By George Woodruff

Part 13

Steven looked at the three in the street; 'wolves,' he thought, 'come to protect their cub,' he looked at Susan at that thought. Then he looked at the pair on the rooftops opposite them. 'Leeches! Come to hunt the princess.' Then he looked to the solitary one on his roof. Confusion and chaos surrounded this one. He looked closer and then realisation struck him like a blow to the head. He reeled backward from the experience.

"Steven!" Susan called out as he staggered back. "What's wrong?" Before he could answer, he felt a rending of his wards and as the threads he'd woven were shredded as if by a callous hand pulling at his hair he let out a howl of pain. The sound terrified Susan and she reacted before she realised it. Instantly she began to transform. Her own voice rising in a howl of confusion and uncertainty as her friend fell before an invisible assault.

Out in the street, the wolves heard the howls and raced for the front door of the building. Above them three other shadows moved. Two vampires leapt across the intervening space.

"Hurry up fiend, open the place or we'll have wolves at our backs before we're ready!" the male spat. The object of his exhortation merely laughed and continued to pull the weaver's webbing to shreds.

"One does not pull apart a tapestry in a single moment mewling, and do not presume to push this one beyond the bounds of the agreement, else this one shall feast upon thy withered bones!" came the reply upon the tail of its laughter. The vampire paled at the thought of what he could face if he tried to exceed his mistress's control of the monster.

"I warned you Galen, leave the demon to me!" his mistress snapped at him. "Dread minion, speed is of the essence, but we will not presume to trespass upon thy rights."

"Wise indeed witchling, for only a fool tempts fate so." The demon hissed. "There, 'tis unravelled, let us enter, for I hunger for the flesh of Shalottian." And the demon proceeded to literally rip a hole in the roof of the building.

"Shalottian?" Galen asked.

"Yes youngster, the bitch's companion is a fey related to the lady of Shalott. Surely you know the tale?"

"But. that's." Galen's words were cut short as the roof gave way beneath their combined weight. In the building, Steven was trying to recover from the shock of the attack while Susan was beginning to bay at the widening hole above their heads. The door burst open and three werewolves bounded in, fangs bared and foam slavering from their jaws. The three from the roof fell into their very midst. Galen was beset immediately, his throat torn from him by a pair of ravening jaws. Black vampire blood welled up from his gore and ere his system could mend the tear; his head went bouncing across the floor.

His mistress fared better, she killed his killer outright as she wafted down from the hole, but the others were older and wiser, armed with magic of their own. While the female stood between Susan and the witch, the other drew her fire. Susan however complicated things. She lunged to Steven's side and stood guard over his prone figure. While the vampire and the alpha male sparred the demon strode purposefully toward the remaining trio.

Fangs and claws tore flesh and scarred bone while those two fought. Howls and death shrieks filled the dying night air. Neighbours ran in fear or cowered in terror under their beds. The witch found a vein and drank deep, the wolf's claws ripping into her abdomen as his life ebbed away, scrabbling on her rib cage, shredding her breasts until he found her heart and with his dying breath tore it from her gaping chest. Their cacophony died with them but the noise of the demon and his playmates drowned out its death rattle.

Susan leapt at the horror that stalked up to Steven. Her bound cut short as he snared her to pull her back from the demon's backhand. The other wolf however ducked under the attack and caught the hell spawn in the loins. Mortal bonds made mortal flesh and the demon howled with pain, as those soft vulnerable parts were rent from his being. Steven staggered to his feet and faced his hunter.

"I know what you are now," he spat at the demon, "So you want a piece of me huh? Well come and try it!" The demon clawed at the wolf at his loins but she was now gone. Taking that in stride it reached for Steven and found that it was ensnared. "Didn't you know that the threads always stick, and look, here comes the sun too, just in time to fry you're demonic hide."

The demon paused momentarily, Susan, now within striking range lunged and caught the monster under the arm, tearing open a vein. More foul ichors spewed forth and as the demon tried to lash out at her, the other wolf tore open a vein in the throat from behind.

Hindered by the webs it had ensnared itself in, and bleeding profusely, it howled in mighty pain as the burning rays of the sun fell upon its thinly bound corporeal form. The vampire corpses burst into flames. Susan ran to Steven who began to cut the threads that bound him to the demon and to her. It was then that the demon gated back to it's own dimension. Steven, still entangled in the weave was caught in the pull and winked from existence with it. Susan, her mind seriously challenged by all of this snapped.

Sunrise found the neighbourhood turned out to see the lofts in flames, a pair of ragged women, one of them howling inconsolably stumbling from the burning wreckage. Of Steven, the vampires, the other werewolves and the demon no trace remained but a few charred bones that were left by the lycanthropes.

Weeks later, Susan was moved from the county hospital to a private clinic where she was allowed to roam about the large estate, slipping from one form into another as the mood took her during her madness. The staff, all lycanthropes shook their heads in despair. She was to have been their new queen; instead, she was a hurt and lost pup, rambling about in a cage.