Oh, Never Leave Me
Anita hadn't know lycanthropes could enthrall people, but then she had recently, instinctively, lashed out and lacerated a vampire with pure power. All of Jean-Claude's arguments for completing the Marks were starting to look less like attempts to chain her to his will and more like legitimate requests to finalize an alliance and cement a power-base where getting into her pants just happened to be a perky side-effect.
But she would have to think about her own tangled web of relationships later, as Daniel -OzOsbourneFenrirBeastBorneNightStalkerDannyWolfsonEric- locked their gazes and poured
into her, ages
crashing against her mind like the waves of a storm against a tiny isle. It was worse than what Nikolaos had done only a handful of years ago, Nikolaos with her thousand some odd years of experience and power scratching at the walls of Anita's sanity, but instead of trying to break her down and reduce her to a quivering mess of servitude Daniel, no, Fenrir
was pulling her up and into himself.
She had asked the question. He was giving her the answer, in full surround-sound technicolor.
She could smell smoke and blood. Figures dressed in skins running, loping, at her side. There was a spear in her hand, a bow, an axe, and a musket. Swords and scythes. Every weapon that existed, had existed, and she had wielded it. The sky rumbled and broke. People's feet flashed and danced throwing sand. Eyes glowed in the darkness, calling, a warm voice reached out and a hand took hers. FightFightFight. Stop fighting
. Defend. Push them back.
The full moon glowed overhead singing a siren song, and Anita embraced it. Her pack howled, and they hunted.
The bitter taste of betrayal as they drove the hell-spawn back to their pits and out of the world. The world is much older than you know, a voice rumbled through her mind like thunder, it was not always a paradise.
Anita was shaking in Jean-Claude's hold a lifetime later when she came back to herself. Her lip was bleeding where she had bitten it. The lights seemed too bright.
"Fenrir." Her voice shook, and she hated it. Richard was a ball of warm, wary fur in the back of her mind. Jean-Claude was a solid wall in her awareness, though she could still feel the awe behind it. She wondered how much had leaked over to them when he had her enthralled. "You're the first. The first werewolf. The first lycanthrope
Fenrir's lips quirked into a small smile as he inclined his head in a light bow, knives twirling expertly in his fingers. "At your service. But, posturing later. Demon-hunting now, yes?"
Vampires were the very bottom of the demonic food chain, but it wasn't because they were any less evil- they were just so much more Human. They could think beyond hunger and instinct, with work rise above their station, and deep down the rest envied this ability. What demons envied, they sought to take. What they could not take: control or destroy. Drusilla knew this. Intimately. Had she not, before she had become one of them, been the target of such jealous depravity? Was her loving family not stripped away and her abilities mocked and warped to the false-Angel's uses? Yes, Drusilla knows what makes demons tick, knows that she herself carries one with her, and hates
Hate is something only humans can do.
Drusilla can feel them in the back of her mind as she reels herself in, the first of her childer she created in this world, this time, and her earliest efforts to distill that demonic, animal nature and strip it from her family. Her early efforts hadn't been the best, they still bore the pressed foreheads and claws, and so they slept with her. It was their nature to fight. Their purpose.
Drusilla exhaled as her eyes flickered open and her eldest stirred. "O-O-Oh." She murmured. "Gather the horsemen, my darlings, it is time to ride..."
It's a smell he can't quite forget, even if it had been almost three centuries since Oz last caught a whiff. It changed with every species, but the underlying stench of brimstone remained unmistakably evil. Dru was evil, but her insanity-induced moral compass tended to point toward the grayer shades of evil. She was a lawful evil. Ordered evil. Controlled, like Oz was controlled.
Most of the time.
Oz was controlled; most of the time.
He was having a little difficulty with control at the moment. Luna didn't rule him anymore, he hadn't changed unwillingly in a long, long time, but his emotions were another matter. His emotions on this matter, and the slayer in the back -Though they didn't call them that anymore, did they?- weren't helping the situation. They'd left the blonde vampire at the Circus before heading back out leaving the little party to consist of the Executioner, the Master of the City, the Ulfric, and the would-be scooby that Oz didn't have the heart to order to stay home. He wanted to howl and call a hunt. A culling. He didn't hate demons, not exactly, but you didn't have to hate cockroaches to call an exterminator when there was an infestation. Demons were like that, except instead of tainting the food their nature led them to rape, pillage, and destroy.
Evil for evil's sake, and there was one, possibly more, running around St. Louis.
Oz growled low in his throat as he padded over the cement following the faint wisps of sulfur. He cut through the crowds like a shark through water, his actions attracting some curious eyes that forgot him moments later. It wasn't anything supernatural, not like what his temporary shield-mates thought, but an art he had crafted back before he became in the Family way- and while there had been a baby involved it wasn't in the usual manner. Oz felt his heart slow as they came to back alley that had recently been hosed down. The scent was weaker. Almost nothing.
The young wolf on the other side gave a shit-eating grin. He was nervous, Oz could smell it, but he wasn't going to show it. The kid was no alpha, but he wasn't a pushover. Of course, Oz could remember a time where there wasn't any alpha/beta dom/sub crap. That was humans fucking things up again.
He never should have taken that stupid kingship, but someone
had needed to. 'Course, getting drugged and eating his would-be assassin in the middle of the harvest festival hadn't really helped. Wolf out of the bag.
Oz circled the area, feet making ripples in the water, stopping at a faint scratch in the brick wall. He pulled out a fingernail and cautiously sniffed it. Brimstone... and decay
. "You've got a burrower."
Jean-Claude was watching him, eyes running appreciatively over his body, and Oz could feel the light pull that came with a vampire who could call wolves. Usually he ignored it, but the soothing influence was helping keep the need to climb buildings a track down Hell Spawn. Oz settled, fingers playing over his dagger handles. This was Jean-Claude's city, and furthermore it was Richard's home. The Ulfric should know if there was a sorcerer summoning hell spawn in his territory. Should learn how to defend against them. Tooth and claw could only do so much. Guns didn't always work.
Guns rarely worked on anything but humans.
"I don't believe you." Anita finally bit out, arms crossed over her chest, hip canted, silver cross gleaming prominently against her breast. "The timing is just too coincidental. First the Council of Undead Celebs, now you and your snipe hunt. It doesn't smell right."
"Anita!" Jean-Claude hissed.
"That would be the brimstone." Oz said with a shrug, dropping the fingernail into the water and trying to think where his prey would have gone. It would be need a new host eventually, but he didn't want to wait until a rotting, eviscerated corpse was called into the police. He forced a pleasant smile, and it widened as she scowled. The woman was too easy. "I could go through a long speech. I could threaten and posture. But we're all adults here, and I don't really want to. You know I'm strong. Good. You know I'm old. Better. You know I'm bonded with who you know as Marmee Noir. Best. I have no designs on your city," He inclined his head respectfully to the vampires. "All I want to do, right now, is find out why demons are wandering around, and kill them."
Flash of fangs. Twitch of gun. Tap of fingers. Now this is what Oz called feng-shui.
"You need faith to fight a demon." Richard commented, reaching up to finger a golden chain that disappeared under his shirt. He glanced at the vampire with them apologetically. Oz shook his head and flicked his dagger in the air, balancing it on the tip of a finger. The silver itched a little, but it didn't burn. Ant bites did more damage, really. "No offense, but vampires can't really..."
"No. You can, maybe, hold a demon off with faith, but to a true Hellspawn it has about the same effect as oil and water. They don't mix, but that doesn't mean they'll catch fire. To kill
a demon, you get physical."
"Blessed knife?" Anita jerked her chin toward his blades, and despite the disbelief in her voice Oz could see professional interest peeking grudgingly out of her eyes. Of all the things she'd faced, demons were the hardest, something that usually required bringing in priests to banish. If he could give her a way to stop them...
"Better than bullets, but no."