Chapter 34

As Aestra threw herself down onto the asphalt road and assumed a hasty prone position she could hear Ferg’s voice in her memory on the first day of her sniper training.

“This is an accurized M14. I’ve had her for a long time and her name is Bess. This particular weapon system was originally modified to be a designated marksman weapon. There are weapons much more accurate. There are weapons much more powerful, and there are weapons with a faster rate of fire. But in the hands of an expert, there are few or no weapons that can put a higher volume of penetrating fire more accurately on multiple targets at ranges up to 600 meters,” Ferg had said.

Aestra prayed that Ferg was right about the rifle and that she was, at last, truly the expert he had spoken of.

Less than 30 minutes earlier the Fae patrol had reached the ranch, their fairy ‘eye in the sky’ Tink had met them and reported that she had spotted a small group of women working their way through the woods toward the ranch pursued by Hellhounds. Aestra intuitively knew this had to be the Nexus women trying to get back to safety. The close-in security team had met them at the arms locker, helped them gather extra weapons and all the silvered ammo they had in stock and the Fae patrol dashed as quickly as they could to the anticipated point the women were headed for along the ward boundary.

As the patrol crested a small hill in the county road she was confronted with a soul shaking sight. 400 yards away just outside the ward boundary the Nexus women were about to be overwhelmed by a pack of about a dozen Hellhounds and the patrol couldn’t do anything about it without risking hitting the women. Well, no one but Aestra and ‘Bess’.

Now Aestra took a deep breath to steady her sight picture as she peered through the 4x Unertl scope. Luckily where she was positioned on the road she would be shooting downhill, slightly over the heads of the group of women. The range wasn’t long but she was going to be shooting over and between friendlies at moving targets and she had no time to dial in her scope for bullet drop or windage. The Fae patrol had split onto either side of the road to give her a better field of fire and were moving as quickly as they could to assist. Aestra knew though, they wouldn’t make it in time.

She also knew how Hellhounds hunt. The alpha beasts were always near the center and the others would wait until that one signaled the charge. Her scope was pre-set at 600 meters and there was not enough wind movement to effect her shot so she found the largest beast in the center of the mass gathered at the woodline, lowered her point of aim on its chest by two mils and smoothly squeezed the trigger. As she recovered from the recoil Aestra realized that she had partially disrupted the charge as some of the beast ran forward and some just milled around the fallen leader.

She didn’t have a spotter or the time to worry about adjusting so she targeted the hounds moving most aggressively toward the women first and prayed for the best.

Jean thought for an instant that she had just heard the distinctive report of a high caliber rifle. She must be woozier than she realized. She desperately tried to fight off the trauma of her snapped femur bouncing around as Mei and Kelly hauled her backwards over the asphalt road. No, there it was again and this time she saw the hound closest to them tumble to the ground. Half a second later another fell. Sarah bringing up the rear snatched a hound out of mid spring by the front paw whirled and slammed it into the asphalt just as yet another knocked Adona to the ground. The hound reached for Adona’s throat but a round punched through the beast’s throat before it could snap its jaws shut.

Jill and Eesha snatched Adona up from the ground and everyone scrambled forward. A few steps and they could feel the wards surround them. The shot’s didn’t let up though and were soon joined by more rifle fire coming from both sides of the road. The Fae! In just a few seconds the last of the hounds were dead or dying.

Jean’s last thought before she allowed herself to pass out was that she wanted to kiss every one of them, even the trolls.

“Holy shit Aestra, that was some fine shooting!” exclaimed Sarah as she enveloped the slender Fae girl and lifted her off her feet in a hug.

“Thank you god...” started Aestra.

‘Nope none of that bullshit anymore. You saved us all Aestra! I may name my first girl after you!”

“Only if I don’t do it first!” said Lizzy as she repeated Sarah’s hug.

Sarah was relieved that they all had made it, but underneath was the sharp pang of fear and urgency for what was happening right now to her soul mate.

“Aestra we have to go back for Ben. Can we borrow some weapons and silvered ammo?” asked Sarah.

“We can do better than that Sarah. Aestra’s team will accompany you to find Ben, while we get everyone else back to the ranch,” ordered Queen Rhiannon.

“Thank you Jess..., ah I mean Queen Rhiannon,” said Sarah with a grateful look.

Sarah knew when her friend Jess spoke like this she was speaking as Queen of the Fae and representing her people. Rescuing Ben from outside the borders of the wards, was not a part of the Fae’s security agreement and she was accountable to her people for making this decision on the spot.

“Of course Sarah, the Fae can do no less for those who have rescued us,” said Queen Rhiannon.

“Uh Lizzy, I picked up your weapon from the armory for you just in case, I hope you don’t mind.” said Aestra as she unslung Lizzy’s Remington 700 from her back.

“Yes! Thank you Aestra, now those furry fuckers are going to get some payback!” said Lizzy with an almost feral grin as she accepted the weapon and ran through a quick check.

Maria and Eesha, stepped toward Sarah.

“We want to go as well, Sarah!” said Maria,

“I know you both do, but I think we have enough help to get through to him. We need to do what Ben would do and he would want you both to stay at the ranch in case something else weird happens. You two and the close-in security team are plan B in case something happens to the wards while we are gone,” said Sarah. “We are counting on you to hold the fort,” she finished as she strapped on a combat pack and accepted one of the extra Sig G2’s from a Fae patroller.

“Okay, I guess. Be careful and bring him back safe okay SarBear” said Maria.

Sarah had to pause as tears nearly overwhelmed her tough facade. Maria hadn’t used her nickname in a while and it brought back the first time they’d met each other and Ben behind the school when he had interrupted Sarah protecting Maria from a bully. She had loved him even then as a girl. Now as a woman she knew that they had been together in multiple lives and would likely always be a part of each other, but goddamnit she wasn’t ready to let him go in this life yet!

The other girls all surrounded her and Lizzy in a tight multiway hug. No further words needed to be said, Maria had spoken for all of them. Sarah looked over and nodded to Aestra and then turned to Lizzy.

“Let’s go get our man,” said Sarah.

Razor sharp teeth gouged a furrow deep along Ben’s forearm as he withdrew the inky rainbow lance blade from a Hellhounds chest and whirled about to slice the foreleg off of another. His movements were a blur followed by spurting hound blood and howls of pain. He knew at this point he had no chance. He was tiring and there was just no way for him to completely block even the narrow footbridge as one man. He just didn’t have the reach. Thankfully the beasts were still mostly just getting in each other’s way and he was killing them in droves. The old Nunnehi was right. Sometimes a simple stick was really handy.

As Ben whirled yet again, blade flashing, he realized he had completely lost track of time, surely by now the girls had reached the ward boundary he thought. No matter, he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to. Now he just wanted to kill as many of these evil stinkin’ sonsabitches as he could in revenge for Joe before they tore his throat out. He couldn’t spare a glance to look, but surely they had to be thinning out some? He and Joe must have killed way more than a hundred of them. Maybe he could kill them all?

But, it was not to be. Ben was slowly forced back farther and farther along the bridge. Just a few feet behind him the concrete apron forming the foundation of the bridge opened up wide. Once the hounds reached this point they could slip behind him and he would be virtually helpless. Ben thrust hard into the side of a hound trying to slip past him on the right. As he pulled the blade back it caught on a rib and slowed his recovery a mere quarter of a second.

That was all the time they needed though, and a hound slipped through on Ben’s left before he could get the lance around. The hound whirled and leapt for Ben’s back. Ben spun just in time to impale that beast though the stomach but by then two more had slipped behind him as Ben whirled back to the front. Unfortunately for Ben these two had worked together many times in the past to bring down dangerous prey. Simultaneously, one went high, the other went low and used his razor sharp fangs to cut through Ben’s left hamstring. The one trying for the back of Ben’s neck was instead met with the black blade, but the damage was done and Ben nearly fell to the ground as he could no longer put any weight on his left leg.

Somehow Ben managed to fight his way on one leg to the left hand bridge railing. Putting the railing at his back and bracing against it he was able to kill two more. The way across the bridge was open now but Ben grinned grimly there couldn’t be more than a couple of dozen of them left and there was no way they could make it in time to hurt his girls.

Blood was dripping in his eyes now but he could just make out a ‘human’ figure standing on the bridge smirking at him.

“Hey asshole, why don’t you come get some of this, instead of letting your pathetic doggies do your work for you. Just a little closer and Ima shove this pole up your ass!” yelled Ben as he swung in a slashing arc and nearly decapitated a hound who had drawn too close.

“No. I think not,” said the figure as he walked a little closer along the bridge.

Ben could now see the figure was wearing plaid highwater pants, a tightly tailored dress shirt with the cuffs halfway up his wrists and a ridiculously pretentious porkpie hat.

Fuck thought Ben, ‘All the times I’ve nearly died in my life, all the shit I’ve gone through, and now I’m going to get killed by a goddamn hipster?’

Just perhaps it had been a tactical error to try to eliminate this threat thought Sam. Or at least a bit premature. At every turn he had been stymied by these annoyingly competent humans. And they seem to have no concern for their own lives! If all humans thought like these did, he might as well just go back to Hell. It was a sobering thought.

He should have known that all of the additional Hellhounds wouldn’t coordinate as well as his own pack that he had trained for over a thousand years. They had bollixed up the signal and delayed attacking until the prey had made it to cover. Then they hadn’t even managed to get all of the humans in the trap. The scouts had found a way across the creek but had run willy nilly after the prey without telling the pack until it was too late. And fuck, what was it with this idiot and his stupid horsey? They had killed hundreds of the most soul numbing, vicious Hellhounds in existence as if they were stomping on mere sewer rats.

Now he for sure wouldn’t achieve his objective of complete elimination, but here was a consolation prize at least. This man must be Ben, the leader. If Sam killed Ben it would be a long time before the others would be able to hunt for him. And if Sam ate him alive, even better! He could assume the knowledge and shape of Ben, and perhaps fool the other humans in the group long enough to really cause some problems!

The only thing is, this Ben creature still was too strong and still had that crazy magic blade. Sam was getting nowhere near this savage until those things were rectified.

Ben could barely see and was losing masses of blood with every breath. A hellhound darted forward and snatched Ben’s good ankle, crushing the bone before Ben could stab down through the back of the beast’s neck severing its spinal cord. Ben fell to his knees but kept fighting the hounds as they circled looking for another opening.

Ben knew he only had moments of strength left. ‘Fuck it. I’ll be damned if I get killed by a PBR swilling hipster motherfucker,’ he thought as he rared back and hurled his lance with his last burst of energy directly at the figure’s narrow chest.

Time slowed for Ben. He could even see the blood drain from the hipster’s face as he realized, too late, that the lance could also be thrown. The lance covered the 40 feet between them in less than a second. It was about to deliver Ben’s final ‘fuck you’ when a hound leapt directly in front of it catching the blade directly in it’s broad chest. The blade slammed through the hound nearly out the other side. If Sam had been standing 6 inches closer he would have been impaled as well. Sam staggered back a wide wet patch staining the front of his Balmoral Plaid pants.

Ben drew his Fairbarne Sykes commando knife from its wrist sheath and tried to continue fighting but it was no use. The beasts were just toying with him now as they slashed at his upper body and thighs. Every breath was like inhaling razors as his broken ribs ground together. It felt like the weight of the entire world was on his shoulders and arms. At least he couldn’t feel the wounds to his lower body, it was almost entirely numb.