She highly doubted it was a Bigfoot. They preferred to stay in the woods. Bigfoot rarely strayed from those areas. Occasionally if they were starving you might find one in a rural area. There were no documented cases of Bigfoot in the city.
She could do a seeing spell. It took time and a lot of ingredients. Harley thought it would be easier to just hide somewhere and wait for the creature to come back.
One of the salesmen stayed behind with her. She asked to view the video tapes they had been taking. There was no video showing the creature.
At least Mike was interesting to talk to. He was about Harley’s age, married with four children. His wife was a nurse. She had one of those 24-hour shifts. She worked two days straight, then had four days off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was after midnight before they heard anything. The sound of crunching metal was unmistakable.
“Mike, maybe you should stay here. Call 911 if I don’t come back or you hear screams.”
Harley was trying to act nonchalant. She had no idea what she was facing, she really didn’t want to get a civilian killed.
“Okay. I’ll stay here if you think its best.”
“I do.”
As soon as Harley cleared the door she drew one of her daggers. The morning after they enchanted the blades, the daggers had shown up as life-sized tattoos down the inside of each of her arms.
The sound of crunching metal was coming from the outer edge of the lot. Harley walked slowly in that direction. The boots she had chosen were soft soled, so she was able to walk without making any noise.
I need more training, she thought. Maybe Meyers didn’t have such a bad idea. She didn’t want to be a cop; however, she could use more training. It never hurt to have more training.
Arriving at the edge of the lot, she soon realized the sound was coming from farther back. It was coming from behind the main building. Much farther back.
A line of fear ran down her back causing goose bumps to appear down her arms. Harley drew the other dagger. Whatever was back there was big and possibly bad. Very bad.
Approaching the back with caution, Harley swallowed a scream as she saw what was ripping up the cars.
It was utterly unbelievable. The creature looked like it was a cross between a hyena and a bear. The fur was thicker along its back and red-brown. It was easily five or six-foot-tall on all four paws.
The beast probably weighed more than she originally guessed. The fur on the rest of its body was slick like a coon dog’s and she could see the rippling muscles as it tore the bumper off another car.
Its jaws were massive. The lower jaw protruding slightly longer than the upper jaw. Massive canines showing on either side. It almost looked prehistoric.
The muzzle was a deep brown, and its eyes were nearly glowing orange. It hadn’t spotted Harley yet. The creature was too busy chewing the bumper it had just torn off.
She crept around behind an oversized truck. Peering around the edge of the truck to watch it. She had to come up with a plan and fast. Harley made a mental note to make a bandolier style potion holder.
The minutes crept by as the creature chewed on the bumper of the car it had ripped off. It seemed oddly content right now. She still had no viable plan. Not knowing what the creature was, she didn’t know what kind of spell to cast against it.
One possible downfall to magic. Knowing what you were dealing with made it far easier to cast the right spell. She always tried defensive spells first; however, she was not opposed to casting offensive spells.
Harley liked living, and she planned to do it for a very long time. If that meant casting a spell that would hurt whatever was attacking her, then so be it.
Hearing a noise behind her, she whipped around and saw Mike coming from the side of the building, a flashlight in his hands.
“Hey, are you alright?” He called.
Harley screamed, “NO!”
It was too late. The creature heard Mike and launched itself at him. It covered the ground between them with supernatural speed.
Harley barely had time to get half way there before it pounced on top of Mike. Mike screamed putting his hands up to try and defend himself.
She heard bones crunch. By the time, she reached the back of the beast Mike stopped screaming. A wet gurgling sound filled the night air, just as Harley drove the magical daggers into the beast’s hind flank.
It growled at her and turned its muzzle to see what was attacking it. Blood dripped down from the protruding teeth. Harley didn’t know what else to do. She used a spell to send an electrical current down her arms and into the dagger as she struck the beast again.
This time the beast howled and took off. Harley quickly kneeled beside Mike. She tried to cover the gaping hole in his throat. The blood gurgling out and spilling over her hands and onto the parking lot.
She applied pressure to the wound, hoping she could slow it down long enough to get an ambulance there. Harley took one hand away long enough to get her cell phone out, dial 911 and put it on speaker phone.
“911 operator, what’s your emergency.”
“I have a man severely wounded by an animal attack at the Green County auto sales. We are in the back, behind the building.
“The animal got his throat. Can you please hurry?”
Harley was surprised at the calmness in her voice. She was anything but calm, as Mike’s life essence
