Howl of the Heavens ch.11

    Deep in the forests outside of Pine Ridge Samantha sits down on a rock exhausted after several hours of searching for the den she had found before. She can’t understand why she can’t find it again.

    “If only I still had that camera, DAMMIT!” she cried out loud to her self. She thought back to her talk with Sheriff Peter Jones, He had said their was no sign of forced entry, and no one could have entered from up that wall at least with out leaving some marks on it.

    “Useless Sheriff” thought Samantha,

    “oh you must have dropped it in the woods.” She finished sarcastically trying to mock the Sheriff’s tough guy voice. Samantha looked up, it was getting dark; she would have to head back to her truck if she wanted to get out of the forest before night fall.

     She walked out of the woods trying to remember the path she used to find that den and got a shiver up her spine thinking about that giant animal or more like it walking in the same woods with her.

    “Get a grip girl.” She thought. As she got in her truck she couldn’t help but try to think of why the sightings had gone down, the only reason she could think of was maybe they had moved further away after their den was found.

    “Maybe more sightings will start soon, after all it is summer now and if I was right about that animal being pregnant, and if it’s anything like other carnivores, and perhaps animals of that size, she should be giving birth during the spring months or now at the very latest.” With that hopeful thought in mind she headed back down the road to the Brooksville Lodge.

    Over in Italy in the library of the Order of the Knights of the Golden Cross Mike King the werewolf hunter has searched the vast archives of his order for the last four months searching every reference to “Rune” that the order has to provide and he has found out many things except what he is looking for.

      “Damn it” exclaims Mike as he puts down the last book containing any reference to the word “Rune”.

     “Six Hundred books, hundreds of vampires, hundreds of demons, only about fifty werewolves, and more spells than I even thought existed and many pointless references to the Norse alphabet, but nothing like what I have found, and four months have passed.”

    Mike got up and walked out of the library. Mike walked out to the empty waiting room.

    “Strange” thinks Mike as he looks at his watch, “Its five in the afternoon this place is usually packed and where is Brother Keene the record keeper’s desk is unattended.”

     His thoughts are cut short by Brother Keene running past him with the head council member, Mike calls out to them, “What’s going on?”

    the head council member whispers something to Brother Keene who runs on down the hall,

    The head council member stops and turns to Mike, “I would have thought you would have left for the states weeks ago, have you found what you are looking for?”

    Mike thinks, “Something is up or perhaps the head council member forgot why I was here, doesn’t matter I need to get back to the states I have been gone too long now.”

    “I have found enough.” He tells the head council member,

    “That is good, I would like to speak more on this matter with you in the future but for now there is something I need to attend to, if you have any more questions then seek out Father Henry Jones in Pine Ridge when you return there.”

    With that the red robed head council member rushed down the hall after Brother Keene. Mike walked out into the dimming light of the Vatican and looked to the sky and thought,

    “too long, this has gone on too long, no matter what they say or think I will kill BOTH of those demons, they must think I am too old for this but I will show them that I am still able to slay even the strongest of werewolves.”

    The night air of the Rocky Mountains is broken by a wolf like howl that startles the people in the outskirts of Pine Ridge and the old man inside the church looks out his window and says, “The angel sings this night.”

    Versa howls once more as she rolls onto her side. Rhuen rushes to her side leaving in his wake a decimated forest floor.

    “It’s time” Versa growls as Rhuen approaches.

    She rises on all fours over shadowing Rhuen in his biped form. She lowers her self to a laying position like some giant divine beast statue and raises her great tail scraping the ceiling of the cave. She bares her teeth and with a great rumble and with mighty steaming breaths she pushes.

    Rhuen can only stand in awe at this sight which the world only sees once in a great while, new life; new immortal life is once more entering this world. Versa’s vaginal opening spreads wide with her effort as a strange pink orb comes from her, with gushes of steaming fluids which evaporate upon contact with the ground the orb escapes her body with one last mighty push and breath that releases a spray of blue fire from her mouth scorching the wall before her. With the orb freed from her body she automatically reverts to her biped form and gasps for breath and with one last heavy breath she stands tall and with her mate Rhuen at her side they walk over to the smooth oval orb.

    They watch in anticipation as a blue light pulsates from with in, growing bigger and bigger and faster and faster the light pulsates. Rhuen places his arm around Versa as he helps her to sit before the egg as she is still exhausted from the ordeal, a mighty blue stream of fire escapes the egg, and too Rhuen and Versa’s amazement a second flame. From this hole in the egg two black cubs as large as two week old tiger cubs crawl out from the egg, one little solid black male and a little female all black with a spot of white fur on her chest.

     Versa picks up her young and holds them to her breasts for their first taste of milk which they eagerly suckle. With her babies sitting on her crossed arms feeding Versa rises to her feet with a little help from Rhuen and together they walk back further into the cave and up the steep passage to the smaller nursery which has all the furnishings of animal skins and various plant material Rhuen had gathered while searching for food over the last nine months.

    Versa sat down crossed legs letting her young finish their meal while Rhuen examined the smaller intermediate cave with the smaller bed the young would stay in when they got a little older and the very small entrance to this nursery chamber. Versa sat down her sleeping cubs (who nodded off right after finishing their meal) onto the plant material where they curled up together, gave a little yawn and went back to sleep.

    Rhuen sat down across from Versa. Facing each other with both of them sitting with their legs crossed with the young in-between them; they lowered their heads down touching noses, closed their eyes and started to hum and share thoughts, “Names, Names, mighty goddess of names we beseech you to give us the names by which our children shall keep until the end of time and beyond to the next universe and the next for all eternity.”

    An answer came to them, Versa leaned down to her daughter and projected the thought into her daughter’s infant mind, “name: Riska.

    Rhuen leaned down to his son and projected into his son’s mind, “name: Rish” with that they went to sleep.

    A few days later, Rhuen is out hunting, the young ones Riska and Rish have already opened their eyes and their front paws have morphed to resemble hands for the time being in this stage of growth. Rhuen has just slaughtered a deer and is carrying it back with a live squirrel trapped in a bag he is carrying.

    “A deer for dinner,” he thinks, “and a squirrel for the little ones to practice hunting, we may live forever but I had nearly forgotten how fast we grow up, but this squirrel should be good practice for this morning’s meal.”

    His thoughts are interrupted by Versa’s anger and the image of a black winged monster, Rhuen rushes to the plateau out side the cave entrance to the scene of Versa strangling a gargoyle.

     A quick scan tells Rhuen that the young ones are still sleeping and un-harmed. Rhuen stopped and leaned against a tree as he watched his mate scold this beast and he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself when she gave it the old line about dire wolves that their kind tell lower beasts to stop their curiosity on the subject. Then watched as she tore its wing off and sent it flying with a kick in the direction its mind was practically screaming to escape to and she crawled into the cave to check on the young ones.

    Rhuen walked up to Versa as she came back out of the den and nuzzled her and asked, “so what was with the stone demon?”

     “nothing much, that freak was looking for a free meal and was looking well out side of its territory, seeing as I never saw it nor even smelled it before now.”

    “Interesting” said Rhuen, “a free meal? Such a creature like that has an excellent sense of smell, so it should have had a ruff idea of what was in our den, or at least that we aren’t anything it should try and hunt. And it didn’t look lame, not until after you got to it my dear.” The last bit he said while rubbing muzzles with Versa who smiled in response as he continued, “So it should have been able to get any animal as a free meal from where ever it came from.”

    “Actually,” Versa stated matter of factly, “I could only smell the flesh of young primitives in its gut, and it claimed it had come for wolf cubs, it shouldn’t be back.” She held up its wing and continued, “I will see what I can do with this.”

     With the wing in hand she sat down in front of the cave examining it, Rhuen put down the deer carcass and handed Versa the bag with the squirrel in it, “this is a little practice toy for Riska and Rish when they wake up but in the mean time I want to see just exactly where that gargoyle went and make sure it doesn’t pose any future threat.” With that he leapt into the forest following the gargoyle’s scent.

    Rhuen watched from afar as the gargoyle carried its self back to its cave Rhuen, “I’ve counted hundreds of rabbits on the night air and just as many deer and other easy prey even in this things injured state it could easily catch and eat any of these animals yet it traveled more than a hundred miles?”

    As he watched it enter its cave he continued his thought, “one hundred plus miles just to get ripped up.”

     With that he chuckled to him self internally. Rhuen walked up in front of the cave for an instant but vanished into the darkness as the gargoyle turned its head in his direction.

    Above the cave he thought to himself, “doesn’t look like much of a threat and in just a few weeks my children shall be too strong for even this brute to handle. Just one more thing.” With that he chanted away his scent from the area calling the shadows to swallow it and leapt into the night to head back to his mate and children.

  The Onyx Gargoyle Rawl walked slowly to the front of his cave and took a sniff, “nothing, I could have sworn I saw one of those *Dire”* things, I must be going crazy, what the hell kind of creature was that?”

   “Damn it” he exclaimed has he toppled over from pain in his cave, “I don’t care how long it takes but I will have my revenge you damned Dire even if it takes a hundred years I will get stronger and I will kill you.”