Hell Hounds

Yolanda settled into the bunkhouse with the others going on the mission with her. The dragons went on ahead of them just moments before. For safety, they would rest in a different location. If the Fae located them within the Dream Realm, the Fae could shift realms and find their bodies. She found it difficult to settle down to shift her consciousness into the Dream Realm because her mind kept going to lan and his safety.

Eventually, she faded into the Dream Realm with her team around her. It took them only a few minutes to locate the location where they'd meet the Dragons to receive the device. "Thank you, Gorm. We'll take it from here."

"I still don't understand why they are complicating this so much. We are acting like cowards."

"No, actually, you aren't acting like cowards. You're part of a team and you are, as the humans say, the get out of jail free card. That means when we exhaust all avenues, you'll come in and save us from certain destruction. You don't understand how much I appreciate you, and knowing I have you as my back up eases my mind greatly." This was the problem with the Dragons. They lived in an old world mentality, where they only saw battle as the only honourable way. They saw survival as an after thought. Yolanda believed this probably led to their small population. Times changed and they didn't change with it. They weren't stupid. Just set in their ways.

"I don't know about that. It feels underhanded and not honourable."

"We're combating the Fae. Very few can be considered honourable, and many of those honourable ones have a list of rules that are flexible. You will not lose any honour in anyone's eyes. My respect for you and yours will never falter."

Gorm looked choked up and only nodded to Yolanda before the three dragons moved off to find shelter. They would stay far away from the radius of the bomb's explosion. Yolanda and her team shifted into their wolves. Then with the device's harness in Yolanda's mouth they made their way carefully through the grey landscape. It's colours muted and shadowy in the creepy lighting.

Yolanda could never get past the lack of a moon within the sky and the fact that it appeared to always be a spooky night. The confusion of buildings from now and then appearing within the landscape threw so many off that they avoided entering the Dream Realm unless there's need for them there. Yolanda was one of them. Graves, destroyed buildings, trees were that were chopped down decades ago still dotted this landscape. That in and of itself made it difficult to maneuver through space. If one didn't know the local history that person could become lost.

They ran through the landscape toward the place the Fae congregated in. The need to avoid three groups of roving nightmare creatures hunting for their next victim, added anxiety to the pressing nature of the mission.

It began to get harder to move unseen into their midst. They must wait for the distraction to occur and draw the Fae into the other realm. She wondered how long it would take the distraction to happen, because the longer they were there the greater the chance they'd be spotted by a Fae or attacked by one of the shadowy creatures of the Dream Realm.

lan pondered the device while they moved the group and their gear to the spot where they would set out from. Everyone could feel the static in the air from the anxiety everyone carried. He'd avoided talking about his feelings about this mission to Yolanda. His fear of dying during this mission hung around his neck like a noose. But this must happen, and everything revolved around them getting it done in a timely manner. They at least would know when the attack would start to

distract the Fae.

Everyone prayed it would go well and not end up in a slaughter. NARC possessed superior numbers currently, but with active wild magic, the Fae out gunned them.

Even thought he dealt before in investigating supernatural or alien reports, he now walked into the event itself with full knowledge this was real. These creatures were real and a threat to everyone who encountered them.

With it being impossible to kill them, they needed to take away their advantages one-by-one. Then NARC forces could return them brutally to the realm they came from. This was but one mission within a multi- pronged attack. There'd be no great single battle. It'd be a long drawn out process, with many skirmishes over a long time. The Fae acted like an aggressive infestation. However, that infestation battled itself.

NARC had many people researching

options, others actively hunted for

clusters of Fae like this one, and more hunted for the portals to lock them down, Some of the Mages took it upon themselves to find out why the history commonly taught to them was riddled with lies. The dragons, vampires, and even the Fianna offered up access to their historical records. lan thought this last part was a moot point, and a point that could wait. But it felt like water washing over lan when they explained that Dragons or Vampires may be old enough to be guilty of this lie, and expected to explain why they recorded it as such. They'd technically be responsible for all the deaths that occurred from this war.

The portal closed behind them leaving them with their equipment and the portal guards. They now faced the Fae in the distance gathered within an open wooded area. The group waited to hear the horns the Fae used to summon their forces together for an attack. But right now the large group frolicked about mindless of the pending danger waiting for the sign to attack.

The portal would active again closer

to the time they would take it. This way if a Fae with the ability to sense magic were nearby, they'd not sense the portal's magic. Ian found out that where were some Fae that devoured magic for pleasure. Since most Fae didn't experience feelings like most other races, to feel pleasure often elicited an addiction reaction. That pleasure became their drug of choice. Devouring the magic often went overboard and the magical being would become injured or die.

Now they stood there watching and waiting for the elusive horns. Time felt drawn out and that electric feeling vibrated through each group member. Finally, the horns began to sound.

Fae stopped what they were doing and then ran toward the sound of the horns. Others appeared out of nowhere, these Fae came from the Dream Realm. It worked. Somehow, the Fae could summon their own from the Dream Realm.

Finally, the mass of grotesque bodies slowed to nothing within the field, and the team could move forward. Ian prayed that their luck would hold. Though God felt like the wrong god to him because of the Fae before them. He blocked that train of thought from his mind. He needed his mind focused on getting into that space and setting it up in the correct area.