Beneath the coffin lid, Hazard's eyes snapped open. The sun was dropping, and the night was fast approaching. Night time. His time.
He pushed the coffin open and stood up, stretching languidly. He resisted the temptation to yawn in a purely mortal fashion. That would be unseemly for a Vampire of his age and stature. Yet the events of the prior evening -- the time spent with Rachel Van Horn especially -- made him feel almost mortal again. Almost as if he could see the sun without fear again; the real sun, not the conjurings of television or film, but the shining orb that was the source of all life on Earth. And thus the bane of all un-life.
Hazard pushed those thoughts away. Brooding was not in his nature. He stepped out of the coffin and began divesting himself of his garments. He needed a shower. There was dried blood on his hands and neck, and he felt grimy and dirty. As he washed, he reviewed the events of the last evening.
He had talked to Rachel, telling her some of the things only a supernatural being was privy to. He explained about Immortals, which she seemed to have some knowledge of already, Vampires, and Lycanthropes. He told her about the Angel Gabrial, and the Kherubim's enigmatic remark about trouble for all the nine races. And then he explained that Rachel's vision -- that which she took for a particularly uncomfortable recurring dream -- could point to the source of that trouble.
Hazard closed his eyes, letting the water sluice over his alabaster body. <It couldn't be the End coming,> he thought. <Not yet. I'm only 700 years old. The world can't end now.> But if it was the End, if the dark prophecy Perseus had told him about was coming to fruition, than there were ways to stop it.
Perseus' plan called for some kind of mass release of Quickening, at least as far as Hazard understood it. Hazard wasn't sure how the Spartan expected to do that, or how it could magically bring the end of the world to a grinding halt. But if there was one person Hazard trusted, it was Perseus. If the Greek said it would work, than it would work. End of story.
Hazard stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. Rachel Van Horn had not been prepared for everything Hazard could have told her.
She found the little he did share to be difficult to believe. But she seemed to trust him, and she wanted to believe him; she already seemed to believe in him, which was as foreign an experience as Hazard could fathom. Who trusted a Vampire instinctively? No one. Even Perseus had remained a careful distance from Hazard, before the Immortal had come to know him.
And Kurt still had reservations about trusting a Vampire. A legacy of hunting the creatures all over the world for centuries, no doubt.
Yet Rachel, by all appearances, trusted him implicitly, without reservation. It was a new experience for Hazard. And after seven centuries of un-life, new experiences were hard to come by. He supposed that was what made him feel young. The newness of the relationship.
He grinned to himself as he pulled on his Calvin and Hobbes t-shirt. <Still a romantic, aren't you Jansip. After all these years...> he admonished himself silently.
Well, he would get a chance to see her again tonight. But first things first: stop by Perseus' house and see to the dogs. Then put some feelers out for that Wraith, Alec Scott.
The Lotus screeched to a halt on the wet driveway outside Perseus' home. Hazard jumped out, and was disconcerted to see a massive Harley hog parked on the lawn near the front porch. No one he knew owned such a vehicle, but Perseus didn't appreciate it when Hazard fed on his property.
Hazard shrugged. It wasn't like he could avoid it or anything.
Three quick bounds took him up the stairs and through the front door, hanging ajar with the lock forced. Vampiric ears made out the sounds of a struggle somewhere in the house. The dogs had already found the intruder.
Hazard moved quickly through the house, and found Perseus' pack in the sparsely furnished living room. The dogs were leaping on top of a hunched human form in the middle of the room, almost knocking over the coffee table in the process. It took a moment for Hazard to realize the dogs were not barking aggressively, but yipping with excitement.
Another moment, and he recognized the man on the floor.
Long red hair, black leather jacket, and a trademark scar over the left eye. It could only be Bran Mac Lyr.
"Bran," Hazard said, surprised. "What the hell are you doing here?"
The big Irish Immortal pushed Nuadh off his chest and sat up. His face split into a wide grin. "Michael! Good to see you. Where's Percy?"
"Germany, last I heard. But why are you here?"
Bran picked himself up, brushing hounds away with broad, callused hands. "I came for Mardi Gras, of course," Bran grinned. "Haven't been to Carnival in six years. Felt it was time to see it again." The grin slipped a bit. "Besides, I've been having some peculiar dreams of late."
Hazard nodded, suspecting he knew what dreams Bran was talking about. "Funny you should mention that."
"You too?" Bran asked.
The Vampire shook his head. "A mortal psychic. And I'm afraid her dreams may be tied to the End."
Bran pushed a border collie off of his leg. "That was the conclusion I came to as well." The giant Celt looked as nervous as Hazard had ever seen him. The thought of Bran Mac Lyr feeling anxiety was enough to cause the same emotion to blossom in the Vampire's stomach.
He traced the needle tracks in his arm with the muzzle of the automatic. He remembered the frenzied nights of creation, when the paint flew fast and furious, and his pulse pounded with the heady feelings of godhood and the heroin coursing through his bloodstream.
And then the mornings after, when he would slash the paintings in anger and disappointment, cursing his weakness even as he craved another injection of liquid paradise.
Yet now, dead, he had no cravings. No need for drugs, or food, or sleep. No, that wasn't true. He had one desperate need to be fulfilled.
Revenge. He needed to pay his killers for their services.
The spider laid a soft limb against his wrist, a delicate admonishment for his morbid thoughts. He smiled grimly. How else can one describe the thoughts of a dead man? Optimistic? Cynical? Happy?
No. Morbid would do.
Alec set the .45 down on the table next to the spider, and picked up the second one. He pulled the empty clip out, and opening a box of bullets, proceeded to load the weapon. When he was finished, he raised both pistols and pointed them across the room, towards a mural he painted over three years ago.
He sat there a moment, feeling the weight of the guns, aiming into the darkness. "I should probably think of something clever to say," he told the spider. "But nothing comes to mind."
The line into the Silver Key was long, but they parted like the Red Sea when the pale, blond haired man in the leather jacket arrived. He pushed his way through the crowd, his eyes hidden behind mirrored shades, anger radiating off of him in waves. Women packed into designer dresses, with hair piled high on their heads, and men with stylish ponytails and gothic clothing stepped aside to let the stranger through.
The bouncer at the door spluttered and attempted to block the thin man, but he was pushed aside with a mild push. The Wraith stepped inside, out of the rain. The music hit him like a sledgehammer, pulsing, throbbing techno that caused his chest to shudder with the beat. The night club was sleek and modern with more plastic and neon than the Jamaican would ever allow in his establishment. It was a trendy place, one designed for the thirtysomething crowd that taped X-Files on Friday nights when they stepped out to party, the kind of people who listened to Trent Reznor, but had never heard of Joy Division.
The kind of place Alec Scott would normally not be caught dead in. Yet here he was, in his second appearance this week, searching for for a familiar face.
He threaded his way through the crowd, beads of rain steaming off of his glasses as the heat of a hundred sweating, heaving bodies washed over him. He instinctively looked for the band, but found instead only a half-assed DJ.
What had drawn him into this place the first time? He cast his mind back, trying to remember what desperate straits had forced him upon this journey. Was it the heroin? Had he been jacked when he found the club the first time?
A hand clamped down on his shoulder, spinning him around. A big man wearing tight clothes, a silver necklace and far too much gel in his hair snarled at him. "Outside, freak."
Another bouncer. Alec smiled thinly. He grabbed the hand attached to his jacket and ripped it free, applying enough pressure to shatter fingers. The bouncer screamed and his pretty-boy features crumpled as he stepped away from Alec. Alec lashed out with a fist, smashing the bouncer's nose and sending him sprawling into the couple behind. Chaos ensued, and Alec turned away, continuing his trek to the bar.
He pushed people out of his way, ignoring curses and dirty looks.
These people were soft and disgusting. They didn't smoke cigarettes, they drank wine coolers and latte. They worked out and watched Seinfeld and liked Schumacher films and Friends. They looked down on people who ate red meat and championed causes of the week. They advocated censorship on the "internet" because they were shitty parents. They didn't understand art or pain or the terrible soul wrenching agony of addiction.
Alec had always had strong emotions, had always needed to fight to keep them in check. He was temperamental and reactionary and filled with an abiding self-loathing that transferred over into a genuine dislike for people. And now he was dead, and those emotions were bubbling up to the surface of his consciousness, sometimes without the locks and failsafes he had long ago attached to them in a futile effort to fit in. And more than that, he was dangerous now. Armed, and without any fear of reprisal whatsoever. What did dead men fear?
Nothing.
He tried not to think about his disgust or the pistols secreted in his coat. He tried to quell the irrational anger that threatened to take him over and make him do terrible things. He needed to focus his hate, not on these pathetic people imitating teenagers on the Grind, but on the creatures who had engineered his doom.
He stepped up to the bar, shouldering aside a man who looked a little too much like Travolta for his own good. The man grunted at Alec, and seemed about to say something, but decided against it. A smart move, in Alec's opinion.
Oh, he was in a black mood that evening. Anger and hate and anguish were playing symphonies on his nerve endings, daring him to explode, goading him to unleash his nihilism on the crowd of dancers.
He ordered a beer, and slid the bartender a ten. The bastard demanded more. Alec stared at him a moment in incomprehension, and then produced a few more bills. Satisfied, the man moved on. Alec took a sip of the brew, and grimaced in distaste. Overpriced and watered down.
He set the beer down on the counter and looked around, seeking some sign of the woman he met here once before. He noticed, almost peripherally, that people were edging away from him. They could feel the negative energy he exuded. Somehow, they could tell he wasn't one of them. Not "them" as in hip trendsetters. "Them" as in the living.
And then the crowd parted, and the pretty boy appeared with shattered face, flanked by two more steroid popping poseurs.
Alec thought about the guns, and took a swig of the horrible beer. As the pretty boy snarled something at him, stepping forward, Alec caught sight of long blonde hair and robin's egg eyes and a red, red dress. She was here. The bitch was here.
Alec set down the beer.
The pretty boy took a swing at him. He ducked, moving more swiftly than a mortal could, and rabbit punched him in the solar plexus. Pretty boy dropped as if he had been poleaxed. The other two advanced more warily, as a space opened up around the combatants. Alec lost sight of the woman for a moment as the man on his right tried some jujitsu trick, and smashed Alec in the face with his foot.
As his nose crunched and blood began to flow across his face, Alec grabbed the man's ankle, and swung his own foot in a beeline for the bouncer's crotch. Another body collapsed to the floor, moaning in pain.
The third man tried to tackle Alec, but the Wraith pirouetted out of harm's way, bringing his hand down across the back of the man's neck. The man fell to the floor, joining his colleagues for a moment.
He scrambled to his feet as Alec disappeared into the crowd and noise. Searching for her.
He shoved people out of his way, heedless of their cries of anger and indignation. He heard the music squeal to a grinding halt, and the bouncers calling for his capture. But he ignored those as well, focusing on the red dress of the woman.
When the music stopped, she and her dancing companion slowly stopped spinning around on the dance floor. In confusion, she looked around, searching for the cause of the silence. Alec grinned like a wolf when her too-blue eyes fell on him, and sudden recognition lit her features.
She remembered him. Alec's smile broadened. This was just too good. She turned to run, trying to thread her way through the milling crowd and escape him, but he had her scent. His senses were locked on her. He knocked people down, vaulted over their prone bodies, ricocheted off broad backs, smashed through dazed couples.
She was faster than him, able to slip through openings that he had to crash through. And men didn't try to hinder her escape, didn't place themselves between her and freedom. Some tried to stand up to Alec though, either out of some lame sense of machismo or simple dislike of someone who knew what he wanted and wasn't afraid to take it. But none of them were able to block Alec for long. He was a wolf hunting a fawn, and no rabbits were going to stop him.
She made it to the stairs and bounded up them two at a time. Beyond, the front door beckoned.
Alec was right behind her. If he reached out he could have grabbed her. But he didn't. Not here, not in so public a place. He just needed her in sight for now. She looked back, saw him bearing down on her, and almost screamed. She stumbled, and went down on her knees.
She struggled to get up, and he took the opportunity to grab her. With one hand on her elbow and the other on her waist he pulled her up.
He was about to tell her something about keeping quiet and living, when he felt the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against his temple.
He looked out of the corner of his eye, and saw a massive ape of a man. Shoulders as wide as he was tall, with a face cracked and lined by years of hate and evil. Hair shaven down close to the skull, revealing cancerous lumps and spots. His eyes were blue and icy, shards of ice in a sunburned face. He was a man who fit in with the nightclub crowd as much as Alec did; how had the Wraith missed him?
The woman peeled out of Alec's loose embrace, shooting him a dire glare. "I don't know how you survived," she hissed at him, "but Manute here will rectify that mistake."
He heard the loud crack of a gun, felt a crushing weight press against the side of his head, and then his skull and brain were splintering, spraying out of his head and into the air. He heard women scream somewhere, and idly wondered how he could hear anything with a gaping hole in his head.
He should have fallen to the ground immediately, dead where he stood. But he was dead, and he stood. With blurred vision, he saw Manute back away slowly as the woman ran, the fear back in her eyes. Even as the blood flowed down his neck, the wound closed.
Around him, the night club exploded in absolute panic. Men and women alike were struck dumb by the sheer unexpectedness of the assault, and the impossibility of the result. People stampeded for the door, others headed for the fire exits, Chaos exploded on the dance floor as people, already angered by Alec's breakneck race across the room, channeled some of their anger and fear against each other.
All of this barely registered on Alec. What little attention he could command was spent on following Manute and the fleeing woman.
Manute, put on edge by Alec's refusal to die like an ordinary man, emptied a dozen rounds into Alec's chest.
The Wraith ignored them. Minor wounds compared to the ruin of his head. That was healing very slowly, while the holes in his chest closed up almost immediately. Manute's left eye developed a slight tic, the only evidence of his anxiety. He released the empty clip from his pistol and rammed a second one home.
Alec took the opportunity to wrench one of his own .45s free. The head wound was almost healed now, and he was able to aim with some measure of skill. He pulled the trigger twice.
The first bullet missed, and shattered the top of the doorway instead. The second bullet caught Manute in the throat. The big man was thrown backward as the heavy slug smashed into his larynx. Alec leapt over his body, and exploded onto the street, looking for a sign of a red dress.
Flight 242 of TransAsia airlines landed in the international airport. Among the passengers to disembark were two Immortals.
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