Fuckin' morals, I swear ...

“Goddammit!” you hiss, unable to just ignore the soon-to-be-dead human. Hauling yourself over the edge of the escape, you use the tendrils to actively push off any other surfaces, speeding your way to him. You can’t see his face from here, but you can’t imagine he’s having a good time. One of your tentacles wraps around a support on the old, metal walkway as you dive into reach. You manage to put your arm around the kid’s waist, then frantically pull him to your chest so you can steady his head before – oh, there we go, a violent jerk wrenches a horrific screech out of the fire escape as the weight of both of you jerks at the support. For a tense moment, as your remaining tendrils not hanging on for dear life push up against the side of the building to make sure you don’t pancake yourself on it, the rickety stairs to the roof shake and shiver, threatening to fall down on top of both of you.

Fortunately, they start to slow their violent vibrations by the time you lower yourself and the child to the ground, tentacles of the void slipping behind you and coiling, very purposely trying not to horrify the poor thing. You kneel, letting him go, and reveal he can stand on his own power. As you put your hands on his shoulder to make sure you managed to spare his neck any damage, it seems … strange to you that the red-headed, freckled boy is smiling broadly at you.

“Hey, you okay over there?” Your voice is anxious, not enjoying the eerie grin. It probably would seem less scary if you weren’t being chased by a monster and he hadn’t just almost died. The kid holds up one hand, sticking his thumb up, then turns and runs towards the street. “Oh my God, kid, don’t fucking-” you start to scream at him for immediately hauling off at traffic, but just before he hits the curb, the sound of children laughing fills the air and he seems to burst into thousands of motes of orange light that quickly fade into the dull glow of the street lights. You stand still for a moment, eyes wide, unable to process what the fuck just happened.

It isn’t something you can contemplate very long, however, as the space in front of you is filled in short order by a massive, hairy deathbeast, who takes the fall from the top of the building entirely too well for your liking. You swear to yourself for not heading towards the more populated area when you had the chance and try to weave around it, but it wards you off with remarkably swift swipes of its claws that just barely avoid taking your head clean off. Fuck, nothing this big has any right to be this fast.

Springing into the alleyways, you try to build up enough of a lead again to climb, but whenever you try, it manages to leap just above you, requiring you to course correct, quickly losing exactly where the hell you are in the winding crannies of the old neighborhood. It’s not long before you hit a dead end with the thing hot on your heels.

Wheeling around, you thrust all your shadow tendrils at the creature as it rounds the blind corner you’re now stuck in. As suspected, they hardly even slow it down. It easily moves past the first two, then slices through the next two effortlessly. As it spins around, ripping apart your remaining shadows now craning backwards towards it, your mind races for an answer. **** and unsure, you feel yourself shift and temperature drop as your body becomes loose and immaterial, trying to find a crack in the wall. Before you can escape, however, a bright, orange light fills the alley. Turning, you see a white-hot ball of flame in the werewolf’s hand as it stands facing you, now fully upright and with shrewd, cunning blue eyes. It would be so much more convenient if it was just a stupid beast. As much as you’d like to believe otherwise, the sheer, unrelenting panic at the heat pouring off the thing in the monster’s hand tells your instincts pretty clearly that ignoring it isn’t going to pan out. It takes herculean effort not to give in to that screaming terror, something in your mind breaking just the slightest bit to push it back. For now.

“Fine, you want a fucking fight?” you growl, more tendrils sliding from the corners and shadows of the alleyway. You’re doing your best to sound menacing and brave, but still, you just hear ‘YOU IDIOT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!’ It doesn’t matter than trying to find a way out would leave you open for attack, the thoughts aren’t even vaguely rational. “I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but I’m trying to help people out here, and you are NOT getting in my way!” The creature seems … nonplussed.

A bolt of wild, arcing fire rips from its hand, filling your corner with a pure, furious light that banishes your tendrils away. You throw yourself to the ground, falling back into solid form just to retain enough sense of mind to dive behind a dumpster. While being in a less flammable shape helps a little, the way the dumpster distorts, then bursts when the energy fills it is less encouraging. Desperately, you grab a jagged piece of metal from it, your hand sizzling when you grip it with biting agony, and charge forward, fangs bared and screaming as you thrust the steaming, makeshift weapon at the werewolf’s chest.

With a satisfying “splorch,” noise, you watch it dive in, at least a third of the chunk of ruined metal digging all the way inside. The werewolf looks down and regards it as you yank it out and get ready to strike again, confidence momentarily bolstered … only to be violently dashed as you watch the wound close up like it never even happened. It takes all your willpower not to drop to your knees as your weapon falls from your hands, eyes wide in horror at your imminent ****.

“Acceptable.” Its voice is powerful, gravelly, and … kind of exhausted. You can tell its mouth isn’t meant for human words, curving near-painfully as it speaks. The werewolf lowers its arms, no longer guarding the way out of the alley. Is this a trap? It could just kill you know, what the fuck is it waiting for?

While no stranger than it suddenly throwing a D&D-style fireball at you, watching the creature twist, shift, and reduce to the size of a human man, not even a very tall one, in the space of three seconds is off-putting in a way you can’t describe. Fur shrinks, then vanishes, the only hints of the grey-black hair the man’s eyebrows and neat beard. Muscles give way to a deeply-tired, old body, almost cartoonishly powerful form replaced by a simple, navy blue jacket, old and battered khakis, and practical, but extremely dirty boots.

“Guess you were pretty serious about those antiques,” Kenneth says flatly, like he didn’t just tear-ass over eight city blocks behind you.

“What the HELL, man?!” You want to be more eloquent. Maybe point out how unnecessarily mean chasing you like that was to … prove some kind of point? Snap back at how you helped him last night, and this was a real funny way to pay that back. “WHY ARE YOU A WOLFMAN?!” Unfortunately, eloquence isn’t taking your calls right this second.

“Genetics,” he answers, turning around and walking back towards the street. He turns over his shoulder, cocks his head for you to follow, and simply asks “Well?” You roll your eyes, huff, but run after him anyway.

“Seriously, what was that about?” you ask in a low, angry voice as you walk beside him. “You almost killed me, like, six times!”

“Must be losing my touch.” He shrugs. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. Needed to make sure you were serious about lives being on the line. Checked you out, followed you, you were. Had to test your motivations.”

“How did you shut down my car? What was that kid? What the hell did you throw at that dumpster?”

“World’s full of spirits, kid. You just gotta’ know how to talk to them. And we’ve been talking for a while. Also, I threw it at you. The dumpster was a good move.”

“What if it’d hit me?”

“You’d probably be dead, and I’d have to clear out that bane problem you’ve got on my own. Wouldn’t be the first time,” he responds, his tone not altering in the slightest. You want to smack him or scream or something, but hold yourself back to just fuming.

“And you just … you don’t feel even a little bit bad about that?” you hiss.

“Nope. Met enough leeches in my life. Been used. Not letting it happen again,” he sighs. “One more dead vampire’s the price I have to pay, I’ll pay it. You passed, don’t be such a kid about it.”

“I’m sorry, this is just my third life-or-**** conflict, this week, so I might be A LITTLE STRESSED!” You lower your voice harshly, but emphasize the last words clearly enough to leave no chance of mistaking your sarcasm or irritation.

“You’re pretty new, huh?” He glances sideways at you as the two of you walk down the street. “Explains a lot.”

“Yeah, I’m new, and almost alone, and I don’t know anyone like me, and your broke my damn car! I kind of need that, man. I appreciate not being murdered in cold blood here, but this whole thing is rude as fuck.”

“I didn’t break your car. It could probably run again inside the minute. I just shut it down. If I’d wanted to break it, much easier ways to do that.”

“What’s it going to take to get an actual apology out of you here?”

“Fine. I’m sorry you wet your pants when I didn’t try very hard to kill you. Mea culpa,” he says, not even looking at you as you reach the front of The Last Stop. “Look, I said I’d help you now, you gonna’ take ‘yes,’ for an answer or what?”

“… yes,” you manage to say, suppressing the indignancy bubbling inside you. “Yes, I could use any help I can get.”

“Good. You have a team, get them together. Tomorrow, by eight.”

“Where?”

“Doesn’t really matter. I’ll be there.” He slams the door behind him, which you then hear lock. You almost stumble backwards, the rush of your flight, bad (good?) decisions, and fury slipping from your head. True to his word, your car starts with no problem. Checking your cell tells you that you’re back on the grid, and you decide to head off to find something to eat. After all that, you’re absolutely starving.

“Pretty irresponsible to not feed me after that for a guy who doesn’t trust vampires …” you grumble to yourself, looking for somewhere to recover before what’s sure to an awkward Monday night.