Chapter 17

Author Note: From this point, I am hoping to write longer chapters. I just wanted to get this one posted.

A mere bad dream, that, that was an understatement. Fredricx could not bother to even lull his eyes open, consciousness grasping him by shreds. The clubbing and clawing he received strangled his torso. There was no adrenaline to dull his wounds. Instead of exhilaration, estrangement to his own appendages and organs.

A rumble resounded. It bumped and muddied the throbbing. One eye twitched open as the rumbling became less geographical and more animalistic. The whole room was bleary. Fredricx stared up at the metal spider hanging from the ceiling. Blinking with two eyes transformed the spider into a chandelier, and the chandelier growled at him. The mental muck threatened his awareness again.

Never in Fredricx's life did he hear a chandelier growl. His head pivoted, eyes reluctantly following. Crimson stained the floor, reaching toward him. From the blood, came a wolf beast. It was ragged with floor matching fur and perally bone teeth and claws. Yellow, crescent eyes met his. Its jaws snapped as easily as rubber. Saliva dripped. Claws reached. The dagger tip would pierce his flesh.

Fredricx's muscles protested movement. He was left immobilized. By, what? He was not sure.

The growling turned into shrieking as the creature lit fire. The flame cast it up, filling the room with smoke and stench. The beast fell, but not before flailing wildly, threatening to take a victim with it. Fredricx's eyes fell to the doorway. The source of flame had disappeared.

Clearly, he could not remain here. Where was here? Where was Lucas or Ettie? Where was Ettie? His chest twinged, muscles agreeing to clench, but still not allowing full body, logical movement.

Oh, how his abdomen hurt. Letting out a breath through his mouth, he went to swing his legs onto the floor. Nothing cooperated. He found himself eyeing his shoes, shined from the night's events. A weight clung to his pant leg, wrinkling the material to one side. Small fingers hoisted themselves upward. This was followed by another set of fingers and then a skull. A small bony creature, a skeleton, crept toward him. There was another on the opposite leg. Then, yet another at his waist. They hissed, and their bones cracked as their pointed teeth threatened him.

Fredricx slung his head back in attempt to dislodge them, but instead, collided with the unforgiving surface. He saw unnatural colors, small dots coloring his vision. The dots were not the only thing muddling his line of sight. These small, white eyed beasts swallowed him. Their nimble fingers reaching for his face, grasping his beard and smearing his skin.

The shreds of consciousness disappeared altogether.

"Ahh, you've found yourself a hunter," hummed a soft voice.

XXXX

Fredricx found his humanity again. Blinking, he yawned, smacking his lips and scratching his beard. He located the spider chandelier and flinched. His neck swiveled rapidly. His muscles braced themselves. He readied himself for the wolf beast, the skeleton creatures, and for the pain from his discombobulated insides. None of it came. The corpse of the beast was even missing. Although, the pond of blood in the middle of the room remained.

He willed himself up to sitting. Light-headedness swooshed about his person. Blinking, he eyed his bare torso. The claw prints, swollen and angry, were reduced to iridescent scars. The inflated side below his ribcage was returned to its usual self. Bowels no longer cursed his movement. In fact, there was no nausea.

"Ettie," he croaked. Throat tight. "Ettie, where are you?"

Silence was the only response. He plopped down onto the floor, sending a ripple through the puddle. Small droplets colored his pants. Sloshing through the blood toward the closed door, his shoe caught something, throwing Fredricx off balance for a moment.

He hinged at the waist, scrapping abrasive floor before plucking up a small circle in his fingers. It was a ring, dripping with red. He eyed his ring finger. Fredricx's band had been pawned off long ago to settle a foolish debt.

Fredricx eyed it. The ring was small and made of yellow gold. A small stone was pressed into one side. Scratches and scum coated the outside. This was Ettie's. Inhaling unsteadily, he slipped it on his smallest finger. It was a little loose, but he would not lose it.

He went to let himself through the next door, but he found it locked, so Fredricx decided to try knocking. Within moments, there was a faint clicking of heels on the other side.

"Doctor, where is Ettie?" Fredricx asked, failing to keep his tone level.

"Oh, well, hello," a feminine voice soothed.

"Where is my wife?"

Doctor Iosefka did not respond for long moments. "I might be trapped here, but I should do something to help. You're soon off to hunt, I presume? When you find your Ettie or any survivors, tell them to seek Iosefka's my Hippocratic oath, if they are yet human, I will look after them, perhaps even cure them. This sickness, these beasts, they are not to be feared. This time the night is long. I'll even offer a reward for your cooperation. Tempted?"

"She was here with you!" Fredricx could not be stoic, "Where did she go?"

"Hunter, I have been here all night. I have all my patients accounted for, but if you find anyone who's still human, send them straight to Iosefka clinic. You can assure them, there's no place safer. I'll even look after your wife if you send her to me. Please do me this service."

"Where did she go?" he growled, fists curled. They made contact with the door, which shook on its hinges. He inhaled a choppy breath. A vein above his eyebrow tweaked itself into a hostile headache.

There was an angry stomp from the other side, which was joined by an exacerbated huff, "Ahh! Can't anyone comprehend? That'll be quite enough of you, then. Isn't it time someone put you out of your misery?"

With a final blow to the door with a fist, Fredricx turned away. The heels exited themselves further into the building.

He glanced at Ettie's ring. This did not give him the comfort he sought. This was far worse than before. She could be anywhere in this beast crawling, Hunter butchering, and disease spreading city.

Before having to tear himself from the room, Fredricx spotted a note. It sat on top of a pile of clothes across from the treatment table. He grasped it with a twange of hope that it might be from her.

"Fred,

Thought these might be of use.

-Adullam"

The pile contained a collared shirt, the coat he had collected from the deceased Hunter, the whip, which use to have the same owner, and of all things, a box of matches.

Fredricx dressed. The starchy fabric stiffened his posture. He tucked the shirt as per habit. The coat slid on, and he tightened the buckle about his chest. Matches were pocketed. The leather creaked as he jerked up the whip, red and still covered in fur tufts.

He would turn Yharham over if needed.

XXXX

He thrusted the clinic doors open. The orante wallpaper was crackled and splattered. There were suitcases turned over, their contents splayed out.

Fredricx descended the stairs and into another room. Tables, chairs, and bookcases crowded inside. It was dark aside from a window that allowed moon rays to cast shadows. However, Fredricx did not feel phased.

More stairs and into the next room, he went. This mimicked where he had woken from. Treatment tables were paired with IV drips. Unfortunately, the mimicry was down to the pool of blood. An particularly unbeastly body floated in the red. However, that was not the only addition to the room. There was a beast. Yet another werewolf, why did it always have to be werewolves? There was no pistol this time. He was equipped with the metal whip and his anger. Hopefully, this Hunter blood would be useful. Hopefully, it did more than correct his nearsightedness.

The Queen or the Healing Church or whatever must have looked out for him in that moment because the beast was turned away from him. Gripping each end in his hands, he stalked behind the creature, praying that the floor would not betray him. Fredricx did not dare to break eye contact with its neck as he hoisted himself up on one of the tables. The draped fabric scooted underneath his feet, causing a sharp inhale. The wolf's ear twitched.

Fredricx jumped. His body slammed into that of the beast's. The whip was hooked around the neck of the creature. It was his intentions to strangle it. This worked for a few moments with the wolf writhing underneath him and whip burying itself deep into its flesh. The jaws snapped wildly at him, growling and spittling on his face.

The beast was willed, bucking him to the side. Fredricx could not compete with the front end, especially half-pressed into the ground, so he released his grip. He rolled, wallowing in the liquid, as the wolf reached with its knife sized claws. Scrambling to his knees, he ducked underneath one of the treatment slabs and stood. He brought the whip up and down, slamming it across the table. The end made contact with the beast, but this only agitated it.

Roaring, the beast lurched to one side, attempting to come face to face with the Hunter. Fredricx refused it the pleasure, and ducked around to the opposite side. They danced like this a few more times as Fredricx rolled over options in his head. On the final merry-go-round, Fredricx abandoned the whip in favor of the metallic IV drip. It was not as heavy as he expected, but it would have to do. He used the vial end to smash the glass into the beast. The material shattered into its skin, and Fredricx dug it in before wrenching it out. This was only appreciated by one of the pair.

This trick only worked once more, but with the second time, it came with revenge. An imprecise blow to the beast's shoulder rewarded him with jaws. They clamped into his forearm, causing him to lose the medical weapon. The noise from the snapping was enough to make Fredricx dread the aftermath. They locked eyes. The creatures teeth firmly dug past his coat into flesh. It hurt. It hurt a lot.

However, also staring back at him was a gaping wound on the creature's chest. It was profusely spraying blood, the underneath muscles twitching. No bones blocked Fredricx's path. He used his unchomped arm. Winding back his elbow as far as the beast would allow, Fredricx rammed his hand into its torso. He grabbed onto something soft and tore it out.

One fell, so the other fell.

Grunting and huffing, Fredricx swore. The impact caused the teeth to shudder around his appendage. Dropping the beast's insides, he used the hand to lift the jaws of the creature. The removal was just as painful as the insertion. He wrangled the top set of teeth free from his arm and drug out the bottom set in a fashion that was not so clean. Relief was the emotion he settled on, rolling over on his back. The wolf and Hunter lied together in the broken floorboards of crimson, close enough to mistake it for intimacy.

Time passed. An unknown amount of time passed. Eventually, Fredricx staggered to his feet, feeling blood drip from his whole backside. His hair was even drenched. He did not think much of it belonged to him except what was streaming from his forearm. The whip was found, and the heart was left abandoned.

He stumbled into the next room, but not before assuring that the beast would truly not come for him again. Thankfully, the entryway hid no beasts. How powerful would a whip be in the non dominant hand, especially with the other tucked close to his chest like an injured animal? Thankfully, his only company was another corpse, which he never thought himself to be thankful for before. His eyes caught the glint of glass and snooped toward the body. Hanging from the deceased person's waist band were two blood vials.

Dark liquid sloshed around on the inside. The dull needle attached was definitely not fresh from the factory floor. Fredricx unclipped them, palming them both. He needed these. He needed them now. No, he would not become a beast. He had to do without. However, he could not continue as a crippled bird. He would never survive the Hunt. He would never find Ettie in his current state. Use them. Who knows what they would do? Ettie's safety, not Fredricx's sanity was what mattered.

He lined one of them up with his thigh and plunged it in. It hurt, but the draining of liquid was deliriously delicious. The edge was taken from his arm. Claw marks visibly fading as he gawked. Sure, it was not perfect, but he had two useful arms again. He clipped the remaining vial on the buckle of his coat.

He exited the clinic into a small cemetery. He confused shadows for beasts entirely too many times as he made his way through the wrought iron gate into Central Yharham. He surveyed the city. Spires and factor chimneys crowded out the sky. The moon was behind it all. The moon welcomed him into the night. The moon welcomed the Hunter to the Hunt.