Billy sensed the shift in the air, a flood of scent, sound, and vibration so intense it threatened to drown the echoes of his former self. His prechange mind would have shattered under the onslaught, but now, it was as natural as drawing breath. He was born for this, his father's lessons rising unbidden: wait for the opening, feel the prey's pulse. A pang of loss twisted in his gut, a ghost of human sadness.

  He would have hunted Billy now. Grantham Grandon forged himself into a tough man through a lifetime of hard work. After serving in two wars he never spoke of, his father opened a trade store. It was there Billy learned about his father’s greatest love. Hunting. Especially big game hunting, and Billy certainly filled that role now.

  When the change happened, Billy thought he was going to die. One morning, just after his night shift in the warehouse, Billy felt a chill shoot up his spine as he was drinking a beer in front of his tiny refrigerator. It was not painful at first, but that changed quickly. Cracking echoed in his skull as his jaw snapped and pushed forward, blood pooling in his mouth. The ice turned to fire, then acid, each pulsing cramp was followed by searing pain, his body tearing itself apart and reforming. The screams twisting in his throat became bestial roars as the change progressed. His bones lengthened, his body stretched, the agony wracked him.

  As the pain subsided, he pulled himself off the marred floor, scratches and splintered wood all around him. Looking into the mirror revealed a monster, and Billy's heart plunged into an abyss. His eyes burned with a yellow light, yet held a flicker of human recognition, the familiar black mark still present in his right. A muzzle, feline but elongated and flatter, had fused his mouth and nose. His canines elongated into fangs of obsidian, mirroring the claws that tipped his fingers. They were huge, each a dagger that drew blood with the slightest touch. He was covered in fur, except it was harder, sharper, far more coarse than normal animal fur.

  He raged inside. He tried to scream, make a sound like a man, but the only thing he could do was roar, bark, growl or make small huffing sounds. Venting his rage, he struck the mirror with his fist, blasting it through the wall and into the neighbors apartment. Mikey was brushing his teeth at the time and, while seated on the toilet, was peppered with debris and tile as it ripped from the wall.

  Billy looked at his friend and tried to apologize, but the only thing that came out was a growling murmur. Mikey shit loudly, thankfully already on the toilet and screamed. Something shifted within Billy at that moment. The chaos and the shock faded, replaced by an awareness of new sensations. He noted, oddly detached, that Mikey had blood in his feces. He also smelled something else, something that sparked a primal hunger: Mikey's fear. It was intoxicating, a scent that bloomed in his nostrils. It was as if the smell of death was like ash to fear's oil, clinging to his palate and making him salivate. His lips curled back, revealing six inch canines, and a deep growl rumbled in his chest, a predator's purr. Mikey's skin immediately paled, and he bolted through the bathroom door, sprinting for the exit, feces streaking behind him in foul ribbons.

  Billy ran. He was fast, impossibly so, outpacing cars on the highway as he fled east. The deer lease became his refuge, a place to hunker down and try to understand the nightmare he'd become. That was four years ago. The change had warped him, but it hadn't broken his core. Hunting was in his blood, and his new body was made for it. Tracking game, feeling the thrill of the chase—it was a twisted echo of the life he'd known. The fast ones were fun, the big ones a challenge. Bears? He left them alone. Dad loved hunting bears, but Billy couldn't stomach it. Too much like killing a brother.

  He always knew this would end. Hunting, freedom, it was all borrowed time. And now, as the wind shifted, bringing the scent of oil and human sweat, his father's lessons flared in his mind. Circle the herd. Cut the weak. He knew this game. He wouldn't be the prey. He bolted for the trees, a blur of motion too fast for human eyes. They wouldn't follow him there. He'd find a place to watch, to learn their moves. They had his scent, but he had theirs too. And in this forest, he was the apex predator.

  Captain Jace Torres crouched low behind a moss-crusted boulder, his breath steady, the weight of his M4 carbine a familiar anchor against his shoulder. His team—Green Berets and Rangers, the best he’d ever run with, fanned out in a loose arc, silent as ghosts among the pines. Their orders: track, contain, and assess. The wolf was an anomaly, and command wanted answers.

  During their briefing, the video showed something that defied explanation, something meaner and smarter than evolution had any right to produce. The scale was monstrous: paw prints the size of dinner plates, a shoulder height of six, perhaps seven feet when it reared up. Its fur wasn't hair, but something like steel bristles, framing a maw filled with teeth designed to snap a femur clean. It moved with impossible speed, one incident capturing it outrunning an accelerating police car, the speedometer uselessly pegged at 85 mph.

  “Echo Two, status,” Torres whispered into his comms, his voice a low growl that barely carried over the rustle of leaves. A damp chill hung in the air, and the scent of pine and wet earth mingled with the undercurrent of something wilder, acrid.

  “Got eyes on it, Cap,” came the reply from First Sergeant Lila Hayes, her voice steady despite the tension. Her scope’s laser dot flickered faintly as it tracked through the dense underbrush. “90 meters northwest of your position, moving slowly. Looks antsy. Keeps sniffing the air, like it’s expecting something.”

  Torres scanned the darkening woods through his NVGs. The wind shifted, rustling the undergrowth, and the trees swayed, their branches twisting into writhing shadows against the fading light. A prickle of unease slid up his spine. “Copy Echo Two. Echo Five, status.”

  “Trap’s hot,” Staff Sergeant Marcus Reed answered, his drawl clipped but calm. “Net’s rigged at the choke point. Steel cables, hydraulic winches. Thing hits the trip line, it’s game over. Just gotta nudge it north.”

  Torres nodded, his gaze sweeping the terrain. The plan was straightforward, yet he felt a knot of unease. Herd the wolf toward the ravine. There, the trees funneled into a narrow choke point where Reed’s trap awaited. Non-lethal capture was the brass’s orders. Torres’s priority was his team’s safety. He signaled Corporal Diaz and Specialist Kim to tighten the formation, their silhouettes slipping through the brush like wraiths, barely visible.

  Turning to Diaz position, palm out, fingers together, Torres began signaling;

  Fire a Flare

  Pointing west, then northwest, 75 meters

  Execute

  A muffled pop sounded from Diaz’s position, and a magnesium flare arced high, bursting into a blinding white star that scorched the shadows and cast the trees in stark relief. The wolf snarled, backing away from the sudden light. Pivoting north, it shot through the forest, a blur of motion moving fast towards Reed and the trap.

  “Moving your way, Five,” Hayes reported, her voice taut with adrenaline. “Jesus, it’s fast.”

  “Stay sharp,” Torres chided, rising to a crouch and advancing, his team collapsing the net behind the beast. The forest thickened ahead, funneling toward the ravine. Just a few more minutes, and they’d have it. But then the wolf stopped, its hackles rising, and turned its head slowly, those yellow eyes locking onto Torres, staring straight back through the trees.

  For a second, he swore it knew. Not just the chase, but the trap, the plan, every move they'd made. Quickly turning, it bolted east, crashing through the undergrowth with a force that snapped saplings like twigs.

  Torres cursed under his breath, slinging his rifle and breaking into a run. “Redirect, now! Cut it off before it hits open ground!”

  He sprinted after the wolf, its massive form tearing through the underbrush like a freight train with fangs. Branches snapped, leaves shredded, and the earth itself seemed to groan under its weight. The air filled with the scent of pine and the beast's wet musk.

  “Echo Team, it’s breaking east!! Cut off the ridge line! Move, move!” Torres shouted, his boots slamming into the forest floor as he tried to track the fleeing animal.

  “Echo four, echo one.” Hayes's voice crackled over the comms, sharp with frustration. “I keep losing visual; thermal isn’t picking it up like it should. Moving east, weaving through the trees.”

  “Affirmative, in pursuit,” Torres replied. “Echo two, echo three, with me.” He ordered, his boots pounding against the uneven ground. The wolf’s path was a scar through the forest: snapped saplings, gouged dirt, and a faint shimmer of that metallic fur glinting where the flare’s residue lingered. He’d seen speed before, hunted insurgents who could vanish into mountains, but this? This was something else.

  “Echo Five, status!” he barked, Diaz and Kim moving into a tighter formation behind him.

  Reed’s voice came back, steady but strained. “Still hot, Cap, but that ridge is too steep for the net; the cables won’t hold if it hits at that angle. We need to redirect.”

  Torres stopped running and knelt, fist in the air, scanning the ridge through his scope. Diaz and Kim spread out behind him like a breeze through the forest floor. The trees were older, thicker. Gnarled oaks and pines packed tight would be perfect cover for something that big to vanish.

  Turning to Diaz, he signalled:

  Fire smoke

  Full spread

  Pointing east, 60 meters

  Pointing west, Reposition 30 meters

  Wait for my command

  Turning to Kim, he signalled:

  With me

  “Echo Three, smoke ‘em out. Full spread. Force it back down the slope.”

  Diaz signalled affirmative and Torres began moving closer to the copse of gnarled trees, Kim trailing close behind. “Echo Two, get high, find it. We’re blind without eyes.”

  “Copy, climbing now,” Hayes said, her breath hitching as she scaled a rocky outcrop. “Thirty seconds.”

  “Echo two, echo one. Target located.” Hayes hissed over the comms. “Twenty meters at your 9 o’clock, tucked behind a fallen log. It’s stopped, Cap. I think it’s watching you.”

  “Echo three, execute.” Torres whispered. A heartbeat later, three sharp thunks echoed as smoke grenades launched from Diaz position, arcing high and bursting into thick, gray plumes that billowed downslope from the ridge. The wind caught it, dragging the haze toward the wolf.

  The smoke spread quickly and rolled thicker, a choking wall that burned Torres’ throat even through his mask. He heard it then; a low, guttural huff, not quite a growl, cutting through the hiss of the canisters. The wolf was close, maybe too close.

  Torres’ jaw tightened as he made eye contact with Diaz and Kim, signaling them:

  Envelope and contain.

  Echo two, flank right.

  Echo three, flank left.

  Cut off the ridge escape.

  He crept forward, the smoke parting around him, his heartbeat thumping in his ears. The wolf’s yellow eyes flickered through the haze, searching, and then Reed’s voice cut in over the comms, low and urgent. “Echo five, echo one. Trap’s moving, but I’m picking up something weird on the sensors. Vibrations. You copy?”

  Torres froze, eyes narrowing. “Copy,” he said, voice hard, fist in the air, Diaz and Kim stopping. “Hold position.”

  Smoke burned in Billy’s nostrils, but it was nothing. He could see the operator team approaching him. They were searching, it was only a matter of time before they found him. Watching them come closer, he picked up pieces of their hushed conversations, “.. target located .. stopped .. watching us”.

  Billy stayed still, not wanting to take on six armed men who knew how to hunt and knew when their prey was cornered. They came forward quickly, but Billy let out a grumble, that is what he called his low warning growl now, to make them think again. The second he did, he smelled it: fear. The smoke disappeared from his awareness as he sensed everything through the air, pinpointing their trembling hearts.

  Shifting his body closer to the dead tree he waited for his silhouette to vanish from their NVGs. Their footfalls, barely whispers to his sensitive ears, shifted again as they lost him. Focusing on the human closest to the ridge line, he turned his body and launched, splintering dead and dying trees like a cannonball. Digging his feet deeply into the loamy forest floor, he stopped his momentum a few feet from the human.

  He was fast, but Billy was faster, swiping a claw along the rifle in the human’s hands, shattering it and sending both rifle and man sprawling. He didn’t mean to hit him so hard, but he could still hear the human’s heartbeat, hammering with fear. More footfalls crunched toward him, stealth now unnecessary, commands cascading from each one reporting their positions and yelling at him to stand down. Since the change, human speech had been hard to understand, but he still knew what they wanted.

  Standing tall and flaring his arms wide, he raised his head and roared at the approaching humans. He could take a few rounds from their rifles, a lesson that scared the shit out of him when a hunter mistook him for an elk once. Letting his roar fill the air with his rage, he locked gazes with the lead man and waited.

  The roar ripped through the forest, a primal thunder that shook the pines and sent a flock of crows exploding into the sky. Torres flinched as the wolf reared up, its massive frame silhouetted against the smoke and dusk. Standing over the shattered remains of Kim’s M4 was six feet of muscle and fur with claws gleaming like obsidian scythes. Yellow eyes burned into him like a predator as the corporal groaned nearby.

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  “Echo three, report!” Torres snapped into the comms, his voice steady despite the adrenaline spiking his pulse.

  “Alive, Cap,” Ortiz rasped, rolling to his knees, one hand clutching his chest. “Bastard’s fast. I’m good, just winded.”

  “Copy. Stay down,” Torres ordered, his eyes never leaving the wolf. It stood there, arms flared, chest heaving, daring them to move. The smoke swirled around it, curling off that weird fur like it was too hot to touch. Fear edged into his thoughts.

  “Echo Team, hold fire!” he ordered, raising a fist to signal the others. Diaz froze, her rifle trained but steady. Torres slowly circled left, his silhouette tense against the ridge’s shadow. “Watch your angles.”

  “Echo one. I have a shot.” Hayes hissed over the comms, her scope locked on the wolf’s chest.

  “Negative,” Torres shot back. “It’s testing us. Echo five, status?”

  “Repositioned downslope, fifty meters,” Reed replied, his voice tight. “But it’s gotta move first, the cables won’t reach that high.”

  Torres gritted his teeth, weighing options. The wolf had outplayed them once, slipping the smoke and turning their flank into a liability. That wasn’t animal instinct. This thing hunted like a man, thought like one. And that roar was a warning.

  He lowered his rifle slightly, not enough to lower his guard, but enough to shift the dynamic. “Echo Five, flare. Low arc, ten meters front. Blind it, not burn it.” He needed it distracted, not enraged.

  “Copy,” Reed said. A soft *pop* followed, and a flare streaked out, bursting into a sharp white glow just shy of the wolf’s position. The light flared off its fur, casting jagged shadows, but Torres was already moving, stepping forward, he fired his rifle three times. Tranq darts shot forward, their contents spraying like a mist as they broke on Billy’s fur. Moving into a crouch, he fired again, misting the beast with powerful sedatives, hoping it would fall asleep.

  Billy saw the bullets flying at him, tipped with a plastic tranquilizer round. His dad used tranqs when they hunted in Africa, the only consolation he gave a boy in love with lions. What surprised him was how they popped against his fur. The drug made his head swim a little, but a second or two later, he was fine. Plastic or no, he shot me. Game on motherfucker, Billy thought, as he opened his mouth, preparing to end the human.

  The wolf’s fur bristled, its eyes locked on Torres as it blinked away the sedatives. Peeling its lips back, exposing six inch black fangs, it growled and crouched. Torres felt a low, thrumming vibration pulse up through his boots, faint at first, then stronger, rattling the pebbles at his feet. Tightening his grip on his rifle, “Echo Four, talk to me,” he ordered, panic rising.

  “Sensors are spiking, Cap!” Reed shouted back. “It’s off the charts!! Vibration’s doubling every second. What the hell is happening?”

  Torres didn’t know, but he felt it, deep in his gut, a warning older than training. “Echo team, brace, now!”

  The ground shook violently, rippling and cracking. Not again, Billy thought. Shifting his gaze from the human, he sighed. He wanted a good fight, not a stinky one. Dashing forward, he slapped the rifle from his hands, gripped his harness and jumped towards the other two humans, slightly downhill from him.

  The ground lurched again, “two more and they come,” Billy thought, dropping Torres next to Kim, eyes locked on Corporal Diaz’s rifle tracking him. Letting out a low, rumbling growl, Billy began to move towards him, claws twitching. Torres started speaking at him. Taking a deep breath he tried to understand his words. “…. You have to listen to me. Please, stop. I’m Captain Torres. We don’t want to hurt you. Can you understand me?”

  Billy tried to talk a lot, but nothing came out that sounded anything like humans. Bobbing his head up and down, the human stepped back, eyes wide with shock. The shock quickly turned to curiosity as the humans spoke to each other, too fast for Billy to understand. Crumbling earth and cracking stone, drew his attention further uphill, closer to the ridge. That was where they would emerge. Shifting his gaze back to Torres, he pointed at the ground and burbled his lips like a horse, then made an explosion gesture, arms swinging wide over his head.

  “It’s coming from the ground? Echo 2, echo 5, get down. Something is coming up from underneath us.” Torres screamed

  The ground shook violently and a geyser of rock and dirt flew up into the air. The explosion was exactly where Billy was standing. Two towering demons, their black-grey skin mottled with spikes, pulled themselves out of a crater fifteen feet wide. Ten feet tall and lined with red glowing veins, chilled Torres to the bone. Years of training and combat taught many lessons, especially about fear. Hesitation, due to fear, means death. Torres and Billy moved at the same time.

  Launching himself at the left one, it turned to meet Billy’s charge, a gravelly roar piercing the air. His claws raked hard against the face of the demon, shearing through the hide with ease, black blood spraying. It smelled awful, like death and fear combined with old socks and his father’s drunk breath. The demon swung its massive arm down and struck Billy’s exposed side, the spine digging deeply into his chest. Billy screamed in pain, a high pitched roar tinged with agony. Biting down onto the arm of the beast, Billy picked it up and shook it violently, separating the arm and sending the creature flying.

  Torres dropped to his knee, the magazine falling free as he ripped a fresh one from his vest. He slapped it into the well, the action brutal and swift, and came back up firing. This time, the rounds were phosphorus. Each shot struck with precision, fiery pops strobing across the battlefield, and the second demon stumbled as it emerged.

  “Echo Team, sound off!” he barked into the comms, slapping a new magazine into place.

  “Echo two, good, echo five, good” Hayes and Reed responded, dodging the still raining earth.

  “Echo four, Diaz is pinned. Attempting to free him,” Kim replied, faint but firm.

  Torres shifted targets, three bursts igniting off the hide of the demon locked in battle with the wolf. The demon was almost out of the crater, its grey black hide shredded, blood streaming from the wolf’s savage attacks. It was smaller than the one on the news from Dallas, maybe ten feet, but no less ugly. Molten eyes flaring as it lashed the wolf, claws like meat hooks. Billy’s bite had ripped its arm clean off, but it wasn’t slowing; the stump was already bubbling, flesh knitting back together.

  “Echo four, are you good?” Torres ordered, slinging his rifle and diving for cover as the second demon, now upright, hurled boulders from the crater. “Echo five, pop smoke, my location. Echo two, switch to phosphorus, keep bogey 2 down.”

  “Echo four, all good Cap. Suppressive fire incoming.” Diaz replied, and his M249 Para roared to life, armor piercing rounds slamming into the demon attacking Torres. Each strike snapped pieces of hide and bits of leathery skin off the monster, but otherwise left it unharmed. The sheer force of the impacts, however, was enough. The demon staggered, bullets hammering into it, pushing it back, forcing it to stumble and reel.

  Exploiting the opening, Torres fired multiple bursts of phosphorus rounds into the wounds opened by the SAW, the demon convulsing as flames engulfed it. Diaz's SAW roared again, raking the same gash, showering the area with black blood and chunks of burning flesh. Unable to withstand the relentless assault, the demon was driven back below the crater's lip.

  For a moment, Torres focused on the other creature, a whirlwind of claws, fur, and rocky hide locked in a brutal dance with the wolf; white hot blasts lit the crater as Hayes's shots found their mark, blast after blast opening new wounds and keeping the creature inside. Torres pulled a grenade from his harness, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the crater, diving behind a boulder nearby. The white phosphorus grenade blasted what remained of the creature and burned anything left, ashes and gore decorating the crater walls.

  “Wolf down!!” Torres screamed, praying the wolf could understand. “Echo three, echo four, suppressive fire!!” He squeezed the trigger, and a burst of incendiary rounds streaked out, slamming into the demon’s chest. White hot flames erupted, searing through its hide, the acrid stench of burning flesh mingling with the ichor’s foul decay. The beast shrieked, a sound like grinding metal, and swiped blindly, its claws raking the air where Billy had been.

  Kim unleashed a volley of phosphorus rounds, the white-hot bursts tearing across the demon's side. Sparks erupted, its flesh blistering and sloughing away, yet it lunged onward, dragging its regenerating leg, and raked the wolf with its claws. “Cap, it’s not stopping!” Kim shouted, reloading fast. “We need the trap, the cables might hold it!”

  Torres's gaze darted from Billy to the demon to the waiting net downslope. The wolf, bleeding and matted with blood, still fought, claws slashing. “Echo Five, reposition winches east, twenty meters! Three, flare it!” A flare shot from Diaz's launcher, blinding the creature with white light. It recoiled, roaring in pain, and Torres seized his chance. “Wolf, herd it downslope—now!” He fired another burst, targeting its eyes, forcing it back. The ground lurched again, enough to throw him off balance.

  The humans were really good at making a mess of these creatures. White phosphorus tore through the demon, turning its hide into a bubbling, smoking ruin of flesh and gore. He felt like he could trust this man for now, so he obeyed, throwing his body onto the monster and rolling over, using his momentum to propel it down the mountain slope. The monster wailed as it flew through the air tumbling away and toppling trees every time it hit the ground. After tumbling for another few feet, it caught onto a tree and stood, a new arm growing quickly, wounds and gashes closing. Billy hated these things and he knew their weakness. If he kept shoving and throwing them after biting something off, they stopped and concentrated, trying to regrow it. Billy never gave it a chance, ripping into the helpless creature frozen in a trance attempting to grow back half its body.

  Billy’s obsidian claws ripped the monster to shreds, leaving nothing to chance, not since the first one he killed regrew from the parts he tore it into. Smashing claws and ripping teeth finally ended the creature, and the ground shook again. He could smell the human’s blood in the air, mixed with their fear, a wave of power rolling towards them. As the monster finally died, its molten eyes dimming to black, he felt something change inside. His chest flared to life, hot acid burning, his body filling with rage and fury.

  The ground vibrated and the soldiers started yelling loudly, their voices shrill against his rage. The rumbling was different this time, deep and moving towards them at an angle, like a fish about to flash out of the water. Flinging the demon's remains away, he started moving in the direction of where the new monster would emerge. This one was a lot bigger than the first two; he could feel its power as it pulsed through the ground. Growling in anger, he voiced his frustration: No matter where he went, these things found him. This one, though, was different. This one found him once before; he could smell it now, its scent unmistakable to his memory. He barely survived then, and now he had humans to protect.

  The ground geysered up, a cloud of dirt and rock flying out. A monster emerged, much bigger than the first two, bigger than the one in Dallas. It pulled itself out of the crater, fifteen feet tall and covered in spines and those glowing orange red veins, pulsing and flowing like lava. Standing tall, it roared, arms splayed wide, claws curling in anticipation. The wolf roared back, almost as loud and filled with rage. The two converged, mere meters from Diaz, his leg still pinned beneath a fallen tree.

  “Echo team—fall back!” Torres shouted, but too late. The monster’s claw lashed out, missing Billy but tearing into Kim’s thigh. A dark spray of blood erupted, and the specialist screamed, collapsing to the ground, hands clamped on the wound. Torres unleashed a burst of phosphorus rounds, white hot lines burning into the demon’s shoulder, while Billy launched himself at it, ripping away chunks of its hide and burying his claws in its flesh.

  —

  A flare burst overhead, bathing the scene in harsh light, and Hayes's rifle cracked, a white hot blast ripping into the monster’s neck. It staggered, shaking its head. Billy crashed into it again, teeth buried deep in its burning shoulder, claws raking its back. The monster roared and slammed Billy into a tree, splinters and dust flying like confetti. Billy held on. A second smash pulled one claw away, slipping from its hold. The monster reached around, gripped Billy’s leg and crushed it, bones snapping like gunshots, howls of agony blanketing the forest.

  The immense demon roared, its immense arms hammering into Billy, pinning him and crushing him. “Echo team, fire at will! Take it down!” With the wolf down, the team had a clear line of fire and unleashed a hail of bullets, slamming into the beast from every direction. The impacts shredded its flesh and sent blood flying. Enraged, the demon spun and lunged at Kim, ten feet away. He barely had time to flinch as the thing’s claw ripped through him, armor, uniform, and flesh parting like tissue. A wet, tearing sound accompanied his cry, which died in his throat as he crumpled to the ground.

  Human blood, mixed with his own agony, ignited a blood rage in Billy. Only violence and fury remained, every fiber of his being focused on annihilating the thing before him. Its black blood, caustic and vile, burned all it touched, but not Billy. Its hide crunched like splintering bone under his teeth, the taste of rot a goad to his fury, which he gladly spat out. The demon fought back with savage strength. Spines pierced his flesh, but his wounds closed almost instantly.

  A violent bang ripped through the chaos, and a metal net slammed into the demon, wrapping around and tangling into unbreakable knots. “Trap’s live!” Reed shouted into comms, diving clear as the demon stumbled forward, its immense size triggering the cables. Steel snapped taut, binding its legs, but the winches shrieked under the strain.

  “Hold it!” Torres bellowed, emptying his magazine into the thing’s face. “Wolf, now—finish it!”

  Billy pulled himself upright, ignoring the blazing agony of his broken body. The humans had trapped the monster and were blinding it, the darkness flaring into white with each impact on the demon’s face. The net wouldn’t hold, but Billy didn't need much time. Surging forward faster than he'd ever moved, the air sang off his hard fur as he struck the demon’s chest like a rocket, using his momentum to bury a hand as deep into it as he could. Digging and ripping, he swiped his claw across the massive demon’s exposed face and arm, riddled with tiny holes and burn marks from the human weapons.

  The demon screamed and tried to throw Billy off its side, but the netting wouldn't allow it to regain its footing. It had become a desperate wrestling match, and it was losing. Anchoring itself against the slope of the hill, it twisted its body, ripping Billy’s claw out of its chest and driving a massive fist into Billy’s back. His spine snapped like a gunshot, and Billy roared in agony, his legs and lower body limp and useless.

  Billy refused to yield, his claw slashing repeatedly across the demon's chest, widening the wound, its black blood gushing like a torrent. The force of his attack lifted the immense demon off its feet, hurling it backward to crash in a heap. It scrambled to rise, and as it turned, Billy met its gaze: pure, unadulterated hate. It would never stop until he was destroyed.

  With a desperate surge of will, Billy tried to drag himself upright, resolved to tear the demon apart with his dying breath, when a fresh explosion tore through the air, followed by another. White hot fire now licked at the demon’s wounds, and it shrieked in agony. The soldiers never relented, unleashing a storm of fire so intense, Billy had to shield his vision.

  “Cease fire!” Torres yelled, lowering his M4, barrel smoking as the last phosphorus round buried itself in the demon’s charred husk. The monster’s screams faded to a gurgling whine, its massive form slumping into a pile of sizzling ichor and ash, the white flames licking up what was left of its hide. The net cables, half melted, clattered to the ground, useless now. He exhaled hard, the adrenaline still buzzing in his veins, and turned to the wolf sprawled a dozen feet away.

  The animal was a mess, fur matted with blood, arm and leg bent wrong, and the memory of that spine cracking hit still echoing in Torres’ skull. But he was alive, growling low as his body snapped and popped, knitting itself back together with a sound like a butcher’s shop on overtime. Torres stepped closer, boots crunching over the scorched earth, when Hayes jogged up beside him, medkit in hand.

  “Cap, he’s—” she started, then stopped, eyes wide as Billy’s roar cut through the haze. “Damn, he’s healing.”

  “Fast,” Torres muttered, slinging his rifle. “Diaz and Kim need evac—where’s Reed?”

  “Calling it in,” Reed’s voice crackled over the comms, faint but steady. “Chopper’s ten minutes out. LZ’s secure downslope. Ground’s stable now, but sensors are still twitching. Whatever woke these things up down there, it’s not done.”

  Torres nodded, kneeling beside Billy as Hayes pulled a sedative from her kit. The wolf’s yellow eyes flicked to her, wary but too wrecked to fight. “Shh,” she said, voice soft but firm, sinking the needle into his shoulder. “It’s okay, I put a sedative in you. Your body sounds like a popcorn machine and you need to rest. We got you.”

  Billy’s growl softened, his massive frame slumping as the drug hit. Torres watched those eyes dim, not with defeat but exhaustion, and felt a pang of something—respect, maybe, or guilt. “You’re a tough bastard,” he said quietly, resting a hand on the wolf’s flank. “Saved our asses. We owe you.”

  Hayes stood, wiping blood from her hands. “What is he, Cap?”

  “Dunno,” Torres admitted, rising. “But brass will want him. And answers.” He glanced at the ridge, where the ground had split and settled, the hum gone but the air still heavy. “Something’s stirring out there. We’re not done.”

  Reed arrived shortly after, Kim clinging to him, while Diaz hobbled behind. “Chopper’s inbound,” Reed said, voice rough. “We’re banged up, but alive. Thanks to him.”

  Torres nodded, eyes on Billy’s still form. “Load him up—gentle. He’s coming with us.” He tapped his comms. “Base, this is Echo One. Target neutralized—three hostiles down. Asset secured, injured but stable. Request intel on seismic anomalies, priority one.”

  The distant thump of rotor blades grew louder, cutting through the night. Torres took one last look at the carnage, burned demons, broken trees, and a wolf who’d fought like hell. This was just the start.