ANGEL BLOODED

      this  gunpowder  diligence  is  a  learned  trait,  no  better  than  a  heap  of  scar  tissue  (unavoidable,  now,  but  ingrained  either  way  on  the  end  of  a  father’s  survival  knife,  pinfinger  in  a  shack  in  louisiana  on  the  bayou),  and  at  it’s  best,  removable,  a  beaten  brown  leather  jacket.  his  m1911  silver  grip  pistol  sits  steady  between  his  hands,  no  rookie  tremble  or  improper  posturing.  

    california  makes  sam  all  heavy  with  nostalgia  and  want  for  a  life  that  is  just  beyond  his  reach,  now.  but  a  job  is  a  job  –  cattle  mutilations  and  sightings  are  enough  of  a  lead  until  proven  otherwise,  though  the  museum  in  chula  vista  was  a  tourist  hotspot,  and  churning  the  waters  of  tourism  was  a  potential  source  of  the  renewed  sightings.  money  was   inspiring.

   sam  slips  into  the  veneer  of  hunter  exceptionally  well.  it’s  as  much  his  skin  as  the  one  he  was  born  into,  maybe  more  so.  holding  the  firearm  in  a  trained  position,  he  strafes  tentatively  to  round  his  way  to  the  boy’s  front,  examining  the  body  in  flicks  when  he  can.   ‘  likely  story.  what  are  you?  ‘

   careful not to move, griffin focused on recovering his breaths and stealing his terror away. he would not let his voice betray his fear again. footfalls came from his side to front, slowly, softer than griffin expected from someone who sounded to be much taller than himself. he couldn’t help the instinctive head tick to turn his left ear toward the sound and better follow their movements.

   but with the man’s brass question, he couldn’t stop the tone that followed. “That’s none of your business.” griffin lowered his hands but remained still, arms loose at his side. “You’re the one with the gun anyways. What are you? Because if you pull that trigger, you’re a murderer.”

      METALLIC SCENT hits stronger than the misery he carries upon his shoulders – storms brewing in place of son’s usual shinning smile, calling mother forward. loving palms rest upon the soft of his cheeks, fingers resting upon tarnished flesh, bruised – blemished by a cut, dripping upon slender fingers, careful to keep harm from tender cheek.    ‘  who did this… ?  ’    anger BOILS, the return of a wrath she keeps buried so deep daring a reveal at the wake of an injured child – but despite the VENOM which leaked into every vowel, mother’s touch carries little. soft and loving, fingers caress his cheeks – assuring gentle nature the PROMISE of safety…

❛  ◞   RANDOM STARTER    /   ↺ @blindednephilim

   griffin didn’t think werewolves could climb trees. at least, he didn’t think they could climb trees any better than the average person could. he wasted precious seconds trying to find a tree with low enough branches for him to reach, and then it took even longer for him to swing himself up into one. he climbed as high as he dared and wedged himself into the fork of two branches to keep himself steady. barely half a second later, the werewolf caught up with him.

   claws ripped at the trunk below and nearly pitched griffin out of the tree as the werewolf tried to reach him. griffin wrapped his arms tight around a branch and called out every foul curse that came to mind, drawing his legs up close. he chucked pinecones at their head and kicked needles into their eyes, but just as griffin freed a shoe to launch into their face, the attack stopped, abruptly.

   there was a moment of complete silence as griffin held his breath, and then the sound of running reached his ears as the werewolf took off. griffin nearly dropped his sneaker. that was it? they were giving up? what was the catch? but then griffin caught the sound of approaching footsteps again, this time, from the opposite direction. oh holy hell, he was so dead. there wasn’t enough time to climb back down so griffin replaced his sneaker and climbed another foot higher, grabbing hand fulls of pine needles and loose bark like he was stashing ammo. 

   he was quick to fall completely still at the sound of a round being chambered. wrong place, wrong time. story of his life. the man lying at griffin’s feet was dead. he didn’t know what had happened to them. an insistent urge had driven griffin from the comfort of his bed-mat and into the woods, searching for the source of the energy that called to him. an hour later, he found it, or rather, them. he found an angel. they were dead when he arrived. griffin pressed pale dirty fingers against their skin to check for a pulse and flinched back when he felt none. he would have flinched regardless of the result. a death of any kind was a tragedy, but a living angel would strike griffin down without a second thought.

   griffin backed away another step then went cold at the click of metal behind him. he didn’t move, didn’t breathe, and sent up a silent prayer he knew would go unanswered. because he knew that sound. he wasn’t alone. there was a hunter nearby.

   Griffin wasn’t worried. He wasn’t! The elder Griffon could take care of herself. He knew that. She was ten times the warrior he was and had been training to hunt nearly as long as Griffin had been alive. Still, sitting all alone in the passenger-seat of Griffon’s truck, pushing down and pulling up his door’s lock, there wasn’t much else left to do but worry. Seconds stretched into minutes, minutes stretched into an hour, and finally Griffin decided he had waited long enough. Something was wrong.

   Stay in the car! Griffon had hissed at him before closing the driver’s side door and locking him inside. He had listened to her footsteps crunch on gravel as she sprinted down the path and then... silence. That had been an hour ago. Griffin hooked his fingers around the door’s handle and was just about to step outside when the truck’s doors all unlocked at once. He nearly jumped out of his skin. Frantic footsteps reached him, running at a break-neck pace, and then the driver’s side door was wrenched open and slammed shut.

   “What language was that?” Griffin mostly kept to himself. It was easier to arrive and depart from towns if no one knew he was ever there in the first place. But sometimes, even Griffin struggled to follow his own rules of survival. He stopped mid-step beside the bus stop, fingers curling tight around the strap of his backpack. “That... I’ve heard that before.”

   Griffin didn’t break into cars often. New cars had heightened security systems that set off alarms and other stuff that made it harder to get away with messing with them. Older cars were easier to get into but they were harder to find. More often than not it was easier to break into an unoccupied room at a roadside motel than to try his luck with a car. But last night, Griffin had been lucky. All of the motel rooms were occupied but an old car that had sat in the lot all day was still there that evening. It was freezing and Griffin was exhausted, so he didn’t feel guilty about popping the locks and climbing in the backseat of an impala. He wasn’t stealing anything anyways. He just needed a place to crash for a few hours. Wedged down between the front seat and the back, Griffin pulled his legs up to his chest, rested his head on his knees, and fell asleep under the cover of a huge jacket he had found left in the passenger seat. But apparently the owner of both the jacket and car was something of a night owl because barely an hour later, the door across from Griffin was pulled open as someone dumped their bags in the backseat then paused in their surprise at finding a stowaway.

   Griffin jerked awake. Oh holy hell, this was bad. A desperate hand shot out behind him to find the door handle, his fingers curling around it like a lifeline as Griffin prepared to run... but the booming voice pissed at finding a teen squatting in their car didn’t come. No one reached for him. No one screamed at him. There was nothing but Griffin’s panicked breaths filling the silence as his heart pounding like a drum in his chest. Somehow, Griffin found his voice.

   The last place Griffin wanted to be was a health clinic. He had no insurance, no parents, no identification, and he was here alone. It wouldn’t take long for someone to start asking questions. But if he kept his mouth shut and his head down, maybe they would treat him before their questions veered into dangerous territory. His left shoulder was dislocated. Griffin knew how to rotate it back in place, he had done it before. The problem was that his ribs on his right side were also bruised and Griffin couldn’t reach where he needed to put it right. He had stitched up the gash on his arm and bandaged the ones on his knees. Luckily, most of his injuries were covered by his clothes. As long as no one looked to closely, Griffin would be fine.