Page 92 of Only Human in Strangeville

Bridger chased after that human, while I ran over to the vampire.

He thrashed on the ground, but the sunlight spell wasn’t killing him, just distracting him. Feeling like an absolute shit, I took careful aim and unloaded my gun into the creature’s head.

It worked, and the vampire disintegrated into dust.

“Fuck.” I fell to my knees and heaved. While this wasn’t the first vampire I’d killed, this felt different. He hadn’t been in a position to defend himself, and I’d killed him anyway. Not that I would have been able to keep him contained, but still…

Bridger came back, dragging the third human.

I wiped my mouth and had just enough magic left to fashion some ropes before my powers slipped from my fingers.

My hunter trussed up the human and tossed him to the ground.

Then he and Nimbus came over to me.

“You did the right thing, Hannah,” Bridger said, pulling me into a hug. Nimbus pressed against me, and they let me sob for a few moments. Knowing we didn’t have a lot of time, I pulled myself together and got to my feet.

“Thanks. I’ll finish my breakdown later. We need to rescue the wolves.”

Bridger gave me one last hug before we turned to stare at the plaque.

“Well, that’s horrific.” I reached toward it, fingers spread.

“Don’t touch it!” Bridger grabbed my shoulder.

Nimbus growled and tugged on my sleeve with his teeth.

“I wasn’t going to touch it, promise.” I brushed against the tablet with threads of my magic before recoiling. The magic of the tablet grabbed at my own as if trying to drag me in. “Not that we didn’t know this, but that is definitely the source of the spell affecting the werewolves.” My intuition told me destroying it would free the werewolves, but how? If I couldn’t touch it with my magic, I certainly couldn’t touch it with my hand, and I was about out of juice as it was.

Nimbus grumbled before bumping into my legs and pushing me back. Bridger and I allowed ourselves to be herded away by the dog before he turned to face the tablet. He looked back over his shoulder at us and woofed, his ears disappearing into his floof for a moment as he flattened them to his head before giving us what seemed to be a significant look.

Taking a guess, I covered my ears. Nimbus rooed approval before turning back to the tablet.

Glancing at Bridger, I saw he had his ears covered, too.

Nimbus again increased his size to giant dog and roared at the tablet.

Even with our ears covered the sound was deafening, but not so loud that I didn’t hear the crack of the tablet shattering. Or maybe that was an effect of the magic breaking. I wasn’t sure, but when I opened my eyes, the magical energy was evaporating, and the stone tablet had fractured into hundreds of tiny pieces. As I watched, those pieces disintegrated into sand before disappearing.

“Good boy, Nimbus.” I wrapped my arms around Nimbus’s leg, hugging the giant dog.

He rooed happily then shrunk back to his normal size before laying down at my feet, eyes fluttering shut.

“Well, guess that’s it for him,” Bridger said, kneeling next to the cloud dog and burying his fingers in the dog’s ruff just like Nimbus liked it. “Good boy, buddy.”

“Yeah, he did a lot for such a young dog. We’ll have to carry him.” I wasn’t looking forward to that, the little guy had grown a lot in the short time I’d known him.

“Let’s get him over your shoulders. That’ll be the easiest.”

Bridger helped me lift the sleeping cloud dog and drape him over my shoulders like a fluffy stole. He wasn’t too heavy like that. By the time we got Nimbus sorted, angry growls and yips sounded from the clearing.

A little nervously, I went to look. The wolves were all shifted, and they all turned to look at me almost as one. One of the bigger wolves—I thought it was Davin—trotted over to me, rubbing against my legs before sniffing at Nimbus. Then he spared a glance for both Bridger and the trussed human.

“He broke the spell after we found you. Somehow, they’re blotting out the sun. I think the vampires are attacking town. I guess I didn’t have to play bait after all.” So much for our plan to draw the enemy out and pick the ground for our fight.

Davin grunted before barking, literally, commands at his wolves. Two fell in with us, two more flanked the captured human, while the rest faded silently into the woods, heading toward town.

“Okay, so now what do we do about the darkness? If they’ve committed all their vampires to this attack, we’re going to need something to fight them. Werewolves are good, but until we can get our vampires above ground, they’re going to be seriously outnumbered.”

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