It was a dark and dreary night. The rain was pissing down across the moors, and the oppressively low clouds that veiled the moon's radiant face made anyone foolish enough to be out in this weather hunch over, as if expecting the sky to fall in on them at any moment. Everything was quiet and still in the village – if you could call a dozen or so buildings strewn haphazardly around a handful of streets and a steeple a village – except for the local, the Slaughtered Lamb. Warm and welcoming light leaked out from between its shutters, and snatches of song and laughter could be heard over the incessant rain.
The door crashed open, framing an older man and a young woman against the darkness outside. The strangers were decked head to toe in slick black leather, which fluttered and flapped in the howling wind greedily rushing past them to get inside. Every voice within abruptly fell silent. Baleful eyes turned towards them.
The man shook out his long coat and doffed his wide-brimmed hat, splashing a mess on the tiled floor. Revealed, his face was a fright to look at, and the eye was inexorably drawn to a jagged line of badly reknit flesh that meandered up from his chin and disappeared under a wicked-looking eyepatch. "Fear not, good people of Ragway. We have come to take care of your werewolf problem!" he proclaimed.
This did not get him the grand welcome he'd expected.
The stony sea of faces turned to obsidian. One villager spat on the floor, earning him a "Not in my pub, Jason Coopersmith!" from the landlady, who turned towards her visitors. "I'm afraid you're mistaken, sir. Miss. We don't have a werewolf problem."
The man's smile turned pitying. "I'm sure you don't think you do, but I've been hunting monsters for a very long time, my good woman. I know there's a werewolf stalking you, and I will send it back to the hell from whence it came." He twitched his coat aside, revealing rows upon rows of gleaming knives, and a fearsome pistol on his hip. "Now how about some food for me and my men? We've come a long way to liberate you from the yoke of terror."
The landlady dried off a mug so aggressively the cloth creaked in warning. "We don't serve food, only drinks." she replied, the multiple steaming plates in eyesight giving her the lie.
"Of course." the monster hunter replied smoothly. "Something to quench our thirst, dislodge the road dust from our throats then. Your finest beer, perhaps?"
"Fresh out." She replied, adding a "Sorry." that sounded anything but. "Perhaps you should try in West Proctor, down the road to civilization a ways." she suggested, waving off in the general direction of the next village on the way to the capital. "Stay on the roads. Don't go out on the moors, it's easy to get lost out there. Or worse."
The hunter looked at the people in the common room, and a blank wall of utter rejection stared back. "I... see." He turned to the young woman. "Come, daughter. Maybe we'll have better luck in West Proctor indeed."
"Yes, father." she replied immediately, following him back out into the rain.
The instant the door slammed shut behind them, the muttering started. "'s not right." "Who do they think they are?" "They better heed the warning." "Someone should do something."
The landlady raised her voice. "I don't think they're going to listen. He's got that look. You know what'll happen." Dark mutters of assent. Her eye raked her friends and neighbours. "You know what to do."
A few villagers quietly got up, and left out the back way...
"See how the accursed demonspawn has already enthralled these poor benighted people?" Karstein Schattenritter grunted, barely audible over the driving rain. "That confirms it. There is a wolf here. I can smell it."
"Yes, father."
Stay off the moors, eh? Well, he knew where to start...
"Gather the men. The game is on. The foul beast dies tonight."
Lisa Schattenritter, youngest scion of a long and proud lineage of monster hunters, blinked away the rain, and squinted out into the cold darkness. She was absolutely miserable. Not that monster hunts were usually fun, but not only was it somehow still raining, the soft ground of these moors seemed like an even greater threat than any monster father had ever fought. She'd lost one of her knee high boots to the sucking mud half an hour ago, never to be found again, and the veil of fog blanketing everything wasn't helping her one bit.
Turning back had crossed Lisa's mind many times, but father would just be disappointed in her and send her back out again. So here she stayed, her hands frozen to her rifle. Miserable.
Besides, father was right. There was something out here. There'd been unnatural noises. Strange shadows. Nothing concrete, unfortunately. Nothing she could shoot at and kill so she could get back to where it was warm and dry.
She looked up to see if the rain might deign to stop any time soon, or if she was cursed to keep tromping through this God-forsaken swamp in search of a hellish werew–
A blur came at her out of the night, too fast to react to. Lisa was bowled over and landed on her back with a wet splat. Thick mud oozing under her collar. A massive shape on top of her, straddling her. Dripping, slavering jaws inches above. Hot breath blasting her face, its foetid stench announcing her death.
She'd fucked up, so, so badly. Shamed her ancestors. But that didn't mean she was going to go out quietly.
Yelling, kicking and thrashing around, Lisa tried to get the beast off her. Tried to kick it in its fork, but missed. Hit it with the rifle. Stabbed it with her bayonet. Tried to reach any of her other weapons. The silver knives. The atomised silver spray, which made her cough her lungs out. Nothing she tried worked. The beast seemed impervious to harm. The most reaction she'd gotten was when she'd punched it in the chest. A groan, but that had been it.
After a frantic minute or so – had it only been that long? – of fighting for her life, Lisa noticed something was... off. For one thing, she was still alive, somehow. Not that she minded, but she'd expected the beast to maul her, or bite her, or do... any of the terrible, gruesome things werewolves always did in father's stories. Also, the beast's breath didn't actually smell of death and decay, but... fennel and garlic?
Blinking furiously, the hunter tried to focus on the hulking shape above her, which seemed to be repeating the same movement over and over again. It looked at her, then off to its left. Her right. The way she'd been going. Lisa turned to look, and frowned. What was it looking at... As her eyes adjusted and things finally came into focus, she noticed that she'd almost walked straight off a cliff. Who knew how steep that was. How deep. She could have been badly hurt, or worse.
Eyes widened in realisation as she gazed up at the beast. "You saved me." she breathed.
Her saviour yipped excitedly, and a hot, smooth tongue slobbered across Lisa's face before the creature slowly got off her. It... He... She... Whatever shimmered as they moved. Was... Was the beast wearing a hi-vis vest? Lisa must have hit her head when she went down, because that made no sense.
A report echoed across the moors. The beast grunted in confusion as a bullet hit them. Turned to look at something behind Lisa.
"Back, foul beast! Back, I say! Back to the demonic pits that spawned you!" Her father's voice. High. Shrill.
Another crack of man-made thunder reached up towards the clouds.
The beast stumbled. Managed to stay upright. Whined in puzzlement.
Lisa fought to scramble to her feet. "Father, no!" she shouted, cursing the mud that held her fast. Slipping and sliding, she managed to find her feet. Drew herself up in front of her saviour, arms wide, to shield them, for what it was worth, since the creature dwarfed her. "It..." The young hunter cast a quick glance at the beast's chest, blushing as she confirmed that she'd felt... yep. "She didn't hurt me! I'm okay!"
A thick furry arm wrapped itself around her waist, and Lisa suddenly found their positions reversed. Felt herself disappear in the wet fur curled around her. Cocooning her. Protecting her. The beast's broad back was to her father, and she snorted as another bullet pinged off her spine.
"Father, stop! Please!" Lisa cried, fighting to get out of the beast's steady embrace. Didn't she understand?! She had to let her go! So Lisa could make him stop shooting her!
Without warning, many lights, and a cacophony that slowly broke up into understandable words and sentences. "You leave our Charlene alone!" "She ain't hurting anyone!" "You go back to where you came from, mister, or we'll give you such a walloping!" "We'll have the law on you, we will!" The mob had arrived, armed with whatever they could get their hands on. Nothing that could stand up to guns, but... There were more of them than the hunters. And they were resolute. Obviously human.
"Have you people gone mad?!" Karstein shrieked, frothing at the mouth. "Can't you see the demon has ensorcelled you?! Seduced my daughter?!" His pistol was silent now. He couldn't chance it. If he hurt any of them by accident... The police really frowned upon that. Things had been so much easier in his great-great-grandfather's day.
The light of the villager's torches flickered and reflected off the beast's flanks, and Lisa could now see that she was indeed wearing a hi-vis vest. There was something stuck in a clear plastic front pocket, and after some further squirming and wriggling, pushing at the creature's arms and chest to let go, she could finally read it. The huntress blinked, and barked out a laugh that devolved into uncontrollable giggles.
HI! MY NAME IS Charlene, your friendly neighbourhood warewolf
