The Wild Hunt IV

The three of them did not waste anymore time because they knew what was at stake.

Having had the best rapport with Detective Mills, Gordon bothered her at her apartment on the Lower East Side and inquired about Mary Anne Suarez's surviving family.

Although having a man like Gordon knocking on a cop's door in the middle of the night proved to be less than a smart idea, they had agreed to it that he's the best one to hurry things up in that regard. And he did, gaining the information that the blonde victim had a little sister named Samantha G. Suarez.

Garth, on the other hand, was tasked with assembling the weaponry from the cars. From what Irwin had seen and knew of Woden, then they would most likely face an army of ghost horsemen riding in a smog. So, Garth mostly took salt-filled and cast iron bullets, a few fire pokers from the hotel, and a large briefcase filled with hex bags.

As the clock ticked to 12:00, Irwin and the other two had arrived in East Harlem.

"Alright, here's the deal: Samantha G. Suarez, 15, brunette, and lives alone with her 21-year-old bottle blonde sister, Mary Anne," Gordon read Samantha's file as they drove down 29th street. "Goes to Young Women's Leadership School. Impressive GPA. Lives in public housing."

"Does she have an address?" Irwin asked.

"They already checked it tonight. No one's home."

"Does she have a picture?" Garth asked, scanning the moonlit street of El Barrio. "Maybe we can look around?"

"You wanna look around in the neighborhood with the highest crack cases? Be my fucking guest." Gordon replied, scoffing at Garth's suggestion.

"We don't have to do that." Irwin drove the car near the corner of a dark alleyway, halting just as they hit the curb. He then asked Garth to hand him his briefcase. "We can do something better: Blood Scry."

Taking out a small mirror from the case, he motioned for Gordon and Garth to remove themselves from the car. They did so, opting not to look either for privacy or distrust.

Irwin placed a plastic tarp underneath the glass, for this car was a rental, and slit his wrist, carefully dropping his blood onto the mirror. 

"Ostende mihi hoc sanguine propius…"

His invocations invigorated his dormant magik, the power of which caused the car's windows to shudder.

Garth felt the familiar nerve-wracking sensation emanating from within the car while Gordon, throughout his years of hunting, resisted the blood-thirsty impulse and steeled his mind to prevent his instinct from taking over, not yet used to the feeling of a friendly witch.

The sensation suddenly sank before a colorless wave of arcane energy sprang out of the car, before a mark appeared on the horizon. He now had the location of Samantha Suarez.

He rolled down the car window and called the back in. "Oh, first, please throw this away. Thanks!"

Garth received a plastic bag filled with blood and the mirror used in the spell, which he threw into a trash can as fast as possible.

Under the guide of the blood mark, the car quickly squelched into the asphalt and drove towards Samantha.

●●●●●

Samantha wiped the tears off her thick-lensed maroon glasses, her face sweating in undisguised worry about her missing sister.

She could not help but think that the worst had happened to Mary Anne, and she hated herself for it. Ever since their father had died of cancer a few years ago, her sister had taken care of all the bills and Samantha took care of her sister.

They were both each other's life support, and in such a dark and scary world, they needed it.

Placing down her cracked phone, Samantha noted that she had called her sister's phone almost a hundred times for the last two days. It was an ominous surprise, given her blanch disgust for phonecalls.

"Sammy, baby, why don't you rest for a while, huh?" the hand of a large black woman rested upon her back, gently caressing it with genuine concern. "I'm sure your sister just got lost on her way to New England. You know how she is."

She chuckled, massaging her aching temples. Leonora was right, her sister had always been bad with direction. "But I… I have this feeling…"

"Oh, honey." Leonora gave her a comforting hug, before nudging her towards the other room. "Just take the bed. I can take the couch 'cause Irvin's going to work. As long as you're here, no one can hurt-"

Suddenly, the room began to shake and shudder as various knick-knacks furnishing the small apartment dropped to the ground.

Leonora began shouting for her husband, when an ear-deafening explosion punched a hole through the front door of the apartment.

Smoke billowed forth, filling the room with dust and fine pieces of cement. The sound of wailing and deathly murmurs filled the ears of anyone around the explosion.

Leonore had pushed Samantha inwards and had taken the brunt of the damage, her torso and parts of her leg scraped and pierced by the destroyed rubble.

"Irvin!" She yelled, pain soon overtaking her mind, but before Irvin could enter the pandemonium that is her former apartment, seven howls echoed throughout the building.

Snarling viscous bloodhounds, eyes deep crimson, entered the large hole in the room, blade-like fangs protruded from their smoking snouts as the hounds strode past the rubble and bits of cotton from the scorching couch.

Irvin, quickly pulling up his pants, exited the bathroom only to find his wife bloodied and scarred while a pack of bloodhounds stood in his way.

Without a second thought, he dove head-first, using his fist to block the hate-filled maws of the devilish beasts.

Leonore saw her beloved husband be torn apart by the bloodhounds, his deafening screams made futile by the violent carnage that took place in the toothy maws of the pack of beasts.

She knew she was next as the hounds enjoyed what was left of Irvin as such, with tears in her eyes, shouted for Samantha to run away. Roaring desperately as the hounds moved towards her like a tiger stalking a weakened gazelle.

Samantha had seen the beasts devour her sister's friend, and did not need to hear Leonore's screams before she climbed out of the apartment using the fire escape.

In her hurry, she had scraped her knee on the metal frames of the escape ladder. She paid it no heed, however, more inclined to think of her survival before the fragility of her own skin.

As she crossed the street, distracted by the death of her friends, Samantha did not notice the blue luxury car coming towards her. 

Fortunately, the car swerved to the right, barely missing her feeble form, before its tires screeched from the pressure as it lurched into a sudden stop.

Standing still like a frigid monolith, Samantha could not help but utter a silent cry from the second near-death experience in the last few seconds, slowly crumbling to the ground.

"Fuck!" She heard someone curse from inside the car. "Richard, do you know how to fucking drive?"

"Shut up." Another voice hushed, exiting out of the vehicle, and gazed at her hunched form. "We found her."

Samantha looked up, confused by the man's words. "W-what?"

"Oh, shit!" Another voice startled her, a skinny man with a long nose. "Dogs!"

His words brought forth fear into her heart. Unable to move further from the sheer terror of it all, she hunkered down, hoping that her death would be quick.

"Grab the guns. Gordon, cover me. Garth, protect her." The man with the striking blue eyes ordered the rest, launching himself towards the impending mongrels that signified her doom.

The blue-eyed man dodged the first of the bloodhounds and used his leg to kick it to the other side of the wall. 

The killer dog crashed on a bricked wall with a pitiable whine, but soon recovered enough to snarl and rush at her. But he did not reach her, for another dark-skinned man clad in a shotgun unloaded slugs of metal pellets, traveling at the speed of sound. 

Crimson blood sprayed out of the demon mutt as it crumpled to the ground, bereft of its previous ferocity.

"Check her, Garth." The man with the shotgun verbally nudged the skinny man named Garth.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Garth rushed towards her, snapping her out of her mindless thoughts. "Look, you gotta get up. We need to go."

As soon as his words reached her ears, the sound of motorcycle revs hit their ears. Along with the sound comes a cloud of dust billowing from the distance, echoes of the wails of the damned emanating from within.

The blue-eyed man, having just taken down a third dog, scanned the vicinity. As if in sheer reflex, the man put his arm in front of him, blocking another dark hound from biting his face off.

Although he did not come off unscathed, his bloodied forearm had been more than enough of a distraction for Gordon to spray the mutt with another slug or two from the shotgun.

"Woden's coming. Let's go!" The blue-eyed man roared, throwing the dead mutt towards its kin.

Being gripped by the arm, Garth nearly shoved Samantha into the back of the car. Before she could make heads or tails of the scene, the car screeched back into existence and drove away as the sounds of the damned grew quiet until it echoed no longer.

After a few minutes, the blue-eyed man puffed his cheeks and blew out hot air. Gordon, the dark-skinned man who gunned down the hounds, chuckled in return.

"Had enough fun for today, Rich?" Gordon asked.

"Ha! Yeah, like the bitch will just stop." Richard, the blue-eyed man, shook his head, every so often checking the rear-view mirror. "How's your day been, Samantha?"

"W-Who are you? N-never mind that. I don't care. What are those dogs? They killed my friends!" Samantha pulled her glasses out, not wanting to ruin it as she wiped away the freely flowing tears and the blood sprayed on her head.

"Those were Woden's hounds. He sent them to track you down because you have the blood of a Greythorne pumping in that body of yours. Why? Because he has an unspecified feud with a dead knight, an ancestor of ours." Richard explained her predicament calmly as he drove through the night. 

"W-What? I don't know any grey- Oh, god. Mr. Wallace!" Her eyes widened in realization. Although she was only ten when she met him, she knew there was something different between the man and the way her father had talked to him. "There was this guy. He gave us money for my dad's cancer treatment. My dad refused. He was a Greythorne! Is he my re-wait! You said OUR ancestor? Are you?"

"Yep, William Wallace is my uncle. Yes, that's his full name, and I'm your… cousin? I suppose. But, uh, Woden is coming after you and he already killed your friends. It's best if you stay with us." Richard expounded, changing the gear and sliding down 31st street.

He gazed at his two companions, a wry smile on his face. "Any plans, guys? We're running out of fuel."

"Fuck this! I say we hole up somewhere and kill Odin." Gordon said. "Do we have anything that can kill a god?"

Richard suddenly gave a radiant smile, one that Samantha had seen whenever her sister would get one of her 'bright' ideas. "We do, actually. Garth. Do you have my gift?"

"It's in my fanny pack. Never left home without it." Garth answered.

"Good. Samantha." He placed his hand behind the passenger seat and looked towards her. "Is it okay if you hunker down in Central Park while we kill Odin?"