I felt something cold touch my back. The chill spread to my arms and legs in two heartbeats and I found I couldn’t move. I tried to yell for Gail’s help, but my tongue was frozen. There was a swirling blackness in my vision and I thought I was passing out.
The swirling darkness lightened and I was running through a dark forest with a group of Native Americans carrying spears and torches. It only took a second for me to realize that whatever this was, it wasn’t real. I still couldn’t move, but my body was moving. Confusing, right, well it made even less sense when my hands moved into my field of view. I saw that my left hand, the one holding the torch, was as brown as the men around me. I nearly panicked then, but it’s really hard to panic when you can’t control your own body … or whoever’s body I was occupying.
I tried to remain calm and decided that as long as I treated it like a dream; I shouldn’t have to worry about my sanity. If I weren't dreaming, then Gail would be coming to the rescue shortly, at least I hoped she would be.
My view changed rapidly as we burst into the open under a full moon. Tall grasses covered much of the field that stretched for hundreds of yards in front of us. There was a commotion to one side and then a scream of pain. The men around me spread out; all of us raised our spears.
Shit, a man was down with something monstrous and furry on top of him. My own arm drew back and then shot forward, hurling the spear into the beast. It howled and spun around. Regardless of it being a dream or not, fear shook me, we faced something akin to the werewolves I’d fought so successfully and so recently. But this creature was bigger, having to weigh at least three hundred pounds and would stand nearly seven feet high, if it ever stood fully erect.
It snarled and reached for the spear point that protruded from its chest. Another spear slammed into the beast’s reaching arm. It missed the bone, passed through the flesh of the left forearm, and logged in its chest next to the first shaft.
I’d been wrong about them being spears. They were more like harpoons for each spear hilt had a length of rope attached to it. As soon as the second harpoon was embedded in the beast, my hands gripped the rope that trailed from my own spear and pulled hard. The beast spun as I pulled him around and two more harpoons pierced the creature’s torso and right thigh.
It howled in pain and anger and its free hand slashed down. Its enormous claws shattered the shaft of the harpoon that was lodged in its middle, but before it could smash the other shafts; another of the hunting party ran forward and stabbed another harpoon through its hand. The beast howled again and lunged at the brazen hunter. The others pulled hard against their ropes and dragged the beast from its feet.
Two more hunters danced darted forward and plunged their harpoons through the beast’s upper arms, pinning each of them to the earth. Howling and snarling the beast snapped at the shafts holding him down.
My body moved in and I heard metal clinking together at my waist. When my hands came into view, I held bracelets. In a flash of realization, I saw they were the ones Gail had found in the basement storeroom.
Someone else stabbed a harpoon through the beast’s mouth, pinning its head to the ground. Still the monster fought. I slipped one of the bracelets over its left hand. The bracelets were already fastening together by the small chain. It was a struggle for three men to pull the harpoon point out of the beast’s right hand and hold it still enough for me to get the bracelet over its hand.
The two bracelets glowed briefly and shrunk about the wrists of the werewolf. An instant passed and it ceased its struggles. Its body shook and began to change. Astonishingly, the bracelets made it revert to its human form.
Within half a minute, a naked man lay at our feet. The transformation was just like the ones I’d seen in dead werewolves. I had expected to see another of these brown-skinned natives, but instead this man was more than six feet tall and broad at the shoulders where his red hair mingled with a red beard.
The man I occupied said something and the hunters yanked their harpoons out of the man’s body. Blood continued to pump from the massive wounds for another minute, but then slowed and as I watched, the wounds began to close.
There was another order from the man I occupied and two of the others gripped the northman's hands, pulled them over his head, and held his arms against the ground. For the first time, I saw that the man wore a ring on his left hand. It was his only jewelry.
My ride stepped forward and now I saw that I held an obsidian blade with an antler hilt. I knelt beside the man and brought the knife down in a quick movement. Three fingers of the man’s right hand were shorn off.
I wiped the blade off in the tall grass and returned it to my belt. I picked up the one finger with the ring. I slipped the ring off the stump and then tossed the finger to the ground. I held the ring in front of my torch and could see it was a gold band with the figure of a wolf molded into its circumference.
Blackness swirled across my vision and I was swept away.
I staggered and nearly dropped to the carpeted floor.
Gail was facing away from me. I wondered how much time had passed while I was having my little out of body experience.
Then the specter began to
