VINDICA TE TIBI

That's about all she can ask for.

"Birdie is.. not really enjoying being the head honcho. It's kinda been foisted upon her rather than something she chose. I keep telling her the fact that she doesn't want it means she'll be kind of good at it." And so the conversation circles and circles. "No wolves have come callin' yet. They took one of ours, we took one of theirs. You'd think that'd be that. But. I don't know, got a funny feeling about it."

She leans back after a sip of her drink, brushing some of her hair back - she knew bringing up Frankie would lead to this. "I'm sorry you two aren't.. on good terms." Her face twitches into sympathy, because losing a sibling hurts, no matter how it shakes out. "I'm not upset with her and she didn't hurt me, just had a few choice words about us.. talking."

Her fingers tap on the counter, "She just was that sort of fake-sweet, nothing threatening or insulting." Lara lies easily, because she doesn't want to mention to Garrick the comments about the scars on her face or the pointed barbs about the knife. "I get the sense that she's.. unhappy with me for hurting you? Or jealous?"

Leaning forward, she rests her hand on his, squeezing it. "She's not going to hurt me."

She hopes.

"Usually, the better leader is the one the people pick. It ain't the guy gunning for the top." Probably makes Birdie a better fit than most. She doesn't want it, so sod's law says she's probably the one who'll do right with leadership. Lara's reading from the same book. "Well she gots a good second in her ear, helpin' her out, ain't she?" He nudges the woman's arm, and winks. Garrick ain't too big on hierarchies on a good day, but he gets how they work. Some folk need someone to do the talkin' for them, 'cause they ain't got the gall to do it themselves. Ain't always a bad thing.

He certainly ain't into the tit for tat thing that's got Lara's admitting she's feeling a little off about the whole wolf pack. He knows two ways to get a mark off a back; to get rid of the fuck whose coming for it, or to give them something new and bigger to target so they forget all about the small fry.

"You need me to do somethin'. I'll do it. I ain't gonna let no wolves bother you, nor your woman." He says, with the confidence of a man prepared to total every pack in the city, like it's another day sailin'. Lara's always been able to rewrite his compass in directions he don't usually go.

As for Frankie.

Garrick isn't sure Lara's gonna lay it on him about how Frankie's being particularly brattish in her new lavish lifestyle of falling in love every week, and splurging on diamonds and champagne to shower upon her fix of the week. It's a side of his sister he ain't seen in a long while. But they've been apart long enough that they ain't the same people they were. Garrick don't think his heart's changed all that much. It's still dead, and still silent in its intentions to know the world in the light again. Still beats in tandem with the ocean, and the stars. For Lara, and his sister. Even for the ones he's lost in the waves, long before he got comfortable on land.

He don't know if Lara cares enough for him to empty the thoughts he has about Frankie of late. Ain't meanin' to burden her with nothin' like that, either.

Before he cuts in to remind Lara she don't gotta worry about his sister, he listens to the rest of her explanation.

Eyes drop to the hand on his, a fleeting memory of a saxophone on a stage playing slow jazz, and a singer drowning out the low hum of voices in a dark speakeasy. Sequins in peripherals, and the scent of liquor and cigarettes fill the senses. Too early in his memory, but even decades later, the only thing that had changed is the company.

"She's always unhappy about somethin'. If it ain't a cracked fingernail, it's 'cause her bedwarmer of the week ain't tell her she's a catch a hundred times a night." Garrick has to believe her intolerance is about him, an' he's takin' it out on Lara to spite him. "She don't like I's wanna build a bridge between you and me." He leaves out that she isn't the only person he's left behind in his act to try and save those he loves the burden of the violence and trouble that eventually follows him. He'll blame the alcohol, but they both know one drink ain't touchin' a thing. It's just Garrick tryin' to show Lara he doesn't wanna lie no more to her about everything. So it words it carefully. "A whiles back, same as you — I should'a been somewhere an' I wasn't. She got real hurt."

Frankie's scars ain't on her face. But Garrick'll eventually have to make peace with the fact he ain't never gonna be able to get the guy that made the ones on Lara. He's still workin' on the ones that got hold of his sister.

He almost forgets that Lara didn't know him and Frankie as they were in the shadows seventy years ago. Givin' her flashes of history, and shit about his sister seems like she ain't needin' to know it. Garrick remembers Lara had a brother, she talked about him once, he thinks. But he'd never met the lad, 'cause he'd gone and died fightin'. He ain't sure he knew too much more than that, and he didn't poke that fire. Yet, he remembers plain as day her mama don't — didn't, like him. That stuck. She's clearer in his mind, than a boy he ain't never met and had long kicked the bucket in a war boys had no business gettin' into.

The bartender brings by two glasses full - her favorite, and something that she knows Garrick'll like. She'd made sure they stocked at least a little something for him the last time he stopped by, just in case he ever wanted to come by again.

"Nah, you're welcome here. Anytime. You should know that." The bartender moves away quickly, once the drinks are delivered and Lara gives him a look that says it's a private conversation. Smart boy. She turns her attention fully to Garrick now.

"Yeah. 'Maru's - we're not in shambles, but things are rocky. Birdie got the top spot. I'm helping where I can." Difficult position to be in, knowing that it's only a matter of time before wolves come knocking. "Only thing I'm worried about is if we're gonna get some visits from some mutts looking for revenge. You'd think we were living in a Hinton novel."

She takes a sip of her mojito - it doesn't suit the weather, but fuck, something's gotta give her some whimsy these days. "You talk to your sister, by the by? She had some.. words with me the other day." Lara should probably be bothered by it - but they should both know that now that they're reunited, it'll be hard to separate them. She figures that goes for two sides of the triangle.

Takes the fun outta half the drive.

And then there's a drink in front of him, an' he knows it the moment it hits his nostrils. He didn't know she how to pull it off. She's traded out his Manhattan habit, and added poitín as a liquor. "You tryin' to get me goosed, Lara?" He thanks the bartender, and turns his gaze back to the only woman who'd include that detail in something as finite as a drink. There's a lot of good lookin' women around in her house of night too. "I ain't got a good track record, y'know. You's gonna toss me out if I's three sheets to the wind, ay?"

She knows. 'Cause she probably remembers as good as any that he weren't all that civil in some places, 'specially to folk who'd been lookin' at Lara in ways he didn't much like. Lookin' at him, like they had a bullet nice an' ready for his backside. Between laughin' and gassin' around, he'd been someone else to that city. He's mourned what could have been, already. He thinks she has, too. Garrick'll try be better, in this version of them.

But he ain't someone changin' overnight.

Kanemaru's chill, so Lara says. Something like that. "How's Birdie takin' to that?" He don't know her all that well, but judgin' from nights they had together in blood, she's got a little apprehension that don't wanna pick fights she don't need to.

He didn't know it had anything to do with the dogs, though. That's news. Has his eyes narrowing with concern, "You's messin' with the wolves?" Not necessariy, her, but he tries to make it sound like he isn't suddenly about to go to war with every pack in the city — "I's meanin' that I don't likes that there's eye for eye with Kanemaru with you's in it." Garrick don't have beef with were's, as long as they mind their own. He don't understand how there's revenge, if 'Maru lost. "Did your clan take one of theirs?"

Recipe for a war, that is. Ain't the time, nor the place for monsters to crawl outta the woodwork 'cause of a lil old scuffle. Now he's got all the more reason to rip down Pret's tower, or at least borrow the helm of it to steer Lara clean outta trouble.

And she'd been worried about him?

Garrick ain't known his sister's gone off script, either. The fuck have I been? And that's more troubling than any talks of battles. Frankie's a cannon on a rogue ship. He don't think there's harm in Lara knowin' he and Frankie ain't so close at the moment. "She ain't too happy with me, lately." he confesses, lifting the drink to take a swig, "What she say to you, 'cause it's probably a load'a shit, doll."

But there's something else, and he carefully navigates Lara up and down, beyond the scars, to look for signs of somethin' else. "She ain't do anythin' to you, did she?"

"I—I dunno ‘bout that," he said, dragging a hand over his mouth. "But I’ll take your word for it. If you say we met, then we met. I’m just… losin’ pieces tonight, I guess." If only it worked that way for the rest of it. If he could forget what his friend had turned into, what the world had turned into, hell, he’d take that deal in a heartbeat. But it didn’t leave him alone.

"I’m havin’ a real strange night," he muttered into his half-empty glass. The rancher tipped it back, swallowed what was left, then set it down, asking for another. The bartender hesitated, pouring slower this time, while looking past Colt’s shoulder at the man beside him, as if asking for permission.

Up close, Colt decided, the blonde looked pale, his eyes a light blue, but rimmed red like he hadn’t slept in days. There was a softness to his face, something almost swollen in the cheeks. "I can do this myself," he said after a moment, not shrugging the hand on his shoulder off, but not leaning into it either. "Don’t gotta babysit me." A breath of a laugh. "I ain’t that far gone. Just… bad night."

He rubbed at the back of his neck, words starting to tangle. "I had—” He paused, "I got this friend." How the hell could he even explain this? “It’s… a long story.” He shifted, restless all of a sudden, struggling to put his jacket on, before he gave up on it entirely, shrugged it off and slung it over his shoulder as he slid down off the stool.

There ain't no pity, or judgement though, even when he keeps the chit chat going.

"You's losin' them pieces 'cause you's drownin' demons with them bottles." Haven't they all? They don't go anywhere even soaked brown. They still haunt relentlessly, the moment you's wake up from whatever attempt to kill 'em you's made. It's like fuelling a fire; it ain't purged with liquor; it numbs just as it burns. Lad's a ringer for it. Even without airing out what other monsters he's seen.

Ain't strange at all, if Colt weren't so human in amongst it all.

And he is, there's no escaping that detail. Garrick follows the bartender's pause, who' looking at him expectantly. Garrick decides he'd give the laddie one more if he puts up a big enough fight about it, the same as he'd get the chance once more to go outside and take a walk, before he runs his mouth any louder. It'd get him the wrong attention, or it'd get him slapped with that ol' lunatic stamp.

When the man gets a hold of himself, Garrick takes his hand away and lowers it back to the bar top. "Sounds like more of a bad night, lad. You's talkin' some real big things." Subtle reminder that he's got details about monsters that are too close to the truth to be fictitious madness. Garrick's had a drink with the rancher before, he ain't once mentioned things in the night, until now. Something's changed, and he's gonna be damned if he don't squash that bug before it bites.

Sure, there's the occasional dolt. She can handle those. Right now, her sights are trying to keep set on the bigger picture - on what comes next. Difficult to do when she's not sure what's going on in the here and now. She and Birdie have a lot of work to do, it seems.

Lara hears him before she sees him - the accent sticks out like a sore thumb up here in the PNW. Sliding up next to him, "Lady's not here, but the main attraction is. You should text me."

She gestures to the bartender to bring them both something, and she turns towards him - "You know, you're going to get yourself in trouble." She's thinking about Frankie, mostly, and how that conversation had gone. "What's up, buttercup?"

He tips his head towards one of the barstools, in case she's gonna sit.

He ain't gonna ask her to go out back, 'cause he thinks he's already scared some of them girls last time he'd come by and shocked Lara in her dressing room. He ain't meanin' to cause any ill will to her girls. Not at the Cabaret, at least.

Garrick's brow lifts at the remark, 'cause he don't know if she's teasing.

So his smile is crooked, and he snaps his tongue on his teeth "Now you's know I ain't so good at that, doll." If he don't find it, it often finds him. Trouble is a snare he gets caught in, no matter where he is. Ain't no getting out of it, without chewing through it, or ripping it to pieces. Garrick don't want to say it (in case it's true), because he's bitter at the thought of what she might have meant, but he does so, for Lara's sake. "You's don't want me comin' by, Lara, you's just tell me that." Ain't gonna stir no trouble with her if that's what she's meanin'.

So she don't think he's there to hassle at her place or nothin', he makes it quick. Glancing to the bartender to their left, he wonders if they're smart enough to keep their ears plugged. Don't matter, he think's if he's quiet enough, and clear enough in a gentlemanly dialect for her to get it, they don't get to listen in to their business.

"I heard about Kanemaru." He still don't know if it's his place to ask, or if it's a tragic excuse to see her. Then, in a more levelled tone, "Ain't sure how you were keeping."

Leaving a clan because one man wants to wipe them from the face of the earth, though - that does not interest him. Pretorius is a place to hide, at the end of the day. It's a way to be kept hidden away from those who wish to do him harm simply for the fact of being a hunter turned monster.

He hasn't come face to face with Pretorius leadership to know if what Garrick says is true, but he does know he writes a check for said protection. He scratches at the scruff on his cheek and chin as he thinks, "You want equality. Or equity? To put us all in equal footing - Does that mean you don't care for clans as a whole?" That interests him, too.

"As for Tressa, we've spoken once or twice. We're not close." He's not close to anyone. He thinks for a moment again. In this hallway, he ignores the sounds of his club, thinks of what it must have been like for the leaders of the hunter guilds for a man who did not care for their ideals and simply wanted a chance to kill and paint.

"There is no leaving for me, I have no choice. I need the safety net of some sort of group, larger than just two." He has no other option, but he does not want to get into that with this man. But maybe this Garrick could offer an alternative. "But if you decide instead of razing the Earth, finding another method of getting the same goal, I would gladly help."

"No, I's just got no interest in watchin' old shmucks captain a sinking ship, lad." He don't think nobody wants to take them orders, either. Sooner they just let ancient laws go, better for alls of them. Power's a drug, and so many are weak to it; consumed by the idea that it means a fuckin' damn. Garrick's done hearing about some new prestige project, made out of gold mined by starved men. Ain't be so fuckin' bad, if them who hacked away at the stone, got one out of it too.

If Tressa's as foolish at this boy is, then he's losin' hope for the young ones. An' he ain't the type to give up like that either, but lad's clearly got his smarts in other places.

Of all of them fucks, he's gone and got in the boat with Pret? He thinks about Lara, and what she'd told him about her allegiance. Bridget, too. "It ain't the only one around." He looks towards the door to Saint Cormac's club again, and shakes his head. "Should've picked any fuckin' other." Hardly an improvement, but it is one, nonetheless.

"Gas?” Colt leaned closer, squinting, near about poking the man in the eye with a finger just to see if he’d get a rise outta him. The fella hadn’t moved in a minute.

"You still with me, Gus?"

No answer.

He’d already dropped his secret like a wet sack of feed in the middle of the table. Hard thing to pick back up once it hit the ground. What the hell was he supposed to do now, just sit there with it?

Colt shifted in his chair and tried again, stubborn as a mule. "C’mon now. Don’t go dyin’ on me. I ain’t even got to the real crazy part yet." He had, but those words alone should've woken Gus up. When he barely stirred, Colt leaned back with a sigh, dragging hands over his face. His granddaddy used to say he was as headstrong as a bull. Wasn't a compliment, he reckoned.

On a busy night like that one, the seat to his right didn’t stay empty long. A fella slid into it, looked a sight sharper than Gus had. The sort that could probably hold his liquor without passing out halfway through a conversation. Chatty type, from the look of him. "Nothin’, nothin’—" Colt waved a hand, then slapped it down on the bar a little harder than he meant to, knocking his own shot clean over.

How much of that had the man heard? Colt turned slow and gave him a long, squinting look. "I know you, don’t I? Where—" He leaned in a little, studying him. The brown in his eyes barely showed through the haze of whiskey. No. Didn’t recognize the face.

They didn't. Jus' a beer, and a whole lotta talkin'.

Drew his eye. Man for the people, even after the business of it all. Good spirit. Soft, an' that, but ain't nothin' wrong with a little bit of soft when sharp edges are around.

Grandaddy.

He's not sure he's trackin', but he lifts his arm anyways to sniff as if he's suddenly noseblind to whatever the lad's picking up. Arm drops, and he blinks, "I ain't none of that." Nobody's father, nor grandfather. Ain't nobody but himself and a name that should'a died a long time ago. If it's an insult, Garrick don't care much for it, just puffs a laugh to the man's drunken slur.

He's been in that chair plenty o'times. Knows exactly what it's like to run a mouth into trouble; most of the time, Garrick's lookin' for it.

He reckons Colt's gonna get himself in the thick of something he ain't handlin' though, if he keeps tryin' to talk to bartenders about monsters. Garrick's hand falls on the man's shoulder, and squeezes softly, "I's think we should get you walkin' off some of this, ain't you? C'mon lad, air's good for the lungs."

"It would be a years long endeavor to overthrow or eliminate all of the clan." He pauses, as if realizing something, "But that doesn't bother you, does it? It's a goal." The scene before them shifts as another set of couples finish their play, and Cam moves to shut the door - blocking the view of people enjoying their time. The sound becomes more muffled, and it's just the two of them in the hallway.

"She is. Lofty ideals, too. Not much loyalty to Pret that I can sense." He stands still and silent with his hands in his pockets. He is not worried that he might be struck down, and he's not worried that this conversation might go sideways -- not any longer. "Why not overthrow what it is here in Port Leiry? You obviously have gripes with leadership."

He'll have to have the flames ready, right after.

Garrick's eyes swivel back to Cam, following the eyeful that gets cut off by the dampening of a door. He can't stop the amused smile. Interesting lad. Strange one, actually. "I ain't on a time crunch, but I's got no quarrel with a bit'a overhaul'." Dusting them's a start. Freeing those oppressed by laws they ain't got no business being dictating anyhow. They don't even realise how trapped they is. "You're new, ay? I's givin' you a chance to drop them, before I screw them."

There's a plan to go pay Tressa a visit. With her lofty ideals. Funny how easily Pret's new recruits are keen to jump ship. It's like the ship ain't worth sailing; better sunk, and lost to the depths than being known as a sailor aboard it.

And Garrick doesn't want to just overthrow it, he wants it gone. Erased. If something wants to climb into the crater he leaves behind, they're welcome to. It just better be something worth fighting for, and none of that stepping on the lil' man fuckery.

"Gripes with it." He chuckles, like that's another kind of funny. "They's don't need a leader, or a dictator, or none of that shite." It ain't him. He's a man of the people, they put him in a position to lead, more than once. But he talked to more than himself about decisions and moves forward on the board when making steps of war; it's a long time past now, too. He ain't the same man. "You's all gotta realise there ain't no one better than the other." Saint Cormac ain't no better or less than Garrick is. Not when they break it down to the base. Strength and power don't matter, not when it's used well. Cards get played when someone wants to disrupt the order of equal rights. Rebellion, is different to supremacy. "Only way any clan's gonna work, is if there ain't no sharp lines between them. Ain't nothing wrong with guidance, laddie. But the shmuck up top don't care for your gallery, or your club. They's just like to know its on her fuckin' bankroll. Status, whatever dominance they gotta chase to feel alive."

Money. Another power that Garrick's never cared much for.

His word choice had been accidental.

Boy's young, there's time for him to realise how the work of the dead'n gone works. Ain't worth doing with ivory tower folk, that's for sure. Garrick lifts his chin, curious then, tongue snapping on his teeth. "How well's you know this Tressa?"

The pistol sits couched in a practiced hand; close to the body; but the way the bullet's done fuck all has already told him its applications are sharply limited; he's carried wood slugs before, but even those are all but a short term solution, and they can be turned on you quickly.

Daniel's leer thins briefly, before his eyes open back up, and he lowers the gun.

"Not particularly interested in the answer-" Tangling with a fellow vamp is always a war of attrition when you haven't planned ahead. All fun and games until somebody's head comes off or their heart comes out. "So if you'll just uh, set that down, I can take it, fuck off, and you can dig the bullet out of your leg."

His head tilts and the nonchalance of it all. It tells him a few things: for one, Daniel has more to worry about from this guy than vice versa, and for another, this is more accident than intentional.

He turns and stares at the crack in the slats he'd earlier peeked through, and titters at the crate: "You's causin' me trouble, you knows that?"

Then he's lookin' right back at the lad, new suspicion rising outta the gutter.

Least he's an honest one. Saves Garrick the effort of sifting through every fuckin' line.

"You's young," Garrick says, digging a finger inside the hole in his leg. A snap of his tongue, before adding with a half laugh: "I knows that, 'cause you ain't speakin' to some like that without seeing the back end of where it gets you." Boy's gonna get smoked, if he don't watch it. Garrick's in the business of toppling big towers and businesses tailored for the people; he don't go for the little man; he gives them the gold, and says be fuckin' good. Ain't nothing worse than ending up like the shmuck it was taken from.

Forefinger finds the bullet, and as it moves, Garrick hisses.

There's the nasty jab. It had to kick in, sometime. Immortality ain't so painless.

She’d survived without him for decades. Not waiting around for him to write, or call, or show up like a ghost from the past. But he didn’t know that, did he? He hadn’t bothered to look back. "You did," she snapped, "and you didn’t even send me a card, not even a stupid note, not a little ‘hey, peach, hope you’re not being murdered, sorry I vanished and that I've got a tiny dick, we can't all be devastatingly hot like you." Throwing her hands up, she looked manic.

Tears clung to her lashes like diamonds; an accessory she didn’t need, but wore beautifully anyway. Unlike the rest of the jewels heavy at her throat and wrists, these couldn’t be bought or stolen. Not many people could say Frankie Noialles had spent her precious gems of tears on them, and Garrick knew that if he ever told a soul about this, she’d cut out his tongue and feed it to a poodle.

And still, he’d only ever been a brother to her, and brothers were supposed to look out for their little sisters, weren't they?

She knew sisterhood better, because her older sister had been there for her when her world was falling apart, when Frankie had nowhere else to call home. For a moment, looking at him, she wanted to run home and cry into her sister’s lap, let her cold fingers comb through her hair the way they used to, back when everything hurt less.

“You’re here now because there’s something here for you,” And that something wasn't her. Those eyes turned sharp, because diamonds weren’t just pretty, they could cut. “So why did you come? If it wasn't for me, and if it wasn't for your runaway bride.” A thin line of a smile, "Come on, babes, spill. You know I'll find out, like very soon, if I want to." Suddenly, she had a better idea. "Or I can just ask little Lara. I’m sure she knows everything.”

What she hasn't taken stock of, was that every letter he got in ink more expensive than a skyscraper, told him she was alive. Maybe he'd have sought her out, if they ever stopped coming in hot. If she'd known how to get cursive to him, then she'd known some of his stops. She could'a gone after him, if it got the better of her; being without him. Nothing after New York stayed the same, broken pieces plucked out of the wreckage. Philadelphia left the scars.

"You's figured it out, didn't you?" He should have done better, by her. But she's pressing his buttons, jus' as she always can. "We's got you out, and splittin' was always gonna favour you." She had somewhere to run, a place decked in marble and silks. Swell. Garrick had the clothes on his back, and an attitude to boot. He'd give up his last pair of shoes to the guy without socks, 'cause he's got the will to endure that not all get the luxury of havin'. He'd thought, once upon a time, maybe Frankie did too.

She ain't. He loves her, an' he'll always love her. But she's addicted to the company of champagne and diamonds, usually adorning her most recent lover. Garrick kills fuckers like Frankie, an' he wonders if she sees herself like that. If she ever noted the irony; she was a greaser once, but a lady before that. She's a lady again, now.

Just so she'll understand, he scrapes his teeth along his tongue and reminds her one final time what it all's had come down to: "Je suis partie pour te protéger."

Even if it had backfired. She ain't dead, an' she's doing pretty good for herself.

"I's didn't even know you were here, Frankie." Fuck sake. Now's he's tryin' to tape pieces of her together but he don't have no directions. Where does he start? "And I ain't know she was either." Then, to try and play down his wit, "I's should of figured this town's notoriety would'a brought ghosts out of the woodwork, ay? Tha's what yer sayin'?"

Garrick's growing tired of Frankie using Lara as a weapon against him. It ain't just screwin' around commination. She's got a green streak, and it's mean.

When he hears that Garrick isn't here for the club, that's what catches his attention more than anything. He turns to the man slowly, eyes narrowing - is this some sort of revenge thing? Had he harmed one of the vampires this man is close to during his time as a hunter? There had been so many on his docket, turned to dust under a carefully placed stake.

Ain't half distracting, tha's what. It keeps surfacing memories, and idle flashbacks of indulgence gone.

Saint Cormac's got his eyes pinned on him, slitted and accusatory. He ain't done squat yet, so Garrick's hoping he's gonna watch what he says next.

"Ay, yeah." Drop it like a broken anchor into the deepest ocean. "Ain't no artistry in it fo' you." Shmucks with stiffs up inside them, that's what. Boy's got some spirit though, when he's got a thinkin' head strapped to them shoulders. Garrick's 'bout to tell him that they're all a bunch'a problems. Always have been. Lady up top ain't doin' nowt and those beady-eyed lil' suck-ups underneath her don't know how this century works.

Some could argue, neither does he, but he don't sit in gilded mansions and set pyres for the people who don't get as such. Ain't right. And it's a big distinction from a man of his history. "You won't change a worldspread mindset like that, boy." They's ain't just one city, or one state. Ain't one country. They're old, and boring, and would weep to see the damn dark ages come back if it meant they'd be the ones of the throne. "You's better off breaking off, lad. 'Cause I's scratching Pret's name out of the books."

He don't know what the morgue has to do with it. Nor why it makes him chuckle in the surroundings they're currently in the doorway of, "She new blood Pret too?" Maybe she's on his list, but he ain't sure he knows who made her. Garrick's just got ears a little too sensitive to big talkers in bars. He can't deny that Saint Cormac's got him thinking of cutting heads off of squares up on the rafters, though, and seeing how it survives.

Colt’s world was exploding a little at a time. Red and blue bursting behind his eyes like fireworks that cracked and popped, lighting up the sky and making his ears ring. It hurt, standing there and watching everything he thought he knew go up in flames and turn to ash.

“Whole life I figured monsters lived in stories, just stuff folks tell kids so they don't wander off after dark." he said, to a guy named Gus. Or Gas. The cowboy couldn’t blink the haze out of his eyes long enough to read the name tag on the man’s shirt. Definitely Gus, he decided, what kind of idiot would name their kid Gas?

They’d met earlier, where the poor fella had car trouble on the side of the road. Colt had offered him a lift on his horse to the nearest rest stop. His kindness was worth a double scotch.

That was two hours ago.

Now the scotch had done its job. Thoughts of the undead should’ve drowned by now, but instead they’d learned how to swim. Reid’s truth sat in the middle of his head in a lifeboat, bobbing in an ocean of booze. His closest friend (one he had to remind himself not to kiss) had come back from the dead. He was a thing with years behind his eyes, and no goddamn mark of them on his face. "I heard him say it." He went on, words slurring. "Ain’t makin’ this up. Probably shoulda made him show me, but that weren’t gonna be smart, now was it?” A scoff followed.

"Sweet Mary, I feel stupid even sayin’ it, but—" Colt leaned closer, "But hell, part of me keeps wonderin’ about the teeth, them fangs."

He pulled back again, rubbing a hand over his face. “Sorry, man, I just… got a lot rattlin’ around up there. Closest man I got in this world ain’t exactly… normal and I don’t rightly know where a fella’s supposed to set a thing like that down."

Garrick ain't even sat next to them, an' he can hear it. Don't need no heightened senses for none of that.

There usually ain't no issue with those being called crazy out in the city, but something about the lad says that there's something believable in his story. It's only gonna take the wrong square to pay attention, and there's gonna be a whole new wave of crossbows and pistols raining down on their heads, 'cause word got out there's an influx of fangs lately. There is, but better they don't know that. Daylight rumours got a lot of heat, including Garrick's kind.

He's up outta his stool when cowboy's friend passes out, drooling on the counter.

Nice empty seat to the right of the laddie, too. Garrick sits in it, flagging down another drink as to make it look less like he'd been sticking the noise out. He's taking stock of the tousled hair, and days old linen. They've only met once, an' Garrick gave him some business advice he didn't take well to.

But they's had a beer, afterwards. Got along swell, and he ain't tough on the eye. Real nice shmuck of a lad in conversation, without the griping shitty bits. Too nice, and Garrick ain't got it, then. Apparently, those dark bits of the soul come out when he's had a few too many lagers.

"Wha's all this I'm hearing about teeth, and lads being monsters, ay?"

He asks something but she's trying to figure out if she's tripping or if some fuck-ass witch shit is happening, and in that moment, she wishes to go back to the dangerous but tangibly simple work of killing vampires in the desert, back to when she didn't know witches were a real thing that existed, and the magic was out there waiting in the wings to fuck her already fucked up life even more.

"Man I don't know what I'm seeing."

It's like walls sprout up around them, dimly lit by some unseen source of brightness that seems to obscure even her naturally sharp vision.

"I see's that." He's walked back in time an' it's all very secondary to the triple vision he's got about every which way he's lookin'. "She walkin' round lookin' like that too?" Ain't no need for names, 'cause they both know, and they both know what he's thinkin'.

Damn.

But she ain't seeing no clearer than he is right now, and he's gettin' the real idea that some handsy lil wet rag of a witch has got a hold on them, shook 'em up, spat 'em out and is gettin' their rocks off about it. An' it ain't the fun kind.

"We's agreeing on what's gonna happen when we find 'em?" Garrick's gonna gut them, at the very least. Wouldn't be so bad if he'd been given fair warning. But he ain't, so the witchy woo fucker ain't either.

When he turns, there's a blockade. Another. Maze. Wall, tunnel, misdirection, back to the fuckin' beginning —

The sound of a gunshot won't ever be something that doesn't send a crack of lightning up and down his spine. There was a time where he thought the opposite might be true, that the sound of guns going off would be drowned into insignificance by the sheer volume of the thing; that notion's never held water.

It's certainly no different now, as he stands there, grip cradled in a firm but versatile cradle of his hands, the sulfurburn of gunsmoke curling out of the barrel and into his nose. "Hands off."

He's meant to pick this up from a dead drop, no questions, no answers. Go to point a, grab thing, take it to point b. He wasn't expecting somebody else to have the same idea.

"That's mine, pal."

Yet here he is, scowling at his leg with a hole through the thigh.

Garrick didn't have no interest in the contents of the cargo til he's got some grody nosebleed pointing a pistol at him. It'd be a fuckin' gas if it didn't sting like hell.

"You's got some nerve, ain't you?" Principle says that he's gonna take interest in whatever's got him some heat now. 'Course it'd be another stillhearted shmuck, too. "You ain't never heard of askin', boy?"

It'd probably get him further than this would.

Whilst gunsmoke curls from the stranger's weapon, Garrick's relighting his extinguished bone, trapped between fingers and propping it back between lips. He don't wanna let it go easy, but he don't wanna make no mess, either. He likes the place a lil too much to get caught dismembering a lad on the slats.

So, half threat, half humour, he offers the stranger a bit of patience, an' it ain't something he's famous for. "Wanna try this again?"