I shot to my feet and crashed into the kitchen table. Despite a few glimmers of orange light filtering through the dirty windows it was as dark as a yard up a hog’s ass in the cottage but I hit the table hard enough I still saw lights flash before my eyes. For a moment, I thought had been shot or whammied by a spell.

  It took me several moments of laying dazed on the dirty floor to realize that I wasn’t about to die and that my pursuers were right outside.

  I rolled back to my feet and tried to ignore the shooting pains in my right arm. I hadn’t broken it, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. My head also still seemed intact despite the headache that felt like a deranged mouse with a jackhammer had been released into my skull. The dark interior spun crazily and I placed a hand on the table to steady myself.

  Get a grip, Tom. I took a couple deep breaths and allowed the world to fall back into place.

  Kris shouted at me from the tabletop, but her voice was an indistinct, insect like buzz that was barely audible over the sounds of elves, men and dogs just beyond the walls of the ruined cottage. There was the barest amount of hope that just maybe my pursuers had no idea that I was here and would move on when a loud and brassy voice emerged from the German night.

  “Thomas Winter! We know you are in there! There is no escape for you now. Come out and end this farce.” The voice spoke in German and had the distinctly arrogant tone of an elf.

  I stayed silent and kept low, scuttling from window to doorway, checking all of my exits. Every one of my potential escapes from the building was covered. The entire cottage looked to be surrounded by no less than two dozen men and elves. I was thoroughly screwed sidewise and I knew it.

  “Thomas Winter!” bellowed the elf that I assumed to be in charge. “Come out!”

  Once again, I didn’t answer. I crawled back to the kitchen table. I already had my pistol, I had slept with it after all, and my questing hand found my borrowed shotgun in the dark. I had no delusions about escaping from the cottage or fighting off my pursuers. They had more men than I had ammunition! I just wanted to take as many of those bastards with me as possible.

  “Kris,” I whispered into the darkness over the table and I held my hand out. I felt her tiny form climb into it. I think she expected me to put her back into my shirt pocket but instead I knelt and placed her on the floor.

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  “I’m not getting out of this. Hide. They won’t be looking for you and with your size they won’t find you anyway.”

  “Nein! You idiot! I’m not going to let you…” I stood back and Kris’s objections dwindled back into an insect’s buzz.

  I mentally reviewed my weapons; one Glock 17 with one full magazine, one combat knife and one shotgun with six shells (Kris’s gun had shrunk along with her and was useless to me). All the guns were short range so was going to have to get close if I wanted to be sure of doing and damage. Normally, I would have tried to use the shotgun at a longer range (don’t believe video games shotguns have a way longer range than pistols) but since it was a cutoff shotgun its range had been effectively halved. Twenty yards. That was how close I needed to be before firing.

  I mapped out my plan; charge out of the cottage, close the range, fire my shotgun at the closest available target, move, reload, fire again, move, reload, fire again, close to use the pistol, fire the magazine dry, close further and use combat knife. I did not really expect to survive beyond the third or fourth step.

  The kitchen door wouldn’t work for my charge, too obvious. I instead flung myself out of the bedroom window, rolled to my feet and charged forward with a yell. My shotgun up and seeking targets and my finger was tightening on the finger.

  I was ready to die fighting. Ready for the deluge of fire that would cut me down. Ready for the black nothingness that I was sure waited me after death.

  None of that happened.

  I stumbled to a halt and spun around awkwardly in search of a target. Where before I had seen over two dozen men and elves there were instead over two dozen corpses on the ground. The torches that they had carried were guttering in the dirt and the hound dogs that had led them to me were snuffling their former masters in confusion.

  “What the fuck?” I breathed softly as I took in the dead bodies around me. I admit that I at first felt relieved… like an idiot. That lasted all of two seconds before I realized that I should really be watching out for whatever had managed to kill a mess of men and elves in absolute silence.

  I couldn’t see nor hear nothing in the night around me. Beyond the whines and snorts of the dogs and the faint susurrus of the wind rustled grass were the only things I heard beyond my own breathing. I could feel the skin prickle up and down my spine as an involuntary shiver of terror climbed its way out of my chest and into my extremities. Something primal within me screamed that this was the reason that man feared the dark. I didn’t investigate further to see what had ended the Wotanvolk so quickly and so finally. Instead, I obeyed every instinct going apeshit at me and fled into the cottage.

  I spent the rest of the night hiding in the kitchen cupboard. Was it the manliest of things that I could have done?

  No. It wasn’t.

  But there are only so many options that one has do in the face of an unknown supernatural terror and I did not have enough high explosives or holy water for most of those.

  It was not until the bright light of day had fully driven away the dark that I crept back out of cottage. If it had been a cloudy day I likely would have stayed inside. There are some things that should only be contemplated under sanctifying light of the sun.

  The light also let me see the details and realize just how screwed I was.