0110h. 8th JUN. 1944 - London. DDay +2
Foley, Magda, Rapp and Sienko apprehend the werewolf with the help of a large amount of girl power.
Foley watched as Sienko and Magda went to leave and turned his attention away from them. He looked around him for another cigarette, and upon not finding a single one, turned his attention back to the chimney to observe the slowly rising column of dark smoke exiting from it's mouth. He nudged Ben and pointed out past the column of smoke, squinting. "Rapp. You see that?"
Magda walked past, grabbed her carbine, and the ammunition. "On second thought, I want you to get eaten." She walked back off.
Rapp kneeled down and looked into the smoke. "Not quite. What am I looking at?"
Foley pointed to a building, its roof mostly torn off, where a shadow stood in what would have been an attic. It remained very still, except for a few seconds during which it would shift, and two specks of yellow light would appear for a moment.
Ben squinted. "I see it now. Our target?"
"I think so. Unless you know of anything else that has glowing eyes and hides in attics. Horowitz, Sienko, get over here," Foley hissed, his voice low. He reached for his Tommy gun, trying to keep his eyes on the creature.
Viola looked at Magda, "He's a fickle one," she said as she did an about turn and walked back to Foley. Foley turned to Viola with a scowl. "Shut up. Not the time. Look." He pointed off into the shadows again.
Tucking the spare ammunition in her belt, Magda walked over, still visibly pissed. "What now? Want us to get you a cup of coffee?"
"SHUT UP." Foley hissed again. He hunkered down by the lip of the building and nodded. "Tell me when you see it." Magda shut up. She looked where indicated, and then back at Foley. What the hell is that?
"I see it," Viola said, quietly, and relatively calmly. "That the thing we're hunting?" she asked, after a pause.
The creature moved again, its huge form visible in the darkness, its big eyes catching the light from the watch fire in the factory as it paced back and forth.
Foley nodded. "Looks like. We're going to come down off this post and circle around behind it. I want to hit it before it gets the men." He pointed out an alley way across the street at an angle where the beast likely could not see. "There. We'll cross there and make our way through that back street."
Viola nodded. "Now?"
Rapp placed his hand on his holster and nodded to Foley. "I'm ready when you are," he said.
Foley nodded and stood up, bringing his gun to the ready position. "Follow me in a line, keep your voices down." He turned to Jaxon, "Stay here, keep an eye out. Shoot it if it comes after any of is." Jaxon nodded quietly and maintained his perch on the roof top. "You too, Red. Keep watch."
Magda checked the safety on her carbine, and fell in behind Foley, as did Viola. With a few quick steps, Foley went over the boards between the roof tops and headed for the stairs that would take him down to street level. The street was utterly quiet, the wind fading, though still strong enough to whistle through the millions of burned down buildings in the area. Magda was close at his heels, trying not to make the boards squeak as she walked across. Rapp walked quietly, and followed Foley closely.
Foley led them through the street and then to the alley he had indicated, his boots crumbling some of the charred debris into unrecognizeable ash. He moved through a blown out wall, taking a second to note a family, huddled in the corner, their bodies nothing but burnt skeletons with a mockery of flesh still clinging to their blackened bones. The back door of the building opened easily and promptly came unhinged. Foley easily lifted it and moved it aside so it wouldn't make any noise, and continued. Behind Magda, Viola cast frequent glances around her. She visibly flinched at the sight of the burned family.
Foley stopped a few steps later and kneeled down in the spacious back yard of the building where the creature had been spotted. It was four stories tall, brick, probably an office of some sort with a meager park behind it. The building was charred, but appeared to still be in tact, save for the roof and the top floor which had obviously seen the brunt of the damage. Viola's grip around her gun tightened. It was probably her imagination, but she could feel herself being watched.
"We're going up." Foley whispered. "Don't shoot it unless it gets agressive. I don't want to provoke the thing if we can help it."
"You think you can negotiate with it?" Magda hissed.
Foley turned to Magda with a serious look on his face and said, calmly, "Question my orders again and I will put a bullet in your face before you can blink." He watched her face for a few seconds and then turned to the back of the building to observe it. "All I see is that door. The windows are too high, so were going in there, single file. Rapp, stay behind me. Horowitz, guard Sienko, and if it moves at you, fill it with holes." Foley stood up and began to walk at a brisk pace for the door. Rapp followed quickly behind Foley. He removed his pistol from the holster and held it aimed toward the ground. Magda gestured at Viola to follow Rapp. She'd take up the rear. Viola took Magda's cue and followed Rapp. Foley walked up the steps and pushed the door in easily, unable to avoid letting the hinge creek as he did. He entered the building with the others close behind, and looked around, quickly finding the stairs. Sound was unavoidable, especially with this many people and their gear, so Foley chose to move as quickly as possible without stomping. It was too quiet out here to do anything stealthily, anyway. The building was spacious and filled with desks on the second floor, the first appearing to be a reception area. Burned papers and tipped filing cabinets littered the space, and only three offices were visible at the back, the glass partitions blown out and littering the far end of the building's floor. The third floor was a bit more cluttered and Foley climbed over a desk that had been thrown infront of the stairs. As Foley slid over it, one of the legs splintered into ash, and he paused at the sound, looking around. He waited, and motioned for the others to follow. This floor was all that much more disturbing, bodies remained on the floor, burned or worse. Desks had been hurled towards the stairs from a bomb that detonated and took out the major part of the back wall. The offices that were there were gone, and a giant gaping hole to the outside remained. The smell of death was pungent and the place still smelled of burning wood. It had likely just stopped smoking. As the group rounded the final set of steps they came upon two vagrants, dressed in rags, both dead. They remained huddled beside one another in the corner by the stairs, mummified in newspapers and cast offs, their bodies gray with ash and cold.
As she walked past, Magda eyed each corpse, making sure each body was, in fact, a dead human. Viola looked closer, on her part trying to see if they had just died, or were like any number of the bodies downstairs. Both were human; one an older lady, the other an even older man. These particular bodies had died AFTER the rest of the corpses, and had died of different reasons, as they didn't seem charred. The final door hung on its hinges and the word "Records" was still printed on the smoked glass. Foley took the stairs quickly and entered the room slowly, disappearing from view around the bend. Viola turned her attention away from the bodies and followed Foley, not wanting to lose him. Magda brought up the rear.
The attic was big, as big as the floors beneath it, with the ceiling slanting inward. The beast was hunched at the far wall in the area which was bombed, the huge hole in the roof providing a more than ample view into the building where the soldiers were. The attic was suffocatingly dark, though the holes and lack of most of the roof left it lit by the light of the moon at the farther end. By the stairs, where Foley and his group were, it was fairly dark and hard to see. One could clearly make out where the wolfman was, however, and his form was hulking and massive, even in the dark. His head practically touched the cieling, leaving him at around seven feet tall and change. His silhouette was partially visible in the light of the moon, and one could see his dark fur catching the light. He wasn't dirty at all, and his hair was brushed and clean, not matted and dirty.
Viola's tightened her grip on the gun, preparing herself in case the monster makes a move. The werewolf shifted in the darkness, and his head poked out into the moonlight for a moment. He looked exactly like one would expect a wolf to look. He sniffed the air for a moment, narrowing his eyes, and withdrew back into the shadows with a snort that kicked up ash and dust.
Foley watched, silently, his gun pointed down. His other hand idly played with a grenade. Magda trained her weapon on the werewolf, waiting for it to make a move. She glanced at Viola, quickly. What's going on here? Viola looked back at her with the same confusion: Weren't these things supposed to attack?
The wolf's head turned in the shadows, leaving only its bright yellow eyes visible. It stared in the direction of the group for a long time, eyes narrowing before it turned away again. "Trivial." the wolf said, its voice deep and monstrous like one would expect Mr. Hyde's to be, only his accent is decidedly German.
Viola started visibly. This thing talked! She looked back at Magda, then at Foley. Magda looked at Foley, gauging his reaction to this latest development. Foley took a step forward, raising his gun slightly. "We going to have a problem here?" He asked, obviously not knowing what else to say. His expression was the same poker face it always was, but his voice gave out that he was at a loss.
The laughter that came from the creature was frightening. Frightening because it was human, but in a tone that was so low, no human could possibly emulate it. It turned in the shadows, its massive shoulder dipping into the moonlight for a moment as it turned to face Foley. "Denken Sie wirklich, dass Sie mich aufhalten kannen, Soldat? " came its reply.
Foley blinked and turned his head slightly, waiting for Magda to translate. "Do you think you can stop me?" Magda translated.
Foley nodded. "Yeah." He told it, and said nothing more, taking another step forward. He hoped, just then, that Rapp would call him Heroic in his report, instead of foolish.
Rapp raised an eyebrow. More like 'foolhardy.'
The creature laughed again and moved forward, and Foley did as well. It stood at full height, dwarfing Foley by a good two feet. Foley raised his gun. Magda chomped down on her lip. This was a bad plan. This was so very much, a bad, bad plan.
"Ist dies wirklich ein Ort, den Sie wenschen, zu sterben, Soldat? Ist Ihr Freundwert Ihr Stolz?" it asked, its pace still slow, but with its deep stride it had easily closed the gap between them less than thirty feet now.
"Is this the place you want to die? Are your men worth your pride?" said Magda, for the werewolf.
Foley paused at this, his gun still raised. The creature also stopped, and were it possible for a wolf to do so, it grinned, its heavy jowls pulling away from its bright white teeth.
Foley responded, the muzzle of his gun unwavering as it pointed at the creature. "For someone who seems so infatuated with my pride, you certainly think a lot of yourself." He grinned back at the creature. "You bleed, monster. You bleed, you breathe, your heart beats, even if it pumps that filthy gruel you germans call blood through your veins."
The monster's grin faded quickly.
"You even smell like wet dog." Foley continued. "What the hell makes you think I'm going to back down just because you've got two feet on me, and a smell like a mutt left out in the rain?"
The creature appeared to analyze Foley's response, unable to formulate one of it's own.
"Stand down, come with us, and you live. Or we can shoot the bloody shit out of you and haul your giant smelly carpet of a corpse back to HQ and put your hide out in front of our fireplace."
The creature showed its white teeth again, this time accompanying the show with a loud and deep growl that filled the empty space and set the floorboards vibrating. The hair on his back stood up like spikes and his muscles tightened as he lowered himself down like the wolf he resembled, his claws digging into the wood beneath his paw-like hands.
Viola threw a glance at Magda. Was the man serious?
Foley sighed. "Always with you Germans. Always the fucking hard way." He raised his gun. "READY ARMS!!"
Ben gritted his teeth, raised his pistol, took aim, and fired at the creature. The chamber made a satisfying click as it moved, but the shot didn't land.
Magda took aim at the monster's hulking form, and squeezed off three rounds in quick succession. "Auf weidersehen." The first shot went wide, and as she fired the second, the gun jams with a loud CLACK! Pissed at life and the universe and God, Magda tries to clear the jam. With a good hard smack to the forward assist, Magda cleared the jammed round out of her gun, the unspent cartridge flying out of it and landing on the floor. Cursing loudly in German, Magda raises her weapon back at the werewolf.
Viola raised her gun, her hands having been ready for this ever since they entered the building. She took careful aim at the creature's left knee, then right in rapid succession, hesitating--the thing was sentient after all--only for a moment before shooting. Sienko's shots rang out, one after the other, but neither of them hit the beast.
Foley and the creature are apparently standing off, both waiting for the other to make a move. With a loud roar and a lunge, the beast charges Foley, closing the gap between them. He rose up, almost like a gorilla, and brought both claws down on Foley who didn't even manage to get a shot off before he was thrown to the floor under the weight of the wolf-man's blow. The wolf-man snarled and roared as it swept its arm back, throwing Foley out the hole in the wall and into the second floor of the factory across the street. Foley's body smashed through bricks and glass outside, and the sound of along with the shouts and movement of the alarmed soldiers. It then turned towards the rest of the group, its mouth filling with white foam and its eyes burning with hate like a rabid dog.
Ben watched Foley make a hole in the wall and decided that this would be a good time to ditch. After all, hadn't Foley told him to keep close? He bolted for the stairs.
Ignoring the fate of the two men, Magda fired off three more rounds at the werewolf. Both rounds landed in the upper shoulder of the creature, and at first it seemed unfazed.
A second and a half later, the wounds begin to steam and bubble and the werewolf looked surprised. It thrashed at its wounds and howls, rolling around and smashing desks as it attempted to claw the silver from its flesh.
The monster stood back up on its feet and backed away into the shadows where it looked like it was gauging the distance of something through the missing part of the wall. It was likely plotting its escape. Magda wasn't interested in letting the wolfman escape again, to kill someone else. She fired off three more rounds. The first and second shots missed and the third one struck home, sending the monster to the ground with another squeal and utterly human cry of pain. After thrashing about, the creature slumped to the ground and fell quiet in a pile of splintered furniture and toppled filing cabinets, its huge form rising and falling with its laboured breath.
The sound of footsteps, lots of them, came from the direction of the stairs. Vetz and the team of soldiers on watch came up through the door, minus their medic, and filled the room.
"Hi, Vetz," Magda said, her gun still trained on the werewolf.
Viola, her gun also on the werewolf, Viola said to Vetz, "Foley's hurt. Building across the way," and fired off two more shots at the werewolf for good measure. The shots slammed into the desk and a filing cabinet, the first smashing into splinters, the second exploding in a puff of charred paper. Magda gives Viola a strange look. Viola shot Magda a look back, "I'm trying. "
Vetz nodded, stunned by what he saw. "What in the steaming bowels of hell happened?"
Magda's ears were still ringing from the gunfire. "Werewolf. Foley needs help," she repeated. She nodded in the direction of the hole in the wall. "A lot of help."
One of the other soldiers nodded to Magda and Viola. "We got 'im. Left Liberman and Nobel with him."
Magda looked around. "Where's Rapp?"
One of the soldiers smirked. A redhaired one. "Boy ran out of the building as we were coming in. I think he ran for Foley."
"Hilarious," Magda deadpanned, and returned her attention to the werewolf. To Viola, she said, "Good work. I think you scared him."
"Har har," Viola shot back. Inside, she wondered why she was so off her game. She never really was the best at firearms during her training, but she always managed to hit her mark... somewhat. This was just nasty work.
The soldiers fanned out, guns at the ready, and moved in on the werewolf. "Is it dead?" the redheaded one asked, and Vetz shrugged at him. "Fucked if I know."
Magda kept her gun trained on the beast. She said a few sentences in German.
"Mit was haben Sie mich geschossen?" came the wolf's response as he curled up a bit more, his wounds steaming as thick dark blood burbled from them.
"Aufzählungszeichen. Ich werde schießen Sie mehr, wenn Sie nicht beantworten meine Fragen," she replied. To Vetz, she added, "He's not dead."
"Spielen Sie mit mir, Frau nicht! Ich bin unschlagbar! Die Geistmaschine des Fuhrer ist ¸ber hinaus Besiegung!" The wolf-man began to cough and attempted to lift himself up to demonstrate, his limbs shaking weakly. He held himself aloft long enough to growl in the group's direction, and then lost consciousness, his huge form going limp and his tongue flopping out of his mouth.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Magda looked to Vetz. "We're gonna need a cage. A big one."
Viola's grip on her gun remained firm for a few more minutes, until she was sure the beast was unconscious. Her arm with the gun falling to the side, she turned to look around at everybody properly. "We taking him in, then?" she asked, though she knew the answer.
The fur on the creature's back began to receed, along with the fur on his arms. His claws retracted and the dark color of his skin faded back into a pale, human white. After a few moments he appeared human again. Human, naked, and wearing only a medal around his neck: the Knight's Cross. The change caught Viola's attention, and she watched, mesmerized. Imagining this sort of thing from the stories one heard was one thing, but watching it happen was truly amazing. She noted the medal around his neck, though didn't think much of it. Then, she came to the realisation of how naked he was, and looked away.
Confident Vetz had the situation under control, Magda walked out, making her way to the building Foley landed in. Noticing Magda leaving, Viola followed, throwing back a quick and guarded glance one more time at the human sprawled on the floor, the human that was until a few minutes ago, a wolf.
Two soldiers lifted it up off the ground and its head lolled back. It was human, alright. Human and pink and cold and bleeding red blood.
The light of the full moon obscured itself slightly behind a cloud bank that had rolled in, and somewhere in the city search lights turned on to spot what might have been an enemy spy plane. Tomorrow was another night though, and tonight's business was through.
