Chapter 111 - Cerberus

  The pack leader’s opening strike was devastating. His massive claws raked across my raised arms, and even though my Natural Armor held, the force behind the blow made my bones grind against each other in a way that hurt like hell. I slid backward another three feet before I could dig in my heels and stop the momentum.

  Before I could recover, he was on me again. A left hook came at my head. I ducked under it. A right cross followed immediately, and I barely got my arm up to block. The impact sent jolts of pain up to my shoulder. Then came a knee strike aimed at my gut. I twisted sideways, and the knee grazed my ribs instead of hitting dead center. It still felt like getting hit with a battering ram.

  I was feeling my lack of boxing experience all of a sudden. Most of the time, I was enough stronger than whatever I was fighting that it didn’t matter much, but this guy had skills, and that wasn’t making my day any easier!

  I countered with a quick jab to the monster’s snout, followed by a hook to its ribs. My fists connected solidly, and I felt something give under the impacts. But the werewolf just grunted and retaliated with a backhand that caught me across the jaw. Stars exploded across my vision. I stumbled backward, tasting copper.

  "You hit hard," the creature said, its guttural voice tinged with approval. "Good. Weak prey is boring."

  "I'm not prey," I spat blood and circled to the left, looking for an opening. "And I'm not joining your pack."

  The pack leader laughed, that horrible sound echoing off the buildings. "All say that. Then they understand. Power. Strength. Pack." It tapped its chest with one massive claw. "Cerberus. I am Cerberus. You will obey me before end."

  Of course a monster like this would have a name. It made him more real, somehow. Not just a beast, but more like a person. Or something that had been a person, once.

  We clashed again. Cerberus came in with a combination of strikes that would have put a professional boxer to shame. He fired off a jab, then a cross, hook, and uppercut. I blocked the first two, dodged the third, but the uppercut caught me under the chin and lifted me off my feet. I activated Flight instinctively, converting what would have been a devastating knockout blow into a controlled backward glide.

  I landed ten feet away and immediately had to dodge as Cerberus lunged forward with terrifying speed. His claws missed my throat by inches. I grabbed his extended arm, planted my foot in his gut, and used his own momentum to flip him over my head. He crashed to the ground hard enough to crack the pavement.

  Most opponents would have needed a moment to recover. Cerberus rolled backward and came up ready to fight, barely winded. That golden fur rippled as muscles bunched beneath it, preparing for the next exchange.

  "Fast," Cerberus said, approval clear even through that mangled voice. "Strong. You are warrior. Lead pack with Cerberus."

  "I don't want to lead your pack!" I shot back. "I want to stop you from hurting more people!"

  "Hurt?" Cerberus tilted his massive head, looking genuinely confused. “Cerberus not hurt, Cerberus save. Give power. Give strength. Humans weak. Die easy. This"—he gestured at his transformed body—"this is gift. This is survival."

  There was something almost sad in the way he said it, like he genuinely believed he was doing the right thing. Like turning people into monsters was some kind of mercy.

  "It's a curse," I said. "You're taking away their humanity."

  "Humanity not save them," Cerberus growled. "Power save them. Strength save them. Pack save them."

  He charged again, and our conversation was cut short by the immediate need to not get my face ripped off. We traded blows back and forth across the cleared zone. Every hit I landed barely slowed him down. That Regeneration of his was incredible. Cuts sealed themselves within seconds and his bruises faded almost instantly. A strike that should have cracked his ribs just made him grunt and keep coming.

  Meanwhile, I was accumulating damage. My Regeneration was decent, but nowhere close to as strong as his. I had a deep gash on my forearm where his claws had finally found a gap in my Natural Armor. Bruises spread across my chest and shoulders from repeated impacts. My left eye was starting to swell from where he'd caught me with a particularly nasty hook.

  I needed to even the odds. The next time Cerberus lunged at me, I sidestepped and grabbed his arm as he passed. Before he could react, I cast Drain Life at point-blank range. The black beam erupted from my hand directly into his torso.

  Cerberus howled, a sound of rage and pain mixed together. I felt his life force flowing into me, that dark vitality knitting my wounds closed, reducing my bruises, clearing my vision. The gash on my arm sealed itself. The swelling around my eye went down. I’d done him a blow and recovered some health all in one easy step.

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  But Cerberus wasn't close to going down yet. He twisted in my grip and broke free, his claws raking across my side as he did. Three shallow cuts opened up—not deep enough to be dangerous, but enough to hurt like hell.

  “You hurt Cerberus,” Cerberus snarled, and for the first time I heard something like respect in his voice. “Give good fight! Be good pack member.”

  "Stop trying to recruit me and fight!" I snapped.

  He obliged. We crashed together again in a flurry of strikes. We were about evenly matched on Strength, but his mass was much greater than mine, which gave him an advantage in close quarters. He was faster, too, and that Regeneration meant he could afford to trade hits in a way I couldn't. Every exchange left me a little more battered while he shrugged off damage like it was nothing. I cast Drain Life on him periodically to restore myself, but each of those casts brought my mana a little lower. I couldn’t maintain that forever, whereas Cerberus looked as fresh as he had when we started this fight.

  Time passed. I lost track of how long we'd been fighting. My world narrowed to Cerberus and I. I blocked his strikes, landed my own, and above all else focused on staying alive one heartbeat at a time. Around us, the other werewolves had resumed their assault on the walls, but I couldn't spare attention for them. If I looked away for even a second, Cerberus would rip my throat out.

  My mana was dropping. Every time I used Flight to dodge a killing blow, every time I cast Drain Life to heal myself, it cost me. I was down to a third of my reserves now, falling fast, and we were nowhere close to finishing this fight.

  Cerberus, on the other hand, seemed tireless. He pressed forward relentlessly, those massive fists and claws a constant threat. His breathing was steady. His movements still sharp and precise. I was slowing down. My blocks were a fraction of a second late. My counters didn't have quite the same snap to them.

  I couldn't keep this up forever. Neither could he, probably. But the question was, which one of us would wear out first?

  Behind me, at the walls, the sounds of combat intensified as the werewolves leapt to the wall top, straining to break the defenders’ perimeter. The cacophony of screams, howls, and the clash of weapons made a horrible background music to our duel. The defenders of the Yard were being pushed hard. How much longer before they broke? How much longer before the werewolves breached the walls and got into the Yard proper?

  I couldn't retreat. If I fell back to defend the walls, Cerberus would follow, and then I'd be fighting him while also trying to protect civilians. That was a recipe for disaster. I had to keep him there, with his attention focused on me, as long as I could. Even if it killed me. Better me than Maggie or Emmy. Better me than any of the hundreds of people sheltering behind those walls.

  Cerberus lunged again, and I met him head-on. We grappled, each of us trying to gain leverage over the other. His claws dug into my shoulders—not deep enough to pierce through my Natural Armor completely, but enough to create pressure points that made my arms weaken. I drove my knee into his gut once, twice, three times. On the third hit, I felt his ribs crack.

  He roared in my face, spittle flying, and head-butted me. My nose crunched. Blood poured down my face, copper flooding my mouth. I stumbled backward, vision blurring.

  Cerberus pressed his advantage. A devastating right caught me in the ribs. A left hook to my jaw stunned me. Then he landed an uppercut that would have taken my head off if I hadn't managed to lean back at the last second. Each hit drove me further back away from the wall.

  I was losing. Slowly but surely, Cerberus was grinding me down.

  Then I noticed something. His breathing was heavier now. Not much, but it was there. His movements were just a fraction slower than they'd been at the start of the fight. That last combination had been powerful, but there'd been a split-second delay between the cross and the hook. Was he finally tiring? Or was I just so desperate that I was seeing what I wanted to see?

  Only one way to find out.

  I activated Flight and shot backward, creating space between us. Cerberus started to follow, but I was ready for that. I reversed direction instantly and flew at him like a missile, my fist cocked back for a devastating strike.

  He started to raise his guard, but he was a fraction of a second too slow. My fist slammed into his jaw with everything I had behind it. His head snapped to the side. Blood sprayed from his mouth. He staggered backward, actually dazed for the first time in the entire fight.

  I pressed forward, ready to capitalize on the opening. I landed another strike to his jaw, followed by a kick to his knee that buckled the leg. Then I hammered home a palm strike to his chest that sent him stumbling back another step. I was winning. Finally, I was—

  Pain exploded across the back of my skull.

  The world tilted sideways. I caught a glimpse of a gray-furred werewolf behind me, one arm still extended from throwing something. A rock, probably. The coward had hit me from behind with a goddamn rock?!

  I tried to turn, tried to defend myself, but my body wouldn't respond properly. Everything was fuzzy, disconnected. I heard Cerberus roar—in triumph, not pain—and saw him charging at me.

  His blow caught me in the gut. All the air exploded from my lungs in a whoosh. I doubled over involuntarily, which put my head right in line for the second swing. His massive fist crashed into my face like a wrecking ball. I felt something break. My cheekbone, maybe, or my jaw.

  The impact lifted me off the ground entirely, so his third blow hit me mid-air. Cerberus landed a devastating strike to my chest that changed my trajectory entirely. Instead of falling to the ground, I rocketed sideways. The stone wall of a neighboring building rushed toward me at impossible speed.

  I crashed through it like a cannonball, stone exploding around me. My body kept going through what might have been a classroom, desks and chairs sent flying. I hit the far wall and finally stopped, my body embedded in the stone. For a moment, I just hung there, unable to move, unable to think. Then I fell, sliding down the wall to crumple in a heap on the floor. Dust and debris rained down on me as the entire wall and much of the ceiling collapsed onto me.

  Everything hurt. Everything was broken. I couldn't feel my legs. Couldn't move my arms. Blood filled my mouth. My vision was going dark at the edges.

  I tried to push the rubble burying me away, strained to lever myself up. But my body wouldn't respond. The last thing I heard before the darkness claimed me was Cerberus's howl of victory, echoing through the night.