Three Immortals Walk Into A Bar...

Levant

What the hell is going on? Gregor is sitting there holding the werewolf’s head like some kind of cheesy faith healer. Then Clyde gets a couple of steps away, and vanishes in a puff of smoke.

Well, yeah, I guess if I could travel as mist I would. Easier than clambering along the rubble on the ground. But this leaves me stuck with this unsettling human, who is crouching on the ground next to the bleeding werewolf. My two least favorite creatures.

Well, I’m not going to try to go find a bit of mist, so I stand here, well back from Gregor, and gather the shadows to me. It is a relief to have a few minutes to myself, to try to replenish my heart of darkness. It feels sort of thinned out, less robust, after the last day of being diminished by the Seer and the vampire. I can’t wait to be away from these people.

I start looking around myself. I think we have a few hours until sunrise, and I have to figure something out before then. The uncovered basement won’t be any protection from the burning rays of the sun, even if we do make it back there, and I can’t rely on the vault as a shelter with all those other people around. I need to find a way to get out of this area. Roads are all blocked, at least the ones visible from our location, covered with rubble. So vehicles won’t be able to get through until they are cleared, which obviously won’t happen until daylight. Although, it occurs to me that a motorcycle might be able to dodge around the debris. I start scanning again, looking for one, but have no luck. I dismally consider that I really might have to just start walking until I can at least find some shelter from the coming dawn.

The human interrupts my ruminations. “Okay,” he says, and I look down at him. He is leaning back from the still unconscious werewolf, although keeping one hand on him. The fucker isn’t dissolving like I did when Gregor touched me like that. I growl. He looks exasperated, and says, “What?!” Then he shakes his head. “Never mind. Just listen, please.” He waits for a moment, while I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him.

I hear him sigh, then he says, “I’ve healed him as much as I can, but he is still unconscious. I’m not sure how much longer until he wakes up.” That’s healed? He looks exactly the same to me, a hideous beast with a crease on his bloody forehead, lying there like a useless lump of meat. Gregor smirks, and goes on, “Clyde is waiting with Jacob, and I have to get over there and help him. Then after we get them back to the basement to join the others, we can just wait for emergency personnel to arrive.”

I shake my head at him impatiently. What the fuck does any of this have to do with me? He gets a little crooked smile on his face, and says, “I have to ask for your help one more time.”

I roll my eyes. Of course he does.

“Could you please carry Fernando over to where Clyde and Jacob are waiting? I can’t just leave him here unconscious.”

What? “Fuck no!” I am not touching that fucking werewolf, not unless I am doing it to pound him into the ground. I spin around and start stomping away. I’m done with this whole ridiculous scene.

“Wait!” Gregor calls after me. “Levant!”

I ignore him, of course, and take several more steps, until I hear him say, “Wolk will find you a motorcycle!”

I stop. I stand, facing away from him, growling, and glaring, and my heart is swirling with satisfying darkness, and he has offered me the one fucking thing that will get me to stay.

I sigh, heavily, and slowly turn around. I’d expect him to look smug with his triumph over me, but he doesn’t even manage that. He looks sad, and sympathetic, and that is even worse. Ugh.

“Fine,” I growl. “Back off.” I am definitely not picking up that goddamn werewolf with the Seer anywhere close by.

Gregor immediately takes his hand off the werewolf and stands, backing away several feet.

I go over there, and get ready to lift him up into a fireman’s carry, planning to drape him over one shoulder.

“No no no!” Gregor says. “Wait! You can’t carry him like that, his head shouldn’t hang down with the head injury.” How does he even know what I was about to do? Oh, his eavesdropping guardian angel tattled, no doubt.

“Well what do you expect me to do?” I bite out, beyond aggravated.

“Can’t you carry him in your arms?” he asks, demonstrating with his arms extended like he is holding a baby.

Oh for fuck’s sake. I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but it seems like the easiest way to get hold of a motorcycle. I do believe that Gregor will follow through with that, at least. So I lean over, get my arms under the stinking wolf’s knees and shoulders, and lift him off the ground.

Ugh, he weighs as much as a mid-sized sedan, and he is so preposterously tall that his feet practically drag on the ground as I hold him to my chest. I glare at Gregor. “Go!” I yell at him.

His eyes widen, and he immediately spins around and quickly walks in the direction he had told Clyde to go.

I follow behind, my arms full of the most horrible baby I have ever held, loathing every second of this grotesque scene. The growls are coming out of my chest with no conscious thought on my part, as though the contact with the werewolf is utterly disgusting to my body as well.

We come around some half-shattered buildings, and I see now that Clyde is standing next to a hulking werewolf sitting on a low wall probably about a block away. It is hard to judge with how much devastation there is in the area.

I am looking forward towards Clyde, thinking it should just take a couple more minutes to get over there and be done with this nonsense, when suddenly my burden shifts in my arms.

I barely get the chance to look down at the werewolf, before he is snarling, snapping, surging away from me, clambering down my body like some kind of horrible insect to get back on his feet. Then he spins around with a closed fist and punches me in the head so hard that it lifts me off my feet.

I crash into the front end of a car, already crumpled from having been blown here by the tornado, and whatever glass hadn’t already been broken is shattered by the impact of my body. I feel some of it bury itself in my skin, and feel my shoulder fracture as it crushes the hood into the engine block.

The werewolf is already following behind me, hands lifted, and I roll off the hood, get to my feet, and duck his blow, then spin with a low jab to his side. He staggers, but recovers quickly, and tries another punch to my head.

I realize that Gregor is shrieking, “Stop! Fernando, stop! He was just helping to carry you!”

But neither of us is paying any attention to the human. He continues lunging towards me. He is a werewolf, and I am a vampire, and he attacked me, and I am going to annihilate him. I growl, and pull some shadows towards me to fling towards him, and it hurls him several feet backwards, into the street. He rolls several times before he comes to a stop, and looks up and sees it at exactly the same time I do.

There is a motorcycle lying on its side, which had been hidden behind some other debris. It appears to be intact. This is my ticket out of this debacle. I rush towards the bike, trying to get to it before he does.

But he is closer, and he lunges at it, seizes hold of it with both hands, and lifts it over his head. He doesn’t see it as the opportunity it is, werewolves are far too stupid to think ahead. He just sees it as a projectile.

Fine. Let him give it to me. I brace myself, watch him fling it towards me, and rather than trying to dodge the massive metal object I just let it catch me in the chest.

It feels like I’ve been hit by a train, and it takes me with it on its flight down the street. I clutch my arms around it so that I don’t lose it when I land. When its trajectory finally descends, dragging me into the ground, I feel several bones snap in my ribcage and elbow and hand.

But now I have a motorcycle. I drag myself out from underneath it, ready to fight off the werewolf, but he isn’t here yet. I spin around to find him, just in time to see Clyde materializing in front of him and holding him back as he tries to pound down the street after me.

For a split second I see Gregor staring at me, his mouth ridiculously hanging open, his eyes wide, as though this is the most astonishing spectacle he has ever seen.

Fuck them.

I reach down, lift the motorcycle up, see that the tires are intact, and nothing seems too bent to function. I gather shadows to myself, turn one into a slender ribbon of darkness, delicately insert it into the starting mechanism, and the engine roars to life.

Without another glance back at the werewolves and vampire and Seer, I hoist my leg over the bike, and speed away down the rubble-strewn street, getting away from this scene as fast as I can.

I give them one parting message, lifting my middle finger at them from behind as I speed away.