_troubleman_ (_troubleman_) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-11-10 21:23:00 |
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Entry tags: | npc, rob corrigan |
Hooves and Hands
Who: Rob Corrigan, NPCs
Where: Outskirts of Henderson
What: Fubar
When: The Creatures Plot
Rating: Some violence
Past midnight on a Wednesday, Henderson was the equivalent of a dead zone. Most people who lived close by had normal day jobs and were asleep by midnight or one AM, so the nondescript blue car that rolled down the street was the only vehicle around at that hour. The car was Rob’s, but Cal was driving so that the older hunter could keep an eye out. Since the encounter with the werewolves a few months ago, he’d done some shopping to give his group more of an advantage, and more of a chance to get out of a fight unhurt. They were also probably the only residence on his block that got army surplus catalogs.
“Here. We do a sweep, whatever cleanup is necessary.”
Rob put his cigarette out in the ashtray before climbing out of the car, his height giving him a good look at the street over the Buick’s roof. He wondered if he shouldn’t have called Rhiannon by now, let her know he was in the area, had discarded the idea. Tasha might have said something by now, and if his cousin wanted to follow up, she could do so on her own time.
The trunk opened, and the four of them began to get sorted for weapons. He’d been gradually teaching what he thought of as the new kids to use both blades and bows, was working his way up to guns. Injuries happened, but the last thing any hunter wanted was to get someone killed.
“Radio silence unless we’re out of sight from each other. The grid map is almost finished, but there’s plenty of cracks to hide in. The last time we were out here, we almost got flanked.”
Taking the lead, Rob started off in a southeast direction, away from the car, and after a minute he heard the trunk close, Sarah and Cal trailing after him a few feet behind, Nicky taking up the rear. They would split off half a block down, sweep four or five blocks, regroup at the burned-out mattress warehouse before starting off again. He’d put a black X on his map back at the house to signify it. The night was calm and cool, the sky above dotted with tiny scudding clouds.
It was the sound of hooves on pavement that got his attention first, a clip-clopping noise in the silence, and the hairs on the back of Rob’s neck lifted in warning. Not quite the same as when he sensed a shifter or vampire, but similar enough. His left hand rubbed at the spot closest to his collar, an itch he was trying to scratch.
The streetlights had been on for hours by then, the short days meaning the city turned on the electricity at an earlier hour, and when the white sodium glare glinted off of horns, he blinked into the quiet between him and...whatever that was.
It was tall, taller than him by a good foot, the horns adding height. Moving at a fast walk, it was looking from right to left as if lost, maybe disoriented. Rob opened his lightweight jacket with his right hand, touched the butt of his gun. Was that a bull walking on two legs? He could see the ring in its nose now, something that looked like a tattoo on its bare chest. Maybe not a tattoo, it might have been a brand.
“Rob, what is that?”
“I...don’t know.”
Cal had caught up with him, and he stepped to the left to give himself room. It was better to go with ‘I don’t know’, because he’d never seen anything like it. The back of his neck felt like he had ants crawling into his shirt. He’d half-pulled the gun, finished the motion when the man-bull-thing looked his way. Its eyes were big and gold-colored, almost without pupil. The nose ring quivered when it let out a chuffing noise, and he imagined he saw steam escaping from enlarged nostrils.
“Humans…”
The word was audible, intelligible, but there was something under that which was decidedly not normal. It sounded hungry, and the impression was compounded when the bull-man dropped to all fours, hooves scraping against the asphalt. Rob instinctively gave Cal a push, his free hand colliding with the younger hunter’s shoulder to move him several steps to the left, and the thing charged, hooves and hands working together for added momentum. Rob just narrowly managed to avoid being run down, one of the horns leaving a rip in his jacket sleeve.
“What is that?!?!”
That was Sarah, who had almost reached them in the interim, and she dove for cover behind a parked car as the bull zoomed past her, moving way too fast for any farm animal. This was her first night with a firearm, and she took a shot that pinged off of its shoulder and ricocheted into the dark. There was a clatter of hooves and a snarl, and she ground her teeth as she peered around the car’s bumper.
“I don’t know!”
Rob yelled it back, having to raise his voice to be heard over the thing’s bellow. He could just see Nicky and Cal, who’d taken up the same point near the corner, and he pulled in a deep breath. He was in charge, and they were looking to him to lead. He was still a Corrigan.
The bull-man paced off some distance as the hunter moved further into view, and he wished he’d brought a shotgun because handguns might not put down a thing that big. The ring in the creature’s nose glinted under the streetlight, and Rob had the antsy feeling as sweat slipped down the back of his neck despite the relative chill.
The noise his revolver made was very loud in the silence, and the man-bull let out a noise that was, again, almost human as a red flower bloomed on its large shoulder. His ears were ringing with it as he stumbled backwards in the face of its rush, boot heels slamming against the road and then the concrete sidewalk. He yelled as his back made hard contact with a brick wall, and his jacket snagged on the rough surface as he let his knees sag. The sharp horns struck sparks against the brick, and Rob tried to get his breath. That close, it smelled like sulfur, though he might have been imagining it.
More shots, a short volley, and Cal and Sarah were taking their best aim as the whatever-it-was snarled, muscles bunching as it wheeled, striking more sparks like flint in a lighter. Metal hooves? Maybe. Couldn’t be weirder than anything else. His right foot lashed out towards the thing’s knee (or where a knee would normally have been), and he tucked and rolled as the bull-man flailed backwards with one much-too-human hand. It glanced off his upper back, and he lost his breath again, but managed to get clear.
Rob reclaimed his gun from where it had fallen when he crashed into the wall, and he joined in on the shooting as he saw Nicky beginning to reload. And he’d been right, handguns weren’t enough. The man-bull was bleeding in two or three places - four, five as Sarah and Cal got a lucky shot each - but it was still up and snarling, the gold eyes bright with rage. It charged straight at Nicky, clearly having decided it had had enough, and Rob yelled the other hunter’s name in a warning. There was a pained yell, then a scream as the younger man landed hard on his right arm.
The clattering of hooves died away into silence after a minute, and Rob knew he’d have some delightful bruises tomorrow, ones in all colors. He prodded around on his chest with his unoccupied hand, and that stink was still in his nose, the back of his throat. He spat once, then twice, wishing for some water.
“Is everybody still alive?”
“I...think so?”
“My arm’s busted. I can feel it.”
Nicky was cradling the injured limb to his chest when Rob came to stand close to him, and his teeth were clenched around the pain. But his eyes were clear, no shock in their depths. He carefully helped him to his feet, picked up the abandoned firearm with his free hand. They’d gone far enough to the outskirts that even if the shots had been heard, the cops would be a while getting to the scene. They’d have to make up some kind of story for the Urgent Care people, see about pain meds. At least if Nicky would agree to take them. One thing about all hunters, bloodline or otherwise, they made terrible patients.
He thought about Rhiannon as the bruised lot of them made their slow way back to the car, if his cousin already knew. She wasn’t aware he was around unless Tasha had mentioned it, and he didn’t know if he was ready to deal with her yet. But she would need to know, because where there was one, there were always more. Even if they weren’t all bull-men, she’d have to be on the lookout. Maybe he could deal with her just that much.