Border, KS

Walter cursed and spun, gun still in his hands as the two other Eisenhund advanced from the shadows. They were slightly smaller than their leader, but that still left them more than large enough to be scary as hell. “What was in here?” Walter asked as he trained his pistol on the advancing beasts.

“Some things we didn’t want the bad guys to get.” Tania answered as she stepped up beside him, her blade glowing lightly in the dim room. She seemed to have recovered from her shock at seeing the beasts, as did Morgan—the doctor stepped up next to Walter’s daughters, who seemed more than happy to shrink behind the woman in light of the advancing predators.

As they got closer and Walter had a chance to see them, he could see that what adorned their front haunches and head was not unadorned iron, or randomly rusted. The rust swirled in patterns of triskelions and knots that screamed ‘Celtic’ to him, and it would almost be pretty if it wasn’t attached to a snarling death beast advancing on him.

“Do the designs mean anything?” Walter asked as they all took slow steps back.

“In the iron?” Morgan asked, drawing a nod out from Walter. “It’s the magic that creates them and gives them their immunity. But shooting it won’t help.” That drew a long suffering sigh from the man.

“Is shooting things ever going to be really effective again? Because it’s kind of my wheelhouse.” He says as he eyed the advancing beasts.

“I’ll let you know.” Morgan murmured softly. “We still have the one trying to come up behind us and ambush us, right?” She asked, her voice almost conversationally light as they kept on a slow retreat.

“Yep. If I leave one for you and Tania can you stab it with your steely knives?” Walter asked and quoted.

“We can kill the beast.” Morgan agreed with a nod, and a little smirk. But then her face went serious, and she spared him more of a searching glance. “What are you planning on doing?” She asked. Walter reached down and grabbed one of the loose rocks strewn across the floor, and tried to give Morgan a reassuring smile.

“Ain’t no stupid like Border stupid.” Walter offered wryly. “Just…come and save my ass, alright?” He asked, to which she nodded. Walter turned back to the two advancing Eisenhund, and chucked the rock at one of them. Before the rock even hit he had his pistol up and fired two shots at the rear legs of the second dog, the bullets punching heavily into the unprotected flesh and staggering the beast. The rock hit the first one with a low resounding ring, and both of their heads turned to stare at him exclusively. “Go!” He shouted, before he followed his own instructions and took off running at a perpendicular angle from the hounds.

He didn’t see what Morgan and Tania did, because before he had even taken four steps the dogs were howling their fury and pounding after him. They sounded like a rolling armory, the flesh and metal banging against one another in a never-ending clank! But he had judged right, and they were far slower than magical hunting dogs should be because of all of the iron clad about them.

That only meant that they were really tremendously fast. Walter could say honestly, if challenged, that he did lift (bro)—he wasn’t slow, but he wasn’t supernaturally fast either. By the time that he got to one of the first low pedestals and vaulted over it the dogs were close enough that he could smell them. By the time he got to the second obstacle and launched himself over it they were close enough he could feel the fetid heat of their breath.

One of the dogs lunged at him, and it was only dropping in to a roll that saved him from the gnashing iron teeth. He could see them as he rolled, and when he came back up to his feet he had spun and brought his pistol back up to bear.

He was about to yell an expletive at the top of his lungs and then probably be reduced to so much chunky salsa when he heard a war cry come from off to the side. “WHAAA-PAAA!” It wasn’t exactly the best war cry, and he recognized it as Antigone. A second later she flew in to the vision from his side, throwing a petite shoulder in to one of the dog’s sides a split second before Siobhan did the same for the other one.