Chapter 6

I stood before the small brick building, the Wendigo at my side. The smell of ash and smoke was heavy in the air and night was almost upon us. Although, even with all of that pushing us forward, we were both rather reluctant to actually walk into the death shack.

"Hey David. How would you feel about going in first?"

"What, why me? You're the self-proclaimed immortal, you should go first."

"Well you're the big muscly monster. It's only fair for you to go first."

"You're immortal."

I rolled my eyes, "Alright fine, point taken, but you're still getting a pay cut for this. You know, when I eventually start paying you."

I placed my ear against the door and listened. It felt cool to the touch, and I couldn't hear anything on the other side.

I popped in my ear protection so I wouldn't go deaf when I inevitably fired the gun indoors and tossed David a pair.

Then I took a deep breath, and with my pistol at the ready I threw open the door.

...

Now, I have a habit when I enter a building, one that actually saved my life on one occasion. It's rather simple and at a glance it's something that would seem rather obvious, and that's to look up. Particularly when you don't know what's going to be behind a door.

It's a simple trick, and pointless ninety-nine-point nine percent of the time, but that point one percent is when you're really glad that you actually bothered to look up.

Because I swear, the amount of crackheads who set up sharp objects to come down from the ceiling when a door is opened is disturbingly high.

Every year I save at least a couple of my men from getting gored to death by a fire axe duct taped to the ceiling by enforcing this as a rule they have to follow when entering unsafe territory.

Naturally I follow it as well, and as of today it has now saved my life two times.

The second I stepped into the house my eyes went wide and I immediately dove to the side as a half dozen boney shards buried themselves where I stood moments before.

There was something crawling along the ceiling. It seemed to be a mass of sleek polished bones fitted together into a vaguely humanoid shape. Its hands were sharp and jagged, digging into the ceiling with ease and allowing it to crawl around on the ceiling.

Before I even hit the floor, David was rushing into the room and lunging towards the monster, which dodged him with a surprising amount of agility.

I hit the ground with a thud and immediately aimed my gun towards the monster, firing several shots towards its center mass that tore through it like butter.

It didn't seem to mind the damage, instead focusing its attention on David. It dropped down from the ceiling and darted towards him. It was a blur of motion that my eyes could barely follow, and only after seeing David get thrown against the far wall did it really start to click just how dangerous this thing was.

But it was too late to leave the building. I could hear the dragons approaching and the undead were soon going to rise with the coming night. Leaving would be suicide, so I'd just have to double down.

David quickly stood from where he'd been thrown, his eyes full of hate as he rushed towards the monster and grappled it to the floor. They tore away at each other's bodies, spreading blood and bits of bone throughout the room.

I quickly released the clip from my pistol, letting it fall to the floor and replaced it with a new one filled with incendiary rounds.

"I was supposed to be saving these for emergencies."

Its movement was limited while David and it grappled on the floor. So I carefully approached it, took aim, and proceeded to dump the entire clip into the creature's head.

It let out a screech so loud that the room shook as the center of its head turned into a mess of fire and melting bone.

It scrambled to escape David's grasp as the tides of battle turned against it, but he wasn't letting it go. He bit down onto the monster's shoulder, bones cracking under the pressure of the bite as he shoved his claws into the creature's chest and began to pull in either direction.

He strained for a couple seconds before loud popping sounds echoed out from the monster's body as David's muscles bulged and the monster began to rip apart down the center. Then a final loud crack emanated from its body as it was finally split into two.

The Wendigo looked up towards the ceiling and let loose an animalistic howl before tossing the monster's body to either side of him.

Then he collapsed to the floor, dripping blood from his many wounds.

I stood back from him, giving him a bit to catch his breath and to let the adrenaline leave his system. Rushing in to tend to his wounds right away would probably be a good way to get my head crushed simply by reflex.

So only after his breathing had calmed did I finally approach him.

I whistled in approval, "I take back what I said earlier."

He turned towards me with a look of tired confusion, "What?"

I grinned, "I won't be giving you that pay cut. Congratulations, you've earned it."

He rolled his eyes, "Fuck off Marcus."

-----------------------------------

I held a small bottle of disinfectant and wiped it across the cuts covering David's body.

He hissed in discomfort, "Are you sure this is necessary? I'll be healed within the hour anyways."

"I don't give a rat's ass if you have a healing factor. You got torn up by a sentient pile of bones. I honestly can't even think of a more unsanitary thing to get cut by in this situation. I can't have you getting an infection just because I was frugal with the medical supplies, now can I?"

The Wendigo grumbled and allowed me to continue.

A few minutes later I was finished, and sweat had begun to soak my body.

The room we were in was small, with a table in the corner and a bed up against the far wall. The only real thing on notice was the winding stairway leading down below the house.

"We'll need to go down the staircase soon."

David grumbled in disagreement.

"That fire outside won't be going out anytime soon. This place in an oven, it's only going to get worse."

"We can endure it."

"No, we can't. You can tell when I lie, so you know I'm telling the truth when I say that we need to go farther down."

"You think we need to go down, and perhaps that's true for you, but I can handle the heat better than I can whatever lurks down there."

"You're beginning to make me wonder if that built in lie detector of yours works on yourself, because goddamn do you love lying to yourself."

"You just want the treasure that lies down there!"

"Of course I do! It'd help me live longer, why wouldn't I want it? But that is not why we're going down there, and you'd better believe that we are going down there."

David stared daggers towards me, and I met his gaze.

"Don't be stupid, David. I don't want to leave you here, but if need be, I will."

…

…

"Very well."

He slowly stood up and began to make his way to the staircase, and I barely contained my sigh of relief. I didn't know for sure if he'd have survived the gradually growing heat, but I doubted it. In the end I was just glad I didn't need to storm a monster's lair on my own. It hadn't gone well the last time I'd tried to.

David led the way down the winding staircase, the heat forcing us further and further down, and by the time the heat had finally begun to let up on us we'd arrived in a large open room filled with broken statues and chunks of stone.

Glowing crystals littered the walls and ceiling, illuminating the room enough for me to see with relative ease.

Then David suddenly let out a groan like he'd just been punched in the gut. I quickly turned to see what had attacked him, but he was no longer there. In his place was a stone statue of him detailed enough to make its way into some of the best art museums. Not including the ones used for money laundering of course.

One moment he'd been there beside me, walking and talking, and now he was a statue and I was pretty sure I knew why. This had to have been the work of a Gorgon. They're creatures that turn you to stone when your eyes meet theirs. Nasty little bastards, but little bastards that I happen to be a little knowledgeable on.

I walked out from behind David's statue with my eyes tightly closed and fired three shots blindly into my surroundings.

I couldn't hear any sounds of pain, which probably meant I'd missed it, but that was to be expected.

This was just to make them hesitate. Nobody wanted to charge the man holding a mystery weapon, even if he was blinded at the moment.

I waited several moments and when I was pretty sure their ears had stopped ringing, I smiled and finally addressed the monster.

"Hello there, it's truly unfortunate that we had to meet on such terms. I usually like to start an introduction by offering drinks, but as I'm sure you can tell I've had a rough last couple months and I'm not really in the position to do so."

They didn't respond.

"You know, most people don't think your species is intelligent. They equate you to an animal that simply hunts their prey with no higher thoughts pushing them forwards, but that's just the people of this world's prejudice. Do you know what I think?"

Still no response.

"I think that animals don't line up statues to admire, they don't recognize the danger of a gun, and they certainly don't listen to a speech they don't understand."

I heard movement some ten feet to my right, but I didn't react and simply continued talking as I pulled a small device from my belt, gripping it tightly in my left hand, "Do you know what I'm holding right now?"

I didn't wait for it to respond.

"This, my friend, is a grenade and the weapon in my other hand is a gun. The grenade is a special kind of weapon. It created an explosion inside of this little canister here that propels thousands of pieces of shrapnel in every direction."

My grin grew.

"Basically, think of it as a gun, except it can't miss. I don't need to aim. I don't need to see."

I slowly began to walk towards where I was pretty sure the gorgon was hiding. My chest held high and my steps confident.

"One more thing I should probably add. If this thing goes off there's a good chance the roof will cave in. I'm sure you've gone up that staircase many times. You of all people should know just how bad that would be. Hundreds of tons of stone falling onto you, crushing you, suffocating you."

I chuckled a little to add onto the performance.

"Now I'm pretty sure I know what you're thinking. He won't do it. He can't be that crazy. We'll I'm just gonna come out and say that I most certainly am that crazy. I'm immortal and you're not. It's as simple as that."

I could hear it shuffling away from me, the sound of scales on stone impossible to miss. So I simply walked towards the noise. Amplifying the stress I was putting on the creature.

And then it happened.

The tension was too much for it. Gorgons are most certainly intelligent, but only about as much as a five-year-old would be. Which is to say they aren't that smart.

Push them far enough and they'll panic. If I had stayed hiding behind David's statue with my eyes closed it would've taken advantage of my blindness. They slice their prey with razor sharp claws and retreat away before they can retaliate. A respectable hit and run strategy, a patient strategy.

But fear is the death of patience, and the idea of being buried alive can definitely encourage someone to act fast.

I could hear it rushing towards me, fully dedicated in its charge to kill me before my threats became reality.

I couldn't help but smile as I pulled the pin to the 'grenade' and tossed it a couple of feet in front of me.

Seconds later the room lit up in a cacophony of light and sound, and the Gorgon screamed.