If only I had bullets. I sighed and walked the length of the building, coming around to the front corner. The front door banged open and the three men came stumbling out, dragging their friend. Caspian had left his legs with deep gashes from his talons. I watched as the bleeding man was pulled from the building, a wide-eyed look of shock on his face as he left a blood trail in the grass.
Hadn’t they ever heard it’s bad to feed the animals? I chuckled as I ran to the front door, slipping inside the building. It was a big shed but a shed nonetheless. Though maybe they called something this big a barn. Barns did have animals, though probably with less pointed teeth than Caspian.
I closed the door behind me, flipped off the lights, and glided deeper into the room, my duster flapping behind me as I moved quickly.
“You people don’t learn,” Caspian called out to me from the back of the building, his voice a smooth purr. I rolled my eyes. He looked over and squinted. I flicked the brim of my hat up so that my eyes were more visible in the darkness.
Your savior is here, jackass. Instead of looking relieved, pleased, and ready to kiss my feet he crossed his arms over his chest and looked to be pouting.
“Took long enough,” he grumbled. Oh that’s right, he’s an asshole. I almost forgot.
“Was busy,” I said. He winced a little then narrowed his eyes.
“What could be more important?”
“Fucking Ava,” I said, my mouth splitting in a smile as I sauntered up to his cage. Caspian wrapped his hands around the bars and snarled at me.
“I didn’t say you could do that yet. I’m going to rip your balls off and—”
“Touch my balls…” I paused so as not to bombard his brain. “And I’ll start getting ideas.” Caspian gave me a scathing look.
“Well, well, well,” I heard Ben’s voice say from behind me. Ah fuck. I swiveled around, plunging my hand in my duster to pull out my gun. He walked in from the entraway and flicked on the light. Several more people piled in behind him, spilling into the room. Ben’s eyes went to my gun.
“Can’t say I expected that,” he said, eyes flicking back up to my face. “Not from the Mothman.” In these situations, it was best to make a lot of noise and do it fast. I thrust my wings out suddenly and flung my hands up, waving around my gun like a maniac as I rushed towards the crowd.
People were like bears. You just needed to act big and loud and they’d scramble away with their tails between their legs. I screeched, an owl-ish noise that grated. A couple of the guys looked at me wide-eyed and scrambled to the side of the shed to make way for me.
Ben stood his ground and watched with wide eyes of interest as I came up closer to him. I stopped a foot from his face and screeched louder, unrolling my tongue from my mouth and making it wiggle around like a worm on a hook.
That usually got people to back down but he just stood there looking like he just met his hero. I deflated a little and then waved my gun around more, screeching a tiny bit again. He did nothing and I huffed.
“Amazing,” Ben said. “You know, I’ve been trying to capture you for a very long time.” He had a big smile spread across his face. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“My guy, Loren, could never quite get you though. I’m guessing he died trying at least, since I found all his men dead on the New River Bridge. Took quite some time hiding those bodies. Is Loren dead too?” He wanted me to tell him? Okay. I started calling him all sorts of names. He winced a little but then smiled up at me when I stopped talking, confused as to how the fuck he wasn’t bleeding from his ears.
Damnit, Loren hadn’t either. They must have figured something else. Or maybe they just inbred themselves stupid. Who knew?
“Disaster approaches and your blood will spill on the earth,” I boomed. Might as well scare the shit out of the fucker.
“Wow, the God of Doom. It’s true.” I looked around at the others in the room, realizing that I was fucked six ways to Sunday. “You’ve always been my favorite monster. You know why? Because of all the stories. There are legends of you going back to the first people in these mountains. I have them. I have everything on you I could find.” He leaned back and shoved his hands in his pockets, looking me over with a big smile.
“There’s this plant you can use the bark of to make a nasty tea. Makes you sick as a dog but helps a little, to protect your mind. Or so it was said in some of those old accounts. Nice to know it was worth all the bellyache.”
“Wow, that is so interesting,” I told him. Then I turned to his buddy and yelled as loud as I could in his head. The man screamed as his eyes burst like confetti poppers. He fell to his knees, blood trailing down his cheeks as he wailed in horrified agony.
“Guesshedidn’t have the tea,” I said to Ben.
“Quick!” he snapped and the others ran at me. I waved my gun around and they backed off but after a moment they must have realized I wasn’t going to shoot because they barreled forth again. I grabbed a can of food from a shelf and tossed it at one of them. It banged them in the head but didn’t do much else.
A moment later I was taken down, my face pressed down into the wood. I yelled inside the head of the guy holding me and his hands left my body as he wailed in agony.
“I didn’t want to do this,” Ben said. His knee dug into my back before I could get up. Something sharp stabbed into my neck. Cold pressed into my body and my head instantly swam. Ben got up and watched me wobble around on my hands and knees, making my way towards Caspian’s cage. He looked at me in concern as I flopped on the ground next to him, wrapping my hand around a bar.
“We want to worship you, Mothman. We want to make you a god again. Both of you,” Ben said fervently. I looked up at Caspian from the ground, unable to move my body. “We could have used guns but we didn’t. Isn’t that all the proof you need to know we don’t want to hurt you?”
“You attacked us. You have me in a cage,” Caspian seethed. “What did you give him?” Caspian asked, eyes flicking back down to me. Was the little guy actually concerned about me? If I wasn’t about to pass out I might have had to give him a kiss.
“I injected him with the same bark I make the mind protective tea from. I don’t think a sedative would work on him and I can’t have him killing anyone who hasn’t protected their minds yet. I wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t forced my hand. He should be fine. And with you? We were only defending ourselves.”
