Post by Logan on Jun 10, 2012 3:20:59 GMT -5
"Even the girls get to come along"
they'd told her a week prior. But Elysee knows regardless - she would've came. She is not the kind of woman that'll let the man she loves out to do something so urgent alone. She is not the type of female who swallows everything and recedes back into the faceless black ocean that is Blue ridge. Other females may be okay with subservience (beaten into it), but she found a loophole in the form of Sam. And though she loved him possessively, exploited it.
The brown wolf is the first one leaping from the truck, she follows her alpha at first naturally - along with Samuel. But when her mate makes out for a right, leads a squad of closely galloping into the lonesome street-life of the podunk southern town. She follows beside him, brushing shoulders.
It takes them all but a minute to find what they are looking for. The towns small size working to their advantage. The lead gamma bitch is the first one to cross the invisible barrier, she glides up onto the town-houses porch and shoulders up at it's windows. Watches the inside with intelligent dark eyes, turns and regards the rest of them with a toothy smile.
Confirmation.
Elysse hunkers down to haunch and waits, she loops and circles the perimeter. A mirror to the other four wolves present. Sam in the end is the one to call the shots however and she eagerly carries them out. Elysse and another attack the door. She maneuvers and throws all of her weight into the hinges and snaps and snarls wildly her greeting. Samuel shadows her;waiting for what's beyond.
Elysse is not the kind of woman who'll let the men have all the fun.
A dog is barking in Nathan’s dream.
It is Lark but not-Lark, a sleep-woven amalgam of every dog he’s ever met, and it is furious. It paces and whines and barks again, so loud and insistent that it rings in his skull; the sound rattles and pounds and shakes at him until the streets melt away and his bedroom solidifies, and yet the noise persists. Nathan sits up with a start and a gasp, a hand snaking out to Logan’s shoulder, beside him. Lark’s baying, now grounded in reality, is so desperate it’s nearly a howl, a wild sound that Nathan has never heard from her; he throws off the blankets with sleep-amplified concern, and stumbles his way out of bed. The dog is in the living room, screaming from the back of the sofa, worked into such a furor she seems like an entirely different animal; the man places a hand to the raised fur on her back with a soft shh, and only then do his eyes follow hers – do they find the source of her frenzy.
There is a wolf outside, clawing at the bay window, and Nathan does not know her.
Behind the animal, picked out of the night by streetlamps and moonlight, another set of eyes glimmers – one pair, two, more – and a thing like horror worms it’s way into the man’s chest, a reaction slowed only by confusion. It takes the wolf’s disappearance from the glass, her slamming bodily into the locked and bolted door, to jar his frozen limbs into action. Recognition is met with a mix of such palpable terror and rage that he can feel it with a painful certainty in his heart, clutching, crushing and threatening to drown him. But there are rogue wolves at his door, and that is all the motivation he needs; Nathan, so often a man of planning, still knows when to question and when to act.
”Logan—“ he shouts, voice bouncing off the walls. ”Logan, there are wolves outside,” and his voice reveals none of his fear. The frustrated dog is lifted bodily by her collar, off the back of the couch, and Nate drags her unceremoniously back down the hall – locks her in the bathroom without a shred of guilt, even as she claws at the door. He scrambles for the bedroom and stumbles into a pair of jeans, before moving to his nightstand with an urgency he hasn’t felt in years – driven by an instinctive reaction that is chewing at his gut, one even Billy’s kidnapping could not instill. There are animals on his property, humans draped in the skins of his kind but with none of his morals, and they have threatened his family. His wolf screams within him and he channels that emotion, burns away his anxiety with the monster's fire; that Logan can protect himself is irrelevant. Nathan would kill for this man – would die for him, and with the hunter on the line there is no backing down.
For the first time since Vegas, his hand does not shake upon the grip of his pistol.
”At least three, maybe more.” He checks the gun’s magazine; slides a bullet into the chamber with a pull of one hand. ”I don’t know what they want.” But time is short, and he has no further information to give; Nathan makes for the living room and trusts implicitly that Logan will be behind him. ”Cover the door.” There is a six foot fence encircling the backyard, but it is not enough to keep out a determined wolf of any sort, and his house’s layout offers little by way of protection. Too many windows, potential entrances, have his security-minded brain working overtime – the bedroom is safest to fall back to, the least likely section of the house to be breached. Muscles flexing, Nate shoves the couch to the hallway’s entrance and climbs behind it, hoping to funnel their assailants in one general direction – taking cover there affords a view of the main entrance and the kitchen, and no way to fall upon them save from the front.
”If you’ve got any better ideas, now’s the time.” The werewolf slumps behind the couch, taking the opportunity to steady his breathing. The door rattles ominously; hinges groan in protest. ”Fucking hell.” Nate finally turns his head to fix Logan with a stare to drive his seriousness home – and there is a wild panic that lurks within those blue eyes, in pinpricked pupils, something staved off through force of will alone. He is operating on learned behavior, on instinct and habit, and he clings to that shield with a do-or-die strength.
A year ago, he may have rolled belly-up and died, but Blue Ridge has bided their time too long; when the door at last gives way, the claxon scream of the house alarm will cry out in high-pitched distraction, and the two men will be ready.
Logan’s world is one of comfort and peace – an island far removed from the despair that clings to the rest of Blackwater. He knows, on an intrinsic level, when things within his world are amiss. Lark’s frantic baying is not part of the pattern and the nature of the sound has something within the hunter twisting uncomfortably. He rises in time with Nathan, as if the pair were a single, working entity and immediately pulls the top drawer of his nightstand open. Deft fingers pop the secret compartment loose and Logan retrieves his revolver. Metal glints in the low light as he quickly loads the weapon, his old and trusted friend, with a full chamber of six bullets. He does this all with steady hands and with a clear mind running through the possible and likely scenarios.
The hunter can feel the tension rising within the household before Nathan yells and what he hears strikes a chord that resonates of dread. Wolves at their door with violent intent – he has run this sequence through his head before, a necessity born from his understanding of the pack, from his understanding of the nature Nathan’s beast possesses. Paranoia bade him to consider the possibility of Blackwater turning on them. The gun cabinet full of weaponry stands as silent testimony to what ends Logan would fall to should anything or anyone threaten his home – his mate.
”How many,” he asks as he exits the bedroom with revolver and rifle in tow. But the question is needless because Nathan is already speaking numbers. Three or more wolves, and there is no information, no indication as to why the creatures are seeking them out. But right now the reason behind their arrival does not matter. They are a threat and threats are to be dealt with accordingly. Logan has spent the better part of his life dealing with werewolves via traps and gunfire, and he knows that they are not prone to friendly visits. ”I got it,” he moves into position and trains his rifle onto the door, ”Barricade what you can.” Again, Nathan acts before the thought is delivered. One entity, even –especially—under pressure.
He is in a crouched position, a soldier at ready with his finger primed on the trigger. Logan breathes out controlled breaths and wills his heart into a steady pace. He may have fallen into early retirement but Logan is still the trained hunter and his skills have not yet dulled. Grey eyes slide to meet blue and Logan sees the carefully contained fear lurking in Nathan’s gaze. He thinks he understands, thinks it is not fear of dying but fear of loss. This is their world, their family and it is under assault by unknown monsters. ” Ideas?” Logan’s voice is a steady, unshakeable calm amongst the ruckus of Lark’s baying and the banging at the door. ”We put a bullet in each and every one of their goddamned heads,” he returns his attention back to the door where the bombardment grows stronger. ”Then we talk about taking a vacation.” Logan delivers Nathan a bold smirk meant to inspire confidence. This is not their last stand. They will make it out of this and those damnable creatures will regret ever having come here. There is not much in the world that Logan Duvall believes in without question, but he believes in this, he believes in them. They are meant to last through hell or high water, through wolves and Blackwater.
When the beasts burst through, they will be met by gunfire and in a sane universe, bullets trump teeth.
((shitty post))
So what if the men didn't like it-- Elysse was in her own kind of way, a lead bitch, and though she had no power over his own superiors, all she had to do was say his name and she could get anything that she could ever want out of the rest of the pack. Sam knew this, Sam understood this, and he allowed it. She had advantages with being his mate, advantages that she never had before in her life, and now she finally got to use those advantages. And the third might have even called it a privilege.
And Elysse is using that advantage now-- in the form of her own wolf who gets to take her place in front of the door alongside another one of the followers in his group. They wildly attack the door, snapping and gnashing and thrashing against it in a violent attempt to make their way inside. The goliath hangs back with another, watches with sharp silver eyes. Waiting and expecting-- The beast is intelligent enough to understand that the door won't just open on its own. And more importantly, that there is no telling what is inside.
Even the best preditors stalk their prey before leaping in for the kill.
The monster moves from his place, ignores the two thrashing wolves against the door, and instead moves closer to another wall, and listens. He hears a dog barking, he hears yelling, hears other noises that the beast cannot immediately identify. Moves back with the rest of the group, lifts his lips to display a cage of teeth in something that looks sickeningly similar to a smile. And finally the door gives way. The one that had originally assisted Elysse wastes no time in charging into the household. He who had remained at the gamma's side throws himself in after, and Sam finds himself maneuvering into the house with less enthusiasm than the others.
The beast understands what weapons are-- he has encountered them before. And a thought passes through his mind to be careful in this situation, because there might be something there, something that could do much more damage to him than them. He has felt their pain before. He understands it.
And yet he will follow through with the others, seeking out the scent of the two men around the couch with the others, and suddenly the threat of a foreign weapon doesn't seem to matter so much as he charges through and whirls to meet one of the men with an arsenal of tooth and claw and brute power-- to grab whoever wherever he can and to rip.
Elysse leans back as the door gives way - a brother in arms - eager to prove himself and get a chunk of flesh rushes in first and she follows after him. There is a loud sound that sends both of them into confusion, the wolf ahead of her opting to stand around stupidly -- get's it's head blown off while Ely, in all of her sloppy gritty glory. Sinks back to her mate disoriented and uncertain.
Her desperation coincidentally saving her from being clipped. Samuel is a blur and flash behind her, she recognizes his scent and color and feeds on his chaos. After a moment of unintentional reassurance (the blueridge gamma's ruthlessness serving as some sort of misconstrued safenet) she follows in tow. Goes sliding up towards Nate and barreling through gunshot to attempt to attach to him with leviathan teeth.
The third-bitch goes chomping for the man's entire torso, opting to barrel him over and down with her weight then to take out the foundations from under him. Like any freshly turned she goes immediately in for the kill, snapping wildly and aimlessly for the man's face and throat. Spittle and froth flying in all directions, completely unaware of whatever consequence her actions might bring down on her if she is to succeed.
She just knows that this one - is going to be her first kill - and she's a godawful barbarous ambitious monster.
And the wolves who come filing in after Samuel like the march of the pigs, they're cut from the same tattered cloth. Splitting up - two follow their gamma and another one chooses to follow's Ely footsteps. Teeth like a sharks, glistening bright as he too descends.
A thumb shifts the 1911's safety off, and Nathan takes his position behind the couch, his two-handed grip white-knuckled upon the pistol. Logan’s words may not make for inspiring speeches, but the cool calm of the other man does its job, infecting him, grounding him; this is a deliberate, premeditated assault on his home, and the werewolf will not allow harbored worries or haunting memories to cripple him. The way to avoid losing Logan is to not succumb to his fear of that very thing – and so Nathan drives it from his mind, feeding on the hunter’s confidence, on his wolf’s arrogance, rage, and brazen authority. The demon is an itch under his skin, a feral sovereign defending what is his – and it does not know a thing like doubt.
The hinges give way from their moorings before the heavy-duty deadbolt so much as budges, and the door lurches open awkwardly, bent around the still-locked handle. The alarm howls in surprise, drowning out every snarl and whine, and for a brief moment the world becomes little more than an exercise in noise and scurrying motion; there is no further time for sentiments left unsaid. In unison, two shots find new homes in the head of the first animal through the door. The thing collapses in the entry, a bloody barricade, still twitching in vain denial of its fate.
Seven.
The remaining animals balk, startled by sound and their dead comrade. A calculated defense of two trained men is likely more resistance than any wolf-brain could anticipate; the horde faces a lethal reverse form of triage, one in which priorities are set by threat and extinguished at gunpoint. As the mob slinks in, Nate plugs the monster behind the brown bitch with three shots – six, five, four – to the neck and shoulder, driven home by the powerful little semiautomatic. The wolf falls, crawling and writhing, and while his gut screams at him to end the animal’s life, Nathan’s concerns change in a heartbeat – the female, the one from the window, rounds the couch in a show of speed and lunges, all flashing teeth and sweltering breath.
Closing with wolves is a shitty idea, and Nate knows it; has experienced it first hand, has played the victim as well as the assailant. But he does not move for fear of giving the animal unfettered access to Logan – and he will not allow the hunter to be flanked in order to save himself, he will do his job – and so Nate stands his ground, firing upon the animal in quick succession. One. Yet still that weight flies towards him, unimpeded and heedless, and it takes a quick shift of his hands – dropping the left, sliding the right – to change his grip on his Colt and crack the butt of the damn thing into the side of the rushing wolf’s face, unrelenting metal on tooth and bone.
Nate sidesteps her tumbling mass, lets the momentum of his blow redirect her and drive them apart. A raking pressure, drawn against his stomach by a flailing limb, bares thin lines of blood to the air as he moves; but there is no pain, only a coldness, and the man ignores even this. His pistol is raised, gripped again in two steady hands – because if the wolf hasn’t bled out or already fled, that single remaining shot is aimed straight for her skull.
Logan’s bravado is born from experience and the stubborn belief that he and Nathan will make it out of this alive. But there is no denying the way his blood runs cold at the thought of losing the man. He soldier’s through those emotions, buckles them down, and keeps his attention resolutely locked onto the door. The banging resonates through the house, grows louder, and garbled when the wood begins to give way. Alarms blare, Larks howls, the beasts beyond the failing barrier growl and sputter. He had nightmares like this ever since his youth, ever since the day he learned the truth of the world and was indoctrinated into the hunting circle. The door bursts open and Logan draws in a breath.
His rifle explodes with thunder once, twice, again. Each shot is delivered with a practiced aim. The wolves carelessly file in and are met with a bullet to their skulls, to their chests, to vital areas that have them writhing on the ground until they fall still. An eye erupts and brain matter spits onto the wall. It is a gory, bloody and horrific killing field. Logan feels no remorse. He will not feel remorse after the fact. These brazen and foolish beasts have breached into his household, have threatened his family and his home. Each body that hits the ground feels righteous, feels like justice.
Two wolves somehow make it through the hail of gunfire. One is upon Nathan and Logan cries out, but before he is able to assist, a second wolf leaps towards him. The hunter is quick enough that the animal earns only a mouthful of his rifle. The weapon is out of bullets and he instead uses it as means to keep those chomping teeth at bay. The two wrestle and Logan reaches for his magnum, pulls it out, and presses the cold barrel flat against the animal’s chest. Unless the creature is quick to react, it will have its organs ripped apart by bullets.
Once his attacker is dealt with, Logan will turn his gun onto bitch threatening Nathan and fire. There is no hesitance. If the two wolves do not retreat, their bodies will join the twitching mess of corpses bleeding out on the floor.
Bullet's fly and graze flesh. She narrowly avoids being shot in the shoulder, speed and determination saving her from something that might have been crippling. Elysse flies at Nathan all teeth and glory and the man alters his course of action. He slides his footing and whirls on her before she knows what's going on - the heavy hard metal meets the side of her face when she tries to mimic his movement with a sharp jerk of her own. The naive unfettered snapping of a werewolf puppy who thinks the world is at her mercy, who thinks she is invincible.
There is a disgusting sound as it shatters against her eye socket, and she opens her jaws to let out some morphed startled scream of rage and pain. Elysse lands in a heap on her paws, unable to focus on her landing with the overwhelming white hot singe. She makes it to her feet with the intent to slide for the closest leg, take it in her jaws and crush and crunch until the bone splinters and breaks and there is nothing left but mangled ripped smithereens of men thought to be at their prime. However, a howl sounds, echo's off the town's walls. And Elysse manages a distorted loll of the head towards Samuel before just like that she shoots out the way they came and onto to the porch. Unknowingly avoiding certain death.
What ever remaining wolves alive follow her and Sam. The attack changing up. Andre calling back his most loyal demons to alter the plan of action. He'd gotten the alpha just where he wanted her, and the night - this long night - was about to end with victory.
But not without some form of suffering.
Elysse, though thirsty for the kill, stumbles and falls. Unable to keep up the wolves move on, flying through the Blackwater forest towards Billy's like bat's out of hell and she pants herself into a trot, slows to a limping gait. Whines falling silently from between teeth, head hunkered over. She loses her way - just like that - in the pain at the left of her skull. The unmistakable sting of gooey eyeball and bone fragments intermingling.
But the wolves howl on.
