of Settlement's trained animals - had come from the direction of the main street and seemed to be making straight for him, seeking human company. All very well, but Nathan would have problems enough saving the girl he loved and his family, without having to worry about...
Nathan's eyes went wide, wider. The 'wolf seemed to be enveloped in a drifting cloud of mist, and one of its forepaws was bulky with something that made a dull glitter. More biped than quadruped - loping towards him at an aggressive, forward-leaning angle - it only went to all fours in order to sniff the earth and turn its great ears this way and that, listening. Worse: its eyes were scarlet and glowed like lamps in the dark, and to cover its hindquarters it wore belted leather trousers!
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
And now Nathan saw that it wasn't coming through the mist, but that the mist was issuing from it!
He had heard all the campfire stories of the old Wamphyri - their powers, hybridisms, animalisms -and knew what he was facing. And of course knew that he was a dead man.
Canker Canison came loping, reared up snarling, as tall and taller than Nathan ...!
Nathan tried one last time to stand Misha on her own two feet and shake her awake, to no avail. He held up a hand, uselessly, to ward the dog-, fox-, wolf-thing off. Canker came to a halt and leaned forward. He sniffed at Nathan, then at the girl in his arms, and cocked his head on one side, questioningly. And: 'Yours?' he growled.
Nathan held Misha back from the monster; Canker laughed, caught him by the scruff of the neck and hurled him brutally aside, against the stockade wall. Unsupported, Misha crumpled to her knees. Canker caught her up, sniffed at her again, and snatched her rags of clothing from her in a moment.
And as Nathan slumped to a heap in the long grasses at the base of the damaged wall - even as his eyes glazed over and he passed out - he was aware of Canker's eyes on him and his writhing muzzle, and the spray of foam coughing from his jaws as he laughed again and said: 'No, not yours - mine!'
What he did not see or hear, because he was already unconscious, was the scream of a terrified woman running through the streets: the way Canker let Misha fall to go chasing after her, and his grunted philosophy:
'Better a live one than one half-dead.' And his half-bark, half-shout - 'Wait my pretty, for Canker's coming!'
- as he plunged after his doomed, demented victim ...
The pain and the anger ...
And not only inside, but outside, too.
It was an hour later and Nestor's turn to come awake
- slowly at first, then with a sickening rush! And like Nathan before him, he too woke up from a dream to a nightmare. Except where Nathan had remembered everything, Nestor remembered very little: a handful of scattered, uncertain fragments of what had gone before. Mainly he remembered the pain and the anger, both of which were still present, though whether they sprang from dream or reality or both, he was unable to say.
Three-quarters buried in rubble, dust, straw, his body was one huge ache. His face was a mess and some of his teeth were loose; at the back of his head, above his right ear, an area of his skull felt soft, crushed. When he put up a tentative, trembling exploratory hand through the debris to touch it, agonizing lances of white light shot off into his brain. Something shifted and grated under his probing: the fractured bone of his skull, indenting a little from the pressure of his fingers.
He asked himself the same question that his brother had asked: what had happened? But unlike Nathan, he had no answer. Not yet.
He pushed at wooden boards pressing down on him, shoved them aside, choked as dust and stench fell on him from above. But framed in the gap he could see the stars up there, drifting smoke, and strange dark diamond shapes that soared in the sky. And he could hear a throbbing, sputtering rumble, fading into the distance.
Yes, and other sounds: faint, far cries ... moaning ... sobbing ... someone shouting a name over and over again, desperately and yet without hope.
Nestor kicked at the rubble, extricated his arms, dragged himself into a seated position and shoved the clutter from his legs. He looked around, at first without