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Shaper was very happy man. This exquisite piece of a woman liked him, and was enjoying his company. Victor came out of the tree line, and spotted the barn. He lit a clove, and kept walking, thinking about how good clean clothes were going to feel, when over the musky scent of his cigarette, he caught a whiff of the same disgusting stink he'd been dealing with all day. He growled, pinching out his clove, and putting it into his pocket for later. Something was wrong. Grey eyes narrow, he broke into a run.

The woman smiled softly at Shaper, and leaned forward to kiss him again, lips starting to part. He was pulling her close when he heard a shout.

"Shaper!" Victor, splashed with goop, was running towards him.

"Always the worst time," Shaper thought to himself, but continued his amorous attentions.

What was Shaper doing? Victor demanded to himself as he loped forward. Didn't he have eyes in his head? Within seconds he was at the barn, and he roughly grabbed the girl by her hair, yanking her backward. She snarled and clawed at him. In response, he snapped her neck.

"What the FUCK?" demanded Shaper. He leapt on Victor and pinned him to the ground. The supernatural hunter, rolled coming out on top, and punched his friend in the jaw.

"Do not start with me, Shaper. I had a really bad day."

Holding his jaw, which he was almost sure Victor had broken, Shaper growled "Well I was having a fine day until you came along and killed someone for no reason!"

"No reason?" Victor stood up and walked over to the prone corpse, and lifted her up by her hair, displaying a slack face, eyes half open. "Take another look at your little friend, Shaper."

The face was still fine featured and beautiful, but somehow in a terrible way. Black blood dribbled out of the corner of her open mouth, past sharp pointed teeth and between dark lashes, both pupils and irises were as black as deepest night.

"Christ on a crutch!" swore Shaper. Victor snorted and tossed the body down.

"Thought you'd see it my way," he said with a twist of a smile. The dark haired man walked over to the well cover and drew up a bucket of water, which he sniffed at for several moments, then nodded, and proceeded to strip to the waist, scrubbing at the glop that covered him.

"So what happened to you anyway?" Shaper asked.

"Long story," growled Victor. "Far too long."

Victor kept his hands wrapped around the tin mess mug full of coffee.

"Gack. Glad I didn't follow you down now."

"So am I. It was bad enough being down in that mess, but having you there would have made it worse."

"Thanks," Shaper said dryly. He moved and poked the fire that was burning the corpse of the female creature. Then he glanced over his shoulder. The rizen did not like the way that Victor looked. His gray eyes were edged with deep circles, and he looked worn out, a state that he'd never seen his friend in before. This week had brought a lot of firsts to their relationship. And Shaper didn't really like any of them. Victor shook his head, and reached down with one hand to rub his ankle.

"I'm getting too old for this," he muttered.

"So, we can go now?" Shaper asked, a dim dark shape beside Victor as they watched the last of the glowing embers in the pyre die. Victor stood up and arched his back, groaning.

"No."

"Good, because I think there's a town... what do you mean no?"

Victor turned and smiled slightly under the fringe of his bangs. "I mean no. It's a pretty simple word, Shaper."

"But..."

"There's something I need to do here."

"What?" demanded the rizen, arms flung wide. "Who the HELL could you possibly be helping here? The only person we've seen for days is that... thing... with the tight ass!"

Victor sighed deeply, and Damyew wandered over from where he'd been grazing, no shove the slight man with his nose. "I don't know, Shaper. But there's something I need to do. Something's calling me." He closed his eyes and saw the cavern beneath the moor, with the sad, half changed skeletons. He shook his head, hair beating around his ears. "I'm going to get some sleep. Maybe it'll make sense in the morning."

"Why? It makes no sense now."

"Heh." Victor lay down on the hay inside he barn and closed his eyes. Moments later, he could hear Shaper's snores. He sighed and tried to get to sleep himself. Still those after images of the cavern, and the worried eyes of the girl child shaded beneath her hat haunted his mind. He sighed again and rolled over. After a few more moments, he stood and looked out a crack in the wall to the moon that glowed softly behind the clouds in the night sky.

"Alright," he whispered, so as not to wake Shaper. "If you want my help, I'm going to need a real clue." He sighed and rested his forehead on the frame of the door. A flickering light outside attracted his attention, and he moved towards it.

Outside was a fierce, yet silent battle. People screamed and died around him, but none of it made a single sound. Fire roared silently in the moors around it scorching the earth. It was distinctly creepy. When the creatures that were fighting the garou died, they bled black onto the rich earthy soil. Where that black blood touched the red blood of the dying werewolves, it turned that blood black as well. Victor shivered, and huddled in his coat. Not that it mattered, none of them seemed to see him.

"Do you understand now?"

"I see how the land was sickened, but I don't know what you want me to do."

The little girl walked unscathed through the chaos of battle to stand before him. The ground rebelled beneath her feet and the entire battle was swallowed up. It took Victor a moment of staring at the gaping pit beneath him to fully realize that none of this was really happening. Or if it was happening, it wasn't happening to him. The earth closed up again, and settled. Then, like watching time-lapse photography, a house and barn were built, with brightly painted garou designs on both. The barn was just barely recognizable as the one he and Shaper had found. In the same jerky sudden way, he watched plants grow, and faintly the outlines of a small family - kin perhaps, not precisely garou. And one of them was the girl child he'd been talking to. Victor watched as the figure beside him ran forward as if to hug the strange, jerky-blurred figure he was watching, then blend together.

Victor winced. This was too good. Something bad was about to happen. True to form, a familiar brindled dog appeared, though at this time, his eyes were normal dog eyes. For a time he was a treasured family pet - but then he disappeared into the woods and the moors, and when he returned, his eyes were the formless black that Victor had seen. The little girl reached out her hand to it.

"No!" screamed Victor, forgetting he wasn't really there, lunging forward to stop her. He face planted into the earth, and missed what happened, only rolling over in time to see the father lunge towards the dog murder in his changing eyes as he assumed a half-wolven battle form. Still sprawled on the floor, Victor watched as the dog latched onto the battle form, and shook. Slowly it stopped moving, and fell to the earth, where it sunk into the soil as if the firm ground was quicksand. The brindled dog tossed back his head and howled gleefully. The mother just collapsed to the ground, paralyzed with shock. The dog advanced and Victor ineffectually tried to scramble to save the woman.

"NO!"

"VIC! WAKE UP!" A hand cracked across his face, bruising his cheek, and Victor's brown eyes opened to see a very scared looking Shaper.

"What the hell?" he croaked.

"I never want to hear you scream like that again!" demanded the rizen. "We are so out of here! You've been acting funny since we got here!" Still holding Victor by the front of his shirt, he dragged him back into the barn.

"Let go of me!"

"No! No more objections Vic! We're leaving!"

"I thought I said never to call me that again!?"

"I thought I said never scare me like that again!" the young man spat back.

Victor put a hand up to his cheek and glared at his companion. Shaper glared back, too upset to smile, even though that would have bothered Victor more. He exhaled and sat down again, resting his hands on his knees.

"Alright, I accept the fact we aren't leaving, but could you at least tell me what the HELL is going on for a change?"

"Don't you think I would tell you if I knew?" the dark haired hunter said, sounding discouraged. "The land is sick Shaper - something's going wrong beneath the surface. It's not going to let me go until I've fixed it."

"How the hell do you think you're going to do that?!"

Victor buried his face in his hands again. "I don't know." He raised his head, folding his hands together and bit his lower lip thoughtfully. "The dog. The dog is the key. If I could get a hold of it, I could work out how to stop this."

Damyew threw up his head and screamed. Outside the stable door stood the brindled dog, laughing at them.

"What service," smiled Victor grimly.

"Oh shit," muttered Shaper, slipping his mask on. His weird-shit o' meter was acting up. He had a deep down gut feeling his shirt wasn't going to survive the night. "Victor, ask yourself this, if it knows where we are, why hasn't it come after us?"

"I have. Do you have an answer?"

"No, that's why I wanted you to think about it."

"Forget it Shaper. I think we're going to have to go biblical on it."

"Ah... let the rapine, looting and pillaging begin."

"Where did you go to Sunday School?"

The dog sat back and howled. Damyew did his best to hide his head under a pile of straw.

"I think we have just witnessed the limit of your horse's intelligence."

"More like his courage." Victor made sure his gun's safety was off, and fired. The noise was deafening inside the barn. The dog howled again but didn't drop.

"Maybe you should try the silver ammo."

"THAT WAS THE SILVER AMMO!"

"Oh we're screwed."

As if it took that as an invitation, the dog leapt at Victor, flat black eyes wide and ivory teeth bared.

"Look out!" yelled Shaper, and interposed himself.

"No!" said Victor hitting a support beam as Shaper shoved him out of the way. "Ow."

"Aaaahh! It's noshing on my arm!"

"Shaper don't let it keep biting you! It does something to people when it bites them." Victor got up again, rooting through his bag for a different clip. The eye towards Victor winked, and he shoved the dragon's breath clip home.

"Ahhh! Victor why did I do this?!" Shaper demanded, pounding on the dog as it continued to chew at his arm. The canine didn't seem to notice the blows that would shatter stone. Victor aimed the gun over Shaper's shoulder.

"Uh... all in all - AAAH! I'd rather you dideeeeeen ah! Fire that thing close to my ear, Vic!"

"Oh you'd rather I let you get..." Victor's answer trailed off as the ground beneath their feet got soft, and Shaper's eyes rolled back into his head. Victor kicked backwards, as the dog let go to focus on him, drool and black-red blood dripping slowly from its jaws.

"More..."

Shaper continued his collapse and faded through the floor and into the earth.

"No! Shaper!" Victor growled, eyes cycling from gray to brown. He fired the dragon's rounds point blank as the dog advanced. It shrugged them off as the sparks from the phosphorus bullets lit the straw littering the floor on fire.

Damyew bolted for the door. Victor lunged for the dog, who danced out of the way. He rolled and threw a dagger, which struck the beast in the hindquarters. It howled, and turned on him. The supernatural hunter punched it in the nose and scrambled backwards before the dog could latch onto him. Then he realized he was surrounded by flames. Grabbing his saddle bag, he gritted his fangs, which had dropped in his anger and burst through the wall the moor outside. He stared back into the burning barn and saw the black eyes of the creature. It laughed at him, then bounded away. Victor emptied another clip after it and pounded the ground.

"Shaper."

Victor turned on his flashlight and scanned the tunnel floor. Those were in fact his footprints. He could follow them back to the cavern. The hunter wasn't sure what he could do, but he was damn well going to do it.

"Boy I'm glad I only thought that," Victor muttered to himself. "Because it sounded really stupid." He continued down the tunnel.