Guardians Book One - Magic Rising

Chapter Seven

Kath woke, reluctantly, to a shattering sound. Alarm, she thought, reluctantly, and flailed out a hand to grab her phone from its spot on her cabinet. Her hand, however, met with no resistance other than air, and, puzzled, she groped out further. Nothing. She rolled over and opened her eyes slowly, letting them acclimatise to the dim light filtering through the Venetian blinds...and slowly, treacle-slowly, began to remember. Surely it had been a dream...but no, here she was on Lady's too-comfortable sofa, remembering...

But what was that noise? She froze, hands twisting into her borrowed blanket, as a crashing crunch echoed from the hallway, coming horribly closer.

A moment's silence...before the front room door was flung back, leaving Kath to stare wide-eyed straight into the face of the monster.

"Found you," it growled, teeth tearing upwards. "You were easy to track. Now we know where the Water witch is...and you will soon both be out of our path."

The tiny part of Kath's mind that wasn't gibbering about death noted, with frighteningly clinical accuracy, that the...thing...was wearing the tattered remains of the same suit that the grey man from the bar had been wearing. Ah, the thought came almost serene. So there's a herd of them. Huh. The body around the torn material was simply bestial - a large, horned, vaguely panther-like creature, all sweaty hide and muscle. The sheer force of its being was overwhelming, enough to drive Kath to her knees; not even physical presence, something far more, as if the very air was thick with its being, extended from its hideous body...

The rest of her, quite on autopilot, froze up and delivered the loudest scream she could possibly manage. The thing snarled, bunched up its taut, powerful hind muscles and sprang, leaving Kath to scrabble clumsily but with more speed than she could have credited herself with off the sofa and onto the floor, where she rolled painfully into the coffee table. The stab of pain cleared her head and the shock of waking to this thing attacking her swelled into anger, built up from the previous night and the sheer impossible stupidity of it all.

"I was...asleep!" she shouted at it, shaking her head and balling her fists. "Get out!"

The thing swept a clawed paw at her, smashing the table in half, and Kath growled, ducking away, her hand groping about for something, anything...with a lunging flail she seized one of the trophies from the bookshelf and flung it at the beast, striking it more by luck than judgement on its massive head. It recoiled, giving her just a moment to scramble behind the armchair as Lady, a short sword in her hand, darted through the door, a wordless war cry tearing from her throat. Attention diverted from Kath, the thing gave another mad snarl and leapt again, striking at the sword with its claws. Lady curled the blade between the hideous claws and, both hands clutching the hilt, tore up through its paw, making the creature shriek in pain, blood instantly fountaining from its paw. Lamed, it staggered back, the broken paw held up to its side, and, mindless with rage and pain, it sprang hard off its back legs towards Lady.

Lady rolled lightly out of its path, and she was far faster than it; it was strong but the lucid part of Kath's mind could see it was awkward and lumbering in the enclosed space. Lady however was wearing no more protection than was afforded by a thin nightdress and had to use her speed advantage to dodge its attacks without returning, defenceless as she was. It gave a howling scream of frustration and threw its full weight at Lady, allowing her to fall back and leave it to careen into the wall, unable to stop. Lady swept her leg out to catch the thing's back legs off-balance, and it crashed sideways, howling with rage, teeth snapping as Lady thrust forward to follow up her advantage, and with a lucky lunge, caught her left arm in its jaws. Lady gave a short cry, half rage, half pain, and drove her sword into the thing's head and neck, ripping into the leathery hide again and again, yet still it held on. Kath stared, horrified as blood streamed down her companion's pale arm. She glanced wildly about again and, without time to think, grabbed a handful of books off the shelf, flinging them at the monster.