The Bad and the Uncanny

[KingSandy]

He burned.
Pain beat at him, long after his attackers had slunk away. Leaving him to die, to choke on his own blood. On the streets like a gutter rat's spawn. He felt so helpless, so weak. He'd come here to taste blood.

Just not his own.
Jack had been in prison a long time. One of those horrible, cramped prisons they made for skin-changers. He never saw the moon. The cell was too small to change. His large wolfish form would be forced to curl into a ball if it didn't want to lose teeth or break limbs. He'd been in that hellish little pit thanks to one man. Stupid bitch of a man. So Jack had stolen from him. Obviously, he could have spared the money, the food. He objected to Jack's threats to keep his silence or die in horrible ways. Oh no, too proud. So he hunted Jack down. Had them beat him before they tossed him in that shithole of jail.

Jack swore to get even. One night, the guards being drunken idiots, his door had been left unlocked but bolted. Full moon night. Jack burst through the door, tearing the bolt out as he did. He went to the town the fat old fool had lived in. But there was another wolf out that night. Maybe even a pack. They'd come across Jack and tore him up. Left him for dead. Eventually, he'd blacked out.

His chest was stiff and burning. He had long ragged cut there. Blood crusted his face. Bruises everywhere. Easier to see now that he'd regained human form. But he wasn't on the road, anymore. Not hard concrete. A bed. An honest to goodness bed. He looked around, too weak to do much else. Who had brought him here?

And why? There weren't many people who'd help a dying wolf. Especially if he'd been hit by other wolves. No one wanted to get mixed up in assumed pack fights.

 

[Osheaga]

• 
  
  Aside from the unexpected visitor, Cacia's evening had been relatively quiet. She sat soundlessly in her chamber skimming through meaty tomes with leatherback spines and tattered, time-stained pages. Her bungalow was a haven amidst this formidable mid August heat wave which swept in from the south. Cool air permeated the silence, laying stagnant on spotless kitchen tiles and freshly waxed hardwood floor.
  
  Cacia had been patiently awaiting her patient's recovery. Every few moments she would pause and listen for some manner of disturbance originating from her quarters. During the sixth pass a muffled grunt shook through the floorboards and violently assaulted her eardrums. She reacted with serpentine agility, hoisting her curvaceous frame from the chair and silently skittering down the hall where she noticed her door purposely left ajar.
  
  Her room was simply decorated; a traditional sized chamber with tangerine colored walls and a bookshelf overflowing with novels, both old and new. She sat upon the side of her bed unoccupied by the man, hearing the bedsprings cry out in protest under her weight. Each one of her elegant fingers - all of which appeared decorated in elaborate, foreign tattoos - ghosted down his chest. Surprisingly, they hadn't reacted to the sticky wet fluid erupting from the wound.
  
  She plucked a cylindrical container from her nightstand and unscrewed the lid. The tablets inside chattered lyrically as she let two fall into her palm. She took the man's jaw in her hand, fingers furled about his mandible while she eased his mouth open. The tablets, chalky and white in appearance, were effortlessly plunged into his maw. She realized earlier that evening she was baking and the likelihood of excess powdered sugar on her digits was rather high.

 

[KingSandy]

Jack had only just noticed the color of the walls. Bright, orang-ish color. He didn't quite like it. But it was a damn sight better than gray stone, so he didn't have much to say about it. There was a nice big bookshelf. He hadn't read a book in a while. He wasn't too sure he remembered how, really.

No cause for reading in a jail cell. Not for skin changers, the guards had said. They wouldn't know how, anyway. Sick bastards.

Every human was racist, Jack had concluded. A despicable thing. And they wondered why he did the things he had. Stealing, murder. It was freeing those people from the burden of objects and life. Freeing them from their humanity.


The wolf didn't know his host was in the room, being too preoccupied with the idea that he was in a neat house to bother looking or smelling around too deeply. Until a hand brushed across the ruin of chest, still covered in clotting blood. He looked up, began to say something when her hand gripped his jaw and rather gently pried it open.

Two pills were tossed into his mouth, tasting slightly sweet but he couldn't figure why. He was too weak to anything but swallow.

"Wh-what did you just give me?" He whispered, feeling an almost narcotic lethargy stealing over him.

 

[Osheaga]

• 
  
  At his shaky inquiry, Cacia remained silent. She insured the lid was screwed on tight and placed it upon the tabletop. Admittedly, she was uninterested by his utterances. Instead she plucked a tome from the foot of the bed and began absentmindedly skimming through its pages. There was nothing of any particular importance inside, just alchemical diagrams and texts.
  
  There was a foreign, otherworldly beauty to Cacia. She was a dark and eerie presence, overbearing and dominant but in the same sense kind. She peeled her eyes from her novel and glanced back at the man lying idle upon her bed, pressing her full lips in a hard line. "Don't move," she warned. There was a foreign twang to her voice if one would care to listen closely enough.
  
  "And don't speak."

 

[KingSandy]

Jack glared at her, used to being ignored like that. She simply went on as if he hadn't spoken at all. Maybe she was deaf. She better be otherwise Jack was going to eat her. Preferably alive. Ignoring her screams like she ignored his question. But he just felt so lazy. The pain in his chest stopped throbbing and burning. Helping a heavy lassitude spread over him. It felt good, in away. Cool and away from that drumming heat that was the existence of his wounds.

He lifted a calloused hand to brush his shaggy hair from his face. And then she spoke. Ordered him to keep silent. And not to move. He froze, his hand in the middle of shoving back a tangle of charcoal hair. It was more her manner than her tone that convinced him to stay silent for now. That and the fact that he was helpless. More helpless than a newborn pup.

But he did complete his last action, a little defiantly. He brushed the matted hair from over his eyes and then let his hand fall back down to the bed. He muttered in a subvocal whisper "Bossy bossy. . ."

 

[Osheaga]

• 
  
  Cacia, in a nutshell, was coined a nomad by her kin which were each of Egyptian decent. She could easily be described as a shamaness though others who practiced shamanism disregarded her; she studied a more physical means of alchemy which was often fingered as taboo by other nomadic folk. If one were to look closely enough they would take note of the somewhat eerie markings wrapping around her metacarpals and skittering about her knuckles. They were alchemical markings etched into her flesh using a dangerous branding method that took years to fully heal. They did, however, amplify transmutations she had practiced.
  
  When she caught wind of his utterance, her eyes went hard and disdainful. She despised sarcasm and whimsical mannerisms. If it weren't for one particular goal she was in the process of attaining, this lycanthrope would have been left for dead where she'd discovered him. With serpentine agility she glided to the side of the bed and took the man's wrist in her palm. It was a violent but powerful gesture, one that demanded respect.

 

[KingSandy]

The sudden movement caught him off guard. His 'host' took his wrist in her hand with a quick, darting movement. He understood what it meant, what she was trying to convey to him. Don't push your luck. Impertinence is stupid. The stock sort of guarantees that a gesture like that. But the wolf man decided that he could actually begin to admire this woman. But it wasn't his nature to like being strong armed in anything. He glared at her, his gold eyes hard and angry. He tugged. He felt so weak, he couldn't break her grip. Dismay shadowed his eyes. He was much too weak, right now.

And the drugs. They made being angry hard.
Made everything just seem so much work. But the pain was gone that was a plus.

He lapsed into a silence for a moment. Then cleared his throat, "Let go. . . Please." He kept his voice to a whisper, seemingly out of deference for her want of silence. Though he was bursting to bits with questions. Why did she save him? What did she want from him? Because he reasoned that no one would help anyone and expect nothing in return. She had to have some goal. And when it was over, he'd kill her. Or as soon as he could get up. Or the moon shined full.

 

[Osheaga]

• 
  
  It was evident that what little strength this man had left was waning, and fast. She could tell that his once powerful muscles were flaccid and lax, worn from what ever battle he had fought. It had reminded her of a virtually historical duel between herself and a rival of hers. The bout lasted two days; they, each, had taken turns destroying the terrain. The destruction headlined newspapers across the city for weeks, however, officials were never able to discover the culprits.
  
  As she sat adjacent to the injured man, she peered at him warily. Her eyes were probing, piercing in fact; her expression was clearly mirroring her innermost distrust towards her "patient". Her tone this time around, however, was much more docile despite her aggressive light eyes and somewhat scornful expression. "So how is it that you managed to become so ... mangled." She balled a fist out of habit which let forth a gruesome crunch sound, the result of released nitrogen from between her joins. When she was older she would likely suffer from some manner of arthritis but she had never been one to believe the rumor.

 

[KingSandy]

"How?" Jack narrowed his eyes. He'd already made one concession. The please had cost him something. Something important. He didn't like how he was so weak. And dependent. And how he whispered. He shook his head, thinking to refuse this question. That narcotic lethargy was playing havoc with this thinking, though. The wolf within didn't like that. Not one bit. But the man did. The man loved the sinking feeling. Didn't care about the loss of face or anything of that sort. The pain he felt was gone. And that meant a lot. Though he was not happy that she had not told him what she had given him.

But Jack had never hurt this much before.

"I got into a dispute with another pa-group of people. They disagreed with my point of view with extreme prejudice." There, that didn't tell her much. Though, he'd almost slipped and called it a pack. He wasn't sure if she found all wolf-y or not. As much as he willing to tell her. The wolf-man glared at her with a challenging glint in his eye, "That's all I'm saying until you tell me why you saved me." He gave muted bark of laughter, "I know it isn't from the kindness of your heart, woman." No one was kind if they had the choice not to be. She could have stepped over his body and kept walking. She obviously had other things in mind if she was going to be saving lives.

 

[Osheaga]

• 
  
  "Let's not be too modest here, my dear. You don't have to hide secrets from me. I'm just as much a monster as you if not more." Her poised fingers squirmed around his jawline and tilted his head upward to meet her piercing, olive gaze. Her eyes were strikingly light in comparison to her shimmery bronze skin giving her the appearance of a demon.
  
  "I won't force you to say anything. You're your own man, do as you wish." She smiled. It was a beautiful smile, crooked and devious; a set of jagged, sharp teeth would be befitting. "What I gave you is a narcotic, generally fed to the body intravenously. I acquired it during a routine trip to the hospital." What she hadn't mentioned was that her alchemical abilities allowed her to transfuse the liquid into a solid counterpart.
  
  Her other hand, equally as soft and as dominant, glided over his sternum and down over the twisted, tortured sinew that composed his abdominal muscles. It rested just below his naval where she gave him a demeaning pat, as if he were some new pet. "I can cut off the doses. But fair warning - you'll be writhing on the floor like a moth in molasses come midnight."

 

[KingSandy]

"I don't doubt that, woman," Jack met her eyes, his canine gold gaze staring impassively at her uncanny appearance. What was she? She smelled different. Not all human. Maybe she wasn't lying about being more of a monster. Something about her seemed off. Though he attributed the strength in her grip to his weakness. She was not a wolf or any sort of skin changer. She should not be able to command his gaze so utterly. But he didn't like his tilted head, exposing his neck. Jack felt shame and anger creep in.

She doesn't know, he reasoned, that's she's making you look like you've submit.
Still, she'd die once he was better. Quickly, out of thanks. But she'd still be dead.

"Fair enough, I won't say anything," Jack replied, narrowing his gaze at the smile. Pretty smile. But sly. Even malicious. Hospital. Had she taken him to the hospital? He doubted that. He'd be arrested or worse by now if she had. She'd obviously gone while he lay unconscious. Her hand slid slowly down the torn and near shredded flesh of his torso. A little pat. How demeaning. "Guess I'll keep taking it." It cost him something to say that. He had no wish to appear weak in front of his captor? Benefactor? But the pain would keep him from healing. Changing. Snapping at one's own wounds was a great way to bleed to death.

 

[Osheaga]

• 
  
  During his stay in Cacia's abode he would find that she was constantly starving for control. She went to outlandish extremes to capture and maintain. It was evident that she was pleased with hat patient's subservience. Admittedly she was slightly fatigued from the day's events and was less then willing to play "I'm the boss" games with him all night.
  
  "You're welcome to try and kill me, if that sates your innermost desires."
  
  The statement was eerily abrupt and frightening in its stark blatancy. It was her nonchalance that made her words truly terrorizing. "I'm unsure as to what it is but I can tell there's this behemoth desire welling up inside of you ... and I find it rather unpleasant." The lapse of silence seemed befitting considering the situation. A very elegant Cacia glided from the bed-side to the door frame effortlessly, insuring her footfalls went unnoticed. She was like a virtual ghost, making her existence as unknown as she possibly could.
  
  "You have two options. I can cauterize the wounds closed for you, or, you can wait until they heal naturally. It's time versus pain. Take your pick."

 

[KingSandy]

Try and kill me. Jack narrowed his eyes at her, suspicious. The statement was so matter-of-fact. As if didn't matter to her, not at all that this was his eventual goal. If anything, he was a bit put out by how blase she was about the business. Killing someone was something that should frighten them, anger them. Not that nonchalance. That. . . that bland confidence that turned Jack's promises to murder her into pathetic ramblings. Even more than his wounds, her carelessness seemed to push at him. There had to be something to that confidence. Something he wasn't aware of. He sniffed.

He was trying to get a better handle as to what she was. Chemicals. Darker things. But nothing definite and that unnerved him. His nose hadn't ever failed him yet. Well, in a way. But sniffing out a pack doesn't help you fight it by yourself.

"Behemoth desire?" Jack chewed the words carefully, he liked them, "I'm going to kill you. Maybe that's that it is." He shrugged one shoulder, too aware of the discomfort of the other one. The narcotic numbness stopped most of the pain. And was almost pleasant, once he thought about it. Once the wolf relaxed, anyway. But he couldn't relax, not around this 'woman'. "Let's be honest. I don't trust you. And you're not doing anything more to my body. I'll wait to heal." He said it stubbornly, as if he expected challenge. Jack was not the most social of wolves. It was his choice. Yes. He got to decide. Not her. That made him feel better.

 

[Osheaga]

• 
  
  Her response was a half-smug, half-ominous smirk that curled neatly at the corners of her full lips. She said nothing more after that. Her mere presence could easily be described as mocking, as if her existence denoted mischievousness and secrecy. She was the perfect embodiment of a dark and twisted demon whose jagged Cheshire Cat smile could only be seen from a veil of shadow.
  
  "I'm sure your brothers will be searching for you."
  
  There was an eerie tone of concern heavily laden in her voice. She peered lawlessly about the corner of the doorframe, her eyes flickering in the down-cast light fixtures littered about her abode. "Would you have me leave the door on unlocked?"
  
  Silence. She gazed towards the stairwell then back to her prisoner. A knock at the door was a sound she hadn't anticipated as she prided herself in her soothsaying abilities. "That's likely them now."

 

[KingSandy]

Jack stared. And he had thought wolves like him were unsettling. Now more than ever he was convinced that his captor cum rescuer was crazy. It was not a smile on her face. It was nothing like a smile more of the idea of a shark or a cat faced with an easy meal. Fucking cats. She was ill-defined in the fading light. A smiling jagged shadow.

"Brothers. I don't have any brothers," Jack said carefully, trying not to sound to secretive about that. Though, she was right. That pack would be searching for him. For proof that the interloper was dead. And so they could get their money from that coward of an employer. "Lock the door if you like," The wolf shrugged again, wincing as he accidentally included his wounded shoulder with the movement.

"Tell them I'm not here." Jack stared at the sheets, one fist clenched tight. "I'd rather not die. And if you keep me alive, I promise not to kill you right away. I'll do something for you, in return."

This was as much as he was willing to concede. He hadn't gone through what he had to simply die in bed.

 

[Osheaga]

• 
  
  Unbeknownst to Cacia, one of the visitors had breached her bungalow. They were skulking around the basement, hastily rummaging through her belongings before slithering soundlessly up the stairwell. Unfortunately Cacia was only human. She didn't possess any manner of superhuman abilities like her patient. She could affect others with her alchemic abilities but very rarely herself.
  
  Mid step the pounding on the door acclimated to a deafening decibel. So loud, in fact, that even a well rooted Cacia flinched. Admittedly she was bluffing. At best her comment was a jest, she hadn't meant to speak any manner of truth. "Quiet," she barked. When the room fell silent was when she was able to distinguish the presence of anomalies with her household. The mere thought of these men being so brazen made her blood boil to unworldly degrees. Much to her chagrin her twisted little fib had somehow grown into a very apparent reality.
  
  "Do you hear that?"

 

[KingSandy]

"Do I hear that, woman?" He chuckled briefly, " I felt that." The wolf felt tendrils of unfamiliar feelings stealing up on him. Fear. The stench of his own fear bothered him more than the achingly familiar smell of intruders. The door shook. So did Jack's hands. He snarled at them, a wolf was not made to feel fear like this. Fear of dying. Fear of disgrace. "I think someone wants in. Will you sell me out? They won't hurt you. . . much if you give me to them."

He expected her to do that. Humans, despite this one's odd smell, were usually the same. Willing to sell out anyone to save their own skin. Which is how Jack had wound up in this wounded state. He watched his captor with an expectant eye. Waiting for her to complete that human behavior. He'd die but at least he didn't cower at the end. And he didn't hide behind a human, too.

"Well, he's going to break the pretty door eventually. What will you do?"