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I followed Kitua around the back of the barn, "Guess you know where you’re going?" I say to her as she leads me down a trail into a sparsely wooded area. From over my left shoulder flew the crow that had been following us. He landed on the branch of a fallen dead tree and started to squawk that irritating gwah-gwah at me.
"I wish that bird would shut up", came that ever so familiar voice in my head.
"Oh, so you have decided to grace me with your abysmal commentary again. I was hoping I was done with you since you've been quiet for the last couple hours." I say out loud, which makes Kitua turn back and look at me with a look that was both quizzical and irritated all at the same time.
She sure has made me feel uneasy since I met her.
"Ive had a bit of a headache since you used up all of that creatures essence I absorbed through our touch.”
"Essence?” I ask aloud with a twinge of confusion in my voice but, this time Kitua didn't pay me any notice as she made her way further down the trail in front of me.
"It's life-force, spirit energy, soul; whatever you want to call it. Do you not remember anything from before?" His voice thunders through my headache making me stumble a little.
"Not much, most things seem so clear until I try to concentrate on them but, then they blur like an old chalk painting. I remember how Jessica died and the pact I made with you, there was blood... lots of blood, some kind of prison then the collar those demons put on me."
He laughs, "Your pathetic human brain. He wasted so much time in creating you only to leave you broken, unfinished... This might hurt a little."
I can feel him grinning as memories come flooding back to me ripping my brain apart. I put both my hands to each side of my head in an effort to keep it from exploding. The pain was so intense I scream. My vision starts to darken into a long tunnel and this time when I stumble I'm unable to stop myself from falling face first into the hard dirt of the trail.
"Pathetic...” is the last thing I hear as I fade off into unconsciousness yet again.
I feel a hard slap against my cheek as I start to come back to reality, my face stings and I jerk open my eyes. Kitua is sitting there on her haunches watching me, her head cocked to one side. As I start to stand back up she turns and trots back down the trail again turning only once to give me a short bark to hurry up.
I guess some time passed while I was out cause the sun seemed like it had changed position slightly. Now it was more in my eyes than it was before. Images of horrible things flashed before my eyes, all the things I had done since this nightmare began. My stomach heaved, "Oh God how could I have done those things and not remember." I choke down the bile that is eating away at my throat and try to breathe though my lungs feel like they are constricting.
"You were a monster. In your grief I didn't have to push hard to bring out the darkness you harbor inside. You were a sight to behold, it didn't matter if they were demon or human you killed, just ripped the life right out of them. That one family; slowly killing the parents while the kids watched was one thing but, how you killed that little girl and made her older brother watch with his hands literally nailed to the floor. Truly priceless."
"That wasn’t me!” I scream. "It was you; it was all because of you!"
At that instant Kitua darts past in a blur and collides with a dark mass behind me. Growls and screeches come from the tangled mess of coyote and...
"It's a Hellcat and they always travel in packs", he chimes in. "Your little girl screams must have attracted them."
"Them? I only see the one!", the words rush out of me as I draw my gun and try to look for a clear shot but, there's no way I wouldn't hit Kitua if I fired now. Besides all I could see was Kitua rolling around with what looked like a black ball of wispy gas.
"They are there. Use the power you stole from the hunter, look hard shift your sight out of phase and you will see them." His voice sounds old, commanding so I try.
I stare into the mass of darkness entangled with Kitua and try to recall what it felt like when the hunter had lifted me up by my throat. How the wind had stopped battering me and it happened. I could see it now. The wispy black smoke gave way to what looked like a giant house cat, but all scary looking with matted, blood stained fur and glossy grayish white eyes. They are the eyes of something that has been dead for a while.
Now that I can see it, I bring my gun to bier, aim, pull the trigger and I can see the bullet leave the barrel and travel down it's invisible path right into the head of the Hellcat splitting it open with a sickening pop.
I start to move towards Kitua as she pushes herself from under it and shakes some of the blood away from her jaws but, she looks hurt. And now I've got a new problem. I hadn't seen them until it was too late. Two more shot out from the brush, one on each side of me. The left one bit down on my pants leg near my boot and started to pull while the other lunged and bit into my right wrist pulling me off balance. If that wasn't bad enough I felt another one jump onto my back, digging its claws into my shoulder.
Down I went again into the dirt. The first one must have just been a distraction while the rest of the pack circled around to get a better position on me. "What is it with everything trying to kill me", I think.
"Well maybe if you didn’t scream like a little girl all the time you wouldn’t attract so much attention. Were you always this helpless."
"Helpless!” I retort. "I'm being attacked by three demon kitty cats. Never mind, that sounds pathetic."
The one on the right shakes my wrist so violently it seems it's trying to rip it off. The pains caused by its teeth send sharp spasms through my hand that force me to release my grip on my pistol. "Great, now I'm unarmed."
"You will be soon if you don't listen to me and stop this now. Grab hold of that one’s fur and pull."
With no other option I could think of in the heat of the moment I wrap my hand into the chest fur of the Hellcat that is latched onto my wrist and the runes burnt into my forearm start to glow. A shadowy outline of the creature starts to immerge from its body as I wrench my arm from its jaws. Fear lights the Hellcat's eyes as it releases its grip from me it turns and tries to run only to have its physical body collapse to the ground a few feet away.
In my hand I now held the ghostly shape of the beast, its writhing mass trying desperately to escape my grip. I watch as it is slowly drawn into the flesh of my hand like smoke trying to escape a vacuum.
Dirt is pressing into my left eye from the weight of the one still on my back now, it's trying to clamp it's teeth around my throat from behind so I try my best to roll my shoulders up to protect it. Then, I hear a sigh from inside my mind.
"Ahh...that's so much better."
Now with both hands free I stabilize myself with my left and reach behind my head and grab the fur of the one clamping its teeth into the back of my neck and pull. The same thing that happened only moments before does again. I feel the dead weight of the beast collapse onto my back and I watch the remnants of another Hellcat disappear into my hand.
Looks like Kitua has recovered because when I turned my attention towards her, she was nose to nose with the remaining Hellcat. It had let go of me to focus its attention on its own safety now. I could feel new energy coursing through me but I could tell Kitua was hurt enough that the Hellcat might get the best of her.
"Use your gun, stupid!" rasped that familiar voice. So I dove toward my pistol and felt its familiar wooden grip caress my hand. Rolling onto my left side I raised my right arm and fired. The Hellcat never knew what hit him. The .45 caliber bullet knocked him into spin that left him in a lumpy pile a couple feet to the right of Kitua.
She never even flinched when the report from the gunshot went off or when the bullet truck, she stood her ground still poised to take on her next opponent, she's quite an animal.
"Yep, she's one tough bitch", cackles my inner demon. His comment makes me smirk just a little and Kitua looks at me with that look of disapproval again. What's up with this bitch!?!
Staggering my way towards her, Kitua reluctantly falls into my arms and I head back towards the dilapidated old barn I had met her in only hours before.
