Chapter VI

The razor-edged winter air bit at Doctor Watters' exposed skin as Grimm's horse thundered through Barrowham's empty, cobblestone streets. Silence clung to Watters, a heavy cloak woven from recent trauma. He replayed the events in his mind, a maelstrom of unanswered questions swirling beneath the surface. Grimm had spoken, yes, but his words were fragments tossed into a void, leaving more shadow than light. Grimm's impassive stillness, an almost glacial reserve, made Watters cautious, hesitant to breach the frozen surface, yet the unanswered questions, like splinters beneath his skin, demanded attention. 

"Uh, Grimm," Watters began hesitantly, the words catching in the frigid air, "you… you seem to possess a rather… detailed understanding of magic, and your… combat skills are extraordinary. Were you, perhaps… involved in the great crusades? A Bishop, even?" 

"Battles aplenty, Doctor," Grimm grunted, his voice edged with impatience, "but never have I borne the mantle of Bishop." His tone brushed off the title like an irritating fly. 

"But your strength…" Watters persisted, his curiosity outweighing his apprehension, "It's… unfathomable. Almost… inhuman. How do you…" 

"The source of my strength," Grimm interrupted, his voice hardening, a low growl rumbling beneath the words, "is utterly irrelevant to you. The mission at hand is all that concerns us both. Maintain your focus upon it, Doctor, if you value seeing the dawn." Grimm's voice dropped, a veiled threat underlining the dismissal. 

Not a Bishop. Not the Crusades. What, then, was Grimm? Watters wondered, the rhythmic thud of hooves a counterpoint to his racing thoughts. He remained a cipher, wrapped in layers of shadow and unspoken power. The horse ate up the distance, Barrowham receding behind them. 

"This Warlock," Watters began, the question emerging as if pulled from the frigid air, "did he… divulge anything of significance? An… endgame, perhaps?" 

"The warlock spoke of a master," Grimm stated, his tone unwavering, each word a precisely placed stone in a wall of gravity. "A hierarchy is… uncommon among warlocks. They are creatures of solitary ambition, self-made power. For one to submit to a master… it implies a power structure, Doctor, a magnitude we have yet to comprehend." 

"Fascinating," Watters murmured, his mind racing to keep pace with Grimm's pronouncements, "And these… mutations in the Lycans? The Order's texts… they meticulously detail a weakness to Wolfsbane, an extinct bloom… not silver." 

"Transmutation," Grimm stated, his voice even, yet carrying an undercurrent of grim knowledge. "The taint of ancient witchcraft. One skilled in such wicked art must magically bind the essence of their creation to another. Lycan essence… interwoven with that of some parasitic blight, I would surmise." 

"Incredible!" Watters exclaimed, a pure, scientific awe momentarily eclipsing the dread. 

"Hardly the word I would choose, Doctor," Grimm retorted, his tone sharply pulling Watters back to reality. "Transmutation in the physical realm… it demands a living component." Grimm fell silent, his brow furrowing, not in confusion, but dawning realization. He turned to Watters, his gaze suddenly intense. "Tell me, Doctor," he continued, his voice dropping, taking on a chilling weight, "have there been any... unexplained disappearances in Barrowham of late?" 

"Well… yes," Watters breathed, the connection slamming into him with the force of a physical blow. "Yes, disappearances… The constables are baffled. And… and there was an attack just this morning. A child, they said!" The blood drained from his face as the full horror coalesced. 

From the inky blackness beyond the flickering firelight, a chorus of howls erupted, each note a serrated edge against the silence, sending a frigid wave of dread crashing down Watters' spine. 

"No more time for questions," Grimm stated, his voice clipped, devoid of its usual gravel, now honed to a sharp edge of command. He snapped the reins, the sound whip-like and immediate, and the horse leaped into motion, accelerating into a frantic run. 

The bloodcurdling howls lunged closer as the duo burst from the town's edge, plunging into a forest suffocatingly dense. Watters' heart hammered a frantic tattoo against his ribs, a desperate drumbeat echoing the relentless pound of the horse's hooves on the unforgiving dirt path. 

The faint glow of Barrowham's inferno vanished behind them, swallowed by the trees. Moonlight, fractured and weak, pierced the impenetrable canopy, their path now a claustrophobic tunnel carved through the suffocating darkness of the thickets. 

Ragged panting and frenzied howls, the thundering crunch of paws tearing through the forest floor, erupted around Watters, a cacophony of chaos that shattered his fragile composure and plunged him into a spiraling panic. "Grimm!" Watters cried out, his voice cracking with fear. He gestured wildly towards the dense thicket, where shadow-beasts flickered and danced, their forms twisted by the spectral moonlight. 

"I see them," Grimm acknowledged, his voice a low, steady anchor in the storm of sound. He unleashed the pistol from his coat, the movement fluid and devoid of any tremor. "Reins," he commanded, the word clipped, authority absolute, thrusting the thick leather straps into Watters' trembling reach. 

Grimm's thumb clicked against a catch on the revolver, the weapon hinging open with a metallic snap. The snarls tightened their noose around them, drawing closer. "Grimm!" Watters stammered, his voice fraying at the edges of panic. 

"Drive!" Grimm barked, each syllable a sharp command, his movements a blur of practiced speed as he slammed cartridges into the revolver's cylinder. 

Abruptly, the brush exploded outwards. A Lycan, still streaking on all fours in its wolfen guise, vaulted from the thickets, a nightmare unleashed running neck-and-neck with Grimm's warhorse. Watters' gaze froze on the monster's face. The creature twisted its head, its pace unwavering. Then its maw ripped open, a sickening unhinging of bone and flesh, unleashing a guttural shriek that lanced through the doctor's skull. Even as it shrieked, its jaws unlocked further, distorting into a grotesque chasm, lined with needle-point teeth. Then, writhing tendrils, pale and fleshy, spewed forth from the abyss, thrashing blindly. 

"GRIMM!" Watters screamed, a raw, involuntary sound, recoiling violently. 

In a lightning flash, a monstrous tendril uncoiled from the creature's depths, hurtling towards the Doctor. 

"Duck!" Grimm roared, his voice a thunderclap. Watters crumpled instinctively. BOOM! The pistol erupted, the bullet tearing through the Lycan's skull in a spray of gore and shadow, sending the creature flailing backwards into the undergrowth. 

More Lycans poured from the forest depths, running with rabid desperation. "Watters!" Grimm snarled, the word ripped from his throat, "Too many! Become useful, Doctor, or we are both dead!" 

"Useful? And how, exactly? Recite medical theory at them until they expire from boredom?" Watters snapped back, his sarcasm a thin shield against his terror. 

A jarring thump drove the air from Watters' lungs as Grimm shoved the silver blade into his chest. "When they are upon us, use this, Doctor. Kill them," Grimm commanded, his gaze fixed, unwavering, on the encroaching tide of creatures. 

"Kill them?" Watters muttered, the words barely audible above the rising chaos, his frail hands vibrating uncontrollably. 

BOOM! Another bullet tore through the night, ripping into one of the swarming beasts. Then, a blur of fur and teeth, a smaller Lycan exploded from the undergrowth, a living projectile aimed at the horse's head. Its vile and noxious breath, misted Watters' lenses, blurring his vision further. "Shit!" he choked out, his cry lost in the frenzy, sawing wildly at the reins, the horse's panicked thrashing mirroring his own. 

"KILL IT!" Grimm bellowed, his voice a physical force that jolted Watters' trembling frame, the command a brutal whip crack against his paralysis. 

The Lycan's face split open, the flesh tearing apart to expose a nightmarish nest of slick, pulsating tendrils. They lashed across Watters' face, each strike a brand of agonizing fire. Blinding pain exploded behind his clamped eyelids, his heart a trapped bird hammering against his ribs. Even as Watters fought his own agony, Grimm remained a whirlwind of motion and gunfire, shots ripping through the night as he held back the remaining Lycans surging from the darkness. A choked roar of pain and fury tore from Watters' throat, and he rammed the silver letter opener deep into the creature's gaping, abhorrent maw. 

A final, agonizing screech ripped from the Lycan, then its head erupted in unholy flame, detaching from its body and plummeting from the horse with a sickening thud. 

Watters' heart pounded a frantic rhythm against his sternum. The gruesome image burned behind his eyes, refusing to fade. "Watters!" Grimm roared, sharp and demanding, "Doctor Watters!" His voice, a jolt of stark reality, dragged the doctor back from the edge of oblivion. 

"Wha…?" Watters managed, his voice a dry rasp, his hand clenched tight around the silver blade, his knuckles bone-white against the leather hilt. 

"TREE!" Grimm roared, his arm a blur, pointing at the looming pine that filled their path. Watters jerked back to awareness, still reeling, his hands fumbling for the reins, then violently hauling them back. The massive horse sheered sharply away, the tree trunk a dark shape flashing past its side, impossibly close. "Doctor, focus!" Grimm snapped, his voice a razor's edge of impatience. "Not. Done. Look up!" Grimm commanded, his voice tight with contained fury, gesturing sharply up the path. 

A brute of a Lycan, a hulking monstrosity, filled the path ahead, an unyielding wall of muscle and fang. Watters reared back on the reins, his blood freezing in his veins, but Grimm's hand clamped his, stopping the panicked motion in its tracks. "No," Grimm said, his voice low, almost conversational, yet edged with steel. 

The colossal Lycan unleashed a deafening roar, a challenge and a promise of carnage as it braced for impact. Grimm snapped his pistol back into its holster, his hand already a blur towards his knife hilt. "What are you doing?!" Watters demanded, his voice rising to a shriek of disbelief. Grimm's eyes ignited with a cold fire, his arm coiled back like a spring, "Fucking…" Grimm began, a grim anticipation in his voice. "Grimm, we're going to hit it!" Watters screamed, his voice raw with terror. "LYCANS!" Grimm exploded, his roar a counterpoint to the beast's, as he hurled the knife with impossible speed, the silver flashing in the moonlight as it found its mark in the giant creature's skull. 

The massive creature crashed to its back, a lumbering giant collapsing into stillness. Grimm's weight shifted almost imperceptibly, his powerful legs acting as living struts to stabilize the mount. Instantly, fire bloomed around the embedded silver, engulfing the beast's carcass. With blurring speed, his hand clamped onto the knife hilt, extracting it with practiced ease as he seamlessly remounted, posture already re-aligned, ready for the next threat. 

ike scattered vermin, the remaining Lycans melted back, disappearing into the impenetrable black maw of the forest. "Is… is it finished?" Watters wheezed, each breath a ragged fight for air. 

Grimm swept his gaze across the shadowed trees, his movements sharp and vigilant. "Appears so," he conceded, the words clipped, sheathing his knife with a decisive snick that echoed in the sudden quiet. 

Watters sagged in the saddle, a shuddering exhale escaping his lips. "Thank… God," he stammered, his voice still trembling, "For a moment… I truly believed we were lost." 

"You did well, Doctor," Grimm stated, his tone devoid of warmth, but edged with a curt acknowledgment that was praise enough. 

Watters' gaze, fixed and strained, scanned the path, when a faint glimmer ahead pricked his weary eyes. "There! Ahead!" he announced, his voice catching with fragile optimism. 

The trees parted, revealing the Mayor's manor – a stately presence against the encroaching darkness, a vast structure cradled by the mountain's shadow. Windows emitted a soft, welcoming glow, promising warmth and sanctuary in the biting cold. 

"Sanctuary," Watters exhaled, the word heavy with yearning, "He has to be able to help us… end this… finally." 

But Grimm sat motionless, an unyielding figure of granite. A prickling sense of unease sharpened to a cold dread that clenched in his gut. The inviting glow of the manor windows seemed less like welcome, and more like lure, drawing them into a deeper darkness than any they had yet faced.