FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"What have you brought to exchange for your boon?"asked the figure inside the circle.

_ _ He finally found them. Their scent was unmistakable, even through the haze of gasoline fumes and engine exhaust. They were at the gas station no more than twenty minutes ago. He capped his gas tank and replaced the nozzle. Two stomps on the starter got his bike running and he was gone.

"This," Harold said as he pushed the man on his right. It caught him by surprise, and even though he was quite a bit larger than Harold, he fell and landed in the circle.

_ _ They stopped not far from the gas station where he first picked up their scent. It was a sit-down Mexican restaurant. It didn't choke their scent either, though it did make his stomach growl. The parking lot was almost empty with only two cars, a minivan and an enormous truck, besides his quarry's convertible. He frowned at the convertible. Either they didn't know he hunted them or they didn't care. The first was more likely, they probably thought he was dead, but the second possibility gave him pause. His powers were not slight and anyone with the confidence to disregard them should not be taken lightly.

He had no choice but to go in and confront them. His very purpose for existing demanded it.

"He is strong, this gift, but I do not think he is yours to offer."

_ "He is pledged to me by blood and steel. By the rites of the Delta Brotherhood, he is my vassal."_

_ "Then I will accept him, but be warned. This gift is given to me at a price."_

_ "I understand."_

_ "Then you are more foolish than most. The dagger is yours."_

_ The room went dark for just a moment, like a camera flash in reverse, and then the circle was empty._

_ _ With the heel of his boot, he flipped down the kickstand and took his weight off the bike. The shocks creaked as they expanded. His knees creaked as they compressed. It was a good thing he'd found them, it was almost time for this body to retire.

"Your so-called friend is a fool. He will not long enjoy the artifact he traded for you. He thinks I will kill you; feast on your flesh and your life as if I were a simple demon or devil. I am not."

_ _ He took his helmet off and set it on the handlebars. He scratched at his beard before smoothing it down and roughing up his hair. Helmet hair wasn't particularly intimidating and he wanted them to be intimidated. No one defended themselves as well as they might when they were frightened. As a final touch, he checked his leathers for spots or bugs. He was clean. He was ready. He walked to the entrance and opened the door.

"You will be my Proxy on your home plane. You will act in my stead to perform the duties required of me by nature and society. I will give you a portion of my power. If you have need of more, you have but to ask."

_ _ A family walked out of the restaurant. He held the door for them. If he hadn't been so fussy about his appearance, he might have run into them on his way in and ruined his entrance. Bumping into a family of five and falling over yourself to get out of the way was also not intimidating. As soon as the way was clear, he entered. From the doorway, he surveyed the room, looking for his prey.

It was a cozy place, decorated in that rustic Sonoran style that was so popular with Mexican restaurants, but somehow it didn't come across at kitschy. The faint sounds of cooking came from the kitchen, as did a heavenly smell that might have convinced an ordinary man to give up his task and have a bite. But the reek of his enemies was even stronger and it turned his stomach. There would be no quiet meal eaten here.

_ "There are things you will know. There are things you will learn. There are still other things that will always be a mystery to you. When the time comes for the tasks I will set for you, you will have everything you need to succeed."_

A pretty young-woman approached him.

"Just one?" she asked brightly.

"You should leave this place. It won't be safe here for very much longer."

"I'll call the cops," she said after regaining a little composure.

"It won't do any good. You've been warned." Then he walked past her towards a booth in the corner where two men sat feasting. He didn't look back to see her running for the phone. She would call the police, but like he said, it wouldn't do any good. They would not arrive in time to interrupt him, no matter how long it took him. It was one of the things he knew. He knew it almost as surely as he knew he would kill the two men sitting before him.

Harold Rock sat on his right. John Fisher sat across from him. He stood at just the right angle they both had to turn their heads almost ninety degrees in order to see him. When they looked, their exposed throats made him clench his teeth against the sudden urge to leap upon them and tear them to pieces.

They were so close. His heart began to race, though he carefully kept his breath even. Then he spoke and his voice was deep and strong with just a hint of an animal growl behind it.

"Harold Rock, John Fisher, you have performed a great wrong against your fellow man. The souls of many call out for your deaths, as does mine."

"Hiya, Orson. How'd you manage to escape from that demon friend I set you up with?" Harold said lightly. John was silent. Sweat had immediately started pouring down his face when he saw who was interrupting his meal. He shrank back.

_ "You are no longer Orson Godwin. You have no name other than Justice and if Justice cannot be served, then you will be Vengeance."_

_ _ "You aren't still upset about that, are you?"

"You should be more careful about what spirits you call," he said with a hint of a smile on his lips, "performing an injustice in front of a spirit of vengeance is unwise."

Harold shrugged, "I got what I wanted. So what are you now, some kind of messenger? Well, message received. Now if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to finish my meal."

_ "You must retrieve the dagger. Even now I can feel him using it for perversions against its purpose. He thinks it is a simple thing, a battery for spirit energy. He has shown himself to be a fool in all things. You are still unready, and though I will return your to your Earth, you must not seek him out. The others of his coven are yours to revenge yourself upon, but he must be saved for another time when you have grown stronger."_

"You will return the dagger. Your use of it is a perversion. You defile its purpose with your touch."

"Give it to him," John said. He'd been muttering to himself constantly since he'd seen him, but this was the first time he'd spoken aloud.

"Fish, shut up."

"I don't want to die! That's what this was all about."

"For you. Anyway, giving him back the dagger won't save you. He's going to kill you either way. Me, well, I'd like to see him try. He's not the only one with friends in high places. Well, so to speak."

"Give me the dagger."

"No," Harold said, "take it." He smoothly pulled the dagger from its sheath behind his back and stabbed it to the hilt in the table in front of him.

He looked from Harold to the knife and back again. This was obviously a trap. Harold would attack him the moment he reached for the dagger. The question was whether it was worth the risk or not. Harold's confidence didn't smell like the false bravado he'd found in so many of his other quarries. He really thought he could take him in a fight. But retrieving the dagger was his first priority. On the other hand, that doesn't mean he had to be stupid about it.

He grabbed Harold by the collar of his shirt and hauled him over the table.

"That's cheating," he said before a meaty fist smashed into his mouth three times in quick succession.

"Ow," Harold said as he produced a pistol, pressed it to the Scion's sternum and pulled the trigger as fast as he could. He let go of Harold and stumbled backwards, falling to his knees.

"That's more like it," he said and turned back to his table and his meal.

_ "You will be bound to a human body, but you are so much more than human now. You will be master over that flesh. What you ask of it, it will give until it gives out and beyond until it is no more. Death will not see your flesh."_

He stood up. If he really thought that would be enough to put him down, he was a bigger fool than his master thought him to be.

"Harold," John said, "Harold, he got up."

Harold looked over his shoulder and grunted.

"Oh. Well, if you're going to be like that, I'll just have to pull out the big guns. Sorry, John, but I'm going to need this a lot more than you are."

John looked on in confusion and then horror as Harold pulled the knife from the table and leaned forward. He threw up his hand to fend him off, but it was too late. The dagger flashed across John's throat, spilling his blood across the knife and the table. He watched himself bleed out with wide eyes that kept staring long after he was gone.

The Scion of Vengeance paused in confusion. He knew Harold had no respect for human life and no understanding of friendship or loyalty except for how to take advantage of it, but such a casual killing was still surprising. Especially considering the victim. He was Harold's oldest companion. What purpose did it serve? Then he saw what Harold was doing, and though he rushed the stop him, he was too late.

Harold held the knife over his head and with a flick of his wrist, splashed John's blood in a circle. While he did, his lips moved in a silent chant. It was then that the Scion tried to stop him, but as he reached the border of the circle, a wall of crimson light flared and threw him back. A five-foot section of the floor began to smoke, a great black column of smoke that seemed to dissolve when it reached the ceiling. Something moved in the smoke, something big, something not quite human.

_ "I have brothers and there are others of my kind. There are still others, demons and devils who hunger only for death and blood who will do a human's bidding in exchange for such. They will stand against you, for they have no love for my kind who believe in order. Do not fear them, for they are lesser things."_

The smoke faded away and the thing's form became clear. It was basically human shaped, which is to say it had two legs, two arms and a head. It looked like Cthulu's love child with a hedgehog. Spiny tentacles sprouted from its face, each one just over a foot long and tipped with a toothy mouth. Ram's horns capped the abomination of a head. Its body was heavily muscled under maroon skin and festooned with weeping boils and serrated spines. Birdlike talons ended each of its arms and legs. It stifled the room with its odor: old fish, rotting vegetation and blood.

"I have summoned you with the blood of a friend to take the blood of an enemy," Harold intoned. The creature stepped over to John's corpse and started to eat. The tentacle mouths stripped him to the bone in minutes.

"Do you like him?" Harold said with a grin, "I found him in an old treatise on an obscure South American cult."

He didn't hear. He was busy changing.

Dark brown fur sprouted through his black riding leathers as his clothing melded with his skin. His legs shrank, his arms and torso stretched. His shoulders, already broad expanded even further while his fingers shrank to stubs and his nails turned to thick blunt claws. He lost his balance at this point and dropped down to all fours. His head expanded, his face stretched forward into a thick muzzle filled with sharp teeth.

An eight-foot bear pushed himself onto his hind legs and roared a challenge. The demon abandoned John's remains and whirled to face him. It warbled a response and stepped forward, flexing its talons. The Scion didn't wait for it to come. He dropped to all fours and charged, ramming his shoulder into the demon. It staggered back a step and the bear went to back on his hind legs in order to deliver a crushing blow from its forepaw. Bones crunched in the demon's shoulder, but it barely flinched.

Its tentacles lashed out, each one fastening to the bear's hide. His roar drowned out the sucking and chewing sounds as they tore into him. He bit the closest one he could reach and pulled. It tore free and he spit it out and moved on to the next while pounding it with its paws. It responded by digging in with its talons. They tore into each other in a flurry of teeth and claws, tentacles and talons. Finally the Scion pushed it away. There was a moment when it seemed the mouths would not release, their teeth sunk too deep. Then they came loose, each one tearing out a fist-sized chunk of flesh.

The pain was incredible, but distant. That he was aware of it at all was proof of how much he was hurt. Blood matted down every inch of his fur. He needed a new strategy. He didn't get a chance to form one. The demon charged, its tentacles flying towards him.

He swept them aside with one paw while the other slammed into the side of the thing's head. A man's neck would have snapped under that blow. The demon all but ignored it. Tentacles snaked past his defenses and latched on again. He kept them away from his throat and heart, but they were moving faster now, burrowing into his flesh, seeking out vital organs.

Roaring in pain and rage, he wrapped the demon up in a hug and squeezed. Its talons dug deep into his back, but they did little damage there. He felt bones snap beneath the demon's skin and he squeezed harder. He bit into where its neck met its shoulder and tore out a hunk of flesh. He battered its head aside with his own to give him more space and bit again, deeper that time. His teeth closed over its collarbone. It snapped and he pulled.

Black blood spewed from the wound, choking and blinding him. Wherever it made contact with an orifice, his eyes, his mouth, it became like tar to stop them up. It went down his throat and his windpipe and then he couldn't breathe. Still he pressed on, though he was blind. He took another great bite out of the thing's flesh.

Talons slashed across his face. The tarlike blood choking him offered no more resistance than if it was water. One caught his left eye and plucked it straight from the socket. His nose was completely ruined and his cheek torn out exposing his teeth back to the throat. His jaw tore loose and hung uselessly by the other side.

He released his grip on the demon and slammed his arms like sledgehammers onto its shoulders. The tentacles refused to come free. They were too deep; he could feel them entwined with his ribs, his spine. Even now they tore into his lungs on their way to his heart. There was no escape.

In desperation, he placed one paw on its ruined shoulder, the other on the side of its head and pushed them apart. Demon flesh began to tear and bones to bend and crack. Fast as snakes, the mouthed tentacles retreated from his flesh. One leg came up and kicked him in the sternum, completely collapsing his chest. He flew through the air, slammed into the wall, and kept on going. He hit the asphalt of the parking lot and skidded to a stop.

He couldn't get back up.

He scraped the tarry blood from his eye and watched the demon step through the remains of the restaurant wall. All the damage he'd done to it was healing already. He could actually see the flesh of its shoulder knitting back together. In another few moments, it would be like he had never touched it.

"I need more," he said, "my own strength is not enough, Master."

He was fading. The demon was slow in approaching him, apparently eager to extend his suffering before it administered the killing blow. Its tentacles were lapping up the blood that covered him, both its own and the Scion's. Grooming, or feasting, he couldn't tell.

He dragged himself away as best he could. It was slow and painful and he couldn't breathe, but he refused to just lay still and wait for the demon to claim him. Something blocked his way for a moment, then he knocked it over. Steel crashed against pavement and he realized he'd run into his bike.

His blood was smeared over the side now, obscuring the silver bear painted on the gas tank. Seeing it, he realized the Avatar had answered him. He closed his eyes and felt himself melt. The world stopped.

Bike and bear began to glow. The engine cracked open and oil and gas gushed out. Where blood and oil met, they bonded and his body pulled them in. Steel reformed and joined flesh. Every cut, every gouge was filled by amorphous steel. On his face, where talons had torn half the flesh away and knocked out teeth, he got a new jaw, shiny and strong.

When he was done, he stood two feet taller and was two hundred pounds of steel-corded muscle heavier. His claws and teeth were steel and a new liquid metal orb replaced his damaged eye. Energy and power filled him to the breaking point.

He roared a renewed challenge to the demon and rose on his hind legs. The abomination took an involuntary step back. As a predator, it knew a superior predator when it saw one. The summoning was strong and even as fear swelled in its heart prodding it to run, it had no choice but to stand and fight. It charged low, going for the unarmored legs. Talons and tentacles tore into his flesh. He snarled and dropped his full weight on the demon's back. Its spine snapped and it shrieked in pain.

The fight was over. The only thing left was the killing blow. He took the obscene head between his jaws, put his weight on its shoulders, and pulled with all his might. A fountain of black blood spouted from its neck as its head tore free.

With the demon's head in his mouth, he marched back into the restaurant. Harold still stood in his circle, his face white and his knees trembling. He had seen it all and for what might have been the first time in his life, he was terrified. With a flick of his neck, the Scion threw the head. It hit him in the chest with a wet smack and fell. A few of the tentacles were still moving weakly.

Plates shook on the tables as the bear approached him.

"Give me the dagger," he rumbled.

Harold screamed, high pitched and hysterical. He raised the dagger over his head and charged, planting the blade into the Scion's shoulder where it met the neck. It went in to the hilt and stuck.

"Thank you," he said. Then he stood on his hind legs, picked Harold up by his armpits and bit his head off. He spat the head out next to the body. Then he turned and lumbered through the hole in the wall and disappeared, the dagger's hilt still protruding from his flesh.

If anyone had remained to witness the fight, they would see the demon's body dissolve into crimson goo and then evaporate. The corpses of Harold Rock and John Fisher and the hole in the wall were the only remaining evidence of the fight. Their murder was officially unsolved.

_ "Your personal vengeance has been enacted and you have returned the dagger," the avatar said, "I will free you from my service if you so desire. You can become Orson Godwin again."_

_ "Mortal life holds nothing for me now, master. Though it would be nice to have a name again. Can I not be both Orson Godwin and your scion?"_

_ "If that is your wish. You have been a good servant and I would miss your service. I am pleased you have decided to stay."_

_ "How could I do otherwise?"_