CHAPTER 68: PEST | THE RAID—X

  SPECTRE—NOVEMBER 26th, 1992 | MORNING

  ?

  Cameron’s bulwark cracked.

  That blue-skinned beast of a man had, after only a single hit, displaced him. A monstrous fist had slammed straight into his chest. Wind had been forced out from his lungs.

  His eyes had rolled back behind his head as he was sent hurling into the back of the wall, crashing through the counters of the bar on the 2nd level mezzanine. Pain had surged throughout Cameron’s body: vivid, sharp, undeniable. One of his arms was entirely useless, and pure adrenaline was the only thing that kept him moving. Even so, he was almost certain he’d torn a bicep, a tricep, and had dislocated a shoulder after wielding Ivoryworks: Piledriver.

  Worse, remnant blade shrapnel courtesy of Rachel still nestled along the inside of either one of his forearms. Worse than worse, he’d used up every ounce of pasteurized demon blood on her—good in principle for trying to spare her life, but bad in that he’d robbed himself of one of the only things that he could’ve relied on to continue fighting.

  Broken glass rained down on Cameron, and Guts, docile as ever, whirred to his side without a care in the world.

  The danger in front of him was, in fact, self evident, and if the damned wind sprite looked at it for longer than a few seconds, it might very well realize it.

  “There… hnng… he is, Guts, Mr. Ether,” Cameron muttered, his voice hoarse. He jostled as much as his body would allow for and shrugged off some of the rubble.

  Mr. Ether. It was the only thing that felt fitting in the absence of a name. "Right in front of us. And very fucking dangerous."

  Seven-feet-tall, and easily over four-hundred-pounds of pure, blue-skinned muscle. The only hints of pink were by way of scar tissue—burn marks—that covered his body in chaotic splotches.

  Metal padding was grafted into his very skin, covering his shoulders and his back, where his spine had strange machinations pumping blue liquid through various tubes that plugged into his biceps, his pectorals, his thighs, and his forearms. His scalp was completely devoid of hair save for a black and spiked off-center trail, and the beast of a man wore very wide utility pants that had to have been custom-tailored. Straps and belts lingered along his waist, alongside a harness that, for all intents and purposes, seemed to assist in somewhat securing the metal fixtures along his body. Worse, his eyes were red. A deep, angry red, and he had a permanent metal fixture along his mouth and nose. A breathing mask, of some sort.

  Tania had been the only thing keeping him in line since they’d made it up to the 2nd level. Much like Cameron, she’d taken a direct hit from Mr. Ether, and for quite some time had been sprawled out beside him.

  She lacked Cameron’s white-ivory armor, and Mr. Ether's fist had rearranged her ribcage in ways that Cameron didn’t even think possible. But his body wasn’t made of wolfsbane, or silver, and he wasn’t a thaumaturgist, so in time, she healed. And when she healed, she stood. And when she stood, she wasn’t quite as tall or as wide as Mr. Ether, and perhaps not nearly as strong as him either. But what she lacked in physicality she matched in raw ferocity.

  Cameron’s injuries meant he’d been reduced to a glorified human shield. Thus far, the most he’d contributed to their skirmish was stepping in front of Mr. Ether’s heavy handed fists before they could land squarely into Tania. He felt stupid doing it. There was no reason to do it, either. She was fully transformed, which meant she’d likely be at the height of her regenerative capabilities. But Cameron did it anyway. He didn’t know why.

  Tania’s snarling and growling seemed more intense, too. More purposeful.

  Cameron couldn’t place it, not exactly, but the fact that this man—this thing—was entirely dependent on ether meant that it was made, in some capacity, by way of Tania’s blood. He’d never forget the day he found Tania, hooked up in that dark room, sprawled out onto a table in her wolfish form with all sorts of tubes and devices hooked up to her body. Tubes to keep her asleep, tubes that sucked the blood straight from her veins. Mr. Ether, then, was either some twisted version of a bastard child to her, or, somehow involved what had happened to her. Maybe even both.

  But now, she wasn’t strapped to a table. She stood tall, strong, proud, a wolf in a woman’s form with spiked black-maroon fur that frilled up in spikes that jutted out like hundreds of thousands of warnings, each of them saying the same exact thing, like a sign on the front door of a house that shouldn’t ever be entered: BEWARE OF DOG.

  Cameron tried to stand, but his body felt weaker than ever. Tired, broken, and half alive.

  Had Tania not been there, Cameron likely would’ve been turned into a pile of blood and guts.

  His attention shifted back towards their skirmish.

  Tania had just dashed to the side, deftly avoiding Mr. Ether’s strike. Slow as it was, it was strong, heavy, and a safety hazard in and of itself. A missed fist meant a lodged fist. He broke straight through the steel grating of the mezzanine, blue skin scraping and flaying along the broken metal edges. Pain, it seemed, had no effect on Mr. Ether.

  Tania was a beast, but she wasn’t stupid. If Cameron saw it, she saw it too: an opportunity.

  She jostled forward with her black claws pointed forward like a rapier, and thrust through one of the ether-tubes that supplied Mr. Ether’s arm. Blue liquid sputtered out along his skin and onto the surrounding metal. Cameron saw his red eyes narrow.

  With a sudden lurch, he pulled his arm out of the metal mezzanine floor, tearing open his own flesh in the process, and backhanded Tania. She was sent hurling across the catwalk, her furred body skipping like a stone. But she didn’t allow herself to crash and fall, not fully. She twisted mid-air, contorting with animal instinct, and landing on all fours.

  Her black claws skidded along the metal, summoning sparks from between her finger tips like enraged fireflies.

  Mr. Ether stood to his full height, and turned to face her.

  She bolted towards him.

  Big as she was, she was still lithe enough and quick enough to run up the length of his massive blue-skinned arm. Each slight movement prompted her dagger-sized claws to slice deeper along his skin, flaying his flesh like chunks of meat cutlet. Blood spattered, mixed with the occasional blue leakage of the ether that plagued that man’s veins.

  She lurched along his neck, and with her lycanic teeth, bit down into the ether supply tubes connected to his neck. With a sudden snap of her head, she ripped it straight off. Blue liquid splayed out and stained her fur.

  Mr. Ether made an attempt to move, to do something, anything, but Tania was faster.

  Cameron felt helpless—mostly because he was helpless. If he could move, he’d be a human shield that Tania didn’t need, and he’d be in the way. There was a part of him that wished he was of more use, but another part of him was happy to get a breather, and happier still to see Tania in action. He was envious, even, that she seemed to be so strong and capable without trying at all. She was just born that way; an apex predator with little cause or concern for anyone or anything she deemed prey.

  He’d done his part. Tania had done hers and then some.

  She dislodged herself from Mr. Ether and flipped onto the ground, claws skidding along the metal flooring of the mezzanine, only for her to springboard off her hind legs directly into her opponent. He was too slow—a witness and a victim, aware of what was coming but helpless to stop it.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Tania clasped down onto the front of his chest, piercing him with both the claws along her hands and along her feet. She pinned him to the ground, and the flooring dented beneath the sheer scale of his size.

  Her maw snapped forward and into the man’s neck.

  He felt no pain; but his jugular was removed nonetheless. Cameron saw a hunger linger in her eyes. Amidst the gushing blood that stained her fur a shade deeper and the diluted ether that spewed out from the man’s lymphatic nodes, Tania saw food. Meat. Game.

  A side effect of going full step. It had to be. Cameron’s gaze narrowed.

  All of that ether in his body was still ether, and if she devoured him whole, Cameron wondered if she’d lose herself in the process. A lycan on ether was a lycan liable to kill just about anything that it saw; it would be bloodlust compounded by drinkable aggression and an indifference to pain that, paired with her ability to heal, might just make her Brinehaven’s latest city-wide problem, like a dog on rabies.

  Cameron followed that rabbit hole to its inevitable conclusion. Tania would eat Mr. Ether, go verifiably insane while full-stepped, and the Commonwealth of Brinehaven would either hire an arbiter on short notice to euthanize her, or, task the Civic and Occult Authority’s Special Response Unit with that not-so-clean task.

  “Fuck,” Cameron muttered.

  With a great deal of effort, he forced himself up onto his feet. Guts whirred next to his head.

  “Tania!” Cameron yelled.

  She slowly glanced towards him. Her yellow eyes were sharper now, with slits that cut like blades when she looked at him.

  “Snap out of it,” Cameron said, his breath heavy. “No step! It’s over, yeah?”

  She wasn’t quite gone, but close to it, and Cameron realized that his words were worth next to nothing. She didn’t see him. She saw a potential target.

  Cameron gritted his teeth. There were two options in front of him: let her eat Mr. Ether and go on a rampage or bait Tania into going after him instead. The lesser of two evils was clear. He had to become her chew toy, at least until her transformation expired, or, until he did. The Skin of Armisthor wouldn't last forever—and Cameron had a feeling that forever was ending sooner rather than later. To his side, Guts’s singular eye looked wider than ever. Jumpy, even.

  Cameron stepped over the rubble of the broken bar.

  His boots pressed down onto broken glass.

  Tania’s wolf-woman maw scrunched up. She kicked off of Mr. Ether’s dying body and launched herself into Cameron.

  Cameron had one good arm to work with, and just barely. He planted his back foot and raised his good side, clenching a fist and holding his forearm forward in front of his torso. Tania’s jaw clasped down onto it. Her jagged teeth strained against his white-ivory, trails of yellow sparking out between her bloodied gums and his bone-like bulwark.

  The Skin of Armisthor wasn’t whole. There were cracks in it along his body in places where he needed it most, and worse, the less Skin he had, the less physically empowered he was. His back foot, once planted, was quick to give out. All it took was a push from Tania to break his balance.

  He tried to hold her, but with each step forward, he was pushed back further and further, until he arrived at the very same spot he was before: up against the back wall and flat on his back in a pile of rubble.

  Tania loomed over him, snarls and growls vibrating along the inside of her throat. The slits of her eyes shook and warbled and expressed an unyielding ferocity that Cameron could never hope to match. Her upper set of teeth cracked and chipped the longer they pressed into the white-ivory of his forearm.

  She whipped her head back, and with it, lifted Cameron in the air and threw him across the mezzanine.

  His body dented the metal railings, and wind escaped him as if a giant’s boot had clamped down onto his center. Saliva and blood sputtered out from between his chapped and cracked lips.

  His vision blurred, and settled into focus just over the railings. Below, in the hallway atrium that led to the dancefloor, Arthur stood paralyzed. Canis was on the floor. And in front of him was Captain Holmes, standing idle. Swarms of insects enriched him. Cameron’s eyes widened. Someone’s body was on the floor behind him. A bandaged man, or what used to be a bandaged man, in an Adidas tracksuit. Bugs crawled out from his unmoving silhouette like a crawling shadow that fused with Captain Holme’s leg, slowly but surely travelling up his uniformed slacks.

  Cameron’s head swiveled back over his shoulder.

  Tania’s claws screeched along the metal flooring as she advanced.

  Cameron raised his arm. She ignored it. Her jagged, shattered teeth clamped down onto his shoulder as she pounced onto him, forcing him over the railings with her as his passenger during their descent. Guts chased them mid-air.

  They landed on the opposite side just behind Arthur, Tania’s wolfish frame landed first, cushioning Cameron from the flooring that his head might have otherwise connected with. Moments after impact their bodies separated, and Cameron’s shell broke off piece by piece. Red mist leaked out from the dozens upon dozens of cracks in his white-ivory shelling, and as more bits and segments left him, they too dissipated into a sanguine vapor.

  His skin was finally his own again, and without Armisthor’s as a stabilizing force, the surge of pain that hit him forced out an immediate cry of pain.

  If there was any adrenaline left in his body, it was depleted in that moment and expended in one fell swoop as a wail so loud that it prompted each of those present in the hallway atrium to shift their focus onto him.

  Arthur’s fear-induced paralysis was upended. He slowly glanced over his shoulder towards Cameron.

  Tania shook herself off as she stood, spattering the hallway in all of the blood that had been collected on her fur coat thus far. Splotches sprayed down onto Cameron’s face and clothes.

  Captain Holmes tilted his head ever so slightly.

  Cameron’s heavy-lidded stare focused on his face.

  “Wh… Captain?” Cameron muttered lowly, his voice dry, and only barely audible after the strain his screams had put on his throat.

  Insects fed on the flesh of his face. Black spools of multi-limbed locusts gnawed away at his features piece by piece, and his eyes were a deep red, as scarlet as the vapor that had just leaked out from Cameron’s body.

  Captain Holmes took a step forward.

  Guts zipped forward, bolting out from where it had hovered next to Cameron. It slammed itself squarely into Captain Holme’s chest and blinked point-blank. Not once, not twice, but three times in a row. One blast of wind slapped into another blast of wind and another one after that, creating a wave of concussive force the likes of which Cameron had never seen before.

  Captain Holmes was sent hurling across the hallway atrium and back into the dance floor, swarms of insects leaving his twisting body like small clouds of smog. He skidded to a halt somewhere next to where the DJ stage was.

  Guts didn’t let up. The wind-sprite’s chase continued. Over and over again, it blinked, slamming one burst of wind down into him over and over and over again, each slap of force prompting dredges of bugs to pour out from Captain Holmes’s body as if they were being exhaled from every pour.

  Behind him, Cameron’s good ear picked up on the noise of contortions and the disconcerting growls of Tania reverting back to her base form. He couldn’t see the process; all he heard was her body hitting the ground, and the subsequent silence that followed.

  Arthur dropped onto his rear end just in front of Cameron, both palms pressed against the ground. He didn’t reach for Canis, and for the first time since Cameron had met Arthur, the young warden had nothing to say. Arthur slowly turned to face Cameron, who laid prone, unmoving, and seconds away from succumbing to unconsciousness.

  The last thing Cameron saw before his vision faded to black was the look of abject fear in Arthur's eyes.

  Mr. Ether? Who the heck is that? Emilio, of course! Poor Cameron never actually met Emilio la Cerva, though, when Leroy and him went into the Bluestein processing plant dozens of chapters ago. For all intents and purposes--all Cameron knows is that this is some jumped up ether man and Bluestein Philterwork's latest venture into human experimentation with their latest and greatest product.

  CAMERON KESSLER

  GUTS

  TANIA ACKERMAN

  MR. ETHER

  ARTHUR YEAGER

  CAPTAIN HOLMES HUSK

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