Stop one was sneaking over to Evan. I had to see if the elf had suffered from the pack members pestering. Afterward, there would be a reckoning between me and Daniel over this army nonsense.

The male elf had managed to right himself again. He sat huddled over a fire, his hands held out trying to soak up the heat. Everything about him seemed so different from the man I'd first run into.

"I need to ask another question."  I hunkered down next to him.

"I will try to answer." Evan was sitting in front of the fire that popped and crackled from a fresh log.

"This was something I was already told."

"That may make it easier. The binding is on providing you direct answers to what you are." The elf nodded slowly. His long blond hair fell in clumps. The poor guy hadn’t bathed in a while. Still, he managed to smell oddly like a blueberry. That was weird.

"Candy," I had to stop and correct myself. Candy was the name for her playful side. Her serious personality was the other name. "Kanda'rila Ro'hal, told me that you had killed all your Lords."

"We killed the greatest, but we did not kill them all. Others finished what we started." He answered.

"Why? Without pushing." I quickly added the second part.

"A reason?" He stared for a moment while trying to figure out how to skirt the bindings Candy placed on him. "Fear."

That was a rather broad answer. "Of my people?"

"No.” Evan looked across the distance to the others, Kahina, Julianne and the other pack members. “Of theirs."

"Vampires?" Kahina was the most dangerous one to me. I could understand elves killing others to stay safe from vampires two thousand years ago.

"All of them," Evan said.

I stared at people of all races, wolves, vampires, and humans. What was it that caused issues? Add in the fact that elves delivered the blows then all four races were somehow responsible for my race's extinction.

"Stay safe, Evan." It was time to go.

"You will protect us, Lord. I am confident. It is what you do." He sounded tired, but at least the elf was conscious again. Maybe he had  taken a quick nap. "If you choose to."

"You make me sound like an Angel." It was hard to be quiet, almost pointless to bother.

"I can say what you are not, Lord, and you are nothing so noble." The male elf sounded amused for once in his depressive life.

"A demon then?" Religion was one of the few items still intact. The Purge could never manage to censor every Bible out there.

"To some." Evan still sounded vaguely amused. Both eyes narrowed at him and I almost missed his faint smile. The elf shook his head back and forth in a negative. Hell. He did have a sense of humor.

Daniel would leave with his precious box of goods. Evan and all the others would be safe. Afterward, I could figure out what do with Kahina.

What was Daniel’s angle by holding all my stuff hostage? He should believe me about Arnold's dead body, yet he still marched. He knew it would make me mad. He knew and still pushed. Was he trying to pressure me into something besides Arnold?

Everyone else was in a little gathering of war. Except me, I needed space. There was nothing useful my presence would contribute anyway. I didn't try to sneak away, but I didn't advertise either.

Softly treading feet from behind told me that someone was following already. Only two feet touched the ground so it was humanoid.

"Boy." A western twang let loose.

I turned to look at the silver-haired elf. We had never talked directly. The old man had the distinct look of having been in these woods for the last hundred years and was probably less social than me.

"Boy, I brought that box along." He shook the wooden container and it rattled around.

"Why do that?" I asked.

"You talked about telling your partner to shove the box sideways, seemed like a good plan. Figured you'd headed off to do that.” The old elf shrugged and ran a tongue along the inside of his lip. “Might solve this here standoff, then you and them hens will shut it and pull out."

His hair looked thin and ghostlike in the darkness, but what I could see of his face was serious. He rattled the box again in my direction.

"They know you grabbed that?" I asked.

"Won't matter one way or another. Figure one way, you're shot, another way, we're all in clear. That or we do things the hard way." The elf spat on the ground and pulled something out from a pouch. It smelled like bitter chewing tobacco.

"You think it’s worth a try?” None of the wolves had been on board with my plan. They seemed intent upon preparing for a wide-scale war.

"I reckon." The elf's voice was out of context with the woods around us.

"You know where Daniel is?" I took the box from his hand. That freed the elf up to get his bow strung. His motions were well practiced and calm.

"I can figure which ride's his, sure." He said. The accent made it hard to tell for sure.

"And how do we get Daniel’s attention?" I hoped the elf had an answer for that too. My option was to stand there menacingly against a squad of armored people. Somehow things didn’t seem that easy.

"Just saddle up and ask. Doubt they'll shoot you, what with you having what's left of their precious little heir." He said while picking up his bow and testing the sight a few times. The results must have displeased him because he scowled, spit and proceeded to tighten the string.

"What do you know about that?" I stared down at the box's top again and tried to figure out what a snake with wings had to do with everything. I had never seen a creature like this before.

"Nothin'." He sounded firm. Hell. Evan wouldn't like me punching his grandfather.

The old elf would probably put an arrow in me anyway. My arm had recovered, but there was more ammo readily available. A day’s worth of healing had reduced a bleeding wound to half scar tissue.

"Come on. Your partner's close." The silver hair cowboy sounding elf stalked off.

"What are you going to do?" I turned and quickly went after him. Elves tended to forget the rest of us had to avoid branches and trees.

"I'm the cover if things go south." He said.

There was a quiver on his back with dozens of arrows. If he stayed hidden until an escape was needed then perhaps we could dent Daniel’s men. Or maybe I would be a pincushion by the time I tried to do anything.

Daniel would hopefully be happy with the box, but I honestly doubted it. There was no reason for him to march in here with so many people when I, and the stupid remains, would have walked out in a day or two once the wolves got an all clear.

We traveled through the woods at a high speed. Every so often I could see the older elf shoot ahead. He would stop and look around. Each time I nearly stumbled right into him.

"Been sighting for 'em by way of those beams. My boy says they run them around as they travel." He said after our most recent near-collision.

"Yeah." I responded. Evan had told me that too.

"Figure I'd set up here 'bouts." He pointed up into one of the trees. I looked but couldn’t figure out how the old elf expected to get a clear shot on anything. In the distance, there was rustling which made the elf bolt up. “They're close. You wander over, ask for your guy and make the offer."

"And you'll be watchin' over me?" Hell. His accent was contagious and I was poorly imitating it.

"Like you were my own." He didn’t even notice the slip. I was happy with his answer, though. The older elf seemed effective with those arrows.

I grabbed at his arm before the old man could keep walking. He glared at my hand then rolled the chew in his cheek around to the other side.

"Why the about face?" I asked.

"Like I told that little girl, we all do what we need to when you're protecting your own.” The old elf’s head and silver hair fell around his face. “You all tried to help. To save that child's dream. I didn’t know or I wouldn’t have treated you all so rude."

"What if someone hurts what's yours?" I asked him. My friends, those who I claimed were in danger from Daniel's little gathering.

He let out one of those single syllable laughs before answering. "There’s always good old fashioned revenge."

We walked towards the sounds in the distance. It sounded like a car or van with a loud engine idling. Thoughts of how to approach Daniel kept coming into my mind and falling apart.

Would I be willing to hurt Daniel if my things were damaged? It was just stuff, right? No. It was more than stuff, it was all mine, what little I owned in this world. Kahina and Evan included in a strange sort of way.

A few more trees stood between us and a set of lights in the distance. Evan’s grandfather stopped traveling with me and rapidly climbed up a nearby tree. His body managed to avoid making more than a whisper of noise that was drowned out by the giant armored vehicle in the distance.

"Sshh." He whispered down to me. "He's headed over. Don't know how he found us. Go. I'll watch your back."

There were four sets of lights bobbing in the distance, two of them could easily be attached to some sort of guns. A clever man would have found the time for a quip. Sector weapons came with different types of bullets for every situation. Only a brief flip of a switch and they'd issue a different type of death for every race. Not that it took special bullets to take me down. At least I used to think it didn't.

The lights drew closer. Both the flanking guns stepped out slightly to the sides and took beads on me. A third light scanned the darkness around in an attempt to see if I was alone. Brightness made it difficult to see who was facing me.

Both my hands went up in the air, slowly. The only thing I carried was a wooden box that felt increasingly heavy. No weapons, no utility belt or shoe gun.

"Crumfield." I said. There was a vague outline in the distance that seemed like my friend.

"Jeff." I heard his voice come back. He was using my fake name, not something he commonly did, at least not without a hint of mockery. Daniel’s voice was professional and calculated.

"Got your dead whatever here." The box rattled a little bit as I shook it. Hell. Ashes don't rattle.

The fourth figure that I could make out hissed. Not a vampiric hiss, just an irritated human sucking in air. Daniel was positioned behind the newest person, almost subservient.

"Look, the deal was to bring you Arnold. You asked me to track him, here he is." I said loudly.

"Mister Crumfield, is this your asset?" The fourth man said. He had a lisp that came with heavy weight.

"Yes, sir." Daniel answered. Slowly my eyes adapted to the intense lights. There were a few emotions passing across Daniel’s face. Anger? Irritation? Loathing? They were such brief flickers that it might have been imagined.

"And you vouch for this man?" The heavyset person asked.

"With my life, sir." My friend answered.

"That's what you've placed on the line. Go get the little box and see if it's real." The heavy man waved a large meaty arm that barely had any contrast from the surrounding darkness.

The other two lights were still locked on me. Part of me crossed my fingers in hopes that every story told of elven archers over the years were accurate. Their addictions were just a way of evening out the unfairness of their eyesight.

Daniel got closer and reached out an arm. "The box, Jeff."

"Here." I responded while giving him the box. Hopeful restraint prevented me from telling the Agent to bend over first.

"This is all that's left?" Daniel asked quietly.

"So the story goes." I said.

"You checked it yourself?"

"No. Evan says it's Arnold's ashes." I answered while wondering why the hell we were whispering. The volume cue was easy enough to pick up from Daniel, but it didn’t make sense.

"What are you two mumbling about over there?" The heavyset man wiggled the fourth flashlight in our direction.

"One moment, I'm checking out the box." Daniel answered while sliding the box around. Inside something solid could be heard, like an uneven marble tumbling around. Both his eyes glanced down to the lid of the box, and on it was a completely different image than before.

I squinted and tried to make out the new picture. Previously there had been a serpent of some sort. Now it was a hooded human shape. A cowl covered the face's top half. Robes draped down with an intricately carved trimming. One of the figure's hands was behind his back, a stylized nub and blade protruded out opposite sides.

I looked at Daniel in confusion. Both of his eyes were peering directly into mine and the barest hint of a smile etched across his face. I knew that look. He was ecstatic and trying to hide it.

"This is perfect, Jay." He whispered quietly. "This is it. From here we can really get started."

"Is it Arnold?" The fourth man’s voice grew more annoying every time his mouth opened.

"I'm sorry, man. Don't shoot the messenger." Daniel’s voice was still quiet. My eyes glanced down at wooden carving of a hooded figure. That blade behind the back had to mean something important.

"What the hell, Crummy." I tilted my head slightly and started shaking it back and forth. Why did the box look different? What was he sorry about?

Daniel backed up quickly to the fourth man. They were still hidden behind those intense lights. My friend, the Sector Agent, was into something shady and had gone stone faced.

"No. It's a fake." He said.

"WHAT THE HELL, CRUMMY?" I exploded with anger at the person who acted like my friend. "I got you your stupid kid!"

"He's not stupid!" The fourth man yelled back. "He contained our only hope as a race!"

"Sir?" Daniel’s voice was hard to hear over the blubbering leader of this little group. The larger man sounded like he was having a meltdown.

"Do it. You warned him, we warned him. If he couldn't recover the heir then there's a price." He blubbered while waving an arm accusingly.

“What the hell, Crummy!” I leaned over and there was a click from both the men with guns. It made me freeze while imagining just how quickly they could fill me with holes.

"Here you go, sir." Daniel was speaking to the heavyset man. The two exchanged an item of some sort. My former friend shut off his light and there was a hint of a grin hanging in the near darkness.

"We told you. Told you that failure was not an option." The fourth guy shut off his flashlight too so I could see what he was holding. "This is the trigger for all the wired explosives lining your little home."

I started forward to try and tear the trigger away, but a quick series of warning shots destroyed the ground in front of me. Both guards had their weapons leveled back up in my face with their beams of light. Putting up an arm didn’t help block out the brightness.

Hopefully, Evan’s grandfather was prepared to put an arrow into these two. Quickly.

"One last chance, Jeff." With two lights gone I could confirm the fourth man was indeed heavyset. He was older with formerly black hair fading to gray. "Tell us where Master Regious is, and all your little knick-knacks will be spared."

"Please tell him, Jeff, I can't stop him from pressing that trigger if you don't." Daniel said.

Kahina was right. The warning letter had also pointed the finger elsewhere. Was it this man? He was using Daniel, and Daniel in turn was using me. I slowly focused, pushing past the lights, pushing past the worry and honing in on the heavyset man.

"That's all there was." I said while anger gradually built. Rage at being used, being pushed, with the need to make someone pay for all of it.

"This isn't enough to be a body, Jeff! Do you think we're stupid?" Daniel said. He might be punched first. The Agent deserved a sound thrashing.

"Agent Crumfield makes a good point. There'll be no more lies out of you, Jeff." The fourth man held that button up high as if elevation implied a larger threat.

"Don't." I shook my head.

"I'm afraid I'll have to if you don't come clean.” The man kept shaking and rolling his letters. I was trembling from anger that was only kept in check by a future full of bullets. “All our sources say you have Elo'dorian, and Arnold Regious should be close to him."

"That’s him." I pointed and tried not to scream.

"Don't play stupid. It may suit you, but I won't believe you're this ignorant. You monsters are all together on this." The fourth man said with his stupid chubby face.

"What the hell is going on, Crummy?" I asked. Only Daniel wasn't around anymore. He must have slipped off into the darkness behind the others.

"Agent Crumfield is one of us and will lead the faithful forward. We'll be ending you now. After all, thanks to him we know your weakness." The blubbery man didn’t even notice Daniel's absence, instead he moved one finger towards the trigger. "Last chance."

"I don't know..." He cut me off and depressed the button. There was a sharp click and two explosions. Or maybe it was one.

An arrow flew by unnoticed until the zip of noise caught up. The first gun-toting guard had time to turn and fire into the trees, but it wasn't enough. Another feathered shaft slammed into his neck. Blood and lifeless thuds told me Evan's grandfather hadn't aimed to wound.

I didn't care.

That little click of noise, like the decaying beep from a fire alarm, signaled the end of everything I owned. All that I owned was gone. My arms were shaking and something needed to pay for it. Daniel? No. Daniel’s favorite saying, the one he'd been telling me all along for a reason, don't shoot the messenger. Crummy wasn't the one who had pressed the button. The blubbery fourth man would go first.

"Monster! Filth!" The man was screaming into the woods. "I'll shoot you myself! Crippled, weak, you’re like he said you'd be!"

Only thirty feet away was the man who had ended it all. A spike in anger overwhelmed me so suddenly I barely had time to register my actions. The coherent part of my mind was taking note of the remaining man and his desperate struggle to pull out his sidearm.

Anger told me quite clearly that he'd also taken everything I owned. My head pounded. Each heartbeat magnified with intensity, demanding retribution. Revenge. Something swift and sudden. Something that would be clearly understood. I would light this man ablaze and plant his head on a spike as a warning to everyone. To never touch what was mine again.

Both lights had fallen to the ground, illuminating me as I closed the gap in one leap. A rush of air buffeted away from me pushing towards the ground. Another gathering of force caught around me as I slammed into the other man. Inertia threw off the landing.

The man had been trained enough to aim his sidearm and pull the trigger.

Screaming. Growling. Heated and venting all the rage I had. One side of my face was twisted in a snarl, the other passive and detached. This was for vengeance, but it was also a matter of course, an example must be set. Vague sensations of pressure accompanied a sudden movement which sent the man's body flying away with excessive force. Moments later it would land near the convoy, but his head was still in my hands, sizzling as one side of his face charred.

I performed exactly as warranted. Now the dead man was unimportant. My body twisted to hurl the remaining head towards Daniel’s armored trucks. Flames outlined their vehicles and made for easy targeting.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

My arm itched and head went fuzzy. Things started slipping out from under me. The ground spun and trees laughed from above. The fire was important somehow. The sensation from jumping over thirty feet to kill a man triggered buried memories that were slipping away.

I stared into the distance watching battlefield chaos. Wheels were melting, cars aflame and overturned. Fire in the distance was important somehow. The heat grew in intensity as moments passed by. Crackling of branches and groaning wood accompanied howls and gunfire. Secondary explosions went off on other vehicles.

Hell. What had I been doing?

Everything felt unreal. My subconscious tried to flee repeatedly towards home, to check on that which was mine. Things I gathered over a lifetime of work. Personal belongings that meant more to me than anything rightfully should.

"Boy." Words sprang from nearby, but they were lost in the aquarium landscape my senses had become.

"It's not safe here. We'd best hightail it." The man said. No matter how much I tried to bring myself to the now, those extra senses unfurled and rewrapped over and over. My vision was broken in a strange kaleidoscope of images.

Too many words pushed together. It felt like forever before everything registered. Half hearing, half tactile sensation imparted by vibrations. Both at one time overloaded me with a mismatched comparison. Teeth ground as my mind tried to reconcile what was happening amid the anger.

Who would dare? Violation. Trespass. Danger to collection. Fire. Screaming. Fly. Need to check. Need to feel. Pink Meat pressed thing.

My jaw clenched tight while I tried to focus, fighting against a strain that threatened to burst me apart. I had to concentrate on sending my senses out. To get away from myself before everything was ruined.

Swelling in my throat died down but didn't vanish. Rationality barely kept the lid on my boiler frustration. My focus stopped swimming and head ceased its denying shake. I cast my senses out quickly, spiraled across the landscape. Using myself as an anchor for everything I owned.

"Boy, we need to go. Wait..." Someone said.

I could feel a man’s hand reaching over to loosen my grip. One of the firearms was deforming in my grasp, either from heat or pressure. An accent twang cursed from pain. Steam rose from my skin and poured out from between my lips.

"Shit." The older man said in the distance.

Quickly I flew out over a mental landscape, trailing after the thick bundle of links to my home's possessions. My apartment, my basement, my storage of items. Cheap swords, rare comics, action figures and goodness knew what else. Each one a thin thread bundled together to form a link. Stuff that shouldn't matter but somehow did.

"We've got to bind that up." The words were muddled. Indistinct. It felt like Evan’s grandfather, but I was too torn up to care.

My mind neared the sixty-mile mark. That was enough to nearly reach the city line. The horizon of other sight loomed ahead as a wall of white. That wouldn't stop me this time. I would push past the barrier and see the truth of home.

Evan’s grandfather kept speaking about things that didn't matter to my strung out mind. Useless sensations flooded by. Muted howls echoed among the trees. Dozens of voices shouting at each other with demanding tones that felt like utter babble. There were too many voices and vibrations in my way.

The land felt alive. Rain clouds had appeared. Their drops collided with the energy contained within each swaying tree. There was more than that. Tiny creatures huddled in foliage. Birds sat in their nests with heartbeats giving off ghostly images from each pulse.

Explosions sent out shockwaves. Air rippling by tingled against my skin. All this fed into my senses as I stood at the edge of my mental perceptions trying to bash down the immovable wall. I had to see my home and find out what happened. The upper range of my mind taunted me with indifference.

There was a grunt of confusion in my ears that must have been Evan’s grandfather back at my body. More vibrations ripped through the area. Gunfire answered against the hum of growls and snarls. Explosions overpowered the other vibrations for a moment.

Delirium fed me terrifying possibilities. Each pop of air might be another object in my home being reduced to ashes. I mentally threw myself at the wall of haze again and rebounded off. My mind was roaring in protest. The wall shifted slightly, a foot, maybe two.

Physically both knees hurt for reasons I couldn't understand. Then a jolt of pain shot through both palms and the side of my face. Daniel had lured me out too far away from everything I owned. Evan’s grandfather was speaking again, almost frantic. It sounded like he was cursing then ran off somewhere.

Every attempt at the mental wall was accompanied by a sharp, spiking pain. My cries of frustration were useless and the ghostly world I viewed was slowly changing colors. Reds, oranges, swirling crimson and touches of white flared across everything. The wall remained unmoved, the limit on what I could track. No matter what things my body managed do while enraged over protecting my stuff, even my abilities had a finite range.

"Gone..." The mumbling sounded familiar, my voice coming from miles back.

Among the sea of energy that spun over all the living things near where my mind hovered there were two more cords. One rainbow of colors went to Evan. A purple lacing blotched with blood lead to Kahina. They were mine just as surely as the inanimate objects in my basement. I wouldn't fail again. If they were all that remained, then they would get everything I had.

I recalled my mind with a shudder. The extra sensations of arms barely settled from agitation. A moment later and the feedback from everything surrounding hit me. Dirt grated against the skin where my face was planted. Arrows burrowed holes in the air as they flew out. Teeth tore into padded armor designed to prevent purchase. Screams, so many screams intermingled with burning bits of forest.

It was difficult to stand up. The woodlands surrounding me felt more real than my own skin. Bullets chipped portions of trees in the distance. Fire licked at the ground and steadily climbed higher. Trees were being reduced to cinders as an inferno swept across them.

Hell.

I stumbled towards the camp. Evan was that way. Kahina was close. Evan’s grandfather had taken off into the distance, likely putting his arrows to good use. The sensation of zips in the air had started to dim, but never actually lost pace. Only my extra awareness was starting to fade.

Muddy thoughts came up with an action plan. Find Kahina and Evan, make sure no one got to them. Get Daniel the hell out of here, quickly, before he felt the need to call in more friends to play. Other concerns started pelting my mind, growling from alien thoughts. It felt like something huge in the back of my mind was uttering warnings.

I had to focus.

The sensations from my surroundings finally ceased. The lack of extra sensation caused me to gasp and take one giant breath of air. The last detached sensation was one of feet thumping across the landscape in my direction. They felt too artificial for wolves. These were more like rubber.

"Jay!" A female shouted.

I turned to see Julianne and gave a weak wave. My other hand was pressed into my forehead to relieve the pressure of a budding headache. Throwing my mind at that white haze had been a bad idea.

"Jay, we've got to go help." She said.

"That man blew it all up." Now perhaps wasn't the best time for bad news but I was exactly thinking straight. The loss of home still pulled at my mind.

"What?!" Julianne halted her run nearby and shouted.

Her voice and lingering gunfire didn't help my headache. I tried to recall the weight with those footsteps. They weren't Julianne’s.

"That man," I gestured where he had been before I launched him. There were just splatters of blood left to show a human had been present. "Pressed a button to blow up the whole apartment place."

"God damn it, Jay! God fucking damn it." She was kicking now. Gunshots seemed to accent each swing of her short legs. "A newly turned pup would have more sense than you." She paused and I swear her ears perked up. "Wait, what the hell is that..."

Another gunshot went off, much closer this time. I heard Julianne cry out and looked over in time to see her fall while clutching her side. Blood was seeping out. A nightmare, this was all unreal. No one’s life fell apart this quickly. Not my life. Not again.

"We'll blame that one on you, eh big guy?" A voice I had never heard came out from the shadows near Julianne's felled body. "Oops. Bad guys got too close. Casualties of war being what they are."

The voice was a whisper of noise belonging to a figure that was difficult to make out. Black clothes laced with a thread that felt purple. A third dead Sector Agent was thrown onto the ground.

I felt lost while looking around for anyone who could help a bleeding woman. Where was Evan’s grandfather? Where was Julianne’s grandfather, or Thomas, or anyone who could help her? I'd never laid claim on Julianne, never tried to or wanted to. She was my boss and a friend. The short bartender was also a confidante when I got too drunk.

But none of those things would send me into a rage. Julianne wasn’t someone I had laid claim over so my mental switch just sat there doing nothing. No amount of anger would prevent her from dying.

"I think we'll clear up another little problem as well." The whispering voice leveled a gun in my direction. For the third time in one day, I was going to be shot.

Options ran through my muddled head and came up with a useless response. I had nothing. No tools, cross, silver, bullet proof vest or heavy mesh, only cloth and skin.

Another click barely proceeded the force of bullets slamming into me. They were imperfect and lodged into the outskirts of my chest. The person shooting couldn’t seem to aim right. There should have been pain, but all I felt was an uncomfortable pressure. My eyes were trying to focus on Julianne’s slumping body.

I stood there stupidly instead of falling down. This wasn't happening. This couldn't happen.

"Julianne?" Sound croaked out of me.

Lungs coughed and liquid leapt up. One arm jerked up slowly to swipe it away. A dark blot smeared across my ruined shirt. Part of my mind absently analyzed it. I was bleeding. Years of experience with fist to face connections taught me all about blood.

I looked down at Julianne. Her eyelids barely twitched as more shots rang out and impacts slammed into me. One skimmed off the side of my head, a fresh trail of pain and bone flaking with it.

Everything hurt, but in a passively detached manner that almost put my body and mind in completely different locations. The other man cursed about how I hadn't keeled over. Instead of responding to him I sluggishly moved one foot forward towards Julianne.

"More proof that you're a foul Hidden abomination. I've known it since the first time I saw you." He said. My head slowly drug itself over to look at the other figure.

My face tried to scrunch up in confusion, but all the muscles were screaming in pain. His face was visible but didn't make much sense. There was a single pair of almost milk white eyes. Hair was completely gone. The left side of his face seemed to be branded by a small cross.

"And you should all have been killed." He sneered.

What was he saying about an abomination? I stared at the ground that seemed too far away for someone who had been shot so many times. That sounded like a monster, but no more than this vampire was. He had shot Julianne so easily. My mind was trying to flip that internal switch and fight for her, to press him back, but was coming up empty.

"I wonder what your weakness is." The other man said. I struggled to remember his name. Janns? Mister Janns?

"Why?" I croaked out the question and wiped away another bubble of blood.

"I'll tell you after your last bit of life bleeds out." He spoke with an arrogance I could do nothing about.

The next few bullets hit my legs. They buckled and everything took on a new level of pain. This was worse than the fight against Francis, worse than my first against Janns and the other partial vampire.

All I could properly focus on, as gravity and a broken body pulled me downward, was Julianne's confused face. Maybe I wore the same look she had. We shared a disbelief that things had turned out so horribly wrong. Hadn't she planned to run her bar, to go wolf sooner or later and share her time with Stacy?

There were snarls further out that sounded too far away. No one was close enough to do anything. Julianne’s eyes shook from the loss of blood.

"I'll never know what she saw in you. Pathetic. You could never be a Second." The male kept ranting and nothing made sense. There were more shots, but they were off the mark.

I slowly followed Julianne's eyes across the dirt. She stared at the dead humans dressed in Western Sector armor.

"First I'll kill you, then I'll leave your desecrated remains as a present to her. She's dead anyway, you're both dead.” There was a sound of metal being tossed into bark. “The Tribunal can't let her survive the change."

Julianne's lips were moving and her eyes slowly honed in on mine. The wound to my head was leaking blood all over. Droplets splashed across the view of our crumpled bodies. I unfurled a tiny bit of my mind, trying desperately to reach out and hear her. My boss, my bartender, my landlord. Just thirty feet away. Such a small stretch.

"No, that's too good. I'll have to tear you into smaller pieces and ship them to her for holidays. I'll even C.O.D them! Hah, she can pay for the pieces of her dead lover." He kept babbling.  His hatred was the kind that built up over months, years even, but I had only seen him once before.

Julianne's lips still moved slowly. Light cast from the looming forest fire made it seem like her entire body was turning red. Tactile feedback reached across to sense the vibrations from her broken words. It was difficult to make out her words from among Mister Janns’ ranting.

"Protect Kahina. Protect her." Julianne tried hard to stop shaking and focus on me. Her words were broken mumbles. "If you break my girl's heart again I'll put your balls in a jar myself."

The last part came out muted, but it sounded like something she would say. I was probably filling in a lot of the blanks myself. Julianne was barely hanging onto life. She had given me a mission, though. Things were always so much simpler when someone gave me a goal.

My left hand moved to the ground, struggling for leverage. The arm quivered with weakness and there wasn't enough strength to force myself up on that alone. The problem didn't stop me completely. Mister Janns give an uneasy laugh at my efforts.

"I don't think so." He emphasized his statement by flickering with vampiric speed and kicking me in the side. The impact flipped me further away from Julianne. "I should never have bothered with human weapons, they're pathetic."

I groaned and tried to roll back over. My senses retreated from Julianne, and for a moment I felt each footstep he took. Each one compressing dirt on the ground as his weight shifted from side to side.

"Still hanging on are you? I should have done this from the start." Janns came over and lifted me upwards by the head. His strength was incredible. Dead weight pulled at my body. Feet weakly spun, trying to touch down on firm ground.

Another groan escaped me and my arms weakly tried to lift up. A freshly formed scab at my side ripped. I was healing faster than expected, but not enough.

"Ready to die? You promise to tell God I was a good boy, right?" Mister Janns started to lift one arm up and away. "Goodbye, abomination."

While he was speaking, my arms struggled to reach his face. As his reached back to an apex I lunged to plant both my thumbs into his eye sockets. From there it was a simple effort to squeeze with what little strength remained. It was impossible to feel my face, but I hoped it was terrifying.

"How, HOW are you still alive?" The partial vampire dropped me and yanked away. His eyes were pulps from my brief contact.

I fell to the ground with a fresh wave of pain and started laughing. It came out more like a choked sob.

"Bleed to death then, I'll still win." Then with another limping rush of incredible speed Mister Janns was gone.

I was alive which was another sign of being inhuman. Bullets had ripped through me, luckily none had been explosive tips or there would be chunks missing. No one answered my cries for help. Julianne's face was rapidly losing her remaining color.

Huffing, I attempted to traverse the distance. Both arms burned with strain from pulling. My abs clenched painfully. Babyish crawling barely helped me close the gap. Gunfire still spilled out in dying bursts. Flames had slowly succumbed to intense rainfall. The ground was cold, and Julianne's eyes were fluttering. Each time they opened I found the strength to pull myself another yard.

The last few feet towards her were the hardest. Her eyes had a distant glazed look about them. Every so often they would come together and focus. I almost slipped in the puddled blood forming under her.

"Janny." Speaking was much easier. In that short distance, my body had already started healing. This was unfair. I was getting better while she died in front of me.

"Janny, stay with me." I reached out and patted lightly on the side of her cheek. Her eyes swung back into focus for a moment and she smiled.

"I was wrong you know." Her words stuttered.

"About what?" Nearly all the other noises had vanished, even the crackling of burning trees was gone. My voice felt like a violation of the growing silence.

"Not all men are assholes."

"I think I'm an asshole." I tried to laugh but ended up blubbering myself.

She gave a weak laugh. The quick motion of her chest brought a moment of pain to her eyes. "Jay."

"I’m here." I said slowly.

"Kahina's worth it." Hell. This woman was dying and the only thought on her mind was making sure Kahina and I stayed together.

"We were good together. Remember, Janny? You told me that." I hung my head.

Julianne didn't respond and her eyes completely lost focus. My fingers were unsteady as I put them to her neck. The only pulse I could feel was the pounding of my own blood in my ears. A moment later my hand shifted to hover over her mouth, checking for a breath of air.

I couldn't tell. My body was numb, completely and utterly numb. There should be shooting pain, but there wasn't. That couldn't be a good sign, but at least there was still movement. Julianne couldn't say the same.

"Janny." My voice was louder than I expected, sadder. Not something I was used to feeling. "Janny, you can't be dead."

I reached out, trying to find a connection, a purchase with my powers, to feel if she still had her soul. My senses wouldn’t respond. Any abilities I had were overtaxed trying to keep me alive and mending.

Never once had I tried to locate Julianne like other people. Never once had I thought of her as being so important to me, but she had always been there. Before Kahina, before I left, and without question after I returned. Ready to help, lending an ear, a place to stay. How had I repaid her?

With failure.