THE WARLOCK'S FRIEND - Sample Chapters

Chapter 2 - Part 2

Heldor pulled out a Bowie knife that had previously been sheathed to his calf, ran after the beast, ducking several fast, whipping motions of its jaws and horns by dropping to the floor and sliding. Using the momentum which he'd thrown into the slide, he jabbed the tip of the blade into the first carotid artery. The blood gushed. As the stream fell back on the creature's face, so it blinded him in the right eye. Heldor used that blind spot to come up on it and target the carotid artery on the other side of its neck. With both geysers flowing, the creature's range of vision was even more curtailed, even if he hadn't slowed much. The geysers were rapidly dwindling in force, and he didn't think it was on account of the creature running out of blood. More like rapid clotting mechanisms; definitely a cool adaptation. 

Heldor jumped on its back, and repeatedly plunged the knife into its eyes, one, then the other, twisting both times.  

Now completely blind, the creature paradoxically expanded its radius of destruction. Not seeing anymore, it was enough to charge any direction from which sound was coming. Heldor's own scant weight had yet to be detected by the beast. Instead he just took out some more tavern regulars. As it turned out, he didn't need his deadly jaws at all. All he had to do was tackle them sideways to turn them into paste against the wall, as if the proprietor had taken a sudden liking for Jackson Pollock inspired paintings, providing they were done in blood and guts.  

Heldor crawled his way under the beast, using his matted fur for handholds until he was in position to make a go for its heart. Jabbing between the ribs with the knife forcefully and quickly-using those enhanced reflexes, which weren't exactly Damian good, but still pretty good-he got the heart out, watched it beat in his hands. Feeling triumphant, he was soon made the fool. The creature must have had two hearts, not one, as all it did was detect the intruder on his person which had previously gone unnoticed. And that wasn't good news for Heldor. 

The creature flung him off and against the wall so hard that Heldor was impaled on one of the hooks meant for hanging things other than live meat. 

Damian moved in the blink of an eye to position himself between Heldor and the beast. It was the first time he'd demonstrated that this was anything more than an amusing sideshow for him. Damian's hypnotic eyes slowed the creature, making him sluggish, but only slightly less temperamental. 

"Little help here?" Heldor moaned. 

"What do you think I'm doing?" 

"Trying to hypnotize a creature with no eyes." 

"It's more of a mind meld thing." 

"Hook in back, not good for the living," Heldor managed somewhat breathlessly. 

Damian glanced back at him. 

"Look on the bright side; now everyone has to look up to you." 

Heldor, impatient, used his legs to put Damian's neck in a scissor's hold, snapped his neck, as he used the leverage to lift himself off the hook and back onto the floor.  

Damian un-snapped his neck. "Your friendly embrace leaves something to be desired." 

The beast lunged for Heldor, pinned him to the ground, drooling. The cavity of its fanged mouth was larger than Heldor's head. 

"I bet you wish you'd stayed where you were now, with that hook in your back." 

Damian continued speaking, this time in his spell casting voice, in what sounded like Liturgical Latin, his words every bit as hypnotic as his eyes. The beast struggled to shake it off as if hit by chloroform, then bounded through the opening it had made earlier into the forest.