16 I'm Coven A Good Time V
It took no more than an hour before the hunters arrive at their werewolves' nest. A dilapidated and abandoned factory with broken windows and rusty metal frames suggests the building has more OSHA violations than werewolves living in it.
Popping up the trunk of their truck and sliding up the fake bottom, revealing the cache of small firearms, explosives, and multitudes of items deemed useful in hunting by Irwin himself.
"Grab that holster and that container named 'Silver mags'. That's for .45 ACPs and take 5 of them." Irwin ordered before doing so himself. He then grabbed another plastic box containing four metal canisters without any labels on them. "This is flashbangs. Might work with wolves and their enhanced senses. Just don't throw it near you."
"Got it." Clicking in the metal holster and slotting the magazines, Garth turned his attention towards the top of the cache and its numerous bladed weapons. "Silver knife9s?"
"Ah, yes. This are throwing daggers and this is a kukri. All pure silver." Irwin replied, taking a few for himself and sliding them down his bootstraps. "Alright. Be ready in five minutes. Remember, once we go in, don't hold back, watch each other's back, and waste all of your bullets. Understood?"
"Got it."
Irwin left Garth to his devices and went towards the passenger's seat of the truck, opening up the glove compartment and retrieving a paper box containing two hollow silver vambraces. He unclasped a pair and wore it before testing its comfortability and versatility. A few seconds of acting like Wonder Woman made Irwin happy with his decision to spend large amounts of money to create the items. He wanted the vambraces to be enchanted, but the rush order and Anastaisa's ridicule made it otherwise difficult.
"Still looks cool." He muttered, a child-like grin on his face. "Hey, Garth. Silver vambraces, so you don't get bit." He threw the pair to his partner.
"Whoa, this is so cool." Garth inspected the armour, unclasping the brace and donning it. "Can I borrow this for Comic-con?"
Irwin laughed, nodding in approval before urging Garth to double-check their gear. Receiving his partner's all-clear sign, Irwin moved towards the entrance to the factory.
The entrance to the main hall of the factory was a decrepit and rusty metal gate with a large hole on its left side, broken onwards with long claw marks around its jagged edges.
"Alright. I hear a few voices inside." Irwin hurried Garth to the side of the metal gate as he crouched down and entered the factory.
There was not much different to the inside of the factory with its rusty machines, dilapidated signages, and scrap metal arranged rather neatly to the side, that is, of course, without taking in the five men huddled around a large metal bin ablaze with fire.
The men stopped their hubbub when Irwin and Garth entered the building as a man, who was their leader, at least that's what Irwin presumed from his demeanour and the other men's clear look of reverence, came forward and met them halfway.
"Can I help you, gentlemen?" The leader, a dark-skinned muscular man with piercing blue eyes asked. The leader looked over their load-out, looking disgusted as he sniffed them.
"Uh, yeah. Special Agent James Bryce and this is my partner, Special Agent Michael Crawford. FBI." Irwin holstered one of his guns, keeping the other ready by his hands and produced his fake badge towards the leader. "We were informed of an illegal drug deal happening in this factory. You guys wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
The leader of the group eyed his men before shaking his head. "No, sir. We have kids here. Ain't going to deal drugs with kids here." Assured the tall dark man as he eyed the gun on Irwin's hand.
"Well, still, you guys living here?" Irwin asked as he motioned for Garth to move forward causing a few of the men to react disapprovingly with snarls and grunts. "You got a permit or you squatters?"
"We don't-"
"I'm a veteran." A middle-aged man suddenly shouted from amongst the cluster of hobos. "I have an ID. I serve in the Vietnam War." He took out a large wallet with trembling hands and hold it out for the approaching Garth.
"Well, thank you for your service. Check him. Those who have IDs, take them out and we'll do a check. We're just gonna make sure that everything's fine here." Irwin placated the men's rather aggressive behaviours. "We won't arrest or even remove you from the facilities. Just making sure."
The rest of the men scattered around as they passed off IDs to Garth who dutifully inspected them whilst eyeing their reaction to his presence.
As Garth took the veteran's wallet, the veteran sniffed and recoiled. "Feds need body armour now?"
The veteran looked pointedly at Garth's vambraces. The leader of the men also noticed the armour and released a faint growl which he quickly hid with a cough.
"We good, Garth?" Irwin asked, storing the badge and retrieving his second gun.
"Garth?" "What?" "The fuck?"
A cacophony of confused voices echoed around the chamber as Garth unhesitatingly drew the flashbang from the back of his belt and threw it in the centre of the chamber.
The people within the room scattered as the sound of metal hit the paved floor, but after a moment had passed, nothing, not even a sound, happened.
Irwin looked around the room and saw the growling expressions and glowing eyes of the six men that previously occupied the factory, and then looked at the dumbfounded expression on his partner.
"Garth, did you or did you not pull the lever on the canister?" He asked slowly.
"I did not." Garth replied with a straight face.
"Well... boys..." Irwin stood from his crouching position while the mem followed his movements. "We can talk about this."
The men, however, did not want to talk. The veteran pounced upon Garth, claws brandished as he swiped at the fake agent who brought his arms together and blocked the claws with his vambraces. The force of the claw, however, was still felt as he tumbled down the floor.
The leader of the men and the werewolves, whose eyes glowed bright blue, transformed into his wolf form, showing his light brown fur and long sharp claws. He roared, eliciting a chain reaction of howls from the other men as they, too, transformed into their wolf forms. The leader, nay, the Alpha snarled and pounced towards Irwin who was busy shooting at the lithe lycan figures roaming around and jumping around the room.
The Alpha shouldered Irwin and blew him a few meters away, but not before the hunter could kill one of the werewolves.
Gasping for breath after the hit, Irwin steadied himself and tried to find his missing guns however the Alpha did not give him a chance as he grabbed Irwin by the scruff of his neck and threw him against the metal gate of the factory.
A loud back echoed as Irwin slammed into the gate. Thankful for his body's enhanced durability, Irwin begrudged himself to stand up and face the Alpha. "Did you see my gun?" He asked genuinely.
The Alpha roared and rushed forward, uncaring of the sudden glint that appeared within the hands of his enemy. His right claw jumped forward, hoping to slice the hunter in thirds, but the enemy' vambraces protected him from the attack and caused the Alpha to for but a second.
The second of which Irwin took as the Enchanted Iridium knife, which he summoned earlier, force its way across the Alpha's body and lodge itself into the Alpha's chest.
The Alpha grunted in pain, chest heaving along the blade that made him bleed as gunshots echoed near him. It angered the Alpha that he could not help his kin who was struggling against one hunter as he himself was struggling against the man. The Alpha in split second decision threw caution to the wind and launched himself at Irwin.
Irwin cursed his hastiness as the heavy frame of the Alpha werewolf bore down upon him and once again slammed his body against the metal gate. This time though, Irwin grabbed ahold of the werewolf and pressed his right arm around the Alpha's neck, scorching his fur and skin with his silver vambraces. The Alpha roared and dug his claws at Irwin's side, twisting deep within his body and puncturing any organs he came across.
Irwin wheezed in pain as bile forced itself out of his mouth, nearly causing him to let go of his stranglehold but willed himself as his free left hand grasped the lodged knife and repeatedly stabbed the Alpha's chest with it.
Screams of utter agony and howls of sheer pain resources against each other as they echoed across the chambers. The Alpha tried his hardest to slice and dice every piece of Irwin's inner body while the latter kept himself alive by sheer force of will as he choked the ever-living shit out of the Alpha. In the end, Irwin pushed his last vestige of stamina as he pulled the knife out of the Alpha's chest, arms sore and swelling, and slit the werewolf's throat before piercing his brain.
A soul-deafening thud echoed throughout the chambers as the werewolves who were beating Garth in a bloodied farce gazed at their dead pack leader. sorrowful howls then echoed both within and around the factory, mourning the death of their Alpha.
Seeing the now seething looks the werewolves gave him, Irwin snickered and dove for his gun ways away. The werewolves all rushed forward, intent on killing their Alpha's murdered, but the effects of his death had already taken a toll on them allowing Irwin and Garth to neutralize them before they could finish them.
Silence reigned in the room, broken only by the dying gasps and exhausted huffs of both hunters.
"You good, Garth?" Irwin asked through his huffs, hand across his belly while he tried to slowly push in his intestines. "I... think... the rest... of the... fuck me! Job is going... to be... easy." Tears continually fell out of his eyes as the last bits of his exposed organs fall back into place before he retrieved the last of Paracelsus' Alchemical Concoction and drank it. The concoction immediately took effect as his stamina was sapped away by the potion and his large wounds began to heal at a rapid pace. Unlike last time, Irwin readied himself for the utter exhaustion that would soon beset his body, an unnatural force gravitating him towards the ground.
"Yeah. Now that the Alpha's gone, the rest should be easy." Answered Garth as he too lay on the ground, panting from the recent fight. Although his training in Madagascar and weapons had given him enough of an advantage to contend with four werewolves, the fight had almost been an absolute bloodbath considering the teamwork the four werewolves had put him through. "Maybe we should go for a vampire's nest next time."
"Yeah." Irwin's laugh was replaced by a spluttering of coughs, clearly not yet fully healed. but still, Irwin forced himself to stand up, grunting along the way. "C'mon, let's finish this. You go east, I'll go west. Kill all the stragglers."
●●●●●●
Irwin holstered the revolver on his right hand and replaced it with the spell components for the Flame Whip spell and traversed the western halls of the factory. His gaze trained solely on his surroundings as he focused on his enhanced senses, listening for any scratches, howls, or footsteps of the hiding werewolves. His left hand holding the Glock 21 tightly over his bent right arm moved back and forth.
His vigilance bore fruit when the hallway came to a bend and two werewolves rushed in, hoping to ambush him. Irwin hurriedly fired off shot after shot with half of the bullets missing the surprisingly acrobatic werewolves, but the rapid aiming and firing took out the lesser of the duo.
Seeing his fellow being gunned down, the other werewolf, perhaps unwisely, rushed towards their home invader, brandishing his claws. Irwin barely evaded the claw attack, bringing his arm forward and letting the silver vambraces take the brunt of the attack.
Metal screeched as the claw swiped the silver metal in the armour, scorching its sharp edges a little. The remaining werewolf growled in pain, leaping away from in a moment's notice and narrowly evading Irwin's last bullet. Seeing his enemy's gun click and be empty, the werewolf rushed forward and slammed himself into Irwin, uncaring of the stinging pain from the silver vambraces.
The two tumbled down the hallway, claw and arm in an old-fashioned game of duck and punch with Irwin using his silver vambraces to redirect all of the werewolf's claw attacks and began chipping away its sharpness.
The werewolf backed away once he realized the unnerving pain radiating from his hands, his eyes widening as he saw his claw scorching from the impacts to his enemy's armour. The sight angered the werewolf so much so that he forgot to pay attention to his enemy which allowed Irwin to do his first actual-combat magic.
Grasping the plastic containing the components, he stood two meters away from the distracted werewolf and threw it at him as he shouted: "Flagello execrabilem cauda flammarum."
The plastic bag suddenly burst into flames as it curved, producing a trail of fore that ultimately resembled a whip. The blazing whip curved around the werewolf's head and slammed into him with such force that it sent him careening head-first into the adjacent wall.
Boom!
Gasps of astonishment came out of Irwin's mouth as his eyes glowed purple, remnants of magic pervading his sight, but quickly turned to a normal blue that he used to stare at his handiwork.
The once proud werewolf with a thick head of hair now lay dead and scarred, head burned to a crisp as a large diagonal gash caved in his very skull.
Irwin was elated by the power of the spell, though it did take a lot out of him. Even now he could feel the magic sapping away at his stamina which, based on Anasatasia, was perfectly normal for an apprentice like him. He needed to perfect the usage of the spell and reduce the stamina needed to cast. "And don't fucking throw the components, Irwin. You stupid fuck!" He admonished himself for the spell description had allowed continued use of the flame whip once activated, that is, of course, until he either runs out of stamina or lets go of the whip itself.
Irwin moved away from the scene of the fight while he reloaded both of his guns. The noise of the gunshots should have notified the other wolves in the pack of his imminent arrival, so Irwin hurried to find the remaining members lest they flee the battlefield.
It didn't take long for him to find his quarry, nearly a couple minutes after his fight did he hear the frightful scurrying of multiple persons. Moving along the walls, he came across a room with boarded-up windows and opened the door. Within the room was a blonde woman helping five children pack up their things in a hurried yet calm demeanour.
The way the kids flared and snarled at each other as they made their way to their bags suggested each one of them to be werewolf pups with the youngest being a seven-year-old blonde girl and the eldest being somewhere between 15-16 years old. Barely out of his teenage years, a great one at that seeing his lupine ancestry for his face had nary a blemish.
Cocking his gun once more, he entered the room with both guns forward. One trained on the adult werewolf and the other on the pups. "Hands up." He ordered. "Hands up! You, kid. Put that fucking hands up!"
A flurry of growls and snarls was all the reply that Irwin heard as he aimed his gun at the pack of werewolves.
"Fuck you!" The eldest roared, eyes glowing red and readying himself to pounce upon the intruder.
"Jakob, stop." Ordered the adult werewolf. "Let us go, hunter. We do not feed on-"
"I don't fucking care, wolf," Irwin yelled, keeping up with the barely restrained werewolf movements. "This the pups of the whole pack?"
"N-No... just mine." Answered the werewolf mother.
"Goddamn. All seven of 'em?"
She snarled. "Yes."
"Mama!" The youngest pup suddenly screamed, her pants darkening as a trace of urine pervaded the air.
The werewolf mother almost instinctively went to her kid, but the threat of the gun and its silver bullets restrained her motherly instincts. "It's ok, baby. The bad man is gonna go away. He's not gonna hurt you--" The werewolf mother flinched hard as gunshots echoed across the factory.
Irwin could see the fear and anxiety whirling across the werewolf mother as she gazed alternatingly between her frightened pups and the looming threat of the hunter before her.
"How many wolves are in this pack? " He asks.
"11 adults, 3 teens, and 7 pups." She answered through gritted teeth. "Please, don't kill them. Just let them go. They're just kids, they didn't get bit... we-we haven't eaten-"
"I don't fucking care!" Irwin roared making all wolves flinch and the younger pups to cry. He now had a choice: Hope the thirteen werewolves are enough to trade for the Witchcatcher or kill all these werewolves and definitely acquire it. "This isn't a choice at all." He muttered.
"He's gonna kill us!" The eldest pup roared and rushed forward, startling Irwin as he fired off a round and hit the approaching pup in the stomach.
The werewolf mother roared, eyes glowing red as she rushed towards the fallen pup. "No, no, no. Jakob!" The werewolf's mother wailed as she held him in sorrow.
Jakob, however, merely coughed in pain and embarrassment. "Ma, it hurts."
The werewolf mother gasped, caressing her son's face and stomach and seeing the quickly vanishing entry wound. "What? What happened?"
"Relax. It's lead, not silver." Irwin said as he saw the utter relief on the werewolf mother's face. "You have an escape plan?"
"What? Yeah, there's a sewer grate near here. we can use it to escape." She said, hope filling her face.
"They can escape. Not you. You're going to die today." Irwin said with finality, aiming the other gun at her. "This has silver bullets."
The oldest pup tried to protest but her mother's silent plea stopped him. She look at her pups and smiled. "Follow me."
The werewolf mother urged her kids as they finished their packing quickly. She then led them and Irwin to the west where more rooms and fewer machines became apparent. Along the way, the mother werewolf comforted her crying pups, smiling at them and placating their worries as well as telling Jakob, the oldest, to look after his siblings. It took a few minutes before they arrived at their destination.
"Here!" The werewolf mother exclaimed, hurrying along with her scared pups and some visibly angered older children. "This leads to a farm field a few miles west."
The escape hatch was a long-destroyed sewer tunnel that lead a few feet down before turning a bend and a straight line towards a nearby river. It was holed up with cement when their pack came in, but was quickly torn down by the orders of their Pack Alpha in case of an emergency, the werewolf mother explained as Irwin let her stall for time and get her pups out of the fight.
"Just go... take care of your siblings for me... alright? I love you." She held all her cubs in a warm embrace as they cried their heart out, some even showing their small teary-eyed eyes at him in fear.
Pity. That should have been his first emotion once he saw the warmth and love the werewolf mother showed her kids as she ushered them into the rusty hole yet none pervaded his senses. Neither pity nor mercy assailed Irwin right now for he is a man on a mission, a mission to procure a Witchcatcher and none, not even a three-legged puppy crying for its dead dog mother, could deter him from finishing the mission. "5 seconds." He muttered grimly.
She growled at Irwin, the latter merely staring at her with a cold gaze. "Go... go and live.... I'll be there for you." She muttered, nay, pleaded to her pups, but seeing some of them, the older ones, being hesitant, she snarled. "Just go!"
With but a few whimpers, the pups went into the hole, clanging along its rusty metal pipes as they made their escape.
The werewolf mother turned towards Irwin, willing back the tears that fell down her glowing red eyes. "You're a monster."
"Maybe." He responded despondently.
She howled one last time, a desperate howl for her life and that of her children before rushing towards Irwin in a feeble attempt of retaliation or perhaps one last hail mary in the hope of seeing her children once more.
A loud bang echoed across the abandoned halls of the factory as the werewolf mother dropped to the ground, bereft of life.
Irwin steeled his gaze as he watched her for a few seconds before a metallic clang resounded from where her kids had left. He turned towards it and found the oldest staring at her mother's departed figure. The oldest werewolf kid, teary-eyed and jaw-clenched, gazed at his mother's murderer.
Before the boy could speak, Irwin muttered. "My name is Richard Greythorne. If you grow old and strong, look for me."
The boy's eyes widened before giving a resolute and anger-ridden nod, his fist nearly turning into claws as he restrained his bestial nature and turned back to help his siblings.
"I'll be waiting for you." He muttered once more before turning his back to the escape hatch and closing it permanently.
●●●●●●
With a heave and a pained grunt, the corpses of the werewolf clan that used to inhabit the abandoned factory had been piled up in a square where Irwin would trade them for the Witchcatcher.
"So, what was the point of this again?" Asks Garth, huffing and puffing from all the menial work of piling corpses.
"I'm going to use them to find us a Witchcatcher," Irwin replied while passing along a cold water bottle to his partner. "But I don't need you for that. I'm good here."
"What am I supposed to do?" Asks the bewildered Garth before hearing the cacophony of police sirens that would soon drown the silence of the abandoned factory. He rolled his eyes. "Right. I'll handle them, you got the badge?"
Smiling in amusement while handing the badge, Irwin whistled to his partner. "Hey, blood on your shirt. Put on a jacket."
Seeing Garth waddle off to intercept the incoming police officers, Irwin turned his attention towards the corpses. "Trade Shop."
■■
[Trade Shop]
[Please Select And Specify The Item You Wish To Trade]
■■
"Werewolf corpse." He said, touching the one who seemed to be the leader of the pack.
■■
[Trade Accepted]
[Trade List Incoming...]
■■
The singular werewolf corpse produced items deemed too common by the curated vision of Irwin who, by his estimate, had watched at least all Supernatural episodes twice. But he wasn't here to subjectively criticize the sheer value of the werewolf as he filtered the list for the Witchcatcher.
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● Witchcatcher [Weapon] [Fragment] | Trade For: One (1) Fragment
■■
'Well, nothing ventured.' He thought with a shrug. Even the trade for the Mounted skull used as a spell conduit listed the broken Witchcatcher as fragmented too. "Specify item."
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● Witchcatcher [1/8 Fragments]: A device used to restrain witches, most were thought to be destroyed after the Inquisition. The witchcatcher is a large iron collar with seven spikes and arcane sigils affixed and inscribed on the insides of the artifact. Once affixed to a witch's neck, the witch is forced to do the bidding of whoever is in control of it.
■■
"Trade eight fragments using the corpse pile." He ordered.
■■
[Trade Accepted]
[Traded (8x) Witchcatcher [Fragmented] for (7x) Werewolves (Adult) and (3x) Werewolves (Teen)]
[Ding! You have collected all Fragmented items for [Witchcatcher]. Would you like to combine it?]
■■
"Yes." He agreed as a dull ding resounded yet again, notifying him of his artifact's arrival at his Trade Counter.
Eleven corpses began disintegrating, turning to ashes at a rapid pace, the corpse of the werewolf mother along them. With the transaction done and his main objective acquired, Irwin was now contemplating on what item to trade for the remaining four werewolf corpses. Then there's also the matter of the Pack Alpha, the blue-eyed bastard who drove a deep gash across his neck. The wound was now closed, of course, thanks to the enhanced regeneration of his Bloodbane identity, no longer bleeding like a broken faucet, but the canyon-like gash still pained him deeply. It was crimson red and hurt every time he moved his neck.
Speaking of Alphas, Irwin was not entirely surprised to see a werewolf lead others in a pack seeing as there were other variations on the original lore of the show. There were no concepts of spawns' strength being connected to their relationship with their maker, or the lack thereof, in the original show, or at least none that he can remember. Still, he thought, that would make it hunting them more interesting and not to state the obvious, more convenient.
"So we have a way to incapacitate them: The Witchcatcher. And to hurt them are the iron bullets and my magic." He muttered for a while, thinking of a use for the lot. "Now, we need to know where they are. Right. Location. Parameters: Tracking spells and artifacts. Target: witches. Include all werewolf corpses and their Alpha to the trade."
No sooner did Irwin finish his orders for the Trade shop than the system compiled and filtered the list from his specifications. Blue light washed over his cerulean eyes as he skimmed the list and picked his favourites.
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● Witch Scry [Spell] [Human] | Trade For: Two (2) Scroll
● Horn Of Lost Souls [Consumable] [Artifact]| Trade For: two (2) Horns
● Arcane Proximity Ward [Spell] [Enochian] | Trade For: One (1) Scroll
■■
Irwin hummed, barely bothering with the ongoing shouting match at the front of the factory as he contemplated his selection. He was positively surprised to see Enochian magic on the list given its obvious rarity and a mortal threat to any non-angels, or Celestials as the system had categorized, who practises it. Not that he would trade for it due to its more localized use.
The Horn Of Lost Souls, on the other hand, is a Nordic artifact that allows its user to magically know all the supernatural entities within a ten-mile radius, hidden or otherwise. Although it can only be used once, it has the additional effect of immobilizing and disorienting nearby hostile entities which made Irwin hesitant to pass up on the opportunity to trade for it.
But what Irwin was looking for had a surprisingly simple name: Witch Scry. A tad bit anti-climactic seeing the other trade items had a peculiarity to them, but who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth? And seeing the value of the four werewolves, Irwin decided to be a thrifty shopper. "Trade one Witch Scry and one Horn Of Lost Souls."
■■
[Trade Accepted]
[Traded One (1) Witch Scry Scroll [Spell] and One (1) Horn Of Lost Souls [Consumable] for Three (3) werewolves (Adult) and One (1) werewolf (Pack Alpha)]
■■
"Yeah, I'm definitely being scammed out of an Alpha here." Although he knew that this was not a shop per se, more of a trading centre or a bargain bin, Irwin still lamented the lost value of the Pack Alpha given the latter's strength.
Now that the evidence has been cleaned and their objectives were achieved, it was time to find their witch.
