Murphy stood in the filthy intersection of West 57th and Bloom Streets, in the midst of a ring of four very starving, slavering ghouls, fending them off as best he could with his cross and holy water. The good news for him was they wouldn’t eat him alive; they only could ingest cold corpse flesh.
The three cavalry wasted no time in attacking, as three growls echoed down the street as they leaped to assault the undead. Kylie began her attack with crossbow bolts, though she soon discarded it, instinctively favoring her developing claws.
The battle was short and decisive. The surviving ghoul fled in anguish, not willing to be cut and burned as her fellow corpse-eaters had been.
Murphy appeared to be fine. “Um…thanks. Sorry about…”
It was not Nathan or Veronica, but Kylie who cut him off with a deep growl. “Let’s just finish our debt,” and motioned with a black-nailed hand for Murphy to lead on.
They returned to the pickup truck, and got it going once more. As hey drove, Kylie inspected her changing body in the side view mirror. Her upper lip had developed a cleft, along with slowly budding whiskers. Her eyes were now completely feline, and her dull hair was developing a lustrous pattern of black and orange from the roots out. Slight points of her ears poked from the thickening mane of hair/fur. She ran a tongue along sharper teeth, and opened her mouth to bare slowly building fangs. She inspected her nails and hands, finding peach-fuzz fur and short, but sharp, demi-claws.
The true test was her leg. It throbbed, but with a dulled pain. The tiger fur was growing over all her skin, save the jagged scar. It remained defiantly discolored.
She looked inward, and felt the soothing paws and tongue of the Tigress, lapping at her wounds she’d carried alone for so long. She felt herself healing, inside and out. Still, the Hellhound was also a part of her, yet while the Tigress worked for synthesis, the beast struggled with the Tigress for dominance. Kylie never thought she’d see the day, but she hoped she’d end up a lycanthrope.
“This is it,” Murphy called out.
Kylie broke from her revelry, and looked out to see Murphy’s infested HQ.
Thu Aug 8 08:53:39 2002