Semper Fi chapter 2
Title: Semper Fi (chapter 2)
Rating: R for violence
Genre: Urban Fantasy, (eventual) Romance
Warning: Violence, supernatural creatures, my bad spelling
Author Notes: This is my original story, as in I own every bit of it. No stealing, please and thanks!
Summary: After witnessing a vampire feeding, Daniel finds himself dragged into a whole new world of magic, vampires, werewolves and the two outcasts who seem to be his only hope of living through it all.
Wordcount: 7396
Edited by the amazingly awesome oliviaokay any remaining mistakes are my own.
Critique is always welcome!
Chapter 1
Semper Fi chapter 2
Owl walked past the main entrance of the old repair shop, the large garage doors rolled down and locked tight, and turned around the corner to the side door. He unlocked it and let himself inside, not bothering to turn on the lights when he pressed his hand to the doorframe until the protection rune lit up for a moment as he reactivated it.
He walked through the back of the small office and through another doorway which led to the stairs. He clomped up the rusty, creaking steps to his apartment door and unlocked the first two locks with his keys before muttering this week’s codeword, “Peanut butter.”
They changed words every week and Marcus had been hungry when he picked it.
There was a clicking as the two deadbolts unlocked on the other side of the door and he opened it. As he walked through, the brief tingle of magic that raced across his skin reassured him that his protection wards were still working
Owl moved into the kitchen, shrugging off his thick camouflage patterned jacket and hanging it over the back of a chair. Marcus looked up from the laptop he’d been so intent on, his fingers pausing from their rapid typing as he took in Owl’s appearance.
“You know, Owl, one day some police officer is going to stop you and ask why you’re packing so much heat.”
Owl looked down at himself; the black tee shirt and dark grey cargo pants were ordinary enough, but the shoulder and hip holsters where he kept his two handguns and spare clips were now visible, along with the combat knife he kept at his belt. There was another knife in his boot--a switchblade--but it wasn’t visible, so he figured it didn’t count.
“That is why I wear a jacket.”
Marcus rolled his eyes as he pointed at the tan and brown jacket. “Oh yeah, you look real innocent dressed like the poster boy for a militia group.”
It was an old argument, with no real heat in the words, so Owl ignored them and pulled his guns from their holsters, setting them on the table for later cleaning. They were close enough for him to grab if needed, and if not, then he always had his spare in the breadbox.
Pulling a pot out from one of the lower cabinets, he set it on the stove as Marcus started up his typing once more. The kitchen was small, but not uncomfortably so; it was big enough for the two of them, at least. Owl gathered the ingredients he needed to make their meal and set them on the counter. Marcus glanced up at the array of items without pausing his fingers and groaned, “Stew again?”
His unhappy tone was ignored as Owl set down the potatoes along with the onions, celery, carrots and packaged cuts of beef. “Stew or sandwiches.”
Marcus leaned back in his chair and stretched to reach the fridge door, pulling it open and taking a look inside before shutting the door and settling back into his seat, “Damn, all out of jelly. And bread. Stew it is, I guess. We really need to go shopping if we’re going to be staying here much longer.”
Instead of voicing an opinion, Owl tasked himself with rinsing and peeling potatoes. He finished quickly enough and began chopping everything into small pieces. “Are my guns ready?”
After taking a moment to finish whatever he was typing, Marcus answered, “Not yet. I took a trip down to Sacha’s and he said it would be one more day before they were finished.”
Owl grunted in reply as he turned the stove on and dumped the vegetables and meat into the pot. He turned and leaned against the counter as he waited for them to start cooking, crossing his arms over his chest as he thought things over. The guns were supposed to be ready by now. Sacha was one of the rare humans who knew about the supernaturals around him, and he specialized in making the kind of weaponry needed to take them out.
Owl had left his guns to be refitted with larger barrels for his newest bullets, which contained small pockets of water--blessed water specifically. The bullets were rather large and Owl had to commission work from Sacha in order to make his own guns compatible.
Marcus was looking at him with that scrutinizing stare he had, dark green eyes searching his face. “What happened last night, Owl?”
Owl frowned as he replayed the previous night in his head, “It found Hauffner. Nearly got through the door by the time I scared it off. Had to fix the damage before I left.”
“Are you sure no one’s going to remember?” Marcus asked with a sigh, rubbing his temples
Owl gave one short nod, pulling a can opener from the drawer next to him and quickly unsealing two cans of chicken stock, dumping them unceremoniously over the now sizzling vegetables and meat. “It was leaking power all over the place. No one will remember.”
“Are you sure he’s going to be safe without anyone watching him?”
Owl nodded again. “It won’t be able to come out during the day. He will be fine.”
With a large wooden spoon, he stirred the pot once, twice, and set the spoon down on the counter. According to the time on the microwave clock; just a little bit past noon, and Owl suddenly felt tired, realizing that he’d been awake and on high alert for the past two days.
He looked down at the guns lying on the table for a moment before deciding that they could wait a few more hours to be cleaned and set them back into their holsters. He stepped past Marcus, speaking over his shoulder as he headed to his bedroom, “Make sure you stir that. I’ll be up in a few hours.”
Just as he entered his room, he heard Marcus grumble, “Yeah, yeah.”
Owl removed his holsters and hung them from the hook on the back of his door, then pulled one of the guns from its holster along with the combat knife, sheath and all. He placed the gun inside of the bedside drawer next to a spare clip and slid the knife under his pillow, then toed off his boots and placed them next to the neatly made bed, sheets tucked tight enough that a person could bounce a quarter off of them.
Hanging above the bed was a large dream catcher, the silhouette of a spider scorched into the weaving and beaded feathers dangling from the sides and bottom. He smiled at it a little, grateful for the spirit that kept his dreams safe.
He pulled off his shirt and pants, folding them neatly and setting them next to his boots before slipping into bed in his boxers. He lay on his side, back to the wall and kept one hand under the pillow next to the knife handle as he drifted off to sleep.
………………………………………
Daniel blinked awake, still curled up against the wall in the same position he’d been in all night, and had apparently fallen asleep in without noticing. He could feel the pain that had settled into his lower back, and his butt was completely numb.
He slowly uncurled himself, hissing as his legs woke up. He froze halfway to standing position as he noticed the door. It was fine, perfectly whole and undamaged. Daniel stumbled toward it, unable to believe his eyes. It couldn’t be. He’d seen the door splinter right down the middle. There was no way it could be back to normal.
He yanked the door open and stepped out into the hallway so he could look at his doorway from the outside.
Nothing.
There was no sign of anything having gone wrong; no hint of the attack that had nearly broken his door in half, or of whatever had made those scraping sounds. Was he going insane?
Daniel took a closer look at the door and wall. It was a little too perfect, the paint wasn’t chipped or peeling at the edges, and even the old cracks and water damage were gone from around his doorway.
He slowly backed up a step as a chilling realization occurred to him. Someone was trying to cover this all up. That was why no one had called the police last night, and that was why his doorway was suddenly nice and new looking.
What did they want, whoever they were? And why did they save him only to go to such pains to make sure that it looked like nothing had happened?
Daniel clenched his hands into fist to keep them from trembling, which didn’t help all that much since his whole body was shaking. The thought of someone being able to change his door and fix his wall while Daniel had been right there was beyond terrifying. He knew he’d been sitting there for hours, had heard the beep of his wrist watch every hour. It didn’t matter that he’d kept his eyes closed, there was no way someone could have done so much work without him noticing. Even after he’d fallen asleep he’d been so keyed up that any little sound would have woken him.
The gunshots and footsteps running past his door, the deafening bang of whatever weapon had taken the vampire-thing’s head. Was it the same person? If so, what the hell kind of monster had they been shooting at in the hallway and why was it after him?
It felt as if the ground had shifted under him, and Daniel felt a pressing sense of anguish settle in his chest as he remembered the sheer hatred he’d felt the night before. Whatever-the-hell-it-was that had been trying to break down his door, it wanted him to die with a single-minded focus that Daniel had never encountered before, and hoped never to experience again. There was only one person-thing really-that Daniel could imagine wanted him dead, even if the idea of something surviving decapitation was beyond believable. He had to admit that he’d be pretty pissed too if he’d had his head blown off.
He might as well just jump off the edge of a building, because there was no way he stood any kind of chance against a creature that could re-grow its own head.
Daniel felt a hysterical giggle building in the back of his throat, quickly pressing his lips together to keep the sound from escaping as one of his neighbors emerged from their doorway. The older woman paused when she saw him and frowned deeply as she pointedly locked her door behind herself.
She glared at him in a way that Daniel was sure he didn’t deserved, as he’d never said more than a polite greeting to her. She tucked her keys into a beat up old purse and pointed at him with a thin finger, “You take your damn parties somewhere else. You and your little friends making racket all night like a bunch of hooligans, be glad I didn’t call the police. Some people actually have jobs to go to in the morning!” With that she turned and stormed off toward the stairwell.
Daniel stood there gaping like an idiot until he pulled himself together enough to step back into his apartment before someone else decided to chew him out.
A party? What about last night had sounded even remotely like a party? Maybe the mysterious, trigger-happy stranger had threatened his neighbors-all ten of the other apartments on this floor. It seemed a little unlikely.
Then again, if his brand new door was any indication, keeping the neighbors quiet must have been laughably easy. Only Daniel didn’t feel much like laughing at the moment; he was closer to losing last night’s dinner actually.
He looked around himself, at the couch now a good foot away from the door and the two little chain locks dangling against the door frame. He didn’t bother locking them; the last night’s encounter had shown him just how ineffective they really were.
The couch creaked in protest as Daniel dropped down onto it, wishing he had somewhere to run to. He missed the days when he could just walk home to his parents, but that was impossible now, and there wasn’t much comfort he could get from two headstones. Moving to Reswin had seemed like such a good idea at the time, far enough away from his home town and all of the memories it held.
Well, it looked like he’d had the lovely luck of choosing the one city where creatures of the night (and the psychopaths who hunted them) apparently ran rampant.
The beeping of his watch startled Daniel and he jumped slightly at the noise. He glanced at his watch and sighed in relief. He needed to get to work. At least there he would be able to distract himself, instead of sitting in his apartment wondering when something else would decide to come after him.
Still a little dazed, he heaved himself from the couch and shuffled into his bedroom to change into his uniform, a sickly green polo with the store’s name stitched over his left pectoral. He stuffed his keys into his pants pocket, looking around for his wallet before remembering that he’d lost it at some point in the past few days. He’d noticed that it was missing yesterday at work, and while it didn’t have any credit cards and nothing more than three or four bucks, it did have his driver’s license and now he had to go get a new one.
He sighed in resignation and tried his best to ignore the little voice in the back of his head that kept pointing out that he would probably be dead before he ever made it down to the DMV. He slipped into his jacket, pulled on his worn-out tennis shoes, and walked out the door.
……………………….
Owl woke in an instant, the sluggishness between sleep and waking having been trained out of him years ago. He listened carefully as he scanned his surroundings.
Nothing in the room was amiss, and he could hear the faint sound of Marcus’ typing in the other room. He could also smell the stew that had been cooking, and his stomach growled in response.
Owl lay there for a few moments and stared up at the dream catcher hanging above him. He used a tiny bit of magic, concentrated on it, and after a moment he could see the spider spirit that lived in the object.
A ghostly shadow of a creature about the size of his forearm, she shifted her long legs restlessly as she clung to the webbing of the dream catcher. Her own web was a ghostly overlay on top of the dream catcher’s strings.
Sometimes there would be nightmares caught in her web, squirming little shapeless masses of bad dreams that she would wrap up in her thread and eat like they were the tastiest of flies. She would even leave her web on occasion, as Owl had seen her crawling across the walls and ceilings a few times in the past.
Marcus called her Anansi, after the African myth, and Owl had to admit that the name fit, but he simply called her Spider Spirit. He didn’t want to insult the spirit by calling her the wrong name, especially when she had guarded his dreams so well these past few years. In fact, she was the reason he had discovered his powers.
He had summoned her by accident when he had attempted to create his first dream catcher. He’d been having terrible nightmares after he’d left the military and begun college. Not the normal kind of nightmares, even for someone who’d been in active combat, but the kind only bad spirits could bring.
Dream catchers were not something he’d grown up with; when he’d joined the military and his fellow marines had made the occasional crack about where he kept his dream catcher, he looked up the word and had discovered that it was something that the plains Indians made to capture bad dreams. He’d been half insulted that the men couldn’t tell the difference between Inuits and Native American from the Midwest, and half intrigued by the object itself.
He had begun researching the Native American legends and was glad to find that they were much closer to his own people’s beliefs than the more common Christianity which he didn’t understand at all.
He supposed that if his people’s legends were real, it was possible some of these tribes’ were too. It wasn’t until then, though, that Owl had been given a reason a reason to find out. He collected all of the necessary items along with a few of his own charms from his home village, and he made the dream catcher by hand, then recited a spell he remembered the shaman using years ago.
…………………
He chanted, letting the words form one after another, careful not to forget the changes he’d made to switch the meaning from protecting a hunter in the wild to protecting the dreams of a sleeping person. Protection against the elements carefully reworded for protection against bad dreams.
He didn’t expect for it to hold any real power, nothing to hold truly terrible dreams at bay, but it might help make his sleep a bit more restful. Just hearing the traditional words was a comfort. He knew that only shamans could put real power into the words and call spirits into objects, but he refused to do the ritual half heartedly.
Shamans were the only ones who could speak freely with them, but the spirits did listen to all of their people. They would hear him when he needed their help, he just didn’t expect any kind of recognizable answer. Whether or not they decided to lend their power to him was up to the spirits. If they didn’t, then he would simply have to find a way to solve his problems on his own.
As he chanted, every ounce of his focus on the spell, he felt a rising rush of power flow through him. Magic ignited in his veins and put true weight behind his words as they seemed to pour from him without thought. He knew enough not to try and stop the ritual before it was completed, so he made himself finish before he opened his eyes.
What he saw had him stunned; the dream catcher was glowing in his hands and there was a giant spider, the size of a cat, glowing just as brightly a few feet in front of him. It crawled closer and Owl didn’t move a muscle as it proceeded to make its way up his crossed legs and over his lap to lift itself onto the dream catcher. There was no weight to the spirit, no physical feeling as it crawled over him, but everywhere it touched him, Owl felt a tingle of pure magic.
The spider settled onto the webbing, seeming to flatten and sink into it as tendrils of smoke rose from the threads before the glow disappeared. Owl was left holding his dream catcher, which now had a large image of a spider scorched onto it. The glow was gone, but Owl could still feel the power humming through the dream catcher as it practically pulsed in his hands. Odder still, the magic he felt in his body hadn’t left, and he could feel it like the echo of drums in his ribcage, pounding in time to his heartbeat.
…………………
That had been five years ago, and from that day on, he’d never had a bad dream apart from his flashbacks. His bedroom had soon become the most calming room on the whole campus and had been his only haven, especially when his new powers had revealed that the world was a much darker place than he’d ever imagined.
Owl pulled himself out of his reverie and back into the present. His stomach was rumbling in earnest now, and judging by the weak light coming in through the window, it was getting close to sunset.
He stepped out of the bed and rolled his shoulders to loosen the tense muscles before pulling his pants on. He considered putting his shirt on as well, but decided against it since he was just going to the bathroom where he was just going to throw it into the hamper anyway. The only reason he’d pulled his pants back on was to avoid hearing Marcus complain about him walking around in his underwear again.
He walked over to his closet, which was open to view since he had removed the doors so that he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone or anything hiding behind them.
He pulled a shirt from the small selection of similar dark shades of grey, green, brown and black. All of them were plain, save for two: one was a faded grey shirt with the Marine Corps insignia across the back and the other had been a gift from Marcus. It was black with white letters across the front reading, If at first you don’t succeed, call in an airstrike.
It was a joke between them, quoted from Murphy’s Laws of Combat Operations. They had the list memorized and it was one of the few tings Marcus could reference that Owl actually understood. He grabbed a plain dark green shirt along with a pair of black cargo pants and fresh underwear from the low shelf beneath the hanging shirts and spare jackets.
He set the clothes on the bedside table and remade his bed, removing his knife from under the pillow as he did. He gathered up his gun, knife and clean clothes, and headed to the bathroom.
The shower was short and perfunctory and Owl was dressed, weapons secured on his person once more, in under ten minutes. After a quick detour to grab his boots and the holster with his other gun, Owl moved to the kitchen.
Marcus was still sitting in the same place nursing a mug of coffee, but his laptop was now closed, and a dirty bowl and spoon in the sink. Owl got himself a bowl and served himself a large portion of the stew. It was still warm as Owl sat down in the only other chair, right across from Marcus, and ate.
Between bites, Owl pulled out his guns and a small square of cloth and began to take the pistols apart for a thorough cleaning, careful not to get any food on them.
Marcus watched Owl, apparently bored now that he didn’t have his work to occupy him. “So, what are you going to do without your new guns? Those pistols won’t do anything but piss it off more.”
Owl kept cleaning. “I have my knife.”
“That’s hardly reassuring.”
Owl grunted.
Sighing, Marcus tried to make Owl see reason. “It’s a blood-crazed new vamp. You know how dangerous it would be to get anywhere close to it.”
Owl did know, not that the knowledge kept him from doing it anyway. Besides, he had some makeshift flash grenades in his glove compartment. he picked up one of the small metal pieces and eyed it for a moment, spying some bits of grime before wiping it with the cloth. “We need to keep Hauffner safe.”
Marcus merely sighed again, giving in to the inevitable, and Owl went back to his cleaning. He reassembled the guns, holstered them, finished his stew and stood to place his dirty bowl in the sink.
“Owl…”
Owl turned to look at Marcus, waiting for his friend to find the words he was apparently looking for. He resisted the urge to simply walk out and wait for Marcus to call him when the other man figured out what he wanted to say, but he didn’t feel like sitting through another one of Marcus’ lectures. He’d already heard, far too many times, the one on basic manners and why he wasn’t supposed to just leave a conversation that wasn’t finished.
After a moment, Marcus looked up at him. “I know you don’t need the advice, but just be careful, okay? I hate that I can’t be out there watching your back.”
Owl was always careful, and Marcus knew that, but it didn’t stop him from worrying. Owl had a tendency to throw himself headfirst into dangerous situations and Marcus hated that he wouldn’t be there to have his back. Since he hadn’t gotten the same training as Owl, it was too much of a risk for him to go along.
Pulling his jacket from the back of the chair, Owl swung it over his shoulders before checking the pockets. Spare clips, extra cash, bag of seeds, cell phone, small pot of paint-everything was in place.
“You get the dishes tonight.” It was their agreement; dish duty was the responsibility of the person who didn’t make the dinner.
“Yeah, I know. You get to go and be Mr. Mission Impossible while I get to be the trophy wife. Yay dishes.”
Owl ignored the sarcasm with ease of long practice, Marcus often said strange things. He patted Marcus’ shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting way before he turned and left the apartment, locking the door behind himself, then set off to find Hauffner.
……………………………….
Daniel arrived at work, tired, sore and on edge. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen, but no matter how many times he looked over his shoulder or scanned the windows for anyone suspicious, he never saw anything out of place.
He was starting to think his sixth sense had simply gone haywire from being so overloaded the night before. He tried to stay calm, telling himself that the monsters in the night wouldn’t try anything in the middle of the sunny afternoon, or even in the middle of the brightly lit store, but the feeling persisted. In fact, it was almost as if it were getting stronger, an ominous cloud of emotion that pressed against Daniel’s senses until he almost couldn’t think straight.
His shift had started as usual: both he and Shelly, the other night shift worker had taken turns at the register every few hours while the other did clean-up, stocking and coffee maintenance. Jimmy, the manager, was even there, crunching numbers in his tiny office.
It wasn’t until a few hours into the shift that Daniel noticed anything strange. It might have been sooner had he not been so busy trying to ignore his building migraine and doing his best not to break out into cold sweat. He had started to switch out the cash drawers so he could start working the register and his hands had been shaking, making him fumble as he tried to unlock the drawer with his tiny key. Shelly snorted in derision before she snatched the key from him and pushed him aside and unlocked the drawer herself. Daniel had blinked at her in surprise, unused to such actions form the usually bubbly woman.
As the evening wore on, Shelly’s mood just seemed to get darker and darker, although Daniel had no idea why she was so upset. He thought it might be something in her personal life, but that didn’t explain why she kept shooting him dirty looks and snapping at him for every little mistake.
And there were a lot of little mistakes; he miscounted change, dropped items he was trying to scan, accidentally rang the same items twice, all because of the oppressive dark feeling that was driving Daniel to distraction. It reminded him far too much of the hatred he’d felt through his apartment door, although this was more of a slowly building loathing than that crushing wrath.
Two thirds of the way through his shift, Daniel had been reprimanded twice by his manager for things he couldn’t even remember doing. Of course, Daniel didn’t imagine that his memory of specific events was all too reliable by this point; he was hiving a hard enough time trying not to look as nauseated as he felt.
Daniel was starting a new pot of coffee, standing next to the slushie machine and in full view of the register where Shelly could fix him with her now-murderous gaze, when things went really bad. He swayed slightly on his feet as he mechanically went through the motions of scooping fresh coffee grounds and wondered if his brain would drip from his nose once it finished melting inside of his head. He winced as a particularly strong wave of feeling hit him and the coffee pot slipped from his hand, shattering in an explosion of glass as it hit the tiled floor.
Luckily, there were no customers at the moment to witness Shelly screaming at him, actually stomping over from her post at the register to shove him in the chest. “What the hell are you doing, you useless idiot!? Now we have to clean up this whole fucking mess!”
Daniel took a step back, glass crunching under his shoe as her screaming brought back his focus enough to see the crazed glint in her glazed eyes. Her movements were jerky and unnatural looking, but before he could think any more about it, the manager’s door slammed open and Jimmy stormed out, demanding that Shelly shut up and glancing down at the remains of the broken coffee pot.
He actually snarled, lunging forward to grab the front of Daniel’s shirt in a fist and shaking him once roughly, “That. Is. It. I’m done with you! Get out, and don’t bother coming back!” The last part was said in a tone that made it more of a threat than anything else, and Daniel felt the fear coiling in his stomach as he saw that the man’s eyes had that same glazed look as Shelly’s had.
He stumbled back as Jimmy released him roughly, displaying a surprising amount of strength for someone who Daniel knew had trouble lifting anything heavier than a gallon of milk.
Daniel saw nothing of the friendly people he’d been working with in the faces of these hateful strangers standing in front of him. He swallowed hard, turned and quickly left the store.
He’d only gotten a few yards form the store, just beyond its bright glow when he heard the heavy thump of something slamming in a nearby alley. He spun around toward the noise, heart pounding and still disoriented by that same awful feeling.
There was a figure standing just at the mouth of the alley and its hatred hit him like a physical blow. He felt the scream rising in his throat--this was what had been outside of his door, there was no mistaking that overwhelming rage, that need for Daniel to die.
He never got the chance to make a sound though, as the figure seemed to vanish briefly: one moment it was in the alley, and the next it was lifting Daniel into the air by his throat. All of his effort trying to pull away had no effect on the hand wrapped around his neck and he stared down, wild-eyed, into his attacker’s burning gaze.
It was a woman, at least she had been at some point, though now her features were monstrous: she had sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, ghastly pale skin and hair hanging in dirty strands around the snarling face. Thin lips were pulled back to give Daniel a complete view of the long, sharp teeth as the monster’s jaws opened wide.
…………………………………
Owl stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening at the sight before him. He had known where Hauffner worked, having followed him to the liquor store the previous day. He’d planned on simply staking out the place and waiting for the man to finish his shift, but something had made it here first. He’d activated his Sight, a basic spell that every mage learned in their first lessons with magic. When activated, Owl was able to see the magical aura that all supernaturals had, unless the said supernatural knew how to counter the spell by masking their aura.
Only, as soon as he’d cast the spell, the whole block he’d been heading towards was blanketed in magic like a fine mist. As Owl moved closer, he could feel an evil taint to the magic, which probably meant that the creature he was hunting had tracked Hauffner’s scent and was hiding out. It would explain the concentration of magic in the area; if the creature had been sitting somewhere seething for the whole day, it could have been sending out waves of uncontrolled magic without even realizing it. He pulled out one of his pistols and headed into he mist.
The magic pressed at his mind, trying to mold his own emotions to match the creatures. It took a bit of effort, but he managed to block out the impulses and continued on. The sound of people yelling and fighting was audible from the buildings around him, where the mist seemed to be at its thickest. It wasn’t going to be easy to track the creature in this; he would have to check out every dense spot in the area until he found it. He clicked the safety off his gun and started searching.
Minutes later, Owl managed to pinpoint the vampire’s location to the alley. Its anger-tainted magic had affected every mind it touched (except his own), and Owl had witnessed quite a few heated arguments during his search.
He turned the corner just in time to see the vampire rush at its target, grab his neck and hoist him into the air effortlessly. Owl couldn’t shoot from this angle; it would run the risk of hitting them both. Instead, he rushed forward, switched his gun to his left hand and yanked his knife out of its sheath without a second’s pause. The knife pulsed with power, sensing the vampire’s malevolent magic in the air. Owl closed the last bit of distance between himself and the crazed monster and plunged the knife into its back as it opened its mouth wide to take the first bite of its victim.
The creature arched back and shrieked in pain, dropping the young man from its grip. Owl yanked the knife out and the wound sizzled and turned black before the vampire spun around to swipe at him. He ducked away from the claws and began to fight back in earnest.
………………………………
The creature screamed and dropped Daniel. He hit the ground and gasped for breath as he scrambled to put some distance between himself and the thing that was trying to kill him. Looking up, he expected the monster to strike him down, only to see that it was too busy fighting someone else.
Daniel hadn’t noticed the stranger show up; his eyes had been squeezed shut, and he hadn’t been able to hear very much over the rushing noise in his head. He’d also been a little distracted by the crushing grip keeping him from breathing.
He stared in horrified amazement as the stranger dodged a flurry of strikes, too fast for Daniel to keep track of them all, with a startling amount of ease. He couldn’t see anything clearly anymore, so the stranger’s features were lost to shadow; all he could tell was that it was a man. Hopefully he was a good guy, and not another monster, because Daniel wasn’t sure how much more he could take of all this.
The creature was snarling and striking out desperately, but the man moved easily, ducking and weaving before darting in to slash out with a knife. Each time he hit, the creature would shriek in pain and fall back slightly. A few more rounds of this and the man had managed to place himself between the creature and Daniel.
A wave of calm rolled over Daniel’s senses, pushing back the black cloud just enough so that he could comprehend the words being yelled at him.
“Close your eyes!”
The man’s back was to Daniel, but the command was clearly meant for him. He squeezed his eyes shut and hoped this stranger truly was an ally. There was a popping noise and a flash of light bright enough for his vision to go red through his eyelids. Then his every hair stood on end as the creature let out a blood-curdling shriek, then the metallic crash of something being knocked over, followed by silence.
Daniel kept his eyes shut, both because he didn’t want to see whatever strike might come next and because he felt as if he might lose his lunch if he did.
There was a brief scuff of shoes on pavement before he heard the stranger’s voice, “You can open your eyes now.”
Daniel did so slowly, surprised at the lack of nausea. In fact, his head didn’t feel quite so much like it had imploded anymore, the ache now more of a manageable throb. His vision had cleared as well, and so he was able to take in the man standing in front of him.
Dark eyes stared back at him from under a fringe of black hair. The man looked like the pictures Daniel had seen of Inuit people: tanned skin, although it was impossible to tell the exact shade in the dark, and a slightly rounded face. Two dangling feathers were braided into his shoulder-length hair just behind the man’s left ear.
But the most startling feature, apart from those intense eyes, was the burn scar. It started just below his right eye and widened out over his jaw before it trailed down the side of his neck and under the collar of his thick camouflage jacket.
The man was no longer holding his knife and Daniel thought he saw a sheath of some kind at the man’s hip where his jacket had slid up a bit and-oh god, was that a gun? He snapped his eyes back up to the man’s and hoped he didn’t look as close to pissing his pants as he felt.
The man simply stared back with those unnerving eyes, and Daniel felt uncomfortable as he realized how long he’d been staring at the guy. He managed to open his mouth and speak, proud that he kept from whimpering even if the words were raspy and hesitant.
“Who are you?”
For a long moment the man stared at him, as if waiting for something, before he spoke. “What do you remember?”
Daniel knew his face had to look strange with an expression stuck somewhere between huh? and are you effing kidding me?
Then it dawned on him-the gunshots in the night, all these creatures being hunted, his neighbor’s strange behavior. This man had to belong to some secret organization, and they wanted him to stay quiet, or else. He thought about the gun and the knife the other man carried on his person. The or else was pretty damn clear.
“Nothing! I remember nothing! I promise to forget all about the crazy vampire lady who tried to eat me. Please just don’t kill me.”
Now the man looked slightly confused; his face didn’t change much but his brow furrowed just so. Daniel wondered if his theory was correct. The man didn’t look like the secret agents Daniel saw on television, but then he wouldn’t be a very good secret agent if he did, now would he? Or maybe he was a mercenary, killing off crazy monsters in the night like a real-life Buffy. Thinking about the gun again, he decided not to share that last idea.
The man’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. “What do you remember from two nights ago?”
Daniel swallowed again as he recalled the sight of that first monster’s head reduced to a spray of gore. “I told you, I’ll forget everything! I won’t say a thing to anyone, I swear.” And then, “Oh god, it was you, wasn’t it? You killed that thing in the alley.”
Now the man was looking shocked, his eyes slightly wide. “You remember.”
He said it as if he thought it would be an easy thing to forget, as if watching someone get murdered by a fanged creature of the night was a mundane occurrence.
Daniel closed his eyes, wishing he would wake up and find out this was all a bad dream. “What do you want from me?”
A warm hand settled on his shoulder, close to the curve of his neck and Daniel jumped, eyes snapping open once more. The man’s expression was all business and his voice was low and serious when he spoke. “You have to come with me.”
Oh, no. Daniel wasn’t going to fall for that. He knew that come with me translated into let’s go somewhere that no one can hear you scream.
“Uh, n-no thanks. I’m good right here.”
“You must come with me. You will die otherwise.”
Daniel tried to move away, but the hand on his shoulder held him fast. He was babbling by now, pleading for the stranger to let him go, he wouldn’t tell a soul, he just wanted things to be normal again. The man seemed to ignore his words, simply waited for Daniel to pause for breath and spoke.
“You have to trust me.”
“I don’t even know your name! Who are you?!”
“Owl.”
Daniel actually paused at that, wondering what birds had to do with anything. “Huh?”
“You asked for my name.”
“You can’t be serious.”
The man’s-Owl’s-eyes narrowed and Daniel had the overwhelming urge to hide behind something. He dragged a bit of courage from somewhere deep down, probably locked tight in a trunk labeled ‘self preservation’ and hoped the tremor in his voice wasn’t too obvious, “I’m not going with you.”
The man who claimed his name was Owl looked right back into Daniel’s eyes, “Yes, you are.”
Before Daniel could even think of reacting, the hand on his shoulder pinched hard on a nerve and Daniel blacked out.
…………………………………
Owl looked down at the slumped figure sprawled on the gravel. He had caught the young man around the shoulders so that he didn’t hit his head, then he slipped his other arm under Hauffner’s knees and lifted him into his arms.
It was a bit awkward, the body he was carrying would be taller than his own if Hauffner had been standing, but Owl ignored the discomfort and trudged back the way he’d arrived. The vampire’s magic would dissipate on its own in an hour or so, now that the source was gone. Then the people here would return to normal, albeit with their memories changed.
He made it the few blocks to his car, parked on a small side street, and paused just short of touching it. He held Hauffner’s limp body up with one arm while he lifted his other hand to hover just above the surface of the car’s rusty metal frame.
Magic radiated softly from his hand and he could feel it spreading over the car’s surface before sinking in and feeling over all of the parts inside. He mapped out every inch of the vehicle, searching for anything out of place that might have been tucked in with the rest of the parts he had long since memorized. Only when he found nothing amiss did he let his hand touch the car.
He ended the spell after using a tiny bit of magic to pop the locks and he propped Hauffner’s unconscious form against the side of the car. He opened the rear door and maneuvered the unconscious man onto the backseat, then wrestled with a seatbelt to keep him from falling off. He shut the door, walked around the car to the driver’s side, let himself in and buckled his seatbelt.
He took one last look around the car. It was much nicer on the inside than its outer rust-bucket appearance would imply; this was an illusion Owl had created to keep possible thieves from being tempted.
The engine purred under the hood of the car as Owl turned the key. After a quick double-check to make sure his passenger was secure, he drove off into the night.
.....................
Chapter 3
For sketches of these characters, check out this post