Chương 12: Coyote
The Atlantic Inn was a quaint little pub on Peverell Terrace in the Cornish town of Porthleven. The weekend afternoon sun was high in the clear blue sky, sitting comfortably one of the benches outside, Harry slowly took a gulp of his beer while looking at the burner phone he had bought to complete his coverup as a Muggle.
Behind him a group of half a dozen men and women laughed joyously, drinking beer, and eating some lunch. The pub was quite full, tourists having come down in the summer months to enjoy a warm day.
But Harry kept his senses alert, hearing honed upon the conversation of those behind him as he dismissively scrolled through his phone, pretending to busy. So far, everything he had heard was of little importance. A few hints here and there as to possible inner workings of the Werewolf Pack stationed here in Cornwall, but most of it had just been idle chatter between friends.
It was then that the Werewolves all seemed to receive a message at the same time. "Fuck sake!" And more than a few did not like the contents of said message.
"Damnit, again. Why the fuck is Derek so interested in that fucking thing anyway?" One man cursed out angrily.
Harry took special note of the conversation when he heard Derek's name. Croaker had known quite a bit about the Hale Pack in America, a centuries old Pack of Werewolves that had formed soon after the American War of Independence. They were an old and powerful Pack, though had apparently been almost completely wiped out after their home had gone up in flames and those had survived been picked off one-by-one.
There had only been two known survivors, Peter and his nephew, Derek, though neither had been seen or heard from in many years. This was the first reported sighting of them since their Packs destruction and it seemed they had gone completely unnoticed with all the problems that had happened in recent years.
Derek was the highest target in the war against the Werewolves at this moment in time. Fenrir hadn't been seen since he led the attack of Magical Warsaw when declaring war on the entirety of Europe, but he hadn't been seen since.
However, it was heavily suspected that he was still there.
As a result, considering the information they had, Derek was the highest priority target in the British warfront. Therefore, any and all information on him was of the highest priority. "I heard its 'cos there's something special about the coyote anyway."
"Yeah, heard that too, doesn't mean it's not pissing me off." The first man complained once more. "Every time we find it, we chase it for hours on end and each time the slippery fuck gets away and then, Derek's pissed at us again like always."
One woman just rolled her eyes in irritation at the man. "Will you stop whining like a baby and just shut up."
"You're only saying that because you want to fuck him." The man shot back, referring to Derek and the woman didn't deny it. "All I'm saying – "
"– Just shut up with that shit will you, we've heard it all before." Another man spoke up, finishing off the last bits of his pint. "I overheard Derek and a few of those Wizards talking about an Alpha coming from overseas with nearly two hundred men. All of them Betas."
"You're kidding. An Alpha and two hundred Betas all for a society that's still recovering from a war?"
"Heard the boss, you know the big boss has some serious grudges with Britain, don't know what. But yeah, all of them Betas." The man continued. "Sounds to me like this will be over quicker than we thought. Let's get out of here before Derek gets really pissed at us."
And as the group slowly got to their feet and meandered down the streets, Harry waited, his mind playing over everything he had just heard.
There wasn't a lot of answers, everything he had heard only providing more questions, but he had some answers. It seemed, from the phrasing of it, there seemed to be more than one Alpha, a worrying thought. On top of that, it seemed the phrase Beta referred to the elites of the Werewolf forces.
That in turn raised the question of what to consider the others.
Either way, it seemed that things would become more dangerous and chaotic in Britain. He needed to find out as much as he could, and that included why they were after this coyote? What was so special about this coyote that Derek was so interested in it?
Finishing off his pint, he left the glass there before getting up out of his seat and turning left down the Peverell Terrace road and heading down to Salt Cellar Hill towards the Harbour Road. They were quite a distance in front of him to the point he could barely make them out, but that was fine.
He already had a tracking charm placed on them so even if he lost sight of them, he'd be able to follow them wherever they went.
-X- Line Break -X-
Flying through the air under a Disillusionment Charm, Harry turned his broom and swerved down into the treeline and as the Werewolves exited their cars on a nearby dirt track. He was seeing quite a few cars, more than two dozen parked there which told him that if they were all belonging to the Pack then their numbers were far higher than originally believed.
Even if they weren't all filled up with people, it was still a large number.
So, upon dismounting, he covered himself in a number of silencing and scent supressing charms before putting on his Invisibility Cloak. Slowly following behind them through the forest, he took note of the hunting rifles each of them carried and he internally wondered as to how they got them. He knew that gun control was strict in Britain, so he had to wonder where their supply lines were.
If he could cripple them, then that would mean that their Muggle soldiers would be without weapons, making his job much easier.
The only threats then would be if he fought them under a Full Moon – something Harry was going to ensure to avoid at all times – and the Wizards and Witches who had been turned. They could be dangerous both in and out of the Full Moon, but Harry was confident in dealing with them.
It was then as they moved deeper into the wooden area that they heard the sound of gunshots in the distance. Everyone tensed up, including Harry, but the Werewolves recovered quickest, rushing forwards towards the epicentre of the sounds.
"There it is!" One exclaimed, Harry turning to look where the man was pointing and seeing a quadrupedal, wolf-like animal bound across the floor. Dirt, grass, and tree trunks all around bursting open as bullets slammed against them, the coyote swerving all over the place in a desperate attempt to escape being hit.
It did well.
But its luck soon ran out.
A bullet struck its hindmost leg and while its desire to survive caused the coyote to keep on moving, it was nowhere near as fast as before. But Harry had only a moment to think upon that as he suddenly found his mind elsewhere.
It was in the moment that the coyote yelped out in pain, it wasn't even a conscious effort on his part to delve into her mind. In fact, it was the coyote that had reached out mentally, a plea for help that temporarily stalled her attackers before they shook it off. Harry on the other hand, had quite substantial Occlumency shields and the moment her mental plea for help struck them, it was an instinctive move, trained into him by Croaker and he reversed the connection and delved in her mind.
Numerous images and memories flashed through his mind.
Images of a young girl in a car and arguing with another young girl before that car flipped over and crashed.
The feeling of pain as her body transformed for the first time into a coyote followed by the feeling of unquenchable hunger as she looked at the young girl and older woman that had been in the car with her.
This was followed by images of her life within the body of the coyote.
Of sleeping, hunting, being hunted and killing while in this new body.
Harry clenched his fist tightly as he saw the men and women close in upon the coyote, inside of which was a young girl a mere two years older than himself. A young woman who had spent her whole life stuck as a coyote without a choice.
And now these Werewolves were going to capture her and do whatever it is they needed to her.
Harry wouldn't allow it.
Lifting the cloak off him, Harry stepped forwards and drew his wand, aiming directly at the group closest to him. A number of cutting curses shot forth, deeply cutting into their backs, and even decapitating a few of them, their headless bodies falling to the ground.
There was a momentary pause, the Werewolves turning to see Harry moving towards them, fully clad in his Unspeakable outfit and his wand already in motion. Numerous spells firing out and striking down a number of more before they even got a moment to realise what was happening.
It worked well, around half a dozen were taken out before they got a chance to even fire back.
Those with guns trained them on him and fired, Harry in response transfiguring the ground in front of him and creating a wall that stopped the bullets. Placing his back up against it, Harry waited momentarily, pulling his cloak back on and crouching down.
Two Werewolves rushed round, wands pointed and firing cutting curses at him. Both leaving deep groves directly above his head. "He's gone!" One shouted to his compatriots and being careful not to let a single part of him show itself to one of his attackers. Carefully, he reached down into the back pocket of his pants and pulled out a few small circular pellets.
"What do you mean? Where the hell did he go?" Another shouted back.
Rolling the circular pellets along the ground, Harry gripped his wand tightly. Suddenly the pellets exploded outwards, creating a large screen of smoke and Harry leapt into action quickly. A single swipe of his wand arm and both the Werewolves necks were cut open, blood spurting out across the ground.
Harry then dived out from behind the wall he had created and rolled to his feet. More spells spat out of his wand taking out more Werewolves. This time, spells were fired back at him and Harry constantly moved forwards. They were quick and fast, zipping through the air and while never once halting his return fire, Harry also weaving his body around the spells that came his way.
There were a few he was forced to parry, but the movement of pushing spells to one side with the tip of his wand was one Harry seamlessly managed to return fire as soon as he did.
It was a type of magical fighting that not many were capable of doing, turning an attack, into a defence and then back into an attack quickly and fluidly. Most could only do one thing at a time, but Croaker had insistent that he needed to learn how to fight in this way.
He had spent hours of a time coming under fire from Croaker and even a number of other Unspeakable researchers also firing at him. While he had gotten good at it over the course of his time training under, the fact that he had to occasionally create a shield was proof that his skills were not up to scratch.
Even so, Harry was making short work of the Werewolves that came his way. There numbers were large, but it was obvious that they had never worked with one another before, nor had they quite worked out how to best have muggles and magicals working alongside one another in a combat situation. Their timing and tempo were off allowing Harry to capitalise on these with large area of effect spells that sowed mass confusion and disruption, as well as killing and injuring a fair few of them.
On top of all that, the enemy didn't seem to have an answer for how to deal with Harry. The Wizards and Witches amongst them didn't know how to deal with a skilled enemy, their repertoire of spells was limited, their experience and skills in fighting were also extremely limited.
For Harry who had duelled against the likes Voldemort, he had seen the speed of the spells that the Death Eater Inner Circle as well as Voldemort and Dumbledore could produce. Compared to them, avoiding these spells was laughably easy.
Even so, Harry wasn't completely used to combat on this level, especially with so many opponents attacking him all at once. Therefore, somethings would and did escape his notice, some more severe than others.
While in the midst of finishing off a lengthy and dangerous spell chain, Harry suddenly found himself struck with a shoulder barge. With a gasp, he was thrown off his feet and landed on the ground, quickly scrambling to his feet only to have to roll and crawl across the ground to avoid spells and bullets fired at him.
Eventually he crawled behind a tree and took a calming breath.
Fortunately, the enemy also paused as well. "You lot, fall back to base." Derek ordered, looking at the tree where Harry was hidden behind.
Carefully, Harry rose to his feet and walked round, watching as just over a dozen Werewolves walked away, some with various injuries, missing limbs and with a number of deep gashes. However, his gaze was looking closely at the group of ten remaining behind. There numbers were smaller, but something about them just told him that these men and women, were different, dangerous.
These men and women were combat veterans.
Harry's eyes then locked onto Derek, analysing him closely. 'I don't know why, but I'm nervous. That guy, he's dangerous.' Gripping his wand tighter, his eyes then panned over the others. 'Six magicals, four muggles. They don't seem to have guns.'
Taking the initiative, Harry fired a number of powerful explosive and cutting curses at them as an opening salvo. Most were aimed towards the wizards who raised shields to block them, but a few were aimed at the muggles. Those were avoided with relative ease, the non-magicals rushing towards him with intent to kill plainly in their eyes.
Harry didn't even hesitate and just continued to fire spells towards them.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
With a gasp, Harry was knocked to the side as three fists struck his side with fast and powerful strikes. His wand whipped round and fired a Blood-Boiling curse at Derek who leaped back to avoid the strike. Only for Harry to then have to summon a shield to absorb a number of more spells that flew toward him.
Rolling along the ground, Harry put some further distance between him and the group, now numbering half of their original numbers. As he did, he transfigured some nearby leaves into a small flock of birds that drove them back.
Breathing heavily, he reflexively reached up to make sure the Sticking charm on his mask was still in place. 'This isn't looking good.' Despite all the training he had undergone in recent weeks, Harry lacked one thing that would allow the training to fully show: experience. His combat experience was limited, especially against so many opponents. But his opponents on the other hand, had a large amount of combat experience.
Harry was holding on with the ritual enhancements as well as a repertoire of spells that allowed him to keep his opponents at bay. But the difference in experience was beginning to show, despite having fewer numbers than at the start, the Werewolves were getting into a rhythm.
The four wizards still alive would have half attack and the other two defend. Derek, the only non-magical still alive would rush in and close the gap between them. The guys natural athleticism was a rival for Harry's own, but whereas Harry hadn't gained proper control of the sudden enhancements his body had gone through. Not only that, but Harry had very little skill in actual hand-to-hand combat.
He had been taught martial arts by Adrian, but his skills had never been tested in actual close combat. It was a true trial by fire and Harry despite knowing he was improving through the course of the fight, was beginning to find himself overwhelmed.
'I need to retreat.' His gaze flickered over the bodies littering the forest floor. 'I've reduced their numbers to over half. I don't know when those reinforcements of theirs will arrive, but right now, their losses are large. Hopefully, that'll slow them down long enough for me to not make a mistake like this again.'
And this was a mistake, Harry was very much aware of this.
The first part of his mission was to gather information, numbers, safehouses, supply routes and other valuable information. It was only after he had done that was he meant to engage them and even then, it was to pick them off one by one. Only in the direst of situations was he meant to overtly attack them.
This was not one of those situations.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the coyote watching, the fact it hadn't moved was a confusing thing for him. But maybe it had come back out of curiosity as to what was happening. Either way, he didn't know the reasoning, but he did know that this could work out well for him.
The Werewolves, Derek in particular seemed interested in the coyote.
Having that, could help give them an advantage over them, even more so if they managed to figure out what was so special about it. "Accio." He called, summoning the coyote to him and as soon as he did, the Werewolves tensed up.
Once the coyote was in his hand he activated the Portkey and disappeared.
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