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kept rising and rising until the very roots of the mountain threatened to crack. |
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Behind them, the goateed man stood as still as a concrete statue. He had never heard his masteror any human being, for that matterscream like that. At that point the wolf released its hold on the witch doctor's face and the Dark Man turned and looked back over his shoulder. His face was hardly recognizable anymore. Gore from his mutilated eye oozed down over the tattoos like tears on a dirty window. A huge flap of skin hung down from his right cheek like a piece of bloody caul. The man's remaining eye swept the cavern until it found his apprentice. |
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"Ricardomy friendhelp me!" |
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The goateed man couldn't reply; he could hardly believe his eyes. His invulnerable master was being devoured by a demon and he was too terrified to remember a single charm or spell of protection. His eyes went to the sword in his hand and he dropped it like a leper's handshake. |
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"Ricardo!" the Dark Man screamed. "Please!" |
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Then the wolf snarleda horrible, grating noise like two boulders grinding against one anotherand sank its teeth into the Hungan's neck, burrowing and ripping into the soft flesh under the man's chin. The Dark Man shuddered once, then twitched and moaned until at last, as if tiring of the human's puny struggles, the wolf ripped open the man's chest and plunged its snout into it. After a few seconds of snorting and rooting around like a pig hunting truffles, the beast came out with the man's black heart clutched in its teeth, tilted its shaggy head back and swallowed the organ whole. |
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At this, the goateed man pulled his father's gun from under his coat and started backing away. |
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The wolf dropped the Hungan's body. And turned to the Dark Man's assistant. |
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The burning gaze of the werewolf was deep and cold and full of menace. It didn't threaten painful death, it promised it. In a place of the dead it was the face of death. |
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