in hand, and smirked at him playfully.
"Funny you actually hit your target for once,"
A frown fell across the woman's freckled face.
"Thank you for the assist Elizah," he said with a wry smile
"Seems I arrived just in time," she said, walking towards the Texan.
"Not really, another second and the bastard would have died anyway," Elijah holstered his weapon, "still like I said, I'm glad for the assist."
She examined the wound on Black's arm, tilting her head slightly and squinting her large observant green eyes. She wore her black hair in two braids that fell behind her shoulders like hairy snakes. Her eyes were sharp and large which shined with an alert awareness of an eagle.
"Have you f-"
The Texan stopped mid-sentence, the feeling of urgency rising in him again. He turned his head and looked at the hole in the wall with concerned eyes.
"What is it," Elizah asked, fret in her voice. "And where's Rob?" she asked almost breathlessly.
"Rob!" shouted Black, gently brushing past the raven-haired woman towards the black hole.
"H-h- he got pulled in there b-"
"Relax!"
A man's voice shouted back out from the hole, coughing and groaning as if something ached. Then slowly, Inside, a dark figure stumbled closer and gradually emerged into the moon's glow. Rob supported himself up with the hole, the blood of one of the savages staining his coat.
Elijah sighed with relief and attempted to hide a faint smile.
He felt a gentle pat from behind and saw Elizah step past with the same smirk that she held before.
"How are you holding up old man?" she asked," you seem more tense than usual."
"Me," he sighed," I'm fine. What about you two, it feels like hours since we last spoke. No injuries I hope."
"Not a scratch on me," she looked cheekily at Rob.
"Good-good," he said, looking at Rob and then back to her, returning to his firm usual expression.
"Last I spoke to you, the two of you were planning to take the church together from the rear. Care to explain what changed?" he asked.
"Oh," she said, a guilty expression swelling on her face. "We, Rob and I, thought it best to split up and cover more ground," she looked at the bearded researcher, giving him the usual help me the hell out here look. "Isn't that right Rob?"
Rob, still holding himself up on the wall, smiled in amusement and lowered his head.
"Funny, I heard it was your idea," Elijah said, a smirk forming on his face.
"Well I may have pushed for it more than he did," she said with a faint smile, "C'mon Dad, if you'd wanted someone by the book, god knows you shouldn't have chosen me."
"True," Black couldn't help but smile.
"Just like the old days," she replied.
Black sighed.
"So long as you two are safe, it doesn't matter." He said, his expression strangely open and inviting. C'mon now back to the assignment, can you give us a report on what you've seen?"
"I scaled the church and discovered one of the Werewolf was on the lookout, fortunately, I took him out before he could get sight of me. Then, once I found an entrance into the building up on the roof, I took care of another one of the bastards who was distracted. That's when I a struggle below and, well you know."
"Good Job," Black said, patting her shoulder.
Elizah quickly turned and looked at Elijah, and then, straight at Rob.
"It seems I wasn't the only one who had fun. It seems you two had more fun than I did."
"Yeah, you can say that. C'mon, you two let's go find their wretched den so we can go get out of here and go home."
"Elizah, did you see any sign of an entrance from above? You know, like the ones from the other sights.?"
"I did not," she said.
"Don't worry I know where it is," Rob said, his eyes lighting up.
"Really," Eliza's eys showed surprise.
"Why do you look so shocked?" Rob shrugged his shoulders, smiled and pointed behind him.
"C'mon, I'll show you."
"Good job.?" Said Elijah.
They followed Rob into the hole, , avoiding the sharp bits of wood sticking out from the wall to enter the pitch black room.
"Shame that savage couldn't have made a cleaner hole," Black joked.
"You know, if i should have asked him as he threw me, he might have taken it into consideration," Rob said, looking at the Texan with a smile and then proceeding to roll his eyes.
Elijah noticed something revealed by the moonlight, it laid liflessly on the ground to his right and rested upon the floor boards. It was the head of the dead savage that attacked his partner, its crimson eyes still and the black tongue spilling out the beasts mouth. A massive hole bored its way through the monsters head, Impressive shot, especially in the dark, Black thought, slowly turning back to his partner.
"Good shot," he said.
"Thanks, its pretty good for someone who pokes around at monster corpses is n't it."
"Looks like you trained him better than you thought," Elizah smiled at Black.
Rob knelt next to a hatch on the ground, sighing as he cleared the debris of wooden rubble from the ground in search of something in the dark.
"There you are," he stood up slowly and presented a locked hatch potruding from the floorboards.
"No idea where the k-."
Elizah quickly pulled out her gun and fired at the lock, breaking the pice of metal with one short lived flash of sparks.
"I could have done that," Rob smirked.
Elijah pulled hard on the door's handles with both hands and they swept open, blowing a large quantity of dust up into the air . Behind them a dark path led down by few stone steps, declined down to a pitch black hallway.
"Elizah, do you have one for this," he asked.
The raven haired woman nodded and pulled down her sleave, which was littered with etched words and symbols that slithered and flowed up her arms. As she spoke, the markings glowed, radiating a bright and warm light that grew increasingly in intensity, until finally a floating orb materialized from her palm.
Elijah and Elizah went down first, the light caster shining a portion of the path before them and the texan following with his revolver in hand. Rob followed from behind, quickly scanning the church one last time before decending down the stone steps.
Black felt but ignored the sharp pain at his shoulder, experience had told him it was better to fight through it and concentate on the assignment at hand.
"The sooner we kill all these things the better," he said quietly.
"I actually agree with you this time mate," Rob who heard him moved closer " I'm not made for somewhere like this. I can't wait to be out of this bloody swamp."
"You mean, you can't wait to be back in your comfortable chair with a cup of tea and a massive book, snugged up in some nook reading ," said Elizah.
"I won't deny that the idea doesn't sound pretty nice to me right now," Rob smirked.
Darkness came and went past for some time, Elizah's light had revealed small unrecognisable bones on the ground, which as they continued to walk were esaily identified. Human skulls and rib cages littered the black hall's floor, splayed across its surface as one would throw trash, and consisting of every shape and size of man, women, and child.
Their feet brushed past the bone-ridden stone, and the sound of rolling and clattering skulls echoed forward. Black felt the presence of a strong gust of wind, travelling towards, noticing that as it blew across his face that it gently pushed some of the bones closer towards them.
He stayed silent and readied his gun for what was to come, knowing well that one of those savages could be lurking in th dark preparing to strike; he gripped his weapon tighter, his mind unable to stop picturing the beasts and his natural protective urge for his team growing stronger.
After some time, they emerged from the shadows and Black spotted strangely sculpted stones which littered the an even stranger large circular garden. Dead vegetation covered the stones, growing over it like moss on headstones in a graveyard.
A cool breeze made him stare up and notice, like the building before, the night sky not the ceiling , faced down at him. Perfectly circular, as if the patch of earth was carved with the highest precision to accommodate this odd garden that was created below.
The moon was perfectly positioned above and its silvery glow touched everything with an almost primal aura.
"What the hell is this place," Rob whispered, his eyes slowly sweeping the garden."None of the other dens were like this."
The garden was silent, nothing but the wind and the crunching twigs beneath their feet uttered a sound.
"Keep alert, they are probably lurking about like bef-"
From the corner of Elijah's eye glittered something on the dead grass which grabbed the Texan's attention. He stepped slowly to the crimson patch that made its mark on the ground and gently ran his finger along it, recognizing the human blood smearing his glove.
"Look, there's more over here," shouted Rob.
Black moved behind him, watching over his partner's shoulder as he rubbed two blood stained fingers together. His head turned slowly to the rest of the garden, whose stone statues were littered with similar bloody marks.
He saw Elizah curiosly stepping towards one such statue and examined it, her green eyes squinting closely as she inspected its surface.
Black continued to watched her, spotting her usual curiosity shine behind her green eyes and realizing that something had caught her attention. Her gaze slowly trailed the ground, hovering over dead greass and dirt with unconcern, and then, suddenly, she turned and gazed up with the wide panic, frozen like a deer before headlights.
Black quickly turned to where she stared with fright and immediately discovered the source of her surprise. Perched lazily at the edge of the opening above crouched a monstrous body beyond the size of any werewolf Black had encountered. Its eyes stared down at them with a menacing glow and radiated a dark crimson wich made the black slitted pupil sitting unnaturally still inbetween, even more frightning.
A cold chill quickly traveled up the hairs of Elijah's neck and his hand tightened slowly around the revolver handle.
He noticed Eliza and Rob both stood frozen and stared up at the monsterous beast.
It rose slowly with its hind legs extending the monster to a giants stature, one Black guessed to be more than ten feet tall.