His own human frailties and lack of superpowers of any kind be damned-it was time to behead a warlock. 

From some distance off, Heldor studied the pub situated in a patch of forest not located on any map. No roads led to it, which explained the lack of vehicles of any kind. He'd have trouble getting a nimble trail bike, far less a horse to navigate through this tree-infested section of forest. You'd think the owner just didn't want the business. In any case, it would be where he'd find Damian, the warlock scheduled for beheading; or burning alive; or flash freezing; or whatever the hell worked against his kind. No two wizards seemed to have the same weakness, and he never knew what they might be until something actually worked. Damian, being the most powerful of them all, possibly didn't have any. That would be just his luck.  

Audible even from a hundred yards away, the raucous laughter emanating from inside the tavern had a nervous quality to it that his hunter's disposition would have picked up on before anyone else's. Damian's presence could have that effect. But then again, in these parts, so could a lot of other things. In the magical realm of Thresdar, especially in this old growth forest region, there was a good deal more to be frightened of than just Damian. More by the day.  

That's exactly why you're here. He was certain Damian was behind whatever was just not right about Thresdar. It wasn't anything he could put his finger on; just his hunter's instincts once again alerting him something major was up.  

Heldor stepped into the pub. The din fell off as chairs scraped back. Customers got to their feet, their twitchy fingers heading to their weapons. Furtive glances at the one exit, and an increasingly hushed silence, rounded out the repertoire of responses. "Relax. There's only one person I'm after, and last I checked, he ain't an actual person, nor is he among the living." 

They took him at his word and returned to distracting themselves from their other fears with their drinks, games, and tall tales.  

Heldor's eyes swept the interiors. The rear of the tavern was raised a foot or more from the central pit area, providing a strategic overlook. Thick, exposed timber-joists framed the high-ceilinged interiors. From the unsettled glances at the large arched door every time someone walked in, his entrance being the latest disturbance, it didn't take a genius to realize that the central floor space was kept clear to accommodate a hurried mass exodus. They didn't exactly do ballroom dancing in here. He'd been coming long enough to know that no one ever wanted to get that up close and personal with the exotic life forms packing the place. Their pedigrees were always in question. Some, genetic freaks. Others, magical folk. Some a little of both. Not all were of this world. But all had one thing in common; they didn't trust strangers, and they were real slow to warm up to him. The kind of slow that could get him killed if he raised his hand too quickly to shake someone's hand. For having no roads leading to it, Morlock's pub was the ultimate in crossroads.  

The creaking floorboards buckled under the weight of the rough and tumble frontier types, helping to keep nerves on edge. If they weren't covered in bearskins and beaver caps, they were sporting ceremonial ware customary to Native Americans that included moccasins, feathers, and more to the point-tomahawks. The cowboys playing cards with the Indians messed with his mind, but only because he'd seen one too many bad westerns once upon a time. The cowpokes with their six-guns and jingling spurs didn't help nerves any, nor did their leaning back on chairs to decide on a card, that put a little too much pressure on the loose floorboards.  

Some characters in steampunk attire, wielding their unusual weapons were in evidence tonight. Their form-fitting leather wore more snugly than his; they seemed to also favor different shades of brown. The numerous gauges stitched into their outfits that measured and assessed the environment around them and also gave them readings of what was going on inside their own bodies made them look like walking timepieces to Heldor's eye. Though their arm-long lightning rods which spit electricity, or invisible rays which parboiled you from a distance, the weapons a mess of tubes and wires and transistors, deterred from the walking timepiece analogy. As to their heads being part machine, part human, using the most primitive parts of both, he couldn't imagine they were pleasing to any one's eye, save Dr. Frankenstein, who was also in evidence, showing off his Frankenstein monster on a chain. They looked mostly like a kinky S&M couple ahead of their times. 

The vintage-era sci-fi folks that looked lifted from the pages of 1950s comics, intermingled with representatives of various fantasy realms, that included, among other things, at least for tonight, talking, card-playing apes, dogs, and giraffes. The beasts were playing one another at a table all their own like a mock parody of the Arthur Sarnoff painting.  

Some of these creatures Heldor was certain he'd only read about. That was the thing about the multiverse, somewhere there was always a real life version of anything you could imagine in this world. Artists these days seemed more like psychics tapping into these alternate realities, than creators of anything new.  

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were enjoying a table to one of the side walls. Perhaps they had gotten the genetic enhancements suitable to their role playing fantasy and frequently time traveled back to the actual period Sir Arthur Conan Doyle set them in. Or perhaps they resided in some other period in history, and chose to stand out for the extra adoration they'd earn as mythical figures come to life. Maybe, come time to more carefully investigate the goings on in Thresdar, they would come in useful. Assuming the peculiarities didn't all disappear with Damian's beheading.  

The couple characters in space suits, popping in unannounced, removed their face plates to groans and hisses. They weren't exactly the most attractive sorts. Space men, off mining some asteroid, taking a break? Long periods of time spent underground would at least explain the Mole Men look they had going for them, replete with hairless, wrinkled faces and albino pink eyes.  

That was the second reason for the empty floor in the center of the pub; it served as a teleportation pad. In truth, the tavern had been sited on a nexus of ley lines, just strong enough to allow for the comings and goings of anyone savvy enough to work the universe's major energy grid. That didn't include Heldor. Chalk up one more human frailty he'd live to regret come time to get to hell out of Dodge.  

The latest humanoids to arrive had clearly been modified for off world life, but which off-world exactly was hard to say, being as Heldor lived in a time prior to such advances in space travel. Their craniums were greatly expanded relative to normal humans, and the skeletal features of their skull and face were just as much insect-like as human-like. Maybe they weren't genetically engineered humanoids at all, but simply a closely related naturally occurring lifeform. 

He remembered when Humboldt County wasn't quite so exciting, and all he had to worry about were the potheads.  

A boy of eleven or twelve years of age, trying to find a welcoming lap to sit in, just got backhanded and brushed off repeatedly for his efforts. Something tells me that lad yearns for better times, as well. He gave Heldor a strange look. The creepy eyes betraying the porcelain doll face. Maybe it's just shellshock, Heldor. If you want to set the world right, you could do worse than by giving him a second of your time.  

He knelt down beside the kid. "New to Thresdar?" The boy nodded his head. "Yeah, that explains it. If you can't grow fangs around here, the next best thing is to stow your heart someplace where only you can find it." The kid shook his head. Heldor smiled. "Not ready to let go of your feelings, huh? Well that makes you a hell of a lot more courageous than this lot, myself included." The boy nodded slowly. "You have a name?"  

"Winston."  

Heldor pulled one of the spent slugs he'd reclaimed earlier out of his pocket. "Well, Winston, shot a werewolf with this, as big as a house. Ought to make one hell of a good luck charm, I reckon." He pressed it into the lad's palm.  

"Not that I put much store in luck," he said, standing. "Guile and treachery'll get you a hell of a lot further. Unless you're downright lethal like me. Then you can afford to add a few character embellishments of your own, like a sense of humor. You can even try being a nice guy. Save the nice guy part for last though." He ruffled his hair and moved on.  

That's right, Heldor. Add to the kid's abandonment dramas by cutting in and out of his life faster than a turn in the wind. You should have known to leave the humanity thing for someone with a bit more experience. Something about that boy made him special, though Heldor couldn't quite put his hands on it; it was in the eyes. In at least one way he was different, but in every other way he was just like the rest of them, looking for all the right things in all the wrong places.  

Heldor felt the soft leather of his trench coat flapping behind him as he walked towards Damian, predictably located to the rear of the pub. They shared one thing in common, a predator's taste for the big picture view. There'd also be a minimum of blind spots where he was seated, since he'd cut off any chance of someone approaching from behind. Heldor's long hair picked now to itch the back of his neck; probably just nerves, considering what he was contemplating-taking out Damian in a place where his defenses would already be up. His wild eyes were a given; they certainly wouldn't alert Damian to anything out of the ordinary. 

The warlock's smooth, polished beauty and manner, were also a given, contrasting heavily with his own rugged handsomeness and rough-hewn demeanor. Where Heldor sported a five o'clock shadow-from yesterday-Damian's face looked barely capable of growing hair. Against Damian's perfect manicure was the blood under Heldor's unclipped fingernails. Damian's exquisitely tailored clothes looked suitable only to French Renaissance ballrooms. They were an exercise in contrasts, alright, explaining why they'd become fast friends, and why he'd put off doing what he should have done a long time ago.  

"So, Damian, drinking tonight?" 

"You know I don't drink in the company of friends." 

"Damn considerate of you." 

Heldor slammed his crossbow down on the table, aimed at Damian, one hand still on the trigger. With the other hand he poured from Damian's whiskey bottle into a shot glass. He swilled the drink, pounded the empty glass on the table. "So, how's my favorite serial killer?" 

"Honestly, Heldor, I haven't killed anyone in over two hundred years. You need to learn to let go." 

"Okay." 

Heldor pressed the trigger on the crossbow.  

Damian caught the arrow between his fingers. 

"I love how you do that." 

Damian flashed his eyes at him by contracting then dilating his pupils; it was how he hypnotized others.  

Heldor turned his eyes away. "Stop that. I'm not one of your pets." 

Damian smirked and handed back the arrow, which Heldor slipped into the crossbow. 

"You shouldn't drink. You're slow enough as it is." 

Heldor slammed down another shot of whiskey. "I appreciate the concern. But not all of us have ice running through our veins." 

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he poured another drink, and eyed Damian testily. 

"Stop it." 

Heldor reached for his mouth with the filled shot glass. Damian's lightning fast reflexes interceded. Heldor bristled, but Damian was too strong for him to get his hand back. 

"You're hurting my hand." 

Damian was looking off in the distance and listening intently. The strange predatory animal sounds outside that only he could hear were getting closer.  

Damian released Heldor's hand. He shook it out. Damian's eyes went to the pub door. 

"Testing. One. Two. Three." 

The door crashed in and some hell-beast paused only briefly to eye the candidates for supper. Heldor, reaching for his bow as the door flew off the hinges, sunk an arrow square into the beast's head before he could focus his eyes. 

Damian chuckled. "He doesn't seem too impressed by your logic." 

The creature with eye-teeth the size of Damian's whiskey bottle, and horns to match, leaning on its larger ape-like forearms, pounced at one of the locals coming at it with a chair.  

The beast made kindling of the chair and grabbed the man in its mouth. The Mole Man in the spacesuit seemed desperate to press a button on a device, possibly the one he used to work the nexus. But the bones of his arms being crushed by the creature's jaws were putting a real crimp in his getaway plans. 

Heldor heard Mole Man's spine snap. The creature continued to crunch the humanoid's bones in his mouth. They sounded like shattering glass. 

"Check his references for me, will ya?" Damian said. "I could use a good chiropractor to crack my back." 

The locals, no newcomers to being the underdog, brandished their overturned round tables as shields, using the perimeters of the tables to steady their weapons. The gunfire-an assortment of lead, Tesla-like electricity arcs, and laser beams, not to forget about the one guy with a flame thrower-did little but antagonize the creature.  

No one was leaving. That meant something about the creature precluded it, disrupted the nexus somehow. It also meant that things were about to get a good deal uglier still. 

Flame Thrower, figuring he had the best chance, considering the amount of flammable fur covering the beast, headed straight out into the middle of the floor to give the creature a better dousing in flames from close up. It was a great idea in theory. In reality, he was only half a man. The top half, bitten off by the creature, left just the legs standing at attention before they buckled. The tank of gasoline the monster had imbibed along with the russet haired young man didn't seem enough of a provocation to spit out either.  

The steampunk types tried their hand next, braving the lack of cover to get closer to the beast. Their rifles not only fired lightning bolts, but the central rods broke off into subsidiary shafts of lightning. The beast's disturbingly fast reflexes were temporarily diverted by the task of chasing after the ever-propagating shafts of lightning, snapping at them to keep them from taking a bite out of his ass. Eventually it occurred to it that attacking the source made more sense. Lightning Propagator One was lucky enough just to lose the two arms he was using to steady the weapon. He shrieked as he observed himself squirting blood at the severed elbows. Considering his love of steampunk, those arms could be replaced with artificial ones, an idea which seemed to currently offer him no solace. His compatriot wasn't so lucky. The creature bit off his head. Strangely, that didn't stop the rest of him from firing on the beast. Possibly it was due to some backup system in his suit or half-man/half-machine nervous system, a failsafe to make sure he still finished off the prick that ended him. The creature was more successful on his second try, removing the middle part of his attacker with its jaws. That just left his legs below the knee and this torso above the sternum. The top part, no longer anchored, spun on the floor along with the still-firing weapon. The next person to jump on it was more concerned with shutting it off than picking up where Lightning Boy Two had left off. 

The cowboy tried his hand at lassoing the creature, which he actually succeeded in doing on the first try. Then he tried rodeo riding him, seeing if he could keep from getting thrown as he emptied his six shooter into the creature. He got thrown, all right-so hard, he landed against one of the overhead timbers. His back had been pulverized against it; he continued to lie there, wrapped around the twelve-inch by twelve-inch beam, like a rag doll.  

The Native American tried his hand with his bow and arrows, but couldn't get the penetration he needed. The arrows just bounced off the creature's thick hide.  

The 1950s comic book cover space men were leaving marks with their lasers, more like cigarette burns, annoying but not deadly. As the creature charged them, he sent one flying with a head butt. The instant space man's translucent domed head plate cracked, he was done for, evidently unable to breathe the air on this planet. Of course, the holes in his chest from the creature's horns didn't help, either. His other friend, whose translucent domed head plate had to do with the fact that he was some 1950s sci-fi conception of a robot, got the creatures forearms in its hydraulic-endowed pincer grip. The creature wailed mightily from that, but tackled the robot so hard, he was sent skidding across the floor. The instant Alien Android made impact with the wall, he was reduced to broken bits.  

The animals-the ones playing poker earlier-barking, growling, hissing-but respecting the perimeter, letting the humans have a go first, lunged simultaneously. Smart, considering even their heightened reflexes next to the typical human's weren't going to cut it against this thing. Clamped on by their jaws, as the creature turned on itself three hundred sixty degrees, one way, then the other, they looked like animals on a carousel ride that had gone a bit screwy owing to some crossed wiring. Eventually the creature had peeled the last of them off him, their teeth unable to penetrate its hide. He beat this one the same as all the other animals, using his forehand, bashing the giraffe against the floor as if shaking out a carpet, until there were no unbroken bones left to give any resistance, and nothing moved except for the whipping action of the creature's arms. 

It was only contemplating the creature's creepily fast reflexes, even in relation to the other beasts, which didn't seem natural, even for a predator, that Heldor remembered the gift he'd inherited from the Auburn Haired Witch. Let's hope the magic of her saliva hasn't worn off yet, Heldor. Might have at that, considering how long it took for this idea to populate through your brain. In any case, enough with amateur hour, already. They've got a moving target that has very few vulnerable spots, none of which anyone seems able to hit. That leaves you. He knew many of these folks were hunters in their own right, drawn to Thresdar by the recent sightings of impossible beasts, and deserved more respect, even in the unexpressed racing thoughts of his mind. Maybe later, once he'd calmed down.