Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Lutetia City: Lunoveau Hill

Zexal spun at the detective's charge, hollow eyes widening. The tendrils released Harriet in panic, snapping back to it like elastic. Before Vernon could get more than a few seconds of a clear look at it, it had surged away into the shadows of the alleyway, disappearing from view without more trace than the trail of black ichor from its wound, ending abruptly at the wall.

"Zexal!" René called after the creature. It had been hurt. Stabbed. For him. If he'd had any doubt about the 'demon's' nature before, it was gone now.

He didn't have a chance to protest any further, as Elliot bundled him up into his arms and pulled him out of the alley into the street, away from the knife-wielding hunter. "Are you alright?" the werewolf repeated. "Are you sure? Did she hurt you?"

"I'm fine, El," he breathed. "She didn't ... Zexal saved me. Again."
 
Harriet fell backwards, staggering to face the wall. Vernon let the boys move past him for now, thumbing back the hammer on the revolver, keeping his eyes locked on the woman.

"Don't," he said, as she straightened, still facing away from him. She was breathing heavily, her hands inching towards her waistband.

"Don't, or I swear to-"

She whirled, a blade in her grip, and he fired - a neat little hole in her shoulder, the retort of the gun echoing in his ears, a keening wail - too loud, much too loud in the enclosed space. She switched the blade to her good arm, wound back again, and another gunshot sounded out, exploding near the side of her head in the wall, her blade sinking into Vernon's wrist.

Vernon leapt backwards, shouting out, as a flash of orange surrounded the woman, a portal opening and closing, and she was gone.

The detective gripped his wrist tightly, turning to face the two boys as his palm began to glow weakly, the knife popping out of his wound, slowing in it's descent to the pavement as the wound closed around his grip, knitting back together until it was like nothing happened. Letting the breath explode out of his lungs, Vernon reached into his pocket, pulling out a clear evidence bag and shaking it open, then bent to open it around the blade - the silver weapon having slowed down to a crawl, nearly stopping in midair.

He captured it, zipped the bag closed, and pocketed it again before walking towards the two boys, breathing heavily.

"The screaming?" he queried, as he began to tap his thumb with his ring finger in a steady rhythm - taptaptap, tap, tap - his eyes darting around the alleyway.
 
"The rooftops," René answered immediately. "She has a guy on a roof somewhere, she had a portal- We tried to help him, but she..."

"She went for him," Elliot cut in. "It was bait, or something. I don't know. She had him plugged into some kind of IV, I think poison. The roof's somewhere in Vargeras..." He sniffed the air. "I have his scent."

He scrambled to his feet, trying to pinpoint the direction. He turned south, stopping only long enough to help René to his feet, then starting to run. "This way!"
 
"Wait, you can't-" Vernon called, and, swearing, followed.

The scent took them half a block south, where a two-story building sat, squat and ugly, surrounded by low rise apartment complexes. The fire escape was rusted and worn, the first rung nearly ten feet off the ground. They heard nothing from the rooftop.

"Up there?" Vernon asked, holstering his revolver.
 
"Yeah," Elliot answered. The lack of sound was worrying. The guy had been screaming, before. And that ladder didn't look trustworthy.

René caught up with them after a moment, panting. He was too tired for this. Way too tired.

"Leg up?" Elliot offered to Vernon. "Or through the inside?"
 
"Boost me," came Vernon's response, then, pausing for a second, looked at René.

"You stay here," he said, then gestured to Elliot.
 
The werewolf nodded, putting his hands together for Vernon to use as a step, and lifting him almost effortlessly to within reach of the ladder. He grimaced, looking across at René once the officer was on his way up. "Your turn. Boost me up."

"What? You're going up too?" René looked exasperated. "Let the cop handle it, El!"

"If she's still up there, he'll need help. C'mon, René, help me up." Elliot put a reassuring hand on his arm. "I'll be fine."

René sighed, but stopped arguing. He struggled considerably more to give Elliot the boost he needed to reach the ladder, but just about managed it. He wiped his hands off on his coat, watching the two climb. His foot tapped nervously on the road.
 
Not waiting, Vernon scaled the fire escape two steps at a time, boots clanking against the anchored stairs. Halfway up, it rocked dangerously in its supports, but he just grit his teeth, tapped his thumb, kept running.

Vernon reached the top, and took in the fully-formed werewolf now strapped to the roof, blood pooling around each of its limbs as the cords cut deeper with the struggle the animal had put up. His breath came and went in rattling, shallow gasps, the skin visible through matted fur pale, glistening with sweat.

The detective didn't pause, just moved straight to the IV and shone a penlight through the bag, making out a milky substance, glimmering in the light.

"Liquid silver," he muttered to himself, bending down to a crouch and gently removing the IV from the wolf's veins. Where the tube connected to flesh, blisters formed - bright spots against pale skin.
 
"Fuck," Elliot swore when he reached the rooftop, grimacing at the sight of the hunter's victim. He scanned the rooftop, wary of her popping out of nowhere like she had in the alley, then stepped towards the man. He was still gripping the hunter's knife, and he used it to start sawing at the ropes, careful to avoid touching his skin with the silvered blade. "Is he..." He trailed off. The cop wasn't gonna know whether the guy would live. It all depended on how bad his allergy was, and how good his healing factor.

Down below, René paced anxiously.
 
Vernon bowed by the man's head, flicking open a straight razor and cutting through the thick cords that held the man down. With as much care as possible, he unwrapped the man's wrists, then moved to his feet, continuing the clinical, quiet motions.

A rattling sigh escaped the man when he was free, though the limbs never moved.

"No carvings," Vernon said, examining the werewolf, and sounded slightly disappointed. He shifted, lifting the man's head, cradling it in his lap as he sat cross legged, absent fingers sliding over the man's head, stroking, soothing.

The breath continued to rattle.

"Was the portal orange?" he asked, his gaze fixed on the wolf's chest.
 
"Yeah," Elliot answered, nodding sharply. "Around the edges. That mean something? Who the fuck was that bitch? And why would there be carvings?"

He made to slip the knife away, then stopped, glancing down at it. "Uh, this is one of hers, too. If you want it for evidence, or whatever." He held the throwing knife out, realised Vernon was occupied, and lowered his hand again. That could wait. "Should I call an ambulance?"
 
"I don't know who she was," Vernon replied, annoyance riding his tone, "but I was hoping she was related to another case of mine."

He reached into his shirt, pulled out a pendant and showed it to the boy. "Orange portals usually mean spacial pockets - relating to time magic. This contains it - leads me back to my apartment. My safety blanket."

He dropped the pendant back into his shirt, scratched at his chin. "Call them, but I don't know if we'll need them. He seems pretty far gone."

Another rattle silenced him, and the wolf's eyes began to bulge.
 
Elliot frowned sadly, but nodded again. A quick phonecall was made, and an ambulance summoned. He briefly wondered how they'd get him down from the rooftop. "Time magic," he commented after he'd hung up. "That's ... so am I lucky that portal didn't take me back in time or something?"

Down below, René's pacing was interrupted by a familiar voice echoing in his mind.

'Zexal helped the kind warm thing again. It did good? It would have killed the other one, that one was frightening, filled with all the wrong feelings. Hurt made her happy. But the new one scared it, it didn't want to be hit with the loud metal-thrower.'

"Zexal," René whispered softly, searching around for the source of the voice. His eyes came to rest on a particularly dense patch of shadows at the edge of an alley, and he made his way over. Large white eyes blinked open from their midst, searching him for intent, but the creature didn't shrink away. René took a breath, forcing himself to push the thing's alien appearance out of his mind, and crouched down. "Thank you. Yeah... you did good. You saved my life again, that's gotta be good for me, at least." He smiled. "Are you alright? She stabbed you, right?"

'The sharp-thing cut, but Zexal fixed the cut with her warmth. Still hurts. But no more bleeding. The kind warm thing isn't afraid of Zexal any more?' The voice sounded pitiably hopeful.

René nodded his head. "Yeah... I'm not. I'm glad you're alright. And uh, my name's René. If you want to call me that instead of kind warm thing." He laughed lightly at the absurdity of the conversation. "You probably shouldn't stick around too long, in case that policeman sees you again, but thanks. Seriously. Come and find me again sometime, when I'm alone, and we can talk more, yeah?"

'Talking is good. Zexal likes to talk, but most things won't. Too busy running or fighting. It will, it will! Find René again, easy to find, it remembers the kind ones.' A slighly unnerving smike broke the surface of the shadowy creature's face, its sharp teeth bared. René forced himself again not to shrink away. Instead, he put his hand out, tentatively - like one might to a stray animal. Zexal watched it curiously for a few moments, then put out a tendril in return. The slimy extremity wrapped ever-so-gently around his hand, making him shiver at the alien sensation. 'Touching. Nice touch. Warm, soft... no anger. René is nervous but trusts, is worried about the wolf-friend. Thinking of the wolf-friend makes him warmer, too.'

René blushed, then laughed. "I guess so. Man, this is weird. Not bad weird, but still." He smiled to Zexal, then gently pulled his hand back. "I ought to get back to where I was before Elliot or the cop spot me here," he said. "But thanks again. I owe you, bigtime."

'Zexal will find René again, soon, for talking. And more warm touches, maybe, if René gives them. If René needs Zexal again, he calls, and Zexal will hear.' The creature retracted its tendril, and with a final glance up towards the rooftop, shrunk back away into the shadows.

Stepping back and straightening, René breathed a sigh of bewilderment. His life saved twice in as many weeks by a ... he found it hard to think of Zexal as a demon, now. Voidling, was the term it had used last time, whatever that meant. He paced his way back across the street to take up position waiting for Elliot.

Thinking of the wolf-friend makes him warmer.

He blushed again. Something about the way the creature had put that was ... well, it wasn't how he would have phrased it, that was for sure.
 
"Yeah," Vernon said, rubbing at his chin - three days of scruff making his entire body itch. He should've shaved - would have been better if he was clean shaven. The three-day ritual was all out of whack, now - with cops dropping like flies and something bad - really bad - scrabbling at the sewers of Lutetia, itching to get out and wash the streets in gore.

Stubble made him dramatic. He needed to shave.

"It's more used for space. Setting it up to jet you back in time is risky for a lot of reasons - could ruin everything. It's not sanctioned by the big guys."
 
"... big guys?" Elliot questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"Is everything alright up there? El?" René called up to the rooftop with a worried frown, craning his neck to try and see what was happening.

Elliot made his way over to the edge of the rooftop to wave down at the younger boy. "We're good, René. He's up here, just ... there's an ambulance on the way."

"Is your leg okay?"

His hand went down to the hole in his jeans where the knife had hit him. He'd tuned the pain out, in the tension. It was slick with blood, but the wound was nearly closed. "Yeah, fine. Should probably cut down on running up fire escapes, though." He gave a dry chuckle, and shook his head. What the hell was he doing? Trying to be some sort of hero? Heroes didn't live long in Lutetia. If he'd been smart, he'd have taken René and left as soon as the woman gave them the chance. He was just glad ... well, whatever had happened with that thing, he was glad his bull-headedness hadn't gotten René hurt.
 
Vernon let out the air in his lungs in a loud snort, his gaze snapping back to Elliot. He waited until the conversation between the two ended before nodding his head at the dying wolf - the man clutching weakly at Vernon's pantleg, his breath morphing into a constant, keening rattle.

"Now might not be the time for a lecture on time magic," he said, evenly, absently running a hand through the man's hair. "Run me through what happened tonight. I'd ask you to the station, but that might not be the best place for people like you at the moment."
 
Elliot turned back to Vernon, eyeing the cop with a new wariness now that the adrenaline of the situation was fading. Elliot didn't like cops. But this guy didn't seem like most. Both the way he was treating the injured man, and the concession of not taking him to the station, seemed to point towards him being one of the exceptions to the rule that a werewolf talking to a cop was a bad idea.

"We were on our way home from René's work," he answered after a long, assessing silence. "First I knew that anything was wrong, I had a knife in my leg. The bitch from the alleyway threw it. She started talking shit about wolfsbane, like some wannabe slayer. Seemed surprised I wasn't getting fucked up by that or the silver, and backed off... but we could hear this guy screaming, so..." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "So I followed her. There was a weird-ass orange portal at the end of the alley leading to this guy, and she'd vanished, so I went through... then I'm not sure what happened. You'd have to ask René. He screamed, and by the time I'd turned around, she was wrestling that weird shadow thing and René was on the floor. Then you showed up."

He shuddered to think what could have happened if that creature hadn't turned up when it did. It would have been his fault, for leading René down that alleyway. Even though it hadn't happened, he still felt like shit. If he just hadn't been there, René would've been fine. And he'd been walking with him to try and make him safer.

Elliot sighed, grimacing at his own train of thought. It seemed like all he did was make René's life more difficult, these days.
 
The cop's eyebrows creased at the news that the boy had opted to follow the sound of screaming as opposed to turning tail. He glanced at the roof - in the direction Rene was standing - lips twisting as if in thought.

When Elliot finished, Vernon let his words hang in the night air as opposed to responding, opting to listen for sirens. He hated this part - the part of watching someone die where you couldn't do anything but wait for help with an edgy desperation, knowing that survival was a possibility - a probability - if only the sirens would split the night.

No sounds came forth, however. Lutetia's ambulances were busy things, overworked things.

The man on his lap shuddered, let out a keening wail, and the breath left his lungs slowly.

They didn't refill.

Vernon watched Elliot closely, eyes probing the boy's features.
 
The teen's expression twisted briefly, lips thinning as he gritted his teeth and took a deep breath, his jaw set. His fists clenched, then unclenched, grasping at nothing and letting it slip through his fingers. When he spoke, it was a bitter, defeated mutter. "Guess that's it, then. Risked our lives for nothing."

They should have called the ambulance when they'd called the cops. Maybe the extra minutes would have been enough. Maybe if he'd listened to René, trusted the shadow-thing, and pulled the IV sooner... maybe that would've been enough. Chances were, it wouldn't have. No matter what you did in this city, it never seemed to be enough. It wasn't the first death he'd seen, and it wouldn't be the last. But it was the first one that had felt personal. He didn't even know the guy, but they'd locked eyes. He'd tried to save him. He'd tried, damn it.

"I don't get it. Why do people do shit like this? Why hate us?"

It was a stupid question, the kind he'd asked just shy ten years ago, when he'd been kicked out of school. By this point, he knew there wasn't a good answer. It was just the way things were.
 
"It's not nothing," Vernon said, lifting the recent corpse up slightly so he could slide backwards, lowering it to the cold roof tile.

"He died afraid, but not alone. Died knowing we tried to save him. It's not nothing."

The cop stood, then, flexing his knees lightly until a small pop could be heard from the left one. He unhooked the button on his holster, checked if his revolver stuck, re-buttoned it. Did it again, and again.

"Could tell you they're jealous of you, scared of you. I could even give you a historical reference, some pretty analogy, something about dark desires, mob mentality. There are lots of reasons floating around, but the truth is people always hate something."

Vernon searched through his pockets, fingers finding a squashed pack of cigarettes. He pulled one out, spun it between his fingers, eyes unfocused on the tableau of Lutetia against the night sky - dark, dotted with lights, surrounded by swirling ink and specks of white.

"Today - now - it's you. Your kind. Ten years, it'll be some other. The hate blocks out the fear, and there's plenty to be afraid of."
 
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