The creature flew backward. It was lifted off its feet as if hit by a speeding truck. It crashed through a table, smashing it to kindling, and skidded across the floor amid splintered wood and twisted metal. It slammed into the far wall and slumped, stunned.
For one stunned heartbeat, Marcus just stared, his brain struggling to process the impossible.
"Okay… that was new," he breathed.
Eira staggered. The glow in her eyes dimmed instantly, leaving them dull and exhausted. Her knees buckled, and she caught herself on the edge of the booth table, her chest heaving as if she had just run a marathon.
Liri cried out, grabbing her sister's arm to hold her up. Little sparks of green light flickered to life around Liri's own fingers—unfocused, wild, and weak—like a kid trying to imitate her big sister with a sparkler.
Eira seized Liri's wrist, yanking the younger girl's hand down before the sparks could coalesce into anything more dangerous than a firecracker.
"No," Eira rasped, her English broken and desperate. "No... you die first."
Their eyes locked—green fire meeting frightened confusion. A whole argument passed in that single, frantic look: You aren't strong enough. You'll burn yourself out. Stay down.
Marcus, still clutching his ribs where he had hit the floor, saw enough to know the tactical reality: they were out of magic. The sisters were spent, civilian assets now.
And the Pig Men were not done.
The creature Eira had blasted was already pushing itself up from the wreckage of the table. It snarled, shaking its massive head, more angry than truly hurt. The blast had bruised it, maybe cracked a rib, but it hadn't stopped the engine.
The first Pig Man, the one Marcus had been fighting, turned away from him. It had lost interest in the man with the skillet. Its yellow eyes tracked Eira like a bloodhound locking onto a scent trail. It smelled weakness. It smelled the source of the magic that had dared to strike its pack-mate.
They started forward together. One was limping slightly, dragging a heavy boot through the debris. The other was fully steady, rolling its shoulders as it advanced. Two walls of gray, stinking meat moving with inevitable force toward two women who looked much too breakable to survive the impact.
Pan and plates were done. Eira was running on fumes. Liri would be killed instantly if she tried to draw that kind of power.
Marcus had exactly one play left.
Behind the bar, under a false panel of stained oak he had installed himself during the renovation, sat the part of his life he had promised to leave buried in the desert.
A sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun, double-barreled, ugly and mean.
An M16 rifle, stripped of identifiers but fully functional.
Magazines loaded with green-tip penetrators. Box of buckshot.
He needed to get there. Now.
He feinted toward the sisters, waving his arms, making himself big.
"Hey!" he shouted, his voice cracking with a raw, aggressive edge. "Come on, you ugly bastards! Over here! You want a piece of the chef?"
Both Pig Men snapped their heads toward him. The distraction worked for a split second. Their predator brains paused, processing the new threat.
He flung the heavy cast-iron skillet at the closest one's face. He didn't wait to see it land. He turned and ran.
He sprinted the length of the counter, hugging the line of booths, ducking low. He moved with the desperate speed of a man who knows he is out of time.
A massive hand swiped at him as he passed. The wind of it ruffled his hair. Black claws caught only the strings of his apron, tearing them loose with a sound like ripping canvas.
He didn't stumble. He dove over the end of the bar, hitting the floor hard on his shoulder. He rolled, ignoring the pain in his rotator cuff, and slammed into the lower cupboards.
His hands found the hidden latch without looking. Muscle memory took over.
Click.
The false panel popped open.
Cold metal met his sweating palms. It was the most reassuring feeling in the world.
He hauled out the cut-down shotgun first. The twin barrels were dark and menacing, the stock shortened to a pistol grip for close-quarters work. Pure, ugly purpose. He cracked it open, saw the brass bases of the waiting shells, and snapped it closed with a sharp clack.
The M16 came next. The familiar weight settled into his grip like an extension of his own arm. He slammed a magazine into the well, seating it with a solid palm strike. He racked the charging handle, feeling the bolt strip a round from the magazine and feed it into the chamber with a clean, metallic snick.
In the span of a breath, the scared restaurant owner vanished.
The soldier was back.
Shotgun First
He surged up from behind the bar, the shotgun shouldered tight.
The scene had shifted in the seconds he was down. The nearer Pig Man was almost to the booth. Eira had stepped in front of Liri again, her hands empty now, her chest heaving. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the monster's reaching hand, but she stood steady.
Marcus didn't hesitate. He didn't issue a warning.
He sighted over the cut barrels and pulled the trigger on the first barrel.
BOOM.
The blast filled the diner with thunder, deafening in the enclosed space. A massive muzzle flash lit the room in strobe-light orange and white. The recoil punched into Marcus's shoulder, bruising bone, but he rode it.
Triple-aught buckshot hit the Pig Man like a freight train.
The creature staggered backward, grunting wetly. Chunks of dark hide and something wetter—black blood and muscle—flew off its torso in a gruesome spray. The impact lifted it off its feet and threw it backward. It crashed over a table, smashing the laminate flat.
Marcus broke the shotgun open by reflex. The spent shell popped out, smoking, and bounced off the floor with a soft tink.
He grabbed fresh rounds from the elastic holder clipped inside the cabinet door. His fingers, steady now, shoved them into the breech. He snapped the gun shut.
The second Pig Man roared. It charged, abandoning its slow stalk. Its broken table was forgotten. Its eyes were bright with hate, fixed on the man with the boom-stick.
Marcus pivoted. He fired the second barrel as it came.
BOOM.
The single shell caught it high in the shoulder and neck. The blast spun the massive creature sideways. It slammed into the far wall, cracking the wood paneling and dislodging a framed picture of a 1950s car.
It did not drop.
Buckshot hurt them. It tore them up. But it did not end them. Their hide was too thick, their mass too dense.
The first Pig Man was already pushing itself upright again. Holes in its chest oozed something dark and thick like tar. Its breath came in ragged, wet snorts. It shook its head, spraying black droplets, and focused on Marcus again.
Marcus tossed the shotgun behind the bar. It was too slow now. He needed volume of fire.
He brought the M16 up.
Full Auto in a Small Room
The rifle stock settled against his shoulder pocket like it had never left. The front sight post found the center mass of the nearer Pig Man's chest.
He didn't spray and pray. He squeezed the trigger.
Pop-pop-pop.
Short, controlled bursts. The rhythm of professional violence.
Brass casings flew from the ejection port in a glittering arc, tinkling across the tile floor behind the bar like hail. The muzzle climbed with each shot, and he dragged it back down through muscle memory alone, keeping the group tight.
The rounds tore into the Pig Man's torso. Each impact jerked its body, dark material spraying backward in wet snaps against the wall. The high-velocity rounds punched through the thick hide that the shotgun pellets had only peppered.
The creature tried to roar, but the sound collapsed into a wet gurgle as a round perforated a lung. It took a step, swayed, and dropped to one knee.
The second creature came in again. Its shoulder was shredded meat, bone visible, but rage was doing what ligaments could not. It lunged straight through a booth, splintering the wood with its thighs, ignoring the pain.
Marcus shifted his aim. He walked the shots up. Chest. Neck. Jaw.
Pop-pop-pop.
Teeth shattered. Something in its skull cracked with a sound Marcus felt in his own molars. The creature's head snapped back violently.
Click.
The magazine ran dry. The bolt locked open.
Silence slammed back into the room, thick and sharp after the cacophony. Marcus's ears rang with a high-pitched whine. The fryers hummed, oblivious.
Somewhere in the background, a piece of shattered plate finally hit the ground.
Both Pig Men stood for one impossible second. They looked like bad statues, frozen in the moment of their death, refusing to acknowledge gravity.
Then, they started to come apart.