* * * * *
"What in the name of...?" I started to exclaim.
Only for Tobias Blair to cut me off.
"Drop the tommy gun, doctor, or your little friend becomes...Shishka Bob."
The heartless way he chuckled as he said that had the opposite effect on me. I raised the tommy gun higher!
"You're the Tatar! Aren't you?"
"So, Schmidt told you about me, eh? An astute diagnosis, doc! My current employers thought it a fitting alias, as it comes from a Manchu word meaning 'nomadic archer.' "
"An American, working for the Communists? I don't believe it!"
"You'd better believe I'll make good on my original threat if you don't deposit your weapon on the ground, right now. Slowly! And, then, just as slowly back away from it. Hands in the air!"
Reluctantly, I did as instructed.
"At least tell me how Bob got this way," I demanded.
"He simply passed out from the pain he was going through. I immediately knelt down to feel his pulse and see if he was still alive. Before I could do so, though, he shrank! Right down to his present size!! Then, I heard the gunfire from the girls' camp. Thinking it might be some of those viragos coming this way, I improvised some distracting bait for them. Imagine my delight at seeing it was you...and my quarry!"
"However formidable you might be with that bow," I said: "...you only have time to shoot the one arrow you presently have nocked. Kill her, as you obviously intend, and I have time to dive for the tommy gun and avenge her death. Kill me first, to prevent that, and she has time to flee back towards her captors (who want her alive)!"
Tobias Blair grinned without mirth as he slowly turned towards Anna Stepwicz. Not only aiming the arrow at her. But, simultaneously showing off the hatchet (sheathed on the right side of his belt) that he was armed with, as well.
"The Apaches also taught me about tomahawk throwing. A demonstration of which I'll give you as soon as I'm done with _her_!"
I looked at the trees behind him.
"HE might have a different opinion."
"Oh, really, doc. That one's older than Sir Anthony!"
"Yet, none-the-less true," growled a raspy voice.
What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion. Tobias Blair turned his head, and instinctively gasped as he beheld Theo Wisemann (still in werewolf form) charging straight towards him! The former quickly altered his aim and let fly the arrow he'd intended for Grand Duchess Anastasia. But, it completely missed the latter and lodged in the tree behind him. Forcing the renegade archery instructor to reach for his hatchet.
By the time he had unsheathed it, though, Tobias Blair was flat on his back. With the werewolf consequently tearing out his throat! And, with the assassin's high-pitched death scream ending with a most sickening gurgle.
That's when two more joined the party. More specifically; a pair of Buru-nagas in their bipedal varanid form. Each one armed with a javelin made of some kind of gray tree bark...and tipped with some kind viscuous liquid substance.
I shouted to Wisemann to look out! Yet, even as he turned to face them, one of the viragos threw her javelin straight at him!
And, it went straight through his upper torso.
I dived for the tommy gun at once. Somersaulting into a firing position, and opening up fusillade that destroyed the javelin thrower's throat! Her comrade moved to retaliate, in like fashion to Father Wisemann's death. But, fortunately for me...
...Sir Anthony had caught up to us by that point.
He instantly opened up with both Colt revolvers! Their blessed ammunition lodging in the second virago's throat in like fashion to the first. He then holstered the revolver in his right hand, so he could go over to the tree from which Little Bob was still dangling. Taking him--arrow and all--over to Anna Stepwicz. Requesting, in fluent German, if she would look after him for the time being.
Meanwhile, I hurriedly knelt down beside Theo Wisemann (who had subsequently regained his human form).
"Is there anything I can do, padre?"
He shook his head.
"Fire-hardened...Ceylon...ironwood. Tip-dipped...in mixture...of aconite...and their own...bile! As...inimical...to werewolves...as silver...bullets. "
He pointed to the shell casings, from the tommy gun, strewn on the ground about me. Following which...
...he died.
"I'm sorry, Peter," Sir Anthony remarked: "But, we've no time to mourn him. We must be off. Now!"
I grimly nodded. But, as if to contradict us, a pair of giant, greenish-black, clawed hands suddenly parted the foliage above us! And, the mirthlessly grinning countenance of the snake giantess Meleusina looked down upon us as she replied:
"Au contraire, mon petites! This soiree has just begun!"
tbc
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
CAMP NEW HOPE,
MANISTIQUE COUNTY, MICHIGAN
JULY 1, 1921
MANISTIQUE COUNTY, MICHIGAN
JULY 1, 1921
Chapter End Notes:
Special note: "aconite" is the chemical name for the hallucinogenic sap of the wolfsbane plant. Just in case some of you out there aren't fans of Lon Chaney, Jr. or Benicio DelToro.