June 29, 1764 - Mende, Gévaudan

Fantin had not seen René for four days. The orders had been clear.

- We have to split up to catch him. He'll take a misstep and one of us will be there to put a bullet in his guts. -

They patrolled the outside of the city, completely omitting the center and the cathedral district. On one thing they agreed: it was a savage enemy. A creature of the woods. But what really was the horror that scoffed at them in the bush, they could not compromise.

- It makes no sense, - René replied to his companion's description of the strange find. The conclusion, for him, was that it was a mistake, an element foreign to their search.

He didn't want to hear more, despite Fantin's insistence. They would find the native, kill it, and return it to the brotherhood in Paris.

End of speech.

The penultimate night of June was flat, with just enough moon to make out shapes in the dark. No wind, which worked to their advantage. A perfect night if luck had blessed them.

To cover the greater part of the territory, a shelter was found respectively one kilometer away from each other, close to the major points of animal attraction: the tannery and an interminable enclosure for grazing cattle.

In the weeks they had spent in Mende they had repeatedly confirmed their information. The murdered traveler had made a fairly accurate picture of reality: the families were terrified of losing the sustenance of the land, and the owners of livestock slept with their beasts to try to unmask which devil was drying up all hope.

No one ventured into the woods anymore, especially alone or at sunset. Shrewd words circulated among the peasants and not only the little ones were made to return home early for the cloak of fear that had enveloped Mende.

The stars, that night, had fled to hide away from Fantin's sight. Wherever he paid attention he saw a grotesquely contracted world.

Sitting on the roof of the tannery, he waited.

In the meadows, where the beeches hopelessly opposed the advance of the city, the song of the cicadas suddenly ceased.

The sound of rapid, panting footsteps approached.

Fantin flattened himself. He didn't feel calm at all, his heart beating up every second.

He touched the holster.

The gun was loaded.

He pulled it out and headed for the greenery.

He had two dozen meters of free range to shoot, years of experience behind him, and a steady hand. He knew he was ready. He just hoped to see what his teacher René expected.

Instead, the footsteps had become a race, naive, desperate like the little boy who exploded out of the woods. Short of breath, white face, he couldn't even scream sensibly.

Fantin was undecided.

Could this be his target? A not too rare technique for the natives is to assume human form.

Ten meters of running went by in an instant.

Could he shoot? He would have hit him. Yet in the boy's face, he recognized an emotion that was all too well known.

Survival terror.

A hollow growl stopped Fantin's hand. Following the boy, swift as a racehorse, a pitch-black creature leaped out of the brush. It had the features of an overly massive, disproportionately muscular wolf. But the jaws, those silver teeth in the dark, made the hunter act without thinking.

He shot the beast as quickly as he could.

He hit it, because it stopped with a yelp of pain. Perhaps the blow, perhaps the noise, or both combined with the idea of ​​having to enter the city, made the creature give up, and it watched its meal slip between the houses.

Fantin was still. He had to look at that thing he had never seen before.

Instead, the creature withdrew. It did not waste a moment in returning to the protection of the forest, leaving behind its tail a trail of traces imprinted in the still soft earth.

With a masterful leap, Fantin descended to the ground and with the sole thrust of his legs stood up.

He felt so indecisive that he couldn't move a muscle. Should he follow it?

Then a shot.

A dull shot from a rifle a few hundred meters away.

- Renè. -

It snapped like a spring in the direction of the shot. A race against time in an attempt to control events, to assist the teammate, to save their necks. What moved in the woods was not a mere native, he knew. What he had seen, the behavior of that beast, was totally out of the box.

It must have been its skin pack found in the den. The bones, its meal. The boy...

Liver, spleen and lungs were not keeping pace with Fantin's muscles. Although trained he had destroyed himself with years of abuse of every possible substance.

He came near the cattle pens out of breath, blade in hand.

No light had risen to clarify what had happened.

No noise.

- Renè? -

The old hunter was walking across the lawn, his long cloak brushing the ground, his gun barrel smoking. He reached a motionless shape on the ground and kicked it.

- Hitten, son of a bitch. -

Fantin, approaching, saw a slender, medium-haired dog lying on its side. The elongated muzzle, the wide eyes, was in all respects similar to a Belgian shepherd, if not for the jaws opened in an unnatural way.

The forked tongue and an abominable apparatus in the throat.

- I've seen it, - muttered Fantin.

- Me too! Taken and stretched out. Fucking native, it was hissing at the cows. Those got upset and when I saw it: bang! Fucked. -

Fantin wasn't sure he had the scene under control.

- Are you sure it's a native? -

- And what the hell can it be in your opinion? -

- No, René, - he apologized, - I meant maybe it's something else. I saw... -

- Give me this jerk. - René tore a glass vial from Fantin's belt. He uncorked the cork and spilled the reddish powder contained on the canid.

It took a few seconds and the animal's fur began to dry out. The flesh turned red, as if incurably irritated.

- The iron filings burn it: it is a native. Right or not? - The question, scholastic for the order of hunters, was a challenge for Fantin. - So? -

- Yes, ok. -

- So we're done here. Let's collect the sack of fleas and say goodbye to this shitty life. -

- René, I saw something else in the woods. I think it's the creature of the molt. -

- There is nothing else in the woods but wolves, squirrels, and perhaps bears."

- I assure you that... -

- There is nothing more! - René took him by the collar. The icy eyes pierced his soul: he has made him furious like few other times.

- Ok, let's go. -

In silence, they collected the body of the protean which, in its final death aspect, they would deliver to the superiors of the mausoleum of the brotherhood. Carrying a body for so many days and kilometers would have been a pain, but the last of their career.

René had never been so satisfied.