MoonShine

Status
Not open for further replies.
She was leaning her cheek into his palm before she even realized what she was doing. Despite the warm night air that flowed freely into the cabin, she felt cool and the touch of his heated palms against her skin was welcome. She felt a rush of some emotion surge through her along with the usual charge she felt when they came in contact. She also felt her throat tighten and her eyes sting as if tears were coming. But she had not left. She'd sobbed out all her tears in fury, grief and self-recrimination on the bus ride down. She couldn't have any left, certainly none that would threaten to spill at the slightest hint of care and concern. She was beyond that, even if it had never been something Shawn had bothered with, or her grandmother for that matter. Gentle, concerned touch was more capable of undoing her than a slug from her boyfriend. How pathetic. She felt like she should bristle and snap at him for the presumption but never quite got there.

The vision that washed over her was softer, weaker. She wasn't certain if it was because the spirit was losing it's ties or if it was because the man it was listening to was weaker of personality than the first. Certainly the other thwo had made the air all but crackle, so had Mars for that matter, but this one…

It was as if the thought of his name directed the speakers and she heard his name come from the lips of the woman. Estelle perked up, ready for anything that would help her complete her contract. It wasn't anything big, but it painted a picture she felt was needed to be conveyed.

"He's not really part of it." She said softly to him, her eyes unfocused and looking past Mars. "He knows about it, some of it, but not all. He's speaking to a woman, she's telling him to come to you. He won't."

Estelle paused, her brow furrowing as she tried to discern the disturbance in the house that had prickled at the spirit. A ripple in the energy that wasn't from a known source. So distant, her line of sight restricted to what the spirit saw, she was at a loss to identify what she was seeing.

She forced her vision back from across the veil and across the swamp and to the man sitting so damn close to her. She felt her fingers twitch, wanting to lift them to comb through the beard on his chin.

"I don't know how much longer it will send things back." She said. "I don't know how much more these two can say on the matter. They don't seem to know much more. But a visit, some pressure with this one, Jules, might get you something. He's all but shaking."

She hadn't moved back, she hadn't pulled her cheek from his hand and for once, her grandmother remained silent.
 

The roles of the three men had remained unchanged since their time as children. For as long as Mars could remember, Jules had always been a follower. Whenever he or Gabriel came up with a plan, their friend never objected or voiced any concern no matter how dangerous or stupid the logistics were. As adults, there were real world consequences to practices like that, but everything that Estelle was relaying gave him hope that something could be worked out. As far as Mars was concerned, Jules and Gabriel were no longer friends of his, and manipulating the former into playing both sides wasn't going to lose him any sleep at night.

"He should be," Mars said, his tone dark as some of his held-back anger bled through. Had it been anyone else, someone he had zero history with, a young wolf questioning his authority so openly, they would have been dead before the next moon. Friendship, any kind of relations had a way of making a person soft and Mars hated that he'd let himself be so fooled. Leading with compassion and playing favorites had all but started an unnecessary war—it was time to snuff it out at the source.

For all intents and purposes, it seemed as thought the night had come to a close. Mars had some of the information he wanted and the moonshine helped to keep him even in such an uncertain time. A sober part of his mind said that he should leave, pull away from the beautiful woman in front of him and get back to his waiting wife. It was the right thing to do, the honorable thing. "I don't think I need to wait for this thing to get back," he mentioned, a hint of regret in his voice as he took his hand away from Estelle's soft cheek. His position remained, however, just as close and intimate.

It had heard everything that anyone was going to offer, and the spirit knew that his duty had come to an end. Hopping through the shadows, back down the hallway from which it had come, it slid its formless body through the crack in the wall. This blubbering man and his concerned woman might come to know real fear in time, but it was bursting with information for the woman who had done the calling and the energy that rolled off the wolf at her side was intoxicating—so very unlike his friends.

With greed on its mind, the spirit flitted through the night, zipping across slow-trickling rivers full of ribbit-ing frogs and bopping over the heads of a few lazy gators. Its mood was light, easy until it approached the clearing and it skidded to an abrupt stop. The energy was different, touched by something powerful and the spirit found itself cowering once more. The candles that had been lit continued to glow softly at the ends of their wicks but not flickering in the wind. The spirit crouched, sniffing and licking at the air as its spiny fingers dug at the ground. This wasn't the same energy from before, definitely not the girl.

From the inky water, another spirit rose. It was a hulking thing, goat-like in its face, horns and feet, but the middle resembled a man. The transparent skin offered glimpses of blackness within and a horrible smell filled the air before it let out an otherworldly groan. The small spirit backed up, shaken and afraid as it darted toward the house. From the side, the creature opened its wide mouth, teeth gnashing as it tried to swallow the smaller one whole. As soon as it started, however, it disappeared. A plume of black smoke could be seen in its wake.

Somehow, Mars had convinced himself to leave and stood from the bed. His legs felt like jelly beneath him, and just as he was about to say goodnight to Estelle, something shattered a perfectly clean hole in the window. He couldn't see it, but he could hear a spirit pinging around the room, hitting a stray pot or pan in the kitchen and maybe bumping along the floor.

Mars stared, half-drunk brain trying to comprehend what had just happened. ​
 
Estelle shivered at the anger roiling off of Mars into the still, damp heat of the night. Her skin felt sticky and she mourned the loss of his hand on her cheek and yet, wondered at that feeling of loss. She was drunk and drugged and stupidly out of her depths. Perhaps that was why she was clinging to the lifeline of Mars and the simple, human fact of being attracted to someone.

"No," she agreed softly. "You don't need to stay. I'll let you know if I hear anything further on the matter." She lifted her hand to touch her cheek, feeling the chill of the ice still upon her skin, the fading pain of their grandmother's slap not enough to undo the memory of his touch. She was so stupid. And yet she didn't get up, didn't move away even when he lingered.

Like a mosquito buzzing near her ear while she was deeply asleep something caught at the frayed edges of her attention. A distant sound, no, a distant pressure pulled at her. She looked away from the handsome face beside her and cocked her head, trying to catch onto that sound. Distantly she was aware of him standing and moving away. She paid it no mind, the sound rising was so annoying, like a distant siren, an approaching alarm.

"Estelle!" the cry came and slapped her out of her distraction as surely as the hand had slapped her out of her foolish attempt to feed the spirit bits of her soul. Estelle gasped and stood, just as her window was hit with something, punching a hole in the cheap glass. That something began to ping around the room like a BB pellet. She recognized it in an instant, despite the force of its flight, the spirit. She wasn't steady on her feet, her thigh protested the motion and she felt a warm rush of something along her leg as she broke the nascent scab open. She didn't stop but moved towards it, as if it were a small thing she needed to protect despite the fact that the thing had greedily feasted upon her just a short time ago. Instincts and debt called to her in ways she couldn't have clarified or predicted. But when she caught sight of the Thing out in the swamp, she froze in place her mouth a perfect O of horror.

She watched the thing, seeing its outline more than the details of it, but open as she was, felt the waves of energy and seeping blackness rolling off of it. She felt it like tendrils as its energy spread out from it, seeing something, a way in, her.

"What…" she managed, having no words for what it was she saw, even knowing it wasn't something Mars would likely be able to see. But Giga, Giga needed to know what this was, because if she didn't, Estelle was doomed.

"That's…" The stench hit her then, a thick, cloying stench of something rotting and putrid with just enough sweet to make everything worse. Estelle gagged, understanding that the stench was perceived as much by her physical senses as they were her powers. She covered her mouth and tried not to breathe through her nose. Though the stench was so strong she could taste it, it was more bearable than the scent.

Not from this world, her grandmother said as she manifested near the window. Perhaps it was her fear that made her clumsy, but she seemed more substantial than before, her outline solid enough that Estelle idly wondered if Mars could see her too. Whatever or whoever brought that over is working up some serious Karmic debt.

"That isn't even a little comforting." Estelle said softly from behind her hand as she stared at the thing, fear rooting her as surely as her own weakened body. This was considerably more than the simple spirit tracking job she'd signed on for.
 

There was nothing normal or practical about the night, and Mars was unsure of what he had gotten himself into. Suddenly, Eula's advice was in his mind once more, bouncing around the same way something continued to ping off the decrepit walls of the house; never mess with magic. It was true that without Estelle, and without her connection to the spirit world, Mars would never known the truth about Gabriel and Jules before it was too late, but seeing the damage up close made him wonder if that ill-obtained knowledge was worth anything. The physical toll on Estelle was enough to make him regret coming out to the swamp, but something outside made his blood run cold.

It was tough to focus on only one thing. While Mars wanted to be at Estelle's side, keep her from wobbling on unsteady feet and meeting the floor, his attention was also drawn to the window. The spirit energy was still invisible to him, but he could hear the thing moving around, still creeping about as it gained its bearings. What had caused it to flee was much more obvious, even to his untrained and underexposed eyes. The creature was opaque, a shimmering outline of blackness that managed to be darker than the night it was surely born in. Mars squinted his eyes, catching a glimpse of it lurking before the smell began to waft into the house.

The stench was strong, cloying and filling his senses with something akin to death. Estelle seemed to be more sensitive to it, frightened even, which didn't bode well for either of them. He turned away from the window, now able to see another faint outline, an older woman who may have been there the entire time. Subconsciously, he reached for his shoulder, remembering that phantom touch from earlier in the night when he had been more sober. A desperate part of his mind wanted to say that all of this was moonshine, that he was just drunk off his ass and having a bad time, but everything felt so real.

"What is that?" Mars asked, jaw set as he looked away from the old woman and back to Estelle. He may not have been the same kind of magic, but the werewolf curse had its perks. There were enhanced senses, a natural enhanced strength and if there was one thing that Mars had faith in, it the ability to hold his own in a fight.

The spirit recognized the more powerful witch in the room and although she was no longer human, gravitated toward his old friend. He hopped from the bed and onto the windowsill, giving a shake as the goat-like entity continued to linger. "Attack," it hissed, looking only to Giga despite the younger girl's payment. "Someone," it paused, verbal skills lacking from behind rows of sharp teeth, "new." The spirit shrank back, intimidated by the harsh energy that was darkening the world outside the window. "Fix?"

All around him, the room pulsed with a new energy and Mars caught the faintest of sounds to his right. He looked toward the window, seeing the same woman there and even the spirit had become a little more visible. He shook his head, thinking this was too much. "How do we make it go away?" he asked, still putting his faith in Estelle and her abilities, but she looked weak, and trail of blood having blossomed from the cut on her leg. Those bandages had been useless, obviously, and Mars was almost sure that he'd left the kit out by the water. Only a fool would have gone out to get it now.

"You can't let that bleed all over," he warned, gesturing to the wet trail that was beginning to reach the floor.

Outside, the malevolent spirit let out another garbled howl. The noise seemed to shake the house and Mars was sure that he heard a flock of birds flee into the night. He wondered what it wanted, why it was there, but most of all, he wanted to know why it hadn't attempted to come inside.​
 
Estelle barely flicked a glance down to her thigh before flicking her glance back up to the figure outside. She had no answer for his question, at least not one that was helpful or likely to be true. She almost snapped "a spirit" but didn't, because she couldn't be certain it was, indeed, a spirit. It could be a demon, or something from who the fuck knew what. She licked her dry lips and turned to Giga for answers only Giga didn't look any more confident than Estelle felt.

Estelle noted wryly that the spirit was pleading with her grandmother, not her. So much for talent and taking up the mantle. Being upstaged even by the dead, stung no matter that she'd run screaming from this life as fast as she could. Only now, with that thing lurking outside, there was no way she could run again.

It can't get in, Giga said, answering Estelle's question before she even asked it. Though, Estelle noted that her grandmother's voice wasn't as certain as she would have liked.

"I don't know how to make it go away." Estelle told Mars, softly. "Dawn should see it gone, at least temporarily."

By the window Giga nodded, agreeing to Estelle's assessment.

"Then I'll see what kinds of signs it left, figure this out." And if she didn't have any answers as sunset approached, well she had the cash from Mars, it would buy her a bus ticket out of here at the least.

"But it can't get in here." Estelle said, still unable to take her eyes off of the thing. "There are wards and protections on this place. Generation's worth, if they can't keep it out, we are so royally screwed. Nothing I can bring to bear at this point would come even close to touching it."

She flicked a glance at the old clock hanging on the wall by the kitchen table. It was late, only a few more hours to go. They could make it.

"Maybe I'll try to touch it as it is leaving, see if that tells me something about it."

She snapped her head towards her grandmother's intake of breath. Estelle held up her hand to forestall the torrent of protest.

"I need to figure this out, and that's the best way. It will be weaker and the risk is the lowest it is going to get."

She thought back to the hooked spirit, certain the two were tied somehow. Two pieces of bad news on the heels of each other? They had to be. And coming in while she was all twined up with Mars' trouble? She was cynical enough to be certain there were no real coincidences in life.

Moving over towards the kitchen table she pulled up her skirt enough to see the damage to her thigh. It was bleeding again, though not as fast as before which she supposed was something. Fiddling with the knot she tightened the bandage until it hurt, hoping the pressure would speed up the clotting factor. She headed to the nook that served as her kitchen and poured herself a tall glass of water and then one for him. The hand that held the glass shook enough that she didn't risk filling them all the way. It didn't seem wise to be sucking down moonshine when something that menacing was lurking outside in the night. Being sober seemed a wise step. She held the glass out to him.

"Hope you weren't planning on going anywhere."
 
What the fuck had this night turned into?

When Mars had first sough out Estelle and her strange gifts, he hadn't thought that his life would turn upside down through the course of one evening. He had gone from being skeptical of the spirit world and not trusting anything divine to seeing vague outlines of old women and hearing the picking footsteps of some kind of creature. Outside, the otherworldly beast continued to lurk, letting out the occasional growl that seemed to knock both women, past and present, off their game. Mars was worried, but he trusted that it couldn't get in, and that there were consequences for trying to cross whatever invisible barrier was out there.

As a plan began to materialize between Estelle and her grandmother's shadow, Mars was left to ponder his next move. There was a brave part of him that wanted to charge out the door, keys in hand and press his luck in an attempt to drive away. He knew nothing about this spirit, though, and didn't want to risk a premature death when Gabriel and Jules were already attempting to do him in.

"Did they do this?" he asked, speaking of the men as Estelle got herself cleaned up. Offering to help this time was a bit out of the question, and the small shack was starting to feel cramped with the additional presence. All thoughts of getting anywhere with the beautiful witch had currently shifted to the back of his mind. If he was smart, it would stay there forever.

By the window, the small spirit that had originally drank from Estelle glowed a little brighter. Mars squinted, seeing the body fade in and out of sight before it spoke. "Not friends," it hissed, still clinging to woman's spirit.

Many questions swirled around Mars' mind, but now didn't seem like the appropriate time to discuss Jules' misery, or interrogate the spirit about Hassun. He trusted Estelle to keep up her part of the bargain, and that once the creature outside was dealt with, their agreement would be back on track. Turning to glance at the clock on the wall, Mars observed the time with a thin frown. It was only a few hours until dawn, but experience told him that it only took a few minutes for everything to go horribly, terribly wrong. Until the sun rose over the sleepy bayou, however, they were trapped.

Whatever was out there, it had taken some of the last control Mars had. There was anger in him, dangerous and backed by moonshine that he never should have swallowed down. In retrospect, this entire excursion had been a mistake and he couldn't help but think that this night may have gone more smoothly if he had just brought Delphine along. They could have been home by now, sober and formulating a plan of their own. People often said that the road to hell was paved with good intentions—Mars had a new appreciation for the saying.

The next few hours passed slowly and Mars' eyes stayed glued to the window. Every so often, the creature outside would howl and screech toward the sky, rumbling the world around it for a few spare moments. It continued to lurk, staying far enough away from the house, but its eyes continued to hold a menacing glare. Soon, the sun began to rise, ushering in a new day and washing away the sky's blackness. Mars turned back to Estelle, eyebrows raised. "Is it light enough yet?" he asked, wanting to get to the bottom of things. He was tired both physically and emotionally, but the need for answers trumped his body's call for sleep. If this monster had anything to do with him, he wanted to know.

Outside, the creature looked a little less connected and the same purple smoke began to waft from its form.
 
To say she slept would be a mistake, but exhaustion and the physical and psuchi abuse of the evening took its toll. She spent much of the remaining hours until dawn sitting at the battered kitchen table, her head cushioned on her folded arms. Sometimes she watched the thing with half-lidded eyes, sometimes with closed eyes, but she could not bring herself to move.

Irrationally she felt that if she moved, or let it out of her line of sight that it would somehow become untethered and able to get into the cabin and get to them. Because she knew that something in the cabin, one of its occupants was its target. She could feel the waves of violent avarice washing over her like the waves on a beach, each one felt like it would pull her under, as it eroded her mental stability like the surf did the sand beneath her feet. Whatever it was, whatever it was doing, didn't touch her Giga that same way it touched her and she wasn't sure what to make of that. She desperately didn't want it to mean that she was the intended target of the creature, but to want it to be someone else felt so cowardly that she couldn't bear the shame of it.

At long last, tension filled hours passed and the light of false dawn was past them as true dawn changed the murky color of the swamp into something unwholesome. She lifted her head, her light eyes ringed with black circles, when Mars asked if it were light enough. She made a noise of acknowledgement and pinched the bridge of her nose as she rose with a grunt. She was stiff and sore all over, which was just as well since it distracted her from the ache of the cut on her thigh.

Shuffling over to the window like she were the old woman and not a woman in the prime of her youth, she peered out into the dark. She could only see the barest outlines of the thing, which, even as she watched, began to dissolve until they seemed little more like dust motes in the slanted light.

"It's as gone as it will be until it is banished." Her café-au-lait skin was grey with exhaustion and she vowed she'd get a nap in around noon when it would be safe enough to sleep. But for now she needed to get her client out so that she and Giga could make real plans and discuss things in private. The spirit she'd tied to her, still clung to her grandmother, even though both were faint enough that even she had the hardest time making them out, and did so only because she knew where to look.

"You can head out safely now." She said and turned to him. "I'll get you word of anything else I find out and I'll confirm that this thing isn't part of their work. Once I do that, it won't be any real concern of yours and you'll be free to deal with your thing how you see fit."

And likely never darken my doorstep again, she though with the strangest mix of regret and relief.

She shuffled to the door and opened it, tense as if expecting some sort of ruse from the thing, though she did her best not to broadcast that to her client. It wouldn't exactly be confidence inspiring if she flinched when she opened the door. Once it was open she smiled and privately savored her relief that no spectral tendrils of evil slid in to drag her off to some hell or other.

"See you around." She said, which felt like a colossal lie.
 

Exhaustion expressed itself silently, and the bags under Mars' eyes spoke louder than any complaint. There was just enough darkness left for the window to reflect his image, his deep eyes set with shadow and the slightest bit puffy. The extended night had obviously taken its toll, and although his body was screaming out for rest, his mind was alive with question after question. Everything was now centered around the creature that lurked outside, and there was a part of Mars that was already convinced that it had something to do with Gabriel. The other man had already crossed so many lines to tear him down; what were a few more?

As the sun continued to rise, slow and steady, the same way Estelle got up from the kitchen table, Mars was ready to put the last of his energy to good use. Although he was out of his element, confused and green to all things spiritual, he was still ready to jump into action and help get to the bottom of things. It was better to keep collecting information on Gabriel, to form some kind of plan and use it against the other man at a later time and it all started with Estelle. When she turned to him from the window, however, his hopes were instantly dashed.

"You don't want me to stay?" he asked, eyebrows raised high on his forehead as she promised to fill in anything that may have been left out. He shook his head, wanting to disagree, but found himself at a loss for words as a light pressure dropped onto his shoulder. The outline of the smaller spirit was clear, now skittering across the beat up floor and scratching at the door like some kind of dog. Mars frowned as it was opened, and Estelle delivered her parting words.

Somehow, he didn't think that she had any intention of ever crossing paths with him again. It didn't seem fair—to be roped into this situation and then hung up to dry with little more than bits of conversation and a strong hunch. Heavily, Mars walked toward the door, a cool breeze wafting over him as he lingered in the doorway. "You're making a big mistake here," he warned while looking down into those beautiful eyes.

It was hard to say if he was speaking for himself, though and before he could think about it for too long, Mars forced himself to leave. The swamp still managed to look eerie in the rising daylight, but aside from a few wisps of purple smoke, there was no immediate threat. On the other side of the bridge, his car was still parked where he'd left it the night before, and Mars dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans to fish for his keys. Everything was the same, he told himself, senses still very much aware as his shoes creaked against the rotted planks. Soon this would all be over, just another nightmare to ignore and losses to dwell on when everything got quiet.

When his shoes reached dry land once more, Mars didn't bother to look back at Estelle; pride was too important.
 
The door closed behind him and Estelle let herself lean against the wall beside it with a groan. Her thigh throbbed and heart felt painfully heavy and she didn't want to do, what she had to do. The small, squalid cabin suddenly felt far too empty with a quiet that was almost deafening. She stood up, the sound of her tank rubbing along the rough wood of the wall, sticky with years of accumulated cigarette smoke, seemed painfully conspicuous. A strange perverse sense of relief flooded her when Giga's stringent voice rang out, loud and obnoxious.

Well that could have gone better.

Estelle rolled her eyes and shook her head. Her grandmother being a complete harridan was something she knew and could handle. A large, spooky demonic spirit that frightened her dead grandmother, well that was something new for her.

"I'll say." Estelle snapped back, though the effect was ruined with a yawn.

No napping! Giga said. Later. Get out there now, bring a spirit jar, one with a penny in it. We need to get out there before it all diffuses away.

There was no good asking her why, or pausing to re-bandage her leg, which she was beginning to think would need some stitches. Good thing her insurance hadn't been canceled yet otherwise she'd be out all the money she'd been paid and more.

"Right." She said turning to the battered cabinet tucked into a closet that had long since lost its door. "Fishing first, emergency room later."

Pfft! You don't need no emergency room for that! Head over to Willa's and she'll stitch you up right. She's been a nurse for longer than you've been taking shits. She knows not to ask any questions. 'les you want to explain that pretty shine to your cheek?

No, Estelle did not, though she didn't relish the idea of heading to Willa's. The woman had about a hundred cats and none of them seemed to like Estelle. But it was better than a hospital visit, even with insurance.

-​

Estelle stared at the jar in front of her. Inside it was a small concentration of purple, right in the middle. It reminded her of the bacterial colonies she had grown in the lab in Agar jelly. It just seemed to hang, unmoving. The jar had been filled from the last patch of swamp where the creature had been seen. Giga, being dead, had led her there, though Estelle was fairly certain she'd have made it there on her own, so tangible was the things presence even then. She'd swiped it through the air and the penny had rattled and clanked until She'd put the lid on it. As she'd watched the air had seemed to swirl, with a growing concentration of purple seeming to be pulled from the very air. The purple coalesced into a small knot that maintained the same diameter as the penny, which now seemed glued to the bottom.

"What does it mean?" She asked the seemingly empty air.

I'm not sure. Giga said, not bothering to manifest. Estelle had the sense that the woman was tired and had given up bothering with form for the moment.

"Well, I'm going to go see Willa." She said, standing up and wincing. "Running my cut through the swamp probably isn't going to help it heal. You poke the jar, see what you think. I'll be back."

She left the cabin, more unsettled by her grandmother's silence than on the purple bit of shadow that hung in the center of a jar and might be the physical manifestation of evil. But then, sometimes, she'd thought the same of her Giga.

Her car hadn't enjoyed the journey down from Boston, but she didn't imagine that it sitting idle in the drive just past the rickety bridge, would do it any good either. The gravel crunched underfoot as she turned the car round and then, with a satisfying push on the accelerator, a spray of gravel shot out behind her wheel.

She'd been to Willa's a thousand times over her summers with Giga and knew the way without much thought. The only real changes were the number of felled trees along the way and then the number of bullet holes in the sign that read, "Cypress Downs, Luxury Mobile Home Park"

Luxury it was certainly not. Some of the mobile homes had long since given up the pretense of mobility and replaced wheels with foundations in a few cases, multiple cinder blocks in most. Some of the cinder blocks were sinking into the malleable earth and so it seemed they simply put a new block them under every few months.

Parking her car next to the trailer that Willa inhabited, besides which was parked the ancient green car that was too ugly to be vintage, Estelle braced herself for the scene ahead. There would be hugging and consoling and tolerating of cats. Then followed by tea and arch looks, advice about men and at long last, needles in her flesh. Estelle shivered, uncertain which she dreaded the most. She allowed herself the luxury of resting her head on the steering wheel for a moment before taking herself in hand and sliding out of the car.

Her nose wrinkled. The place had never been fragrant, but the scent of human habitation was almost overwhelming after the isolation of the swamp. The houses were close by and the one person she'd passed on the way in, had watched her, guardedly, but never in the eyes. Her nose twitched as she headed up the creaky few steps that had been built up to the front door. She knocked, there was no answer. She waited. There was still no answer and Estelle was just turning away from the door when something thudded against it. Estelle jumped back, her heart racing.

"I'm too fucking tired for this." She muttered to herself just before frantic meowing began.

Estelle looked down at the cat door, but nothing pushed against it. Biting her lip, she crouched down on her throbbing thigh and lifted the door. Something mint-green and cotton seemed to be pressed across it. A stench like nothing she'd ever smelled wafted out. Something like cat piss and… death. Estelle straightened up, eyes wide, just as a frantic cat-paw pushed its way pass the green and began to claw and search the air pleadingly.

"Shit." She said as she reached for the handle, knowing she wasn't going to like what she saw. Turning the handle she pulled the door open. Cats flooded out in a tide of fur and fury. There was maybe a dozen in all, but it seemed to take forever for them to clear out. Then her eyes lit upon what it was that was blocking the door. It was what she expected, only so much worse.

Turning, she made it to the rail, barely, before she vomited.

 
  • Love
Reactions: neptune

In the back of his mind, Mars knew that he shouldn't have been driving. Only a few hours before, he'd thrown back enough moonshine to take down a bull, and that combined with a lack of sleep and the all around oddness of the night had his head spinning. A light ache permeated his muscles as he drove back along the dirt road, one hand on the wheel and the other propped up and half out the window. It didn't seem to matter how far away he got from the swamp and Estelle, that monster was still on his mind, and there were so many residual questions still lingering when it came to Gabriel and Jules. In a way, Mars didn't feel any more secure than he had that morning; his pockets were just a little more empty.

As the rural area on either side of his car began to fade out and turn to town, Mars gave a yawn. The rising sun was angled at his eyes, causing him to squint and making his exhaustion that much more apparent. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he waited to make a turn, and the dark bags that had settled onto his face were shocking. He looked rough, more damaged than he had in years and the worry that he had hoped Estelle would ease began to return. If he couldn't get through one night on edge, how was he supposed to regain control of the pack? An ugly part of Mars was starting to think that Gabriel was right about him.

Letting his confidence be shaken wasn't something that Mars wanted to allow, however, and he was quick to rationalize that sudden doubt, attributing it to all that happened within the last day. There was so much information to take in, so many truths to come to terms with, and Mars knew that his mind was reeling. All he wanted to do was sleep on it, collect himself through rest and wake up with a decision. It was obvious that Gabriel needed to be dealt with, stopped or snuffed out before this pretend war with Hassun began to take shape. Unfortunately, some people were never satisfied with peace.

When Mars finally arrived home, the sun was fully risen and already beating down on the Earth below. Even with the windows down, the car's interior had been balmy, but there was little relief upon exit. Lazily, Mars ran his forearm across his forehead, feeling sticky as he approached the steps of his own quiet house. It felt good to be back, not surrounded by a blanket of mosquitoes and things that went bump in the night.

Other things bumped, however, and Mars stopped in his tracks when the screen door flew open and banged off the side of the house. Delphine looked angry, her pretty eyes narrowed into a powerful glare that always seemed to stir something inside of him. "Where have you been?" she asked, the accusation in her tone was familiar, but Mars didn't appreciate it.

"Where I told you I'd be," he replied, and climbed the remaining steps. For a moment, Delphine held her ground, holding his sight until he raised his hand and motioned for her to step aside.

"You didn't tell me anything," she insisted.

Sighing, Mars turned and wedged himself between her and the door, getting into the dank house with little more than a light elbow to his stomach. In comparison, and considering his natural enhancements, it was rare that she ever managed to hurt him. "I told you I'd be in the swamp with the witch, and that's where I was," he explained, tone even. Even if he had the energy to be mad, there was no point to it, and Delphine seemed to be itching enough for the both of them.

Behind him, Delphine followed up the stairs, wood creaking beneath his tired feet and echoing beneath each hard stomp of her toes. "All night!?" she asked, giving his shoulder a shove once they reached the top of the stairs.

Maybe if fidelity had been more important earlier in their marriage, or if Mars was just a better man in general, Delphine wouldn't worry every time he left her sight. Though, there was a part of him that felt she was justified despite how in the dark she was. Estelle was still on his mind, that electric touch they'd shared and how it was unlike anything else he'd ever felt. His own wife had never ignited him that way, and sadly, he doubted she ever would.

"Yeah, all night," he confirmed and found himself in the bathroom. He pulled the cord overhead and ran some cool water in the sink while Delphine shouldered the doorway. "It took longer than she thought and then we was trapped inside by some kind of...creature," he gave a shrug. "You worry too much."

"No," she snapped, "you're just a dog."

Mars didn't have it in him to disagree, and he smirked to himself before he pulled his shirt off and leaned over to wash his face. A shower would have been better, but he didn't have the energy. As droplets of cool water dripped down from his jaw and onto his chest, Mars reached for a towel. "Ain't you gonna ask me what happened?" he questioned with a raised eyebrow.

Shrugging, Delphine stepped closer, the fingers of one hand hooking into the belt loops on his pants. "Well?" she asked.

They didn't get into the nitty-gritty of things, mostly because Mars didn't trust her not to run her mouth, but it wasn't long before hers was full anyway. He may not have had the energy to think about the future, but he certain found the drive to wrap himself around Delphine, spurred on the heat between himself and Estelle. It didn't matter that the woman in the swamp wasn't his wife, or that the woman in his lap loved him more than she loved herself. Estelle was a puzzle, the best part of the chase, and worse, Mars was sure that he would never see her again.

That was probably for the best.

After every last ounce of fun had been squeezed out of the early morning, Mars finally got the sleep he desired. He slept hard, sprawled across the bed with his face buried in a few pillows, snoring loud enough to raise the roof. In his mind, it was well-deserved, the perfect reward for a not-so-perfect night.
 
In the end, she'd had to explain the shiner on her cheek and much, much more when the cops arrived. They'd taken their sweet time, the 'Downs' not being high on their priority list. The ambulance had come first, ready to take the deceased to the morgue but the EMT's had been unable to touch the body until the cops arrived. So they'd stood around, in the shade of their ambulance and smoked a few cigarettes, which seemed to Estelle to be some sort of failure in their training. Next to arrive was the coroner, yet another person who could not touch the body until after the cops arrived. He sat in his car and looked vexed as he pulled out a cell phone as old as Giga and began to play solitaire on it. They weren't the only, idle people milling about. It seemed the trailers nearby hadn't been as silent and empty as they had first seemed since one by one people trickled out of them, no one Estelle knew personally, or at least she hoped not. If she had known them, the years had not been kind to them. It hardly mattered, she wouldn't look any of them in the eye.

Sitting on the ground underneath the only tree, a small scrubby thing that was half bare branches and half leaves, Estelle almost wanted a cigarette herself, simply to have something to do with her hands. She hated being idle, she hated the damp heat of the place that brought with it the stench of the dilapidated place with a fresh overlay of the mess that lay just inside the door of the trailer. Even with the door shut, the stink escaped, coating her throat and making her want to gag if she breathed through her nose. A small gray cat, clearly one of Willa's with the faint scent of death clinging to its skin, slid onto Estelle's lap and into the hammock made by her skirts. Estelle winced and made to push the thing off but it looked at her with such right in its eyes she didn't have the heart. With a sigh she began to pat the beast.

Nearly an hour later the cruiser arrived and Estelle got to watch the show of the coroner with his antiquated phone rip a new one into the cops. Which delighted just about everyone watching. Sullenly the pair of men, as generic a pairing of cops as ever she'd seen, poked their heads into the trailer, looked at the rotten, cat-eaten body and proclaimed it natural causes. Estelle sighed and let her eyes close against the bright light of the sun, thinking that a beer-can strewn lawn wasn't such a bad place for a nap after all.

She missed the spectacle of the body being moved, it had to be done in stages because the cats had been at her for quite a while and they'd left her in pieces though the neighbors were dubiously entertained by it. It was when a deep shadow was cast over her that she woke up with a start.

"Afternoon, Miss." One of the officers said and she winced. So much for making use of the day.

"Good afternoon." She replied warily as she scooped up the cat and rose, wincing at the strain on her leg, but refusing to be lower than them for the questions that would come. Come they did, a barrage of obvious questions, most of which had already been answered in her 911 call. But she did her best to cooperate, even when the questions strayed to the subject of her cheek and her obviously exhausted state. They recognized her last name and looked too each other, making significant eyes at each other to communicate something that Estelle just couldn't bring herself to give a shit about. Finally, there was nothing more to be asked and they let her go. Hungry, exhausted and in no mood to head back to the cabin and answer yet another round of questions Estelle set the cat down and headed for her car with a mind to get something to eat.

Just before she closed the door there was a streak of gray and the prick of claws as her companion from earlier launched itself over her lap.

"Fuck!" Estelle hissed and glared at the cat who settled down on the seat like it had no intention of moving. "Whatever." Estelle said and started the car up, heading towards town and away from the stink of death.

Crazy old women with cats died in trailers all the time, she told herself, looking at the well fed beast. It was just shitty timing that one of her grandmother's best friends died in such a gruesome way. The trouble was, she'd overheard the EMTs bantering with each other about how "ripe" Willa had been and the timing was just too close for her to set it aside. Because it meant that Willa had died right around the time Giga had. Willa was a little younger than Estelle's grandmother, in good health, as had been her grandmother, for all that Giga had pickled herself. So what was she to make of it? Was there something her grandmother hadn't told her?

They were idling at the one stoplight in town when the cat, who'd been sleeping on the seat next to her sat up and began to growl. Startled by the unholy sound, audible even over the roaring of her car's dying engine, Estelle followed its gaze. It was staring at a man who was vaguely familiar to Estelle. She noted the long black hair and tried to place him, but it wasn't until he turned his face to look around cautiously that she recognized him by the scarring on his cheeks. It was the man, from the vision, the one who had been talking to Mars' friend. Hansen… Hassem…? It was something like that. With her heart racing and her head muddled with exhaustion she couldn't bring the name forth but was certain it was the same man. He crossed the street in front of her and then slipped into a bar.

A bar that conveniently served lunch.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid." She said but still turned and parked her car in the gravel-lined lot beside "Mel's Place"
 
Bad feelings usually meant trouble, that was just the way it went.

When Jules had called that morning asking to meet, the guilt in his voice had permeated the phone line and settled over their deal like a black cloud. From the moment Jules and Gabriel had come to him, bravely crossing border lines just to talk about what an abysmal leader Mars had turned out to be, Hassun had sensed a weakness in him. At the time, Gabriel's energy felt strong enough to be trusted, insurance enough for the both of them, but the tides were changing. Without thinking of the consequences, Hassun agreed to another meeting.

Perhaps it was a little reckless to tempt fate a second time, and without the cover of darkness on his back, Hassun was visibly nervous as he approached Mel's Place. The dive was no different than the other bars that populated the riverside, stone faces advertising cold beer and burgers, names it up with neon even in the middle of the day. It didn't look or feel ominous, and the gravel in the parking lot crunched beneath his boots in such a familiar way that Hassun almost felt like he was home. A greedy part of his mind pointed back to expansion, how this bump in the road with Jules' loyalty was nothing to bat an eye at.

Pulling back the heavy door, Hassun entered Mel's without incident. At the bar, a few regulars sat with a chair between each of them with a bottle affixed to their reddened palms and faces turned toward the small TV overhead. There was some kind of football game playing, but the brightly colored jerseys didn't mean much of anything to him. Regardless, it kept most of the humans occupied.

The bartender was an older woman, the only one who bothered to give him a greeting in the form of a nod. After gesturing back, Hassun walked deeper into the bar and found himself a table, one that faced the door in case Jules tried to run—or one of the other pack members came through. His nerves were a problem, and although staying alert was pivotal, Hassun didn't want to draw any extra attention to himself.

"What can I get ya?" the bartender asked, seeming to appear out of nowhere.

She looked rough up close. Her blonde hair was straw-like, disguised as full with the help of too much hairspray, and the pink rouge on her cheeks has settled into the fine lines on her face, while her blue eyes were ringed with mascara and pencil. In her youth, it was probably one hell of a look, but now it was just a bit sad. "Whiskey," he answered, eyes shifting back toward the door.

"Coming right up," the woman promised before leaving the table.

Soon enough, Hassun's hands were just as occupied as the other patrons, but his eyes were anywhere but football. As the game played on in the background, he continued to watch the door and clock, waiting for Jules to come through, waiting for anything to happen. The whiskey in his glass helped to take some of the edge off, but as soon as the door opened, another surge of adrenaline pumped through his veins. He raised his eyebrows, glass halfway to his mouth as he attempted to make out the silhouette. The combination of shadow and light from the street didn't help, but it was clear that Jules still hadn't arrived. This was just some woman.
 
The shade of the building provided little in the way of coolness as she sat in the car as the engine clicked and protested in its off state. She licked at her lips and slowly pulled her fingers off the steering wheel. She flashed a glance at the cat, quashing the flare of guilt that she was leaving it in a parked car. That was supposed to be bad or something. But then the damned thing wasn't hers, it was a hijacker. Even so she rolled the windows down so it could get air and maybe, if she were lucky, find its way out.

She stood from the car, wincing a little as her thigh protested, but as there was no bloom of blood on her bandage, she continued. She was hungry and the smell of fried foods as it wafted out of the kitchen into the thick air made her stomach growl. Just getting something to eat, she thought. It just so happens that someone of interest is in there. The thought as much as the hunger propelled her inside. It was dim and cooler inside, with the scent of stale beer and stale men filling the air. She blinked her eyes, adjusting to the dimness and looked around. She almost grinned, such places were so ubiquitous. Even in Boston, in the outlying areas of that city, the places students like her could afford, these places were a dime a dozen. Even the tired blue-collar workers filling barstools at lunch time felt the same. Feeling more comfortable she stepped in and looked around. The black haired man she'd followed in wasn't at the bar. Before she could glance around and discreetly locate him a tired woman who reminded her of her mother, approached her.

"What can I do for you, hon?" she asked with the brassy cheer Estelle knew to be as much a part of the uniform as the apron she sported.

"Just a burger and fries." Estelle replied, looking at the chalkboard menu with faded specials of the day which looked like they'd been there for decades. "And a coke." She added on.

The woman nodded and gestured towards the back room where most of the tables were empty. Turning towards the room Estelle casually stepped in, feeling like a spotlight had flicked on and marked her progress. Which was stupid. She knew him, she'd seen him through the eyes of the spirit but he didn't know her. She was of no significance to him, just a woman in a bar, getting lunch. Settling into a table where she could see him without looking directly at him she leaned back in the chair and focused her eyes on the flickering light of the television where the eyes of everyone but him, seemed to be focused. Distantly she could hear the sound of a commercial dishwasher running and the hiss of a fryolator at work.

What was she even doing? It suddenly occurred to her that this was well out of the realm of her job. She'd been hired to see what the spirits could tell her about the situation, not act like a private eye and tail someone! What was she even thinking? Mars hadn't asked this of her and she'd have laughed at him if he had. He hadn't even paid her all her money yet.

Idiot, she thought and smiled up at the waitress as she put a coke on the table, the red-plastic glass already beading with condensation.

"Thank you." She said heartily, almost surprised by the sound of her accent sliding back after her years to eradicate it. So much work, undone in such a short time.

She took drink, loving the way the carbonation almost burned her, as it helped to quench the powerful thirst. With a sigh she let the straw fall from her lips and rolled her neck like she was easing a crick, using the motion to look at him from under hooded lashes. Her nostrils flared, catching a waft of something pulled towards her in the wake of the waitresses passing, something besides the beer, the men and the overly used fry-oil. Something she knew.

Freezing mid-roll she thought deep and hard about where she'd smelled that smell, trying to figure out why the hair at the back of her neck was standing on end. Then she caught it. It had been there on the swamp when she had gone wading with that spirit jar. Tangled up with the musk and rankness of the thing, had been something cold and metallic, something that had also been in that first spirit, the hooked one.

Appetite suddenly gone she understood now what had compelled her to follow into the bar even though it shouldn't have been any of her concern. This was connected, her instincts were telling her so. The eddies and flows of the land were sinking their hooks into her and pulling her to where she needed to be. She didn't like it, not even a little and not for the first time she considered running fast and far.

But then her burger arrived and though she had lost a good deal of her appetite she knew her body, taxed from blood-loss and little sleep needed nourishment, even dubious nourishment.

"Thank you," she said to the waitress' back watching the woman as she sashayed towards Hassam or whatever his name was.
 
The strong taste of whiskey, no ice, burned at the back of his throat. Hassun continued to sit there, head toward the door, eyes on the prize, as he waited for any sign of Jules. Somewhere inside of him, alarm bells were going off, and something said that the other man should have been there by now, maybe even early in a perfect world. Brows furrowed, the man took another pull from his glass and swallowed slowly, used to the tingle on his lips and the burn in his chest. He gave a side-eyed glance to the clock on the wall, neon blue and in the shape of a bottle of Bud; kitschy. By all accounts Jules was late, and Hassun didn't appreciate having his time wasted.

Behind him, the bar continued to function and serve its purpose. At first, he hadn't paid any attention to the woman who had come in, didn't care about her lunch order, and didn't think to give her a second glance until he felt eyes on him. There was something familiar about her presence, not similar, but an energy that he had seen before, had felt just a few days prior. There was always magic in the air when it came to the south, the bayou especially, but feeling it up close was different.

Unlike most who had found their way into his pack, Hassun reveled in his wolf-like personal. It was something that he'd embraced from a young age, and those heightened senses had been coming in handy for just as long. Witches always brought some kind of danger with them, just like any creature that happened to call the swamp home, but him being in the wrong territory spelled trouble. If she had some kind of deal with the locals, or worse, knew Mars personally, the plan's outcome was suddenly at risk.

With his drink still clasped in his hand, Hassun listened to the sound of the waitress's footsteps, the clunk of a plastic glass being dropped onto the table, and the bubbly noise of Coke being sucked through a straw. His ears were good enough to hear the woman swallow and honed in on the waitress coming back over to him.

"You want another?" she asked, flashing a smile as she worked for the tip she wasn't going to get.

There was a little left in the bottom, and Hassun finished it off in one swallow. "Yeah, thanks," he said, and handed his glass over. His dark eyes remained on the woman as she walked away, but his real focus was on the one behind him. Her reasoning for sitting there and not at the bar could have been anything, but Hassun didn't trust it.

Still, he remained calm, casual as ever as he shifted in his seat to grab his cell phone from his back pocket. It was flip phone, something that was a little more difficult to trace, and with the press of one of the ancient buttons, he dialed Jules' number. The phone started to ring, and it rang, and rang, and rang until the beginnings of a voice mail caused the frown on his face to deepen. Before Jules' pre-recorded voice could finish and the machine could give off a beep, Hassun hung up.

Frustrated and angry, the waitress chose that moment to return with his drink. He thanked her with a measured smile and let his fingers settle around the glass, but didn't bring it to his lips. Instead, he turned in his seat and looked at the woman with the wild hair, the one with the innocuous coke who was waiting for her burger. The same smile rested on his lips, not any more friendly despite the way he raised his glass to her. It only looked like a toast, but it was just a chance to memorize her face. If she was stupid, which he doubted, she'd see it as an invitation and tell him all he wanted to know.
 
It wasn't a bad burger as far as burgers went. Clearly a frozen, preformed patty that was slapped on a grill that might need to be stripped and cleaned. The bun it rested upon was a white fluffy mess that gave itself airs as bread. But it was hot, fatty, salty and most importantly, there. She'd eaten worse in her time as a poor girl with a neglectful mother. Her hunger made every bite delicious and the overcooked fries proved to be the perfect vehicle for the never-terrible-catsup. Exhaustion faded momentarily as the whole of her being focused on the paramount task of getting food into her battered, run-down body. The world might have fallen into chaos and she wouldn't have noticed just then, so important was the food. The man she'd come into the bar to spy upon, as distant in that moment as her asshole boyfriend Shawn was.

She was halfway through the generous pile of fries and what seemed like half a bottle of the red-stuff when she spotted movement to her side. Pausing, mid-chew she turned to look slowly at the man whom she discovered had just lifted his glass to her. Eyes wide the blush that formed over her dusky cheeks hopefully gave her an alibi that her presence and lack of prepared pretense did not. He was older than her, ragged, scarred and not her type. The glob of catsup on the corner of her mouth made her look younger, less threatening and very like she was just a girl getting a bite to eat, even if her aura, growing in leaps and bounds since she'd come back, even if she was unaware of it, filled the space around her with an energy and pressure that was impossible to deny if one was sensitive to such things.

She looked like a little lost girl in the middle of that storm of power. She finished chewing sheepishly, embracing the role of out of place little girl. She was afraid, she was feeling foolish and stupid, but she wasn't going to back down. She'd come in on a hair-brained plan and she would see what came of it.

Swallowing she reached for her coke, mostly melted ice at this point, lifted it and tipped it his way in a return toast and then took a long pull on it. Putting the cup down after catching the waitress' attention with the rattle of ice she turned to him and said simply,

"The fries are good here."
 
Looking her straight in the eye may have been a mistake, but Hassun wanted to know who he was dealing with. Seeing her with ketchup around her mouth, eyes wide as if she were a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, it was hard to be intimidated. The air this woman had ushered in didn't suit her, and it left Hassun to wonder if the presence had been hers at all, or if there was another magical being in the bar. Momentarily, his eyes shifted back to the waitress and the men at the bar, still glued to the television and none the wiser. It couldn't have been one of them.

There was something innocent in her movements, however, a quality that continued to throw him off. "Seems that way," he said, a smile slowly spreading across his mouth. He drank to her a moment after, still trying to get a handle on the situation he had walked into. Maybe this had been Jules' plan all along, maybe that was why he was late.

"You look familiar," he added a moment later, seeing the waitress approach from the corner of his eye. "Are you that one's daughter? She works up the street, I think." It was intentionally vague, but Hassun didn't know anything about this town aside from who ruled it when the moon came out. If she was a local, or just some tourist passing through, he wanted to know about it, just to rule out the fear gnawing at the back of his mind.

Turned around in his chair and no longer facing the door, Hassun snapped toward the sound of it opening. The man that stood in the threshold was tall, but he wasn't Jules, just another man in search of a cold beer and some company. He seemed like a regular from the way one of the bar flies greeted him, which instantly made him less interesting. Hassun knew that his own movements were jumpy, though, on edge, but the came from breaking long-established rules and crossing territory lines. He wouldn't have been surprised if Mars walked in next and fought him in the middle of bar.

With all of those nerve-wracking what if's on his mind, Hassun turned back to the woman and hoped for something useful.
 
Estelle's stomach did a flip-flop when he said she was familiar. For a moment she panicked, wondering if he had somehow seen her or recognized her from the night before, even though, technically, she hadn't been present even if the spirit had been full of her blood and tied to her essence. Was that something werewolves could sense? No, she realized after a moment, that it wasn't possible. That panic lasted but a moment as his next words brushed aside all worry. He was just hitting on her, most likely. Something that hadn't been an issue for some time and likely why she hadn't really jumped to that conclusion.

Was she that one's daughter? He could have been referring to anyone with the vagueness of his question, or it could be implying that she should know who that one was, simply by reputation and local gossip. For a moment a flush of shame flooded her dusky cheeks. She'd heard that tone before, in regards to her own mother. Her mother had been that one and one of the reasons Estelle had left was to skip out on being that one's daughter. But this man's tone didn't hold scorn, just thin curiosity and vagueness. That and the fact that her mother didn't live close enough for him to have made the connection eased her after her instinctive flinching worked its way out.

"Nah," she said, dabbing at her lips with a rough paper napkin. "I'm someone's daughter for certain but not that one's." She smiled at her own joke to hide the way her heart was hammering. She still didn't know what she was after there, just that there was a secret thrill to be playing super-spy, even if the man she was playing with could, literally, rip her head off. It wasn't like Mars' fight was her fight. He'd been a dick for the most part and she'd done what she'd been paid for…Yet there she was, when she needn't be.

"I'm just returning home to visit family is all."

She took a long sip of her coke to buy her a moment to collect herself and then looked up at him from under her lashes.

"You? You look like you are from around here, am I right? Do you know the Rictors? They used to live in the Estates, the corner lot, but they aren't there now."

Just a little question, to see if he was local, to gauge his reaction and maybe find out if he did suspect her or not. Spying, amateur style.
 
Either she was onto him, or just making polite conversation. After years of being alpha, and being involved in his fair share of mind games, it was difficult for Hassun to take anything at face value. Within his own ranks, he often questioned his inferiors two or three times before he was satisfied with an answer, which was a policy that kept him protected. If Mars was less inclined to trust every person that came his way, his leadership wouldn't have been threatened, and Hassun would have never dreamed of meeting Jules in his own territory. This woman, though, she was so unexpected that Hassun didn't know how to handle her.

The way she played off his questions as jokes was unsettling, but it was somewhat easy to hide. Anyone could have been visiting family, he told himself, even if it was rare that someone from the bayou ever left. It was a poor part of the state, a place where the high school drop out rate and unemployment made for a lot of free time, and most people born there—in either nothing town—tended to stay around the trailer parks and rundown houses they knew best. If this woman had gotten out, Hassun couldn't imagine why, even for family, she would ever come back.

Shifting in his seat, Hassun hadn't expected the question to be turned around on him. Like her, he took a drink from his glass, buying himself some time. Did he knows the Rictors, did they even exist? Most of Mars' territory remained a mystery, and he wasn't even sure where the Estates were, let alone the corner lot. Although he had grown up just minutes from this place, his foreign nature was beginning to show.

"Where'd they go?" he asked, acting interested, maybe like a local who just wanted to know where his old neighbors had run off to. Trying to catch her in a lie was easy enough in theory, but fishing for information was quickly turning into a game of chess. With any luck, she would think that he was just hitting on her, and that the anxiety spilling into the air wasn't his energy.

In the back of his mind, however, Hassun knew that he should have just gotten up and left. If Jules ever showed, they could meet somewhere else, but the longer he stayed in this bar, with this (maybe) witch, the bigger risk he was taking. If Mars found out about this before they were ready, it was going to be his life on the line.
 
Movement out of the corner of her eye momentarily diverted her attention. She flicked her glance there when he was sipping at his drink and spotted, not the expected cockroach or rat or other scurrying thing, but a small wisp of something she was certain only she could see. Off of the bayou she hadn't been expecting to see anything. That land held her tight and close, no matter how far she ran, but to find her vision growing so as to include other areas, new areas? It was unsettling to say the least.

Unsettling and also, empowering.

She bit her lip and maintained a friendly, curious expression, while her hand slipped from the table to her lap where it waited.

"Where'd they go?" she asked mirroring his question. "Well I don't know. That's why I asked." She laughed good naturedly and hopefully in something that seemed just a tad air-headed. He was looking at her intently and she felt a hitch of worry that it was too intently.

"None of the neighbors were around so I couldn't ask where they'd gone to. The trailer was still there, of course, but someone else is living in it. Name of Craig was on the mailbox but no one home." She shrugged and subtly her hand slipped off of her lap and hung on the side of her body that would be shielded from his view. Hanging, she rubbed forefinger and thumb together, a soft, imperceptible sound of flesh sliding over flesh, like the summons one might send a cat, floated along the floor, carried by her awakening powers to flick lightly at the attention of the spirit. She didn't dare look to see if she'd got it, but focused her attention on the man before her.

"Just someone I thought I'd look up while I was here. No big deal. Old flame of mine is all." So long ago and as bad an idea as Shawn had been. She had the worst taste in men, she was beginning to think it was genetic.

She managed not to flinch when she felt the cool touch of something that wasn't exactly there, brushing against her fingers. She held them still, her skin crawling as it got the scent of her. Heart pounding she took another sip and heard the hollow sucking sound that came from having only ice left.

"Well," she said with regret. "Sounds like my time is almost done here. Seems like you are gone for a year or two and then you come back and everything is different and somehow the same. You ever noticed that?" She slipped her free hand into her pocket and pulled out a few precious bills and tossed them onto the table.

"Thanks for the company…" she trailed off, cocking her head to the side expectantly. Her other hand scooped up the bit of nothing as she stood, offering her other hand to shake.
 
Feigned interest could only last for so long, and Hassun found it harder and harder to care as she prattled on about her old neighbors. He was beginning to feel like this girl wasn't anything, not a threat and not even as bright as he'd once taken her for. At the very least, she was pretty, and he was sure that got her far enough in life. If it was her that ushered in that magical energy, she either hadn't recognized it in herself, or she was too stupid to put it to good use. Hassun hoped for the former, and tuned back into the conversation as she finished the refill on her coke.

"Can't say that I have," he replied slowly, his smile making him look less menacing despite the scar across his face. "I don't leave this place much." That much was true, at least, although even Hassun had noticed the air of change that was blowing through the swamp.

As her crumpled bills hit the table, Hassun finished his own drink. There was barely a buzz in him, all of his aggravation for Jules having worked it away, and he too was ready to leave. Before he could reach into his own pocket and pay the tab, the woman had crossed the short distance between them and extended his hand. It was a seemingly friendly gesture, something that he couldn't deny her unless he wanted to look suspicious—but he never trusted handshakes from total strangers. "It was nice talking to you," he said with a nod and extended his hand, strong fingers wrapping around delicate digits for a brief shake. "Hope you find who you're looking for," he added before pulling back.

What was once a deep and restful sleep was soon disturbed by a glass of lukewarm water being splashed in his face. Mars snuffled, mid-snore and half delirious as he sat up, the bedroom spinning around him as he swung a fist whatever outside threat had thought to invade him. In the end, it was only Delphine at his bedside, one hand on her hip and looking bored. There was a lazy look in her pretty eyes, one that said she had found her way to the liquor cabinet a bit early. He scowled at her, face and hair still dripping. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he asked darkly.

"Your mama called," she explained, the very idea of Eula causing her to roll her eyes, "said the devil stole her smokes—she wants you to bring her a new pack."

At first, that outside request didn't quite register, but Mars caught on eventually. His mother had been losing her mind since he was a child, but Satan himself stealing her cigarettes was something new entirely. "You didn't have to soak me to tell me that," he said, and threw the damp sheets back to get to his feet.

Shrugging, clearly not sorry, Delphine set the glass down on the nightstand with a hard thunk. "I tried three or four times just poking you. It's not my fault you're a pain."

All of her picking had been wearing on him since the morning before, and Mars was at the end of his rope. Turning with incredible speed, he caught her chin in his hand and backed her up against the wall, eyes on hers as momentary fear flashed across her irises. "You keep testing me and you're gonna know the back of my hand," he warned, digging his fingers into her peach-like skin. "You understand me now?" her narrowed eyes didn't soften any, but Delphine nodded a moment later. Mars gave another squeeze, a warning that he hoped not to follow through on, before letting go. He didn't look back at her as he threw a shirt on, and headed out into the afternoon heat.

The town was so small, and it didn't take very long to make it to the corner store. After a long night and little sleep, he was still tired, not as alert as he drove up to the market and found a place to park. He concealed a yawn behind his hand as he entered the store, seeing the same old man behind the counter that he'd known for years. He'd been buying cigarettes for his mother from a young age, and although it was a practice that had largely gone out of fashion in most places, it was still a habit for Mars. He cared about his crazy old mother, in her trailer full of junk and demons, and if she wanted to smoke herself to death, he wasn't going to stand in her way.

"Couple packs of Reds," he said after making small talk with the older man. Mars laid enough bills down on the counter to cover the damage and picked up a lighter before taking the soft packs from a shaking hand.

"How's your mom?" the old man asked, operating the ancient cash register in an attempt to give correct change.

Mars waved his hand, not wanting his pockets to jingle and jangle as he walked. "She's herself," he answered with a laugh and a shrug that said it all. Eula wasn't going to change anytime soon, the whole town knew that.

After saying their pleasant goodbyes, Mars left the store and tore one of the packs open. He wasn't much of a smoker anymore, but stress always brought him back to the habit—if only temporarily. Lighting the end, he took a long drag before heading back to his car, the smoke in his nose overpowering the smell of burgers and something a bit rotten in the air.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom
Back