mGabriel 2
Jun. 2nd, 2013 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Dangling by a harpy's feet, being drugged, and flying over a forest at night was bad enough, but the harpy kept trying to reassure him. 'It will be a while,' she said. 'Try to relax'.
Gabriel did not relax. He didn't struggle, but he kept tightening and relaxing various groups of muscles - especially in his legs - to try to keep his circulation up and, hopefully, metabolize the drug faster. He wiggled his fingers, slid them in the pockets of his hoodie and made fists trying to warm them. The cold was making him sleepy.
He was at the point of starting to nod off when something slammed into Angela, something big. Adrenaline flooded his body and his fingers wormed into the brass knuckles as he looked around. It was a pale shape, that's all he could make out before it came back and fuck it was big. Angela let go with one foot to lash out at it. It peeled away again, but Gabriel doubted it had given up.
"What is that thing?" he tried to ask, but his mouth wouldn't move. It came out as a vague moan.
"Please don't distract me," Angela called back.
Great.
The creature roared - not just a bellow, an actual big-cat roar, and something batted at his foot. He screamed and jerked his foot away, but two huge paws closed around his shin-
Paws. No claws. Was it hostile? Was it hostile to the harpy? Gabriel reconsidered his urge to kick in attempts to free his leg. As the two supernatural creatures started playing tug-of-war with his body, though, he did his best to curse them both out with every expletive he'd learned over the last 20-30 years.
The paws...let go. The creature they belonged to made a disgruntled sound, but it dropped back. Gabriel wasn't sure how he felt about that.
"Not far now," Angela called down to him. "I know you may be cold, confused, scared, and possibly hurt. That's normal for mortals."
Well, whoop-de-friggin-do.
"We'll work through this together, and you'll come to accept it. Maybe even like it."
Okay, that just made him wish the other monster would come back and rescue him. Fuck if he was going to develop supernatural Stockholm Syndrome.
"You have been chosen," she continued in a dreamy, I've-been-brainwashed-by-a-cult voice. "In due time, you will assume the role of our leader. It is your destiny."
Like hell he would-
Something big and warm slammed into his back, breath hot on the back of his neck making him shout. His shins were being gripped by something hard and pointy, there was a giant paw on his chest, claws piercing hoodie and shirt and skin, and then Angela screamed and let go and the thing dove, other paw curled around his shoulder while something white and long and hairy whipped around his head. Angela shrieked and dove at them, but the cat-monster growled and snapped at her and dove again, throwing them at the treeline faster than gravity could pull them.
Gabriel closed his eyes. Not that he didn't want to see the ground approaching, but they were going to fast and it hurt. The sound of the wind rushing by changed, and he peeled his eyes open enough to see that they were flying through a large clearing, but the trees were coming at them awfully fast. The monster pulled its wings in tight and they shot down a game trail before bursting into another clearing, where it snapped its wings open and flapped like a duck landing in a pond and, somewhere along the line, dropped him. He tumbled awkwardly, painfully, and slid to a stop on his back taking deep breaths and trying to figure out if anything was broken without actually moving.
Given the choice of Ms. Cult Harpy and the - Gabriel didn't even know what it was - the monster who had abducted him, Gabriel was going to go with the monster. Assuming it didn't try to eat him.
Naturally, that's when it padded up and nosed at him with a giant, white, lion head. And batted at him with huge white lion paws. But no claws. Carefully, he turned his head and realized that it had big raptor legs, like some kind of backwards gryphon.
The lion-eagle thing nosed him again and made a whuffling sort of sound, like it wanted him to stand up.
"Give me a minute," he snapped, stretching his limbs. "It's been a rough night."
The thing backed up and sat on its haunches, watching him with blue eyes. It had scars over its face, one of them going over an eye. Monster was lucky it hadn't lost that eye. A thorough examination of his arms and legs and a glance at his chest told him that yes, he had been injured, but they were barely worse than scrapes.
"Probably infected," he muttered, "but they'll heal." He looked at the cat monster. "Now what?"
The thing turned like a horse waiting to be mounted.
"You want me to ride you."
"Rruh," said the monster.
Gabriel stared at it for a long minute before his internal fuck-o-meter informed him it was at NONE. "Sure. Why the fuck not."
It took a few adjustments - and learning the difference between the affirmative 'rruh' and the negative 'rrrh' - before he was as settled as he was going to get on the back of a cat-eagle monster at godawful at night in the middle of a forest.
"Okay," he said, trying not to feel foolish talking out loud because apparently the thing understood English, "wherever you're going to take me, I'm ready."
The monster ran back down the game trail and, as soon as they were in the bigger clearing, launched itself into the air with a thunderous beating of its giant wings.
===
Gabriel had only fuzzy memories of the creature landing, and falling off its back onto something soft and warm. Wherever he was, he seemed to be in one piece and alone, even if his clothes had gotten a bit re-arranged in the night. As he tugged the legs of his sweatpants back down, though, he noticed that the minor wounds from the creature's talons had vanished, and the clawmarks on his chest were gone, too.
The second thing he noticed is that he was in a sort of cave hollowed out of the side of a ravine about ten feet across at its widest and about the equivalent of two or three stories tall. There was a dirt floor to or three feet down from the mouth of what was probably the monster's nest cave, with some moss and very ambitious grass growing. A few other cave mouths could be seen as he looked around, the biggest making a sort of bulbous end to the ravine. It was full of guns, firearms of all types as far as he could see.
He'd been abducted slash rescued by a gun collector. Okay then.
The nest - the creature had let him sleep in its nest - seemed to be clothing bits and blanket scraps and downy white feathers and clumps of white fur. Since his host (if that was the right term) was out, Gabriel didn't really want to be a rude guest, so he examined the nest material a bit more and realized that the clothing scraps had had all their fasteners ripped off or cut out. He tried to imagine claws and talons cutting zippers off pants and parkas, a giant lion head biting buttons off flannel shirts, but not only did that seem unnecessarily difficult but also...just...unnecessary.
Clearly there was more to the monster than met the eye.
He hopped out of the nest area and started doing lunges while he was waiting. Ten or fifteen minutes later, after he'd done pushups, sit-ups, and jumped imaginary rope, a shadow made him look up. The lion creature was looking down at him, something held in its mouth. It leaped down the cliff walls, using some of the cave entrances as footholds, more graceful than anything that big should be, and landed next to him. Damn thing's shoulder came up to his fucking chest, and it had...a dead rabbit in its mouth. Which it laid at his feet.
"For me?"
"Rruh."
"I have absolutely no idea what to do with this thing."
The monster made a chuckling sound.
Gabriel cracked a grin. "Hey, laugh all you like, but I'm a city boy. I've barely seen a rabbit alive, much less skinned one. And anyway, I'm not all that great at cooking past making a casserole or frying some eggs, stuff like that. Sorry."
The monster's head swung around to the pile of guns and it made an inquisitive sort of sound.
"Nope, didn't touch 'em. That'd be rude. And you're intelligent and mean me no harm, so not only would it be rude, it would be actively threatening. This has been kind of a shitty few days for me, but not enough to turn me into an asshole that would pick a fight with a creature who clearly has no hostile intentions towards me."
The creature...shrank, like the opposite of Jesse turning into a walking pile of fur, and became a man wearing faded jeans, hiking boots, and a red flannel shirt. He had the same blue eyes, the same scars on his face, and the same pure white hair. He looked fifty, maybe sixty, with a rugged farmer-soldier build.
"Jack Morrison, griffin," he said, holding one hand out.
Gabriel shook it firmly. "Gabriel Reyes, LAPD. Human."
"You're awfully calm about waking up in a griffin's hoard," Jack said, eyebrow raised.
"I think my ability to freak out broke when I saw the hairy dude turn into a werewolf and an Australian pixie cussed at me," he joked. "I'm waiting until the weird stuff stops happening before I'll bother freaking out again."
"Probably a good idea," Jack joked back. "So, if I skin and cook this rabbit, will you eat it?"
"Would be rude not to." Gabriel's stomach growled. "Also, I'm starving."
Laughing, Jack picked up the dead rabbit and took it to the corner away from the guns, where a fire pit with a crude chimney had been set up. "Tell me about yourself," he invited as he took a knife from somewhere and started skinning the corpse. "You're a ways away from LA."
Gabriel sat on the grass with a sigh. "Tell me about it," he griped.
Slowly, he told the story as he knew it, with Jack asking questions here and there as he butchered the rabbit, started a fire, and set the pieces on a metal grate over it.
"The Reaper's bad news," he said as he sat down by Gabriel. "I lost...several close friends to the Reaper. And it was Angela who abducted you out of Ana's house..."
"That's what Amari called her," Gabriel said, noting that although he'd only given the older woman's first name once, Jack was calling her by it.
The griffin waved one hand. "No, no - I know it was Angela. Recognized her scent. She said you were destined..."
So, Jack knew Angela as well as Amari. He must be part of the whatever-it-was that Amari was so cagey about where the drama went down and people died or left.
"Chosen to assume the role of whatever cult she's in. That it's my destiny."
"Well, if you feel like poking destiny in the eye, count me in," Jack said grimly. "After all the Reaper's taken from me, I'd love to take something from it."
Gabriel sighed. "I just want to go back to my apartment. I'm sure I've been reported missing by now, and the neighbors are going to have the entire neighborhood looking for me."
"Popular guy?" Jack asked neutrally, prodding the rabbit parts with a stick or some tongs or something, Gabriel couldn't tell.
"They're my people," Gabriel said with quiet emphasis. "The people I became a cop to protect. I look out for them, they look out for me. Like - I'm sorry, that's probably racist or something."
Jack looked over. "What?"
"I was going to compare myself to the male lion protecting his pride, but... What?" Gabriel asked when the other man started to laugh.
"That's exactly what it's like for griffins," he chuckled. "Especially lion-headed ones, like me."
"You can appreciate why I want to get home, then."
"Yeah." Jack moved two of the rabbit bits to a flat stone and handed it to Gabriel. "These are done, but you might want to let them cool a little first."
"Thanks. And thank you for rescuing me."
"Ana...may have called in the cavalry," Jack said, wincing.
Gabriel shot him a wry look. "Did you not hear where I said my freak-out system is still busted? You and Amari are old pals. That's cool. She was in my dream when Angela drugged me, sort of running a supernatural background check on me I guess in case I do become the next Reaper. The important part is that she cared enough to call for help, and you cared enough to answer. I appreciate that, Jack, I really do." He picked up something that looked like a drumstick and nibbled at it.
Jack watched him for a long minute. "After breakfast," he said quietly, "I'll change back and we'll start heading towards Ana's. Fereeha can take you home from there."
There was something Jack wasn't saying, Gabriel would put money on it. But all he did was swallow his mouthful and say, "Thank you."
===
Gabriel clung for dear life as Jack jumped from ledge to ledge and up out of the ravine. He'd intended to dismount once they were up, but the griffin started loping off.
"Hey!"
"Rrah?'
"I can walk, you know."
"Rrrh."
"No? What do you mean, no?"
"Rrrh."
Gabriel huffed. "Is there a reason you think I can't walk?"
"Rruh."
Jack paused, turned around, and lowered his head to sniff his own tracks.
"Oh. If you're carrying me, no one can track me by scent."
"Rruh!"
"Well, I guess I can't argue with that."
Smugly, the griffin padded on.
=
They traveled until about midday, then stopped by a stream so both of them could drink. Jack started a fire, then charged Gabriel with watching it while he shifted back and excused himself to go scavenging. Gabriel awkwardly pulled his pants down to pee behind a bush, cursing the biology that made peeing in the wilderness a chore. A distant gunshot made him freeze, but no other sounds followed. Somewhere around half an hour later, Jack strolled back with a bundle of fur under one arm.
"Saved you the inner loins. Also the back straps," he said lazily, unwrapping the fur to display several long strips of meat. Gabriel watched as the griffin skewered the ends on some sharp sticks and jammed them into the ground around the fire. Once he was done, he said, "I don't know how you like your steak, but about ten minutes will have them roughly medium-rare. Help yourself, I've already eaten. I'm just...gonna take a nap while you eat."
"You deserve it," Gabriel told him."Thanks."
The griffin sighed and transformed back into a giant cat-monster, which curled up and promptly fell asleep. Gabriel counted ten impatient minutes, yanked the sticks out of the ground, turned them around, and jammed them back in for another impatient five. The ones he guessed were back straps, he moved away from the fire. The tenderloins, he blew on until he could touch them without burning himself, and then he devoured them. It may not have been what he was used to, but it was meat and it was hot and he washed them down with cold stream water before wondering how, exactly, one went about waking a griffin.
"Jack?"
The griffin's ears twitched.
"I'm ready whenever you are," he said lamely.
Groaning, Jack hauled himself to his feet and gave the backstraps and Gabriel a pointed look. Hurriedly, Gabriel took what was probably his dinner and retreated to a safe distance. The griffin scraped dirt over the fire with is broad paws before picking up the slab of deerskin and dunking it in the water. Then he laid the dripping thing over the dirt-covered remains of the fire and patted it down.
"Muh."
He turned, indicating that Gabriel should climb back on, and waited until the human was settled before resuming his walk.
Gabriel thanked him for lunch, and for carrying him, and Jack made what he thought were pleased sounds.
=
They kept going after the sun had set, Gabriel afraid to say anything when the griffin showed no signs of stopping. When he started shivering, however, the griffin made a sound he thought was apologetic and changed course. A handful of minutes later they were on the bank of another stream, and Jack was shrinking back down to human. He argued with some dead branches for a minute before taking a lighter out of his pocket and setting the tinder alight. Then he pried the back strap sticks out of Gabriel's stiff hands and stuck them into the ground where the meat would warm up.
"Sorry about that, Gabriel. Forgot humans are more sensitive to cold than griffins." Gently, he rubbed Gabriel's hands until they started feeling like hands again. "It'll take your dinner a few minutes to heat up if you need to use a bush or anything. Just, uh, scoop a little hole out and cover it up when you're done."
Gabriel nodded and went off a little ways, making sure he could find his way back. Pooping in the woods, at night, was not his idea of fun and it took rubbing his hands in wet sand and rinsing them off until he couldn't feel his fingers before he felt clean enough to go back. But when he did, more hot venison for dinner was his reward.
"I'm going to change back for the night," Jack said as he finished. "I can keep you warmer that way." He must have seen the bruised ego in Gabriel's eyes, because his jaw clenched. "Don't be an idiot," he said evenly. "You will spend a very uncomfortable night shivering without my body heat. You can either cuddle up to me now, or wait until you're too miserable to care if it makes you feel weak and then cuddle up to me."
"I'll be fine by the fire," Gabriel said stubbornly. The weak comment was too close to home, but that just made him even more determined to not be babied.
"If you say so." Jack clearly was not convinced, but he shook himself out into a griffin and curled up on the other side.
Getting comfortable on the ground wasn't easy. It took shifting and moving stones from under his back, but finally he was comfortable enough with his hands pulled into the sleeves of his hoodie and the hood pulled up, and he drifted off.
===
Gabriel was sitting at his desk in the station. Everything was exactly as it should be. Liao brushed past him, furious, and he leaped out of his seat, calling her name.
"Save it," she snapped, not even slowing down. "After what you did yesterday, I think you might need some time off."
Suspension without pay. Fuck.
Then the world...skipped, like a movie slipping on its reel, and tore open into darkness. A scrape, a flare, a match lighting a candle. An angular face, pale, floating in the darkness like some creepy bird's skull. A woman's voice, cold, saying "You'll do."
"I'll do what?" he demanded, trying to move but realizing he couldn't even feel his body. Everything was so cold...
"You're in good shape for your age. Yes, you'll do fine. Maybe even...better than fine."
"I'll kick your motherfucking ass is what I'll do," he snarled, but the woman(?) laughed.
"That is exactly the kind of attitude you should have. I think you'll enjoy what's in store for you..."
A bright light, a searing crash, the woman screaming. He was blind, tears streaming down his face, eyes scrunched shut and still unable to block out the light. Snippets of conversation, talking about him. About how angry Liao would be that the woman went after one of her officers. About how they would wipe his memories and he'd be fine.
The station snapped back into existence, as if the projector had been turned back on mid-scene. Liao was still walking away from him, and he let her go. This was...this was wrong. He shouldn't be here. Slowly, he started making his way back to is desk, relieved when he saw Amari rifling through it.
"Thank fucking god," he sighed.
Startled, she turned and embraced him fiercely. "You're alive!" She pulled back and fixed him with a stern look. "Tell me where you are, right now."
"Uh...somewhere in the woods, Jack would know more-"
"Jack!" She looked both surprised and relieved.
"Yeah, Jack Morrison. Griffin. He abducted me from Angela abducting me and he's taking me back to your house." Gabriel rubbed one arm in an embarrassed way. "He's been...really good to me. I think I'm gonna miss him when I go home. Do you think he'd come visit? I owe him lunch and dinner at least..."
Amari smiled at him. "I think there's no harm in asking. I'm glad you're safe, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow."
Gabriel took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "You know what? So am I."
===
He woke up shivering, his fingers and toes and everything feeling like ice.
The fire had gone out.
Jack's pale form stood out in the darkness, and Gabriel crawled on his elbows and knees - because his fingers were too stiff and numb - over to the griffin. He didn't even care that Jack was clearly awake because he lifted one foreleg so Gabriel could use the other as a pillow, all he cared about was that the grfifin was warm, the foreleg hugging him to that furry chest was warm, the feathered wing covering him like a blanket was warm, and the deep, body-wracking shivers were calming. Shamelessly, Gabriel snuggled into that warmth and let sleep claim him.
=
Gabriel woke up with Jack spooning him, but he wasn't a griffin. In approximately three-tenths of a second, he'd leaped across the campsite and stood there, breathing heavily, as Jack cracked one eye open and frowned.
"You okay?" he asked sleepily.
"Why the hell were you spooning me?"
Jack sat up and shrugged. "Had to pee, figured I'd start a fire, didn't feel like changing back."
Only then did it sink in that the fire was, once again, burning cheerfully.
"Rough night?" the griffin asked in a weirdly parental I'll know you're lying voice.
Gabriel rubbed one arm. "Talked to Amari - she was in my dream. Told her I was with you. She's expecting us."
"Then I suppose we shouldn't keep her waiting," Jack said, standing up and stretching. "Ohh. Not as young as I used to be. Sleeping on the ground as a human has me a bit stiff and sore. We're both walking, today."
"Fine," Gabriel said, feeling a little guilty for both wanting to ride again and jumping away like that when he'd woken up. "I'll...be right back."
After a stop behind a bush and a breakfast of cold stream water, they headed out. It did feel good to walk rather than just sit on Jack's back, and after a few false starts he got a conversation going with the griffin. He didn't quite apologize for his rude reaction, but he did explain that he reacted badly to unexpectedly sharing his personal space with another person. Jack, in turn, apologized for invading his personal space and explained that griffins are a lot more into casual physical contact than humans, but he didn't mean anything sexual by it.
They traded bits of information, like some kind of getting-to-know-you game or the awkward conversations people had on first dates. Jack was from Indiana; this was the first time Gabriel had left Los Angeles. Jack's parents were married; all Gabriel knew about his biological father was that he was probably from the Dominican Republic. Jack's family had a cat that was really a mage stripped of her magic and imprisoned in that shape, immortal until her magic was returned to her. Gabriel's step-dad had gotten a dog once and made him take care of it until one day it chewed on something and then it went to the shelter. They were both single. The silence after that was awkward. Gabriel explained haltingly how the boys at the station had started making comments when he didn't join them at the bar, trying to pick up chicks, so he picked one weekend a month and went across town, stayed in a fancy hotel and ate at fancy restaurants, maybe saw a show or went to a gallery, and came back on Monday bragging about all the imaginary sex he'd had. Jack laughed at that, an admiring chuckle, and Gabriel found himself smiling.
Around midday, they discussed whether or not to stop for lunch - which would entail Gabriel minding a fire while Jack went looking for some game, and then the time it would take to cook said game and put the fire out. Whereas if they didn't stop, they'd probably be at Ana's in two hours, maybe three. Gabriel opted to just press on, if that was okay with Jack. The griffin informed him that he'd stuffed some thirty pounds of raw venison down his gullet the other day and was fine.
They kept walking.
About an hour later, Jack suddenly threw his head up and scanned the sky. Then he pulled a fucking Glock out of the back of his jeans and passed it to Gabriel.
Angela landed delicately about thirty feet in front of them.
"Gabriel! I have been so worried," she cried, like an over-protective parent. "But I am glad to see that you are safe. Come, we must get you back immediately."
"I don't think so," Jack said in a quiet but ominous voice.
Angela blinked at him. "But he must come with me at once! He's to be the new host for the Reaper. The change has been overdue for three years, we simply cannot delay."
"And what," the griffin growled, "do you think Liao is going to say when I tell her that I ripped your head off for - GABRIEL! RUN!" One outflung hand pointed west. "She has backup coming! I'll hold them off, you get out of here! Whatever you do, don't stop!"
Jack started to transform into a griffin; Gabriel lifted the Glock, exhaled, and shot the harpy in the stomach. Then he dropped the weapon and ran west without looking back.
===
Don't stop.
Gabriel ran with all the speed he could squeeze out of his body, grateful that he was so fit, dodging tree branches and leaping over roots and low bushes.
Don't stop.
His lungs started to burn, his legs started to ache. He had no idea how long he had been running, how far away he was, or how far was safe.
Don't stop.
Good thing they'd skipped breakfast and lunch, because it meant he had nothing to throw up as he staggered along through the woods.
Don't stop.
A stream crossed his path. He stepped into it, feeling the cold water seep into his boots, and bent to wash his hands and face, scoop up the water and drink it. Upstream, or down? West, Jack had said. Surely the stream would be heading to the sea, right? Gabriel went downstream, doing his city-boy best to not disturb the rocks. Make it harder for someone to track him. He'd read that in a book. The stream curved around and headed west and he waded along with it until his breathing had calmed, his stomach had calmed, and he could barely feel his feet. Then he climbed a gnarled tree root, edged root to root around the trunk of the tree, and found a game trail that ran parallel to the water.
Don't stop.
The forest had to end somewhere.
Gabriel started running again.
===
Around evening, as the sun was setting, he suddenly found himself at the edge of the forest, looking down a man-made hill towards the road that ran along the bottom. Civilization. To the south, in the distance, he could see signs of human habitation. Awkwardly, knees nearly giving out at every step, he started climbing down the hill. His boots were good, but he could feel several uncomfortable places that he would bet money were blisters and his feet were killing him. About a quarter of the way down, his ankle twisted and he fell, barely able to bring his hands up to protect his face as he tumbled and then rolled down the hill to come to a stop, on his back, on the gravel shoulder.
Great, now everything hurt.
Half a dozen cars rushed past him, as far as he could tell, before the throbbing died down enough that he could think about hauling himself to his feet. Don't stop, Jack had said. He wasn't out of the woods yet-
Oh. Oh Jesus, it hurt to laugh, but he couldn't help it. Gabriel lay on the side of the road, bruised and potentially bleeding, starving but nauseous, utterly exhausted, laughing his head off because getting out of the woods didn't mean he was out of the woods.
He had to get up, had to keep moving. Don't stop. The Reaper was coming for him.
Fuckit, he hurt too much, he was too tired. If the Reaper came for him, so be it, because he sure as fuck couldn't do this anymore.
A car slowed and pulled off the road. At first, he thought he was going to get run over, but then the gravel crunched as it came to a stop and a door opened. Closed. Two feet approached warily.
"Sir?" a female voice called, soft but kind, slight Chinese accent. "Sir, are you alright?"
He tried to laugh, but coughed instead. "No," he croaked.
"Are you injured? Do you need medical assistance?"
"I don't know," he sighed. "I guess."
The woman crouched by his side, wearing a uniform similar to what he wore when he was on duty. "Sir? Can you tell me your name?"
One arm moved woodenly, dug into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out his badge. "Gabriel Reyes. LAPD. I was abducted...three? Four nights ago."
She took his badge, examined it, and handed it back. "Officer Zhao," she introduced herself. "Your boss, Liao, put out the word. She'll be relieved to hear you're alright. Or...you will be."
Gabriel chuckled at that.
Zhao helped him into the backseat of the cruiser, where he promptly stretched out as much as possible and was out like a light.
===
He woke up - barely - when the door to the cruiser opened and Zhao urged him gently out. He didn't bother opening his eyes for most of the trip inside. Zhao said something about being sorry they didn't have anything better than a holding cell, not even a couch, but honestly he didn't care. She got him a cup of tap water, which he drained gratefully, and then he pulled his boots off, his hood up, and stretched out on the bench. He'd be stiff and sore when he woke up, but at least he'd be safe.
His dreams were exhausting, reliving his flight through the woods.
Zhao had coffee and a breakfast sandwich for him when he woke up, and he practically inhaled both. It was barely enough to ease the gnawing pit his stomach had become. Liao was on her way, Zhao assured him, and he tried to do some warm-ups to both pass the time and ease the stiffness in his muscles.
It didn't work.
He wondered what shitty tiny station Zhao was assigned to, because she seemed to be the only one in the building aside from him and apparently it didn't even have a break room with a coffee maker or a vending machine. He was peeling his socks carefully off to examine the damage he'd done to his feet when the door opened, a set of impatient footsteps entered, and two female voices started talking to each other in Chinese. It wasn't a surprise when, a few minutes later, Liao opened the door to the holding cell and stepped inside.
"You look like hell," she said brusquely.
Gabriel grunted. "I feel like hell."
"Tell me."
He stuck out his bare foot. "For starters? That. Other foot's probably just as bad. Ran a fuckin' marathon through the woods yesterday getting away from a crazy cultist chick who thinks I've been chosen to be the leader of her cult, didn't have a thing to eat between dinner the day before yesterday and the bacon-egg-and-cheese croissant and coffee Officer Zhao gave me this morning. I don't think I'm seriously injured anywhere, but my everything hurts. I want to go home, eat an entire pizza, take a hot bath, and sleep for a week."
When he looked up, Liao was frowning.
"She almost got you. That's too close. How did you get away?"
Gabriel opened his mouth, remembered Jack invoking Liao's name as a threat to Angela, and closed it again. "I met a guy living in the woods. A hunter. He scared the cultist chick off when she drugged me and was dragging me through the woods on the second night, took me to his place. Fed me. We were going to the house of one of his friends when she found us again. He said she had backup coming and told me to run." Gabriel shrugged. "So I ran."
Liao gave him a measuring look. "I get the feeling you're not telling me everything, Gabe."
He gave her a look back, one that said don't test me. "You first."
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said coolly.
"I find that hard to believe."
She crossed her arms, not quite calling his bluff but seeing his bid and raising it. "And why is that?"
"Because the guy living in the woods asked the cultist chick what she thought you'd say when he told you he'd ripped her head off."
Liao recoiled, arms dropping. "He wouldn't- he didn't- tell me he didn't!"
"Tell me who he is," Gabriel countered.
She scowled, recognizing his tone of voice. There was no reasoning with him when he got his teeth into something like this, and she knew it.
"Jack Morrison," she said slowly. Behind her, Zhao was peeking around the corner. "At least tell me you know what he is."
Gabriel didn't so much as blink. "Tell me how you know him."
"For the love of god, Gabriel, give me something! Tell me what you know-"
"So you know how much you can hide from me?" he snarled. "You have no idea what I've been through the last couple of days, Liao, and I've had just about as much fucking secrecy as I can stand! So you better fucking start talking, or I will fucking walk back to Los Angeles."
"You don't even know where you are," she countered, but Zhao spoke up.
"Oh! We're on the outskirts of Santa Barbara, by the Los Padres National Forest!" Liao turned to glare at her, and she cringed. "Sorry..."
"You know what? Maybe I won't walk home," Gabriel said silkily. Liao whipped back around to look at him in alarm. "Maybe I'll just walk back into the forest and let the crazy chick find me."
"Gabriel, no, don't you dare!"
"Why not?" he shot back. "Tell me why I shouldn't."
Her lips pressed together in an unhappy line.
"What would you say if Jack tore the chick's head off?"
"He wouldn't," she said, but her voice shook.
"Why? Don't think he's capable of it?"
"He...not without a damn good reason."
"Her name's Angela."
Again, Liao recoiled, but this time her face curled into absolute fury. "That lying, two-faced, backstabbing harpy," she spat.
"So you do know she's a harpy." Gabriel's voice was light, but his expression may as well have been carved out of stone.
Liao's anger cooled instantly as she realized what she'd done. The string of Chinese she spat was something he'd heard over the years; he didn't know what it meant, just that it was probably dirty. Given the way Zhao covered her mouth and gasped, he considered that confirmation.
"Okay, you win. I'll tell you everything," she sighed.
"Don't wipe my memories again," he growled.
She flinched slightly, but nodded. "Fine. No memory wipe. Anything else?"
"I'm fucking starving."
"I'm not bringing you anywhere like that," she countered. "I can smell you from here and you're filthy."
"Good, because I don't want to go anywhere like this."
"It's only nine in the morning. No one's got anything but breakfast food."
"Then bring me a bunch of breakfast food."
She scowled. "Do you have any preference?"
"As long as there's meat? Nope." He leaned back on the bench, as smug as he could manage. "I'll just wait right here."
Liao rolled her eyes and huffed in irritation, but she was in a corner and she knew it. "Fine. Wait there. We'll be back. Mei, lock the cell. For your own safety," she said with false innocence as the door clanged shut behind her. "Of course."
Gabriel shrugged. "Of course."
"You're driving," Liao told Zhao as they rounded the corner.
"Oh. Okay!"
Gabriel sprawled out on the bench and closed his eyes.
===
"Oi, cunt!"
Gabriel opened his eyes cautiously. Yup, there was the pixie. "What the fuck?"
"Me'n Hanzo'n the dog are here to break you out!"
"I'm not a prisoner," he protested.
"Then why's the door locked, hmmm?"
"To make sure I don't go anywhere-"
"See?"
"-until my friend gets back with food for me."
"I think I can open the door..." The pixie had flown over to the lock and was fishing around inside it with his arm.
Gabriel sat up. "You're not listening to me at all."
"Yup! Got it!"
"Jamison, no. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not a prisoner."
"Wotsat? Can't walk?" The pixie zipped over to inspect Gabriel's bare feet. "I'll have Hanzo come and carry you!"
"Jamison!"
Gabriel sighed as the pixie zipped back off. Less than a minute later he returned, tugging Hanzo ineffectively along behind him.
"Greetings, Reyes-san," the vampire said calmly. "Jamison informs me you are unable to walk."
"That's not- okay, maybe it's gonna suck for a few days, but that's not the point," Gabriel groaned. "I'm not a prisoner."
Hanzo frowned. "I did not think you would be. This is Officer Zhao's station; we have worked with her in the past."
That was a surprise. "She's a transhuman?" On second thought, that wasn't much of a surprise.
"Indeed. She-"
A roaring screech that approached and suddenly cut out got everyone's attention.
"The fuck is that?" Gabriel asked almost rhetorically.
The pixie brightened. "Hoggie!" he exclaimed before zooming off.
"I have no idea," Hanzo protested at Gabriel's inquiring look.
A few seconds later, they both found out as an enormously tall and rotund man stomped around the corner with a giant, wicked-looking hook one a chain in one hand. Before either of them could react, the hook lashed out, grabbed Hanzo, and flung him into a wall hard enough that Gabriel heard something crack.
"Who-"
That's all he had a chance to say because that hook whistled at him, grabbed him around the waist, and yanked him through the cell door into the fat man's surprisingly muscular arms. Gabriel was immediately overwhelmed with the sensation of being in the middle of a flat, hot plain where nothing grew and the slightest breeze caused dust devils to spring up. Vaguely, he was aware of his pulse racing and his lungs heaving as he hyperventilated.
"Hoggie," he heard Jamison say, the words sounding distant and...wavy. "What're you doing here?"
"Kidnapping him," the big man grunted.
"No! You can't do that, I'm in the middle of rescuing him. Anyway, is he okay? He kinda looks..."
A grunt. "Sighting. Go keep watch."
"Oh! Sure thing, Hoggie!"
Gabriel found himself sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall with the fat man's enormous belly blocking the way out.
"Breathe! Hold it!"
Still overwhelmed, Gabriel held his breath, releasing it and drawing in a new one when commanded. It took a few before his racing heart calmed down enough to let him think.
"Who-"
"Not important. Imagine a big, metal door. Imagine it closing out the world."
Obediently, Gabriel pictured a metal security door closing between himself and the fat man. The desert prairie sensation went away, and the man grunted.
"Good. Now open it again. Slowly."
Slowly, slowly, the metal door creaked open and Gabriel was aware of dust-devils-and-heat right in front of him, over a sort of grey neutrality. A cold blue flame and the sensation of gnawing hunger came from where Hanzo lay slumped against the wall. Further out, fur and simplicity had to be Jesse while the tiny bright spark was the pixie.
"Good. Now you control it. You have the Sight. You can see what things are. You Jamison's friend?"
Gabriel closed the distracting new ability and focused on the mask the fat man was wearing. "Yeah. I guess."
Another grunt. "Alright. I'll let you go, but only because Jamison asked. Angela's offering a lot of money for your safe capture, though. Good luck."
He heaved himself to his feet and lumbered out. Moments later, Jesse bounded in and whined at the still-limp vampire.
"He still alive?" Gabriel asked tiredly. Jesse nodded. "Badly hurt?" Another nod and a whine. Gabriel sighed. "Fine. How sharp are your claws or fangs, can you break the skin on my forearm?"
Slowly, he crawled over to the slumped-over vampire and pushed one sleeve up enough for Jesse to carefully touch his skin with one fang and then jerk his head, causing a small cut. Hanzo groaned as blood welled up, and gingerly Gabriel brought the cut to the vampire's mouth. He latched on, like a baby, and the sensation of having his forearm sucked was weird.
After about a minute, Hanzo opened his mouth and panted. "Please, Reyes-san, grant me permission to bite you. I swear upon my honor I will take the smallest amount possible, but I cannot heal the damage to my body without more blood."
Gabriel closed his eyes, mourned what his life had turned into, and sighed. "Do you need my throat?"
"Your wrist will suffice. However, I must warn you that while I have no intention of seducing you-"
Jesse whined as if to say, you better not!
"-you will nonetheless feel...comfortable."
That...didn't sound so bad. "Okay." Gabriel repositioned his arm so that Hanzo could get at the vein more easily. "Go for it."
The vampire's lips closed on his wrist. There was a ticklish, squirming moment while his tongue danced over Gabriel's skin, and then a sharp pain as he bit. Then the pain faded into warmth, and Gabriel forgot his own aches as the pleasantly floaty heat traveled up his arm and throughout his entire body. He slumped against the wall with a contented sigh, remembering how nice it was to be held close to a griffin's body and how safe he'd felt. He barely noticed when Hanzo released his wrist, still drifting in that comfortable warmth. It faded quickly, however, leaving him feeling somehow naked and vulnerable and thus, angry.
"I am quite healed," Hanzo said as he brushed imaginary dust off himself. "Thank you most deeply for your generous gift."
"Glad you're not dead," Gabriel said shortly. "But now I really need food."
Jamison zipped in and circled them. "There's a cop car pulling up! We better scram!"
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Reyes-san is correct. We have no need to flee; Officer Zhao is a friend."
"WHO'S IN THERE?" bellowed Liao.
"FOR FUCK'S SAKE," Gabriel bellowed back, "WHAT DID YOU BRING ME?"
Zhao peeked around the corner and brightened. "Hanzo! Jesse! It's alright, Liao, I know them."
Liao strode in and set a bag from Burger King on Zhao's desk. Gabriel wasted no time appropriating her chair and helping himself to the bag. He listened to the introductions and explanations Zhao gave, but most of his attention was on stuffing croissant sandwiches loaded with various kinds of meat into his mouth. There were half a dozen of them and two sides of hash browns, which he saved for last but still devoured.
"So you're going back into the forest," Liao was saying in a warning sort of tone as he finished his breakfast.
"We will entrust Reyes-san to you," Hanzo replied with a nod.
They made their goodbyes and filed out, leaving Gabriel sitting barefoot in Zhao's chair and feeling the need for more sleep now that his stomach was groaningly full and content.
"You're not getting in my car like that," Liao told him.
"He can shower at my apartment," Zhao offered, "but his clothes..."
"You take him back to your place in the cruiser and I'll pick up some sweats and a shirt and meet you there."
Zhao nodded, and Liao strode out. It was a slow and painful hobble to the cruiser, even with Zhao fetching his socks and boots for him, but the drive was long enough that he was able to get a few minutes of napping in before having to hobble painfully up the stairs. Zhao helped him to the bathroom where she sat him on the toilet and assured him that he could use anything he needed before backing out and closing the door behind her.
The first thing he did was find a safety pin and poke holes in his blisters - the ones that hadn't popped already - and squeeze the fluid out. With that taken care of, standing...still wasn't comfortable but it was a simpler pain. He emptied the contents of his hoodie and put them in his boots before stuffing his dirty clothes into a spare trash bag, which he set next to his boots. Then he climbed into the shower and started the delicious process of getting clean.
There was a knock on the door as he was rinsing off, and through the shower curtain he could see the door open just wide enough for a plastic shopping bag to be pushed through. Once he'd finished and toweled off, he found a pair of generic grey sweatpants, a generic grey tee, a package of generic white socks, and a package of generic white briefs. He tore plastic open, ripped tags off, and sighed at the pleasure of soft, new clothes on his skin. Badge, brass knuckles, keys, and wallet all went into the shopping bag with the extra socks and underwear, and with both bags in one hand and his boots in the other, he emerged from the bathroom feeling very refreshed.
Liao hustled him down to her car with barely enough time for him to thank Zhao, brushing off his inquiries and comments until they were on the highway. Then, at his prodding, she told him that supernatural creatures existed. Vampires. Werewolves. Griffins. Yeti. Things he had no easy understanding of. She told him about the sprawling, global network of loosely-aligned organizations that helped supernatural creatures and protected humanity from them - and vice versa. Reluctantly, she confirmed that Jack had been the leader of Overwatch, the local chapter - local meaning "the Northwest United States, give or take" before he'd stepped down a handful of years ago.
Even more reluctantly, she told him how a jilted harpy had become the Reaper and started murdering Overwatch members and those losses were the reason Jack Morrison had handed the reins of power to her and gone into seclusion. Angela had been part of Overwatch, she confirmed, and learning that she had been working with the other harpy, Amelie, was a shock. She refused to tell him what manner of supernatural creature she was, which wasn't reassuring no matter how much she assured him she was still his friend.
He asked about the Reaper, but she didn't answer until he pointed out how close Angela had come to taking him. Then she described the djinn, constructs of flesh that reincarnate and can see the future, and how thousands of years ago, one of them had started a war that wiped out a quarter of mankind. Legend, she claimed, is that the Reaper was a weapon humanity created to fight back, and that it won the war and drove the djinn into the mountains and has been passed host to host ever since.
Gabriel told her the bare bones of meeting Ana and her people, being abducted by Angela and rescued by Jack. She didn't press for detail, which he was grateful for, because he couldn't stop worrying about the griffin. Ana would be able to reach him if he slept, right? She had to have sifted through Gabriel's dreams when they never showed up and told Hanzo and Jesse where to find him. Of course, she could only check in on Jack's dreams if the griffin survived...
The rest of the trip back to LA was tense and silent.
===
"You need to move to a better neighborhood," Liao declared as they got close to his apartment building.
"One without so many brown people?" Gabriel asked archly.
She colored. "That's not what I meant! One with a lower risk of armed breaking-and-entering."
"You know my neighborhood has a very low instance of that, Liao."
"Then let me rephrase. You need to move to a better neighborhood because I'm not living in this one."
Gabriel's hackles went up. "No one said you had to. I happen to like it here."
"In your ancient, decrepit apartment with no food." Liao parked in the tiny lot. "I pay you a good wage, Gabriel. You don't need to live in the ghetto."
"It's the only place I'm not gonna get racially profiled when I'm out of uniform," he shot back, climbing out of the car with his bags.
Liao climbed out as well and locked the doors. "I want you to move in with me. It's not safe for you to live by yourself anymore."
Right, he'd been abducted out of his apartment and the Reaper probably wouldn't hesitate to do it again. Hanzo's assertion that he was wasted on protecting his human neighbors came back, but so did Ana's description of the Reaper. He hadn't told Liao about the dream, or anything Ana had said about the entity, and the way Liao had talked about the Construct War seemed...biased in favor of the Reaper.
Could he protect people as the embodiment of murder?
As they walked inside, he fished out his keys and tossed them to Liao. "You go on ahead, I need to talk to my landlord."
"Sure thing."
Gabriel watched as she went to the elevator, sidling closer to the desk but not turning to look at Lucio until the doors had closed behind her.
"Gabriel, my man!" They exchanged a ritual handshake-brofist...thing. "Where you been?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he answered. "But listen, I got wind of a real opportunity up near Santa Barbara so I'll probably vanish again real soon. That happens, you wait two months for me to come and get my stuff and then you sell it."
He got another handshake and a manly across-the-desk hug for that. "Good luck, man. Crossing my fingers, but you know we're all gonna miss you. Hey, almost forgot - there's a sweet-looking chica been asking for you. Crazy hair, purple nails, the kind that looks like she knows exactly what she wants, ya dig?"
Chuckling, Gabriel shook his head. "Thanks for the heads-up. Catch you later, man."
Slowly, trying not to wince, he walked over to the elevator and pushed the button. You haven't won, he told it silently. I'm just recovering from beating a stronger foe.
As he rode it to the fifth floor, he opened his Sight. Humans, mostly. Lots of mundane, blandly sweet grey. One that seemed darker and somehow greasier than the rest. A few down one end of the third floor that reminded him of giant mushrooms growing on the side of a tree and made him think of the kind of brownie that was a fairy, not a dessert. And something...he couldn't pin it down, it was like getting snow on an old TV trying to adjust the antenna or when you're on the border of two radio stations using the same frequency.
Gabriel closed his Sight and dug out his brass knuckles, transferring both bags to his left hand while he flexed the fingers of his right fist to settle the weapon.
The elevator opened. Cautiously, Gabriel walked down the hall, ready to fight at the first sign of anything out of the ordinary.
His apartment door was open. He pushed it wider with the bags, waiting, listening.
Nothing.
Moving as quietly as he could, prowling, like a panther, he entered the apartment and searched the living room.
Nothing.
He moved into the kitchen, noticing that the dish was still there. Liao was nowhere to be found, and the door to his bedroom was closed.
Motherfucker.
This was it. This was where the Reaper got him. Part of him wasn't so sure that was a bad thing, but mostly he just recognized that at this point, it was inevitable.
"Not going to open it?" a female voice asked teasingly.
He whirled, fist in motion, but the Latina with crazy hair and purple nails caught his fist and a jolt of what felt like electricity shot down his arm, making it go dead. She smiled, coldly triumphant, and raised one finger to touch his nose.
"Boop!"
Gabriel did not relax. He didn't struggle, but he kept tightening and relaxing various groups of muscles - especially in his legs - to try to keep his circulation up and, hopefully, metabolize the drug faster. He wiggled his fingers, slid them in the pockets of his hoodie and made fists trying to warm them. The cold was making him sleepy.
He was at the point of starting to nod off when something slammed into Angela, something big. Adrenaline flooded his body and his fingers wormed into the brass knuckles as he looked around. It was a pale shape, that's all he could make out before it came back and fuck it was big. Angela let go with one foot to lash out at it. It peeled away again, but Gabriel doubted it had given up.
"What is that thing?" he tried to ask, but his mouth wouldn't move. It came out as a vague moan.
"Please don't distract me," Angela called back.
Great.
The creature roared - not just a bellow, an actual big-cat roar, and something batted at his foot. He screamed and jerked his foot away, but two huge paws closed around his shin-
Paws. No claws. Was it hostile? Was it hostile to the harpy? Gabriel reconsidered his urge to kick in attempts to free his leg. As the two supernatural creatures started playing tug-of-war with his body, though, he did his best to curse them both out with every expletive he'd learned over the last 20-30 years.
The paws...let go. The creature they belonged to made a disgruntled sound, but it dropped back. Gabriel wasn't sure how he felt about that.
"Not far now," Angela called down to him. "I know you may be cold, confused, scared, and possibly hurt. That's normal for mortals."
Well, whoop-de-friggin-do.
"We'll work through this together, and you'll come to accept it. Maybe even like it."
Okay, that just made him wish the other monster would come back and rescue him. Fuck if he was going to develop supernatural Stockholm Syndrome.
"You have been chosen," she continued in a dreamy, I've-been-brainwashed-by-a-cult voice. "In due time, you will assume the role of our leader. It is your destiny."
Like hell he would-
Something big and warm slammed into his back, breath hot on the back of his neck making him shout. His shins were being gripped by something hard and pointy, there was a giant paw on his chest, claws piercing hoodie and shirt and skin, and then Angela screamed and let go and the thing dove, other paw curled around his shoulder while something white and long and hairy whipped around his head. Angela shrieked and dove at them, but the cat-monster growled and snapped at her and dove again, throwing them at the treeline faster than gravity could pull them.
Gabriel closed his eyes. Not that he didn't want to see the ground approaching, but they were going to fast and it hurt. The sound of the wind rushing by changed, and he peeled his eyes open enough to see that they were flying through a large clearing, but the trees were coming at them awfully fast. The monster pulled its wings in tight and they shot down a game trail before bursting into another clearing, where it snapped its wings open and flapped like a duck landing in a pond and, somewhere along the line, dropped him. He tumbled awkwardly, painfully, and slid to a stop on his back taking deep breaths and trying to figure out if anything was broken without actually moving.
Given the choice of Ms. Cult Harpy and the - Gabriel didn't even know what it was - the monster who had abducted him, Gabriel was going to go with the monster. Assuming it didn't try to eat him.
Naturally, that's when it padded up and nosed at him with a giant, white, lion head. And batted at him with huge white lion paws. But no claws. Carefully, he turned his head and realized that it had big raptor legs, like some kind of backwards gryphon.
The lion-eagle thing nosed him again and made a whuffling sort of sound, like it wanted him to stand up.
"Give me a minute," he snapped, stretching his limbs. "It's been a rough night."
The thing backed up and sat on its haunches, watching him with blue eyes. It had scars over its face, one of them going over an eye. Monster was lucky it hadn't lost that eye. A thorough examination of his arms and legs and a glance at his chest told him that yes, he had been injured, but they were barely worse than scrapes.
"Probably infected," he muttered, "but they'll heal." He looked at the cat monster. "Now what?"
The thing turned like a horse waiting to be mounted.
"You want me to ride you."
"Rruh," said the monster.
Gabriel stared at it for a long minute before his internal fuck-o-meter informed him it was at NONE. "Sure. Why the fuck not."
It took a few adjustments - and learning the difference between the affirmative 'rruh' and the negative 'rrrh' - before he was as settled as he was going to get on the back of a cat-eagle monster at godawful at night in the middle of a forest.
"Okay," he said, trying not to feel foolish talking out loud because apparently the thing understood English, "wherever you're going to take me, I'm ready."
The monster ran back down the game trail and, as soon as they were in the bigger clearing, launched itself into the air with a thunderous beating of its giant wings.
===
Gabriel had only fuzzy memories of the creature landing, and falling off its back onto something soft and warm. Wherever he was, he seemed to be in one piece and alone, even if his clothes had gotten a bit re-arranged in the night. As he tugged the legs of his sweatpants back down, though, he noticed that the minor wounds from the creature's talons had vanished, and the clawmarks on his chest were gone, too.
The second thing he noticed is that he was in a sort of cave hollowed out of the side of a ravine about ten feet across at its widest and about the equivalent of two or three stories tall. There was a dirt floor to or three feet down from the mouth of what was probably the monster's nest cave, with some moss and very ambitious grass growing. A few other cave mouths could be seen as he looked around, the biggest making a sort of bulbous end to the ravine. It was full of guns, firearms of all types as far as he could see.
He'd been abducted slash rescued by a gun collector. Okay then.
The nest - the creature had let him sleep in its nest - seemed to be clothing bits and blanket scraps and downy white feathers and clumps of white fur. Since his host (if that was the right term) was out, Gabriel didn't really want to be a rude guest, so he examined the nest material a bit more and realized that the clothing scraps had had all their fasteners ripped off or cut out. He tried to imagine claws and talons cutting zippers off pants and parkas, a giant lion head biting buttons off flannel shirts, but not only did that seem unnecessarily difficult but also...just...unnecessary.
Clearly there was more to the monster than met the eye.
He hopped out of the nest area and started doing lunges while he was waiting. Ten or fifteen minutes later, after he'd done pushups, sit-ups, and jumped imaginary rope, a shadow made him look up. The lion creature was looking down at him, something held in its mouth. It leaped down the cliff walls, using some of the cave entrances as footholds, more graceful than anything that big should be, and landed next to him. Damn thing's shoulder came up to his fucking chest, and it had...a dead rabbit in its mouth. Which it laid at his feet.
"For me?"
"Rruh."
"I have absolutely no idea what to do with this thing."
The monster made a chuckling sound.
Gabriel cracked a grin. "Hey, laugh all you like, but I'm a city boy. I've barely seen a rabbit alive, much less skinned one. And anyway, I'm not all that great at cooking past making a casserole or frying some eggs, stuff like that. Sorry."
The monster's head swung around to the pile of guns and it made an inquisitive sort of sound.
"Nope, didn't touch 'em. That'd be rude. And you're intelligent and mean me no harm, so not only would it be rude, it would be actively threatening. This has been kind of a shitty few days for me, but not enough to turn me into an asshole that would pick a fight with a creature who clearly has no hostile intentions towards me."
The creature...shrank, like the opposite of Jesse turning into a walking pile of fur, and became a man wearing faded jeans, hiking boots, and a red flannel shirt. He had the same blue eyes, the same scars on his face, and the same pure white hair. He looked fifty, maybe sixty, with a rugged farmer-soldier build.
"Jack Morrison, griffin," he said, holding one hand out.
Gabriel shook it firmly. "Gabriel Reyes, LAPD. Human."
"You're awfully calm about waking up in a griffin's hoard," Jack said, eyebrow raised.
"I think my ability to freak out broke when I saw the hairy dude turn into a werewolf and an Australian pixie cussed at me," he joked. "I'm waiting until the weird stuff stops happening before I'll bother freaking out again."
"Probably a good idea," Jack joked back. "So, if I skin and cook this rabbit, will you eat it?"
"Would be rude not to." Gabriel's stomach growled. "Also, I'm starving."
Laughing, Jack picked up the dead rabbit and took it to the corner away from the guns, where a fire pit with a crude chimney had been set up. "Tell me about yourself," he invited as he took a knife from somewhere and started skinning the corpse. "You're a ways away from LA."
Gabriel sat on the grass with a sigh. "Tell me about it," he griped.
Slowly, he told the story as he knew it, with Jack asking questions here and there as he butchered the rabbit, started a fire, and set the pieces on a metal grate over it.
"The Reaper's bad news," he said as he sat down by Gabriel. "I lost...several close friends to the Reaper. And it was Angela who abducted you out of Ana's house..."
"That's what Amari called her," Gabriel said, noting that although he'd only given the older woman's first name once, Jack was calling her by it.
The griffin waved one hand. "No, no - I know it was Angela. Recognized her scent. She said you were destined..."
So, Jack knew Angela as well as Amari. He must be part of the whatever-it-was that Amari was so cagey about where the drama went down and people died or left.
"Chosen to assume the role of whatever cult she's in. That it's my destiny."
"Well, if you feel like poking destiny in the eye, count me in," Jack said grimly. "After all the Reaper's taken from me, I'd love to take something from it."
Gabriel sighed. "I just want to go back to my apartment. I'm sure I've been reported missing by now, and the neighbors are going to have the entire neighborhood looking for me."
"Popular guy?" Jack asked neutrally, prodding the rabbit parts with a stick or some tongs or something, Gabriel couldn't tell.
"They're my people," Gabriel said with quiet emphasis. "The people I became a cop to protect. I look out for them, they look out for me. Like - I'm sorry, that's probably racist or something."
Jack looked over. "What?"
"I was going to compare myself to the male lion protecting his pride, but... What?" Gabriel asked when the other man started to laugh.
"That's exactly what it's like for griffins," he chuckled. "Especially lion-headed ones, like me."
"You can appreciate why I want to get home, then."
"Yeah." Jack moved two of the rabbit bits to a flat stone and handed it to Gabriel. "These are done, but you might want to let them cool a little first."
"Thanks. And thank you for rescuing me."
"Ana...may have called in the cavalry," Jack said, wincing.
Gabriel shot him a wry look. "Did you not hear where I said my freak-out system is still busted? You and Amari are old pals. That's cool. She was in my dream when Angela drugged me, sort of running a supernatural background check on me I guess in case I do become the next Reaper. The important part is that she cared enough to call for help, and you cared enough to answer. I appreciate that, Jack, I really do." He picked up something that looked like a drumstick and nibbled at it.
Jack watched him for a long minute. "After breakfast," he said quietly, "I'll change back and we'll start heading towards Ana's. Fereeha can take you home from there."
There was something Jack wasn't saying, Gabriel would put money on it. But all he did was swallow his mouthful and say, "Thank you."
===
Gabriel clung for dear life as Jack jumped from ledge to ledge and up out of the ravine. He'd intended to dismount once they were up, but the griffin started loping off.
"Hey!"
"Rrah?'
"I can walk, you know."
"Rrrh."
"No? What do you mean, no?"
"Rrrh."
Gabriel huffed. "Is there a reason you think I can't walk?"
"Rruh."
Jack paused, turned around, and lowered his head to sniff his own tracks.
"Oh. If you're carrying me, no one can track me by scent."
"Rruh!"
"Well, I guess I can't argue with that."
Smugly, the griffin padded on.
=
They traveled until about midday, then stopped by a stream so both of them could drink. Jack started a fire, then charged Gabriel with watching it while he shifted back and excused himself to go scavenging. Gabriel awkwardly pulled his pants down to pee behind a bush, cursing the biology that made peeing in the wilderness a chore. A distant gunshot made him freeze, but no other sounds followed. Somewhere around half an hour later, Jack strolled back with a bundle of fur under one arm.
"Saved you the inner loins. Also the back straps," he said lazily, unwrapping the fur to display several long strips of meat. Gabriel watched as the griffin skewered the ends on some sharp sticks and jammed them into the ground around the fire. Once he was done, he said, "I don't know how you like your steak, but about ten minutes will have them roughly medium-rare. Help yourself, I've already eaten. I'm just...gonna take a nap while you eat."
"You deserve it," Gabriel told him."Thanks."
The griffin sighed and transformed back into a giant cat-monster, which curled up and promptly fell asleep. Gabriel counted ten impatient minutes, yanked the sticks out of the ground, turned them around, and jammed them back in for another impatient five. The ones he guessed were back straps, he moved away from the fire. The tenderloins, he blew on until he could touch them without burning himself, and then he devoured them. It may not have been what he was used to, but it was meat and it was hot and he washed them down with cold stream water before wondering how, exactly, one went about waking a griffin.
"Jack?"
The griffin's ears twitched.
"I'm ready whenever you are," he said lamely.
Groaning, Jack hauled himself to his feet and gave the backstraps and Gabriel a pointed look. Hurriedly, Gabriel took what was probably his dinner and retreated to a safe distance. The griffin scraped dirt over the fire with is broad paws before picking up the slab of deerskin and dunking it in the water. Then he laid the dripping thing over the dirt-covered remains of the fire and patted it down.
"Muh."
He turned, indicating that Gabriel should climb back on, and waited until the human was settled before resuming his walk.
Gabriel thanked him for lunch, and for carrying him, and Jack made what he thought were pleased sounds.
=
They kept going after the sun had set, Gabriel afraid to say anything when the griffin showed no signs of stopping. When he started shivering, however, the griffin made a sound he thought was apologetic and changed course. A handful of minutes later they were on the bank of another stream, and Jack was shrinking back down to human. He argued with some dead branches for a minute before taking a lighter out of his pocket and setting the tinder alight. Then he pried the back strap sticks out of Gabriel's stiff hands and stuck them into the ground where the meat would warm up.
"Sorry about that, Gabriel. Forgot humans are more sensitive to cold than griffins." Gently, he rubbed Gabriel's hands until they started feeling like hands again. "It'll take your dinner a few minutes to heat up if you need to use a bush or anything. Just, uh, scoop a little hole out and cover it up when you're done."
Gabriel nodded and went off a little ways, making sure he could find his way back. Pooping in the woods, at night, was not his idea of fun and it took rubbing his hands in wet sand and rinsing them off until he couldn't feel his fingers before he felt clean enough to go back. But when he did, more hot venison for dinner was his reward.
"I'm going to change back for the night," Jack said as he finished. "I can keep you warmer that way." He must have seen the bruised ego in Gabriel's eyes, because his jaw clenched. "Don't be an idiot," he said evenly. "You will spend a very uncomfortable night shivering without my body heat. You can either cuddle up to me now, or wait until you're too miserable to care if it makes you feel weak and then cuddle up to me."
"I'll be fine by the fire," Gabriel said stubbornly. The weak comment was too close to home, but that just made him even more determined to not be babied.
"If you say so." Jack clearly was not convinced, but he shook himself out into a griffin and curled up on the other side.
Getting comfortable on the ground wasn't easy. It took shifting and moving stones from under his back, but finally he was comfortable enough with his hands pulled into the sleeves of his hoodie and the hood pulled up, and he drifted off.
===
Gabriel was sitting at his desk in the station. Everything was exactly as it should be. Liao brushed past him, furious, and he leaped out of his seat, calling her name.
"Save it," she snapped, not even slowing down. "After what you did yesterday, I think you might need some time off."
Suspension without pay. Fuck.
Then the world...skipped, like a movie slipping on its reel, and tore open into darkness. A scrape, a flare, a match lighting a candle. An angular face, pale, floating in the darkness like some creepy bird's skull. A woman's voice, cold, saying "You'll do."
"I'll do what?" he demanded, trying to move but realizing he couldn't even feel his body. Everything was so cold...
"You're in good shape for your age. Yes, you'll do fine. Maybe even...better than fine."
"I'll kick your motherfucking ass is what I'll do," he snarled, but the woman(?) laughed.
"That is exactly the kind of attitude you should have. I think you'll enjoy what's in store for you..."
A bright light, a searing crash, the woman screaming. He was blind, tears streaming down his face, eyes scrunched shut and still unable to block out the light. Snippets of conversation, talking about him. About how angry Liao would be that the woman went after one of her officers. About how they would wipe his memories and he'd be fine.
The station snapped back into existence, as if the projector had been turned back on mid-scene. Liao was still walking away from him, and he let her go. This was...this was wrong. He shouldn't be here. Slowly, he started making his way back to is desk, relieved when he saw Amari rifling through it.
"Thank fucking god," he sighed.
Startled, she turned and embraced him fiercely. "You're alive!" She pulled back and fixed him with a stern look. "Tell me where you are, right now."
"Uh...somewhere in the woods, Jack would know more-"
"Jack!" She looked both surprised and relieved.
"Yeah, Jack Morrison. Griffin. He abducted me from Angela abducting me and he's taking me back to your house." Gabriel rubbed one arm in an embarrassed way. "He's been...really good to me. I think I'm gonna miss him when I go home. Do you think he'd come visit? I owe him lunch and dinner at least..."
Amari smiled at him. "I think there's no harm in asking. I'm glad you're safe, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow."
Gabriel took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "You know what? So am I."
===
He woke up shivering, his fingers and toes and everything feeling like ice.
The fire had gone out.
Jack's pale form stood out in the darkness, and Gabriel crawled on his elbows and knees - because his fingers were too stiff and numb - over to the griffin. He didn't even care that Jack was clearly awake because he lifted one foreleg so Gabriel could use the other as a pillow, all he cared about was that the grfifin was warm, the foreleg hugging him to that furry chest was warm, the feathered wing covering him like a blanket was warm, and the deep, body-wracking shivers were calming. Shamelessly, Gabriel snuggled into that warmth and let sleep claim him.
=
Gabriel woke up with Jack spooning him, but he wasn't a griffin. In approximately three-tenths of a second, he'd leaped across the campsite and stood there, breathing heavily, as Jack cracked one eye open and frowned.
"You okay?" he asked sleepily.
"Why the hell were you spooning me?"
Jack sat up and shrugged. "Had to pee, figured I'd start a fire, didn't feel like changing back."
Only then did it sink in that the fire was, once again, burning cheerfully.
"Rough night?" the griffin asked in a weirdly parental I'll know you're lying voice.
Gabriel rubbed one arm. "Talked to Amari - she was in my dream. Told her I was with you. She's expecting us."
"Then I suppose we shouldn't keep her waiting," Jack said, standing up and stretching. "Ohh. Not as young as I used to be. Sleeping on the ground as a human has me a bit stiff and sore. We're both walking, today."
"Fine," Gabriel said, feeling a little guilty for both wanting to ride again and jumping away like that when he'd woken up. "I'll...be right back."
After a stop behind a bush and a breakfast of cold stream water, they headed out. It did feel good to walk rather than just sit on Jack's back, and after a few false starts he got a conversation going with the griffin. He didn't quite apologize for his rude reaction, but he did explain that he reacted badly to unexpectedly sharing his personal space with another person. Jack, in turn, apologized for invading his personal space and explained that griffins are a lot more into casual physical contact than humans, but he didn't mean anything sexual by it.
They traded bits of information, like some kind of getting-to-know-you game or the awkward conversations people had on first dates. Jack was from Indiana; this was the first time Gabriel had left Los Angeles. Jack's parents were married; all Gabriel knew about his biological father was that he was probably from the Dominican Republic. Jack's family had a cat that was really a mage stripped of her magic and imprisoned in that shape, immortal until her magic was returned to her. Gabriel's step-dad had gotten a dog once and made him take care of it until one day it chewed on something and then it went to the shelter. They were both single. The silence after that was awkward. Gabriel explained haltingly how the boys at the station had started making comments when he didn't join them at the bar, trying to pick up chicks, so he picked one weekend a month and went across town, stayed in a fancy hotel and ate at fancy restaurants, maybe saw a show or went to a gallery, and came back on Monday bragging about all the imaginary sex he'd had. Jack laughed at that, an admiring chuckle, and Gabriel found himself smiling.
Around midday, they discussed whether or not to stop for lunch - which would entail Gabriel minding a fire while Jack went looking for some game, and then the time it would take to cook said game and put the fire out. Whereas if they didn't stop, they'd probably be at Ana's in two hours, maybe three. Gabriel opted to just press on, if that was okay with Jack. The griffin informed him that he'd stuffed some thirty pounds of raw venison down his gullet the other day and was fine.
They kept walking.
About an hour later, Jack suddenly threw his head up and scanned the sky. Then he pulled a fucking Glock out of the back of his jeans and passed it to Gabriel.
Angela landed delicately about thirty feet in front of them.
"Gabriel! I have been so worried," she cried, like an over-protective parent. "But I am glad to see that you are safe. Come, we must get you back immediately."
"I don't think so," Jack said in a quiet but ominous voice.
Angela blinked at him. "But he must come with me at once! He's to be the new host for the Reaper. The change has been overdue for three years, we simply cannot delay."
"And what," the griffin growled, "do you think Liao is going to say when I tell her that I ripped your head off for - GABRIEL! RUN!" One outflung hand pointed west. "She has backup coming! I'll hold them off, you get out of here! Whatever you do, don't stop!"
Jack started to transform into a griffin; Gabriel lifted the Glock, exhaled, and shot the harpy in the stomach. Then he dropped the weapon and ran west without looking back.
===
Don't stop.
Gabriel ran with all the speed he could squeeze out of his body, grateful that he was so fit, dodging tree branches and leaping over roots and low bushes.
Don't stop.
His lungs started to burn, his legs started to ache. He had no idea how long he had been running, how far away he was, or how far was safe.
Don't stop.
Good thing they'd skipped breakfast and lunch, because it meant he had nothing to throw up as he staggered along through the woods.
Don't stop.
A stream crossed his path. He stepped into it, feeling the cold water seep into his boots, and bent to wash his hands and face, scoop up the water and drink it. Upstream, or down? West, Jack had said. Surely the stream would be heading to the sea, right? Gabriel went downstream, doing his city-boy best to not disturb the rocks. Make it harder for someone to track him. He'd read that in a book. The stream curved around and headed west and he waded along with it until his breathing had calmed, his stomach had calmed, and he could barely feel his feet. Then he climbed a gnarled tree root, edged root to root around the trunk of the tree, and found a game trail that ran parallel to the water.
Don't stop.
The forest had to end somewhere.
Gabriel started running again.
===
Around evening, as the sun was setting, he suddenly found himself at the edge of the forest, looking down a man-made hill towards the road that ran along the bottom. Civilization. To the south, in the distance, he could see signs of human habitation. Awkwardly, knees nearly giving out at every step, he started climbing down the hill. His boots were good, but he could feel several uncomfortable places that he would bet money were blisters and his feet were killing him. About a quarter of the way down, his ankle twisted and he fell, barely able to bring his hands up to protect his face as he tumbled and then rolled down the hill to come to a stop, on his back, on the gravel shoulder.
Great, now everything hurt.
Half a dozen cars rushed past him, as far as he could tell, before the throbbing died down enough that he could think about hauling himself to his feet. Don't stop, Jack had said. He wasn't out of the woods yet-
Oh. Oh Jesus, it hurt to laugh, but he couldn't help it. Gabriel lay on the side of the road, bruised and potentially bleeding, starving but nauseous, utterly exhausted, laughing his head off because getting out of the woods didn't mean he was out of the woods.
He had to get up, had to keep moving. Don't stop. The Reaper was coming for him.
Fuckit, he hurt too much, he was too tired. If the Reaper came for him, so be it, because he sure as fuck couldn't do this anymore.
A car slowed and pulled off the road. At first, he thought he was going to get run over, but then the gravel crunched as it came to a stop and a door opened. Closed. Two feet approached warily.
"Sir?" a female voice called, soft but kind, slight Chinese accent. "Sir, are you alright?"
He tried to laugh, but coughed instead. "No," he croaked.
"Are you injured? Do you need medical assistance?"
"I don't know," he sighed. "I guess."
The woman crouched by his side, wearing a uniform similar to what he wore when he was on duty. "Sir? Can you tell me your name?"
One arm moved woodenly, dug into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out his badge. "Gabriel Reyes. LAPD. I was abducted...three? Four nights ago."
She took his badge, examined it, and handed it back. "Officer Zhao," she introduced herself. "Your boss, Liao, put out the word. She'll be relieved to hear you're alright. Or...you will be."
Gabriel chuckled at that.
Zhao helped him into the backseat of the cruiser, where he promptly stretched out as much as possible and was out like a light.
===
He woke up - barely - when the door to the cruiser opened and Zhao urged him gently out. He didn't bother opening his eyes for most of the trip inside. Zhao said something about being sorry they didn't have anything better than a holding cell, not even a couch, but honestly he didn't care. She got him a cup of tap water, which he drained gratefully, and then he pulled his boots off, his hood up, and stretched out on the bench. He'd be stiff and sore when he woke up, but at least he'd be safe.
His dreams were exhausting, reliving his flight through the woods.
Zhao had coffee and a breakfast sandwich for him when he woke up, and he practically inhaled both. It was barely enough to ease the gnawing pit his stomach had become. Liao was on her way, Zhao assured him, and he tried to do some warm-ups to both pass the time and ease the stiffness in his muscles.
It didn't work.
He wondered what shitty tiny station Zhao was assigned to, because she seemed to be the only one in the building aside from him and apparently it didn't even have a break room with a coffee maker or a vending machine. He was peeling his socks carefully off to examine the damage he'd done to his feet when the door opened, a set of impatient footsteps entered, and two female voices started talking to each other in Chinese. It wasn't a surprise when, a few minutes later, Liao opened the door to the holding cell and stepped inside.
"You look like hell," she said brusquely.
Gabriel grunted. "I feel like hell."
"Tell me."
He stuck out his bare foot. "For starters? That. Other foot's probably just as bad. Ran a fuckin' marathon through the woods yesterday getting away from a crazy cultist chick who thinks I've been chosen to be the leader of her cult, didn't have a thing to eat between dinner the day before yesterday and the bacon-egg-and-cheese croissant and coffee Officer Zhao gave me this morning. I don't think I'm seriously injured anywhere, but my everything hurts. I want to go home, eat an entire pizza, take a hot bath, and sleep for a week."
When he looked up, Liao was frowning.
"She almost got you. That's too close. How did you get away?"
Gabriel opened his mouth, remembered Jack invoking Liao's name as a threat to Angela, and closed it again. "I met a guy living in the woods. A hunter. He scared the cultist chick off when she drugged me and was dragging me through the woods on the second night, took me to his place. Fed me. We were going to the house of one of his friends when she found us again. He said she had backup coming and told me to run." Gabriel shrugged. "So I ran."
Liao gave him a measuring look. "I get the feeling you're not telling me everything, Gabe."
He gave her a look back, one that said don't test me. "You first."
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said coolly.
"I find that hard to believe."
She crossed her arms, not quite calling his bluff but seeing his bid and raising it. "And why is that?"
"Because the guy living in the woods asked the cultist chick what she thought you'd say when he told you he'd ripped her head off."
Liao recoiled, arms dropping. "He wouldn't- he didn't- tell me he didn't!"
"Tell me who he is," Gabriel countered.
She scowled, recognizing his tone of voice. There was no reasoning with him when he got his teeth into something like this, and she knew it.
"Jack Morrison," she said slowly. Behind her, Zhao was peeking around the corner. "At least tell me you know what he is."
Gabriel didn't so much as blink. "Tell me how you know him."
"For the love of god, Gabriel, give me something! Tell me what you know-"
"So you know how much you can hide from me?" he snarled. "You have no idea what I've been through the last couple of days, Liao, and I've had just about as much fucking secrecy as I can stand! So you better fucking start talking, or I will fucking walk back to Los Angeles."
"You don't even know where you are," she countered, but Zhao spoke up.
"Oh! We're on the outskirts of Santa Barbara, by the Los Padres National Forest!" Liao turned to glare at her, and she cringed. "Sorry..."
"You know what? Maybe I won't walk home," Gabriel said silkily. Liao whipped back around to look at him in alarm. "Maybe I'll just walk back into the forest and let the crazy chick find me."
"Gabriel, no, don't you dare!"
"Why not?" he shot back. "Tell me why I shouldn't."
Her lips pressed together in an unhappy line.
"What would you say if Jack tore the chick's head off?"
"He wouldn't," she said, but her voice shook.
"Why? Don't think he's capable of it?"
"He...not without a damn good reason."
"Her name's Angela."
Again, Liao recoiled, but this time her face curled into absolute fury. "That lying, two-faced, backstabbing harpy," she spat.
"So you do know she's a harpy." Gabriel's voice was light, but his expression may as well have been carved out of stone.
Liao's anger cooled instantly as she realized what she'd done. The string of Chinese she spat was something he'd heard over the years; he didn't know what it meant, just that it was probably dirty. Given the way Zhao covered her mouth and gasped, he considered that confirmation.
"Okay, you win. I'll tell you everything," she sighed.
"Don't wipe my memories again," he growled.
She flinched slightly, but nodded. "Fine. No memory wipe. Anything else?"
"I'm fucking starving."
"I'm not bringing you anywhere like that," she countered. "I can smell you from here and you're filthy."
"Good, because I don't want to go anywhere like this."
"It's only nine in the morning. No one's got anything but breakfast food."
"Then bring me a bunch of breakfast food."
She scowled. "Do you have any preference?"
"As long as there's meat? Nope." He leaned back on the bench, as smug as he could manage. "I'll just wait right here."
Liao rolled her eyes and huffed in irritation, but she was in a corner and she knew it. "Fine. Wait there. We'll be back. Mei, lock the cell. For your own safety," she said with false innocence as the door clanged shut behind her. "Of course."
Gabriel shrugged. "Of course."
"You're driving," Liao told Zhao as they rounded the corner.
"Oh. Okay!"
Gabriel sprawled out on the bench and closed his eyes.
===
"Oi, cunt!"
Gabriel opened his eyes cautiously. Yup, there was the pixie. "What the fuck?"
"Me'n Hanzo'n the dog are here to break you out!"
"I'm not a prisoner," he protested.
"Then why's the door locked, hmmm?"
"To make sure I don't go anywhere-"
"See?"
"-until my friend gets back with food for me."
"I think I can open the door..." The pixie had flown over to the lock and was fishing around inside it with his arm.
Gabriel sat up. "You're not listening to me at all."
"Yup! Got it!"
"Jamison, no. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not a prisoner."
"Wotsat? Can't walk?" The pixie zipped over to inspect Gabriel's bare feet. "I'll have Hanzo come and carry you!"
"Jamison!"
Gabriel sighed as the pixie zipped back off. Less than a minute later he returned, tugging Hanzo ineffectively along behind him.
"Greetings, Reyes-san," the vampire said calmly. "Jamison informs me you are unable to walk."
"That's not- okay, maybe it's gonna suck for a few days, but that's not the point," Gabriel groaned. "I'm not a prisoner."
Hanzo frowned. "I did not think you would be. This is Officer Zhao's station; we have worked with her in the past."
That was a surprise. "She's a transhuman?" On second thought, that wasn't much of a surprise.
"Indeed. She-"
A roaring screech that approached and suddenly cut out got everyone's attention.
"The fuck is that?" Gabriel asked almost rhetorically.
The pixie brightened. "Hoggie!" he exclaimed before zooming off.
"I have no idea," Hanzo protested at Gabriel's inquiring look.
A few seconds later, they both found out as an enormously tall and rotund man stomped around the corner with a giant, wicked-looking hook one a chain in one hand. Before either of them could react, the hook lashed out, grabbed Hanzo, and flung him into a wall hard enough that Gabriel heard something crack.
"Who-"
That's all he had a chance to say because that hook whistled at him, grabbed him around the waist, and yanked him through the cell door into the fat man's surprisingly muscular arms. Gabriel was immediately overwhelmed with the sensation of being in the middle of a flat, hot plain where nothing grew and the slightest breeze caused dust devils to spring up. Vaguely, he was aware of his pulse racing and his lungs heaving as he hyperventilated.
"Hoggie," he heard Jamison say, the words sounding distant and...wavy. "What're you doing here?"
"Kidnapping him," the big man grunted.
"No! You can't do that, I'm in the middle of rescuing him. Anyway, is he okay? He kinda looks..."
A grunt. "Sighting. Go keep watch."
"Oh! Sure thing, Hoggie!"
Gabriel found himself sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall with the fat man's enormous belly blocking the way out.
"Breathe! Hold it!"
Still overwhelmed, Gabriel held his breath, releasing it and drawing in a new one when commanded. It took a few before his racing heart calmed down enough to let him think.
"Who-"
"Not important. Imagine a big, metal door. Imagine it closing out the world."
Obediently, Gabriel pictured a metal security door closing between himself and the fat man. The desert prairie sensation went away, and the man grunted.
"Good. Now open it again. Slowly."
Slowly, slowly, the metal door creaked open and Gabriel was aware of dust-devils-and-heat right in front of him, over a sort of grey neutrality. A cold blue flame and the sensation of gnawing hunger came from where Hanzo lay slumped against the wall. Further out, fur and simplicity had to be Jesse while the tiny bright spark was the pixie.
"Good. Now you control it. You have the Sight. You can see what things are. You Jamison's friend?"
Gabriel closed the distracting new ability and focused on the mask the fat man was wearing. "Yeah. I guess."
Another grunt. "Alright. I'll let you go, but only because Jamison asked. Angela's offering a lot of money for your safe capture, though. Good luck."
He heaved himself to his feet and lumbered out. Moments later, Jesse bounded in and whined at the still-limp vampire.
"He still alive?" Gabriel asked tiredly. Jesse nodded. "Badly hurt?" Another nod and a whine. Gabriel sighed. "Fine. How sharp are your claws or fangs, can you break the skin on my forearm?"
Slowly, he crawled over to the slumped-over vampire and pushed one sleeve up enough for Jesse to carefully touch his skin with one fang and then jerk his head, causing a small cut. Hanzo groaned as blood welled up, and gingerly Gabriel brought the cut to the vampire's mouth. He latched on, like a baby, and the sensation of having his forearm sucked was weird.
After about a minute, Hanzo opened his mouth and panted. "Please, Reyes-san, grant me permission to bite you. I swear upon my honor I will take the smallest amount possible, but I cannot heal the damage to my body without more blood."
Gabriel closed his eyes, mourned what his life had turned into, and sighed. "Do you need my throat?"
"Your wrist will suffice. However, I must warn you that while I have no intention of seducing you-"
Jesse whined as if to say, you better not!
"-you will nonetheless feel...comfortable."
That...didn't sound so bad. "Okay." Gabriel repositioned his arm so that Hanzo could get at the vein more easily. "Go for it."
The vampire's lips closed on his wrist. There was a ticklish, squirming moment while his tongue danced over Gabriel's skin, and then a sharp pain as he bit. Then the pain faded into warmth, and Gabriel forgot his own aches as the pleasantly floaty heat traveled up his arm and throughout his entire body. He slumped against the wall with a contented sigh, remembering how nice it was to be held close to a griffin's body and how safe he'd felt. He barely noticed when Hanzo released his wrist, still drifting in that comfortable warmth. It faded quickly, however, leaving him feeling somehow naked and vulnerable and thus, angry.
"I am quite healed," Hanzo said as he brushed imaginary dust off himself. "Thank you most deeply for your generous gift."
"Glad you're not dead," Gabriel said shortly. "But now I really need food."
Jamison zipped in and circled them. "There's a cop car pulling up! We better scram!"
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Reyes-san is correct. We have no need to flee; Officer Zhao is a friend."
"WHO'S IN THERE?" bellowed Liao.
"FOR FUCK'S SAKE," Gabriel bellowed back, "WHAT DID YOU BRING ME?"
Zhao peeked around the corner and brightened. "Hanzo! Jesse! It's alright, Liao, I know them."
Liao strode in and set a bag from Burger King on Zhao's desk. Gabriel wasted no time appropriating her chair and helping himself to the bag. He listened to the introductions and explanations Zhao gave, but most of his attention was on stuffing croissant sandwiches loaded with various kinds of meat into his mouth. There were half a dozen of them and two sides of hash browns, which he saved for last but still devoured.
"So you're going back into the forest," Liao was saying in a warning sort of tone as he finished his breakfast.
"We will entrust Reyes-san to you," Hanzo replied with a nod.
They made their goodbyes and filed out, leaving Gabriel sitting barefoot in Zhao's chair and feeling the need for more sleep now that his stomach was groaningly full and content.
"You're not getting in my car like that," Liao told him.
"He can shower at my apartment," Zhao offered, "but his clothes..."
"You take him back to your place in the cruiser and I'll pick up some sweats and a shirt and meet you there."
Zhao nodded, and Liao strode out. It was a slow and painful hobble to the cruiser, even with Zhao fetching his socks and boots for him, but the drive was long enough that he was able to get a few minutes of napping in before having to hobble painfully up the stairs. Zhao helped him to the bathroom where she sat him on the toilet and assured him that he could use anything he needed before backing out and closing the door behind her.
The first thing he did was find a safety pin and poke holes in his blisters - the ones that hadn't popped already - and squeeze the fluid out. With that taken care of, standing...still wasn't comfortable but it was a simpler pain. He emptied the contents of his hoodie and put them in his boots before stuffing his dirty clothes into a spare trash bag, which he set next to his boots. Then he climbed into the shower and started the delicious process of getting clean.
There was a knock on the door as he was rinsing off, and through the shower curtain he could see the door open just wide enough for a plastic shopping bag to be pushed through. Once he'd finished and toweled off, he found a pair of generic grey sweatpants, a generic grey tee, a package of generic white socks, and a package of generic white briefs. He tore plastic open, ripped tags off, and sighed at the pleasure of soft, new clothes on his skin. Badge, brass knuckles, keys, and wallet all went into the shopping bag with the extra socks and underwear, and with both bags in one hand and his boots in the other, he emerged from the bathroom feeling very refreshed.
Liao hustled him down to her car with barely enough time for him to thank Zhao, brushing off his inquiries and comments until they were on the highway. Then, at his prodding, she told him that supernatural creatures existed. Vampires. Werewolves. Griffins. Yeti. Things he had no easy understanding of. She told him about the sprawling, global network of loosely-aligned organizations that helped supernatural creatures and protected humanity from them - and vice versa. Reluctantly, she confirmed that Jack had been the leader of Overwatch, the local chapter - local meaning "the Northwest United States, give or take" before he'd stepped down a handful of years ago.
Even more reluctantly, she told him how a jilted harpy had become the Reaper and started murdering Overwatch members and those losses were the reason Jack Morrison had handed the reins of power to her and gone into seclusion. Angela had been part of Overwatch, she confirmed, and learning that she had been working with the other harpy, Amelie, was a shock. She refused to tell him what manner of supernatural creature she was, which wasn't reassuring no matter how much she assured him she was still his friend.
He asked about the Reaper, but she didn't answer until he pointed out how close Angela had come to taking him. Then she described the djinn, constructs of flesh that reincarnate and can see the future, and how thousands of years ago, one of them had started a war that wiped out a quarter of mankind. Legend, she claimed, is that the Reaper was a weapon humanity created to fight back, and that it won the war and drove the djinn into the mountains and has been passed host to host ever since.
Gabriel told her the bare bones of meeting Ana and her people, being abducted by Angela and rescued by Jack. She didn't press for detail, which he was grateful for, because he couldn't stop worrying about the griffin. Ana would be able to reach him if he slept, right? She had to have sifted through Gabriel's dreams when they never showed up and told Hanzo and Jesse where to find him. Of course, she could only check in on Jack's dreams if the griffin survived...
The rest of the trip back to LA was tense and silent.
===
"You need to move to a better neighborhood," Liao declared as they got close to his apartment building.
"One without so many brown people?" Gabriel asked archly.
She colored. "That's not what I meant! One with a lower risk of armed breaking-and-entering."
"You know my neighborhood has a very low instance of that, Liao."
"Then let me rephrase. You need to move to a better neighborhood because I'm not living in this one."
Gabriel's hackles went up. "No one said you had to. I happen to like it here."
"In your ancient, decrepit apartment with no food." Liao parked in the tiny lot. "I pay you a good wage, Gabriel. You don't need to live in the ghetto."
"It's the only place I'm not gonna get racially profiled when I'm out of uniform," he shot back, climbing out of the car with his bags.
Liao climbed out as well and locked the doors. "I want you to move in with me. It's not safe for you to live by yourself anymore."
Right, he'd been abducted out of his apartment and the Reaper probably wouldn't hesitate to do it again. Hanzo's assertion that he was wasted on protecting his human neighbors came back, but so did Ana's description of the Reaper. He hadn't told Liao about the dream, or anything Ana had said about the entity, and the way Liao had talked about the Construct War seemed...biased in favor of the Reaper.
Could he protect people as the embodiment of murder?
As they walked inside, he fished out his keys and tossed them to Liao. "You go on ahead, I need to talk to my landlord."
"Sure thing."
Gabriel watched as she went to the elevator, sidling closer to the desk but not turning to look at Lucio until the doors had closed behind her.
"Gabriel, my man!" They exchanged a ritual handshake-brofist...thing. "Where you been?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he answered. "But listen, I got wind of a real opportunity up near Santa Barbara so I'll probably vanish again real soon. That happens, you wait two months for me to come and get my stuff and then you sell it."
He got another handshake and a manly across-the-desk hug for that. "Good luck, man. Crossing my fingers, but you know we're all gonna miss you. Hey, almost forgot - there's a sweet-looking chica been asking for you. Crazy hair, purple nails, the kind that looks like she knows exactly what she wants, ya dig?"
Chuckling, Gabriel shook his head. "Thanks for the heads-up. Catch you later, man."
Slowly, trying not to wince, he walked over to the elevator and pushed the button. You haven't won, he told it silently. I'm just recovering from beating a stronger foe.
As he rode it to the fifth floor, he opened his Sight. Humans, mostly. Lots of mundane, blandly sweet grey. One that seemed darker and somehow greasier than the rest. A few down one end of the third floor that reminded him of giant mushrooms growing on the side of a tree and made him think of the kind of brownie that was a fairy, not a dessert. And something...he couldn't pin it down, it was like getting snow on an old TV trying to adjust the antenna or when you're on the border of two radio stations using the same frequency.
Gabriel closed his Sight and dug out his brass knuckles, transferring both bags to his left hand while he flexed the fingers of his right fist to settle the weapon.
The elevator opened. Cautiously, Gabriel walked down the hall, ready to fight at the first sign of anything out of the ordinary.
His apartment door was open. He pushed it wider with the bags, waiting, listening.
Nothing.
Moving as quietly as he could, prowling, like a panther, he entered the apartment and searched the living room.
Nothing.
He moved into the kitchen, noticing that the dish was still there. Liao was nowhere to be found, and the door to his bedroom was closed.
Motherfucker.
This was it. This was where the Reaper got him. Part of him wasn't so sure that was a bad thing, but mostly he just recognized that at this point, it was inevitable.
"Not going to open it?" a female voice asked teasingly.
He whirled, fist in motion, but the Latina with crazy hair and purple nails caught his fist and a jolt of what felt like electricity shot down his arm, making it go dead. She smiled, coldly triumphant, and raised one finger to touch his nose.
"Boop!"