The Grimm Dossier

Chapter 55 - The Prayer

England, West Coast
Devonshire, Dartmoor
Dyowl's Hollow - Woods of Dartmoor
5 November 1898, 11:14 pm

The blood rushed in Ben's ears, drowning out his own thoughts. His breathing was heavy and rapid. His chest heaved in rhythm with his wild heartbeats like a sheet under which panicked birds crashed against the barrier and yet failed to escape. With both hands, he clutched the revolver in his hands so tightly that his fingers hurt.

The monster stomped after the hurled wizard and Ben's thoughts were racing. He wanted to run, but then he stopped as if moved by lightning.

"If there is a time for your prayers, it is NOW!" Kyle's voice rang in his ears.

If he ran headlong now, they would both die. Kyle had bought him time for a reason. He believed in him. This arrogant mage with all his skill had looked at HIM hopefully! So Crowford had to be truly convinced that what was inside him would help them! His prayers and pleas. He couldn't just throw that away. Even if everything in him screamed to follow his comrade because the urge to protect him and perhaps watch helplessly as this monster finished Crowford off almost drove him mad. But he HAD to use that hope, small as it might seem. For it was their only one. Ben's gaze dropped down to his fingers, where the metal of his revolver gleamed. The grip with the wooden insert and the emblem of his family stared back at him.

Beyond the hollow, the creature's footsteps thundered and paws roughly pushed aside a tree, its trunk bursting under the pressure. The crown of the fir tree buckled to the side and joined the wood on the forest floor, rustling. The creature's force caused more and more trees to bend and break aside, laying this place, overgrown by nature, now fallow into a clearing. The sky above them was covered in wisps of clouds that kept moving in front of the moon and then were driven on by the wind. Now the dull moonlight provided a little more visibility where the dim light was not tangled in mist or black smoke.

The slitted pupils of numerous glowing eyes slid across the forest floor, searching for the accursed wizard, this time to finish him off once and for all. But to the demon's annoyance and anger, he could not spot him. A large oak tree had collapsed, bending over a black crack in the ground that led into the depths. As he approached, the earth groaned under his weight and the beast growled so that the darkness of the night began to vibrate under his rancor. But then low murmurs seeped into the air, soaking it with something else.

The creature's long neck swung around, twisting, and the burning eyes in the great skull latched onto the source of that sickening sound that poked him in the head with fine needles: the doctor.

Ben was still standing exactly where Crowford had left him. Among fallen trees, uprooted brush, and boulders amidst the leaf-flooded forest earth and surrounded by billowing clouds of mist. He clutched the gun whose barrel rested against his forehead. His eyes were squeezed shut and he? He prayed. To God, whatever God. The one or the entity of this world that had stood by him and whose origin, name, or intention he knew. Yet he pleaded and prayed for succor. He pleaded with everything he could think of, from the deepest depths of his soul.

The laughter that came from the demon's serpentine throat was deep, coated with dozens of angular coals, and sounded in several voices at once from the creature's maw. Leathery, wormy skin stretched over the creature's body, flowing into scale-like outgrowths and horns that rattled as he turned to face the praying fool.