"That bitch really burned our house down," Mike grumbled for the sixth time.

"We know," I told him. "You don't have to say it again."

"She burned it down." Mike looked at his forkful of omelet like it had mortally offended him. He turned to the Lady in Sweats. "Is there any way you could... you know. Bring her back to life?"

"Of course not," Lady paused with a glass of orange juice nearly at her lips. "Why would you want that?"

"So I could kill her again." Mike waved his fork menacingly. "Slower this time."

We were at a Denny's. After banishing the Shadows, getting away from the hospital had been a simple, if harrowing, affair. We'd seen the flashing red and blue of police cars, but we managed to get to my Taurus and drive off without running into any officers. We'd driven home to find nothing but firemen and smoldering remains.

"What about the other one?" I asked. "The vamp that shot Troll? Do you think Madeline got him out before she set the place on fire?"

"Wouldn't matter if she did," Mike took a sip of coffee. All he had when we left the hospital was a wallet, a phone, and a hospital gown. We had to make a side trip to Walmart to get him some clothes. Sweatpants and a t-shirt. Pink. Because I got to pick. "I cut his head off before the ambulance showed up." He gave me an accusing look. "Sure would have been nice to do that with a big-ass sword. I had to use a camping hatchet." He grimaced. "Messy."

"Whiner." I smirked at him.

"Sissy." He snorted.

"How can you be like this?" Stephanie demanded. "Justin and Gina are dead!" Her shout rang through the restaurant. There weren't many people eating this early, but the few that were there turned to look. Stephanie seemed not to notice. She was vibrating with grief and indignation.

"Can you keep it down, Steph?" Mike leaned forward, glancing around in a manner guaranteed to arouse further suspicion. In a lower voice, he said, "This is not a good time to be attracting attention."

"I can't believe you just-"

"We know," I cut her off, speaking as gently as I could. I met her eyes. A tear fell out of one of them. "We know," I said again. I put a hand on her shoulder. "We're hurting, too."

She glared at me. "You don't look like you're hurting."

I looked down at my plate. She was right. Our friends were dead and I was bantering with Mike like nothing happened. I'd only known Gina for a day, but she was good people. And Justin... I'd known Justin forever. Now he was dead, and it was my fault. Mike hadn't wanted to drag them into this. I should have listened. My face was wet. Was I crying? Now? In a fucking Denny's?

"That ain't fair, Steph," Mike came to the rescue. "We're acting like this for a reason." I used the distraction to surreptitiously wipe my eyes.

"Mike," Stephanie warned, "If you say it's a man thing I swear to fuck..."

"No. Nothing like that," Mike assured her. "It's a coping mechanism. We're holding it together and acting like nothing's wrong while we figure out what to do next. We've got life and death shit happening, and we can't afford to let ourselves feel the hurt." He looked past Stephanie. Past everything. I'd heard of the thousand yard stare, but I'd never seen it before now. It was a cold look. Haunted. Like the the nightmare in his head was the only thing he could see. "i can fall apart later. Will fall apart later. I'll get good and drunk. Cry, maybe hit things. But not now." He shifted, bringing himself back into focus. "Right now we need to eat some food and find somewhere to hole up."

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"You'd better do it soon," a voice said from behind me. I turned to see an extremely tall man. Six foot three, at least. He wore a black shirt under grey, oil stained coveralls. Black hair, cut short on top and shorter on the sides. Brown eyes with bags under them. He was lean, but not skinny. Compact muscles rippled as he moved. One long fingered hand gripped a coffee cup. "The cops'll be here in twenty minutes or so."

I didn't know the guy, but Mike did. "Finder?" His brow furrowed. "What are you doing here?"

"It's a Denny's, Cross." Finder rolled his eyes. "What do you think I was doing?" He pulled a chair from a nearby table and sat down. He placed his coffee on the table, looking us all over. "You've been shot," he told Mike. "And you all look like shit."

"Mike?" Stephanie packed an impressive amount of annoyance into her tone. "Who is this?"

"Uh... Right." Mike shook off his surprise. "Everybody, this is Alex Finder. We drink together sometimes. Finder, this is Kevin, Stephanie, and Lady."

"That's not her name," the interloper said absently.

"It's nice to meet you," Stephanie tried for politeness. She held out her hand.

"Oh, uh..." the intruder scratched his head. "I don't shake hands. Sorry."

"Yeah," Cross added. "He doesn't like to be touched."

"Wait" A suspicion had worked its way up my mind. "Finder?" I'd heard that name. "This is the guy that keeps getting you in bar fights?" Mike sometimes went out with small group of fellow veterans. More often than not he came home with blood on him. Sometimes it was his. One of those times, Finder had been the one who beat him.

"He starts most of those himself," Finder objected. He picked his coffee back and gestured at the man in question. "I still think it's a real shame you went Army. You'd have been a pretty good Marine."

"No way," Mike shook his head. "You guys eat crayons."

Finder nodded sagely. "I like the blue ones. They taste like smart."

"Why are you here?" I cut in. It's possible I was feeling hostile.

Finder shrugged. "I was having breakfast. The little lady's outburst drew my attention-"

"Little lady?" Stephanie growled.

Finder continued on. "-and I noticed Cross was here. So I swung by."

"This isn't a good time." I told the man.

"I know." Finder sipped his coffee. "Like I said, the cops'll be here soon. They're looking all over for you guys."

Lady leaned forward. "How do you know that?"

Finder's eyes flicked to the side. He tilted his head. A couple seconds later, he shrugged. "Police scanner." At Lady's confused look, he said. "Right, you wouldn't know about those. The cops use things called radios to talk to each other from a distance. A police scanner can hear what they're saying."

"How do you-" I started.

"That's not important right now," Finder interrupted. "What's important is that you are persons of interest in multiple homicides, an arson, and whatever the hell happened at St. Patrick's an hour ago. And you," he pointed at Mike. "Have a warrant out for your arrest."

"What?" I peered at Mike. "Why?"

Mike shifted, uncomfortable. "I might have, sort of, assaulted a police officer and stole his gun."

"Oh, no." I let my face drop into my one good hand.

"It was an emergency," Mike defended himself. "Madeline was going to kill you guys."

"The cop in question's fine, by the way," Finder informed him. "Pissed, but fine. Mild concussion."

"That's good," said the fugitive. "Knocking people out is a lot more dangerous than you'd think."

"It's not like in the movies," Finder agreed. His head tilted again. He looked like he was... listening to something? "Anyways, we should go." He reached for his coffee. He wasn't looking, and would have missed, but the coffee cup slid itself across the table and into his hand.

"We?" I asked. Did anyone else see that? Was I imagining things?

Finder regarded me with a serious expression. "You don't like me, and you're right. I'm an asshole. If you want to go off on your own that's fine. But I've got a place you can crash where the cops won't know to look." He tilted his head and listened again. A frown twitched across his face. "The police around here are good to go, but you can't let them catch you right now. There's a whole mess of people after the Lady of the-" he coughed. "The Lady over there. If you're in police custody when they show, you're all fucked." He finished his coffee and stood. "I'm paid up, so I'm heading out. If you guys are coming, Mike knows where I live. If not..." he shrugged. "Good luck, I guess."

He walked away with long, brisk strides. I asked Mike, "Can we trust him?"

"Yeah," Mike was frowning, but he nodded. "He's a weird guy, but we can trust him. Plus he owes me for that bullshit in Kandahar."

"We can and we must," Lady seconded. "That man was not here by chance. He was sent."

"Your spell, you mean?" Stephanie wondered.

"Perhaps." Lady watched him leave with an odd expression. She almost looked... reverent? "Or perhaps not. I think that man might be a prophet."