“Were you followed?” the man in the hood asked cautiously. His voice was low, hardly a whisper. Ambrose barely made out the words against the ruckus behind them. “I took the path through Maydrick’s Forest like you said, sir. I lost them at the river.” Ambrose replied. His jacket was still damp, cool to the touch. He helped himself to a napkin and dried his face. He peeled over his shoulder at drunken patrons playing pool and dancing sloppily without care. Then glanced over at the doorman—he was worried about The Suits. “Listen—” Ambrose said leaning in. His voice strained as he tried to mask it. “We’ve made a grave mistake, Silas.” His face turned to dread. “I don’t know what this is, but—“ “The only mistake was not doing it sooner, my boy.” Silas commented. “Now let’s take a look.” Ambrose opened his jacket guardedly and funneled out a small black bag. He handed it off quickly under the table, out of sight from the passing barmaid. Silas untied it and peered inside. “Where the hell did you find this?!” Silas exclaimed. He looked up at Ambrose, awestruck. Ambrose tore the bag from Silas and re-tied it swiftly. “Are you trying to get us killed?!” he threw his head over his shoulder wildly, expecting to have provoked unwanted attention. “That’s not what you were to recover!” Silas said directly, under his breath. “That’s all there was, sir!” Ambrose responded with the same degree of confusion. “THAT’S. ALL. THAT. WAS. LEFT.” Ambrose was now eye to eye with Silas. A look of strict panic draped over them both. “Do you realize what you’ve done?!” Silas was eerily frightened. Ambrose had never witnessed such terror from anyone, especially Silas. He’d done jobs in the past, with many accomplices, but Silas was his most trusted. Having been with him for over a year, he considered Silas a mentor, a father figure of sorts. Now it seemed as though Ambrose was staring into the eyes of a complete stranger. He needed to understand. “Sir, what are you saying?!” Ambrose asked. He stood from his chair as waves of frustration crashed down on him. He felt the urge to leave immediately, all-the-while not entirely sure what to do. His feet felt frozen to the floor—he went numb. “But sir, you SAID to grab—“ Ambrose started, panic-stricken. “NO! I SAID TO GRAB—“ Silas interjected piercingly. In the doorway behind them, a scuffle broke out, suppressing their exchange. Patrons flocked towards it like flies. Ambrose couldn’t make out exactly what was happening, but he knew it wasn’t good. His intuition fluttered. “Hey! Quit shovin’ you sumbitch!” a bald-headed man shouted. The shove was quickly followed by a forceful push, so forceful the heavy-set bald man went toppling head first into a pool table. His head cracked open like an egg and blood streamed from his nose like a snake. “Go! Go, boy! Run!” Silas pushed Ambrose frantically along the back wall of the tavern. “There’s an exit in the back! Go! I’ll hold them off!” Silas shouted. All hell was breaking loose. “Take the bag to Antwan! He’ll know what to do! Go!” Silas said with one final push. Ambrose made it to the back exit about to rip through and scram, but the thought of Silas quickly deferred his advancements. He stopped abruptly and furrowed his head out from the open serving hatch. His eyes sifted through the onslaught of patrons, looking for Silas. But he didn’t see him. All Ambrose could focus on were two tall, muscular men in light-blue button-up shirts wearing dark sunglasses—THE SUITS. Ambrose felt his chest tighten. His eyes widened and the initial decision to stay and fight changed instantly to get-the-hell-out-and-run. The Suits shoved and tossed bar-goers left and right, making their way in all directions of the tavern. “Fucking pigs!” A patron shouted. Glasses of half-filled beer came hurling from the back left corner of the bar. The glasses deflected off them like candy wrappers, exploding onto the floor. The tall men hardly seemed fazed. One brave patron, clearly inebriated, came forward swinging a pool stick. The attempt at any damage was foiled by a front kick to the chest that sent the man airborne into hanging dartboards. Craning his neck, Ambrose still couldn’t find Silas. Did he make a break for it? All this waiting around only slowed his escape, he knew, but Ambrose was torn. He sprawled to the swinging kitchen doors and cracked one, just enough for his face to poke through. Ambrose scanned the melee closely. Chairs were now falling in high arcing trajectories, tables were being used as shields, the sound of shattering glass bottles echoed through the tavern, and The Suits, well…they continued kicking ass and taking names. Ambrose could’ve sworn he saw someone lose an ear. Then it happened. It only took a split second, but it happened none the less. The Suits, as if drawn to the kitchen door by a sixth sense, locked their stone-walled gazes on Ambrose like heat-seeking missiles. “Shhhiiittt, no, no, no—“ Ambrose sprung from the ground like a cat and backed his way into low-hanging pots and pans. They hit the tiled flooring with an extraordinary sharpness of clings and clangs, one after another. The Suits walked robotically toward the back of the tavern, bulldozing any and all patrons between them and their destination. Some took forearm haymakers to the temple, some took violent shoves to the Adam’s apple, others just got the hell out of the way. As the Suits honed in on the kitchen, Ambrose staggered to his feet. He dashed toward the exit in an attempt to escape when— “RUN FOR IT, KID!” A towering voice bellowed through the air. Silas appeared behind The Suits. He had two rag-filled vodka bottles lit with an angry flame, one in each hand. “GO TO HELL, YOU ANIMALS!” Both arms swung down, releasing the bottles simultaneously. The tall, muscular men burst into colossal infernos. The intense blaze sent Silas back and he scurried away quickly. Ambrose was gone. He made it to the base of Maydrick’s Forest before he glanced to see if he was being tailed. He tried catching his breath, realizing he had been in a full-out sprint for more than a mile since blowing through the back door. The faint wheezing of his exhales were cast tirelessly into the air. Ambrose could feel the blood pumping back into his legs, they were heavy with exhaustion. He thought about Silas and what he told him—find Antwan. Who was Antwan? An old accomplice? He had to keep moving. Ambrose cast a final look in the direction of the hill he descended moments ago, he felt an uneasiness trickle up his spine like a spider. In the distance, dancing like glowing spotlights just below the stars, two reddish orbs approached, and fast. It couldn’t be, Ambrose thought. The trickle turned sour in his stomach. Ambrose was spent, no gas left in the tank. The short rest caused his legs to swell, making them feel ten times heavier. His lungs were shot. Ambrose had a brief thought that maybe he ought to ditch the bag, throw it into the forest with the little energy he had left. No, he thought—it was clear that whatever was in this bag was somehow paramount, no—VITAL to his enemy’s existence. What crested the hill next, Ambrose couldn’t comprehend. An absolute marvel of the worst possible outcome took shape before him. He couldn’t move. Instead of four limbs, there were eight. Instead of light-blue, skintight shirts, there was short, dark, flaming fur. And instead of the black, reflective sunglasses that met his gaze earlier, came a rabid, elongated snout fixed with jagged-tapered fangs. “Holy Mother of God.“ Ambrose stumbled backward. He stared at what he saw with such enormity his soul temporarily left his body. A cold sweat broke out down his back, soaking heavily into his waistline. The conjuring wolf-men descended the hill toward Ambrose in long, heaping strides. Their large, blazing bodies leaving tiny trails of flaming footprints. They were gaining on him. Ambrose staggered as his legs formed steps like a newborn. He braced himself against thick-rooted trees further and further down the embankment into the forest. Time was running out. As he passed a tall oak to his left, Ambrose felt two bony hands snatch his forearm, almost throwing his shoulder out of socket. His body came to a momentous halt and the weight of his one hundred eighty pound frame hit the barren canvas in a lifeless THUD! Before Ambrose could string together a thought, he was dragged down a dark opening at the base of the oak. Everything went dark. All was quiet. The first sound was the click of an over-swinging lightbulb. The brightness jolted into Ambrose’s eyes like lightning bolts and he snapped his eyelids shut furiously. “Give ‘em here, boy. QUICK!” A long, outstretched hand hung above Ambrose, blocking the light like a shadow. “Wh—what?” Ambrose was hardly conscious. He didn’t have the wherewithal to make sense of the situation, let alone move quickly enough to satisfy his captor. “The HowlStones! Give ‘em here! IN YOUR POCKET, BOY!” The constrained voice shouted impatiently. The man was wearing a dark cloak, and his hood covered everything. All Ambrose could make of the man’s face was a shallow pit of darkness. “S-Silas?” Ambrose was blinking rapidly now that the man pulled his hand away. The overhanging bulb had re-entered his hazy vision, blinding him once again. “Wait, how did you—“ As Ambrose lay, toeing the line of consciousness, the cloaked man’s lack of patience took full effect. He began to feel the faint stampede of thumps from the nearing prowlers. The Suits, he thought warily. THE BAG—GET THE BAG! He stood over Ambrose and tore open the inner part of the boy’s jacket. He padded for a lump and found the opening that housed it, producing a small black bag as his slender fingers slipped out. The man made a beeline toward a small platform sitting centrally in the bunker. Upon the platform sat a tall, skinny tube made of glass—a cylinder of sorts, that seemed to be suspended. Above the cylinder was an array of different colored buttons and latches, all flickering and flashing. Four elongated steel shafts hung narrowly between a row of buttons and fastened themselves to each corner of the square-shaped platform. The cloaked man untied the bag and began pouring the contents into the tube. It was only a matter of time before— The Suits. There must have been hundreds, perhaps thousands. The Suits, in a full-blown, four-legged dash were at war against time. It was the final act of desperation, they sensed it. They ripped through the forest without an ounce of slowing. Running as if fear itself possessed them. Their serrated claws scratched, kicked and twisted. Their howls urgent and uneasy. Faster and faster they galloped. Faster and faster they closed in. The bunker vibrated furiously. The ensuing avalanche of claws generated tremors and shakes of the most violent earthquakes. The cloaked man pressed three buttons, pulled a long lever, and the the platform shot upward, locking into place. Ambrose cracked his eyes in time to see the ceiling light up with a flurry of glittering pandemonium. The humming that followed was absolutely titanic, drowning out any notion of impending doom from their encroaching stalkers. The jittery loudness numbed all feelings of arousal. The man lowered his hood and turned toward the boy, his finger on a large red button. “You did it, boy.” said the grey-haired stranger. Ambrose, not recognizing the man, propped himself against the wall in bewilderment. Then his world went white.