#rabid/monster shadow: *rabid dog noises*

[elfolfenburg]

SONIC MEETING DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF SHADOW AND SAVING THEM IN DIFFERENT WAYS

I GGRRRGGJGJDNSJSJSHAAJDJCJDBSBSJAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

BCS sonic doesn’t wanna let him down, again. He can’t keep loosing him over and over

As much as sonic cares for his man shadow bro, iz gonna take awhile to save em one by one fr, but baby steps y'know baby steps, also my boy sonic definitely got favs fr insterms of the shadow subprime au

1st: bebe shadow (older brother mode activated)

2nd: dippy shadow (he kinda thinks he cooler now)

3rd: dgaf shadow (getting litty and high up here ykwis🌿)

[resident-gay-bitch]

you can now find eddies pov here :))

this wasn’t going to be easy, and that was a fact.

dustin was already distraught, a blabbering fucking mess for the entire walk from the town centre to the creel house in this slimy godforsaken underworld.

they were already at their wits end, with barely a string of hope left when eddie stepped in. eddie, who was now a bad guy apparently. steve had to tackle dustin to the ground when eddie first swooped in and tried to slice nancys throat open with his claw because dustin just wanted to hug him.

that was hard enough. everything was hard enough. but now steve had to face - and probably be the one to kill because he was the brawn if nancy couldn’t - the very man who had been haunting his dreams for months and led him to ask robin the question of how she knew.

he was… rabid. clothes ripped and clinging to his body in unnatural ways, his hair a fucking wild mess, his eyes glowing red, his skin paler than usual, the tips of his fingers now black and sharp like talons, extra teeth that were far sharper than teeth should ever be, a snake like tongue, wings!, and not to mention he was soaked in blood. he had it dripping from his chin for fucks sake.

whatever that thing was, it wasn’t eddie.

but it was.

so they’d spent the past hour trying to hide and calm dustin and devise a new plan, whilst trying to survive in this hell.

yeah this was going to be the hardest thing steve’s ever done.

he was probably going to die today.

well, if he died at the hands- claws of eddie, then at least he’d be dying with something beautiful. monster or not.

they stepped back out into the road, steve leading the pack and nancy covering the back.

something swooped overhead, casting a wide shadow, and by the break in dustin’s voice, steve knew it was the eddie thing.

he looked up to see the beast pearched atop a stobie poll, crouched with his hands between his feet like an animal, his wings hanging down behind him.

he looked right at steve, and steve felt his heart stop.

covered in blood and fucking terrifying, steve still loved him.

more than ever, actually.

eddie cocked his head to the side, just looking at steve.

steve adjusted the grip of his nail bat over his shoulder, ready in position to swing. he heard nancy cock her gun, he heard mike and dustin grab onto eachother, and noticed el stepping up beside him at the ready.

eddie just sat there. he moved his head slowly forward, like he was trying to get a better look. he was assessing them, probably, figuring out the quickest way to kill them all without getting hurt.

it made steve sweat.

if eddie wasn’t so high right now, steve would just charge and take a swing. get this over with. give the kids the best advantage.

eddie quickly straightened his head out and made a sound. it was a weird sound. sort of like a creepy roll of his tongue and then a click. it sounded far too much like a demo dog for steve’s comfort.

everyone froze at eddie’s sudden moment and then started looking around after he’d made the sound.

had he called for help?

steve clenched his jaw and gripped the bat tighter, eyes fixed on eddie.

eddie raised his wings up high, spread out wide and they were big. like fucking massive. steve was sure one wing alone was longer than he was.

everyone braced for impact.

eddie made the sound again and stood, standing tall atop the electricity pole, and then he made another sound that was more like a birds chirp (if the bird was dying).

and then he moved, and everyone made sudden noise and yielded his weapons but then stopped not a second later.

eddie was falling.

he was just freefalling backwards off the stobie poll with his hands clutched at his heart.

right before he hit the ground, his wings kicked up into action and carried him back up into the air. and once he was high enough, really fucking high, he dropped again.

steve was confused.

eddie dropped and then… oh shit, he wrapped his wings around himself and was fucking spiraling through the air like an arrow, heading straight for steve.

he heard will shout to run, and everyone jumped back but-

steve was on the ground, groaning and trying to fight eddie off who was on top of him, pinning him down. steve didn’t know where his bat went.

eddie was looking at him with wide eyes.

steve’s jumped out of his skin, screaming when he heard nancys gunshot.

silence.

eddie made a small sound, a shrill one, like he was hurt.

oh he was hurt.

eddie turned his head and spread out his wing and steve could see a perfect circle cut through it. eddie looked at it, then moved his wing out of the way to scowl at nancy.

this couldn’t be good.

eddie snarled at her, his snake like tongue darting out to his before he was grabbing steve and lifting them up into the air.

steve screamed, he’d never been this high before.

nancy had aimed her gun to shoot again but dustin stopped her, there was a very good chance she’d hit steve if she did.

steve didn’t know where his bat was.

eddie started flying, steve clutched tight in his arms and he had no clue where they were going because he had his eyes squeezed shut.

he was so gonna die like this.

and then they stopped, and steve was being layed down on something… soft?

he opened his eyes to find eddie crouched over him again, his hands between his feet like before, his wings draped down behind him, his head cocked as red eyes blinked at steve curiously.

steve rubbed his head and looked around to find that he was… in the highschool theatre dressing room? he only recognised it because it was a classic in school make out spot.

he was laying on a pile of pillows and ratty old blankets that were piled on top of a few mattresses. pillows, big and small, were piled up even higher around the mattresses and it looked… it looked like a nest.

eddie made the clicky sound again and then chirped happily and crawled away.

steve was beyond confused.

he sat up and looked around.

beside him was an old mangled bear, there was just a pile of flannel shirts in one corner of the nest, eddie’s guitar was leaning up against the edge of the nest wall, there were those weirdly shaped dice dustin always carried scattered around, and… oh.

steve moved a pillow to the side a little to find his old varsity jacket stuffed there. it was dirty and a little wear for tear, but everything was in the upside down.

he wondered why eddie had it.

he moved the pillow some more to find one of his shirts there too. and then he lifted a blanket to find a whole collection of his clothes! a few shirts, a red jumper, three odd socks and one matching pair, a pair of purple boxers, his old basketball shorts, a singular sneaker that matched the one on his foot now, and a yellow sweater that steve recognised as the one he threw at eddie on the boat.

steve pet his own chest to feel the familiar bumps of the pins and patches of eddie’s battle vest laid there.

oh.

oh they- they were the same.

they missed eachother.

they barely knew eachother, but they missed not being able to learn.

steve spun around when he felt eddie’s presence again, and eddie was sitting in his same weird stance, but this time right beside steve, his face abnormally close.

steve kinda freaked out.

eddie cocked his head again, blinked those wide eyes that steve couldn’t find scary, even under the red.

steve held up the varsity jacket in one hand and gave it a waggle. eddie looked at it and then looked back at steve, then back at the jacket, then back at steve, and then he purred.

steve didn’t know why it gave him butterflies.

eddie nodded his head forward until his head bumped steve’s shoulder, and then he looked back up with those wide eyes again.

“it’s yours.” steve said simply, tugging at the sleeve of eddie’s vest on himself, “i know, i’m sorry. i hope you don’t mind. it helped ground me on the bad days.”

eddie cocked his head.

“can you understand me?” steve asked.

eddie nodded.

steve was very glad to hear that, “can you talk like me?”

eddie just looked at him.

steve sighed, “i’ll take that as a no.” he hummed, “you have a lot of my things.”

eddie dropped something else on his lap.

their old year book from eighty two. steve opened it up to the page that was indented, obviously eddie looked at it a lot.

on the page was a picture of the swim team, steve posing in one picture with one other guy - the co captains - however, the other guys face had been covered by a cutout of eddie’s face. above it in red sharpie wrote “by the time you graduate, this will be real, and he will be nice and want you back”.

steve couldn’t help his laugh.

eddie crushed on him in highschool?

steve stopped his laughing when eddie made a sharp sound of protest, and steve looked up to see his already wide eyes even wider and… a pout?

oh god, he was making a puppy dog face at steve right now.

god, steve had heard so much about his puppy dog face from wayne, he’d dreamed about being on the receiving end of one himself. and here he was, only it was different now. he had pale skin and dark eyes and blood on his chin.

steve closed his mouth and looked at the pleading expression on eddie's still pretty face, and kinda melted.

"you technically still haven't graduated, you know?" steve found himself saying, and he didn't know why. eddie was technically a demon or something. steve should be running for the hills, but...

eddie made a chipy clicky sound again and then suddenly something wet was touching his cheek and- okay, eddie was licking him.

eddie was liking him a lot, like a dog.

steve laughed and pulled away and smiled at eddie, "licking? really?"

eddie smiled and nodded, shuffled steve back into the steve pile under the blankets and made him rest there. steve did lay, and rest, leant up against the pile of pillows and old clothes. he'd forgoten all about the high stakes of everything, because all he could think about was eddie. eddie here, alive- not really there, but here no less.

eddie shoved steve into the shape he wanted and then grabbed the old mangled teddy with his teeth and crawled over to steve. he dropped himself down heavily into steves lap - causing him to jolt forward and gasp from the sudden weight and pain - and curled up. his wings wrapped around steve, caving him in. eddie nussled his head against steves chest, under the opening of the vest, the mangled teddy clutched tight in his arms, and then he purred again, a big long one.

it was so warm like this.

steve didn't care if eddie wasn't really eddie anymore, because deep down inside, he was still every bit eddie that he could be. it was this world that had turned him into something else.

plus, who was he to judge? steve was a much uglier monster at one point in his life too, bulying and kicking people to the ground during highschool, but he was still good at heart these days. eddie could be too.

he was.

there was no doubt about it.

steve ran his hand over - not through because he physically couldn't - eddie's hair and held him close, and they rested there together for a while, in eddie's home.

saving the world could wait a little while.

[bluscryn]

ℭ𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔰𝔬𝔫 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔰𝔫𝔬𝔴

part 1 (we'll see)

a/n: it's the first time I ever share something I created...I'm kind of nervous

warning: sexually explicit content

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

◇ P R E S E N T ◇

The lace around her neck was supposed to itch. Surely that unforgiving material couldn't have been as comfortable as the young female made it appear. Well, it was understandable in a way.

  That's because Lucinda haven't felt anything in years.

 

  The warm lights of the hotel's restaurant reflected off of her long, chestnut hair. She was sitting on a leather clad bar stool, eavsdropping on a boring conversation. Something about the upcoming election...When did this country stop being a monarchy?

  Funny how time slips by you when you're immortal. One moment you're on a balcony, sipping champagne with the Prince of France and the next you're at your great-grandniece's funeral in the Highlands - the one who had no idea she even had you in her family tree.

  After all, those were the risks you had to take when you decide to dance on the blade of darkness.

  Seemingly bored, Lucinda checked her long nails. Tonight, they were sharpened and painted with a bloody red. But then again, tonight was a special night for her.

   She heard him way before he got close to her. The smile she flashed in his direction could have competed against any shining star.

  In his eyes, Lucinda was the most beautiful woman to ever grace the Earth. What he didn't know was that her beauty was as deadly as cianide.

 

  The warmth of his touch was enough to almost make her melt - almost.

"Peter..." she breathed out, relieved to see him there. "I thought you wouldn't come after all."

"And miss the chance to see my muse? Not in a thousand years." his low voice filled the air, a smile growing on his lips.

His muse...The memory of her, sitting naked on his velvet sofa still lingered in Peter's mind, clear as day.

He was fascinated by her. From her dark, cunning eyes, sharp cheekbones and full lips to her heavenly curves that seemed to have been sculpted by a generous god.

He had written numerous songs about her, but never once mentioned her name. As if spelling out those letters would take away from the mistery of the woman he loved - no, not loved, adored.

Lucinda stood up, the heels making a small, satisfying noise on the marble floor. Even in her highest heels, the woman still had to get on her tip toes to wisper in his ear.

"I think it's time to retreat in my room. Wouldn't you say so?"

  Her voice was like honey to him, the warm breath giving him goosebumps.

"Whatever you want, my love."

His big arm wrapped around her waist, as she tried not to look into his eyes for too long. The icy blue shade was the one that still haunted her dreams.

  Night after night for decades, those eyes tortured every inch of her soul. Only the thought of seeing them again kept her alive.

  The only problem was that Peter was just an unlucky coincidence. Still...her soul could rest, for a while at least.

The minutes spent on their way from the restaurant to the room on the tenth floor passed like seconds. Lucinda was lost in her thoughts.

  Images from the elevator, Peter's lips on her neck and her own trembling fingers on the doorknob flashed before her eyes.

Moments later, her heavy dress was on the polished floor and Peter was lying on the bed, looking at her with hunger in his eyes. Hunger that she felt too, only for something else.

Looking at the strong man on her bed, Lucinda couldn't help but admire him, in a way. He was tall and muscular - she had a taste for men who looked like they could break her in half if they wanted to - with thick black hair that reached his lower back. His eyes seemed to burn holes into her skin and his angular face was partially hidden by shadows. He was beautiful, that was certain. Especially when his veiny hands were wrapped around her slender throat.

In those heated moments, she could close her eyes and pretend he was the man whose eyes she dreamt of every night. But that sweet illusion wouldn't last for long.

Still in her high heels, the woman approached him, with a soft sway of her hips. She shook her head, making her brown curls bounce a little as she stopped in front of Peter.

"Look at you. Still fully dressed, while I'm almost naked."

"Are you going to do something about it?" he asked, with an amused glint in his eyes.

She was going to, indeed.

Stepping out of the shoes, Lucinda climbed into his lap. His scent was intoxicating. Strong cologne adorned his pale skin and she couldn't help but smile.

  Running her fingers along his neck, the woman started kissing his cheek, trailing down to the jaw, the collarbones and even further, as she unbuttoned Peter's white shirt.

  A small moan escaped his sinful lips and Lucinda's whole body tensed. It was a natural reaction, almost an instinct.

  His long fingers were circling up her back and, anticipating his intention, she laughed.

"Not yet, my beloved." 

  The word left a sour taste in her mouth, but her eyes didn't betray that feeling.

 

She tangled her fingers into his hair, at the base of his neck and pulled a little. His eyes widened, only for a moment, as he squeezed her soft hips.

"My bad. Please, go on."

 

  His voice was no more than a wisper now.

  She lowered her free hand down his abdomen, grazing her sharp nails down to his happy trail.

  Biting his pink lips, Peter laid down on his back, letting her take control.

His large palms were sliding up her waist until they reached the lacy black material covering her breasts, but he didn't go any further than that.

 

Lucinda took hold of the heavy belt buckle and, with no struggle, took the belt off. With a satisfied grin, she unbuttoned his pants. Eager to finally get them off, the man raised his hips enough for her to finally throw the material on the floor.

"Mmm..." she mused,  "You're such an obedient man."

"Only for you."

In a matter of seconds, Peter laid his muse on the bed and kissed her feverishly. He slid the bra straps down her shoulders and cupped one breast with his right hand, while supporting his weight with his other hand, as to not crush her.

  Lucinda arched her back, starving for his touch. Licking his bottom lip, she plunged her nails into his back. The man tensed and bit her tounge.

"Marking me already? As if I could belong to anybody else..."

She just laughed and ran her fingers into his hair. Ah, if only he knew...

  Sliding his right hand up, Peter squeezed her throat, choking away the laugh from her beautiful lips.

"Look at me, Lucinda."

  And she did. She really looked at him.    

  For a second, it seemed as if the world froze around them. There was only this moment, only them. She, and his icy blue eyes.

  Not Peter's, his.

  The only man Lucinda has ever loved.

  Her soldier, her saviour.

  The man who left with half of her soul and her whole heart.

  Something switched inside of her and the darkness flooded her veins.

   What was she even doing?!

   Gifting her body like that to a man who wasn't him - the keeper of her heart.

  With a force she rarely showed, Lucinda pushed Peter under her. Her strong thighs were wrapped on either side of his abdomen, forcing him to stay still. Lust filled his eyes, thinking that all of this was part of their erotic game.

"Enough!"

 

  The shriek left her body, as tears began to fall on her cheeks.

He raised his eyebrows, pure concern painted on his face.

"Love, what's wro-..."

His words were interrupted by a sudden scream. His own. Looking down at her, he tried to push the woman off of him.

  It had taken her years to master a certain level of self control. But everything shattered in that moment. The pure terror on Peter's face turned her on. And she grinned.

  Lucinda - the monster, not the woman showed her true nature.

  Her fangs were deep inside the artery that ran down Peter's throat. His warm blood was filling her whole mouth, as she let out a sound similar to a moan. The coppery taste stung her tounge in the most divine way possible. The sensation was pure bliss. She tangled her fingers into his hair, in an attempt to ground herself.

  Then and there, any trace of humanity or sanity left her body. She feasted on the warm liquid like a rabid dog who had been starved for way too long.

  Between the euphoric moments, she felt his body stuggling underneath her.

   It only gave her pleasure, knowing that he was slowly falling apart.

 

   After she drained the last drop of his blood, Lucinda raised her head and looked straight into the mirror in front of her.

   Her hair was wild, framing her face in such a way that it accentuated the wildness in her eyes. Her skin regained a youthful glow, the one that she still had when she was alive. The blood was dripping from her mouth down to her neck and chest.

 

  Crimson on snow white.

  Such a beautiful contrast.

  After years of trying to create a perfect image of herself, Lucinda became, once again, what she had always been.

  A monster.

  One that seduced and drained men for survival.

  

   But only he could love her like that.

   And she was determined to make her soul whole again.

[ephemeral-afterlight]

Day 4: Human Shield

(Pack your bags, martyrs.)

Whumptober 2019 Day 4: Human Shield

Word Count: 3521

Relationships: none

Warnings: injuries (various), blood, weapons (swords), implied concussion

A/N: alrighty, time for some Creativitwins shenanigans! i hope i captured their personalities okay; this is definitely my favourite story i’ve written for whumptober so far ^^

A shrill, feral roar rips out into the Imagination, echoes through the mindscape past the boundaries of the twins’ realm and in every nook and cranny it can reach. It’d probably hurt Roman’s ears, if he wasn’t already so used to hearing it, but this time isn’t like all the other times. It’s frantic, and angrier, and tension ripples through his limbs. The Dragon Witch is his foe, yet again, except this time, he’s joined by Remus. His brother hasn’t ever been one for fighting alongside him, preferring independent combat as opposed to co-op, but Roman was already here, and Remus was bored, so now they’re in a battle.

They’re fighting together against the Dragon Witch to keep her at bay, but they’re also fighting each other, in more of a verbal way than a physical way. Their bickering is nothing new, a familiar backdrop to the sound of swords clanging against metallic scales and the sizzling noise left in the aftermath of their opponent’s fiery breath. They don’t argue about anything in particular, anything important. They never really do, if Roman’s being honest. It’s more of a sibling rivalry and casual disdain rather than genuine hatred, although he’d never actually admit that to Remus. Their squabbles and quarrels are, while annoying, something Roman regards with a begrudged fondness, and that is a piece of information he will take to his grave.

Which actually might be sooner than he thought if he doesn’t start paying attention.

The sting that emanates from the slash in his arm is something Roman has been frequently acquainted with in the past, but it doesn’t make the wound hurt any less. He knows the danger of fighting in the Imagination, knows that the effects will last until you leave, but sparring with knights and battling monstrous creatures is fun and helps to get Roman out of creative blocks. If leading Thomas in artistic pursuits means a few scrapes and bruises every now and again, then Roman is happy to endure a little bit of pain until he can get back to the main part of the mindscape and wave the injuries away. He never stays hurt, so it hasn’t ever been a big problem before. Damage to his person is impermanent, and it always has been, so Roman just shrugs off the pain of the abrasions and cuts and contusions and holds his sword in front of him in an aggressive attacking stance.

“Ha! You got whapped!” Remus jeers from the left, nasal voice cutting easily through the chaos as it always does. Roman glances over, does a double-take, and then gives an incredulous laugh. Remus is covered in blood, most of it likely to not be his own, but he also has scrapes and burns all over his skin and outfit. He’s one to talk!

“Shut up!” Roman calls back, retorts in the same way he’s used to. A general rule with Remus is that you won’t have a certain interaction with him just once. If it happened before, it’s gonna happen again, and this has been proved true countless times. Roman has come to expect the lewd gestures, the disturbing language, his “surprise” tackles from the shadows that Roman manages to sidestep nearly every time. Remus has a fixation on repeating things until they stick, doing the same thing over and over and over until something new or different happens. Einstein probably wouldn’t have been very fond of him.

Remus belts out a laugh, leaps forward with manic eyes to slash at the Dragon Witch. His cutlass manages to leave a clean slice on the creature’s back, comes back stained with violet blood. Roman still doesn’t understand why Remus won’t just use his morning star, since his brother has always been the most powerful when using it. He insisted before the fight began that it’s “more fun this way”, hooked his morning star onto his back, and set off to get into more trouble. Roman can still feel the headache even now.

The Dragon Witch growls again, lashes her tail out in a swinging arc, and Roman dives over it cleanly. Remus, as much of a reckless idiot as usual, grabs the spiked appendage when it gets close enough. He’s immediately whipped around as she tries to shake him loose, but Roman knows from personal experience that Remus is like a rabid dog and will not let go once he’s latched on. His legs and sides smack into trees, rocks, the ground, and yet he’s still somehow not winded enough to let his grip loosen a single bit. Roman can tell that the Dragon Witch is starting to get frustrated, smoke blowing out of her nose just like in the cartoons they still watch frequently.

The Dragon Witch herself has gone through a few iterations throughout Thomas’ life, getting more and more “realistic” as he grew up, if you count a half-witch, half-dragon hybrid as being anywhere close to realistic. When Thomas was younger, she had just been a large, purple dragon (influenced by Spyro, no doubt) with a stereotypical witch hat. Now, she’s more of an actual character, closer to what Roman imagines would be in a cool medieval fantasy show on television.

Most of her body is human-- her torso, arms, and legs are pretty normal-looking apart from the violet scales and deep scarring. She’s mostly naked, with a ripped, flowing robe to cover up her sensitive areas (Thomas is still family-friendly, damn it), and a lavish hoard of body jewelry hung at any place that’s free. Her neck boasts delicate golden chains, her wrists and ankles are encircled by broken diamond shackles, and other silver jewelry drapes across her torso, stomach, and legs. Her whole schtick is that she comes to unsuspecting villages in the night, steals their valuables, and uses it to adorn herself in immeasurable wealth.

However, she’s still part-dragon, and that comes in the form of gleaming pointed teeth, wicked sharp nails, an enormous wingspan, and of course, her spiked tail, which is probably far more lethal than it should be. Her shimmering scales radiate out from the center of her stomach, create a patch of bare skin similar to that of what a teddy bear might have, which is almost ironic when it juxtaposes the bloodstains discolouring nearly every smooth inch of her body. She’s definitely evil, and has probably killed tons of imaginary villagers, and Roman kinda loves her simply for the merit she poses as a villain. Whenever he needs a break from the chaos and responsibility, he can rely on her consistency, can depend on the knowledge that she’s always waiting somewhere to engage Roman in his favourite heroic escapades.

And although her purpose is to play the villain, to lose to the hero, an inevitable means to an end, she’s still dangerous. If he slacks off, he can absolutely be defeated. Well, at least Roman can. Remus seems to be having the time of his life even while getting thrown about like a ragdoll (maybe because of it), and honestly, that probably is his idea of fun. He couldn’t have been an arts and crafts geek, could he? No, he has to be weird, and vulgar, and stuck in a cycle of heedlessness. And despite the fact that every time Remus lets himself get hurt on purpose, to fulfill his idea of a day well spent, Roman feels like he’s gonna have an actual heart attack, he can’t deny that some of the foolhardy things Remus does are highly entertaining. Such as now.

The Dragon Witch lets out vicious snarls as she tries to throw Remus off of her back, outraged howls that are only met with deranged laughter. Of course, his brother is unafraid, impetuously so, and that’s something that gives him a clear advantage in most of his fights. Their opponents can act threatening, rise up as terrifying monsters and evil sorcerers and haunted thieves to menacingly loom over the hero, but Remus isn’t the hero, and he can be just as scary. It’s a critical part of what makes him so intimidating, really.

With every growl, every failed slash, the Dragon Witch gets more agitated. She kicks up dirt and gravel with her clawed feet as she stomps around, bleeds into polluted air with rash arrogance. The path they stand on is partially obscured by clouds of dust, leaving the two’s squabble to be enacted as shadows through the grimy lens. Sound is more effective than sight, in this instance, and it’s this sense that leads Roman back into the fray.

His eyes burn as he trudges toward the faint outline of the Dragon Witch, footsteps filled with caution while he shields his eyes from the dust in a futile attempt to ease the sting. He almost trips over upended rocks multiple times but manages to approach the scuffle relatively unscathed. It’s a wonder Remus is still hanging on, squeezing one of the larger spikes on the half-dragon’s back in a death grip even as she doesn’t let up trying to shake him off. Roman can see through the haze in the air that Remus has managed to almost double the number of scratches he had before, and yet nothing’s changed. He’s still grinning, still whooping and shouting as if he’s this is all just a game, and for him, it probably is.

Despite the fact that the lacerations don’t seem to bother him, Remus is still unable to fight efficiently due to his position, and Roman realizes with a groan that he’s going to have to front the efforts on this one. He doesn’t know why he expected Remus to contribute a single thing to make his life easier, but even with the annoyance, he still can’t really bring himself to be angry.

The prince-like side sighs once more, steels his resolve, and then dashes forward.

Once he’s close enough, Roman almost swings his sword in an effort to do some sort of damage, but manages to stop himself before he does. He’s learned over time that recklessness in combat is one of the biggest detriments to swaying the fight in your favour, and has slowly began to adopt and absorb the patience and split-second strategizing that often tips the balance towards himself in altercations. There are only a few moments before the Dragon Witch will notice him and attack, so Roman needs to think quickly.

In all of the fights he’s had with her, there has been a relative consistency in the way the villain ensures Roman will be the underdog, getting beaten multiple times throughout the battle right up until the end. Her counter-attacks are the focal point here, something he’s begun to train himself to look for in their skirmishes. They’re easily compared to chess pieces, and it’s important for Roman to condition himself into analyzing each move to see where he can improve.

There is one part of their battles that tends to repeat itself, a specific situation that he’s relived time and time again. Roman will charge at the Dragon Witch thoughtlessly, foolishly leave himself wide open, and she’ll whip around at the last second to strike him in the torso with her tail. It’s almost practiced at this point, choreographed into the repetition of the timeline, fluid from one altercation to the next. And Roman knows this, is striving to rethink, and recognizing patterns is how he’ll overcome his deficiencies.

He can’t wait any longer. Narrowing his eyes, Roman puts on an act, lets out a dramatic battle cry as he lunges forward with his sword raised above his head. He can see the Dragon Witch smirk, sees the way her dark eyes glint, and he knows that he’s not going to fail this time. As soon as Roman is within range, she turns as usual, easily baited out with conscious forethought. This time is different, though, because Roman stops short, shifts back to lag the pace, and her tail shoots around.

In a moment that doesn’t happen often, Remus turns around, somehow knowing exactly what Roman’s plan is. There’s a synchronicity there, duality that only comes from two beings who used to exist as one. Roman hops over the Dragon Witch’s tail, leaps forward to grab onto Remus’ extended hand, and uses the leverage to vault off of her back and over her head. He lands hard on the ground in front of her, refusing to waste a single precious second as he ignores the pain that shoots through his legs at the rough stop. Roman immediately turns and plants a foot backward, stamps an anchor into the grass to use as a pivot point. There’s a very small window of time that Roman has to operate in, to take advantage of the pause of surprise as the half-dragon processes the new turn of events. The prince spins around, then uses the momentum to bring down a harsh slash on the Dragon Witch’s chest.

The villainess shrieks, rears back hard enough to finally eject Remus from her back, and she doubles over to clutch at the gash in her open patch of skin. Remus lands in the dirt with a thump, breath forced from his lungs at the impact, and Roman ignores the Dragon Witch for now in favour of rushing to help Remus up. Yeah, his brother is annoying, but he’s still his brother, and Roman is a terrible excuse of a prince if he doesn’t help someone in need, especially family.

His counterpart groans from where he’s laying on the ground, rolls his head to the side to reveal a rock now coloured with a smattering of red. Of course he hits the one place where there isn’t grass, devoid of a more forgiving landing. Roman’s so used to the way that his brother is able to adapt to each new challenge, laugh back in the face of adversity in a different, more careless way than he himself does, that seeing a glazed film over unseeing eyes causes him to stumble back.

Although Remus isn’t usually perturbed too much by injury, and in fact welcomes it, that doesn’t mean that it still doesn’t hurt, that it doesn’t affect him the same way it does any of the others. Particularly in the Imagination, where everything is amplified multiple times, colours and sounds and feelings turned up several notches to match the overwhelming, extraordinary nature that encompasses such a vast, limitless wealth of creation. The production of ideas from such conspicuous places, influenced by the very experience that sets their host apart as an individual, it allows for so much light, but also so much darkness. And though Remus operates comfortably within these confines, yanks on the reins with a force of a tidal wave to force relevancy and requirement, it consequently brings to light how much even his already staggeringly disturbed intrigue can be worse, can always be worse.

Roman has never had full control over the Imagination, has shared it with his brother despite the split far favouring himself. He tries to keep it relatively clean, err on the side of easier topics so as not to disturb Thomas, but even Remus needs an outlet, especially Remus. Roman tries his best to put forth light and warmth, and he’s largely successful, but the suppression of his brother’s thoughts and ideas can only hold on for so long before there is a need to release the pressure, create a draining channel to make sure the water doesn’t spill over the dam. It’s not nearly as bad as it used to be (though the journey to forgiveness and acceptance was certainly arduous), but the predisposition toward lording Roman’s contributions above Remus’ has resulted in a severely heightened state of the areas under his counterpart’s control.

One such area of control is the effect of injuries on those who get hurt inside the Imagination, something that, while more realistic and immersive, has gotten Roman into trouble many, many times. Wounds don’t work the same here as they do in the main part of the mindscape, set apart from the innate impermanence of how they function. Here, they actually hurt, which is not something one would experience outside of the Imagination. They’re also unable to be waved away, cast aside in an instant; once you’ve got it, it stays there, at least until you return and employ the use of object impermanence like a salve. Sure, it makes engaging in Roman’s favourite heroic scenarios feel much more real, but it’s also left him in various predicaments, having to limp away from battles or cower under the force of broken bones.

So normally, when met with the assertation of his brother bleeding from his head, there would be little cause for panic. But in the Imagination, there are much harsher consequences for reckless behaviour, and the way Remus sways and wobbles as he tries to sit up spells out bad news. Roman can feel his heart-rate quicken, feels the lump in his throat forming as Remus doesn't seem to be cognizant enough to respond to his calls and questions.

The prince-like side reaches out, shakes his brother’s shoulders to try and snap him out of it. It seems to succeed somewhat, and Remus blinks a few times before finally meeting Roman’s worried gaze. His face is terrifyingly blank for a few moments, as if he doesn’t even recognize him, and then he’s standing, wincing at the volume of his own voice when he barks out a laugh. “My ‘ead got hit pre--pretty hard, didn’ it?”

Roman’s alarm builds even more, eyebrows furrow as his twin stumbles to the side from a loss of balance that doesn’t have any external cause. Remus reaches up to scratch at the back of his head, forgetting the injury that was just created, and he winces with a sharp hiss as his hand comes back partially covered in fresh blood. It’s a wonder he hasn’t passed out yet, what with the absurd amount of blood he’s lost just in the past few minutes alone, but he’s still standing, and Roman is impressed even amidst the concern. And then his counterpart’s eyes snap open, as clear as they were before, and he’s yelling out a “Move!” as he tries to reach forward.

But it’s too late, and the eldest twin certainly isn’t going to let it hit Remus, so he raises his arms to the sides in order to shield as much of his brother as possible. Roman feels the drag of spikes tearing open the flesh on his back, the ache of the bruises beginning to form from the force of the impact that the Dragon Witch’s tail causes.

Roman spins around through the acute pain emanating from his back as he summons his shield, the one he only saves for emergencies because its gleam can beguile and stupefy and entrance any being who lays their eyes on it. It has a property that almost hypnotizes, something that Roman certainly didn’t intend on it doing, but he’s had to employ its assistance sparingly because of how long it leaves its victims in a daze. He has no problem using it now though, holds it up and braces himself against Remus’ newfound grip on his shoulders, and ducks his head.

The Dragon Witch screeches and tries to send a vicious plume of fire their way, but the shield protects them, turns each flickering flame into sparkling dust to drop harmlessly to the ground when it’s close enough. Her belted attack soon dies out, morphs from a shrill howl to a pained moan, and her voice starts to lose its volume. Roman risks taking a peek over the top, and sees the villainess stumble from side to side as her eyelids droop involuntarily.

The Dragon Witch’s gaze lands one more time on Roman’s shield, and then she’s slumping to the ground, lost in the intricacies of its swirling gold patterns.

“You alright?” Roman asks as he stands back up, furrowing his brows when his twin’s eyes shift in and out of focus. He reaches out to steady Remus in case he falls, but his brother manages to shake his head as if he’s trying to jostle the cotton in his brain and then straightens up just fine, so he lets his hand fall back to his side.

“Yeah, I’m good now. You’ll really do anything to be the hero, huh? Oh, my saviour!” Remus swoons, mocking a feminine voice as he puts the back of his blood-soaked hand to his forehead delicately. The dark red claret streaks across his face, mats his wild, unruly hair down, and Remus doesn’t acknowledge it at all. His counterpart mocks the damsel in distress, snickers with that god-awful nasal laugh of his, and Roman playfully whaps him on the shoulder with the hilt of his katana in relief.

Remus casually bumps his shoulder against Roman’s own as they walk back to the entrance of the Imagination, shows a rare sign of good faith, and Roman is positive that he has the best brother in the world.

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Caged Birds Don’t Fly -Chapter Three-

Chapter Three

Birds Of a Feather Flock Together

When Joan turned on the tap, Bee instantly became interested in the bathtub. She hangs from the side of the wall so she can bat at the water, which caused Joan to laugh. She jumped at the sudden sound, but goes back to what she’s doing once she confirms her human was okay.

“Okay, I’m going to try and get that smock off of you.”

Joan grabbed the scissors that she had brought in and waved Bee over. Reluctantly, she climbs down and sat in front of her like a dog.

“Good monster.”

The dual blades slip under one of the laces. For a moment, the leather held, making Joan think they were indestructible, but then the scissors chewed through the binds.

White and blue veins were crawling across Bee’s back, starting from the base of her wings. They clear as day despite her dark skin tone. They seemed to glow a little, pulsating slightly. Joan looks over this new sight before continuing her work, removing the straps and metallic clasps and plates. When everything was off, Bee stretched out her wings and shook herself out.

“There we go. Now, go on, get in the bath!”

The monster eyes her crossly, chuffing softly under her breath. Joan puts her hands on her hips.

“Don’t give me that look, missy. I know you hear me.” She nudges her tail with her foot, “Go on.”

Bee grumbled and then crawled into the bathtub. She loved it almost instantly, purring as she relaxed in the hot water. She leans down and feels a cluster of bubbles with her antenna. The beast sneezes.

Joan grabbed a washcloth and douses it with soap. She starts with the creature’s back, scrubbing off layers of grime and dirt. Bee was very patient, sitting still for her, even when she took the time to clean each of her claws thoroughly.

“Tail.” Joan says and she obeys.

The rag shines the hook-like barb on the tip. Apparently it was supposed to inject a paralyzing nerve toxin or even spray boiling acid.

Right then, Joan realizes what she’s doing. She’s been treating Bee like a friend or pet; a benevolent mute companion. She was the same species as the thing that hurt her- that ruined her life. And yet...

Bee makes a confused noise. She turns around and Joan shrinks away, white-knuckling a rag that was covered in monster grime. She senses that she was probably going to climb out of the tub and touch her. Comfort her. She didn’t want that.

“You scare me.”

For a long time, girl and monster just stare at each other.

It didn’t feel real. The feeling was similar to when you do just about anything at 3AM but without the lucid, otherworldly touch. No, this was sitting inside a thin salt circle at witching hour, shrouded by shadows where something deadly lurks.

What was this? A paradox? A cycle of madness that left her questioning her protector? A wormhole that constantly repeats her meltdowns? A liberation from madness, or an episode? Was this desperately breaking free of something that was going to lull her into mindlessness, or was this a foolish denial of her only possible anchor? Was this hell?

Fear ached in Joan’s stomach. Nameless fear. Unexplained fear. Overwhelming fear. She had to run. She had to get out of the room. She had to get out of the house, away from this, away from this monster, away from this insanity, she needed to breathe, she needed-

The bathroom didn’t feel right anymore. Bee started to snarl. It wasn’t her harmless little growl- this sound was rabid. She gripped the edge of the tub with her front talons, cracking the plaster slightly with frightening amounts of strength. Her tail arches over her back, barb gleaming menacingly. Spines started to grow out of the lacy veins, sharp and quivering, creating a horrible buzzing sound. Those were new; Joan stared in utter horror.

“Bee, stop!” She cried, “Stop it, please!”

Bee rears up with a deafening screech that sends Joan collapsing into a cringing ball of pain. She pressed against the cabinets and writhed, clutching at her ears. From above, the monster continues to frenzy.

“Stop!”

Joan forced herself up onto her knees, flaring out her one wing wide open.

“You know what? Fuck you! If you want to tear up this bathroom, too, then fine. But if you disappear, if you leave me alone like this, if you abandon me, I won’t forgive you!”

Silence.

Bee twitches and then chuffs softly. Her quills retract and she settled back down in the water, gurgling softly. When Joan crawls towards her, she moved away and pressed against the wall. The girl stops and then held out her hand.

“Here Bee,” She called out softly, “Here Bumblebee. Come here. It’s okay. You won’t hurt me.”

Slowly, the monster inches closer and presses her head against Joan’s hand. Her arm looped over her neck and she welcomed the touch.

“I’m keeping you.” The owl murmured, “Let me keep you. I feel braver when you’re here with me.”

The monster purred and rubbed against her in an affectionate way. She was agreeing. She wanted to stay.

“Good monster,” Joan cooed, stroking the base of her wings, “Whatever I did to set you off, warn me next time, okay?”

A gurgle.

Once the two of them parted, Joan continued to wash off the WingEater. They were both a lot more relaxed and Bee ended up playing in the water again.

The bath water became murky grey as more and more soot was removed. It seemed like dirt collectively clung to the leathery flesh over time, making it horribly dirty. It took around ten minutes to just get the top layer off and the water was already blackened. Joan ended up filling up a bowl so she could wash off her rag.

The fledgling uses her nails to get off the tougher layers of grime, something that even she’s a little surprised about doing. Black dirt and ash gets underneath her fingernails, but she doesn’t care. She’s completely focused on cleaning up the monster.

While Bee’s wings were beautiful, some feathers had to be cut off because they were just too stiff and dry. It’s almost like they were rotten. They floated lazily in the water with other clumps of burned fringes or fallen down.

Various kinds of soap and shampoo were rubbed against dark pelt, making the bathroom smell pleasant, despite the burnt scent that tried to combat it. Suds and bubbles filled the surface of the water, making Bee sneeze when they get in her nose. Joan laughs.

Soon, the water became way too dirty to properly clean Bee, so Joan decided to pull the plug. The WingEater gave her a confused look.

“Brace yourself.”

She was so glad she warned the monster, because she was almost positive she would have attacked the shower head if she hadn’t. Hot water sprayed out from the spigot, causing Bee to jump backwards and stick to the wall. She looked completely startled, but slowly lowered herself back into the tub. She began twisting and turning under the streaming rain, purring happily. Joan let her do a little dance under the stream before turning the shower off. When Bee reached for her smock on the floor, Joan scowled and kicked it away.

“You can’t put that back on! It’s filthy!”

Bee chuffed. It’s not like it mattered if she wore anything or not- WingEaters didn’t have visible genitals.

“Let me clean it first, okay?”

When the monster agreed, Joan bundled both the smock and her stained sheets into the washing machine. Bee didn’t expect a stew of bleach, though, so she began to mope. She followed Joan around the house, bleating miserably. Repeatedly. For over an hour.

Joan ended up giving her a plate of leftovers, but she just stared at it unhappily. She yowled and fretted and whined, padding into the laundry room to check on the progress of her weird WingEater clothes. After a moment, she would always return, disgusted by the bleach. Once she took a few trips and tugged helplessly on Joan’s shirtsleeve without changing her situation, she flopped to the floor, huffing and grumbling. Finally, she began to eat.

Joan was actually a little surprised that she would even consume human food, but she seemed to be enjoying the spaghetti. She sat down, watching the monster. Her monster.

———

Was sneaking into a barn to show your pet monster farm animals considered trespassing? Maybe. But Bee’s reaction was worth it.

For once, it hadn’t been a nightmare that woke Joan up. She had plans to sneak out with Bee and just wander around, bonding with the beast. Night seemed to be the only time she could take her out, so naturally she chose to go to a small farm nearby.

Joan steps into the large barn, shutting the door quietly behind her and Bee. The farm animals made startled noises at the sight of the owl and the strange creature. After a minute, they settled slightly, unaware of what Bee really was.

Bee happily pet on the cows and sheep and goats, chirping happily and tail wagging. Joan watched her, smiling.

While she was having her fun, she began to think. Bee was very strange. She was so different compared to what other WingEaters are like, not to mention she can weirdly disappear and reappear at will. It didn’t seem like the rest of her kind could do that.

Joan turned around and opened the door to make sure the farmer was still asleep. That was the plan, but she ran into a problem.

A twisted monster was standing in her path.

It was almost skeletal due to how thin it was, dark red skin pulled tight over its bones. There were chunks missing from the arms and blue WingEater blood was crusted around the mouth. Hunger blazes in its eyes.

“BEE!” Joan screamed.

The beast lunged forward, chipped claws catching on the girl’s coat and ripping the fabric. She spasms in fear, kicking it in the shin and making it stagger backwards. This would have been the perfect chance to run, if the door hadn’t slammed on her wing. Joan’s spine arched and she hissed between her teeth. The WingEater has regained its balance.

“Bee!!”

There’s a roar, similar to the battle cry of a tiger or panther. Bee is perched on the roof of the barn, suspending the rabid WingEater upside down in the air by one of its legs. She growled lowly, seized the tail with her other hand, and ripped it out in one clean motion. The spine comes out with it, along with a gushing fountain of blue blood. Joan feels her stomach turn.

The lights in the farmer’s house flick on. Bee throws the body into the crops, jumps down, grabs Joan’s hand, and runs into the forest. Nestled in the bushes, they watch as a man steps out of the house with a gun and looked around.

Joan is still shaking. Her wing stung from when she was yanked out of the doorway. A few feathers were missing, but that was the least of her worries.

“Bee,” She croaked, “Why was it...?”

Bee wrapped her in her arms first, then her wings. Her claws rubbed soothingly against her back. It was like she was saying, “It’s okay. It was just a fluke. It wasn’t here for you.”

Joan clung to the monster, waiting until her fear quelled. It was easier than before, thanks to her beast.

[danetobelieve]

Dipping Out || Remmy and Winston

It had been a stressful week. That animal had attacked Winston’s on their way home from a party. They weren’t sure what the hell had happened that night. They’d obviously drunk too much. Stray rabid dogs didn’t breathe fire and there was no way that a blast of light could ever erupt from their hands. That was something that might happen in their D&D groups but this was the real world and in the real world there were scientific explanations that were rationally and logically sound. On top of that Winston was behind on school work, they’d spent way too much time working on internship work and they had been forced to stay late. Rubbing their eyes, they slid their laptop shut and placed it in its sleeve. After packing up the rest of their stuff and shouldering their backpack, Winston headed out of the library. Nodding to a few other fellow late night academics. They stepped out of the university building and blinked in the darkness. Campus looked surreal veiled in the shadow of the evening and Winston couldn’t help but pat their jacket instinctively for their car keys, before releasing discouraged that they weren’t there. That was when they remembered leaving them on the desk they’d been working at in the library. But to get back into the library they needed their key card which was on their car keys. Fuck. Sighing to themselves, Winston headed in the direction of the campus security desk, hoping someone would be working this late. Otherwise it would be a long walk home. Fortunately they spotted someone who looked like they might be a security guard and headed over. “Hey, excuse me … uh I was hoping you could help me?”

Nighttime was quiet. That was why Remmy liked nighttime. And you could see the stars at night. Another good reason to like the night. Remmy liked looking up at the stars at night, it was relaxing. But tonight, they were working. Moose trotted right by their side, just like he’d been trained, and Remmy walked in a stiff, straight line, just like they’d been trained. Being campus security, though, was boring. And Remmy didn’t get bored that often. But this school? This town? Remmy was bored. All the damn time. They barely even slept, up at all hours. Tiredness seemed to be a thing of the past. It was probably the new pills they were taking, but damn, did Remmy need a hobby. They almost wished they could work full time, but the state would take away their disability benefits if they did, and that 3,000 dollar check every other week was nice. Still...they almost wished something would happen. At least then they wouldn’t be so distracted by the stars. And as if on cue, someone was approaching them. A young looking fellow. They looked a bit mousy, almost nervous, and Remmy stopped walking as they approached and Moose sat next to them. “Oh, yeah, sure,” they said, “what uh-- whadda you need?”

The still night air was cold against Winston’s skin, a puff of frosty breath plumed in front of their eyes as they glanced at the security guard gratefully smiling in greeting as they spoke. “Uh …” they swallowed somewhat embarrassed by their absent mindedness, “I left my keys in the library and I can’t get back in without my key card which is on my key chain with the rest of my keys so I’m kind of stuck…” they laughed awkwardly and shrugged, “can you let me bac…” they trailed off as there was a clatter and a bin rolled over in the background. The sound of metal and plastic on concrete shattering the silence that had been the backdrop to their conversation. “Uh, what was that?” Winston asked as they felt their heart race. Why was their previously mundane life beginning to get so weird all of a sudden?

“Oh, yeah, I can--” Remmy started, but was interrupted, too, by the clanging sound. Maybe there was some merit to those rumors, after all, that something was prowling the campus at night. Remmy narrowed their eyes, stepping forward a little. Moose stood as well, and his ears pressed back as his body sunk low. Uh oh, that wasn’t a good sign. “Get behind me,” they said to the kid, stepping between them and where they thought the sound had come from. It was hard to tell sometimes, even with the hearing aid. But Moose was never wrong, and Remmy oriented themselves to face the same direction as him as a low growl came from his throat. Remmy squinted, as if that would help them see into the darkness. What greeted them was a pair of glowing red eyes, and that was it. This was usually the point fear would set in, but Remmy’s heart didn’t even hiccup. Slowly, they reached down for their temp badge, even slower held it out to kid. “When I say run,” they said quietly, “run.”

Winston was pleased to know that if they managed to survive the catastrophe that this night was apparently beginning to turn into, they would be able to get their keys. But they should probably be worried about other things. Their first clue was the dog. Winston wasn’t completely oblivious, they could tell something had caused it to tense up. Was it the thing from the other night? They had hoped that whatever it was had been scared away by whatever bizarre act of god had saved them that night. “You don’t need to tell me twice,” Winston said quickly putting the dog and the security guard between the noise. When the red eyes came into view, Winston felt their heart drop and their pulse race. This really wasn’t what they had planned for the evening. They had so much work left to do and instead they were taking a temp badge from a security guard who’s name they didn’t even know. “You’ve got to come with me.” They whispered insistently. This was terrifying but they didn’t know what the hell that was, if one of them stayed behind they could get hurt or worse.

Remmy stayed quiet, even as the kid whispered something to them. Moose’s entire body was stiff and alert. Remmy let go of the leader leash. The thing in the shadow, the eyes piercing through Remmy, started moving towards them. Remmy took a slow step back, ushering Moose to as well, pushing the student back. This was what their job was, protecting others. It always had been. Sure, they might just be a simple rent-a-cop right now, but that didn’t change who they were. If Remmy had been faster, or better, or smarter, then they’d still have a left eye. And be in Afghanistan. And have friends, and a squad. If Remmy hadn’t gotten hurt, none of them would have died. Remmy blinked, something hot and wet on their hand. It was Moose, biting them softly, pulling Remmy from the memory. The eyes were still staring at them, and if by instinct, Remmy knew it was about to pounce. “Run,” they breathed, stepping back again. Snapped loudly, drawing Moose’s attention away. “Run!” they shouted again, more firmly, turning to look back at the student. “Now!”

A thin bead of ice cold sweat trickled from the nape of Winston’s neck down their spine. They found themselves shivering gently as the eyes began to bob forwards through the night. Winston was sure that there was nothing natural that had eyes of that colour. Their heart raced as they were pushed backwards by the security guard. Taking a stumbling step, they moved away. Whoever this security guard was they seemed to at least have an idea of what they were meant to do, or they were really convincing at faking it. At least this made Winston feel slightly less worried about what might be about to happen to them. As the eyes crept through the shadows, Winston felt their body’s natural instincts take over and before Remmy had said run the first time they would’ve probably heard footsteps as Winston hurtled away. The second command to escape only reinforced their fear, but they paused to turn back as they reached a corner, desperate to make sure that they hadn’t abandoned their saviour.  “You need to be running too!” they cried desperately.

Remmy didn’t need to be told twice. Once pull on Moose’s lead, and he was running in the direction of the building as well, Remmy hot on his heels. They gave the student a bit of leeway, making sure they were in front of them, always keeping themself between the kid and the pair of glowing eyes. Remmy was hesitant to call it a monster-- it was probably just a large, feral dog. It was definitely too big to be a coyote, but that was what all the locals said it must be. Shouldn’t animal control be out here, and not just extra security? Before Remmy knew it, there was something barreling by them. They stumbled, fell into the grass, but rolled and easily got back up. What greeted their eyes was a dog, with mangy fur and large teeth, getting ready to pounce on the kid. Not again. They couldn’t be responsible for someone else’s death again. Remmy grabbed whatever they could nearby-- a rock-- and hucked it as hard as they could at the thing. “Hey!” they shouted, “Over here!”

Winston hadn’t exactly ever excelled at sports. They had definitely been the type of kid that sat behind a screen with a keyboard and a mouse. Headphones keeping them in their own digital world. But now they were really regretting not making more of an effort with their fitness. Ricky was always trying to get them to work out with them, but they might not make it that long at this rate. Panting as they sprinted, they were pleased to see the security guard follow them, and then they were not pleased to see a huge dog with slobber dangling from its jowls shoot by and knock them down. Winston was nearly at the library, they were nearly at the pad for the temp badge and they would nearly have been at safety. But then they felt something collide with their backpack and they hit the floor hard. The dog snapping behind them as they rolled on the concrete beneath them. Then a rock came sailing through the air and hit the dog square in the ear. A very good shot if Winston did say so themselves. As they panted for air, they watched the dog circle around and face the security guard. Hackles raised, tensed and ready. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Winston said as they pulled their bag off of their back and started rifling through it. 

Good, Remmy had its attention. Wait...Remmy had its attention. The snarling dog snapped at them and Remmy felt their body stiffen, screeching to a halt in their dash towards the kid. Moose was low to the ground, a fair distance away from them. He started running towards them but Remmy snapped at him, putting up their hand. His signal for stay. And Moose stayed. Just like he was trained. Remmy grappled for the baton they’d given them as their only defense (they weren’t licensed to carry a firearm, after all) and held it up, tapping it on the ground. “C’mon bud,” they said quietly, “C’mon...come get the stick.” Held it out, watching the drooling beast follow the stick with its eyes. But it didn’t seem interested, and after a moment, turned back to the kid. As if it could smell their fear, their worry. Their beating heart. “Shit!” Remmy sprinted forward again, Moose whined but stayed put. The baton came down on top of the dog just as it was snapping at the kid. “GO!” Remmy said as they struggled with thrashing teeth, biting hard on the metal baton, nearly crushing it. “What’re you waiting for!?”

Winston was a smart kid. They had always known that they weren’t dumb and both of their parents had repeatedly insisted that their resourcefulness and intelligence would be the thing that got them out of jams. So Winston, being a naive and innocent fool had decided that now was the moment to try and assemble a makeshift weapon. It wasn’t difficult. They had a can of deodorant at the bottom of their bag, they also had a lighter in their back pocket for whenever they snuck the occasional cigarette. Remmy had distracted the thing for long enough for them to get this all together. Of that they were certain. Except they were wrong, and they had their arm deep in their rucksack when the feral creature came after them once more. “I’m trying to help!” Winston screeched as they leapt into the air and scrambled away. Pulling the deodorant out of their bag they dropped their rucksack and prayed that their laptop wasn’t broken after the collision with the concrete. Now all they had to do was use the lighter and maybe they could scare this thing away. Wolves always hated fire in the movies right? They’d read somewhere that dogs were closely related to wolves, this plan had to be full proof!

“Just...get...away!” Remmy said as they struggled against the grip of the dog. Damn, it was strong. Moose was off somewhere barking now. He was getting closer and Remmy whipped their head around. “Moose! No! STAY! STAY!” There was no way in Hell they were letting this feral dog get near Moose. Or this kid. It was their chance to prove that they weren’t a problem. That they could help people. That it wasn’t their fault. Moose had stopped in his tracks, bouncing back and forth on his toes, anxious about the situation. Torn between obeying his commands and helping his clearly in distress owner. But Remmy’s attention was brought back to the rabid dog when it finally snapped straight through their baton, landing on top of Remmy with a loud THUMP! This would have been the part where Remmy’s breath left their chest, but they felt just fine. It didn’t even hurt. But red eyes bore down on them, snarled teeth reaching for their neck. Remmy pulled their legs to their chest, then launched them forward-- a tactic they’d learned from self-defense training-- kicking the creature off. It yelped, landed a few feet away, and Remmy scrambled back up, standing between the kid and the dog again. Moose was howling and barking, but staying in place. “If you’re gonna do something, do it fast,” they said, looking back at the kid.

Whoever this security guard was, they were a bad ass. Winston was really impressed. Somehow they managed to stop the creature with their baton and wrestle with it long enough for Winston to grab the lighter in their right hand and the deodorant in their left. Positioning it they heard the baton snap with a crunch and winced as they were sure the security guard would have their throat ripped out or something equally gruesome. But moments later and they were kicking the rabid dog off of them and looking at Winston expectantly. Winston could see their lips moving but they weren’t hearing whatever it was that they were saying. They knew that it was now or never, and so their thumb struck the flint and sprayed the can. Except the flame didn’t take. Sparking again, they hit the same thing. The creature had risen and was on it’s feet once more. Swallowing, Winston tried a third time and was finally vindicated as a flame erupted forward. The entire quad lit up as the fire danced forwards and Winston turned it to face the creature. They didn’t want to actually burn it, but they also didn’t want themselves or someone else to get hurt by this. “I don’t know how long this will work!” they exclaimed, already feeling the metal edge of the top of the lighter grow hot. 

Click. Nothing. Click. Still nothing. Remmy was beginning to worry. And then, warmth. It flared up next to them, and the rabid dog howled, backing away quickly. As it did, Remmy finally signaled to Moose, giving a click of their fingers. He leapt forward and sprinted to their side, and Remmy snapped again, pointing for the building. “Doesn’t matter, we gotta go now while its distracted!” they said, grabbing the kid by the hand and yanking them away, dashing for the doors. Moose was ahead of them, leaping up the stairs. Remmy chanced a glance back, but the dog was still distracted, scraping off seared fringe from its nose. Reeling from the smell of burnt hair. “Almost there!” they shouted, pushing the kid in front of them. “Get the badge!”

Honestly, Winston was more adrenaline then human at this point. Breath catching in their throat as the security guard grabbed their hand, Winston bolted after them. “I won’t argue,” they replied honestly still somewhat taken aback by the entire situation, “I just can’t believe that actually worked.” They weren’t sure what they were expecting. Not for this to actually work out. The deodorant can exploding in the palm of their hand seemed to be a more likely outcome then that. As Remmy dragged them along and pushed them in front, they fumbled with the temp badge that they had slid into their back pocket. Their fingers felt like they were made of lead as they ripped it out of their pocket and slapped it against the side of the pad, hearing an electric beep and click as the door popped open. Wrenching it free, they held it open and stepped inside. “C’mon, c’mon, get in here and we can call animal control to deal with whatever the fuck that is.”

As soon as they were inside, Remmy shoved the kid back and locked the doors. They called for Moose, backing away, but when they went to look through the glass of the doors, the rabid dog had seemed to have disappeared, as if it were a shadow itself. Remmy felt a chill rise on their arms. “Get in the office,” they said, without even waiting for a response from the student. Something wasn’t quite right here. Moose was still stiff at their side, a low growl in his throat. And then they heard it. They didn’t even see it at first, but the loud !CRACK! As the dog threw itself against the glass of the door. “Fuck,” they cursed. “Get in the office!” they shouted, turning around. “GO!” Another loud boom as the dog threw itself again and again against the door, the metal groaning, the glass cracking.

This was a horror movie. Winston was convinced that they were in a horror movie. In the last week they had seen things that they were convinced were not real, from a gollum-esque creature to a dog that could breathe fire. Now they were being attacked by something that was apparently a dog, but had eyes as red as Satan’s skin and less patience then a child on Christmas morning. Wincing as they heard the glass crack underneath the force of the creature, Winston didn’t even have time to wipe the sweat from their brow as they winced at the noise. “Come with me then!” they exclaimed as they headed towards the office, throwing the door open and beginning to move furniture that they could use to barricade their way in. “We should call someone, maybe the police could help us?” Winston wasn’t sure if that was what they wanted, what if their dad was the one to turn up? What if they had to see them or someone else they knew get hurt?

Another loud boom shook the entryway and Remmy’s eyes unfocused for a minute. When they looked back up, Lieutenant Lancer and Private Mullberry were in front of them. “Stay back against the wall!” Lancer shouted. “Get Mullberry!” Remmy reached out to grab him-- their hand gripped Winston tightly, like a vice. They leapt up and yanked him into the office, slamming the door shut. “What now, Captain?” Remmy said out loud, pressed against the door. “We’re surrounded, wh-what do we do?” Remmy was shaking. When they glanced out the window, Taliban soldiers raced by the window and Remmy ducked quickly, pressing their back against the door, their hand across Mullberry’s chest, holding him back as well. Lancer was ducked under another window, and the others were checking the back room for a way out. “We have to lay low,” Remmy hissed, “we just have to wait out.” Their eyes glued to Winston, but they weren’t looking at them. They were seeing through Winston, to Dario. Seeing his face, his fear. One half of their vision darkened. Remmy could feel the bandage on their face again. They scratched at it, leaving a red mark down their cheek. “We just have to wait it out, right?”

Apparently there was more to this security guard then met the eye, Winston couldn’t help but feel a twinge of discomfort alongside the pervasive terror from this situation. Maybe this security guard was going through more then Winston had initially thought and suddenly they couldn’t help but worry that they had to take charge. Whoever they were, this person had saved their life three times already and they felt compelled to help them here. “Stay calm,” Winston said trying their best to put on a confident facade and play along, “we can barricade ourselves in and call for help.” They stayed pressed against the wall. They could hear another crack, then another and the glass from the door that they had closed behind them hoping that it would keep them safe shattered and the large red eyed beast came crunching through. Glass sprayed everywhere and Winston felt their breath catch in their throat. Their phone was in their rucksack, which they had been forced to abandon on the quad after improvising a flamethrower. “Lay low,” Winston thought out loud, although from Remmy’s expression they wondered if they even realised they were there, “we can wait it out, someone will find us, we should barricade the doors though…” someone must’ve set off an alarm. Or something. They had to keep them safe and staying here was the best way to do that.

“We can wait it out,” Dario said. But that wasn’t right. He hadn’t said anything. He’d just looked at Remmy with wide, terrified eyes. Moose was whining and growling, nudging his way into Remmy’s lap. He started with a low grumble, the beginning of a bark. The rabid dog outside the door was sniffing around. Remmy chanced a look. The soldiers were gone for now. But they weren’t safe yet. If Remmy’s heart had been working, it would have surely burst from their chest. Their eyes landed back on the kid. Their face was flickering between a student with big, round glasses and Dario, covered in dirt and blood and sweat. Remmy pressed their palm to their one good eye. “Just…” they started, grappling in their pocket. Something was in their lap. Something soft. Moose whined again and Remmy took their hand away from their eye. “Moose….” Blinked again and the room fell back into place. They looked over at the kid with hazy eyes. “I--” but cut themself short when a loud growl came from behind the door. Moose stiffened to growl back but Remmy held up a hand and he instantly quieted. They glanced sideways at the kid, put a finger up to their mouth, swallowed. A minute passed, another. It sniffed the crack under the door, made a disgusted grunt, and then backed away and headed down the corridor. Remmy let out a long breath. “Call the police,” they mouthed, handing the kid their phone, before crouching up to look out the window again. “It’s clear for now but we should stay in here,” the whispered.

Winston had never wished for a gun more then they did in that very moment. That in itself was a pretty strange emotion for Winston because they were vehemently opposed to guns. But at least they would have something to defend themselves from the most pissed off dog they’d ever encountered. The good news was that their new companion appeared to have snapped out of whatever had been going on for them. They were now semi cogent or at least appeared to be. It was nice that the pressure wasn’t all exclusively on Winston now. Though they were pleased that there was someone else who could help with decisions again. But they knew that they had to get out of here. When Remmy told them to call the police, Winston took their phone from their hands and dialed 911. The phone rang once before the emergency responder picked up. “Hey Wendy,” Winston said quietly, after all of course they knew Wendy, she immediately asked what they needed, “Police and I guess Animal Control to the university, I’m uh… stuck and there’s a rabid dog that appears intent on eating us if it can so if you could be quick.” They handed Remmy their phone back and pressed themselves against the wall, hoping that the dog wouldn’t come back. “Hey, I know you’re the security guard here, but are you okay?” they were concerned about their new friend, “You seemed kind of out of it then…”

The office still seemed to be jumping in  and out of Remmy’s vision, but their hand scrunched in Moose’s fur helped ground them in reality enough for them to focus on what the kid was saying. Good, police were on the way. All they had to do now was wait. Just...wait….Remmy screwed their eyes shut again, pushing the thought away. Moose whined again and they opened their eyes, giving him a quiet shush to let him know they were here. They were grounded. Remmy glanced sideways at the young student. “It’s...sorry...it just happens sometimes...I’m fine.” They glanced again back out the window. “I’m uh...I’m Remmy by the way,” they said, “and this is Moose.” Remmy gave Moose a good pat before giving another surveillance look out the window they were plastered under. 

Honestly, as Winston cowered there, nursing their injured pride, they couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was going on. White Crest had always been a town of eccentrics but this was downright weird. Like something out of a tv show. What next? Swallowing, they looked at Remmy and were about to offer them some water before remembering that their bottle of water was in their rucksack which was still in the quad. “I’m Winston, uh, thanks, that was really cool of you. I don’t know if everyone would’ve taken their job so seriously but I really appreciate it.” They would’ve probably died without their intervention. “If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know because God knows I really owe you one.” No one had ever risked their life for Winston before.

Remmy was quiet for a bit, letting themself calm down, letting Moose’s presence and the sound of the kid’s voice calm them down. They let out another long breath. “Winston,” they said, “that’s a name you don’t hear every day.” Another check. Still clear. Remmy, somehow, could hear sirens in the distance. That sure was a fast response time. “What? Oh, uh-- it was nothing. Just...instinct, I guess. I was hired to protect people, so…” a shrug, “I just did what anybody else would do.”

Winston didn’t usually relish silence, but their breath was still ragged, their heart was pounding and they could feel the sweat pouring down their back. All in all, a few moments to themselves helped to compose themselves somewhat. Adjusting their glasses, they turned to Remmy and shrugged. “Named after my great grandfather,” they shrugged for a second and smiled, “I like it though. Feels unique.” They picked nervously at their jacket, repeatedly buttoning and unbuttoning a button on their sleeve. When they heard the sirens, they let a breath of relief escape and shook their head. “Either way, you still did it. So, thanks.” Winston wasn’t sure they’d have the courage to do the same.

Remmy let out a long sigh. It seemed like the danger had finally passed. Moose was still quite on edge, but he wasn’t whining and growling anymore, which meant the other dog was most likely gone. Remmy stood, put a hand up to Winston. “Stay here,” they said quietly, opening the door as silently as possible, looking around. After a minute, they sighed and opened the door completely. “We’re good.” They could hear cops running up the sidewalk, too. “Oh, uh-- I’m Remmy. And yeah, you’re right. I’m glad I was here to help you.” Like, really glad, but Remmy didn’t need to let them know that. 

Looking curiously at Remmy, Winston had to admit that they hadn’t expected that to be their name. They weren’t sure what they had been thinking the name would be, but now that they’d heard their name they had to admit that it seemed to suit them. The cops ran into the university, stepping through the glass that the dog had been able to shatter before checking in on Winston and Remmy, as they began to ask them a plethora of questions, Winston couldn’t help but thank their lucky stars. “If you need anything let me know,” they said before heading towards the police car to be checked over more closely. 

[snickerl]

Of Monsters and Men, and a Woman.

- I think I smell smoke. -

I wished we had seen a dialogue like this in season 11.

Many thanks to the more than helpful @chekcough and @unremarkable-house for volunteering as beta-readers and their valuable input.

Tagging @today-in-fic

“Oh, isn't this nice? A family reunion."

A cold, familiar voice suddenly filled the air and made Mulder and Scully look in the direction it was coming from. A figure appeared slowly from the shadows a weapon trained at them, showing them a smug smile.

"Spender," Mulder spat.

They had been trying to find an exit out of the huge, run-down and abandoned factory complex where they had found Jackson hiding from his pursuers. Initially, the boy hadn't been willing to let his birth parents interfere, insisting he could look out for himself, but eventually, he had called for Scully through the communication channel he had used before. He was still a teenager, only seventeen years old, traumatized and alone after the assassination of his adoptive parents. Of course, Scully and Mulder had rushed to their son's side, armed and more than ready to protect him from whoever wanted to harm him.

They hadn't expected their old foe to show up at the scene, though. Not after the enemies had been presenting themselves as Purlieu lately. But the agents should have known better, should have anticipated that this man was pulling the strings in the background and would make his appearance somewhere along the road. So, here he was: Carl Gerhard Busch, C.G.B. Spender, Cancer Man, the Cigarette Smoking Man...good God, if there was one person they could name as the evil incarnate, it would be him.

Spender's voice was sugar-sweet but full of dishonesty as always. "Hello, Fox. Dana. I see you have reunited with your offspring after having cut the ties so harshly when he was a baby. Congratulations. I'm happy for you." A disdainful sneer was spreading on his face, proof of his feeling of superiority. He pulled a trademark cigarette out of his pocket with his free hand, put it to his mouth, fished for a lighter in the same pocket, lit it, took a slow, deep draw, then calmly watched how the smoke was leaving his mouth. "The three of us haven't seen each other in a while." His eyes fell on Scully. He scrutinized her from head to toe, unable to conceal that he liked what he saw. "Dana, you look fabulous. What a great pleasure to see you again after all we've been through together."

Scully took a few steps backward, wrapping her arms around herself. "I can't say that I'm sharing the sentiment. If I had been given a choice, I wouldn't have gone through anything with you," she snapped.

Spender only smiled at the unfriendly retort as if he hadn't expected anything else from her. He hadn't been lying though, he was enjoying this immensely. He had been looking forward to this particular moment for a very long time and he was going to savor every minute of it.

"Why so rude, Agent Scully? I remember fondly the nice little road trip we took some years ago, the three days and nights we spent together, the gourmet dinner at a deluxe restaurant prepared by a renowned chef. I will certainly never forget how stunning you looked in the dress I gave you. The black one with those little straps and low neckline." His eyes fell on her chest. "I sincerely hope you let Agent Mulder see you in that dress."

"I burned it," Scully hissed. The knot deep within her tightened. Of course, she remembered the trip, but not with the same glee as the Smoking Man. She felt shame and embarrassment, even guilt when she thought of how naïve and imprudent she had been to follow him without telling Mulder. Not only had it left her with nothing but a blank CD-ROM and empty promises but also with a cracked partnership. It had taken them a while to repair their relationship, until Mulder was able to forgive her and Scully to forgive herself.

"What a pity. It was such an expensive dress. And it suited you so well. You were a feast for the eyes for everyone in the restaurant that night, Dana."

Spender let the words roll off his tongue with a delightful smile on his lips. Unabashedly, he ogled Scully's body, his eyes wandering slowly from her slender waist, across her chest, and up to her face. He looked into her eyes probingly before starting to walk around her, giving her the once over. When he took a luxurious draw on his cigarette, his eyes resting on her backside, Mulder had enough.

"Cut the crap, you sick bastard! What do you want?"

Spender kept his eyes on Scully for another beat, then turned around in exaggerated casualness, tsking and looking at Mulder with disapproval.

"Fox, that's not the way you should speak to your father."

A sour laugh escaped Mulder's throat. He shook his head and threw a side glance at Jackson. The boy had no idea of what was going on in front of him but watched the adults intently. His biological parents had a history with this threatening old man, but not a friendly one. The way they had been addressed by their first names instead of their customary way of calling each other by their last names had sounded like a mockery, not like a sign of familiarity or friendship.

Spender had his weapon pointed alternately at each of them and enjoyed his position of advantage. Scully had positioned herself in the line of fire in movements so small they were barely perceptible, sheltering Jackson off the weapon's potential trajectory. This, thankfully, had gone unnoticed by Spender but not by the boy, and it made him feel protected and cared for but also anxious. This man meant business, that much was clear.

"If you came here to satisfy your sick need of feeling more powerful than us, go ahead. Make fun of us, remember all the moments you held our lives in your hands, but leave our son out of it. Let him go." Scully's voice was strong and full of determination. If she was apprehensive, she did a hell of a job not showing it.

"Aaaw, mama bear is protecting her cub,” the Smoking Man snarled. “How sweet. You should have stood by your son during his childhood instead of giving him to two ignorant and completely overstrained people who'd never had the ability to protect him. Did you really believe it would be that easy to hide him?" He fell silent as if giving her time to answer, watching as Scully exchanged an anxious look with Mulder, he then chuckled. "I always knew where he was. I knew of his broken arm at the age of five, I attended his Little League games, watched him celebrate his first home run, and I know his childhood sweetheart's name was Chelsea."

"What the fuck?" Jackson cried out, shocked by what he was hearing. He had no idea who this man was and why he had such an interest in him. Before he could say any more, Scully took a few steps forward until the man's weapon almost touched her chest, shielding Jackson even more. Her back and shoulders were straightened and her chin was up, but her face had lost its color. She was pale and her voice was a bit shaky now.

"Ever heard of the Constitution, Spender? The 14th Amendment and the Right to Privacy?"

Her question was met by a laugh. Spender put his cigarette to his lips, drew with relish, then let the butt fall to the ground and stepped on it. The grinding noise of the sole of his shoe stubbing out the smoking butt on the floor reverberated through the place, grotesquely amplified by the high concrete walls surrounding them.

"Is that really meant to be a serious question, Agent Scully? You know as well as I do that the Constitution is nothing more but the democratic fig leaf for governmental institutions to pretend they let legitimacy and righteousness guide them. You and Agent Mulder also haven't always played by the book as far as I remember, so spare me your moral indignation."

"What is your interest in our son?” Scully asked. “Have you been afraid of losing your power over us, is that why you spied on his childhood? To use him as leverage over us after all?"

The Smoking Man shook his head and grinned. "Agent Scully, I've never lost my power over you. Have you forgotten the little something in your neck?"

Jackson didn't understand what this meant and why it was knocking the wind out of his birth mother. The man's words were clearly meant to provoke her, and it was working. She gasped and touched a spot at the back of her neck right at the bottom of her hairline. Jackson didn't know what that 'little something' was and what it had to do with anything, what he saw were Scully's trembling fingertips rubbing a spot on her neck as if it itched. The man definitely had succeeded in rendering her speechless.

Not so Mulder. He looked like he was regurgitating a dustball when he spoke and his voice sounded like a rabid dog's growl. "You son-of-a-bitch!"

"You have something to say, Agent Mulder? Fox?"

"Scully asked you a question. What's your interest in Jackson? Why are you here?"

Spender only hummed, pulled another cigarette out of his jacket and lit it. The package was empty now. He crumpled it up and let it fall to the ground next to the butt he had thrown there already. Jackson had to think of his mama who had taught him never to litter. Despite the tenseness of the situation and the much worse things this man was clearly capable of, this childish act of disrespect made the boy's blood rise. His birth parents were scared by this guy who was playing a game of cat-and-mouse with them, that much was obvious, and Jackson asked himself if they remembered that he had a biological advantage he could use to chase this unbearable chain smoker away.

"I told you at the very beginning that I was looking forward to a family reunion. Have you not listened? A father wants to see his son once in a while," Spender supplied.

"Bill Mulder was my father, you have never been a father to me."

"Well...son...genetics don't lie. A biological fact is a biological fact. You may call Bill Mulder whatever you want, all you got from him was his name. But that's another story. Anyway, I wasn't talking about you and me, Fox."

As the last words were leaving his mouth, Spender turned away from Mulder and laid his eyes on Jackson. The boy froze, every muscle of his body strained. Mulder and Scully looked at each other with slack expressions on their faces. The already strung up atmosphere was tensing up even more.

"Who were you talking about then?" Mulder hissed.

Of course, there were not that many other possibilities of who he could have been talking about. Although Mulder, Scully, and Jackson were anticipating an answer, they were also fearing it. It seemed like time was standing still. Somewhere in the factory there had to be a broken pipe because the constant dripping of water could be heard. It echoed through the deserted place, which was cold, dirty, and scarcely lit. The way the Smoking Man's face was illuminated whenever he drew on his cigarette reminded Jackson of his first slumber party when his papa told creepy stories and scared them holding a flashlight under his chin. This man was also creepy, but not in a playful manner like his papa. This man was dangerous and Jackson felt unease running up his spine as the man fixed his cold eyes on him, saying nothing, simply staring at him.

When Spender finally chose to answer, all three of them seemed to hold their breaths. Looking noticeably at Jackson and in a tone of voice more suitable for ordering a glass of Chardonnay in a fancy restaurant than wrecking the life three people had just begun to re-establish together, he said, "well, Fox, if you can't put two and two together yourself, it shall be my pleasure to break this to you: when I said I was looking forward to seeing my son, I was talking about this young lad here."

Boom! The bomb had exploded and nobody had thought of taking cover.

Scully's head flew around. Her hand had left her neck and clutched at her chest instead. She bore her eyes into Spender’s as if she wanted to read his mind, backing away from him at the same time. Mulder's brows were drawn together, his glance darting between Scully and Spender looking for answers in their faces. Jackson was just standing there like a pillar of salt. This guy, this horrible smoker, had just suggested he was his father, now being the third person claiming this particular family bond with him.

How had his life become such a mess? A few months ago, everything had still been fine. He had some peculiar abilities, granted, but he knew how to handle them...most of the time. He had a mama and a papa who loved him dearly, he had a home, he had friends. His life was in order. And then the broad-shouldered men in black suits had shown up, sitting for hours in armed dark limousines across the street, observing him, and an alarm inside his head had gotten off. Then the visions had started, visions of spaceships, of a worldwide pandemic, an apocalypse, and of a woman with red hair. All of this had brought him here, to an old, chain-smoking moron who was telling him he was his father. What a freak show his life had become.

“Bullshit!” Mulder grunted eventually, pulling Jackson out of his dark thoughts. “After all these years, you think we’d fall for your dirty tricks, Spender?" Scully's hand was still pressed to her chest. Slowly moving further away from the Smoking Man she whispered, now unable to conceal her apprehension, "what exactly are you implying?"

"I'm not implying anything, just stating the biological facts. Aren't facts something you've always been so keen on finding, Doctor Scully? And the fact is that I am William's...uh, sorry, young man...Jackson's father. He is my son, not Agent Mulder's."

Hearing him speak it out loud only made things worse. All the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room. Mulder, Scully, and Jackson could barely breathe. The mere idea was earth-shattering. It turned their world upside down, a world that had just begun to reset since the three of them had been reunited. Jackson looked helplessly at who he believed to be his birth father - Mulder - the man who had hugged him so fiercely while whispering in his ear, "I've been looking for you forever", and "I held you when you were a baby".

Mulder was thunderstruck himself, hit to the core, struggling to process the words the old man had just spoken. It was Scully who rediscovered her voice first. "I've never heard such nonsense," she grunted, parts of her self-confidence regained. "If it wasn't so damn sickening, I'd laugh. Wouldn't I know if we had intercourse?" Mulder's face contorted into a pained grimace at that. He winced unmistakably, earning himself the Smoking Man's pitiful smile. Then Spender turned toward Scully again, the corners of his mouth curving up in a smug smile while answering her in a too-sweet voice, "how would you know? You were sedated."

Mulder groaned again, but Scully remained composed, stoic almost. "You mistreated me while I was unconscious."

It came out like a statement, not a question. Jackson was impressed by how calm she sounded. No, impressed was the wrong word. Confused. How could she make such an outrageous allegation and remain so cool? Unlike her, Mulder was not able to keep his composure. The words were growing from the deep of his throat, raw and desperate. "If you harmed her, you’ll pay for it. I will make sure you do, even if it's the last thing that I do."

"I didn't harm her, I gave her what she longed for the most. What you couldn't give her, Fox."

"What do you mean?"

"Hadn't you donated sperm for Agent Scully to get pregnant just a few months earlier, and hadn't the procedure failed? Well, I was more successful," Spender said with twisted satisfaction.

Scully threw Mulder a worried glance and wrapped her arms around her waist once again. She swallowed uncomfortably before she spoke. "You impregnated me? You?" This time, it was a question. An unsettling, agonizing, disgusting question.

"Not the way you may think, Dana. With science. I got you pregnant with science. I had the best doctors care for you and perform the transfer of the ova we had gotten from you, inseminated with sperm I had provided. You would have been thrilled to be a part of a scientific experiment of this immeasurable value, had I been able to tell you then."

The man was speaking in a manner so calm and unfazed he really had to believe that what he was saying was totally normal, whereas, in fact, it was totally crazy. The words 'sedation', 'insemination', and 'experiment' were swirling around in Jackson's head and it made him wonder what kind of trouble he had ended up in. This crazy shit, which had started with the men in the black suits following his every step, seemed to get weirder every day.

"Those weren't doctors, those were rapists. You are a rapist. You hadn't gotten my ova, you'd taken it from me against my will. That was medical rape, twice, and no scientific experiment. Highly unethical and a violation of my right to physical integrity. I can't remember signing a declaration of consent."

Again, the restraint with which she was talking was remarkable. Mulder, who could hardly contain himself, who looked like he wanted to put his hands around Spender’s neck and press until the last bit of air left his lungs, was puzzled by her cool demeanor. Hadn't she just been told that their baby wasn't theirs but hers and…? He couldn't even bring himself to think the unthinkable. The mere thought of it made him want to gag. It would mean Jackson wasn't his son, but his half-brother. It would mean Scully hadn't conceived, carried, given birth to and nursed his son, but that Cancer Man's. He felt a tingling sensation at the back of his throat.

Spender clicked his tongue. "A declaration of consent...you amuse me, Agent Scully. You of all people should know I act on behalf of a circle of people who don't let formalities bind them. Your consent is irrelevant. We are working toward a larger goal, a goal you know fairly well."

"Creating a superior race and ruling the world," Scully spat out indignantly.

"Creating a human-alien hybrid, achieving what herds of scientists have tried but failed so far. William was our first success."

The world started to spin around Jackson. What had this caricature of a human being just called him? A human-alien hybrid? He had understood by now that this kid they were talking about all the time, William, was him. He was Jackson Van De Kamp formerly known as William, the Alien. How on earth had he been drawn into this crazy shit?

"He isn't yours, he is ours. Mulder's and mine. He is not one of your lab rats. He is our son, and we made him."

She sounded so sure and Jackson wanted to believe her so badly. He didn't want to have anything to do with this unhinged, nicotine-addicted lunatic. He didn't want to be special, let alone superior. He wanted normalcy, he wanted to be just a normal boy. Kids his age shouldn't have to deal with crap like this. He wondered how his birth parents had managed to get themselves into this fucked-up mess and if his adoption had anything to do with it. His birth mother, Dana, had talked about bringing him to safety when she had spoken to what she had believed was his dead body in the morgue.

The Smoking Man was standing in front of her, towering over her. His legs apart and his chin up, he was looking down on her with a self-satisfied expression. The corners of his mouth twitched slightly before he spoke. "Dana, how can you be so sure?" The way he called her by her first name again, his voice a mix of superficial friendliness and subtle wickedness, made Jackson's blood run cold. He didn't know this man who was inhaling one cigarette after another, but he radiated malice with every fiber of his being. The way he conversed, how he played with his birth parents, how he gloated when he was shooting his poisoned arrows at them. But what was clearly meant as a fatal wound bounced right off of her this time.

"Do you really believe I was so naïve as to accept my pregnancy as a God-given miracle?” she asked, her lips curving into a slight smile. Spender's expression froze. “I knew my medical condition, that I was barren, a situation you were not entirely blameless in. Of course, I asked myself how I had been able to conceive. Emily's short life and what had been done to me during my abduction was ample proof of what you and your kind were able and willing to do. I needed to know my baby was normal and healthy, so I sought proof of what I felt so strongly - that my baby was Mulder's.” She looked at Mulder, throwing him a reassuring glance before she turned back to Spender and continued. “I’m a scientist, and scientists conduct scientific tests to get proof. That's exactly what I did. As soon as William was born, I had a DNA paternity test done. Three times. I supervised all three procedures myself to be a hundred percent sure the results were reliable. They were, and they showed a match between Mulder and William. There is no doubt whatsoever that they are father and son."

The Smoking Man's once self-assured outer appearance was cracking even more. He nervously fingered the lighter in his hand and his right eyelid twitched when he spoke. "That's impossible! I watched over your insemination. I was told the transfer of the fertilized eggs had been a success. And you were diagnosed as pregnant shortly thereafter, weren't you? So it had to have been successful."

"The transfer might have been successful, but that doesn't necessarily mean the eggs made it into the uterine wall, especially if there already was an egg attached to it, an egg that had gotten there naturally. I did the math, believe me. I calculated the possibility of ovulation, natural conception and implantation back and forth, it's highly plausible that I was already pregnant when you took me on your little trip. Unbeknownst to me, and obviously also unbeknownst to you and your so-called doctors. They neglected to test for pregnancy before they performed the transfer, which is, by the way, a standard procedure in every fertility clinic."

Spender's cool appearance was now falling to pieces before their eyes. He looked like a deflating balloon. He hadn't seen this coming. Just a few minutes ago, he had felt so superior, but this woman was making him dizzy with her scientific narrative. "I...I don't believe this," he stammered.

"I was pregnant with Mulder’s child," Scully continued coolly. "A real scientist rules out everything that has the potential to ruin an experiment, but your doctors weren't thorough enough. Too bad for you.”

She waited, letting her words take effect. After what seemed an eternity to all the people listening to her, she went on.

“You were wrong all these years believing William was your genetic offspring. You may have a biological connection to Mulder, but that's all there is. You don't belong to this family, it's just the three of us: Jackson, Mulder, and me. Now get your sorry ass out of here before I put a bullet through your head for all the times you abused me and the ones I Ioved."

Spender swallowed all of it, every word, and he had difficulties getting them down. But he was a vicious man used to dealing in vicious circles, he wasn't knocked down easily. He wouldn't have survived all these years among reckless men, had he not had the capacity to take a blow. He strolled over to Scully slowly placing one foot in front of the other, his eyes never leaving her. He drew a circle around her so small he was almost touching her, lighting yet another cigarette he procured out of a new pack.

"I am the one with a weapon in my hand, Agent Scully. You are aware that I could shoot you before you even pulled yours out of the holster." His firearm trained at her, he circled her once more until he came to a halt in front her, eyeing her intensely. "Give me your gun!” He demanded harshly now, holding out his hand, palm up.  

Jackson was amazed by how fast the man had recovered. His ice-cold eyes, bereft of any sign of emotion, bore into his birth mother. She held her ground for a moment but then obeyed and handed him her gun. Then he turned to Mulder who reluctantly pulled his weapon out of his hip holster and let it dangle on his outstretched index finger in front of the man's face. The smoker unhooked it with a satisfied grin and put it away. He was in possession of three firearms now, he held all the power despite the momentary crack in his façade a few minutes ago. "Do you still feel like threatening me, Agent Scully?" he asked, mocking his now defenseless opponents.

"One day, you will pay for what you've done, Spender. One day, justice will be served and you will rot in hell where you belong," Scully spat at him, her chin up.

Jackson admired her for her bravery, for how she stood up to that man who was holding all the aces. The boy hummed a low-key Hallelujah, so silent only Mulder, who was standing right behind him, could hear it. He acknowledged it in return with a muffled snorting only audible for Jackson. Father and son in shared admiration for this tiny woman's greatness.

Scully had impressed Spender too, but he wouldn't let anyone know. He made sure to thread enough irony into his voice replying, "ah, Dana, let me compliment you on your bravado and your optimism, but for men like me, there will always be a way out. I'm not so sure about you though. It seems to me your current position is quite precarious." He lifted his gun, pointed it at her forehead, and released the safety catch. The metallic click was so loud, amplified by the surroundings, it made Mulder's and Jackson's eardrums vibrate.

Mulder's right hand tingled. Not many people knew he still carried a second weapon at his ankle. If only he could reach down there, he might be able to get it out before Spender realized what was happening. He bent forward and groaned, holding his stomach with both hands as if he was about to throw up. When his ankle was within reach, he slowly stretched his right hand out, continuing the gagging sounds to keep up the illusion. He was almost there, could already feel the hard steel under the fabric of his pants leg, when the sound of a weapon falling to the ground echoed through the factory hall.

Mulder looked up, expecting to see Spender's gun still aimed at Scully's head, but what he saw was Spender's face twisted in horror. He was holding up his empty hands and was gasping for air like a fish out of the water. Mulder had never seen this man in anything but a smug pose, arrogant and overbearing, but this was fear, mortal fear.

Mulder rose completely and caught Scully's sideways glance. By the look of the confused lines on her forehead, she was as clueless as he was about what was going on. They both watched as Spender stumbled a few steps backward and tripped over his own feet transfixed by something behind them. His mouth opened but no words came out, only a choked scream. Scully and Mulder looked wildly around for the source of his terror but saw nothing. The building was completely empty save for them and quiet but for the whimpers of the now weak, powerless man.

Mulder looked over at his son and noticed that he was the only one who seemed to be in control. And then realization dawned him. Jackson was pulling one of his tricks. He was creating an alternate reality for Spender, maybe one of his gruesome monsters. Mulder couldn't tell, he couldn’t see what Spender saw, and neither could Scully, given the puzzled look on her face.

In the end, it didn't matter what the smoker saw, the only thing that mattered was that he got on all fours and started crawling away, whining like a baby. Watching him coil in mortal fear was striking a chord within Mulder that surprised him. He never imagined he could rejoice in the suffering of another human being, not even a man he loathed from the bottom of his heart, but all he could feel was satisfaction. It would have been easy to reach for his weapon now and bring this to an end for good, to make Spender pay with his life for all he had done to them, but Mulder couldn't bring himself to do it. He just watched as their enemy of twenty-five years got awkwardly to his feet, his tail between his legs, and started running without turning back to them once again.

When the Smoking Man was gone, Scully turned around to look at Mulder and Jackson. "What the hell was that?" she asked, still unable to understand why he had fled. "One minute he’s threatening to shoot us, and the next he can't get out of here fast enough."

"Jackson?" Mulder only said, throwing his son a challenging look.

"He must have seen something that scared him a bit," Jackson replied looking at the space between his feet.

"A bit? He was terrified!" Scully said.

There had to be something really interesting on the floor because Jackson wouldn't look up to meet his birth parents' eyes. "Yeah, well..."

"You created a false reality for him, right? Like you did for us when we were at your parents' house."

Jackson answered Mulder's question with a shrug of his shoulders. He had used his powers more than once for the wrong reasons, to tease people or scare them just for fun, and had been berated for it repeatedly. This had seemed like a good moment to use them, but he wasn't quite sure if it would be appreciated or not. "Someone had to do something. I couldn't stand this asshole and his self-satisfied grin any longer," he offered as an explanation.

"Why didn't we see it?" Scully asked.

"I didn't make you see it, only him."

"You can decide who sees what you create and who doesn't?"

Jackson nodded. "You were the only one who saw me as Peter Wong in front of the hospital."

Scully's heart ached a little thinking back to that moment. She had been longing for contact to her son for so long, and then he had been standing in front of her, talking to her, touching her, and she hadn't known it had been him. She had felt a strange connection to this man who had bumped into her, who had been so compassionate about the broken snow globe and who had smiled at her when she told him she liked this particular windmill she was holding in her hands.

"Did you bump into me on purpose?"

"Sure."

"Why?"

"I was curious about you after what you'd said to me in the morgue."

More heartache. Unknowing of what he was doing to her, Jackson continued. "You sounded so sad and so...honest. And I also had to make sure you'd gotten my message about the windmill. The snow globe in your hands showed me you had."

"So our meeting at the gas station wasn't a coincidence either."

"Of course not. I had something else to say to you."

If filled her with joy that despite her giving him away as a baby, he had wanted to establish contact. Even if without revealing his identity.

"The Malcolm X quote," Scully supplied.

"Right. I hoped you'd draw the right conclusions and realize it was me you'd talked to."

"Mulder recognized the quote and we both realized at the same time it must have been you. My heart almost burst when I saw myself talking to my son, my living son, on the surveillance tape."

"Surveillance tape?"

"The gas station had a CCTV system," Mulder explained. "On the surveillance tape, you were being you and not some pickup artist."

"Yeah, well, my mind is just so strong. I can manipulate people's perceptions but not a machine."

"Still, it's a powerful talent you've got there," Scully noted.

"A talent?" Jackson chuckled. "I see it more as a curse. It makes me an outsider. People think I'm a freak. Which I probably am. It has come in handy a few times lately though."

Scully took a step toward him. She would have liked to embrace him, pull him to her chest, just like Mulder had done at the motel when the two had first met, but instead, she only put her hands on his shoulders to make him look at her. "Listen, Jackson, you are not a freak. And none of this is your fault. You are who you are because you are our son, and from now on, Mulder and I will care for you. We will protect you. You are not alone."

As much as Mulder enjoyed watching mother and son talk to each other, he also got increasingly nervous. What if Spender had a backup? What if he knew and simply forgot for a moment about Jackson's ability to create alternate realities and realized he had been fooled once he had run far enough and cooled down his nerves? They had to get out of this building and off the premises as quickly as possible.

"Guys, let's get in the car and out of here. Spender doesn't work alone, and I don't want to be here when one of his cronies shows up to finish what he hasn't been able to do."

"You're right, Mulder. Come on, Jackson. We'll get somewhere safe," Scully said, nudging the boy forward with her hand on his shoulder.

They ran outside through the same steel door the Smoking Man had fled through and jumped into Scully's SUV. Mulder took the seat behind the steering wheel, Scully the passenger seat. Jackson climbed into the back. "Buckle up, Jackson," Scully tossed over her left shoulder in full maternal mode, "we will have to take some unexpected turns if someone follows us."

But no one followed them. It was a quiet ride, each of them taking their time to process what had happened and what had been said in the factory building. It was Jackson who finally broke the silence.

"You really are my parents, right? Both of you." His eyes met Mulder's in the rearview mirror, Scully turned around in the passenger seat and looked at him. It took him a moment until he was able to meet her intensive gaze, but then the direct connection enabled him to clarify. "What this man said was bullshit. That I am a product of a scientific experiment, that he...uh...that he made you pregnant with me against your will."

"He tried, but he failed," she said, maintaining their eye-contact without blinking. "I am absolutely certain that you are our son, Jackson. Mulder's and mine. You are not an experiment. You were conceived in an act of love." Scully glanced briefly at Mulder after having put so much emphasis on the word 'love' that her voice trembled. He kept his eyes on the street but nodded and smiled. "Not in a laboratory," she concluded.

"But..." Jackson left the rest unsaid. He threw his hands in the air and let himself fall back against the backrest.

"But what?" Scully probed.

"Why am I like this? So...creepy?"

Scully unbuckled her seat belt and climbed across the middle console into the back to join Jackson. She didn't want to talk to him about this any longer twisting her neck. She needed to be able to look him in the eye. She would have wanted to take his hands in hers and squeeze them to assure him but didn't dare. "You are not creepy," she said, laying her hand gently on his lower arm instead, hoping he wouldn't pull it back. He didn't. Not instantly anyway, but after a short moment. She berated herself inwardly for invading his personal space against her better judgment. Had she known that he didn't mind her touching him as much as she thought and that his awkwardness around her was caused by not knowing how to interact with a woman he felt so close (she was his mother, for God's sake) and yet so distant rather than resenting her, it wouldn't have hurt quite that much.

"You haven't seen what else I can do, Dana. Uh, you mind me calling you Dana?" Jackson asked, suddenly uncertain.

"Oh, uhm...no, not at all. Dana is fine."

"I mean since he," Jackson tilted his head in Mulder's direction, "calls you Scully."

"Well, that's a thing between us going back to the time we started out as co-workers. People outside of work usually call me Dana. Friends and family anyway. So Dana is perfectly fine."

It was a start, wasn't it? Scully didn't dare to hope that one day Jackson would call her something more affectionate, like 'mother' or maybe even 'mom'. She had been a mother to two children and had never been addressed as such by either of them. It was a wound which had never healed.

Unaware of Scully's inner struggles, Jackson resumed, "great! So, Dana, you haven't seen me do these other things I'm capable of. Like make people explode, for one. You were freaked out, weren't you?" the boy asked looking at Mulder who was observing them in the rear view mirror more than he should, given the fact that he was running at more than 80 miles per hour. "I was glad you made me duck!" he joked from the front, but the joke never made it to the back. Scully and Jackson were too much involved in their conversation to appreciate his effort.

"Whatever it is that you are capable of, Jackson, it doesn't make you a freak. Most certainly not in our eyes." Scully did her best to assure him of Mulder's and her determination. He needed to know that this time they would stand by him come what may. "You are our son, our flesh and blood, and we love you. Even if you might think otherwise because you were given up for adoption."

"But why am I like this? If you are my biological parents, and I wasn’t created by this chain-smoking moron, why am I not normal like you? You seem like pretty normal people to me. You are not some aliens or hybrids or whatever this guy was saying I was. You may be a little crazy, but still, you're normal, everyday people."

Scully sighed. "As you might have guessed, we have a history with this man, this chain-smoking moron. He's been using us to his own ends, mistreated us, harmed us time and again. I was abducted as a young woman and had become involved in a sinister, abhorrent plan of a group of ruthless men. Unethical tests were performed on me and my DNA had been tampered with. And the same happened to Mulder, only a few years later. He had been experimented on, manipulated, and mistreated so much that he almost died."

Scully saw no use in telling Jackson that Mulder had indeed been dead and buried, and that his coming back to the living had been nothing but short of a miracle. What the boy was hearing had to be disturbing enough, giving him more disconcerting details wasn't helpful, so she continued with the facts he needed to know to get the picture.

"What I'm trying to explain to you is that our genomes have been manipulated, and I take it that's the reason you are who you are. You're a combination of both of us. It's for everyone to see in your looks. You have Mulder's hair and his height, and you have my eyes and my freckles on your nose. Your abilities...well, they are likely a result of what they have done to our genetic material. I don't have any other explanation."

"Wow," was all Jackson said, "you aren't as normal as I thought."

"A lot of people would call us crazy as well. And a bit spooky. At least when it comes to me," Mulder tried for another joke but failed again. Neither Scully nor Jackson laughed.

"You already had powers as a baby, Jackson. You had spun the mobile above your crib once in a crying fit, and you had made a piece of rock hover above your face. And when I had realized that there were people out there holding an interest in you, the man you just met being one of them, I thought the only way to protect you was to hide you in another family far away from us."

"You gave me away to protect me, not to get rid of me." He didn't need to pose this as a question, he had understood.

"Yes," Scully breathed. "It was the only way to get you out of reach of these people."

"Well, your plan obviously didn't work out. The things he told you about me, they were all true. It creeps me out to imagine this maniac has been watching me all the time."  

Jackson thought back to his childhood, to some of the events the Smoking Man might have been present at: his first day of school, when he scored the decisive penalty which had secured the championship for his soccer team, prom night and his first kiss... A cold shudder ran down his spine.

“Spender might have watched you, but so have we," Scully said, only now taking the time since she had climbed into the back to buckle herself up.

"You have?" Jackson asked incredulously.

"We have?" Mulder echoed, looking flummoxed. Scully had never told Mulder that for all these years someone had been holding a hand over their William, someone who hated the Cigarette Smoking Man just as much as they did. She had feared that had Mulder known there was indeed a way to their son despite the closed adoption, that one day he would have tried to track him down.

"When I gave you up, I asked a friend to keep an eye on you because I knew that if we did, we would lead them right to you. His name is Jeffrey, and he helped me find you when you started communicating with me through the visions. I demanded he breaks the promise to never disclose your whereabouts to me."

Mulder took a sharp intake of breath. His molars were grinding when he asked, "you hired Jeffrey Spender to protect our son?"

"I didn't hire him. He..." Scully was struggling for words. "Mulder, you were gone, I was all alone in this and I didn't know what to do. He had come to me, had tried to protect William from you-know-who by secretly injecting him with magnetite. Jeffrey Spender was the only ally I had."

He'd been injected with what? Magnetite? For protection? Jackson remembered how the results of his blood work had always made his doctors frown. This story was getting crazier by the minute. But there was something else that had piqued his interest even more. "Spender? This guy's name is Jeffrey Spender? Haven't you called the smoking asshole Spender, too?" Jackson asked.

"Yes. Jeffrey is his son and my half-brother," Mulder explained. This new information cleared something up Mulder had racked his brain over for some time. "Now I understand why he called me when you were in the hospital after your seizure, Scully. I didn't know what to make of his warning on my voicebox that someone was coming after us."

"This man's son helped you protect me? He's worked against his own father?"

"This man is also my biological father. It speaks for itself that both his sons loathe him that much, doesn't it? It speaks for how profoundly evil he is."

Jackson let that sink in for a moment. He couldn't imagine a life where there was so much hatred, so much mistrust, and fighting against each other. He had been brought up by people who loved and cared for each other, he had always felt safe and protected, at least until these strange men in black suits had first shown up. He didn't know his birth parents very well yet, but Dana had spoken of love, both in the morgue and just now, and Mulder acted like he cared about her very much. They were good people, driven by love, not by hate. They made him feel cared for. Since the assassination of the Van De Kamps, he had felt alone and entirely on his own, but it seemed he had belonged to someone all the time. Maybe he had been wrong, maybe Dana and Mulder, his birth parents, were able to protect him after all. He could at least give it a try, couldn't he? "Where are we going?" he asked.

"We have a house out in the countryside," Mulder answered from the front. "It's secluded and well protected. We should go there, get a hot drink and some food and decide in the comfort of a warm, safe place what to do next. We'll be there in about an hour."

"Good idea, Mulder. Let's go home," Dana agreed.

Jackson turned his head away from Scully on the word 'home' and looked out of the window to hide his happy smile. His limbs felt light all of sudden as if a lead weight had been lifted off his body. He was glad that the rest of the trip was silent, that neither of them tried to engage him in a conversation. Mulder focused on driving them to their place as fast as possible, pushing the speed limit, and Dana leaned her head against the headrest. Surprisingly, she was asleep in a matter of minutes.

"She always falls asleep in the car," Mulder said when he caught Jackson's puzzled look at her sleeping form. "The motion lulls her to sleep."

Jackson only nodded. For the rest of the ride, he watched the dark scenery passing by outside with a feeling of warmth spreading through his body. The feeling replaced the cold fear he had been so used to during the past months, and it was more than welcome.

[bookmawkish]

Just a patient, part 4

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

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It had been accidental, apparently. During one of the many inaugural examinations Loki had undergone here in his cell, an agent had referred back to your paperwork from Stark Tower. Had made a joke of it. That your handwriting was so typical of a doctor - quite unreadable. They’d particularly laughed about the scrawled signature of your name, deliberately misreading it, mispronouncing it, until finally, inevitably, one of them read it out correctly.

And as if somebody had just flipped a switch from passive lunacy to hyperactive psychopathy, Loki had gone crazy.

Three of them had died that first day after he heard your name. Within less than two minutes.

You demand that Banner shows you the report.

There are photos.

The first man has only the stubs of trachea left protruding from what remains of his throat. It looks like the aftermath of a lion kill, the flesh of his body rank and purplish and almost unreal. You hear Banner make a soft, pained sound.

“I wasn’t there,” he says. “Maybe if I had been…but he used his teeth, oh, god, it was so fast. I saw the tape -”

You don’t want to see the tape. You never want to see the tape. You turn a page. Another dead face, throat intact, but the neck canted at an unholy angle, like the bend of an elbow. The third - no face at all. Just a mask of meat. No eyes.

That was the first day.  

After that they got more cautious. By no means cautious enough, but they tried at least. The number of fatalities dropped.

And Loki - Loki just proceeded to get crazier and crazier. There are photographs of him as well. It’s as if you can see the sentience leaching out of his eyes as the timestamps pass: day by day the green eyes get glassier, pupils blown constantly wide and dark and round. The mad smiles become a mere baring of teeth. There is no thought behind them. You hold the final picture in your hand, date-stamped yesterday. Loki is looking right into the camera, mouth open in a roar, his teeth a blur of white. There’s a wide splash of bright blood across his nose, like a parody of ancient war-paint.  

This is a monster. The real fairytale monster that had been hidden when you’d first encountered him, hidden by the wounded, beaten man.

You can feel Bruce Banner’s hovering, apologetic presence, and you look up from the photo and through the glass into the cell.

Loki is on the floor. There’s a collar on his neck, shackles on his limbs, and he’s muzzled. But he is not subdued. Despite his restraints, he is still twisting and writhing like a freshly-slaughtered fish on the griddle. The agents in the cell are watching him, warily, until it seems they are satisfied he has exhausted his ability to strike. Then they chain the restraints to the wall, move to open the door, and in comes a stretcher crew to pick up the girl with the head wound.

The door closes behind them all, and Loki is alone in his cell. You look away.  

“We’ve tried everything else,” Banner says, and he sounds truly sorry. “And I know it sounds crazy. But we got no other way. It’s you, or we start treating him like a rabid dog, and I’m pretty sure you know how that turns out for the dog.” He shakes his head, removes his glasses briefly and rubs the bridge of his nose. “I wish I’d killed him back there,” he says. “Let the - the Other Guy kill him. It would have been better than this.”

“I don’t want to go in there,” you say. Your voice doesn’t sound sad, or frightened, or angry. You don’t sound like anything. You sound empty.

“I know,” Banner says. “I know.”

Then he doesn’t say anything more. He just stands there, silent and regretful, until an agent comes in through the outer door on your side, and tells you that you’re needed.

You make him repeat himself. Twice. You give him dumb insolence. You make him turn it into an order.

And then - only then - do you follow.

 The inside of the cell has that distinct scent that you have woken up to for countless mornings since Stark Tower, only instead of it being faded, like the memory of a memory in a dream, it is strong and sour and everywhere. Once when you were a kid you spilt a chocolate milk onto your carpet. Being a kid, you’d figured that just mopping it with a pile of paper towel until you couldn’t really see any milk anymore would be enough. And it had been, for a few days. But it was summer, and the heat had risen, and so after that few days had the remainder of the milk, spoiled and rotten and quite ingrained into the carpet. No matter what you did, what your mother did, with detergent and disinfectant and finally tomato juice, the smell remained until they finally took the carpet up next spring.

Loki’s cell smells like that, with overtones of sweat and blood. The smell hits you first when the door opens. Then the light and the heat. The light is harsh and white and uncompromising, leaving no shadows in which to hide, and it seems unhealthily warm. Walking in from the corridor is like walking through soup. It’s enough to give you a headache, and you’ve barely been inside for a minute. Loki lives here.

The door closes, you hear the lock engage, and you’re sealed in with the monster. You stand for a moment, take it all in, and just breathe. It’s like this in war zones. There is great danger here, but you have a job. To do your job you must be calm. So you breathe, take in all that fetid, musky air - ten in, ten out.

Once, twice. Then you approach the wall, where Loki waits.

And, as you approach, you use that next ten-out breath to say your own name aloud, identify yourself.

You’re pretty sure this isn’t what Bruce (what all of them out there who are undoubtedly watching) are hoping for. You’re almost certain they’re hoping for the fairytale. For you to approach the beast and by your mere presence, turn him back into a prince.

For whatever magic your name holds to return Loki to his senses.

It does not work that way.

As soon as Loki sees you he strains to be at you, as if he is starving and can only eat human, as if there is nothing that drives him more in this world than to try and part your soul from your body. He can barely move, but what laxity the bonds allow him he takes every inch of it, eyes watering with the effort, the sweat streaking ugly lines down his face. The muzzle allows him no voice, as his jaw is tethered too closely, but the muffled noises are still awful, far too close to what you’d imagined while on the outside looking in. Animal sounds. Drool escapes from under the straps, dripping from his chin.  

You are used to human ugliness, but Loki’s sheer, feral inhumanity is something quite different: and it has the same effect on you as coming face to face with a shark while swimming alone at dusk in deep water. Every hair on your body prickles. Something lethal, something hungry is here with you and it is so far outside your understanding that there is no way of predicting what it will do, how it will turn.

This is the thing that has been lying at your side each morning, hair across your face, smelling alien and exhausted. The memory of the dreams overtakes you, and you feel dizzy, overwhelmed.

Loki rattles a relentless growl from behind his mask. Spittle drips onto the floor between his feet, a slow tap of liquid.

In a movement that is nothing to do with your training or your good sense, you stretch out your hand. And you touch him.

[headfulloffantasies]

Angel With a Shotgun

Chapter 4

Bobby faces down a monster and meets a strange hunter

Bobby woke in the middle of the night to a scratching sound. For a moment he lay in his quiet bed, listening for the noise that had woke him. He’d convinced himself he’d dreamed it, when the scratching came again. Bobby tossed off his blankets and tiptoed down the hall.

Bobby twisted the doorknob of the Sam and Dean’s room. It opened without a creak. He peeked in. The twin beds shoved together held the slumbering lumps of his boys, unconcerned by the noise. Dean was turned towards the soft light of the hallway. His face was soft and innocent in slumber. The scratching sound came again. It was coming from downstairs. Bobby closed the door as silently as he could and hurried downstairs.

Everything was silent and dark at the bottom of the staircase. The kitchen was pitch black. The curtains in the living room were open, letting the sliver of pale moon puddle on the worn rug.

There was the noise again. One, two, three long screeches of nails on a chalkboard. Every scrape sent a shiver down Bobby’s spine. It sounded like claws against the screen door.

           There was a shotgun in the living room hanging over the mantle. Bobby pulled it down with shaking hands. A coyote must have wandered into the yard. Rabid animals were known to look for trouble around here. Bobby stuffed his feet in his boots and carefully cracked open the back door.

           The screen of the outer door was in ribbons. The wire mesh shredded by long slashes wider than any coyote was capable of. Bobby swallowed icy fear.

He reached over and flicked the porch light on. Nothing moved out in the yard. Bobby hefted the shotgun and opened the ruined door.

The stink of sulfur curled in Bobby’s nostrils with the first step outside. The line of the shotgun followed the dark patches of the yard. Bobby crept further from the safety of the light, boots crunching over the gravel driveway. Every indistinguishable shadow caused Bobby’s heart to leap. The night was unnaturally silent. There wasn’t even an insect buzzing around the porch light. There was nothing in the yard.

Bobby lowered the shotgun.

Something huge and black peeled out of the shadow of the house. It leaped faster than Bobby could track. It slammed into him before he could lift the gun. Bobby yelled as the thing collided with him. Black fur filled his mouth, clogging everything with the stench of sulfur. Bobby’s back bit the gravel as they toppled end over end. Bobby’s heart stuttered as the huge shape growled. Sour, foul breath blew hot in Bobby’s face. He choked on the suffocating fur still clinging everywhere. Bobby scrambled for the shotgun trapped between him and the creature. The trigger was impossibly far away. Bobby thrashed, scrambling for purchase on the ground. The thing crouched over him. A giant paw landed on Bobby’s chest and shoved all the air from his lungs. Glowing red eyes descended and fangs gleamed. A massive maw opened. Bobby squeezed his eyes shut.

     “Hey!” A voice shouted somewhere to the left. The weight on Bobby lifted. He gulped greedily at the cool night air. The stars spun overhead, watching Bobby’s lungs struggle impassively.

     Bobby rolled over in the gravel. A man in a long coat and a wide brimmed hat braced for impact as the monster rushed him, its claws tearing trenches into the gravel. The creature leaped. The man swung his fist. A blade gleamed. Then the beast was down, a howl dying on the night air.

Bobby shoved himself to his feet with a grunt.

“What is that?” He panted, staring down at the black fur lying still.

“Black Dog,” The newcomer said. He wiped the jagged blade on the sleeve of a black trench coat.

A startled laugh huffed out of Bobby’s aching chest. “That ain’t no dog.”

The man’s eyes flashed under the brim of his wide hat. “Not a dog. A Black Dog.”

The realisation that an armed stranger was standing on his property struck Bobby suddenly. He retrieved his shotgun as he stared the man down.

"Howdy, Mr. Singer." The man drawled, as if he hadn't just slaughtered the thing on the ground.

Bobby hefted his shotgun. "Who're you?"

The man tipped his hat. "You can call me H."

"H." Bobby glanced at the house. The boys were bound to be awake. There was no way Sam could have slept through the noise.

"That ain't much of a name." Bobby groused as he shifted his feet. He edged between H and the porch.

"What was that thing?" Bobby tipped the barrel of his gun at the mess on the gravel.

H chuckled. It was a dark and deprecating sound. "Now, Mr. Singer. Don't tell me you haven't seen a monster before."

Bobby's mind flashed to the drooling fangs and growls on the night he’d found his boys.

"Sure. But I can't say I've ever seen anybody do that to a monster."

H shrugged. His casual stance at the end of Bobby's shotgun annoyed Bobby. The gun was supposed to give Bobby an advantage.

"I'm a hunter, Mr. Singer. Killing evil like that is my job." H lifted his hat and scratched at his long stringy hair. "It's also my job, Mr. Singer, to know about strange occurrences and the people who cause them."

H's voice took on a conspiratorial tone. "You wouldn't happen to know of some strange things happening, Mr. Singer? Healings, miracles, unexplained coincidences?"

Bobby stiffened. Sam and Dean were just upstairs, and if H was implying what Bobby thought he was, Bobby wasn't sure he could stop H.

H stepped forward and Bobby eyed down the shotgun.

"Your boys are attracting a lot of chatter, Mr. Singer." H warned. "They're in danger. This," H gestured to the body at his feet. "This is only the beginning. If I were you, I'd learn how to defend them kids."

H reached into his long coat. Bobby shifted his finger to the trigger. H crooked a smirk as he withdrew a leather journal and tossed it in the gravel at Bobby’s feet. It landed with a loud thud in the quiet night.

“I’d suggest you start by reading that if you want to keep your boys, Mr. Singer.” H tipped his hat. "Have a good night, Mr. Singer."

H wandered off into the night. Bobby kept the shotgun at the ready until H’s back had vanished.

Bobby stooped and scooped up the journal. It was worn, supple tan leather tied with a black cord. Pages stuck out at random. The scrawl Bobby could see was thick and spidery. He flipped open the first page. A five point star inside a circle was etched deep into the paper, traced over and over in obsessive detail. “Journal of a Man of Letters” was scribbled along the top.

Chapter 1   Chapter 2    Chapter 3    Chapter 5

[daebakinc]

We Make the Kingdom - Pt 17

Image by silverdagger865 Pairing: Yongguk x OC Genre: Fantasy, with Angst and Fluff(but not this chapter) Summary:  After a vampire attack leaves you almost dead, you are rescued by a group of werelions, powers long thought to be extinct. Upon discovering the same magic flows in your blood, you join their fight against encroaching vampires and another, very human monster, to save the kingdom. A/N & Warning: Mentions of blood, violence, and some gore. Character death. Previous parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ,  8, 9(M), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16(M), 17, 18 ,  Final  

The winter solstice. A night whose air is suffused with spices and laughter that seep through tightly closed shutters and constantly opening doors to usher in welcome company. Inside, families and friends lounge around roaring fires to tell stories taller than the flames that keep the cold winter night outside at bay. But tonight, there are no songs, no merriment.

Many houses sit empty, their residents evacuated earlier in the day to the nearest port city in a long column, noisy with the cries of children and lowing of animals. Should the Capitol fall, they will board ships to flee the country. But most of the city’s residents remain behind, too poor to leave, condemned by circumstances to witness the city’s fate firsthand.

With windows lashed shut and homes hushed with fear, they tremble. The fires give as much reassurance as a cloud-covered star. The air is thick with the city’s bated breath as it waits on the brink of its doom which only the Goddess knows. And tonight, She is detachedly silent.

The defenders are quiet as well as they stand before and on the city walls, but they are not gods and can fall prey to unease. Some of the soldiers around you tug at their freshly forged iron collars uncomfortably, but they will be grateful for them in the end. Horses and soldiers alike anxiously fret and shuffle their feet in the cold, armor, weapons, and tack clinking. They are made for the action of marching into battle, not standing still in anticipation of one as they have since sunset.

The stallion beneath you whickers in the same impatience you feel. His snorts send streams of white clouds into the air like a smoldering dragon. Trained for battle, he senses its oncoming and wants to charge into it with hooves flying. You pat his neck and whisper in his ear until he settles down to simply chomp on his bit. Readjusting your grip on the reins, you frown as you roll your shoulders. The golden plated armor, despite its bulk, is not inordinately heavy. Yet it still sits uncomfortably on your body, as does the tight helmet with its high cheek-guards that hide most of your face. You wish you could wear the same light armor the other weres received, ideal for flexibility and shifting back and forth, but to do so would defeat your plans.

Stifling your sigh lest the soldiers surrounding you mistake it for doubt, you look out across the small army again. Calvary borders infantry on both sides, waves and waves of men and women stretched in front of the Capitol’s battlements. If you concentrate, you could find the other weres, strategically scattered amongst different regiments. You can feel Yongguk near the princess in the center of the field, his steady heartbeat soothing your own. Only the bears are obviously visible, royal amethyst tunics covering their armor as they stand in close formation around their charges.

Your own guardians, Hyungwon and Kihyun and Seokwon, sit on their own mounts around your horse, stoically staring into the distance towards the mountains. They lie on the far horizon, craggy black shadows scarcely discernable against the lightless sky. As in your dream, clouds suffocate the stars so no light but the Capitol’s shatters the ominous night blackness.

Lamia chose the time of her ultimatum shrewdly, you begrudgingly acknowledge. Selecting the longest night of the year gives her more time to wage war, more confidence with the threat of the scorching sun rising. It also robs your soldiers of their sight, or would have if a clever scholar had not suggested a solution. You glance back at the walls with a small smile. In between the catapults, bright fires in enormous braziers burn all along the battlement beside carefully placed, magically enhanced mirrors that are angled to flood the plain with light. Let Lamia make what she will of that when she comes.

You begin wondering what she is waiting for. Though still hours away, dawn approaches with each minute and with it she loses her advantage. Unless she counts on the clouds to prolong the cover of darkness.

You notice the soldiers growing even more restless. Perhaps, her failure to appear is another cunning tactic. Though the soldiers’ faces do not betray them, they are afraid to face creatures they only yesterday thought were the stuff of children’s stories. Each minute they do not see the enemy for themselves is time for the dread and monstrosity of the vampires to grow in their minds, infect them with potentially deadly fear.

A piercing horn blasts its warning into the night, sending every soldier’s head snapping up. The enemy is coming.

A second blowing directs your gaze to the north. When discussing how Lamia and her army could approach the city, one of the scholars, who possessed earth elemental magic, pointed to the mountains. Deep beneath the earth lie series of soaring caves that extend the length of the mountain chain with various chambers that rise to open to the surface. They would provide perfect passage for vampires to easily come within a few hundred kilometers of the Capitol. Following this logic, Princess Hyosung had set those in the city who could scry to sweeping the mountainsides for signs of the vampires.

It would seem your prediction was well-founded, but time passes, and the landscape remains unchanged.

“Come on,” you mutter under your breath. Your heart pounds in your ears in anticipation while every sense strains for the slightest sign of Lamia.

At last, the wind carries the familiar musty scent of grave dirt and blood, along with the macabre hisses of vampires eager for a feeding. A few horses away from you, Junhong growls deep in his throat. The bears shift in their saddles, looking to you.

“Is that..?” Hyungwon lets his already quiet voice trail off.

Their faces harden at your small nod of confirmation and they turn back towards the mountains.

A black mass quickly materializes from night, roiling and ravenously devouring the distance. Horses whicker and prance at the foreign smell they instantly identify as a predator. As the vampires come within human eyesight, a ripple of shouts and cries arises from the soldiers, but their officers and discipline quickly silence them. You intentionally keep your expression empty except for your iron resolve as you feel many soldiers glancing at you, one of the few they know to have faced vampires before. However, you do not have long to linger on maintaining appearances.

The approaching vampires demand your attention. There is no order in their ranks. Each fights to reach the mass of humans first, rabid dogs shoving and snarling each other. The vampires run on bare or raggedly shoed feet as if the freezing ground is nothing, closer and closer. You can make out vampires with ghoulish, gray faces skeletal with hunger alongside the well-fed, cruelly beautiful whose eyes blaze with the same blood madness. Most clutch ragged-edged swords, but some bear nothing more than their teeth.

A quick sweep sends your heart plunging into your stomach. The vampires number in the hundreds, possibly the thousands. Less than you feared, but still more than you hoped. Your chances of winning are decreasing before your eyes.

You straighten your shoulders and let out a breath. In the hours before assembling with the army, still safe in Yongguk’s arms, you had come to terms with the possibility of your end. You will not be afraid. You are not afraid. Nervous, but not afraid. If it saves your people, you will make your sacrifice alongside your friends and send as many vampires as you can to their second and final graves.

The horde halts on the edge of the sea of light from the mirrors. They grimace and hiss and shriek like the high mountain winds, terrible and inhuman. To your army’s credit, not a man or woman makes a move to abandon their post despite their fear that fills your nose.

As if sliced by an executioner’s sword, all noise stops. In waves, the vampires’ lines slowly part. You smell her before she emerges to the front of the army.

Lamia wears a blood-red lacquered breastplate and armguards over the black dress she wore in your dream along with her crown. A longsword with a ruby-set hilt sits on her hip. Her teeth shine ivory against her blood red lips. Those lips curve in a haughty smile as she surveys the humans in front of her. Before you can exhale, she is in the center of the field, an arrow’s flight away from the kingdom’s snapping standard. Murmurs of awed alarm ripple through the troops at their first glimpse of a vampire.

“Who speaks for this rabble?” Lamia asks, her seductive purr loud as a shout. She shows no sign of the light affecting her.

From within the ranks of the center infantry, wearing the crowned helmet, Hyosung pushes her horse forward. Voice clear and strong, she answers, “I, the princess of this land, do.”

Another rider comes forward from the eastern cavalry, the mirror image of the princess. “I, the princess of this land, do,” she calls in the same voice.

With a deep breath, you knee your stallion past your guard. When your mouth moves, it is not your own voice that comes forth, but Hyosung’s. “I, the princess of this land, do.”

Lamia’s eyes dart between the three of you, her lip lifting infinitesimally in and impulsive reveal of frustration. Her nose wrinkles as she tries to catch a scent, but your borrowed clothes cloak your smell. Your heart beats faster. Using magic to change your voice had been a gamble, but it is working.

The sneer quickly returns to Lamia’s face. “Very clever,” she says with an exaggerated clap. “But it is no matter. The earth will be covered by all of your blood, royal or no. Unless, you choose wisely and surrender now.”

           “If we do as you say?” asks the Hyosung opposite you

           “First, you will turn the weres over to me as your uncle so promised. Then, you must accept me as your ruler forever more and live out your days under my reign.” Lamia’s voice is cajoling and smooth, full of benevolent promises to move the stone-hearted. “I will not stay in your kingdom long for the whole world awaits my coming. You will live in peace and plenty so long as you provide tribute and loyalty to me.”

An undignified snort escapes your mouth, but you faithfully move your mouth as Hyosung’s instrument. “A tribute in flesh and blood, no doubt. One that will be doubled and tripled to fuel your unending evil.”

Lamia shrugs, not denying Hyosung’s accusation. “What is the price of a few lives for the many? Consider, Princess. Why continue this fool’s errand of attempting to stay the inevitable tide of change? Dynasties rise and fall like the waves, and mine is readying to crash against the shore and turn your land to an ocean of blood and suffering. Do not waste the lives of your brave soldiers. Submit to me and save your people.”

Grim satisfaction tickles your mouth when there’s not a single whisper of uncertainty in the ranks in the face of her offer.

After a few moments of bated silence, the princess in the heart of the army raises her sword. Her voice soars through the cold air, proud and strong as she trots along the length of the center army. “People of our beloved kingdom, hear me! A choice lies before us. It affects not only us, nor our children’s children, but the whole world. Shall we lay down our arms and our liberty to save our lives in exchange for peace and let others, countless future generations, die in our place? Will we let the land we love be conquered and covered in a darkness so complete our loved ones will never see the light of hope?”

You knee your stallion further into the field. As he prances, you become Hyosung’s mouthpiece again. “Or shall we show these vampires the indomitable spirit of humanity, spirit that can never be broken? Shall we ride into certain death to do battle against the odds with such honor and bravery that our glory will be preserved in story unto the dying of the world?”

“I would rather be slain in battle than die safe in my bed before I let my fellow countrymen suffer untold terrors at the hands of the monsters before us,” the third Hyosung calls. “I am your princess, your sister, your servant, but I will not command you to fight, to sacrifice. The decision is yours, brothers and sisters. What say you?”

The troops stare back in reverential silence, Lamia and her kind temporarily forgotten. Your own heart swells with the fiery pride and fervor.

A lone wolf’s howl shatters the tension. It sings of defiance and courage and resolve. Another wolf joins in, then another. Lions’ and bears’ roars thunder across the plain in a wild, fearsome cacophony. Across the army, thousands of voices rise in battle song while swords and lances beat against shields. Restrained to your human body, you add your fierce cry to the clamor as the stallion beneath you rears and screams his own challenge.

           The princess turns her horse around and lowers her sword to point it at Lamia. “You have your answer. We fight.”

           Lamia does not appear surprised, her sneer only deepening. “You die.”

           She vanishes from the field. With that signal, the vampires swarm towards the city.

           Distantly, you hear Lady Kim’s firm commands on the ramparts. The creak of wood and metal precede the explosions of fire and iron shrapnel plummeting down on the vampires. Hyosung’s shout sends hails of iron arrows following. Screams and decimation are instant as flames engulf the vampires and iron finds lifeless hearts to turn them to ash.

           Still the vampires come thick as locusts, rushing and shrieking.

           Across the plain, a trumpet blares. You gather the reins and your courage, shouting, “For light and home!”

           Giving your stallion his head, you charge wide of the enemy at the front of the surging cavalry. Vampires split from the main column heading towards the city to sprint towards you. When your armies meet, they meet with a crash that sends shudders through the very earth.

           Screams of the dying from both sides and the clanging of swords clashing permeate the air until they become nothing in your ears. Your stallion’s hooves kick out, crushing vampire skulls and limbs as he pushes through the hordes towards your goal, but he cannot keep them all away. Black blood splatters on your hands, your face, as you hack and slash and parry at vampires who try to pull you down.

           Stinging streaks up your leg. Furious, you kick away the vampire who bit your leg through a break in your armor. Before you can kill it yourself, Seokwon drives a stake through its chest. All you have time for is a grateful nod before you have to face the next assault.

           Wading through the horde, you give yourself over to the movements engrained in your muscles. So lost in your own body, only the flash of black armor stops your sword mid-swing.

           “Alive?” Jongup pants, deftly throwing a stake into the chest of an oncoming vampire.

           “For now.” You shake the sweat from your eyes. If only you could remove the damned helmet. Another reckless vampire meets its end with a slice of your sword. “Glad to see you are.”

           “For now.” He lowers his arm and turns his horse back towards the city walls. “If our lines hold, we’ll be in position.”

           Even as you speak, Kyungsoo and Minseok’s howls direct the cavalry to reform and charge again. Outraged shrieks echo as the vampires realize they’ve been outflanked. The two forces collide with more screams and death and blood. But faced with iron pikes and flaming torches, the vampires do not break through.

You turn your gaze to the city as well. With relief, you see the main body of the army’s lines remain unbroken. Thinned, but whole. Its locked shield wall bows shallowly in some places under the volume of attackers, but it stands resilient. As you watch, several vampires vault over the army and run towards the walls and its catapults. Your warning cry turns to a cheer when they make it no further than a few yards, evaporating into ash a few yards away.

           Jongup smiles grimly. “Blessing the city worked. Lamia will never touch it.”

           “She won’t have a chance to try if the elementals carry out their task.” You change your sword to your other hand and hold out your sword arm. “See you on the other side, be it in this world or the next.”

           Jongup clasps your arm firmly. “In this world or the next.”

           You release your grip and he’s off his horse, landing as a lion. Facing the Capitol, Jongup roars three times, his call ringing above the chaos.

           When nothing immediately happens, you worry the defenders on the walls did not hear him. Then, a bone-rattling boom precedes a blast of heated air that scorches your back through your armor. You can see the massive tower of flame behind you reflected in the black eyes of the vampires around you. Seconds later, three more lines of fire burst from the earth and race towards each other until both armies are entirely encircled by walls of solid fire burning hotter than hellfire and taller than the walls of the Capitol.

Should the last human fall lifeless to the ground, not a vampire will be left in existence either.

           Vampiric screeches of rage and fear crowd above the din of battle and thick black smoke. They skitter back in the face of their bane, only to fall on your troops with renewed viciousness. The ground beneath your stallion’s hooves slickens as dirt mixes with human and vampiric blood. Enemy falls beside slain enemy, littering the ground like dead leaves from a forest of ruin even as the fire tightens its circle and pushes combatants closer together.

           Muscles aching, you reach deep within yourself for your reserves of strength. A flash of red catches your eye between the fighters. Lamia. Her sword sprays crimson as she cuts into the leg of her opponent. Your heart drops as Lamia hauls up the golden figure by the shoulders. The princess’ sword drops from her hand so it can frantically scramble and scratch at Lamia’s. Her were guards are nowhere in sight.

           Heedless of your own escort, you kick your horse to barrel headlong through friend and foe even as Lamia rips the princess’ helmet off and thrusts her fangs into the princess’ throat.

           “Be damned, you are not she!” Lamia screeches, tossing the decoy’s lifeless body from her. She spins, eyes searching. Then they meet yours across the field and Lamia’s glower turns into a murderous leer. A bloodstained finger beckons you to where she waits.

           You tighten your grip on your sword and tense to jump from your saddle as you ride closer. Something collides with your horse, sending him sprawling with a squeal and you plunging to the ground.

           Scrambling for your sword, you find it and your feet in time to watch a bear rushing at Lamia. She easily sidesteps him and his swiping paws when he rounds on her. The bear rears up to lunge, but a vampire springs on his back, biting at his thick neck. Lamia leaps.

           “No!” you scream, hand uselessly outstretched.

           Her sword sinks into the bear’s chest. Minkyun’s body is human before he hits the ground, his eyes already empty.

           Lamia rips her sword free and kneels to shove a hand into his wound. Only to jump back with a cackle from your swinging sword.

           “You will not touch him,” you growl. You are careful not to look at the body you stand over lest the tears burning your eyes fall.

           “All I wanted was his heart, Princess.” Lamia licks at her bloodied hand and moans in pleasure. “It has been so long since I tasted were blood. And today I have had so much. Such a lovely winter solstice present.”

           Fear and grief stab at your heart, but they vanish, overwhelmed with rage. Leveling your sword in challenge, you speak through gritted teeth. “It is the last winter solstice you will ever see.”

           You throw yourself at Lamia with all your might. She thrusts upward to block your sword, dirt spraying beneath her feet as you press downward. Lamia slips under your guard to stab at your stomach. You dance away and come at her again, funneling every drop of fury into every strike, every blow. But Lamia is more your match, countering your every move and launching her own assaults with an infuriatingly confident cool.

           As your swords lock at the hilt and you come face to face, a scream echoes from the city parapets. The wall of flame closest to the Capitol evaporates as if it never was. Panic sends a chill right to your heart. Officers desperately try to rally their soldiers with desperate cries as the vampires rush their lines towards escape.

           Lamia takes advantage of your distraction and savagely clouts your jaw with her fist. Red erupts behind your eyes as you fly backwards. Pain takes your breath and turns it to choking wheezes. You spit out blood and push your hair out of your face, freezing. Your helmet lies beside you.

           Lamia hisses as she advances. “You. Where is the real princess?” Suddenly, her head jerks away to the east, face lifted like a hound catching a scent.

           As abruptly as it vanished, the missing fire wall explodes back into existence. Frantically, you follow Lamia’s gaze and find what she did. Hyosung, arms outstretched towards the new blaze. Invisible, pungent power streams between her and her creation as she stands undisturbed, surrounded by her embattled bears and Jongup.

           Smiling, Lamia bends at the waist in a mocking bow. “I will finish you later, beast-child.” And she is gone.

           Hyosung cannot fall. If Hyosung falls, so does the kingdom.

           “Weres!” Ripping off your armor as you run, your distraught cry turns to a roar as you shift. To the princess! Lamia!

           Having four feet makes dodging clashing vampires and humans and falling fire balls far easier and faster, yet you are still too slow. Lamia is almost on the princess on her small band of defenders, cutting down all in her path.

           A bear throws himself in front of Lamia, his purple robes tattered and bloodstained. Seokwon’s sword glows gold with reflected firelight as it arcs downward. Lamia counters, but it throws her off balance, so she cannot do the same for his descending paw. Her head snaps to the side at the impact, blood spraying.

           Lamia dances away from Seokwon’s pursuing jaws before swooping back in with a bloodcurdling shriek. She catches him by the throat and flings him away. You cannot see where he lands.

           Vengeance fuels your body as you spring. Your claws and teeth sink through armor into cold, vulnerable skin. Screaming, Lamia drops her sword and digs her own claws into your shoulders to throw you off her, but you dig your claws deeper so you both tumble down.

           Together you roll and tussle, teeth gnashing and claws lashing out. Her blood drips onto your fur from the gashes Seokwon’s claws scored on her cheek and the dozens of wounds you inflicted yourself.

           Lamia’s fangs snap at your chest, only scraping it as you jerk away. “I should’ve killed you when I found you,” she growls. She scuttles away, shedding armor as she goes. Her crown haphazardly clings to her head.

           You snarl in reply and hurl yourself at her again. Lamia crouches at the last minute so you fly over her head, standing and twisting to drive a dagger into your side.

           The agony is instant and terrible and wrenches a tortured roar from your lungs. You shift back as you land, quivering hands reaching for the blade imbedded below your ribs. Biting back a scream, you yank it out.

           Lamia’s shadow falls on you. When you look up, panting, she is standing there smirking at you. She opens her mouth, but another shadow soars over you as Yongguk collides with her. His jaw closes around her shoulder as they collapse.

           Howling, Lamia tears away, black blood cascading down her arm. Yongguk lets her go, backing up until he stands above you.

           “How quaint,” Lamia jeers. She reaches down to grab up a sword from a fallen soldier’s hand. “The lover comes to die with his beloved.”

           Yongguk shifts into a human, but offers no retort. His golden eyes follow the movement of every muscle in Lamia’s body. Without looking away, he anxiously whispers, “Ness?”

           Though your body screams and your lungs whistle, you drag yourself to your knees. You place a hand against his back. “Go,” you tell him. “Kill her. End it.”

           Yongguk reaches behind to briefly squeeze your hand before stooping for a sword of his own. He braces himself as Lamia strides closer, red eyes reflecting the rising flames.

Lamia strikes, Yongguk easily batting her blade aside. She attacks again, taunting. Once again, he blocks. Lamia grins and falls on him.

Sword rings on sword in a deadly, discordant song. Lamia darts back and forth, harrying and provoking with tiny scratches and cuts, but Yongguk always keeps her in his sight, never reacting recklessly. He never allows her an inch closer to where you lie.

Yongguk is tired. His armor is gone, leaving plainclothes that are torn and shredded. The blood running down his skin is pink from his sweat. But he does not falter, does not let his defense buckle. Yongguk is conserving what is left of his energy for the right moment.

           It comes when Lamia thrusts, overextending her reach when Yongguk sways aside at the last second. Yongguk lunges and crushes Lamia against him, pinning her arms to her side. Hissing, she bites down into his exposed shoulder. His breath stutters, but he does not release her and with one hand, Yongguk drives the stake you slipped him through Lamia’s back and into her heart.

           Lamia gasps, a horrible croaking sound. Her eyes widen with disbelief. Her shaking fingers weakly scrabble at Yongguk’s shoulders. He digs the stake in harder. Finally, Lamia’s lifeless head falls backward. Her body explodes into ashes and her soiled crown lands upside-down in the bloodied grass with a dull thump.

           Lamia, the vampire queen, is dead.

Previous Part

Kingdom Map, Lion’s Keep, Were Scale, Were Guide

[lexiseigneur]

Chapter twenty-four: The city that never sleeps

Ao3

The infinite hues of green on the hill soon turned a uniform grey and the Dhampir left it without any rush. The forest and the surrounding human habitations were deserted. From the rest of that day and the next night, Lexi recalled very little. Although all was over and a deep and warm feeling of peace emanated from Quinlan, her own brain was a tight knot of ropes. Loud noises and moving shadows made the ropes snap. When Quinlan suddenly bolted away to run after a stray horse, she almost burst into tears. He let the horse go, despite their thirst, and let his own serenity pour into her to loosen the knot a little.

The dark room was no more and the monsters ran free within Lexi. It made the world seem like a giant beast whose claws could close around her at any moment. With infinite patience, Quinlan would embrace her when she was overwhelmed by the most trivial things. The only clear events from there on where their conversations, when she hid her face against his chest and he listened to her descriptions of the monsters that haunted her.

They drove on small country roads, stopping when the need or the desire arose. For the time being, Lexi asked to avoid populated areas and Quinlan did not mind. He appeared content even if it meant only drinking animal blood. So far their only encounters with other souls had been the occasional car driving by.

One night the sky was unusually clear above them and they laid on the large roof of a truck they had recently stolen. On the other side, some way away, stood an arrangement of trees barely big enough to be called a forest. The blinking stars gathered in a stain running above the horizon. It made Lexi feel even smaller than she was but not in a crushing manner. She strained to gather the events of the last day and failed.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Somewhere in Kansas.”

“I don’t remember driving here.”

“That’s alright.”

Quinlan rubbed his cheek against hers and caressed her back until she breathed in relief. Her tension decreased with each of the strokes. He smiled just enough to uncover his sharp teeth and she knew that at that moment she looked the same. The cuts on his face had closed but not disappeared. He looked fiercer than ever although his mission was over. So many scars. Lexi touched them, with just the tip of her fingers and as she did, he looked at her through half-closed eyelids. She was glad that her heart fluttered because he leaned down and kissed her rather than because she was afraid.

Later that night she continued tracing the scars on his naked body. Their clothes were in a small pile at their feet. She kissed the sun-shaped brand on his left shoulder.

“How did this happen?”

“This is a stigma, the mark of a criminal. The man who applied red hot silver to my skin chose this sigil to mock me and my repugnance of sunlight.”

“Oh…”

“This was his way of alleviating his frustrations when I escaped crucifixion. Instead, I was sold to become a gladiator.”

She shivered and he turned on his side, obscuring the brand from her view.

“It was a mild punishment.”

“You think you deserved slavery?”

“Ha…I did not believe I deserved any of this per se. I did not think myself a prisoner since I was confident could slay my captors and leave if I so desired. I was a slave in name, not in spirit. But I wished to learn about mankind and about fighting, so what stood in my way became my way.”

She wanted to ask more because his past life was a source of unending fascination.

In the distance, tires screeched then a woman screamed in terror. The wind carried the smell of blood and both Dhampir were instantly on their feet. The back of her throat twinged and the knot of her mind tightened. The scent was eminently appetizing. No animal blood caught their attention quite like this one. But her mind fought her against investigating the origins of that scent. When Quinlan took his sword and sprang ahead, she reluctantly followed.

They stopped when familiar hisses suddenly accompanied the smell.

“Is this in my head?” asked Lexi.

“No, this is real.”

Half a dozen Strigoi broke the tree line and approached tentatively. With their unmistakable ammonia stink and the red blood smeared on this chins. Quinlan’s lips lifted and he rattled menacingly. The Strigoi froze. Quinlan stepped forward and the creatures yelped like kicked dogs as they fled.

“Usually, they run away only after I kill most of them,” said Quinlan.

“Does it mean we failed? Does this mean the Master is still alive?”

“No…I believe we were mistaken in assuming their bodies would die with the Master.”

He pursued them and Lexi once again followed against her best judgment. The Strigoi were all dead when she caught up to him. He slashed the air and with a whistling noise, the blood and worms slid off the blade. The origin of the human blood was very close they walked toward it. On the nearby road, next to a crashed car was the body of a dead woman. They had not just taken her blood, they had torn into her as if rabid. The ropes in Lexi’s head snapped tighter than ever and she lost herself. Lexi ran for her life because monsters were after her. They had just killed Emily and she would be next.

The rapid tip tap of shoes smacking the road was upon Lexi and Emily. Three creatures now towered over them and their eyes were fixated on Emily. Lexi tried to shield her but frantic, they pushed her violently out of the way and started tearing into the pregnant women. As her friend’s body was splayed open, Lexi could not scream.

Another silhouette appeared, tall and pale-skinned. It distracted her just a second too long and the monster that had once been her significant other pounced on her. The silhouette suddenly stood between them and grabbed the monster by the neck, lifting it off the ground without effort. Just as easily, the man snapped the vertebrae in his grasp and turned to Lexi whose panic was almost equal to her confusion.

“Lexi…this is not real. This is the memory of another time, of a previous life. You are safe now.”

The pale-skinned man crouched in front of her and caressed her cheek. His eyes, the stripes on his face and his pointy ears were not human but seeing them filled her with reassurance.

I will fear no evil, for you are with me. The asphalt road, Emily’s body, and the snarling monsters all faded away.

 Lexi sat on the road, another road. This was the present, the now. There was no other Strigoi around and Quinlan was walking toward her, undressed and only carrying his sword. Her muscles were still rushing with blood as her heart pumped frantically.

“Lexi, beloved, I know it pains you right to be shackled to your past but be sure of one thing…”

He lifted her with his free arm and hugged her against his warm skin.

“Whatever tricks your mind plays on you, I will pull you back to me. Always.”

She held on with the desperation of a drowning woman.

 ***

The Strigoi avoided them like a mouse would steer clear of the scent of a cat. They were wild animals, rudderless and stupid but still dangerous for humans. Two days after the Dhampir made that discovery they waited inside an abandoned store because they had not found a residential area before the sunlight hours.

“We have to go back to New York,” said Lexi as she perused the few clothes that looters had left behind.

“I understand but it might be wise to wait. Until you are better.”

She was so clearly unwell now. Since she had seen that woman on the road and a nightmare had swallowed her whole. The thin skin under her eyes had turned deep grey and he almost had to beg her to drink regularly. She walked a little hunched and because of that, he could see the frailty of her human days.

“Right now…I want to lock myself in the back of this store and never come out,” she said and turned away from him to remove her old shirt. Quinlan cared very little that she bore scars but she did and sometimes shied from his gaze because of them. He did not force the issue.

“But if I indulge that desire, I fear I will spiral and never come back. We must keep going,” she said.

“I trust your judgment.”

“Thank you.”

Before she could put on the clean clothes she had chosen, he hugged her and breathed heavily in the hollow of her neck. He was careful to avoid touching where the Master had clawed her. She leaned back onto him and her entire body relaxed. At least once a day since the Master’s death, Quinlan would be struck with the realization that the reward he craved before flying to the volcano was happening right now. It would not last a single hour, it would last as long as they both lived.

“On the way to New York, there is a thing we need to do, a small detour,” said Lexi.

“Let us speak of this later.”

***

The perimeter alarm blared and the woman breathed, for she knew her savior was on her doorstep. Two hooded silhouettes approached from the southern path and the smallest one waved enthusiastically at the camera. Laura bit back tears and hugged her confused daughter.

“Mommy?” said Emma.

“Do you remember the lady on the road, Lexi?”

The child nodded and Laura lifted her so she could sit across her lap.

“Look! It’s her. Do you remember what her friend’s name was?”

Emma shook her head.

“Quinlan.”

“Oh yes, I remember. It’s weird.”

“Yes.”

Laura gave the room a cursory glance. It was reasonably clean though at the moment their breakfast was still on the kitchen table. She also checked the other rooms. They had not used the bedroom with all the drawings, except to use some items it contained.

Mother and daughter slept in the empty bedroom because the other obviously belonged to Lexi. In the lower level, the plants thrived just as the strange woman had asked. Mostly, Laura had done everything she had demanded. Except for one little thing.

The large chest freezer in the kitchen, she could not stop herself from looking inside. It was a little like Pandora’s box. As soon as her brain finally understood that those were hundreds of blood bags, she had slammed that freezer shut but the image had stayed with her.

She had grown almost obsessive of that mystery. It rummaged through her brain as she cared for Emma, or when she labored in the garden. Why would people need blood?

Then she remembered the night they had met Lexi and how fast she had killed those two men. And that voice. Low and with a strange texture to it. At the time she had imagined that their savior had been sick or that she had suffered some form of damage to her voice box. Laura had an uncle who spoke strangely after suffering the consequences of heavy smoking. But that was different.

Lexi had also moved in obscurity as though she could see. Almost guilty, Laura had entered the room she knew had been Lexi’s and searched for answers. She had found a whole lot of nothing at first. Clothes, drawings and more material to draw, books, even some shampoo, and soap and other necessities that any woman would have. The piano stood against the wall, mockingly mundane. Then even more guilty, she had flipped through the pages of notebooks sprawled over the large table. Almost all of those were filled with sketches of cats, of landscapes and plants. Except for one. It was small and blue, stuck in the middle of a larger notebook and appeared to have been forgotten there. Its first pages were just like the others, random doodlings but then…words. The same handwriting left on the medicine in sickbay and the few careful notes in the binder.

These appeared to be the ramblings of an insane person. Except when they started making sense. Some lines detailed the events leading to the Strigoi invasion. With mentions of the plane and later on of the nuclear warhead which had exploded in New York. But the passages in between and after were almost too much for Laura to believe. Talk of decapitating the Master, some kind of Strigoi super king, or imprisoning him. Or machines to scramble his brains. The recountings of plans and of failures. Of many failures.

The handwriting decreased in quality as she progressed through the pages. On the last page containing words, the handwriting was neat again and written with a different kind of pencil. And on that page there was hope. A new plan. Making a new coffin of silver and lead and locking the worm inside. On the last line, circled several times so hard that the pencil had almost pierced the paper, “No Master no Strigoi.”

After that, there was only one more drawing. Merely a sketch made very quickly in broad lines and rushed strokes. Either because it had been drawn from memory or furtively.

It was a man but with features that made Laura deeply uncomfortable. Hairless, pointed ears and the suggestion of triangular incisors between thin lips. Laura had slapped that notebook shut.

The night after she found it she lulled her daughter to sleep by reading her The Hobbit for the fourth time. At least. Now Emma made plans of becoming a Hobbit as if it were an occupation just like teacher or plumber.

After her daughter fell asleep, she read through the notebook again and did so almost every night following its discovery.

Slowly the possibility that Lexi and Quinlan had not been exactly human had imposed itself to her. And as awful as this seemed there was undeniable goodness to some of the facts Laura had garnered about Lexi. She had saved her and Emma then given her this place. And if the blue notebook did not contain the ravings of a tortured mind, then they had been working on something important. They had wanted to save everyone.

 So when the elevator came down and Lexi stepped out of it still wearing her hood, Laura was prudently happy and so very curious.

“I am glad you are well,” said Lexi.

Now that she expected it, the strangeness of that voice was obvious.

“I’m glad you found your friend. Are you going to remove that hood and those glasses?”

“Maybe not,” said Lexi, amused.

“I think you should.”

“Why is that?”

Lexi cocked her head and in the shadows of her hood, her lips stretched briefly.

“Because I found your blue notebook and I looked in the freezer.”

“Did you now…?”

Lexi was definitely smiling now and her teeth were like the man’s on the sketch. She removed her gloves and her glasses and pulled her hood back. The rest of her face was also similar, from the lines on her forehead and cheeks to this strange thing on her throat.

“Well, that went better than I expected,” Lexi said and appeared relieved.

“Is Lexi an elf?” asked Emma

In the elevator, the man laughed and he sounded like a dog barking. Laura blushed at her daughter’s remark. She had had a very limited number of age-appropriate books to go through but right now she regretted indulging her daughter’s obsession with Middle Earth.

Lexi smiled but with closed lips, hiding her teeth as she crouched to face Emma. She pulled back the hair covering her ears and Emma squealed and pointed at them while shaking her mother’s hand.

“Yes, I am,” said Lexi. “So is my friend. Do you want to see him?”

Lexi glanced at Laura who nodded in agreement. Very slowly the man in the elevator crossed the control room and also uncovered his features. Emma’s excitement was somewhat diminished.

“Elves have hair,” said Emma. “But your ears are nice,” she added as a very poor attempt at hiding her disappointment.

It was him, the man on the sketch and his appearance seemed more savage than Lexi’s. Especially with all those scars. Laura’s skin rose in intense goosebumps because his eyes, so inhuman, were fixated on Emma.

“Well,” he said and his voice was just as strange. “I am fortunate my ears are to your liking.”

His amusement made his features only slightly softer.

“We have a few things to tell you,” said Lexi and she did not appear to mind Emma little fingers reaching for her hair.

“Is it about the Master?”

Quinlan now stared at her and his eyes were piercing as he detailed Laura too intensely, on the verge of rudeness. They all sat at the kitchen table and Emma roamed around the newcomers.

“If you read my notebook then there are a few things you already know…the Master and how he started all this and how it could only end if he was stopped.”

“Yes…But frankly, I had trouble believing it for a long time.”

They sat around the kitchen table and Laura hesitated to offer them a cup of tea or some food. What was appropriate in such a situation?

“That’s understandable but it was true and the Master had to end.”

She could not help but notice the past tense. Quinlan sat straighter on his chair when Emma attempted to reach for the handle of his sword. Laura made big eyes at her daughter who ran back to her.

“I’m sorry about that,” said Laura as Quinlan stood and shed his harness and coat which he placed on top of the pantry. She took Emma on her lap and with a stern look.

“Did you get him?” asked Laura.

Had they come back to regroup after yet another failure? Lexi seemed exhausted. Laura did not dare hope.

“The Master is dead,” said Quinlan.

Laura wanted to go home. She wanted her daughter to have a future beside hiding in a hole and hoping to live another day. And now she would. Laura kissed Emma on the top of the head and her thin blonde hair tickled her nose. She could become a damn Hobbit if she wished. Anything.

“The nightmare is over almost over,” said Lexi with a grimace.

“What?”

“The Strigoi are still out there just...undirected,” said Quinlan.

“But the Partnership? The camps? They’re gone?”

“We have seen some camps and they were empty. We are going to New York to inquire about the state of the country,” said Lexi.

They were going to leave.

“We are coming with you.”

Lexi made an unsure “huh” sound.

“We are. My daughter will not grow up here, alone.”

“You will be safe in the bunker,” said Quinlan.

“But for how long? If we wait until we are as safe out there as we are in here then my daughter will never see the light of day again,” said Laura.

Quinlan raised a brow but did not answer.

“We don’t really know,” said Lexi. “We don’t have a precedent to refer to.”

“We’ve been hiding for long enough.”

Lexi and Quinlan looked at one another for an awkwardly long moment.

“We will go to New York and you are free to join us but…” said Lexi.

“If we judge that you and your child are exposed to undue risk, we will bring you back here. Whether you like it or not.”

The tone was final and would not tolerate any objection. Laura did not want to object because she did not want to see what happened if he became truly irritated.

 Laura had suggested both she and her daughter wanted to go back to civilization but Emma was dead set on making a liar out of her. The child was not keen on going anywhere. As a four-year-old, her memories of the outside world were limited to mayhem. As soon as Laura announced their departure in terms she could understand, the little girl had planted her feet down. A tantrum was brewing and Laura could see that nothing short of a miracle would defuse it.

Lexi and Quinlan stood near the elevator waiting for her to manage her progeny and it was mortifying. Then it started. Her little upturned nose wrinkled, her eyes squinted, she dropped to her knees and wailed. Laura massaged her temples. Lexi and Quinlan were probably judging her parenting skills. Carefully, she glanced at the couple.

Lexi’s eyes were panicked and she backed up against the wall. Quinlan picked her up gingerly and disappeared into her bedroom. Emma had been too engrossed in her own crying to notice.  

 They had postponed their departure for earliest hours of the next day when sleepiness made Emma more malleable. Laura thought about Lexi’s haunted face and why a crying child should send her in such a state.

The little girl drooled on Laura’s shoulder as they crossed the field above the bunker to find the car hidden under dead branches. Quinlan drove and every time he accelerated a little too much, Lexi would clear her throat and he would slow. Fully awake, Emma fidgeted and complained. It appeared that she might cry again and Laura wanted to avoid that. How would Lexi react again?

“We have to go back before night or they are going to find us,” said Emma with her face and Laura’s chest.

“Who will find you?” asked Lexi.

“The goblins.”

Then she lowered her voice and Lexi leaned between the passenger and driver’s seat as if receiving a secret.

“They are scared of the light but then at night, they come out,” whispered Emma.

Laura held her daughter tighter and promised herself to burn that damn book as soon as possible.

“Do you think elves like Quinlan and I are afraid of goblins?”

“No!”

“And are goblins afraid of elves?”

“I think so.”

“Then why are you acting so scared? You are with us and we won’t let anything happen to you.”

The four-year-old was placated by this demonstration of pure logic. She extirpated herself from Laura’s hug and looked at her as if she had made an embarrassing sound.

“Being scared is stupid.”

“Only sometimes…” said Laura but Emma was no longer listening. She lked out the window in awe. It had been a long time since she had seen more than concrete walls. Lexi turned back to face the road. Without looking, Quinlan reached for her hand. Laura wanted to ask what their natures truly was and would not accept “elf” as an answer.

The opportunity came when they stopped around noon for a brief moment. Laura had made the child eat a snack and then almost instantly she had passed out in the back of the car. Lexi and Laura waited for Quinlan to come back. He had gone looking for more gas in the nearest town.

“You’re not actually an elf, are you?” asked Laura as they sat in the shade of a tree.

“Ha! No. And there are no goblins out there either.”

“Are you some kind of Strigoi?”

It would explain the blood and their physique. Lexi rubbed her neck and stretched her back.

“We are Dhampir and we do share traits with the Strigoi but we are not of their kind.”

Laura did not quite know what to make of this information though it was satisfying to have been correct. She only had more questions but Lexi was quicker.

“What did you do before the Fall?” asked Lexi.

“I worked for the Oklahoma water resources board,” she replied and wondered if that made any sense to a non-human being.

“That’s important. You will be needed again then.”

“Probably but not where I lived. There is no one left there.”

They had been shipped away in trucks and Laura had fled with Emma by the skin of their teeth.

“I’m sure you’ll find a new position anywhere. Sooner or later.”

Lexi perked up and a few seconds later Quinlan arrived out of nowhere. He held a canister which stank and made soft sloshing sounds.

“We can depart,” he announced and filled the tank.

“Were there people? In that town?” asked Laura.

She so wanted to see another human face.

“No,” said Quinlan and he put the empty canister in the trunk.

They resumed their drive and after a few minutes, without any apparent reason, Lexi chuckled and leaned toward Quinlan to kiss him on the cheek. Then she extracted a paper bag from his large pocket.

“For when she wakes up…there are no elves or goblins in those,” she whispered and handed four colorful books to Laura.

They were illustrated and meant for very young children. All of them had a certain shine and smell typical of brand new books. Their covers stuck one another as if they had been pressed together for a long time. Laura’s throat felt suddenly very tight.

 ***

Gus shouted for retreat. It felt like the only thing he had done for the past month. Ever since Quinlan and Lexi had gone and half a day later the Strigoi had collapsed and convulsed. Ever since those same Strigoi had woken up again, thirsty as ever.

And now they were everywhere and New Yorkers could only leave their homes around noon when the light forced those motherfucking Strigs below. To take a nap after a night spent terrorizing, killing and infecting. Gus also wanted to sleep.

The SUVs were just a block ahead but they were not retreating fast enough. A man a few paces behind was overrun and screamed as three stingers stole his blood. Raul turned around and shot him in the head then after a second of hesitation, also shot the Strigoi running at him.

“I said retreat, cabron!” said Gus and he pulled his cousin along.

That night, they lost four people. Two to the Strigoi and two who returned home because they preferred leaving the task of cleaning up New York to others.

Good riddance, fucking quitters.

Amongst the shelves of depleted contraband, Gus found a bottle of pain killers of which he popped two before washing them down with a swig of whiskey.  The last of it. He grabbed two ration packs and ate upstairs with his soldiers, gathered around the large television screen. They too ate their two proteins bars. Since they were officially part of the cleaning effort, they got double the rations compared to the rest of the populace. Gus deposited the bottle pain killers in front of Raul who clutched a bag of ice over his shoulder.

“How is the arm?” asked Gus.

Raul grunted, the vocal equivalent of a shrug he could not physically make right now. At least the joint had not dislocated again. The phone rang behind the bar and he heaved himself off the couch. His back made popping noises and some of its stiffness alleviated.

“What?” he barked into the phone.

“It’s Costello,” said a woman.

As if he was expecting a phone call from anyone else. She was the new Mayor of the city. Before the Fall she had been something like the fiftieth in charge or whatever. Gus didn’t care.

“I’ve got five more people to join and another shipment of gear. They should get to you with the next sunlight.”

“We lost Red Hook again and two of your last batch packed up their shit and left today.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I thought you said you’d fix that?”

“There is only so much I can give them. More food, shelter and a comfortable pension when it’s done. What else is there?”

She sounded almost as tired as he was New York was a giant dumpster fire and she attempted to put it out with a glass of water.

“I don’t give a crap how you do it. I kill Strigs and you find soldiers. Or do you wanna switch?”

“No, I fucking don’t. But that’s not why I called you.”

Gus leaned against the bar and pinched the bridge of his nose. His hand stank of gunpowder and sweat. What else now?

“You asked me to find that woman, Miss Gupta.”

Gus slowly sank to the floor and clenched his teeth.

“The internet came back two days ago and lists are just now uploaded and…”

“Just fucking tell me!” he screamed.

The soldiers went quiet and someone cut off the sound of the television.

“She is alive.”

He laughed and cried at the same time. Costello waited until he stopped.

“Can you bring her here?”

“Yeah, I can. She is not very far, but there is something you need to know about where she spent all that time.”

“She okay?”

“Yes…”

“Then I don’t give a shit.”

Costello sighed and explained. And Gus had been right, he really did not give a shit.

 Gus stood by the window, chewing his lower lip. It was almost noon and the streets were brightening. It was safe to go out. Raul was cleaning his gun and Gus’ on the coffee table facing the television.

“Go sleep for fuck’s sake. You have no idea when she’ll arrive,” said Raul.

“I’m not tired,” said Gus.

“Yeah, right.”

Raul reassembled his Glock in seconds and racked its slide. Satisfied, he inserted the magazine full of silver bullets in its well. He repeated the same process with Gus’s weapon.

“I’m gonna chat with the new meat Costello sent yesterday. How about you go and check if your room is decent. In case you left some porn lying around…”

Gus stared at his cousin in mild shock and amusement. This was a remark he would have expected from Amir, not from him. Raul put his gun in his side holster then on his way to the staircase, handed Gus his clean M9.

 The Sun Hunter searched for something else to clean or tidy but the space positively gleamed. He sat on his bed and tried to imagine how Aanya would see all this. The bed was neatly made and smelled of freshly changed sheets. The polished cement floors were almost spotless if not for a speck of dried paint there and there. There was a table by one of the occluded windows, with a small television screen on which rested a picture of Gus and his mother. Everything could burn in this flat except for this one picture. By the bed, there were shelves with clothes and some books. On a chair, a pair of boxing gloves which had until the previous day been gathering dust and now shone under the artificial lights.

He was ashamed at the sterility and emptiness of his living quarters. Not even a carpet, or a painting. Gus held his face and lied on the bed with a grunt. It looked like a prison cell, not a home. For a minute he considered grabbing one of the SUVs downstairs to drive to the Upper East side or the suburbs and steal some furniture. Before he could decide he fell asleep.

 A knock on his door jolted him awake and his body flooded with adrenaline. He stood and wiped at his face as though to remove any trace of sleep from it.

“Yeah?” he said.

The door opened slowly and he instantly stared at the fingers holding it. They were thin and golden brown. Gus almost ran because there she was. Aanya stood in his room and though she smiled that expression was tainted with worry. She wore a loose flannel shirt and baggy pants and her hair was much longer than before the Fall. And she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever met. He wanted to cry when she accepted his hug and his kiss. She smelled very different now, of shampoo but without any trace of the strong spices which used to always cling to her.

“You stayed in the city all this time?” she asked.

She sounded proud and that made his chest feel large and full.

“Lots to do.”

Then because he suddenly wanted to get it out of the way he asked,

“What happened after you left? You parents?”

She shook her head and looked down.

“And here? Angel? I didn’t see him downstairs.”

“He didn’t make it.”

She didn’t cry but her large black eyes were grave. When he tried to hold her by the hips she took a step back, a little panicked.

“I…I…,” she said and put a shaky hand above her mouth.

“Yeah I know,” he said.

“You do?”

And it was obvious she did not believe him. So he walked to her, kneeled and pressed his face against her round midsection hidden under the loose flannel. She stroked his shaved head and made a quiet strangled sound.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he whispered.

“They caught us a month in. That’s not your fault.”

“I should have gone with you.”

She held his face up.

“It’s not your fault.”

And this time he did not believe her though he really wanted to. He also wanted to find every single person who had put their hands on her, every single doctor, every single nurse, and all those pencil pushers and he wanted to kill them himself.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” he asked because he did not want to think such violent thoughts right next to her pregnant belly.

“A girl.”

He smiled and pressed his ear against the roundness as if hoping to hear her move. Gus was about to ask when she would be born when Aanya spoke with a very small voice.

“The first one was a boy…but they took him. They said the babies would be adopted out but they were lying…they killed him. They killed all of them.”

She was crying by the time she was done speaking. Gus stood and led her to the bed so she could cry all she wanted. He had known that too.

“This one they won’t have. She will be fine. It’s over now, we just need to finish some cleaning and before you know it, she’ll grow up a true New Yorker.”

She did not stop crying and he did not mind.

“Did you choose a name for her?”

“No, not yet.”

He removed her shoes and pulled the blanket over her.

“Will you tell me? What happened here after I left?” she asked.

“Sure.”

He removed his own boots and slid under the covers.

“You remember that weird ass guy who showed up at the restaurant?”

Aanya nodded vigorously. Quinlan was a difficult man to forget. And he told her almost everything but glossed over the violence and the deaths and the loss. He made it look like a victory because that was what she needed to hear. But then he thought of that baby, how no one would take her away and how Aanya was back and safe. For the first time since the battle of Central Park, it did feel like a victory.

 Angela. Aanya had chosen to call her baby Angela and Gus could not stop thinking about them. He thought about the building which had once been his black market and now housed men and women who killed Strigs for a living. That did not seem like a good place to raise a baby. But then again, maybe it was the only safe place to raise a child. Everyone was armed to the teeth in there and Strigoi would not find a way in, even if they still had any brains left.

During his outings, he sometimes brought back small items he thought she might need. A blanket, a brush, some baby clothing. When he came back one morning with a carton full of heavy volumes, she glanced at the contents and scratched the tip of her nose.

“Huh, …what are those?”

“Some books on medicine…in case you’re still interested. Med schools are not going to re-open right away but I thought…you might want to get a head start.”

He grabbed one of them and handed it to her, particularly happy to have found it. The title was Clinical Respiratory Medicine. Gus had had to give the Librarian a silver blade and canned foods to get those books but that was a bargain from his point of view.

“But with the baby and…”

He put the book back down.

“Whatever you want to do, I’ll make it happen,” said Gus.

“If the schools do open again…who will take care of Angela while I study? Med school is a full-time job.”

“Plenty of families make it work even when both parents have full-time jobs.”

And there it was, the worry on her face again. Every time he suggested that he would be there for both of them.

“You know, I don’t mind being a stay-at-home dad. Retirement sounds good.” - she smiled but her eyes were still sad - “We’ll go to the park…hell, I’ll even learn finger painting. That’s the dream.”

Then he teased her because he wanted her to laugh.

“Maybe you’re scared I’ll spoil her rotten?”

He missed the mark, she did not laugh but at least she huddled against him.

 With the perspective of soon becoming a father, there was a slew of new fears Gus had not expected. Well, it was not like he had tons of time to prepare and those were not normal circumstances. When he walked into nests of stinking Strigs he was scared of not coming back. Gus pictures Raul climbing up the stairs to his flat and opening the door and that Aanya would look into his face and know right away what had happened. That terrified him more than anything. Having a lot to lose kinda sucked sometimes.

“Raul, pinche puto!”

His cousin stormed into the nest ahead of everyone and Gus wanted to punch him in the face. It was mostly with luck that they cleared the building without anyone getting stung. They reached the last floor and Gus breathed until he spotted the newest guy Costello had sent.

“What the fuck are you doing here? I told you to guard the street!”

“Huh, …everyone was going in so…”

“You fucking idiot.”

Surely, they could be lucky for just five more minutes. But no. He reached the entrance door just as a horde of Strigoi barreled down the street, attracted by the noise and the smells of their bodies. Gus spat a string of swears. All they had needed to get away safely was a thirty-second heads up. The SUVs were right there parked in the street and now completely inaccessible. The soldiers were outnumbered at least three to one. He closed the entrance of the building just as the first Strigoi smashed against it violently. Maybe they could make it out if they held their ground until the sunlight.

Raul was already closing off the access to the flats in the hallway. But that would not keep them out very long. The creatures were now too dumb to use a door handle but they could smash their way through given enough time. The ground level windows shattered as the first wave of creatures invaded the flats and instantly scratched at the doors. Shit.

They would all die here and Aanya would never even know what had happened.

Gus would never meet Angela.

Only two flats had windows facing that street which left three possible ways for the Strigoi to reach them. Two doors the main entrance.

They were ready for their onslaught and judging by the way the wooden panels were splintering, it would come sooner rather than later. A bead of sweat ran down Gus’ temple. The Strigoi stopped throwing themselves at the doors. They screeched and inside the flats, furniture was getting smashed and there was also the soft thuds of bodies hitting the floor. Gus looked at Raul who seemed just as confused as he was. Those were the sounds of Strigoi dying and they were both extremely familiar with them.

There was silence except for the heavy breathing of the soldiers and the loud beats of his own heart filling his head.

Someone knocked at the front door.

They all stared with slacking jaws. After five seconds, the knocking sounds resumed, more pressing this time.

“Augustin Elizalde, will you please come out?”

That voice was a kick in the stomach. It was a goddamn ghost.

“Holy shit,” whispered Raul and he immediately ran and opened the door.

Two people stood in the middle of the street, hooded and so familiar. Marcus and Miguel murmured excitedly to one another. Brevil had been quite clear Lexi and Quinlan were dead and since the Strigoi had gotten up, Gus had doubted him. Then he had heard that the volcano had exploded so violently that anything anywhere close to it had burned. Obviously, they had not been that close. He shook his head and his smile was bitter.

“What the fuck took you so long?” he asked and avoided the cut up Strigoi littering the pavement.

“We needed time to lick our wounds,” said Quinlan and both of them uncovered their heads.

Quinlan had gnarly scars across his face. Lexi was skinnier than Gus remembered and by all standards human or Dhampir, she looked like shit. Her eyes seemed sunken. And her skin was greyish instead of pure white.

“You were wrong,” said Raul and he too stared at Lexi. “They did not die.”

Lexi looked down, ashamed.

“Yes, we learned of our mistake after the fact,” said Quinlan. “Our error lied in assuming that death of the mind and that of the body were the same. We are here to remedy it.”

Gus resented them. Part of him blamed those two for Amir, for Arturo, for Julio and for all who had died since Central Park. But the other half of him was relieved beyond measure. He felt like a kid with a scraped knee whose parent just arrived to take care of business. He would never admit to that though, not even on his death bed.

 Back at the headquarters, Gus instantly noticed a beat up car amongst the black SUVs. Then when they all exited their vehicles he froze at a sound he had not heard in years. A child laughing. At the dinner table, a woman he did not know sat with a little girl on her lap and Aanya was telling her things that made her screech in delight.

“Who’s that?” Gus asked Lexi.

“A friend we picked on the way,” she said after Quinlan discretely grabbed her hand. “This is Laura and her daughter Emma. I hope you don’t mind if they stay here for the time being.”

Gus was about to retort that he did mind. That this was his place and he had to decide who was allowed to even come in. But then again, Aanya was smiling and laughing. The building was always filled with men and women running around with weapons and she had little in common with them.

“Fine. But we’re gonna have to go triple on the rooms very soon, cause we’re running out of space.”

If they stayed here, they would need to modify the building to allow for more sleeping quarters. After all, now that the market was dissolved, did they really need the lower level to be filled with all those shelves and crates?

“Your room is occupied right now but we’ll do some shuffling around. You’ll get it back,” said Gus.

“The metal trunk is in the vault. We didn’t touch it,” said Raul.

“Thank you,” said Lexi. She smiled softly.

Aanya was approaching carefully with her incredibly large eyes full of curiosity. Obviously, she had not yet met the Dhampir. She was not yet accustomed to their schedule and had probably just woken up. Quinlan and Lexi stared and though Aanya wore very large clothes, both their eyes traveled to her belly. Then they looked at one another. He seemed worried and she started with a smile and then a scowl which made Quinlan look away. They were so annoying with that mind reading bullshit.

“That’s Quinlan and that’s Lexi,” said Gus to break the awkward silence.

“I’m Aanya.”

Lexi thrust a hand toward her and Aanya shook it and then pulled her hand back against her chest.

“Warm,” she said in fascination.

Gus jutted his chin toward Raul and pointed at the soldiers. Raul gave him a thumb up and took charge of all the post-mission procedures.

“Let’s sit down. I’ve got a shit ton of questions,” said Gus.

His back was aching again. He was hungry, tired and in serious need of a shower. Despite all that crap, he was hopeful. He pulled Aanya close and planted a noisy kiss on her forehead. He would meet Angela for sure.

[ecotone99]

FN Wendigo Brawl

The footsteps were very near, and there came a low growling, almost like thunder rumbling in the distance. Out of the trees appeared a tall, hunched figure covered with white fur. It lumbered into the clearing, and stopped a few yards away from Elan. It was Gaul, in all his monstrous glory. Elan watched the beast, noting the spatters of blood on his mouth and hands. His claws were like large meat hooks, and caked with bits of entrails of his most recent victim. Whatever poor creature it was, it likely suffered a slow and miserable death; Elan shuddered, "That could be me next" he mumbled to himself. Gaul likely was drawn to Elan humming his tune earlier, and Wendigos hate music.

Elan was thinking to himself, how could you have been so stupid as to forget that?! If he wasn’t so frightened, he would be quite livid with himself right about now. He sunk lower to the moss-coated ground; doing everything in his power to stay as quiet, and still as possible. He gripped his spear, anticipating he may have to defend himself; he prayed hard that he wouldn’t have to. Nelson was curled up in the satchel, which was now resting against Elan’s leg. He could feel the little mink quivering like an autumn leaf. He watched Gaul closely from his hiding spot. The beast’s head bobbed up and down, sniffing the air. His head turned from side to side scanning the forest with fiery red eyes. By the expression on Gaul’s face, Elan had guessed what the creature was thinking. He imagined the creature saying in a low, guttural voice: “Where did you go you little whelp? I’ll catch you, and when I do, you’ll wish you’d died before drawing your first breath!” It was a horrific thing to think of. Elan reassured himself, however, that Gaul would not find him. He had taken every precaution necessary, he hoped. The creature sniffed the air, and paused. Elan watched the brute closely. Gaul’s head turned sharply towards the blueberry bushes, making Elan’s heart jump in his chest. The young shaman did his very best to keep his body still. He can’t see or smell you. The cloak will conceal you. You are safe. Elan thought.

The beast stuck his nose out, and sniffed the air. Elan started to feel uneasy as the blood in his veins turned to ice. Had he not applied enough rosemary? Gaul took a sliding step forward and continued to sniff the cold air squinting, but then the creature’s eyes started to widen.

A terrible thought popped into Elan’s head, Could Gaul be sniffing out the rosemary I’m wearing?! He knew the beast was cunning, more so than his kin, and was more than likely familiar with the scent of rosemary. It was commonly applied to warriors to hide their scent from wendigos. The young shaman tightened his grip around the shaft of his spear; and clenched his jaw to stop the chattering of his teeth. He could see Gaul’s lips starting to slowly curl upward, revealing rows of spear-like teeth. He brandished his fangs which were almost as long as a saber cat’s, and even saber cats didn’t mess with Gaul, Elan thought. The creature furrowed his brow and growled lowly, and the white fur on his back stood upright. He knew Elan was there; Elan could feel it in the pit of his stomach, which felt more like a gaping hole right about now.

Don’t move, don’t move! Elan thought to himself as his face broke out in an icy sweat. It took every ounce of willpower he had to fight the urge to flee. He stared into Gaul’s red eyes, which were quite wide, and glowed like brightly lit embers embedded in his dark, sunken sockets. Elan recalled being told stories of warriors coming face to face with evil demons. Their eyes were always described as fiery red, and burning with a murderous hunger. That’s what these eyes felt like, and they burned very deep indeed. The creature was now on all fours, and started to lean forward.

He’s going to charge! Elan thought. Before Elan had any time to panic, there came a sound of rustling leaves and snapping twigs from above. A very angry and low growl filled the air, making the hair on Elan’s neck stand upright. A large shadow leaped out of the trees and attacked Gaul, kicking him square in the chest. Gaul did a somersault backwards, but was soon on his feet again, and facing his attacker. Elan looked at the dark figure, it was another wendigo; a jet black one. Elan’s eyes shifted back to Gaul, and he did not look happy at all with this intruder. He was on all fours glowering and grumbling obscenities. The other Wendigo did the same, and they started to circle the forest floor locked in a glaring match. They walked on all fours like a pair giant, ugly gorillas. Now that Elan could see them both, he took note of the black one’s size. It looked as big and ferocious as Gaul, and probably could give the white-haired beast a good thrashing. Still, Gaul had a sinister reputation of being the most vicious and murderous wendigo on this side of the River Rouge. The hair on their bodies bristled like porcupine quills, and occasionally one would howl at the other and thump their fist hard against the ground; that made Elan flinch. The two creatures started to roar like a pair of angry grizzlies, only louder. Gaul took a swipe at the black beast, and it didn’t take too kindly to that. Almost instantly they were swinging their clawed hands at each other, and finally the black one knocked Gaul over with its foot. It jumped on top of the white brute and they locked arms. They both started snapping at each other’s necks with their fangs; snarling and wailing like a couple of rabid dogs. Elan’s jaw dropped in horror and disbelief. He could only lay in the bushes and watch frozen with fear; as though his limbs had been filled with cement.

What should I do?! The shaman thought to himself. He stared as the beasts tumbled and slashed at each other in the undergrowth, sending up clippings of shredded leaves, stems and bloody fur. Elan thought about slipping away; before he could, however, Gaul lunged at the black wendigo, and wrapped his enormous arms around the beast’s waist. He had him in a powerful hold, and started charging him back into the bushes to the tree where Elan was hiding. Elan rolled out from behind the blueberry bushes just in time. Gaul slammed the black creature hard against the tree trunk, sending down a shower of leaves and withered twigs. Elan slipped behind the trunk and sat up with his back pressed hard against its bark. Terror had filled him, and his chest hurt with each beat from his heart, which was pounding hard like a hammer. He heard a howl of pain, and glanced back around the tree trunk. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Gaul. The white-haired beast was wailing and backing away, holding his hand to his head, which was now drizzling with blood. The black wendigo was clenching a large stone in his fist. Elan could see stain of red blood smeared over a jagged corner of the stone. The black wendigo swung a hooking punch to Gaul’s cheek and knocked him over. It then leapt at Gaul, but the white beast threw the black one over his head using his powerful legs. Gaul was now up on all fours again, and slamming his fists into the ground. He started hopping around and roared maniacally. His grey face went flush with anger, and his eyes blazed furiously.

Oh gods he is in a real rage now! Elan thought. The black wendigo was up again, but Gaul had already leapt six feet into the air. Elan gaped as he watched Gaul come down hard on the black beast with the heel of his foot. Gaul was on top of him now, raking his claws against the wretch’s face. The creature howled with pain as Gaul pinned him to the forest floor under his great weight. This was probably the best chance Elan had of escaping. He wanted to move, but he was still fixated with fear as he watched the two monsters. Gaul then jammed one of his large claws into the black wendigo’s eyes, causing it to wail with pain. Elan nearly shrieked as he watched blood come spilling out of the beast’s socket.

It’s now or never! Elan thought. He grabbed his spear and satchel, and bolted. He held the arrowhead out in front of him; looking for the slightest glimmer of light. He pointed it off to the right, and it glowed brightly. It led him into a thicket of brush. As he ran through the branches, they tugged at his clothes, almost as if to ensnare him in their tangled embrace. Each time he felt them tug, he broke free and continued to run. One of his sleeves got torn on a broken branch, but no blood was drawn thankfully. His heart was now pounding in his throat, whether from fear or exhaustion he could not tell, perhaps both. He only thought of getting as far away from those monsters as possible. The stories of these woods were true, all true! Horrible things did in fact live here. The world to him now seemed like a hovel filled with nothing but evil creatures; nowhere felt safe. He had gotten a good distance away, but could still hear the creatures battling. There then came a shrill, and woeful wailing over the tree tops. It was the kind you’d hear if someone had fallen from a cliff, or was being murdered in cold blood. It was followed by the fluttering of spooked ravens, and Elan had a pretty good guess of what creature was making the noise. Gaul was killing the black Wendigo, probably by tearing poor wretch’s throat out with his teeth. The sound made Elan pick up pace; he’d never felt such an urge to run so far and so fast. It was a horrible noise, one that filled him with a mixture of terror and pity. He couldn’t stand to hear a helpless creature suffer and die in such a miserable way. He was certain, however, that Gaul got much pleasure from it, just as he would when he did the same to the young Shaman.

submitted by /u/WiloThawisp23 [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/33c1spC

[swipestream]

New Release Roundup, 28 July 2018: Fantasy and Adventure

Young treasure hunters, imperial legions, xian’xia cultivators, heroic superhumans, and steampunk squires fill the pages of this week’s roundup of the newest releases in fantasy and adventure.

Clansman: Invoking the Darkness (Mapper #1) – Royce Scott Buckingham

Guided by a massive clan book containing tales of their ancestors, the Hilltoppers arrive in Abrogan, pledging allegiance to their King. They have crossed a forbidding ocean to another land where birds speak messages, poisonous sleep-animals lurk, warriors struggle for power and Lords bend the truth on a whim.

Ian Krystal, leader of the Hilltoppers, becomes an unlikely leader, charged with building roads, clearing a menacing bog full of savages, chasing down bands of thieves and in the process emerges a champion of the people.

Petrich is the clan’s scribe, meant to chronicle their journeys while learning the fine art of mapping from a renegade Lord. As a child, darkness sheltered him from marauding tribesmen and he carries it with him.

The emerging City of Skye is being built in the new land. King Blackpool’s nephew struggles with his power and the King arrives determined to double his empire.

Can an honest man of integrity prevail in a land of intrigue?

Coiling Dragon (Coiling Dragon Saga #1) – Wo Chi Xi Hong Shi

Empires rise and fall on the Yulan Continent. Saints, immortal beings of unimaginable power, battle using spells and swords, leaving swathes of destruction in their wake. Magical beasts rule the mountains, where the brave – or the foolish – go to test their strength. This is the world which Linley is born into, a world of mages and warriors.

Raised in the small town of Wushan, Linley is a scion of the Baruch clan, the clan of the once-legendary Dragonblood Warriors. Their fame once shook the world, but the clan is now so decrepit that even the heirlooms of the clan have been sold off. Their prospects seem dire… and yet, perhaps some power still remains within the veins of the Baruch clan. Dragons do not easily die, and neither do the dragonblooded.

Come witness a new legend in the making. The legend of Linley Baruch.

The Cross of the Last Crusade (Young Chase Baker #1) – Vincent Zandri

An ancient solid gold cross has been buried seemingly forever. Only Young Chase Baker is brave enough to dig it back up.

You know Chase Baker as an adventurer and Renaissance man who loves the ladies but who also loves finding trouble in the form of buried treasure all around the globe. But what was Chase like back when he was a teenager? Turns out, he was a younger version of his adult self.

In this, the first short novel in the new Young Chase Baker action & adventure series, Chase teams up with his two best amigos–the skinny, fun loving, Twigs, and the combative but courageous, Baily. At Chase’s urging, the three embark on a late night quest to uncover the Cross of the Last Crusade which is said to have been buried along with the body of an old Frenchman, Pierre Menands. When Chase’s “sort of” girlfriend, the beautiful Monique, joins the hunt, the band of teens face down haunted ghosts, angry cops, a speeding locomotive, rabid dogs, a murderous resurrected crusader, and finally, the zombie reincarnation of Menands himself.

The Frostfire Sage (The Landkist Saga #4) – Steven Kelliher

The Sages are dying. The gods are waking up.

Kole, Linn and their companions have survived the wilds of Center, slain another Sage and put their world on a path toward salvation.

Or so they think.

But the Eastern Dark has returned and laid claim to the power of T’Alon Rane, making the King of Ember his dark servant once more. Now, their ancient enemy marches across the frozen wastes of the north, seeking to end the life of his former ally and the last true power that can stand against him.

With the last two Sages on a collision course that could decide the fate of the world, the Landkist of the Valley have a choice to make. One between darkness and light, redemption and corruption.

For the Frostfire Sage is alive and unwell. And she has secrets to keep. And scores to settle.

Knight Country (An Adventures of Baron Von Monocle novella) – Jon Del Arroz

The Special Forces of Steampunk!

Airships, Guns, and Gadgets! The Knights of the Crystal Spire are more than ordinary fantasy knights.

Life as an apprentice knight hasn’t been easy on James Gentry. As a commoner and an outsider, he’s been ridiculed, picked on, and shunned by the other boys. But he’s determined to become one of the finest knights Rislandia has ever seen.

During his training, James stumbles upon a master knight selling information on Rislandian troop movements to a Wyranth spy. To keep Rislandia safe, he must root out the traitor and put a stop to the enemy’s schemes. Does he have what it takes?

“Knight Training” is a stand-alone sequel novella to the award-winning steampunk novel, For Steam And Country!

The Mask of Storms (Blood and Honor #1) – William Stacey

Warrior. Outcast. Hero.

Framed for theft. Hunted by the underworld. Marked for death by a dark power.

If they fail to recover the Mask of Storms, they may lose more than their lives. They may lose their souls.

When dockhand Bors is blamed for the theft of a magical artifact—the Mask of Storms—he is hunted by those who will kill anyone to recover it. But Bors is a man with a violent past and when pushed he pushes back. Now, on the run in a foreign city, his only ally is the beautiful but treacherous thief Long Tam.

But a dark power watches from the shadows.

Omega Deep (Sam Reilly #12) – Christopher Cartwright 

Name: USS Omega Deep Cost: 30 billion dollars Class: Experimental Noise Emissions: Undetectable by current sound monitoring capabilities Current Status: Unknown. Last contact 96 days ago. Presumed sunk. 192 souls lost.

The US Navy’s most advanced nuclear attack submarine, the USS Omega Deep was the first to disappear. It was followed swiftly by the loss of the Russian spy vessel Vostok, and then the Feng Jian, a Chinese Aircraft Carrier.

Sam Reilly and his unique team of troubleshooters are requested at the express order of the President of the United States of America to locate the Omega Deep and determine the cause of these unexplained tragedies, before they lead to World War III.

The Price of a Drink (Right Ho, Jeeves #4) – P. G. Wodehouse, adapted by Chuck Dixon and Gary Kwapisz

THE PRICE OF A DRINK is the fourth issue in the RIGHT HO, JEEVES series, which tells of the travails of the inimitable Bertie Wooster, summoned from the comforts of #3A Berkley Mansions, London to Brinkley Manor by his imperious Aunt Dahlia. In this issue, Gussie Fink-Nottle has summoned up the courage required to address the collected youth of Market Snodsbury, but it is a liquid courage. Not only that, but he has summoned up entirely too much of it, with hilarious and humiliating consequences for everyone involved.

Adapted from the classic Wodehouse novel by comics legend Chuck Dixon and drawn by SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN illustrator Gary Kwapisz, THE PRICE OF A DRINK is issue #4 of 6 in the RIGHT HO, JEEVES series.

Regicide (The Completionist Chronicles #2) – Dakota Krout

After the encounter at the Mage’s College, Joe’s name has become well-known in Eternia. While the majority of his guild is ecstatic over the bonuses that he brings them, not everyone is pleased with his rising influence. In fact, someone has been spreading rumors that Joe is unbalanced, sacrificing comrades for personal power.

As a result, Joe is forced to recruit a team of misfits and discovers that their unique abilities complement his own. With their assistance, Joe moves forward with his plans to specialize into a more powerful version of his Ritualist class. But when the dust settles, he will be forced to ask himself a simple question: was it his actions that lit the fires of war?

Rogue Dungeon (The Rogue Dungeon #1) – James Hunter and Eden Hudson

Roark von Graf—hedge mage and lesser noble of Traisbin—is one of only a handful of Freedom fighters left, and he knows the Resistance’s days are numbered. Unless they do something drastic…

But when a daring plan to unseat the Tyrant King goes awry, Roark finds himself on the run through an interdimensional portal, which strands him in a very unexpected location: an ultra-immersive fantasy video game called Hearthworld. He can’t log out, his magic is on the fritz, and worst of all, he’s not even human. He’s a low-class, run-of-the-mill Dungeon monster. Some disgusting, blue-skinned creature called a Troll. At least there’s one small silver lining—Roark managed to grab a powerful magic artifact on his way through the portal, and with it he might just be able to save his world after all.

Unless, of course, the Tyrant King gets to him first …

A Sellsword’s Resolve (The Seven Virtues#3) – Jacob Peppers

Aaron and his companions prevented the assassination of a queen but in doing so they angered an ancient evil. Angered it, wounded it, but did not kill it, for such evil never truly dies.

An army greater than any the world has ever known marches bringing steel and death with it and somewhere a thousand-year-old evil lurks in the darkness, plotting and bending its will toward revenge.

Aaron and his companions have gathered allies to help them in the coming battle and each day his bond with the Virtue of Compassion grows stronger, gifting him greater and greater power.

But if life on the street taught Aaron anything, it’s that no one is better able to stab you in the back as those standing behind you. And as his power with the legendary creature grows, so too does an uncontrollable rage that threatens to consume him.

His enemies are many, his friends few, but no matter what happens, they will all learn the truth of a sellsword’s resolve.

Spawn of an Assassin (The Dark Assassin #3) – Steve Collier

Born of war, heir to the throne of the Blue Territory, Makeo has never lived a normal life. His brutal training at the hands of the kingdom’s greatest assassins combines with his natural talent to make him an unstoppable warrior. And an arrogant one.

When word reaches the king that their enemies are planning a massive invasion, donning armor and wielding weapons beyond their power to defeat, Makeo is determined to fight to save his kingdom.

The Wisp, an ancient and evil parasite with the power to fully control its host, has laid dormant for all these years… until now.

The Wisp beckons to Makeo, filling his head with promises of glory, of victory, of peace for all Five Territories. What Makeo doesn’t know, is that all this comes with a heavy price… his soul.

Can Makeo hold himself back from the manipulations of the Wisp? Or will he succumb to its call and release it from its imprisonment, dooming the whole world?

The Street Rules (Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #1) – Chuck Dixon and Frank Fosco

From the mean streets of Moseley to the luxurious beach houses of Diamond Beach, crime affects everyone in Avalon. And the presence of the superhumans known around the city as “specials” hasn’t necessarily made life for the average citizen any better, since the local vigilantes are as apt to demand payment for their protection as they are to provide their services for free.

The crime-fighting duo of King Ace and Fazer are true heroes, not vigilantes, as Fazer explains the difference to a reporter interviewing him for the city paper. A hero doesn’t expect thanks or payment, he helps people because it is the right thing to do. And a hero doesn’t kill anyone, ever. All he and the big guy are trying to do is make everyday life better for everyone walking through their streets, living in their city.

But even heroes face temptation.

The Tiger’s Time (Chronicles of an Imperial Legionary Officer #4) – Marc Alan Edelheit

A nobleman from an infamous family, imperial legionary officer, and born fighter, Ben Stiger is trapped in the past and cut off from everything he has known. The World Gate is sealed behind him and Delvaris the man he traveled through time to save, is dead. With this great man’s death, the future has been altered by the evil god Castor.

Stiger has lost his purpose. For the first time in a great long while, no one needs saving and no one needs killing. Stiger is a man out of his time and worse a prisoner of the dwarves.

Cast adrift in a time not his own, Stiger believes his time as a leader of men is at an end. But the gods are not done with him yet. A terrible evil looms over the Vrell Valley like a grim shadow. Castor’s dark servants are hard at work. Despite being a man out of his time, Stiger is viewed as a threat to be eliminated, for a dread destiny has been stamped onto his line from the time of Karus.

The Horde is on the march, and the Thirteenth Legion is in Vrell without a legate. There is only one man who can lead the Lost–Stiger. This is the Tiger’s Time! The question is… can the damage done by Castor’s servants be repaired and will it be enough to change his destiny?

United Cherokee States of N’America: The Knower – Bob Finley

Conner Gray gradually realized as a child that he had a unique and unsolicited gift/curse/skill: he knew things. If he’s asked a question, any question, he knows the answer. And he’s always right. And he doesn’t know how he knows.

One day Conner, now a 26 year old professional proofreader, receives an article from the Center For Disease Control in which nine experts ask what they think is an academic question: “Is it possible that a virus could sweep the world so quickly that it would annihilate up to 90% of the human population, and if so, how soon could that happen?” The wording of the question triggered an involuntary response and he ‘knew’ the answer: yes! And he knew when: just 181 days after he reads the article. BUT the experts’ answer is “no”. He ‘knew’ they were wrong. But who would believe him instead of nine experts?

He called the only friend he could trust to believe him. Together they set out on a quest to survive the coming apocalypse. 177 days. And counting.

When the Gods Fell – Richard Paolinelli

Oracle Veritas of the House of Delphi has waited for over 65 million years to tell her story to the children of Olympus. Now, in the year 2041, the first humans from Earth have stepped onto the surface of Mars. But instead of a barren world littered with long-dead probes and rovers, the crew of the Seeker will encounter Oracle and hear of a world that was once covered in seas and lakes, icecaps and deserts, plains and forests. When it was a world called Olympus, inhabited by the race of advanced immortals that called the planet home.

How Lord Zeus, head of the ruling family of Caste Olympus, was ruler of the world. But other Castes chaff under the Olympian rule. Lord Odin, of Caste Norse, and Lord Anu, of Caste Paga, have set their eyes upon the throne of Olympus. Even as the jubilee celebration of Zeus’ rule draws near, Odin and Anu recruit the leaders of the other Castes – Dine, Asiac, Afrikans and Hindi – to their cause against the mighty Zeus.

Only Caste Zion, led by Lord Yahweh, remains loyal to the throne. A loyalty proven two centuries before when Yahweh exiled his own son, Lucifer, after a failed coup attempt. But Lucifer’s treachery will not die. He waits for the rebellious Castes to strike against his father and set him free from his prison on Gaia, the third planet in Olympus’ solar system.

As the plotters move against the throne, Zeus sees the extinction of all life on Olympus as the only possible result of the looming civil war. He is left with only one terrible solution. Zeus turns to the only person he can trust to carry out his last order as ruler of Olympus.

New Release Roundup, 28 July 2018: Fantasy and Adventure published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[readbookywooks]

Almost every person had a flashlight by their side in case of emergency. Otherwise, Newt had ordered all lights extinguished despite the pale, deathly glow of their new sky—no sense attracting any more attention than necessary. Anything that could be done on such short notice to prepare for a Griever attack had been done: windows boarded up, furniture moved in front of doors, knives handed out as weapons …

But none of that made Thomas feel safe.

The anticipation of what might happen was overpowering, a suffocating blanket of misery and fear that began to take on a life of its own. He almost wished the suckers would just come and get it over with. The waiting was unbearable.

The distant wails of the Grievers grew closer as the night stretched on, every minute seeming to last longer than the one before it.

Another hour passed. Then another. Sleep finally came, but in miserable fits. Thomas guessed it was about two in the morning when he turned from his back to his stomach for the millionth time that night. He put his hands under his chin and stared at the foot of the bed, almost a shadow in the dim light.

Then everything changed.

A mechanized surge of machinery sounded from outside, followed by the familiar rolling clicks of a Griever on the stony ground, as if someone had scattered a handful of nails. Thomas shot to his feet, as did most of the others.

But Newt was up before anyone, waving his arms, then shushing the room by putting a finger to his lips. Favoring his bad leg, he tiptoed toward the lone window in the room, which was covered by three hastily nailed boards. Large cracks allowed for plenty of space to peek outside. Carefully, Newt leaned in to take a look, and Thomas crept over to join him.

He crouched below Newt against the lowest of the wooden boards, pressing his eye against a crack—it was terrifying being so close to the wall. But all he saw was the open Glade; he didn’t have enough space to look up or down or to the side, just straight ahead. After a minute or so, he gave up and turned to sit with his back against the wall. Newt walked over and sat back down on the bed.

A few minutes passed, various Griever sounds penetrating the walls every ten to twenty seconds. The squeal of small engines followed by a grinding spin of metal. The clicking of spikes against the hard stone. Things snapping and opening and snapping. Thomas winced in fear every time he heard something.

Sounded like three or four of them were just outside. At least.

He heard the twisted animal-machines come closer, so close, waiting on the stone blocks below. All hums and metallic clatter.

Thomas’s mouth dried up—he’d seen them face to face, remembered it all too well; he had to remind himself to breathe. The others in the room were still; no one made a sound. Fear seemed to hover in the air like a blizzard of black snow.

One of the Grievers sounded like it was moving toward the house. Then the clicking of its spikes against the stone suddenly turned into a deeper, hollower sound. Thomas could picture it all: the creature’s metal spikes digging into the wooden sides of the Homestead, the massive creature rolling its body, climbing up toward their room, defying gravity with its strength. Thomas heard the Grievers’ spikes shred the wood siding in their path as they tore out and rotated around to take hold once again. The whole building shuddered.

The crunching and groaning and snapping of the wood became the only sounds in the world to Thomas, horrifying. They grew louder, closer—the other boys had shuffled across the room and as far away from the window as possible. Thomas finally followed suit, Newt right beside him; everyone huddled against the far wall, staring at the window.

Just when it grew unbearable—just as Thomas realized the Griever was right outside the window—everything fell silent. Thomas could almost hear his own heart beating.

Lights flickered out there, casting odd beams through the cracks between the wooden boards. Then a thin shadow interrupted the light, moving back and forth. Thomas knew that the Griever’s probes and weapons had come out, searching for a feast. He imagined beetle blades out there, helping the creatures find their way. A few seconds later the shadow stopped; the light settled to a standstill, casting three unmoving planes of brightness into the room.

The tension in the air was thick; Thomas couldn’t hear anyone breathing. He thought much the same must be going on in the other rooms of the Homestead. Then he remembered Teresa in the Slammer.

He was just wishing she’d say something to him when the door from the hallway suddenly whipped open. Gasps and shouts exploded throughout the room. The Gladers had been expecting something from the window, not from behind them. Thomas turned to see who’d opened the door, expecting a frightened Chuck or maybe a reconsidering Alby. But when he saw who stood there, his skull seemed to contract, squeezing his brain in shock.

It was Gally.

CHAPTER 39

Gally’s eyes raged with lunacy; his clothes were torn and filthy. He dropped to his knees and stayed there, his chest heaving with deep, sucking breaths. He looked about the room like a rabid dog searching for someone to bite. No one said a word. It was as if they all believed as Thomas did—that Gally was only a figment of their imagination.

“They’ll kill you!” Gally screamed, spittle flying everywhere. “The Grievers will kill you all—one every night till it’s over!”

Thomas watched, speechless, as Gally staggered to his feet and walked forward, dragging his right leg with a heavy limp. No one in the room moved a muscle as they watched, obviously too stunned to do anything. Even Newt stood mouth agape. Thomas was almost more afraid of their surprise visitor than he was of the Grievers just outside the window.

Gally stopped, standing just a few feet in front of Thomas and Newt; he pointed at Thomas with a bloody finger. “You,” he said with a sneer so pronounced it went past comical to flat-out disturbing. “It’s all your fault!” Without warning he swung his left hand, forming it into a fist as it came around and crashed into Thomas’s ear. Crying out, Thomas crumpled to the ground, more taken by surprise than pain. He scrambled to his feet as soon as he’d hit the floor.

Newt had finally snapped out of his daze and pushed Gally away. Gally stumbled backward and crashed into the desk by the window. The lamp scooted off the side and broke into pieces on the ground. Thomas assumed Gally would retaliate, but he straightened instead, taking everyone in with his mad gaze.

“It can’t be solved,” he said, his voice now quiet and distant, spooky. “The shuck Maze’ll kill all you shanks…. The Grievers’ll kill you … one every night till it’s over…. I … It’s better this way….” His eyes fell to the floor. “They’ll only kill you one a night … their stupid Variables …”

Thomas listened in awe, trying to suppress his fear so he could memorize everything the crazed boy said.

Newt took a step forward. “Gally, shut your bloody hole—there’s a Griever right out the window. Just sit on your butt and be quiet—maybe it’ll go away.”

Gally looked up, his eyes narrowing. “You don’t get it, Newt. You’re too stupid—you’ve always been too stupid. There’s no way out—there’s no way to win! They’re gonna kill you, all of you—one by one!”

Screaming the last word, Gally threw his body toward the window and started tearing at the wooden boards like a wild animal trying to escape a cage. Before Thomas or anyone else could react, he’d already ripped one board free; he threw it to the ground.

“No!” Newt yelled, running forward. Thomas followed to help, in utter disbelief at what was happening.

Gally ripped off the second board just as Newt reached him. He swung it backward with both hands and connected with Newt’s head, sent him sprawling across the bed as a small spray of blood sprinkled the sheets. Thomas pulled up short, readying himself for a fight.

“Gally!” Thomas yelled. “What’re you doing!”

The boy spat on the ground, panting like a winded dog. “You shut your shuck-face, Thomas. You shut up! I know who you are, but I don’t care anymore. I can only do what’s right.”

Thomas felt as if his feet were rooted to the ground. He was completely baffled by what Gally was saying. He watched the boy reach back and rip loose the final wooden board. The instant the discarded slab hit the floor of the room, the glass of the window exploded inward like a swarm of crystal wasps. Thomas covered his face and fell to the floor, kicking his legs out to scoot his body as far away as possible. When he bumped into the bed, he gathered himself and looked up, ready to face his world coming to an end.

A Griever’s pulsating, bulbous body had squirmed halfway through the destroyed window, metallic arms with pincers snapping and clawing in all directions. Thomas was so terrified, he barely registered that everyone else in the room had fled to the hallway—all except Newt, who lay unconscious on the bed.

Frozen, Thomas watched as one of the Griever’s long arms reached for the lifeless body. That was all it took to break him from his fear. He scrambled to his feet, searched the floor around him for a weapon. All he saw were knives—they couldn’t help him now. Panic exploded within him, consumed him.

Then Gally was speaking again; the Griever pulled back its arm, as if it needed the thing to be able to observe and listen. But its body kept churning, trying to squeeze its way inside.

“No one ever understood!” the boy screamed over the horrible noise of the creature, crunching its way deeper into the Homestead, ripping the wall to pieces. “No one ever understood what I saw, what the Changing did to me! Don’t go back to the real world, Thomas! You don’t … want … to remember!”

Gally gave Thomas a long, haunted look, his eyes full of terror; then he turned and dove onto the writhing body of the Griever. Thomas yelled out as he watched every extended arm of the monster immediately retract and clasp onto Gally’s arms and legs, making escape or rescue impossible. The boy’s body sank several inches into the creature’s squishy flesh, making a horrific squelching sound. Then, with surprising speed, the Griever pushed itself back outside the shattered frame of the window and began descending toward the ground below.

Thomas ran to the jagged, gaping hole, looked down just in time to see the Griever land and start scooting across the Glade, Gally’s body appearing and disappearing as the thing rolled. The lights of the monster shone brightly, casting an eerie yellow glow across the stone of the open West Door, where the Griever exited into the depths of the Maze. Then, seconds later, several other monsters followed close behind their companion, whirring and clicking as if celebrating their victory.

Thomas was sickened to the verge of throwing up. He began to back away from the window, but something outside caught his eye. He quickly leaned out of the building to get a better look. A lone shape was sprinting across the courtyard of the Glade toward the exit through which Gally had just been taken.

Despite the poor light, Thomas realized who it was immediately. He screamed—yelled at him to stop—but it was too late.

Minho, running full speed, disappeared into the Maze.

CHAPTER 40

Lights blazed throughout the Homestead. Gladers ran about, everyone talking at once. A couple of boys cried in a corner. Chaos ruled.

Thomas ignored all of it.

He ran into the hallway, then leaped down the stairs three at a time. He pushed his way through a crowd in the foyer, tore out of the Homestead and toward the West Door, sprinting. He pulled up just short of the threshold of the Maze, his instincts forcing him to think twice about entering. Newt called to him from behind, delaying the decision.

“Minho followed it out there!” Thomas yelled when Newt caught up to him, a small towel pressed against the wound on his head. A patchy spot of blood had already seeped through the white material.

“I saw,” Newt said, pulling the towel away to look at it; he grimaced and put it back. “Shuck it, that hurts like a mother. Minho must’ve finally fried his last bit of brain cells—not to mention Gally. Always knew he was crazy.”

Thomas could only worry about Minho. “I’m going after him.”

“Time to be a bloody hero again?”

Thomas looked at Newt sharply, hurt by the rebuke. “You think I do things to impress you shanks? Please. All I care about is getting out of here.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a regular toughie. But right now we’ve got worse problems.”

“What?” Thomas knew if he wanted to catch up with Minho he had no time for this.

“Somebody—” Newt began.

“There he is!” Thomas shouted. Minho had just turned a corner up ahead and was coming straight for them. Thomas cupped his hands. “What were you doing, idiot!”

Minho waited until he made it back through the Door, then bent over, hands on his knees, and sucked in a few breaths before answering. “I just … wanted to … make sure.”

“Make sure of what?” Newt asked. “Lotta good you’d be, taken with Gally.”

Minho straightened and put his hands on his hips, still breathing heavily. “Slim it, boys! I just wanted to see if they went toward the Cliff. Toward the Griever Hole.”

“And?” Thomas said.

“Bingo.” Minho wiped sweat from his forehead.

“I just can’t believe it,” Newt said, almost whispering. “What a night.”

Thomas’s thoughts tried to drift toward the Hole and what it all meant, but he couldn’t shake the thought of what Newt had been about to say before they saw Minho return. “What were you about to tell me?” he asked. “You said we had worse—”

“Yeah.” Newt pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “You can still see the buggin’ smoke.”