Published at 28th of January 2023 11:32 pm

Book 2: Chapter 155: Hunter and Hunted

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Dan reappeared on the diner roof, as was his preference. He immediately dropped into a crouch and stabbed his veil into the diner’s roof. It swept down and across, piercing through the ceiling, the walls, and the floor; thousands of thread-like tendrils mapping out the inside with grim precision. It took all of five seconds to find blood, and another second to trace it to dead flesh being jerked about, here and there. He followed it, felt fiber threads and Kevlar, felt the twisted remains of a firearm, felt the broken plastic radio still strapped to the body’s hip. Finally, his veil rebounded off living flesh.

Dan could feel each bite by the space it created. It pushed and pulled at his veil, carving away trenches in his perception. There was something alive in there, and it was eating the dead. The conclusion should have been obvious: he’d found Cannibal. Yet, the dimensions were all wrong. His veil swept across the floor, outlining the creature inside. Its feet were a little too big; its gait a little too wide. Had Cannibal’s feeding truly changed him so much? And if this wasn’t Cannibal, then who was it?

His veil pooled below the creature. Whoever it was, they’d murdered half a dozen civilians, and at least one federal agent. If it was Cannibal, he was too dangerous to contain. Dan would hurl the monster into the surface of Neptune, and deal with the consequences later. If it wasn’t… well, Dan was pretty confident in his own abilities. Either way, he wasn’t about to let this thing kill more people.

The creature froze, mid-bite. It dropped the body it was consuming, and Dan’s veil scrambled to reorient. It swept the floor, finding it suddenly empty. A chill ran down Dan’s back and an alarm blared in his mind.

It sensed me, he thought, and he willed himself skyward. He appeared fifty feet in the air, buffeted by the wind and rain. He stared down, fully expecting a dark shape to tear through the roof where he’d just stood. Lightning flashed, spots and shadows danced across his vision. The roof remained intact, but something large and fast raced across the parking lot.

It was running? Dan was so stunned, he nearly allowed himself to fall. Cannibal didn’t run. He wasn’t capable of running. A trap, then, or a fake. Time to find out.

Dan immediately blinked to the edge of the roof. From hammerspace, he launched a lit oil lamp, firing it in a lazy arc across the parking lot. His veil simultaneously raced across the ground, tiny threads searching for contact. It caught sporadic brushes, and the lantern illuminated a shadow darting across the open lot in long, leaping bounds. Then the lantern completed its arc, struck the ground, and extinguished.

Within the eye socket of his left goggle, Dan created a tiny door in the sky. He peered down, just barely able to see the fleeing form of his enemy.

Too big, he thought. Too big, and too slow. Cannibal moved like a greased mongoose, and his form was lean and lithe. This thing was built like a bull, charging across the parking lot on all four limbs. Cannibal didn’t run, Dan thought again. What, exactly, was he chasing?

He noticed that he wasn’t shaking, that he wasn’t afraid. Whatever involuntary fear response this thing emitted had apparently ended the moment it decided to flee. Dan’s mind shifted gears, going from extermination, to capture. He doubted that this False Cannibal just happened to be milling around not four blocks from where Champion was supposedly holed up. And it was running that way, towards the center of the cordon. Back to familiar territory, perhaps?

The shape crashed through the window of a building, and Dan lost sight of it. He willed himself across the lot, and pursued. He appeared inside the building’s neighbor, third floor and looking down to the street. If False Cannibal crossed, he would see it.

“Not Cannibal,” Dan called in. “You’re right. This is something else. But it killed at least one of your men, and several civilians. It’s fleeing towards the center of the cordon. I’m following it, now.”

Rawls’ reply was lost to a thunderclap, and a sudden surge of wind rattled the windows. He wiped moisture off his goggles, and sent out his veil. It darted across the street and into the building, hungry feelers searching for prey. He was the hunter now. His fear was gone, any hesitation, gone. Dan wasn’t going to back down from this False Cannibal. He’d faced the real deal.

His veil rebounded off live flesh; Dan had only a moment to process it before the broad, bulky figure he had sensed exploded out of the second story window. The leap carried it all the way across the street and into the wall of the opposite building. Dan felt, more than heard, the impact as its momentum ripped through the bricks and carried it out of sight.

Not as fast as Cannibal, Dan thought, but still pretty damn fast. His veil chased after the beast, as it raced deeper into the cordon. Whatever stealth the thing might have once employed was completely out of the picture. It moved like a stampeding rhino, smashing through one building after the next. Dan followed the trail of destruction, keeping just distant enough to avoid being a target. He was confident in his reflexes, but didn’t want to face the crazed… mutate? Natural? Whatever it was, he didn’t want to face it in close quarters.

The question of what it was lingered in Dan’s mind, though, as he willed himself from point to point. Cannibal had been stuck in the Fridge for a long, long time. It was now an open secret that the villains preserved at the blacksite had been used to research upgrades, in the hopes of mimicking their powerful Natural abilities. Maybe they’d succeeded with Cannibal. Or more likely, given the crazed state of the thing he was chasing, hadn’t. But how the hell had it gotten here?

Questions for later. Focus. Dan cleared his mind. He appeared inside a little cafe, trailing behind the False Cannibal. He took in a breath, and paused, as the copper tang of blood reached him. Dan glanced around, eyes wide. There were more bodies here. More blood. Dismembered corpses scattered against the walls that had definitely not been killed by False Cannibal’s brief arrival and departure.

These were civilians, he realized; gathered up and waiting for an escort out of the perimeter. This deep in, the volunteer teams hadn’t reached them quite yet. But something else had.

…He hadn’t checked the previous buildings that False Cannibal had crashed through. It hadn’t even occurred to him to do so, he’d been so caught up in the moment. Would he find more bodies, old and half-eaten? Was the creature retracing its steps, back to its lair? Dan was certain he would have noticed if someone had been crying for help, but he resolved to go back and check.

But first, this chase needed to end.

Dan was no longer content to follow. He headed off the False Cannibal at the next crossing, appearing in the street below as it leapt from one roof to the next. Dan stared up with narrowed eyes. Lightning split the sky, outlining the large, dark shape in brilliant white. He tracked it, up and across, as his veil pooled in the center of the street in front of him. A doorway popped into existence between False Cannibal and his destination. It exited directly in front of Dan, facing the sky. False Cannibal howled in surprise, as his orientation abruptly shifted. His momentum carried him straight through the portal, launching his body vertical with absolutely no leverage to speak of.

Dan summoned a trashcan lid and held it out like a shield. His veil bunched against its concave side, and he carefully lined up the shot, waiting until False Cannibal reached the apex of its climb and began to fall. Its limbs flailed for purchase in the air, and its body torqued wildly. Dan held up his lid, squinted, and opened a doorway to his hammerspace. A trawler net fired out like a gargantuan bolas, striking the thrashing beast mere feet from the ground and carrying its wriggling form nearly fifty feet down the street.

Dan raced forward, not really expecting the net to slow down the creature for long. He was proven right moments later, as the False Cannibal pulled itself upright with a howl of rage. Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and Dan finally got a good look at the thing he was pursuing. The net was still draped across its body, looped along its arms and legs and pulled taught. It stood seven feet tall and hulking, with thick arms and thicker legs. Its fingers ended in sharp claws, each longer than Dan’s finger. Its skin was smooth and pale, almost chalk white. Its dark hair hung in messy sheets, down its back and across its face. Though wet and bedraggled, past the curtain of hair, its eyes were a burning, angry red; they glowed, quite literally, with malice.

It was meant to be scary. It was designed that way, Dan could tell. It looked like someone had asked Steven Spielberg to model Cannibal for a horror movie. Everything was exaggerated for maximum effect. Dan couldn’t help but find it comical. It lacked everything that made Cannibal terrifying. There was no subtle menace, no easy grace, no vicious cunning. It was not a predator poised to hunt men, but a Hollywood monster.

Dan could deal with monsters. But, better to be certain. Maybe Cannibal had undergone some kind of extreme mutation after Dan had punted him into the ocean.

“Do you know me?” he called to the thing across from him.

It snarled, all bestial rage and mindless violence, then leapt at him. Its body immediately caught in what was left of the trawling net, and there was a horrible ripping noise as the creature tripped and fell. Dan blinked forward, just inside its range, and it thrust a clawed hand at his face. Dan held out the shield, braced, and opened a doorway. Its arm slid through without issue, and emerged from the exit portal behind Dan, facing away from him.

The moment of truth, Dan thought.

He twisted, pushing forward until he reached its shoulder, then he swung his free arm backwards, and punched through the exit portal. His power twinged, feeding him sensory data that he’d never felt before, and the doorway snapped shut.

It took the False Cannibal’s arm with it. Sheared it right off, without even a hint of resistance.

Dan blinked backwards, waiting, as the False Cannibal registered what had just occurred. It stared down at its stump, then up at Dan.

Dan grinned viciously.

There was only one predator here.

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