I was tucked into the backseat of Vergil’s old muscle car, fingers
still fumbling with the uneven ends of my hair. Freshly cut, choppily
so, to just barely brush along my shoulders in the borrowed white
button down I wore. That, combined with a pair of black slacks that
perhaps rode a little high on my legs and loose on the waist, giving
me what Vergil described as an “easy to miss appearance.”
Not that I was exactly sure how, even with my hair loosely pulled
across the right eye, helped kept in place by a foul smelling gel, I
was sure it was obvious that eye was near destroyed. The left side of
my mouth like wise barely hidden, the remaining redness covered with
some foundation from Catherine that was two shades too light for me,
and not exactly looking healthy.
No where near unrecognizable, and I was still looking myself over in
the mirror’s reflection when I told Vergil, “this isn’t going
to work.”
“Doesn’t need to hold up to scrutiny, just needs to stop people
remembering your face,” the man admitted with a shrug, his smirk
rather smug, “hair’s the most basic ass length in existence,
you’re dressed like wait staff, and you’re not
going to speak unless spoken to. If someone does speak to you, you
answer yes sir or ma’am
or no sir or ma’am,
and keep walking. I’ll
basically be filed into the main party immediately, so
while you could try sneaking in on your own and risk getting
discovered by security… well, why not let them let you
in?”
“And we had to cut my hair for this?” I asked, still not fully
past that as I kept running the ends between my fingers. The natural
curl of my hair making it feel shorter in places than it already was,
less weighed down than usual, sticking out on the sides and not
looking even close to nice as it had.
The man seeming to not realize how much I cared as he shrugged and
told me, “hair grows back, curly red hair down to your hips is more
identifiable than something a little shorter. Someone sees you from
anything except straight on, they’re not going to think I know
exactly one person with that haircut, and you don’t need to
mess with buns showing up in hybrid form.”
Not something I could argue about, as much as I wanted to, even as I
asked, “and you’re sure no one back at the club is going to
talk?”
“Catherine has too much to hide herself, and I trust Scorpion with
my life — besides that, neither of them can talk without dragging
themselves down for letting it happen,” Vergil brushed off my
concerns, his car pulling into a parking garage attached to a large
building of stone and glass.
The car hardly jerking to a stop for a moment before I was being
handed a clipboard with a blank sheet of paper attached and a pen.
Vergil already out of the car, me not far behind, even as I asked
him, “should there be something on here? Should I like, be writing
down what you say or-”
“Just write some stuff that looks vaguely like isolated letters or
symbols, occasionally draw a line between two symbols or whatever,”
Vergil shrugged with a smile, the man pulling on a well-worn suit
blazer that was lightly tattered on the hem and cuffs, “most people
will see you have a clipboard and not think twice about you, the rest
will see what you’re writing and assume it’s shorthand. There’s
a hundred different dialects for it, and most people invent their
own, no one’s going to question if they can’t read it.”
I nodded, rolling my pen on the corner for a few seconds before
turning the clipboard for Vergil. The man taking one look at my
scribbles before giving a thumbs up and starting us through the
parking garage.
My head held low, as instructed, mouth kept neutral to stop the
uneven flesh of my left cheek sticking out, and shoulders hunched as
I kept Vergil in the corner of my good eye. The man walking in long
confident strides, past half-ones finishing off their day and through
doors and halls.
Stopped three separate times, only long enough for the man to
introduce himself and be waved on, until we finally pushed through a
heavy set of metal doors.
The distant rumbling of people talking and soft orchestral music
playing softly echoing against tile and dry wall, building in volume
until I could look up to see a strangely lit room ahead. An orange
tinted light at the end of a dark hall, giving the room something
like the look of evening. No guard at this door stopping us from
entering as we entered a hall much too large for the limited number
of guests.
Orate wooden tables spread apart, each with more than a few people
there, an area near an open buffet with more standing around. A set
of boards sat about with various maps, graphs, and lists in various
languages. The air a mix of scents, natural, artificial, and
supernatural alike, vampire, fey, werewolf, and more flooding the
room in a confusing perfume.
A few faces sticking out to me even trying to keep my head down and
not look too obvious. The Lady talking surprisingly quickly with a
tall figure hunched over in red robes, Elizabeth excitedly chattering
with several people in various robes and uniforms, Tracker alone in a
corner with a man I didn’t know, and Chasse actually talking to a
woman I barely recognized as Anna’s mom.
Vergil strolling only a short while, a wine glass taken from a nearby
table, before someone approached. The two exchanging pleasantries,
Vergil snapping and running his hands through the air to gesture me
to “take notes” as I scribbled the whole time they spoke. Whoever
she was seeming to barely notice me until she left, an empty wine
glass set on top of my clipboard Vergil quickly removed and sat on a
nearby table.
Pass them, onto someone else, a third, and a fourth person, no one
seeming to even give me more than half a look before we finally
reached the far wall and Vergil started along the buffet. The man
going about stacking his plate with deviled eggs, sausage patties,
and bacon while he told me, “unless you want to stick around for
the buffet, I suggest sneaking out the door to our side. No one’s
going to miss you, but the longer you stick around the more likely
someone’s going to see you slip out.”
I nodded, a final long look around the room before I stepped away, a
piece of bacon stolen from Vergil to eat on the way, and I pushed
through a nearby set of doors. Into another dark hall, wandering
blind for only a few minutes before taking a set of stairs up the one
floor it weirdly went. Out onto the second floor, a hall with a large
window to my left overlooking the party that I took a moment to stare
down at.
No one thankfully looking up even as I let my eyes settle on Tracker,
the brief urge to find a way to pull her aside and question her about
Hunter, why he came after me, forced down before I turned and left.
Found another flight of stairs farther down the hall and started up
to the third floor. Any expectation I might have had for finding the
bombs to be hard almost immediately broken by the door being wedged
open with a chair.
The smell of powder and normal human scents still strong on the air,
a few quick sniffs of the air giving me a good feel for it as I
slipped through the door quiet as possible. Distant voices still
arguing back and forth in various technical terms, and a quick check
of the time on a hall clock confirming everything was on track. My
own phone left at Vergil’s, I needed some deniability if anyone
looked into where I was too hard, but everything already planned
through as much as it was going to.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Not well planned, I was starting to need to admit that, but
enough to know I was going too fast, taking a step back with my eye
closed and ears open. Making sure that the mercenaries never sounded
like they were coming my way, occasionally looking up to try and
guess how long to hold off on making my move.
It was already almost ten, people would be getting called any minute,
assume that they’d be a little slow but not too much so if there
were bombs involved…
Probably needed to start soon, the fear of too much noise attracting
attention to us before I was ready pushed back as I started towards
the mercenaries once more. The first few buttons of my shirt undone,
slacks already loose enough I could just undo the belt and let myself
step out of them with my borrowed shoes kicked off.
Naked by the team I reached them, not that I was wearing many layers,
I was at least grateful for the knowledge they weren’t going to
record anything in a building with this many supernaturals. That just
another thing that made this even a little possible as I stopped at
the last corner, peaking around the corner and-
Dust and plaster filled the air in front of me, gunshots ringing
through the hall, and I barely had time to duck back when I heard the
man scream out, “thought I heard something!”
Well, no time for subtly, and I was ready to start pushing along to
wolf form before I took a thankful sniff of the air.
Silver and iron, were probably expecting supernaturals.
For as fast as I could turn I wasn’t exactly wanting to risk it
when they could just come around a corner, sprinting in the opposite
direction down the hall with my head low. Heavy foot steps coming
hard from behind me, not wanting to risk being caught in any straight
hallway as I pushed through a random door.
Thankfully unlocked and big enough to move in, some sort of
conference room that let me slam the door behind me and lock it.
Ready to start pushing along and-
The door burst inward with a heavy kick, the drywall cracking like
there was nothing holding it in place. A gun raised towards me, my
body dropping just as two shots fired over me, the gun clicking on a
jam I needed to thank the wolf gods for.
Silver bullets in a magazine fed weapon, a recipe for something
to chip off or melt in the exact wrong place too hard to fix on the
field. My body crashing into the man a moment later, human teeth
digging into a much too bony shoulder, barely missing my target, and
knee slamming between his legs. A pained cry escaping the man, and a
hand twisting in my hair still managing to rip me off with a bloody
stream.
My own hands going for around his throat, choking him, thumbs digging
into the soft flesh, trying to push down on the windpipe.
The clicking of another gun making me jerk my head up just in time to
see the second man raising his weapon. For a moment feeling like time
had stopped as I watched him pull the trigger over what should have
been less than a second, until finally…
The Hallway turned to night.
A wall of pitch black filling it like a flooding slime made of
oblivion, pouring over the man and consuming him in a moment. Neither
me nor the mercenary under me seeming to know what to do even as the
room around me melted away.
Walls falling away into an abyss of black, all but the floor
immediately around us consumed as I jumped to my own too feet. The
mercenary I’d just been on top of seeming to be pulled away without
ever moving, the space between us merely changing from a foot to a
few dozen feet with just the void filling it.
The wolf whined, my breath sped up and fogged on the air, and two
massive wolf’s eyes came from where the door had been. One moment
stared down at the man, and the next he was consumed to.
Alone in the void only a moment before it slowly peeled away once
more, the room reforming around me, all as it had been just a moment
before. The door still broken up, the conference room as I’d found
it, some toppled chairs withstanding, and no sign of the mercenaries
who had been there a moment before.
Only Vergil stood in the door way, giving a short hiccup into a
handkerchief as he complained, “I thought you could handle a couple
mercenaries?”
“What the fuck was that?”
Vergil seeming to not care, coughing up a few strands of hair before
telling me, “well, nothing that can’t be fixed. You run ahead to
the bombs, I can act like I just heard shooting and was being slow.
I’ll handle your clothes.”
“Vergil,” I repeated, my breath barely slowing as I looked down
at the spot the men had just been, “What the fuck was that?”
“Do you want answers, or do you want to handle this before someone
else comes up to see what happened? We heard gunshots, they let me go
handle it,” Vergil said, actually looking a little annoyed at me.
I didn’t care, and I barely had to think about it before I
admitted, “I need to fucking know what that was. Part of the plan
was having the bodies here.”
Vergil actually laughing at that, grabbing me by the arm and lightly
pulling me forward as he confessed, “figured Red would have told
you by now,” the man pushing me back towards the bombs as he said,
“well, guess you’re enough of a friend to know,” a brief bow
followed by, “Big Bad Wolf, I’ll spit the bodies back up and
thoroughly maim them in a second, but please go finish off this badly
thought out plan while I do.”
I nodded, running down the hall and getting halfway there before I
was ready to stop and ask more questions. It taking almost all of my
willpower to avoid spinning around before I made my way back to the
set up they had going.
Thankfully behind schedule, only two of the bombs were set up with a
long wire between them, a countdown set up but not yet started. It
only taking a minute or so, running back and forth between bombs, to
get a good idea of how it was wired and what I was looking at.
One bomb was the trigger, would have sent a delayed signal between
bombs, waited for confirmation or for a certain amount of time and
then every bomb would go off. Crude, not exactly the most reliable,
but I could imagine they were trying to avoid anything that could be
jammed by The Lady having a cellphone jammer. Distant sirens growing
closer, a time limit on my work, I just needed to…
Secondary bomb unplugged, wouldn’t go off, primary bomb was
standard, or well… it was the sort of thing I knew how it worked.
I’d not made many in my days, not really getting to do much proper
hunting on my own, but I knew the principles. Blasting cap, wiring
was double backed so it was hard to tell the original, a wrong unplug
would likely set it off. Dynamite, I at least knew that better than
plastic charges, likely easier to get in an unfamiliar country.
The sirens were outside, and I heard Vergil yelling something I
couldn’t bother to care about. My eye closing, bones cracking,
muscles moving as I realized how little time I actually had for what
I wanted to do.
My transformation to hybrid form quicker than for most and still so
long, a clawed hand reached out, digging under the wires, tearing it
out with a prayer to the wolf gods.
A burst of air blasting against my chest, ears a dull ringing, body
trying to shift back to anything else while I violently held it in
place. For a moment feeling nothing and then realizing that nothing
was air, wind whirling past me, one blink and I was in the air, metal
crashing under me.
Screams, a mixture of scents filling the air, and I pushed myself up
to see a crowd looking at me in horror. Guns aimed at me, humans out
late looking at me in horror, the car under me creaking as I slowly
dragged myself off and looked around.
Crouched low in my hybrid form, trying to not look like the horror
show I was, until one of the cops screamed and fired.
Gunshots filling the air, most missing but everyone with their guns
out joining in, bullets ripping through me as I turned and ran.
Muscles torn and healed, body propelled forward by momentum as much
as strength, and I took the scenic route. Through the street longer
than necessary, knowing more than one car passing would see me,
keeping the hybrid form even as my body screamed for anything else.
Running until I reached the river, only then letting myself slip back
to wolf as I dove into the waters. Harsh streams carrying me down,
paws fighting to keep myself moving towards the opposite shore.
Moving until I came to the other side, a few hundred feet down from
the planned location, body slipping back to human. Every muscle
screaming for relief, barely able to move until I saw a man walk up
beside me, looking down with a deep sigh even as he tossed a sundress
on top of my nude form.
Scorpion sounding like he was about to laugh as he asked me, “well
you happy with the results?
And I was glad I was too tired to answer as the fear finally came
over me, and it set in what I’d done.