"You know I've been feeling something strange since we ran from the port yesterday."

  "I feel it too, like there's someone watching us from afar," May said, frowning. "Let me see something, now that we're here."

  The girls had arrived at the historical building close to their home. It was an old train station, built more than a century ago, in a time when the island was still an overlooked place.

  It had been abandoned for a long time; with the expansion of the city, that kind of train station was only a residual remnant of another time. It smelled like mold and decay, and most windows there were either boarded up with planks.

  "Hecate, lend me your wisdom..." May murmured before pulling a card. "Reversed Emperor. There is something here. Let's investigate."

  May ran and entered the old building, Karina behind her, the guns in hand.

  "Do you hear that, K?"

  "Yes, I'm also feeling some sort of energy. There are monsters here for sure."

  The girls ran past empty rooms; their intuition led them to a closed door to the basement.

  "It's here. Are you ready?"

  They opened the door, and it was completely dark. May had to do a spell so they were both able to see in the dark. A long stair descended seemingly without end.

  "How can this building have a basement so big?" Karina asked, stunned at the sight.

  "It doesn't. This is altered by magic; the mere presence of monsters is bending this space. Their polluted energy is shaping it in mysterious ways."

  The girls went down step by step, and strange sounds became louder and clearer. It sounded like some kind of dog. And they could feel the energy coming from the creatures; it was hideous.

  "Stay behind me, May. This could be dangerous." Karina said, her voice faltering a little.

  And after what felt like forever, they reached the end of the stairs. It opened up to a large room, engulfed in darkness. In the middle of the room, a hole circled by black flames. Surrounding the hole, there was something that could be confused as a pack of dogs. But looking closely, the creatures were bigger than any dog May had ever seen. They had long and black fur. Their eyes were injected red and in their mouths fangs so big that could probably crush a rock in one single bite. The creatures noticed them and started growling.

  "Hounds of hell, I hate them. It's always so messy..." Karina complained, and May agreed, hounds of hell could be quite problematic.

  "Let's deal with them as fast as we can."

  "Alright." Karina pointed her guns at the creatures. "Evil recognised. Here's your judgment." The guns trembled in her hand, getting warmer. And in the forehead of each hound, a small target appeared.

  Karina dashed in the direction of the pack, shooting and knocking down the creatures as she moved. They tried to jump on her, but May stopped them with magic. Karina moved swiftly as one of them charged at her.

  "You can't get to me while I'm doing my hunting, hellish creature."

  With her gun, she was able to shoot hound after hound precisely. And yet, they kept coming from the hole.

  "Maybe you need to do something about that, cause if you don't close it, we're gonna be here all day."

  "I know, I just need to do something first."

  May ran in circles around the hole, while Karina moved away the hounds that tried to get close to her friend. May used her feet as she drew images and symbols around the hole, connecting them.

  "I take on your powers, Hecate, lend me the strength of the chthonian deities." The symbols started to glow before the girl continued. "I close thy gate to the underworld; no more beast shall pass over."

  The light engulfed the hole, a light mist illuminated the room, no more signs of the hole. Still, some of the hell hounds were there, growling and drooling at the girls. They started to merge in a single beast, a grotesque body that surged after the amalgamation of the hounds. It was at least five times bigger than the others were alone. It swung its enormous paw trying to knock the girls off. May and Karina dodged it and jumped in the direction of the beast. May distracted it, while Karina ran past its limbs. The beast breathed out hell fire against May, but she had created a barrier, and as soon as the fire crossed the barrier, it disappeared.

  "Hurry up, Karina! I don't have much magical power left, and my gun won't be of much help in this case."

  "Okay, I just need to get closer."

  The girl jumped, and the hound opened its mouth trying to catch her mid-air. Instead, she kicked its head. On top of it, she pointed both guns at the monster.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "Point blank, justice shot."

  The creature exploded like a balloon. May was grateful that its remains disappeared in the air, avoiding a bigger mess.

  "That was surprisingly hard. How are you feeling, May?"

  "I'm fine, but I'm going to need some rest before we head to the next place."

  "That's alright. One thing, don't you think this is strange? Hell hounds pouring out like water, a hole to the underworld in the middle of the city..."

  "Yes, there's something odd about it. Something is disturbing the magic flow here in the city, I just don't know what."

  "Maybe there's a hunter killing more monsters than they should. You know, there are always hunters who think the more you kill, the better."

  "But it doesn't work that way, does it? Everything in nature is a balance, and so is magic and monsters."

  "We need to be careful about what we might encounter next. Thinking about the trap of yesterday, and I'm afraid the hell hounds are just the beginning."

  May knew her friend was right; they needed to be prepared. The girl let Karina use her magic to seal the place for good.

  While May rested, Karina asked:

  "How are you feeling now? What's the next place?"

  "I'm a little better. I guess the next place will be..." She picked the map and analyzed it for a second, before continuing. "The old factory, it's really close to where we are right now. We can do it today and the others tomorrow."

  "That's fine. I'm afraid we'll need to be fully recovered to deal with the thing at the port."

  ***

  The girls walked through the streets, the sun still at its peak. They saw people going out for lunch or talking to their colleagues. The streets were busier than early, but thankfully, no signs of the crowd they had encountered before.

  "I'm grateful we won't have to deal with those lunatics again," Karina said, and May agreed with her friend, nodding her head. She didn't need to get even more tired.

  "But tell me, May, what exactly is this place we're going now? You researched it, right?"

  "Yes, yes. I mean, I read a little about it yesterday, before going to sleep. It's an old shoe factory; it's been deactivated for half a century."

  "Come to think of it, I think I've heard about it some time ago."

  "You probably did. Researching it, I discovered that 2 years ago, they had some sort of debate about demolishing it or not. Some older people got really passionate about it."

  "Hum, that was probably it."

  "But let's see if there's anything or anyone hiding there."

  The girls arrived at the place, which, just like the others, was in a clear state of decay. Most of the paint was long gone, and the windows are broken.

  "Do you feel anything here, Karina?"

  "Not exactly, May. Let me concentrate for a little." Karina closed her eyes and let the magical flow of the place pass through her. She tried to feel any kind of different energy that could come from a monster. "Yep, I'm right, I don't feel anything or any monster here. But..."

  "But?"

  "There is something. But it's super frail. I mean, if there was a monster here, it was destroyed long ago. Try feeling it too."

  May tried feeling what Karina had described, but she wasn't as good as the other girl at this kind of magic, so she didn't feel anything. She raised her shoulders to her friend.

  "Let's investigate inside. There is something odd here."

  "If you think it's necessary, let's make sure we're not missing anything."

  "I guess the Agency wouldn't be mistaken, right? This place was marked; they probably have a report or something like that indicating magical activity here."

  "Yes, you're right. Let's see if there's nothing left of monsters here."

  May was about to head to the factory when something in the ground caught her attention.

  "What is this?" She picked a single piece of a dark stone from the ground. "Ok, this is odd. You know this is the thing some shady hunters use in rituals, right?"

  "Yeah, right. I hate it." Karina simply said.

  Now sure that there must be something wrong with the place, the girls decided to investigate it inside. They reached for the door.

  "I know, I know. Probably there's nothing here, and yet, I can't shake that eerie feeling off."

  "I get what you mean, Karina. Something was done here. Let's see what it was."

  They entered the building, and as they imagined, it was mostly empty. There were machines and scraps of leather all over the place. The signs of abandonment were deeply rooted in everything. Even the air inside seemed old. Strings of light illuminated the place through cracks and openings in the windows. A deep silence, May could only hear their own breathing.

  They went through a number of rooms, and found most of them empty or with chairs, desks and things like that. Most of them were rotten or completely covered by dust. It seemed like nobody had entered the place for a long time.

  "I guess there's nothing to see here. Maybe we were wrong. They probably got it wrong at the Agency." Karina said nonchalantly when May pointed to something in the ground.

  "Wait, this mark is strange. Did we check that room?"

  "The one with the double door? I guess not, but I bet it's as empty as everything else here."

  But as soon as they entered the room, Karina noticed that she was wrong. Inside the room, the walls, the windows, and even the ground were all covered with symbols and drawings of the occult. Most of them seemed to have been made with something that resembled blood. The place was probably the biggest room they had encountered, and the furniture there was all pushed to the sides. There were marks of claws and teeth in there, too.

  "Okay, this is strange. Do you feel it?"

  "Yes, when we were outside, it was hard to feel it, but now that I'm here, it's clear. There are magic traces in the air here. Someone did a ritual here."

  "And I guess it was something evil, look at all that stuff!"

  "It's not good to be quick to judge, but in this case, it's hard to disagree with you. Even if it didn't have any of this stuff, I can feel it. It's not a friendly energy."

  The girls looked all over the room, but there was nothing else to see. And they wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. When they were about to leave, May found something shining on the ground.

  "Hey, what is it? It looks like a coin, but I never saw any coin like that."

  "Hum, I guess I saw something similar once... But I need to be sure, let's take it to the Agency."

  "Alright, we'll go to the port again, and after that, we'll head to the Agency to report it."

  Karina seemed satisfied with the answer, but still, something about everything gave her chills down her spine.