MV: Fire Omens

Steve froze, staring at at the feather in his hands. "Where did you get that?" he asked, carefully. 

Andy yawned. "Not sure. I was asleep. Dreamed about a giant, burning bird, though. Is it yours?'

Steve shook his head slowly. "Nope. I think it's yours. It's... Veronica? Would you come take a look at this before I say something completely idiotic?"

She came around the van, and looked at Andy and the stray flame-colored feather. "Is that a fucking phoenix feather?" she asked. 

"I think so," said Steve. "Thank God. I was afraid it was just me."

"The fuck am I doing with a phoenix feather?" asked Andy. He figured it had probably fallen out of somewhere and his sleeping mind had turned that into the dream with the bird, but Steve was talking like it had actually fallen out of his dream. 

"...I don't know," Steve admitted, "but let's get you something to keep it in. I can't begin to imagine how you got the attention of something like that -- that shit's for shamans and witches and the like -- but it might be..." He fell silent.

Finally, Veronica filled in. "It might be very important," she said. "The kind of thing your maker might be hunting you for, if they knew you could acquire it."

"How would they know that?" asked Andy, suddenly panicked. It was one thing to have a powerful wight looking for him; it was something else again if his maker could somehow tell the future.  

"Know what?" asked a third voice, and Andy launched himself out of the van with twisting movement that landed him right between Steve and Veronica.  

"Jesus, Rodney," said Veronica. "Good way to get yourself shot." 

The new arrival was a tall man, broad-shouldered but otherwise slender, wearing black jeans, engineer boots, and a motorcycle jacket. He held a silver motorcycle helmet in his left hand, and his hair was bleached blond. At first glance, he could have passed for human.

"How'd you get up here so fast?" asked Steve, putting his pistol back in its holster. 

The vampire shrugged. "With an expensive motorcycle and a reckless disregard for speed limits. And there's nothing funnier than sneaking up on werewolves when they're not paying attention."

"You've clearly never watched British comedy." Andy spoke without thinking, then realized he was standing there with his claws out and put them away. 

"Ah," said Rodney, turning his attention to Andy. "You must be our newborn wight."

"Must I?" asked Andy. 

Rodney's eyes widened suddenly. "Is that a phoenix feather?" he asked. "Oh, my. Enterprising, defiant, and favored by the Great Spirits. I like you already."

"Yeah, well, just wait 'til you get a chance to know me," Andy told him. He didn't trust Rodney's words, and while he might eventually come to respect the vampire he was feeling a little raw about anybody messing with the people who'd been taking care of him since he'd woken up dead -- even if they were all supposed to be on the same side. 

"Do I even need to tell you how much I prefer What We Do In The Shadows?" Rodney asked. 

Andy rolled his eyes. "Of course you do." He's not a vampire, he's a fucking cliché. "I'm sure we'll get along famously."

Rodney evidently could read between the lines. He sighed, and said, "Well, then. I'll retire into the house and wait for my shift to start. I suppose it's too much to hope that my help might be properly appreciated." 

MV: Traveling Dreams

Andy hadn't meant to drift off, but the steady movement of the van along the road, the quiet thunder of the engine, and the soft murmurs between Veronica and Steve conspired to lull him back into whatever passed for sleep for a newly-reborn wight. 

Rocky ground and stormy sky, a beast half-seen at his side and the awareness of the dead all around them. The beast wasn't hunting him this time; it nudged his hand, urging him to bring the claws out and hunt alongside it. The dead had their own calls, murmuring to themselves and sometimes crying out; Andy could have answered them, but didn't. He chose the claws instead, paced the beast as best he could -- it slipped between the rocks while he bounded from top to top, tracing his way above. 

The bird that came screaming down at him, talons extended, was all reds and oranges and yellows, burning a trail of fire behind it, and might have been the sun; he dove down into the maze of rocks to avoid it. 

The beast had no such compulsions. It sprang as the raptor's massive talons missed Andy, sank fangs into the bird's neck, and sent it tumbling into the rocks, where it impaled itself on an irregular spire. The beast dropped away as the bird thrashed and finally fell still, extinguished. Then the beast sat there, looking back at Andy, deeply satisfied but still expectant. 

He'd done his job as bait, evidently, and now his beast wanted to share their kill. 

It was badly burned, particularly around the face, but as he watched the fur regrew and the clouded eye cleared. The singed ear reformed as well, and the beast yawned with fangs to shame a vampire.  

The giant bird was extinguished, wings fallen and talons relaxed. Andy approached it slowly, then sprang onto its chest. When it remained still, he took two steps forward and gripped the top of its skull as the beast began to tear chunks from its corpse. He felt the body age and fail, even as the beast assembled its pile of meat and set to devouring it. 

When Andy woke again, they were somewhere else, and Veronica had pulled them into some kind of garage. They must have switched drivers while he was asleep. Steve had opened up the side door as the garage door came down, and Andy came awake to find himself holding a single, orange-gold feather.

MV: Regrets, Aspirations, and Limitations

The mattresses in the back of the van were thin, but sufficient. Andy stretched out, and waited; he supposed he could have run, while Steve was busy and Lorraine was hiding her car, but he had serious doubts about his ability to escape from a pair of werewolves, and that was before he considered the fact that his maker appeared to be hunting for him. Plus he was hungry again, and that feeling of hollow emptiness that seemed to be his current form of grief had deepened. 

Yeah. It was cool to be able to see in the dark when he wanted to, or to sprout claws when he needed them, but he still felt those things acutely as a loss. They took him further from the life the wight had stolen from him, carried him further into being a wight himself. 

I'm not a fool, Andy told himself. I know there's no way back. He couldn't help wanting one, though, even if it was hopeless. I was going to graduate next year. I'd just found Amy. I hadn't even tried alcohol yet. Or sex. They'd been fooling around, but they were both new to it, and cautious. It was one of the things he'd liked most about Amy: in addition to being pretty and smart, she wasn't in any more of a hurry than he was. 

They'd both thought they'd have a future. 

Steve slid back into the driver's seat and opened the garage door; a moment later, Veronica slid into the passenger seat and buckled her seat belt. "You all right back there?" she asked. 

Andy nodded. "Yeah, I'll... I'll have my nervous breakdown later, when nobody's chasing us."

Veronica shot him a look of concern, but Steve just said, "Good man," and started the motor.

They pulled out into the night. 

"Andy?" asked Veronica. 

He twisted around, looked up at her. 

"Listen, the original plan was to keep you tied down until you learned how to feed without hurting anybody, then introduce you to some other things, and then move you to one of the training centers. The plan..." She hesitated. "...has kind of gone to shit. You've already figured out how to do some things that you would have been trained on at the center, and you seem to have a decent handle on feeding. Plus, you're being hunted by your maker, and we don't know why. So, since we seem to be speed-running the usual process, I'm going to bring you up to speed on some stuff we'd usually introduce more slowly."

Andy nodded. "All right."

Veronica offered an encouraging smile, then said: "Your maker isn't the only danger you need to watch out for. Sunlight will burn you, but moonlight is safe. Silver and fire will hurt you more than they would an ordinary mortal."

"Silver bullets," Andy said. "I remember you saying that."

Veronica nodded. "You won't age. If you keep yourself fed and don't get killed, you could potentially live for... well, millennia is about as long as it seems to get before sheer, dumb luck catches up with you. That won't be true of us, by the way -- werewolves tend to have fairly normal human lifespans, unlike spirits and undead."

Andy considered that. "Will I be able to pass as human?" he asked. 

Veronica swallowed, which was probably all the answer he needed. He waited, though, as her jaw worked. 

"Probably not. Very few wights can, at least not without extensive tattoos or makeup -- and that tends to hit an uncanny valley effect too. Even if you're fully fed, you'll still have thin, grayish skin and white hair that won't hold a dye to save your life. You'll be strong, fast, and tough, but you'll still look like a mummified corpse."

Andy nodded absently. So much for college. And probably for ever seeing my family again. Well, he'd wanted honesty from the hunters; it was his own fault if he didn't like what they had to say.

Veronica hesitated, then said: "You can learn to ask questions of the dead, or bring them back as zombies, at least temporarily. Some wights learn to create more long-lasting zombies, but that's ritual magic and they sacrifice a lot of control in doing that."

"Nope," said Andy. "Not doing that."

Steve chuckled. "Don't write it off entirely. Once the Authority is sure you're not a public menace, you'll have some opportunities. You might be able to take an ordinary job, work from home or wear a mask... but very few wights become hunters, and if you did then being able to question the dead would be invaluable." He glanced back at Andy through the rear-view mirror. "Pretty much a guaranteed job opportunity."

"The third possibility is that you go to one of the reservations," Veronica put in, "but I don't think I'd want that for you. They can be beautiful, but they can also be brutal. I'm not saying you couldn't do it, mind you. It's just that I think you have the potential to do more than that."

Andy nodded, then rolled over onto his side. "Okay," he said. "That's enough for now. Wake me up when we get there." 

"It's going to be a couple of hours," Steve told him. "We'll see if we can't arrange for you to feed once we get there."

Andy gave him a vague thumbs-up, then rolled himself up in the light blanket and let himself go. He was, to put it mildly, overwhelmed.

MV: Unsafe House

In life, Andy had been fairly strong. In death, he was considerably stronger; picking up a batch of duffel bags in both hands turned out to be relatively easy. Between them, he and Steve got the van loaded up in a single trip. Better still, a set of Steve's spare clothes hung loose on him, so all he really had to worry about was whether all those bystanders had gotten his naked ass on camera, or whether whatever Veronica had been doing had blurred them out.

He shoved that thought aside. He was dressed now, and that would have to be good enough. 

"What's it like to be a werewolf?" Andy asked, as they loaded the last of the bags into place. The van was a customized old Ford, its blue paint faded but still intact. The side door slid back, revealing a sort of couch or bed that covered the far side of the van and then turned in an L to stretch across the back. There were drawers and cabinets under it, but Steve ignored them; the werewolf simply piled all the duffel bags in the floor space, then shut the door. 

"If you're serious about that beast in the back of your head, then you're about fifty percent of the way there," Steve said, after a moment's thought. "You came back as a wight, but if you'd come back as a were then the beast would be able to emerge physically, changing your body into whatever it thought it should be. That's almost always a wolf, but there are exceptions."

"Huh." I think I missed out. Andy would have been much happier as a werewolf than a wight. Changing shape and ripping things apart sounded awesome. Talking to the dead or raising temporary zombies sounded, well... Not so fun. "Are there stats on how many monsters are disappointed with the powers they're reborn with?"

Steve huffed a laugh. "There are remarkably few mortal sociologists who're willing to study people like us," he said. "But I like that you're not so enthused about being a wight."

Andy shook his head. "Our prisoner was right about one thing," he said, scowling. "I'd have made a much better fit as a werewolf than a fucking wight." He hesitated, then added: "I do like the really big claws, though. The rest of it can go directly to hell."

Steve laughed. "You don't have to develop the rest of it. Undead, strong and fast, big claws... you can lean in on that, and ignore the necromantic side of it. A wight would tell you that you're turning down powers that are right there for you, but the choice is still yours."

Andy shook his head. "I'll make choices later," he decided. "For now, I just want to get rid of That Fucking Guy, or at least get clear of him. Titus... the werewolf said his name was Titus. The wight's name, I mean."

Steve stopped, nodded, and then extended a hand. "Climb in," he said. "Get some rest. We're gone the moment Veronica comes back. And Kid? Andrew? You're doing good." 

MV: Aftermath

Andy stepped up next to Veronica, and handed her the pistol. She tucked it into the back of her belt, keeping it out Steve's sight. 

"I should have just killed him," Andy said quietly. He was feeling the presence of his maker, rapidly retreating. 

Steve shook his head. "Against a wight like that one? You wouldn't stand a chance."

Andy set his shoulders, feeling suddenly stubborn. "I wasn't planning on fighting fair."

"He's handled himself surprisingly well," said Veronica, and Steve nodded reluctantly at that.

"All right. This house is compromised, we can't stay here." Steve sounded frustrated, but Andy would have bet that some of that was just exhaustion; his hair was too short to really show it, but he looked like he'd been woken up shortly after falling asleep. "Go park your car somewhere else, and get back here. I'm going to call Rodney and throw some supplies in the van." He turned to look at Andy. "Come with me if you want to live."

Andy frowned. "I'm already dead, though."

Steve looked frustrated. "It's-- never mind. Just stay with me." 

"Sure," said Andy, and followed Steve into the house as Veronica went to relocate her car. Steve was already on his phone. "Rodney? Yeah, we've got contact. We're heading north to the safe house.  Ground team didn't get there fast enough." He paused, listening. "Yeah, well, we didn't get a lot of advance notice on this. Next time we'll station them on site. Right, see you soon." He closed the call and tucked the phone into his back pocket. "Fucking sucker," he growled, then turned back to Andy. "Did you escape, or did Veronica let you out?"

"...I escaped," Andy admitted. "I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't sensed my maker, but you told me that wights had claws, so... I made claws."

Steve shook his head. "It's a damned good thing you're trying to work with us, Kid. Technically, we're supposed to put a bullet in anybody who can't control themselves well enough to stay put."

"I mean, I did immediately go to the nurses' station and have one of them call you," Andy pointed out. 

"Yeah, that's what I mean." Steve had opened a closet, and was pulling out a pile of duffel bags. "Control lets us use our best judgement, because sometimes rules just aren't sufficient for a specific situation. So we get some discretion, and you don't get executed for taking perfectly sensible precautions while undead."

Andy thought that over for a long moment, and then said, "Thank you. For trusting me, even though I'm a problem."

Steve stopped pulling duffel bags out of the closet, and turned to face him. "Were you listening?" he asked. "You aren't a problem. You are doing the best you can. Those three murderous fuckers out there, though? They're a fucking problem. And I mean to keep you away from them. Right now, we need to get you some fucking clothing. After that... how many of these bags can you carry?" 

MV: Escape

The house in Frisco was just another two-story suburban dwelling in a quiet neighborhood. Andy had spent the latest portion of the journey half-turned in the seat, covering the werewolf with the pistol Veronica had unofficially given him. The porch light was on, and a stocky figure was standing silhouetted in the doorway. 

"What the Hell?" asked Steve, as Veronica shoved her way out of the car. 

"One of them followed us out of the hospital," she explained, while Andy kept his seat and kept the gun pointed at the monster's head. 

"Why did you bite me?" he asked. "Why attack us at all?"

"Titus needed to feed," the werewolf said, "and we needed to eliminate any witnesses while we escaped. The cops were too close behind us, though, and it didn't quite work out."

That's one way to put it, Andy thought. "If you had time to kill us and escape, you had time to simply escape. It's not like we could have done anything except point vaguely at the back door."

"It didn't seem that way at the time," the werewolf growled. "I couldn't believe you held me off even after I'd bitten you. A fucking lamp, when you should have been transforming?"

Andy shrugged. "Your bad luck. And then Titus stole your kill?"

The werewolf nodded. "You'd have made a fine werewolf," he said. "You have the inclinations. But even as a wight, you don't need these people. You could be working against them. We should be ruling the herd, not driven into concentration camps or subject to their rules and licensing."

Andy frowned. "I woke up dead, but everybody who visited seemed to be trying to help me," he pointed out. 

"Oh yes, they're eager to recruit you before you know better. They're counting on you to support the old order. Titus has... other ideas."

"Out," said Veronica, and pulled the werewolf out of the back seat. He still hadn't made any attempt to cut loose from his bonds. 

"You should be cheering me on, supporting me, not trying to imprison me," said the werewolf, as tires screeched and a Volkswagon sedan cut into the street, a stream of bullets firing out of its passenger window.

Veronica and Steve threw themselves to the ground, and Andy ducked down behind the seat. By the time he came back up, the back seat was empty and the wolf was sprinting away after the car. "FUCK!" he screamed, but the word was useless. 

MV: Animal Control

Andy looked at the gun in his hand. It was a revolver, probably meant as a backup, He popped the cylinder, checked that it was fully loaded, and pressed it back into place. He nodded to Veronica, swung the driver's door open, and stepped out.  

The wolf had gone to its intermediate form and was shaking its head and snarling, trying to get up off the pavement. Traffic was stopping around them, and people had their phones out -- either talking into them, or trying to film. "Oh, grand," said Veronica. "I don't suppose I can talk you into getting back in the car before we end up on the news?"

She could have, actually, but Andy shook his head. He wanted a piece of this wolf, and he didn't want to be living -- or undead either, he thought suddenly -- in a world where this thing was hunting him.

Veronica must have felt the same way, because she sighed and fished out her wallet. Moving closer to the half-transformed werewolf, she flashed the badge at the sudden traffic jam around them and said, "Animal Control. Please stay back while we deal with the situation."

Andy heard a small, bright tinkling, and looked down in time to see a deformed lump of silver hit the ground beside the werewolf. It was forcing the bullets out of its flesh. Could I do that? Or is the flesh of a wight different from that of a werewolf? He hesitated, because he hadn't counted on having an audience while he was still dressed in nothing more than a hospital gown. 

Veronica didn't, She had her pistol holstered, and strode forward while pulling a handful of zip-ties out of pocket. "Stay still," she snarled, as she bent down, "or my new friend is going to put a bullet in your brain-pan, and another in your heart since we're not sure that skull of yours has anything useful inside it."

The werewolf hesitated, and Andy could feel his own beast looking out through his eyes, gauging positions, movements, intentions. The werewolf eyed him, and he smiled -- probably an unsettling expression, but he still hadn't gotten a chance to see how he really looked. Certainly no few of the people stopped around him were remarking on it. 

The wolf went limp, surrendering with only a token snarl. Veronica made quick work of tying it down then threw it over her shoulder and carried it to the car. "I know you can cut those restraints," she said, looking into the back seat. "I wouldn't advise it." She shut the door. "Change of plans: I'm driving, you're in the passenger seat. If he moves, shoot him. You've got six bullets, so go head, heart, shoulders, then knees."

"Got it," said Andy, and went around to arrange himself in the passenger seat.

MV: Whisker-Thin Escapes

Andy's biggest fear was that going through the glass would throw his balance off, but it shattered into a webwork of safety-glass cracks the moment his claws pierced it, and he passed through without any significant impact. The ground was far below -- Too far! -- but it was too late to do anything about that. He landed barefoot on the concrete, tucked, and rolled until he fetched up against a wood-and-metal bench. 

Andy pulled himself to his feet, and found himself staring down the barrel of a military-looking rifle, held by a figure in black combat gear. 

Veronica landed behind him, already shifting back to her human form. "Wait! Don't shoot him -- that's the kid. Targets are inside -- werewolf on level three, and a wight and a nightbringer coming down the fire stairs."

The armored figure swung around to look at her. "ID, please."

Veronica fished out her wallet and showed a badge. The armored man nodded, then touched the radio on his chest and spoke into it. Andy sagged with relief, and Veronica came forward to grab his elbow. "Can you drive?"

"Sure." Andy hadn't been driving long, but he could drive. "Stick or automatic, either one."

"Good. I've got a car around the side, and we need to get out of here. The team will get the building locked down, and hopefully eliminate the threat -- whoever they are, these guys are dangerous even for rogues. If you can drive, I can reload -- and make some calls."

Andy shrugged, and followed her as she started walking towards her car. She wasn't slow, and she wasn't worried about whether or not he would follow her; that much was obvious. "I can shoot, too," Andy told her. 

Veronica didn't even break her stride. "You," she reminded him, "are a teenager who's absolutely fed up with all this. I am not giving you a gun."

Okay, fair, Andy thought, and shrugged. "Then I'll drive."

The car was a sort of mini-SUV, a Honda, and Andy reached for the driver's door as Veronica unlocked it. He was pulling his seat belt on as she slid into the passenger seat, and took a brief moment to look over the console. Okay, automatic transmission, button instead of key to start it, nothing unusual. He stepped on the brake and started the car, checked to make sure that the emergency brake was off, and then slipped it into Reverse. He kept the movement casual, getting a feel for how sensitive the pedals were, how much turn it took to adjust the steering, where exactly turn signals and lights were located.  

It was dark out, so he flicked the headlights on, then got the car aligned and put it in Drive. The parking lot was full, so he made his way to the exit and turned onto the street. 

Veronica was shaking the bullets from her revolver into her hand. She took a moment to put the two remaining bullets back into the cylinder, then dumped the empty shells onto the floor of the passenger seat. "Turn right on Coit," she said absently. "We're heading up into Frisco."

"All right," he said, and started looking for street signs. 

He found Coit road, turned onto it, and headed north. He checked the mirrors, then slammed his foot down on the pedal. The car lurched forward, speeding up, and Veronica yelled, "Slow down! The last thing we need is attention from the police!"

Andy pressed down harder, swerved around a Dodge sedan, and kept going. 

"You're going to--" Veronica glanced back. "Oh, shit."

A massive black wolf was chasing them down the road, moving at impossible speeds.

"You motherfucker, I haven't even had a chance to reload!" she said, but she was already rolling down the window and leaning out. She aimed carefully, fired off one shot. Andy watched as the beast behind them lurched, barely managing to keep its footing. She took aim again, then fired a second shot, and watched as it stumbled, tumbled, and slid along the pavement. 

Andy hit the breaks, slowing them gently. 

"What are you doing?" asked Veronica. 

"Can a wight follow at that speed?" He asked. "Or a nightbringer?"

"...No," Veronica admitted. 

"So do you want to keep running, or do we finish it here?" asked Andy, feeling justifiably smug. 

Veronica stared at him for the space of a breath. "You scare me, kid."

Andy shrugged. "They killed me, murdered my girlfriend, and endangered my little sister. When I said I was fed up, that might have been an understatement."

Veronica snorted something that might have been a laugh. "All right. I'll reload and go deal with him. You stay here in the car."

"Not a fucking chance," Andy said. 

She looked at him for another long moment, then reached forward and opened the glove box. "I could get fired for this, so don't ever say anything about it -- but I changed my mind, you're getting a gun." 

Let Freedom (Ear)Ring

We went and got Secondborn's ears pierced at a lovely little local place. It took us three tries; state law has come a long way from when I was sixteen and got my ear pierced at a kiosk in the mall. We needed picture IDs for at least one parent and Secondborn, a birth certificate for her, and a bit of paperwork attesting that yeah, I was okay with this. 

The style of the initial studs is completely different, too. Forget the  rough, spike studs with their stupidly-large backs; today's versions are sleek, a tube inserted from the back, and a selection of fronts that slide into it. The tubes are a bit overlong, in case of swelling, but apparently we can come back in and get them shortened/replaced with something that fits better once they've finished healing. 

Since we were there, and since my own piercings haven't had earrings for decades, I signed up to have my old piercings re-pierced... except they didn't need it. Apparently the holes were still open, so they just stretched them back out to receive the new studs. Which was shockingly easy, and also much cheaper. I'm still not going to grow my hair back out, but I am going to cultivate my pirate earrings again. 

Secondborn was thrilled with this, I think; not only did she get what she'd been wanting, but her father jumped in to restore his version of it too.  Yeah, I'm old, but also I kind of feel like it's time to get back to reclaiming my identity as a freak. 

...Which reminds me, I need to do more sewing on the Patch Jacket MK II.

MV: Change of Plans

Half-transformed, Veronica was about six and half feet tall, covered in thick fur of gray and silver and black, and well equipped with teeth and claws while still retaining hands to hold her gun. Her claws weren't as long as Andy's, and he doubted she could talk with her head in this lupine configuration, but if there was a shape built for fighting this was it. 

She shoved him along, and he didn't try to fight it. Her gun was out, held in one clawed hand, and she alternated between moving away from the stairwell and looking back to see what might come out of it.  If the sign in the stairwell was correct, this was the third floor. 

A massive wolf slammed through the door of the stairwell. It was darker than Veronica, its fur nearly black, and it snarled in a way that echoed out for blood through every vein in Andy's body. Right, time to go, he thought, and raced ahead. Behind him, Veronica stood firm and raised her pistol. She fired off three shots, and then the other wolf was half-transformed as well, and they were half-grappling and half-clawing at each other. 

The silver bullets must have done their work, because the werewolf staggered and half-collapsed, giving Veronica a brief moment to snatch her gun back up and chase after Andy, gesturing for him to precede her. He took the hint and ran, pounding along the laminate floor tiles. There was a window up ahead, and with the stairwell blocked...

He had no idea if this was Veronica's plan, but it was definitely his. 

He leapt at the last moment, put his long-clawed fingers and toes in front of him, and exploded through the glass and out into empty air.  

MV: Hopping Stairs

The stairs were slow; Andy experimented with leaping the last few steps to the landing, then again from slightly higher up. Veronica didn't say anything; she just matched him, gun out but hammer down at his back. Above them, the movements of the wight had grown frantic, then calm as it moved to a spot directly above them. 

It had found the stairs. 

"Shit," said Andy. "It's still up on whatever the hell floor that was, but it's in the stairwell now." 

"We're almost to the ground," said Veronica. "I have a car in the parking lot. If we can get clear before it catches up, we'll be--" 

The stairwell went dark. 

Andy adjusted immediately, and Veronica didn't break her stride either, though she did curse as they made the next jump. "What is it with you and Steve?" he asked, finding that being dead meant that he was never out of breath. 

Veronica didn't have quite the same advantage, but she had enough endurance to answer anyway: "Werewolves," she said. "Late shift is Rodney, a vampire. A lot of the licensed hunters are monsters."

"Ah," said Andy. He'd never considered that some of the monster-hunters might be monsters themselves,  but it made a weird sort of sense. He'd never heard it discussed, but then that made sense, too. They rounded another landing, leapt again, this time taking the entire flight. Both of them landed easily, kicked off the concrete wall, and continued down. 

"Fuck me," said Veronica, catching at Andy's arm and pulling him to a sudden stop. "Goddamn werewolf below us." 

"Wolf?" asked Andy, remembering how the beast had looked as it came at him. 

"Wolf is the default, these days," Veronica said. "With time and practice, we can be other things as well." She hesitated, then said, "Stay behind me, but if you can get past us safely, do it. How close is the wight?"

He paused, looking up, and said, "Three-four landings down from where we started, and coming fast."

"Fuck." Veronica. "I do not want to be caught between them. This way--" She threw open a door labeled 3rd Floor and dragged Andy through after her, half-shifting as she did. 

Okay, that's pretty impressive, he thought.

Valthor: Battles, then Cuddles

"I saw you fighting down there," said Kiela. "It was... well, it really impressive. All those orcs..."

Valthor shrugged, slightly embarrassed. "I mean, I wasn't the only one fighting them."

"No, but... I mean, you and your friends fight well together, but you all have different styles. Tizrin seemed to be having a bad day -- I'm sure he fights better than that normally, and Rrhorask is deadly with those knives when he has room to throw them, but as long you have have someone to fight beside you're... I'm not sure how to describe it. I could see you positioning yourself, lining up your shot."

Valthor chuckled. "Well, I was raised to believe that precision counts for more than strength -- most of the time, anyway. That one time my cousin Lothos lifted me off the floor by neck, it sure didn't feel that way."

"Your cousin picked you up by your neck?" Kiela asked, sounding slightly aghast. "How old were you?"

"...Seventeen, I think," Valthor told her. "He wasn't trying to strangle me or anything, he just wanted to make sure we understood each other. Pretty typical cousin stuff."

"Um," said Kiela, still studying his face. "Valthor, that's not typical. It's actually kind of insane."

"Is it?" asked Valthor. "I don't know, it seemed pretty normal at the time."

"Trust me," Kiela told him. "It wasn't." She swallowed. "Anyway, you want to come down to the cargo hold with me and have a drink? We set up a nice, discreet spot behind some of the boxes."

"Sure," said Valthor, and followed her down the stairs. 

He was restless after the fight, and horny, but it wasn't until they reached the corner hideaway that he realized what she had in mind. "No chairs," Kiela told him, looking innocent. "We'll have to sit on the bedroll."

Valthor swallowed. "I can manage that," he said.  

MV: Claws Out

Andy called the claws back out. Unlike his first effort, he could pause to really look at them now: seven inches long, razor-sharp, anchored firmly to his fingers. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the beast stirred; it was looking forward to this. He continued down the concrete steps, Veronica right behind him. She had her pistol out, and he was well aware she could shoot him in the back, but he didn't think she would. 

The zombies weren't as intimidating as he'd expected. There were maybe half a dozen of them, and... fuck. They wore nursing scrubs or lab coats, or in one case both. The fucking wight had killed them here in the hospital, brought them back, and turned them to its service. 

It was above them now, moving back and forth -- probably trying to figure out exactly where they'd gone and how to follow. He hoped the nurses at the desk had taken shelter.

Andy launched himself down at the first of the zombies, bowled it over, disemboweled a second one, then rolled back to his feet and tore into the rest, severing tendons and cutting through bones, smashing joints when he could manage it. He'd done some wrestling in PE, and knew how to push a hold into a break; slicing with his new claws was more a matter of instinct and opportunity.

It was still more than the zombies could take. They beat at him, but all they could do was bludgeon him as he tore them apart. 

As the last of them fell, he heard a firm metallic click behind him. "You still okay?" Veronica asked. 

Andy put his claws away and turned slowly to face her. "Yeah," he said, realizing as he said it that he was staring down the barrel of her pistol. "Do wights do berserker shit?" 

"...Not so far as I know," Veronica admitted. "But that was a lot of violence."

"Lady," said Andy, "I am a teenager who is absolutely fucking fed up with all of this, and if I can take it out on a bunch of zombies, that's what I'm doing. So either shoot me now, or come on." 

She eased the hammer back, offered a grim smile. "All right. Let's get the hell out of here. Let the cleanup team handle it." 

MV: Under Siege

"Yeah," Andy agreed. "Are you my current Steve?"

"Yeah," she said. "We take shifts so we can sleep. I'm Veronica."

"Right, pleased to meet you -- and I'll be happy to get back in bed just as soon as I'm not being hunted."

"Miss?" asked the male nurse. "He wants to talk to you."

She nodded and accepted the phone. "Uh huh. Yeah. That's what he says. No... No I don't. All right." She handed the phone back and said, "Fuck," again, this time with a little more force. 

I waited, and she turned back to me. "All right. He's calling it in, but he wants me to get you out of here."

Andy nodded, knowing he was in well over his head. "Please."

"Emergency stairs are over here," she said. "Should be fine unless they're coming up that way."

Andy stopped to focus for a moment. "No, I don't think so."

"All right. Follow me." She strode off down the hall, and Andy fell into place a step behind her. "We've got a team on station," she said. "We were kind of hoping this group would come looking for you."

"Is that common?" 

Veronica shrugged. "Not really, but common enough to be worth preparing for -- especially with a group like this, who've managed to cover their trail so well that any regular pursuit has proven useless." She hesitated. "If I could be sure of the timing, I'd say you could do more good as bait in your room, but I don't know how far out the team is and Steve doesn't want you running up against the wight who turned you."

Andy didn't want that either. Not until he was better prepared, anyway. He followed her through the door to the emergency stairs and started down. "Thank you for helping me."

"I'd tell you it was a pleasure, but--" 

They both huffed a laugh. 

There were footsteps on the stairs below them, coming up. Veronica slowed, then stopped and looked over the rail. She frowned, then said: "Zombies. This wight must have raised some help."

"We can do that?" asked Andy, appalled. "Like, wights can animate corpses?"

Veronica nodded. "Yeah, at least temporarily. Wights are pretty decent necromancers: speak to the dead, raise zombies to help them, stuff like that."

Do not want, Andy thought. Rather than saying that out loud, he asked: "How tough are zombies?"

"Tough is about all they have going for them, honestly," Veronica said. "They aren't especially strong or smart, and most of them weren't created from herd who knew how to fight."

"So you can kill them with bullets?"

Veronica hesitated. "I'd rather not. These are silver rounds, good for wights as well as werewolves -- two-thirds of the trifecta that attacked you."

Andy nodded. "Do you trust me?"

Veronica tilted her head to regard him. "What did you have in mind?"

"I've figured out one basic trick," he said softly. "Save your ammo, and let's see how well it works."

Veronica was easily old enough to be his mother, but she regarded him evenly and then said. "All right. Stay where I can haul you back if it goes badly." 

MV: Monster on the Loose

He slipped out into the hall after a quick look around the curtain. Clothing would be nice, but right now it didn't matter. No alarms were blaring, nobody was screaming, but he could still feel that presence approaching and the closer it got, the more he was certain that this was the same undead thing that had made him into what he was now. 

Finding the nurses' station was a relief, right up until the black girl in her early twenties caught sight of him and shrieked. Andy slowed his pace and held his hands up as he approached her, watching as she sat frozen. "It's okay," he said. "I mean, it's not, but I'm not going to hurt you."

The man behind her turned, caught sight of him, and reached out to slap a large red button. Now there were alarms blaring, lights blinking, and all the alarums and excursions he'd been expecting. He bypassed the woman, and handed the card to the man. "Call this number," Andy said tightly. "Tell him I said my maker was here."

The man nodded, then reached for the phone as Andy stepped away. 

"Hey!" said a woman's voice down the hall. "You there!" 

Andy turned, and found himself regarding a woman with hand on the pistol at her belt. She was taller than he was, stocky with muscle, and dressed in loose-fitting clothing. He raised his hands, waited. 

"How the hell did you get out of your room?" she asked, stopping three steps away. She hadn't actually drawn the pistol, but from there she had a good chance of drawing it if he came at her. Maybe better than I think, And admitted to himself.  

"Necessity," he told her. "Steve said to contact him if I could sense my master's location. Well... I can, and he's here. Or she. Or whatever."

The woman regarded him for a long moment. The nurse was speaking quietly into the phone. The other nurse was still frozen in her chair. 

Finally the woman said, "Fuck."  

MV: Premonitions

He'd been drifting again, not quite in that dismal almost-sleep that he'd found earlier, but... maybe dozing at the edges of it. The TV was still on, and someone in a helicopter was chasing a train, and also displaying a reckless disregard for basic physics. Andy would have changed the channel if he could, but the remote was out of reach and he was still strapped down. He'd lost track of the plot some while back, regardless...

Something nudged at the edges of his awareness. There was someone nearby, unknown but strangely familiar, coming closer. A wave of dread swept over him, and he thought, Oh, shit. 

He forced his eyes all the way open, looked around, and then thought, Oh, shit, again. He hadn't been dreaming it. There was definitely something nearby, outside the hospital but working its way towards him. "Nurse?" he called. 

Nobody answered. Of course they didn't. He tugged at his bonds. "Steve?"

Still nothing. He sighed. Could he trigger the alarm for his mental activity somehow? No, that must have been a one-time thing, or it would already have picked up on his distress. There was a call button for the nurse, but his restraints kept it out of reach as well.

Okay. Steve said wights had claws, so in theory I have claws. Or I can have claws. 

He considered his fingers, then flexed his hands. I hope so, anyway. If it was his murderer that he was sensing, he wanted nothing to do with it. He needed to be able to escape.  Come on... The shift was sudden, the transformation unfamiliar but unmistakable. Long, slightly-curved claws slid out from his fingertips, firmly anchoring themselves in a way that fingernails weren't, and he curled his fingers in and began working at the heavy leather bands around his wrists. 

They parted with surprising ease, and he moved to the strap that held his hips down; it parted easily as well. The collar around his neck was chained to the bed on either side, but he worked a claw under it and sawed at it until it parted. The restraints around his ankles were last to go. 

He was already sitting up; it was a minor effort to slip over the bed rails and put his feet on the floor. The hospital gown gaped open in the back, reinforcing the absurdity of his entire situation, but he forced his new-found claws back and scooped Steve's card up from the metal table. He needed to find help, or he needed a way out, and whichever he could find, he needed it now.  

MV: Reflections

Andy let his thoughts drift, but this time he didn't sink down into unconsciousness. He was dead, returned as a wight, maybe barely able to disguise himself as a living person if he took in enough of other people's... how had Steve put it? Youth. Vitality. Life force. Something like that. His family thought him dead -- rightly -- and his only allies were monster hunters and government caretakers. His first and only girlfriend was dead, and -- if they were to be believed -- not reborn as a monster. From what he remembered of the werewolves, he could believe that. They were supposed to be at their most infectious when they delivered a bite but failed to make the kill. 

Like that one did to me, he thought, remembering the pulsing wound in his shoulder, the shivering and loss of control even as he struggled to fend it off, the waves of heat and cold sweeping through his bone. 

But then the hand had come down over his face, and he'd woken back up as a wight instead.

He held himself still, let himself relax into the movie. Some guy with a Gatling gun in his passenger seat was trying to kill two girls and a guy in an armored car, while they tried to figure out how to shoot back without getting cut in half. One of the girls was returning fire, while the other cowered, obviously out of her depth...

Action movies. Action movies are normal. He kept watching, waiting to see what happened next. At this point, he needed as much normal as he could get.

MV: More Questions, More Answers

Carol was back fifteen minutes or so later. "Sorry," she said. "Usually they're better prepared for this."

"So this was... some kind of court-ordered thing for him?" asked Andy. 

The older woman nodded. "Yeah. Sometimes it's a way to work off a prison sentence, but people can also volunteer to do it meet community service requirements. We also have some people like Loida, who volunteer. But usually, by the time they get to us they've done this a few times before. I'm not sure how Gautam slipped through net on that, but... you handled it pretty well. Thank you."

Andy managed to shrug; his restraints didn't prevent that. "If I look anything like the thing that killed me, I can see why he'd be scared."

"How'd it go this time?" 

"Control was a lot easier this time. The hunger didn't try to run riot, and the beast just watched." He felt like an absolute lunatic saying that out loud, but Carol just nodded. "I think," he added cautiously, "that the hunger doesn't see touch as an invitation to feed unless I grab something, and the beast realized what I was doing and didn't feel the need to push it further."

"Huh," Carol said thoughtfully. "Do you think it would let me look inside your head now?"

Andy raised his eyebrows. "I'm not a psychic, but I wouldn't risk it."

"All right." She studied him for a long moment. "Listen, for whatever it's worth, I'm sorry this happened to you."

Andy nodded uncomfortably at that, because, well... he didn't care how she felt about it. She wasn't the one who'd woken up dead, learned that his girlfriend was dead, and been told that his family thought he was dead. Her sympathy might be well-meant, but it was useless. "Would you do me a favor?" he asked. 

"What kind of favor?"

"Turn on the TV. Find a channel with, I don't know, action movies. Mindless explosions."

"Oh." Carol's face went still. "Sure." She rose, found the remote, and turned on the television. It took a few tries to find a channel where a car chase was going on, but she managed. "Anything else?"

Andy shook his head, and she left his hospital room again.  

MV: Second Feeding

"Andy?" 

He came back out of the emptiness slowly, and found that he was still in the hospital bed, still on his back. It should have been miserably uncomfortable -- he must have gone hours without rolling over -- but apparently now that he was dead, his body didn't care. His restraints were still in place, of course. 

When he blinked and opened his eyes, Carol had returned. With her was a dark-skinned young man with black hair buzzed close to his head, and features that -- upon reflection -- were probably middle-eastern. "Oh," he said. "You're back. Hi."

"Andy, this is Gautam."

Gautam looked nervous, his shock just starting to shade over into terror. 

"Hi," Andy said again, looking at Gautam. "It's okay. I'm tied down; I can't hurt you."

"You... you can talk?" Gautam swallowed. He was young, probably close to Andy's age. "I mean, of course you... What...?"

Carol said, "Andy is what we call a wight. He looks the way he does right now because he hasn't fed enough to change it. Your job here is to give him just enough energy to help him along."

"...And that's going to knock ten hours off of my community service." Gautam swallowed. "Not lying, I was kind of hoping for a vampire girl, maybe even a succubus."

Carol shook her head and sighed. "Look, I won't force you to do this if you don't want to. But if you want to get your hours out of the way, this is a quick way to get it done."

Gautam hesitated, then turned to look at Carol. "And he won't kill me, or turn me into... that?" 

"Scout's honor," said Andy, though he'd quit the Boy Scouts in eighth grade.

"Well... okay. What do I have to do?" 

"Put your hand in his," Carol said matter-of-factly, "let him drain you for a minute, and then you get to walk out with ten hours off your sentence."

"Wait," said Andy. "He's nervous, and if we're being honest I am too. It seems like it's easiest for me to feed through the palms of my hands, but is that the only way? If I'm supposed to be working on control, maybe he could put his hand on my forehead or something. I could try feeding that way, and I wouldn't be able to grab his hand -- he could pull back any time."

Carol considered that. "All right. That's not... I mean, that's not usual, and it might not work, but we can try it."

Gautam looked relieved, but still approached the bed with slow, cautious footsteps. Andy stayed very, very still as the other boy stopped beside him. "Thanks, man. How long've you been like this?"

"Not sure," Andy told him. "A couple of days, I think."

"Sucks for you," Gautam said, but there was genuine sympathy in his voice. "All right. No more stalling. I'm doing this."

Andy took hold of his hunger, but this time it didn't surge at the touch of a living hand. Come to think of it, it hadn't when Carol had put a hand on his shoulder earlier, either. Interesting. He reached out with it, found the connection to Gautam's hand, and let it pull in a little of... he wasn't sure. Heat? Glow? Life? He kept it slow, controlled. 

"Ah. Cold," said Gautam, but he kept his hand in place. 

The beast stirred in the back of Andy's mind, but this time it was content to sit and watch. This wasn't the kind of feeding it knew, but it still recognized it as feeding. Better... It was easier this time, or maybe it was just easier this way. 

"That's enough," Carol said gently.  

"Okay, I'm going to try to stop now," Andy said. "Pull your hand away if I can't."

He pulled the hunger back, and Gautam removed his hand. "Huh," he said. "All right, that wasn't too bad. Not like I was expecting."

"Right, well, good luck," Andy told him. "And thanks."

Gautam hesitated. "Yeah, you too." 

MV: The Dreams of a Newborn Monster

With the grownups gone, Andy let himself sink back into a sort of dismal darkness which wasn't sleep as he'd known it, but wasn't wakefulness either. Peaceful numbness enfolded him, and he rested there for a timeless time...

Something was hunting him, stalking him through a barren, stony landscape beneath a dark and starless sky. It was the beast, restless and hungry, barely glimpsed as he twisted and turned, trying to elude it. Too late for that, he knew with dreaming certainty: it had his scent, and no matter how he crossed and re-crossed his own trail through the twisted stone shapes it still drew closer. Finally he turned, hearing a soft step behind him, and saw a pair of gleaming eyes and the curve of one long fang just emerging from the shadow of  rock. 

No. He shoved the dream away, and fell back into gray nothingness. 

This time he was standing on a hilltop with the beast at his side, overlooking the blasted, cracked landscape. In the distance there were two small structures of dark stone, rising above twisted stone and winding trails. One, he knew, was a mausoleum -- a resting place with only a single occupant. The other was a cenotaph. 

No. He pushed that dream away, too, swam free of it, and sank back into formlessness. 

He was home again, back in his own house, logy with fear as he tried to drag Amy away before it could happen. They were out of the living room, down the short hall to the kitchen... Behind them, he heard the front door give way with a massive CRACK! and shatter inwards. If they could make it outside... 

He threw open the back door, and Amy screamed.

The back yard was gone, replaced by that barren wasteland of twisted stone shapes. Behind them, the noises in the living room suddenly fell silent, then began again as an avalanche of varied steps racing their way. The kitchen went dark, lights flickering and giving way, and Andy tried to fling Amy outside and slam the door shut behind her. 

He was a heartbeat too late. No. Something caught her, hauled her back. No. He spun around and a pale, skinless hand was reaching for his face. No! 

Darkness, again.

EPIC Dreams!

I fear I've lost some of the details, but I had this completely awesome dream last night... In retrospect, it's a bit less coherent than it was at the time, but with a bit of spackle and some duct tape it fits together just fine. 

Stage One was venturing out in the wake of some sort of disaster to get people to safety. A bridge had collapsed, or maybe exploded, so being unharmed and on a bicycle let me get people out of immediate danger to where emergency services -- or what was left of them -- could triage them, or just move the relatively intact ones back to the safe area. 

Stage Two was trying to move around in this kind of post-disaster setting, which meant switching over to gathering batteries -- very sci-fi looking batteries -- moving quietly to avoid threats. Somewhere in there I stumbled across a big alien spider-monster just as some bad guys -- raiders? enemy soldiers? alien invaders? -- caught up with me from behind, with the result that I decided that getting out from between them was the priority, and ran away. 

Which promptly turned into a hoverbike chase scene, and somewhere in the middle switched over to Stage Three.

Stage Three was full-on video-game mechanics, where I had to remember how to swap weapons, reload, return fire, etc... all while racing back to the safe area from Stage One. Definite learning curve even in the dream, but it was very cool. I even remember halfway-waking up long enough to think that I'd have play more of this later on, and then being kind of pissed that the game doesn't actually exist in real life. 

All of which was a vast improvement over the dream from a week or so earlier, where "my family" -- not actually my family, just a bunch of random people who were my family in the dream -- had gone to a sort of waterpark/nature preserve... where they (we) murdered somebody for some inheritance. And of course one of the cousins screwed something up, and had to hide a body on the fly instead of disposing of it as planned. 

This led to the nightmare sequence when I'd realized that the body had been found, there were investigators on the scene, and I was trying to grab my stuff and get off the property. Meanwhile my "parents" were insisting that everybody needed to stay calm and act normal and the cops definitely wouldn't figure out what had happened. And then getting out was incredibly difficult, since the park perimeter was blocked off, as were the areas around the rides, and... yeah. All for a murder that I hadn't wanted to be involved with in the first place. 

MV Secondary: Evaluation and Consensus

"Okay," said Steve, when the three of them were safely down in a small meeting room two floors away from the patient. "What do we think so far?"

"Any word on the rogues?" asked Carol. "I'd love to know more about where he came from."

Steve shook his head. "Not yet. We have two field teams after them, but we think between what they did to those two kids they had enough oomph to disguise themselves as regular humans and throw off our pursuit. It didn't help that the local cops tried to move in without our support."

"I think he's sweet," Loida said. "Did you see how concerned he was about hurting me? And when he got scared about his control, he called it."

Carol nodded slowly. "That thing in his head worries me, but if he was modulating his hunger and holding it back, he must have a will like iron. It might balance out."

"Yeah," said Steve after a moment. "That was kind of how he struck me when I was questioning him. Self-possessed, controlled, cautious." He shook his head. "I fucking hate wights, but he might actually be able to keep it under control."

"I have two younger brothers," Loida said thoughtfully. "Vas was eager to learn to drive. He wanted to go places, visit people, see what he could do. Anton was terrified of the idea of being in charge of a multi-ton vehicle, and only learned to drive because our father forced him to. You want to guess which one totaled a car in the first nine months, and which one went three full years before he even got into a fender-bender, which wasn't his fault? ...This kid reminds me of Anton." She yawned. 

"I'd still like it better if I could get a feel for his mind," Carol said, then sighed. "But if I had to evaluate him right now, I'd mark him down as 'take precautions, but go ahead and integrate him'." 

Steve nodded. "Thank you both. It's too early to make recommendations, but I'm grateful for the feedback." 

MV: A First Success

"He's really never done this before?" Loida asked, massaging her hand as she looked at Carol. 

"Nope," answered Andy. "Sorry."

She looked down at him. "Don't be. For your first time out, your control was excellent."

"I'm told it gets easier," Steve assured him. 

"Why did you tell us to stop?" asked Carol, studying him suspiciously. 

"It... moved. That thing you woke up. Started to come out. I couldn't manage both, so..."

Steve was staring down at him, but looked away when Andy tried to meet his eyes. 

The room seemed brighter, now; the noises in the hallway outside clearer. 

"You look better," the hunter said after a moment. "Maybe only a fifty-year-old corpse, and you've got some skin back." 

I've got some skin back? What does that mean? Andy swallowed. "So, um... what now?"

Steve hesitated, then said: "I won't shit you, kid. This is going to be a process. It's going to take time to get yourself back under control... though in your case, maybe not as long as some others. Right now, we need to get you through the change, and show you as much as we can of the basics. Once you're back on your feet, so to speak, we have some facilities -- more like schools -- where you can practice controlling any other abilities you develop. After that, well... you'll finally have some decisions to make about what to do next."

That... didn't sound unreasonable. But... "And my family?" He swallowed. "Can I see them? Or rather, can they see me?"

Steve looked at Carol, who actually laid a hand on Andy's shoulder. Andy kept the hunger firmly in check and focused on whatever she was about to say. 

"You died," she said simply. "That's what happened, and that's what we told them. We didn't mention that you came back like this. Maybe, at some point, you can tell them -- but you also need to think about whether or not you should. Between anti-supernatural prejudice, grief, and the dangers of trying to reunite newly-turned monsters who might not be able to control themselves with the people closest to their hearts, well... letting the family mourn and move on is often the better path."

Andy took a long, long moment before he answered that. When he did, he said, "All right. Thank you for just... telling me." He watched as they filed uncomfortably out of the room.

He wondered if he should have been crying, but all he felt was empty.  

MV: Patient Care

He wasn't sure how long he'd been lying there when the curtain was swept back again, and a pair of women entered. Both were wearing scrubs and nametags, though from this angle Andy couldn't read either of them. 

"Hi," said the older one, smiling. "I'm Carol, and this is Loida." 

Carol was, at a guess, somewhere around his mother's age: a grownup, sandy blonde and wearing glasses; her voice was warm and her expression concerned. Loida occupied a more nebulous territory, a few years older than he was but but still young and pretty enough for Andy to think of Amy and feel a pang of guilt for finding her attractive. She was dark-haired and olive-skinned, with her hair tied back into a ponytail. She met his eyes and nodded, and he hurriedly looked back to Carol. 

"Andy," he said. 

Carol held her smile. "We're part of your care and rehabilitation team. Our job is to help you adjust to your new condition."

He wasn't honestly sure he wanted care, at this point. Amy was dead, and he might as well be. It might be better for everyone if he was dead -- less danger to everyone around him. After a moment he said, "Okay."

"Now, the way this works is that I'm going to monitor your mental state, and Loida is going to take your hand long enough for you to feed on her just a little bit."

Andy recoiled, jerking back against the restraints, and a half-second later the big hunter came through the curtain, eyes finding him immediately. 

Carol held up a hand. "It's okay, Steve. He wasn't trying to hurt us."

"You want me to feed on her," Andy said, half-strangled with revulsion. "Won't that hurt her?" He looked at Loida. "Hurt you?"

"Not if you're careful," Loida said, in a surprisingly husky voice. "It's like donating blood. I can spare a little, and I'll recover and be just fine."

A little shiver went through him. He was hungry, though the sensation wasn't centered in his stomach. It was a coldness through his entire body. "That... I don't know."

"You really should," said Carol. "You'll feel better, be more in control. And you need to learn how to do this -- now, while we can keep you from hurting anybody." 

Andy forced himself to relax. "Fine." 

"Good. Now, I'm going to..." 

He felt a faint touch against his awareness, a sensation he would never have imagined possible. Then something stirred in the back of his mind, and the touch vanished. Carol took a quick step back. "Okay, that might be a problem."

"What?" asked the big hunter, whose name was apparently Steve.

"There's something else in his mind. Another presence."

"His maker?"

"I don't think so. It felt more like... a second self. Feral."

Steve scowled, stepped gracefully around Loida, then bent down and -- of all things -- sniffed at Andy's exposed arm. He hesitated, then straightened. "No," he said. "He's a wight."

"Yes, well, then he's a wight who might very well tear my mind apart if I try to touch his thoughts again." Carol looked down at Andy. "Can you feel it?"

"I didn't," he said. "Until you did... whatever you did, I didn't. I think you woke it up." He could feel it moving around in the back of his mind, prowling, impatient. 

"How does it feel to you?" she asked gently. 

Andy hesitated. "Ravenous. Ravening. I don't... I don't know if I want to be in here with it."

Carol turned back to Steve, eyebrows raised. He shrugged and stepped to the side, circling to move the metal cart out of the way so he could stand beside Andy's bed. "Then we do this the hard way, I guess." He looked down at Andy, still strapped firmly in place. "You seem like a good kid, kid. Can you keep control while you feed?"

Within his restraints, Andy managed to shrug. "Can you pull her loose if I can't, old man?"

Loida -- of all people -- huffed a laugh. "Let's get this over with." She came around to stand beside Steve, then put her hand in his. She didn't hesitate, and she didn't flinch; if she found his body loathesome, she didn't show it at all. 

"Okay," said Carol, "Now, you're going to need to--" 

Too late. The hunger in his body knew its business; it came roaring open, eager to sate itself. Motherfucker! No. He forced it back, paused a moment to make sure he had a firm hold, then let it out in a trickle. 

Loida stiffened slightly, but made no effort to draw back. "Good," she said. "Just like that."

Andy didn't answer. The thing in the back of his mind had suddenly reared up, and he had his hands full holding it back while restraining the hunger as well. It didn't really fight him, but he kept a metaphorical hand on it, telling it to stay calm, stay back... 

"Stop," he tried to say, and he must have gotten the word out because Loida broke contact immediately. The thing, the beast in his mind, circled and then padded away to curl up somewhere in the back of his head; he could almost feel it moving. It felt... disappointed.

Turning his attention outward, he drew a deep, shuddering breath that did his body no good whatsoever. That sense of filling his lungs with oxygen was simply gone, along with the comfort it had once provided. "Almost," he said, then let some air back out so he could speak instead of wheeze. "Almost lost it."

MV: The Interview

"How're you feeling, son?" asked the big man, looking him over carefully. 

Andy resisted the urge to respond with sarcasm; he was strapped down, and very much at this man's mercy. "Did you happen to get the number of that truck?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation. Okay, so I'm in the hospital, they have me strapped down... They're either worried that I'm infected, or they know I am.

The big man chuckled. "You're Andrew, right? Andrew McFall?"

"That's me," Andy answered, nodding. He drew a slow breath, listened to the sounds of the machines...  

"I need to ask you some questions, Andrew."

Andy hesitated, then nodded carefully. "Can we take turns? I have a lot of questions too."

The man frowned, but after a moment he shrugged. "Seems fair," he admitted. His dark hair was in a buzz-cut, and his face was almost impossibly square-jawed; he looked like he'd just walked off a recruiting poster, except for the long and very obvious scar along the back of his left forearm. 

He unlocked his phone, pulled something up, and set it on the metal tray beside the bed. "We're recording," he said clearly. "Andrew McFall, Medical City Plano, May third, nine forty-seven p.m. Let's start simple, Andrew: how much do you remember?"

It took a moment to sort things out in his head, and to decide how much information this hunter would really want. He had to be one of them, specialized law enforcement -- though there were some mercenaries -- who dealt with the unclean things of the world to keep humanity safe. Finally he said, "Short version? Amy and I were, um, studying on the couch when we heard sirens outside. Then the front door kind of... exploded. There were three of them..." He hesitated. "Some sort of animal, something that looked like a corpse with white hair and skin, and the third one... I'm not sure. It seemed to have shadows all around it."

"Keep going, if you can."

Andy swallowed. "The beast bit me, but I shoved the lamp in its mouth and was trying to hold it back... it turned on Amy, and then the corpse shoved me down and put a hand on my face. Then everything went black."

The hunter nodded as if that was more or less what he'd expected. 

"What happened to Amy?" Andy asked quietly.  

"I'm sorry, son," the hunter said gently. "She didn't make it. If it helps any, it was a clean death -- and fast, as these things go."

A clean death, Andy repeated to himself. Not like mine. Because he was fairly sure he'd died, and if he was answering questions now, well... it hadn't been clean. 

"My sister?"

The hunter snorted. "Technically, it's my turn, but I'm going to pretend you asked what happened to everyone else. Your sister Judith... she's a sharp kid. Heard the commotion downstairs, came down and saw you and your friend, then locked herself in her room and called 9-1-1. Your parents flew back in; they're with her now."

Wait, how long has it been? He decided not to ask -- not yet. It was the hunter's turn, and the man was being unexpected generous with... with whatever the hell I am now... He nodded and waited. 

"Do you know which way they went?" asked the stocky man. 

Andy shook his head. "No, whatever the corpse did put me out completely."

"And you don't have any sense of them?" 

"I think it's my turn," said Andy, and offered a small smile, "but let's count that as part of the same question. No, I don't have any... awareness? Connection? I'm not sure what you're hoping for, here."

The hunter nodded, looking resigned. "It was worth checking, at least. Most victims don't, but every once in a while, for certain kinds of monsters..." He shook his head. "Your turn, I guess."

"All right. Um. What happened to me?"

The hunter sighed. "According to the doctors, you came back as a wight -- like the corpse-guy who put you under. They're... kind of like vampires, but they don't have fangs -- just really big claws. And they don't drink blood, they drain... youth, vitality, life-force, something like that. I'll see if one of the nurses has a mirror if you want, but... well... right now, you look like a hundred-year-old corpse with no skin and white hair."

Andy felt himself go numb, even as he was thinking, Of course I do. That's how it works. The bite you, or they kill you, and then you turn into one of them. It didn't work that way for all kinds of monsters, but it was common enough that he'd expected it. 

Of course, expecting it and hearing it stated outright were two very different things.  

"Last question for now," said the hunter. "Did they say anything? Plans, directions, anything that might tell us what they were doing?"

"Nothing," Andy said, regretfully. "There was some snarling and growling, but that's all I remember. There were sirens outside, and I think voices too -- I think it was regular cops, not hunters. If I had to guess, they were in a hurry to feed and then move on."

The hunter smiled. "Sharp kid," he said. "For what it's worth, that's what our analysis looks like so far." He stepped forward and started to reach for his phone.

"Wait," said Andy. "If you've got a business card or something, could you leave it on the cart? If I do start getting any sense of where they might be, I can have somebody call you."

The hunter paused to study him for a long moment, and finally said, "I'd be grateful if you did." 

MV: In The Hospital

He hadn't expected to wake back up. The bite in his shoulder, made by that thing that wasn't quite a wolf but wasn't quite a panther either, had been pulsing -- shivering his limbs, paralyzing him, burning him up in waves that made his bones ache. Then the hand had come down over his face, not-quite-cold leaching everything out of him, weakening him beyond the point where the pulsing could lock up his muscles... and then finally the world had gone dark. 

Waking up in the hospital room was a profound surprise. The restraints, once he thought about it, were less so. Rogues. Oh God, I was attacked by rogues. Amy?

It had to have been pure, dumb luck. There was no reason to target his house, especially with his parents out of the country and his little sister Judith upstairs in her room, studying for finals. He should have been studying too, but Amy had come over to study with him and they'd... well, they'd gotten distracted. 

Sirens outside weren't uncommon. Sirens on their street were, and they'd been in the process of straightening themselves up and looking for cover when the trio had burst in through the front door. If they'd been hidden, instead of right there in the living room...

Amy had screamed. Understandable, but not helpful, since it turned the monsters' attentions onto them. On the other hand, it might have kept them distracted from Judith, who as far as knew had been studying with her headphones on upstairs.

There were no IVs here, no attempt to introduce blood or even saline into his veins. A couple of tabs were glued to his chest, but he couldn't hear anything that sounded like a heartbeat and his body felt weirdly cold and still. Not uncomfortable, just... empty. Some sort of headband monitored what he suspected was his cerebral activity; that machine was starting to whine in a way designed to draw doctors and nurses...

...And hunters, evidently. 

The man who pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the room was probably six feet tall, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, with a thick leather belt that held a variety of devices and pouches. 

Andy licked his lips and said, "Hi." 

Dauntless: Bright Future

The boy named Bright Future pulled himself out of the bath -- a hot bath in a big tub, all to himself! -- and reached for a towel. He couldn't get used to this place: two floors just for the single family and servants, a comfortable bed of his own, clean sheets and clothes, and so much to learn. 

Strangest of all was having a new father and an older sister.  

He'd been cautious at first -- "diffident," his new father Baleful Flowering had called it -- but he was slowly coming to accept that he was wanted here, that he wouldn't be beaten if he was trying his best. And he was eager to try his best. He'd never had anyone try to teach him anything before, not properly. But Bale wanted him to know numbers and letters and books of both, and his sister Terri -- short for Terrible Grace -- was eager to see if he could learn magic. 

There were rules, of course -- so many rules -- but he was eager to learn those as well. How to dine at a proper table, how to dress to match his new station, the correct ways of speaking and how to say certain things without putting them into words. 

This new world was a puzzle, and he rejoiced every time he solved another piece of it. 

Wrangling My Schedule

I spent last week sort of half-sick, and would have like to spend the weekend recovering. Alas, 'twas not to be; Secondborn decided that she needed a second prom, and went to one that a friend had mentioned -- at a community center about half an hour away. Which made for two one-hour round trip journeys Friday night, followed by the child's birthday party on Saturday. The birthday party theme was "Build Your Own Boffer Weapon" and I did an initial demonstration before turning the kids loose. They had some kind of Capture The Flag game over at the nearby park, ate a pretty fair amount of pizza, and generally had a good time. 

One of her friends gave her a harmonica, though, and I'm not at all sure we're going to survive that. 

I did my best to have a restful Sunday -- a bit of D&D (playing, not running), a bit of writing, a bit of reading Vampire Smut -- but was still a bit later getting down to sleep than I would have preferred. Not as late as Secondborn, though. I'm pretty sure she was still bouncing around at 4:30 a.m. and I think I'm going to have to inflict a bedtime on that child.

::SIGH::

I'm back at work and catching up this week, at least, which is kind of a relief. Still need to pull together some follow-up from the conference, and jump back on some things that slipped through the cracks and/or have proven ridiculously recalcitrant, but at least I'm in a condition to work on them again.

Valthor: Family Horrors

Valthor leaned on the railing and looked out over the ocean, trying to remember the dream. Sy, the cleric of the Harvest Maiden who had attached himself to their group, had suggested that the strange dreams he had in the darkness of the underground prison were likely to be significant, but...

His sister had come to him, he remembered that much. Darkness and mist... She'd spoken of the blade he'd taken from her corpse. Not his mother's work, as he'd initially suspected, but far older... it was a family blade, older than the Starfall, born of deceit, betrayal, broken oaths, and murder. To fully unlock its power would require him to follow in that family tradition... How had she put it? 

It will grow in power as you deceive, betray, and especially kill those to whom you are bound: benefactors, liege lords and loyal servants, friends, allies -- and of course, your kith and kin. 

If he was being completely honest with himself, Valthor didn't like the taste of that. He wouldn't mind killing some of his kin, and he certainly wasn't above a certain amount of artful embellishment when it came to certain kinds of facts, but if there was one thing he'd learned as part of a mercenary company, it was that he was strongest with trusting and trustworthy friends working together. Betrayal and Oathbreaking held no appeal for him... 

Well, mostly. As a jackalwere, his brother Vildern had always been stronger than he was, and his attentions were damnably hard to avoid.  He could see a scenario where he pledged his loyalty to Vildern with the intent of betraying and murdering him when the opportunity presented. So yes, he could probably work with this. 

More than that, though, could he change it? If it was a family blade and had taken its character from his family, could he afflict it with his own trust in well-chosen loyalties?

He'd have to see.

"Valthor?" 

He turned, blinking, to find Kiela standing beside him -- wiry, nimble Kiela who was frequently manning the crow's nest when she wasn't up in the rigging, inspecting the sails. "Oh. Hello." 

"Are you well?" she asked. "You looked pretty lost in in there..." She reached up and tapped the side of his head with a fingertip. 

"I was," he said. "I'm back now, though."

"Should I ask?"

"Probably best if you don't," he said. "I... A lot of my life is very difficult to explain."

"Oh." She hesitated, running a hand nervously through her short red hair. "Listen, a few of us were going to play cards down in the hold, and some of us would love to know how you and your friends managed a jailbreak out of that place. Would you--?" 

"I'd love to," he told her. 

DS: Companionship

It was just before dawn when Jalua slipped into the druid's pocket alongside Borgios. He had been dozing, but he stirred at her approach. "Wha...?"

"I found my father waiting," Jalua said, chittering in that way that only another wererat would understand -- though a good hunter could distinguish it from the sounds of ordinary rats. "He blessed us, said I could stay with you. He's worried by this demon -- there were stories, two generations back. We have to keep the clan informed, and they'll inform others."

"That's..." Borgios managed not to yawn. "That's wonderful." 

"Yes. For now, we get to be rats together."

"That was a quick decision," Borgios observed.

Jalua nipped gently behind his ear. "I told him about your clan. My father, he prizes survivors." 

DS: And the return

Borgios slipped back down the alley. It was nearly dawn, and the sounds of a woman's voice were clearly audible: 

"That young man said he'd give me to someone who could get me home, and instead I'm just lying here in the palm of some drunken lout. A dirty back alley is no place for a woman of quality like myself. Tivros? Tivros, you promised to take care of me. Where are you? How could you forget you were carrying me around like that?"

Borgios slipped the gloves into the druid's pocket, then dropped the pile of clothing next to its unconscious -- but still living -- owner. All in all, a good night's work. He thought of the time he'd spent with Jalua. All in all, a good night. The temptation to depart here, join her clan, and stay with her was strong, but... I don't know. Rune was stronger than he was, and likely didn't need his help -- but he'd been kind enough to take in a stray rat when Borgios had been in desperate need of shelter, and as much as the wererat hated to think of himself as honorable, he still felt a debt there. 

"So this is your druid?" asked Jalua, from behind him. 

Borgios nodded. "This is him."

"Oh, great," said the amulet. "Now there are rats. Merciful Yondalla, I beg you to get me out of this place. I have always been a pious woman..."

"Why is his face glowing?" Jalua had slipped up into human form again, and was looking down at Rune. 

"He has a demon trapped inside him," Borgios said. "The runes hold it in. Its power is trapped separately."

"That sounds... worrisome. Are you sure you'll be safe?"

"He thinks I'm just a rat," Borgios said. "And besides... I owe him." 

DS: The Merchant's House

The merchant's house was protected, of course, but it wasn't too hard for a pair of perfectly-ordinary rats to slip inside during the hours just before dawn, when servants were drawing water and preparing for the day ahead. There were still plenty of shadows; evidently the merchant was a spendthrift when it came to candles or lantern oil. 

Jalua took the lead, and Borgios followed. She traced their way through long, expensively-appointed hallways, moved cautious across open intersections, and hesitated beneath a table at the bottom of the stairs while the servants carried heated water up for their master's bath. 

Their clothing was tucked away in a neat bundle just outside the back gate, which could have been awkward if wererats had any sense of modesty. Fortunately, they didn't; the transformation made nakedness far too commonplace to sustain any sense of embarrassment. 

It was a bare flash of nudity to open the door, and then they were both inside the merchant's bedroom. He snorted and rolled over, and they froze -- then dashed for the underside of the bed. 

He didn't rise, though. Likely he was used to servants coming and going while he slept. Servants would lay fires, prepare outfits, and who knew what else? Borgios certainly didn't.  

They rose up into their human forms, and Jalua glared down at the sleeping merchant with an expression that said she was considering smothering him with a pillow. With two of them here, it could be done, but... Borgios touched her shoulder, then mimed drawing on a glove. She hesitated, sighed silently, and then nodded, looking around. 

There was a pair of gloves on the table beside the bed, and Borgios raised his hands questioningly. Jalua grinned, then nodded. 

DS: Early Morning Adventures

"You left your druid behind," noted Jalua. "What is it you're looking for? Gold?"

Borgios shook his head. "No, he'd notice if that showed up in his pocket with me. I'm trying to figure out a way to smuggle some weapons for myself, and also stay in practice for the sorts of things we do. Something like a bag of holding, but smaller."

Jalua considered that, then grinned. "Gloves. Magical gloves. And I just happen to know of someone who has some. They'll only store one item each, but..." 

Borgios shook his shoulders out, tension dissolving into relief. "That could work. That could very well work."

He swept her up, spun her around, and set her back down. "Jalua, you're a genius. What do we need to do get these?"

"Well," she said, "We'll need to rob this merchant. The clan won't object; he keeps trying to stiff us, so an... object lesson like this might even help us. Come on, I'll show you where he lives." 

DS: Inconvenient Family Ties

"You're not one of our clan," said a voice from overhead. "One of us, but... outsider. What brings you here, Outsider?"

Borgios slowed, decided that this was interesting enough to justify postponing his plan. "A job went wrong some months back. I took shelter in the pocket of a drunken druid, who thinks I'm nothing more than a rat."

"And your clan?"

He swallowed. "Hunted by the guard and another band of adventurers," he said. "Father told us to go to ground."

There was a soft laugh, and then the whuff of impact, tuck, and roll behind him. He turned slowly, beheld a seemingly-human woman of roughly his own age behind him. A fellow wererat, of course; born into it, by her smell.  "You have a name?" she asked softly. 

"Borgios," he told her. 

"Jalua," she responded. "You're in our territory, so I can't let you do anything that might draw attention to us. I suppose I'll have to keep an eye on you." 

"Oh?" he asked, trying to sound suspicious rather than intrigued. "In that case, come along. Or lead me where you would." Yes, he was definitely prepared to overturn his plans for the opportunity of some seemingly-friendly company. Keeping himself hidden for the last few months had been more of a strain than he cared to admit.

DS: Friends in Low Places

"...Who? Where?" Borgios kept his voice soft. 

"Down here," said the voice. 

He turned, frowning as he scanned the mouth of the alleyway. 

"On the ground. Just over..." 

"I see you, I think," said Borgios, bending down to pick up a silver necklace with an unfamiliar amulet suspended from it. 

"Yes! That's me. Oh, thank you, kind sir." It was a woman's voice, despite coming from a piece of jewelry. "I do so hate being down in the dirt like that, but my husband Tivros... well, he was drinking, and forgot I was in his hand. If you could return me to him, I'd be most grateful."

What in the Nine Hells and all the elemental planes? A talking amulet was definitely going to be a liability for anything he did tonight. Borgios considered, then decided that the easiest way to handle this was to pass the burden. "I fear my time is limited," he told the amulet. "I must return to being a rat before too long -- a family curse, and no escape from it. But I will deliver you to someone who can see you safely back home in the morning."

"Well, I suppose if you can't do it yourself..." There was hint of... not exactly accusation, but definitely disappointment... in her tone. "...Then yes, please get me to someone who can help."

Borgios turned and retraced his steps up the alley, then set the amulet in Rune's unconscious hand. "There you go," he said, then turned and fled.

DS: I Smell A Rat

Borgios slipped out of the druid's pocket as the two orcs dragged him to the back door and tossed him out into the alley. Neither of them noticed, but then neither of them would likely have cared. Riding around in Rune's pocket was actually a pretty sweet deal: he was warm and clean, and got to eat his share of scraps, and then when Rune wasn't paying attention he could slip out and take care of his own business -- which mostly meant keeping his skills sharp, and remembering how to move around in human form.

It could be awkward; unlike Rune, when Borgios changed shape his clothing and equipment didn't change with him. So his first step was usually to sneak around as a rat until he could find some clothing to steal. 

Fortunately, Rune wasn't the only one who had passed out inside The Old Wastrel and been carried out the back. There were two others, a human and a halfling, and the human's clothing would--

He aborted his transformation just in time, as the back door banged open again, and the two orcs emerged carrying a bloody-faced human. One of the fighters, maybe? Or maybe the woman had injured herself when she passed out. Regardless, Borgios waited patiently -- just another rat -- as the orcs dropped her beside the wall. 

"They should really know better," growled one of the orcs, reaching down to empty the purse at her belt. 

"Eh, good ale can make a fool of anybody," said the other.

When they'd gone back inside, Borgios changed and set to stripping the human male. The fit was close enough -- Borgios had been small and wiry all his life, probably thanks to his heritage -- and when he straightened he felt inconspicuous enough to stroll casually down the alley. The night was warm; likely the man wouldn't freeze to death, and he could drop the clothing beside him when turned back into a rat. 

He had just reached the end of the alley when a voice out of nowhere said, "Hello?" and he very nearly pissed himself. 

StV: The Uncertain Soldier

Paul Caswell sat in a pool chair behind his Alpha Hound and did his best not to gape openly. It was, he reminded himself, his first real mission as a Hound, and he still didn't know how everything worked. This, though... this was a lot to take in. 

He glanced at Tara, but she was apparently focused on the conversation. Either she didn't find this disturbing, or she was much better at hiding it than he was. 

We were sent here to find whatever Deviant was stealing people's bone marrow, he thought, frustrated. Then we find a whole group of Deviants in the damned hospital with the the victims, and Bloodhound -- the Alpha Hound who's acting as our Hunter -- not only fails to give the order to bring them in, but leads them back here to the hotel to talk. Clearly, Bloodhound knew these people. 

Try as he might, Paul couldn't figure it. Was Bloodhound a traitor? She couldn't be. Her own Hunter, Hearne, would have reported her. Was she expecting a bunch of deviants to help them? That didn't seem possible either. He knew her stats and her rep; Bloodhound might be younger than he was, but she'd brought in everyone she'd ever been assigned to capture. 

What the hell was going on here? Mind control? Something else? 

He'd wait, he decided. He'd wait, and watch, and then figure out what he needed to do.  

StV: Florida Man: After The Trial

Hey kid,

I was hoping to see you at the trial but I guess you were busy. It went... I was gonna say "badly," but it's you so... "badly" is better than I expected. Gonna have to spend some time in prison, and that means no drinking and only fighting if I have to. And no powers. I mean, I've still got them, I just can't use them if I want them to let me out. 

But it's a three year stint, and I think I can do it. You were right about the meds. Huge help. I'm very, very angry with you about that. So thanks. 

You were right about the offers, too. Some mercs, some even bigger assholes, but some... I mean, I wouldn't think that many people would want a guy with alligator powers to work for them, especially with my history, but I got an offer from the damned park rangers. Said it'd be nice to have someone on the payroll who could protect the Everglades from Anomalous threats. Pay's not as good as some of the other offers, but there's retirement. 

Hell, kid. Never even thought about that before. Anyway, sorry I didn't get to see you again.

~Florida Man

* * *

Tom Wilson, you fucking idiot, 

I was right there. Red wig, heavy makeup, nice skirt and suit jacket. Any of that ring a bell? You winked at me four times from the witness stand. Swear to Jesus, I thought you'd figured out it was me. And yes, the trial went badly for you, but it could have been so much worse. I was very, very impressed. 

Tell you what. Keep your head down, do the time and stay out of trouble as best you can, and when you get out we can schedule a big old knock-down, drag-out fight if that'll make you feel better. I know I did you kind of dirty bringing you in like that, but I still think you have what it takes to be a lot better person than you realize. 

Meanwhile, you take care of yourself -- in a good way, this time. 

~Cloudburst

 * * *

Kid, 

Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. I'm glad you were there, but this. Awkward. I know I can be kind of a creep, but I don't hit on high school students. Thanks for showing up for me. Again.

Might take you up on that fight. Might not. Gives me something to think about besides being in prison, though. Araktul, you really are good at this. 

Keep writing. 

~Florida Man 

 

PotM: Prisoners and Evaluations

He had to be the Moon. Somehow Leandra had found him, and given him a Key, and sent him back to end the Interregnum. Ser Liosha Sobinhan, Chosen Marshal of the Sun, was sure of it. Something had changed; something in the air, in the sky overhead, in the ground beneath her feet. She couldn't see it yet, but that could be the dark of the moon -- the time of hidden movements, stealth and secrecy, and betrayals performed or redressed. 

She could not reveal that to the knights gathered here, not matter how much it might give them hope. It would cause too much of a stir, and despite all their efforts there might still be spies among them.  No, if the Prince had returned he must be preserved and kept secret, and so this was only a lone traveler, uncorrupted, who had stepped in to aid a pair of knights in their time of need, and then nobly submitted to arrest until they could establish that he wasn't a spy. 

There would be other questions as well: he carried blades that were not him. To most of her troops, that suggested a magus who might intend to restore those knights. Keeping him locked away with the blades prevented the knights from asking him too many questions, and increased his value if he did turn out to be an ally. 

It gave this Sean Paul Keegan a certain cachet, but also allowed her to surround him with guardians who would both imprison and protect him. Liosha served the Sun, not the Moon, but even with some things still unknown and other poorly understood, she knew that the return of the Moon was critical to re-awakening the Sun. Their enemy would know that as well, and likely in more detail and with a better understanding. 

With the enemy once more on the move -- actively, not infiltrating and corrupting -- she wanted to keep this quiet for as long as possible. He didn't look like the prince she remembered being selected forty-seven years ago, but if he'd spent all that time in the mortal realms, infected with mortality...

That was the plan, she thought, and was overwhelmed with momentary rage. That was the basis of the Usurper's whole plan... 

StV: Powers and Responsibilities

"Okay, here's what I don't understand," Cloudburst said softly, as they sat beside the fire. "You can give yourself new powers. You can adjust other people's powers, or give them new ones. So... why did you shove all your new powers into your Blood God form? Why not just give yourself those powers, um, outright?"

Harbinger leaned closer to the fire, closing his eyes to feel the heat on his face. "Given the choice, I wouldn't have them at all. I wouldn't need them. Do you know how many lives paid for those powers?"

Cloudburst shook her head. "I know you fought your way out of the DAAT compound. That's all anyone's said about it."

"I'm a murderer, Cloudburst. Or at least a killer, since it was self-defense. So primus, I don't like the idea of just... strengthening my usual self that way. Secundus, I don't want to get in the habit of using that kind of power. I need it -- my parents are millennia-old gods who might show up looking for Charm and me at any time -- and I need some way to..." He hesitated for a long moment. "...to discourage them if they do. Which is why I've gathered that much power at all."

"Self-defense," she said, and squeezed his hand.

He nodded. "Charm is a talented sorceress, and getting better all the time, but our Mom is also a sorceress and has a power like mine -- and several thousand years of using it to strengthen herself. If we want to be able to force our independence, then we're both playing catch-up -- and that's not even accounting for our father, who has... very definite ideas about how personal power relates to leadership and godhood. Having them both show up would be... catastrophic." 

She nodded slowly. "So you... what? Gave yourself enough power to be hard to kill, but not so much that you're a danger to other people, but still keep the option to go to your Final Form in an emergency?"

He nodded. "Something like that, yeah. Because if I were carrying that much power around all the time, I'd want to use it. I already do, but at least this way I'm not out there doing horrible things to horrible people constantly. I don't want to become Solar."

Cloudburst nodded, then stood and found another log to place on the fire. "Lead us not into temptation," she said quietly. Solar was a famous villain, at least as far as the media was concerned; she was arguably an Anomalous Rights Advocate, but she was also a radical and had publicly incinerated several prominent politicians in at least three countries, and organized other Anomalies to act as terror cells. No, Harbinger wouldn't want to become that. He understood just how double-edged those kinds of actions were.