She scrambled to the far side of the truck in a panic as Toren grabbed the thing from behind. He tossed it head over heels away from the truck. A quick glance showed the monkey thing still down, so he concentrated on the reanimated dead. He leaped astride its chest interlacing his fingers to combine his fists into one massive battering ram. Punching down into the thing's upper chest, he landed a crushing blow that pulverized the rib-cage.
Under the breast bone he met momentary resistance, then the heart ruptured under the continued pressure of his blow.
“Toren!”
He turned and saw the monkey creature had recovered and was clambering to its feet. Toren's heart pounded and he latched onto the reanimated head, fingers spread wide.
Gritting his teeth, he twisted the head hard to the left, then right. Another jerk up, and the head separated from the shoulders with a wet sucking sound, bone and ligament crackling.
Toren stood, hefting the head in one hand. Twenty feet away, the monkey man growled and edged toward the truck and Samantha. The thing shook its heavy shoulders with a growl, then awkwardly gestured toward Samantha with one taloned hand, touching its genitals, clearly aware of the implication of such a threat. It grinned, putting heavy yellowed fangs on display and started to advance at Toren as if it thought it had a solid advantage.
Toren edged toward it, careful to conceal a bit of a limp. The creature growled again, louder, and made a short, aggressive advance to test Toren's defenses before dancing away like a demonic jester. Toren let it go, paying careful attention to the ground under his own feet.
Sensing weakness, the thing gave up wariness and darted into firing range. Spinning with the reanimated skull, Toren blasted it at the creature. The cranium struck in the midsection at several hundred miles per hour, shattering on impact.
Shards of bone protruded from the creature's body. The thing howled again and brushed desperately at the gelatinous globs of gore covering the front of its body as if it had been splashed with acid or something.
Fur and skin started to smoke and sizzle with a sickening sulfurous odor. The howl changed to a high pitched wail of pain. What in God’s name was in that reanimated thing?
Toren took advantage of the creature’s distraction to move in for the kill. Samantha made a sound to draw his attention and offered up her rifle.
He took it, remembering how he’d see them used. He aimed the primitive weapon at the creature and fired three rounds into its throat at point-blank range, decapitating it.
Sam flew out the truck with wide eyes, shock quickly turning to irrational inebriation. “Oh my God, oh my God.” She staggered near the truck eyes locked on Toren, horror stricken.
A hundred yards behind the truck, the steer the things had assaulted bellowed in terror and pain, still held fast in supernatural restraints. Toren took a moment to assess its condition. It would never recover from the physical damage, but the psychological destruction wrought by the evil beings was far worse. Death would be kinder than a life like that.
He looked at Sam, knowing what he was about to do would no doubt finish her fragile psyche off. But now was as good a time as any to break the news to her. “Sam, I’m not what you think I am.”
She looked around at the mess then stared at him, confused about everything. “W-what, what do you mean?”
“I need you to trust me. Can you do that? I need to show you who I am but you have to promise me not to freak out.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “What are you…what are you saying, just say it. She looked around, seeming worried more of those things were out there.
“I’m an archangel.”
She jerked her gaze to him, perplexed. “A what?” Like that was the last thing she’d expected him to say.
Worried she might be right about more of those things, he wasted no more time and let his wings loose, a loud metallic clamor of mercury feathers.
“Oh holy shit,” she gasped.
“Yeah,” Toren muttered, feeling like it had to be the most awkward moment in his existence. Needing something to do besides stand around on impossible display, he removed a dagger from one of his flight feathers with a flick of his finger and commanded it to slice the jugular of the animal suffering several hundred feet away. The dagger shot out, fulfilled his order and returned like a boomerang back into place with a metallic shink.
“Oh, okay.”
Hope surged through him and he looked at Sam just in time to see her eyes roll up in her head as she collapsed. He flashed to her side and caught her before she could hit the ground. With a sigh, he lifted her in his arms and sniffed the air for more danger. Not smelling any immediate threats, he got in the truck and drove her to the small shack. Guess it was time to lay it all out to her.