Thirst Ch. 05

Adam's talons slashing through his face and sending flashes of red pain through his already battered form made him grin, even as he was nearly sent off his feet. His bright red blood stained the wet, dirty concrete, and he felt the other Wolf's fingers grab his collar...fury bright red in his eyes.

Do it. End it you piece of shit.

"ADAM!"

Ariadne's voice had the quality of a jaguar, roaring through a veil of ill, deadly will. She was on Adam, her own clawed fingers digging bloodily into the Rabid's shoulder and pulling him back; the pain, and her dominance gave Adam cause to release the black haired musician, frustration and shame hardening his features...knowing he'd fallen for the provocation, given Mizrah yet another reason to proudly, arrogantly snub them.

"Go cool off by the water," she instructed him, pulling her claws forth from his powerful shoulder, flicking his blood off; he barely seemed to notice, the marks closing in seconds

"But I - "

"Shh. I know...I know." The Brazilian woman returned Mizrah's handsome, bloody sneer a distant, reproachful gaze. I know what you think you're doing, her hex-filled eyes said. She was an incredibly patient, persistent, stubborn Therid, even for the supremely assured Behexxed for whom fortune twisted and sang like the strings of Delilah's bass...but he was determined to be the snag in that web of assurance and control.

Adam made an inhuman sound, deep in his chest. With a release of heat and unlight, the green-eyed juggernaut became an enormous, red furred wolf. Head held proud, his wolven expression held fast his malice and frustration for the other Firstblood.

For a long time, neither said anything to the other...typical standoff for their kind

She didn't break the quiet because she was too good for that, and instead she untied the bandana around her arm and used it to wipe the blood from his face. He couldn't really deny her the inherent humanity of the gesture, and he contented himself to simply examine her elfin face. He couldn't deny that the purity in her eyes was beatific, and he could tolerate letting her close because there was no malice in her and the armor was up over his heart. Ariadne was the only Accursed Being who fit this description.

"Alright, fine. You can have this one, since it means so much to you to win," she finally said, lowering the bandana and looking at him from behind the veil of dischonoia. "But you're wrong in the end, and you always will be."

Mizrah gave her a long suffering look as he picked up his jacket - thankfully untorn - from where he'd thrown it, shaking it off with a clank of metal buckles... ew, he thought with a displeased expression at whatever stained the sleeve. "I've seen what you're trying to do, and if it worked I'd say you're the one to pull it off Ariadne. But it doesn't work, we don't make governments. We're monsters. You don't even need to, the Food is plentiful but they don't stand a chance against a Pack...and like all you guys say in the ads - "

" No Outsiders." They said it at the same time, but her tone caught him - something different about it. She was tenser than he could recall, and her hackles were rising, all atypical behavior for the Behexxed.

"What? What is it, what aren't you telling me?" He demanded, his tone finally souring.

"Shamrys went missing."

"So? Shamrys likes her quiet time." He knew the young, eccentric Night-Howler was almost obsessed with remaining unseen.

"She doesn't duck and run on her Pack in the middle of a Hunt."

That was true, but he'd heard stranger. "So maybe she got gotted - "

"She reappeared two days ago - rather, Theo tracked her to West Cardiff. She was building a 'Fane', wouldn't stop."

That was...alright, that was cause for alarm. His kind didn't usually engage in building projects - that drive was given to frenetic Skitterlings and carapaced Myrmidons, and really he knew where she was going with this. Werewolves were beasts of twisted mysticism and reflected a grand cosmic principle of accursed change; German metaphysicists and Plato had gotten closer to the nature of their existence than Darwin or Nachmanides and religious attitudes were unusual among most Firstbloods. The exception to this rule was, of course, the virulent, gibbering madness of the Lunar Strain.

Anxiety dug at him; the fall of Chicago had been predicated by the unstoppable spread of the Lunar Strain's manifestation there, and those moon-maddened Werewolves completed their occult construction before he'd been able to unite the packs. When the Gloaming Stairway had been completed, a stilted, spiraling thing of crystalline moonlight and stretched, warped skin that crawled of its own accord toward the face of the moon, the Vicar had come down from the sky

The moon had turned red. The Vicar's howl split the sky, and so many of his friends lost their dreams, their minds, everything that made them individuals and not the mat-furred, eye-rolling, gnashing freaks they'd been turned into. Those who'd avoided or resisted the Change...he could still see them, their bodies floating at the end of Navy Pier.

"What do you expect me to do about it?" he was getting tired, running out of excuses and ways to avoid dealing with this...he always had Adam's poor temper as an excuse to refuse what she wanted, because he knew what Ariadne was always angling for, even if she never said it directly. Would she, now that he'd asked the Behexxed directly?

"Nothing, right now, because you can't do anything about it. You're too weak." There was no accusation, no judgment, just the simple truth that raked his ego. He felt his cheeks redden with wounded pride, but she gently shushed him, shaking her head...he could see her think about reaching out to touch him, but she thought better of it. He wished she would; Mizrah's emotions for her were complicated. No denying that he felt a pull toward her physically, the way her body moved with effortless vitality - it kind of reminded him of something graceful moving with diaphanous motions through the sea. She was graceful and tall, and her skin looked so smooth...for Prey she was a terror but for one of his kind, there was respite to be found with her, which made her rare.

He shouldn't have been thinking these things...fine to have multiple mates, but he already had an unhealthy thirst for a creature of the night - why further complicate it by falling for someone whom the Curse had especially touched? She probably didn't even think of him that way. Stupid thoughts...but the desire was there.

The structures she represented though...trying to bring together bickering, bloodthirsty groups of monsters who congregated in ultra-tight cliques into something resembling...functioning government? It wasn't natural. It didn't work for Turnskins - he'd tried and the price he'd paid in blood and dignity...only to see everything fall apart into screaming, gibbering madness anyway.

She offered him the bag, reeking with Therid meat - he wasn't sure which - but Mizrah, with an even greater act of will than was required to stay on his feet, turned his nose up at it and pushed it away. "Keep your charity, and just quit tryin'. I'm not in the game anymore, especially not that game where you're set up to fail from the start."

"Yusuf..." that look she gave him, behind the chaos-flecked veil of her heliotrope eyes was at once utterly inhuman and yet far too close to his heart for comfort. Was she hurt that he was rejecting her help, and thereby rejecting her? Again? He didn't need to feel guilty because they were fucking monsters, but...he hadn't meant to.

She dropped the backpack, hands sliding into her pockets as they regarded each other.

"Don't let whatever sorrow you brought from Chicago kill you. We're not meant to run alone." The Behexxed turned on her heel, trailing after where Adam had stomped off and leaving him, again, in solitude. When she was gone, he stayed and wrestled with himself, torn between starvation and pride.

"See me now?" He muttered to the one who was once always there, watching, hearing him. "Sure hope not..." Mizrah swore this was the last time he'd accept this kind of charity. Ripping the top of the backpack open, he reached inside, took a handful of something rich and warm and twitching...it gripped him back, even as he lifted it to his mouth and gorged on the Accursed flesh.