Underworld Fan Fiction ❯ In Sheep's Clothing ❯ Another Moon ( Chapter 6 )

I do not own Underworld or its characters or settings. For these, I would like to thank Len Wiseman, Danny McBride, Kevin Grivioux and Hank Amos and Sándor Bolla, for dying in the first ten minutes just to prove that the situation is serious. You get the red shirt of courage!

 

And now we continue our earth-shattering debate...

 

(the fight resumes)

SELENE: That's it, you'd better back away!

ANNA: I wouldn't want to get too close. Why do modern women chop their hair so short? Are the lice really that bad?

SELENE: THE SHAMPOO TAKES TIME TO WORK!!

MICHAEL: (hand goes to scalp) !

PIERCE: I told you you didn't catch those from me.

KAHN: Why do you think I shaved my head?

MICHAEL: Oh gross ...but how did she get them?

KRAVEN: What? I only stole her pillowcase like six times.

 

.
.
.

 

 

All told, it took maybe ninety seconds.

 

Recruitment was too easy a word for it, Taylor realized as his boot hit the wet pavement. The boss kept giving things clean names: "candidates," "cousins," "recruitment practices." It made everything sound official. It made it sound like a signed contract and a salute, like a letter home to Mom every week. Maybe Pierce was right. Maybe Lucian did wish he was one of the other guys, the way he kept dressing it up decent. No matter which way Taylor cut it, though, clubbing a guy on the head and dragging him into a cop car wasn't any kind of civilized.

 

...not that it was that simple.

 

They were out of the car before the parking brake kicked in, way before the new mark had a chance to react. Taylor caught a split-second eyeful of a pair of pale eyes framed by stringy hair. Then his skull and shoulder blades cracked against the wall, jaw stinging from a jerky right hook. So much for him thinking they were the real police, here to help and shit.

 

He recovered quickly, snagging the young man around the upper arm and pushing him hard into the car. The new guy pulled nearly free and tried to throw a punch at Pierce, which didn't surprise Taylor.

 

The younger lycan blinked as Pierce's head snapped back. Shit...

 

This kid didn't have the first idea how to fight, and he'd—

 

"Hold still, dammit!" Pierce was already back on the job.

 

"Let the fuck go of me!" the new guy's voice was half-gone, with just the beginning of something else buried in a human throat. Taylor registered an American accent before he came back to himself and dragged the kid headfirst into the back of the car.

 

Human-fleshed fingers found the steel doorframe and clamped down, making metal squeal.

 

Taylor's feet stilled on the alleyway floor.

 

This was only the new mark's second night as a lycan. Full moon or not, there was no way, no way, he was up to full strength. Taylor swallowed hard. I thought only the old guys were supposed to be able to do that. God knows I never—

 

"What in hell are you waiting for, runt?" Pierce demanded, trying to keep the new guy's arm locked behind his back. "This harder than it— Oh forget it." There was a sickening crunch as the mark's head met the side of the car. His struggles went limp and he slid into the backseat without any other fuss. Recruitment was definitely too gentle a word for it.

 

Automatic weapons fired, five stories overhead.

 

Even so.

 

He'd left the engine running, keys in the ignition. Pierce slammed the rear door shut and all but leapt into place on the passenger side.

 

He shot a look up at the broken window and then behind him at the new guy. "You are better off with us, believe me." And then he shifted into drive and squeezed down on the gas. There was a squeal of wet rubber, and the alley opened up to let them out.

 

.

.

.

 

It didn't take the new mark long to figure out that there wasn't any getting loose and stop struggling. That or Pierce had hit him too hard. It was just as well, Taylor thought. They already knew that he could jump through glass when duly motivated. He took his eyes off the road long enough to peer over his shoulder.

 

Fuck but he didn't look like much. Another scruffy son of a bitch like the rest of them.

 

Pierce's narrow eyes were also appraising the bedraggled soon-to-be-bottom-of-the-lycan-pecking-order, but with a very different question behind them, as Taylor quickly realized when the new guy's neck seized up and his ragged breathing shifted into gasps.

 

There had been another night and another moon. Suddenly it didn't seem like so long ago.

 

Taylor pushed that thought away in favor of wondering how strong the bars were and how long the kid could hold out, whether those marks on the door were a trick of leverage or the light.

 

Pierce gave a snort. "Okay, mister benefits-of-a-modern-education, do you think we should pull over and dose him?"

 

"Fuck it," Taylor answered immediately. "We're almost there." He leaned back, hooking one elbow past his seat. "The first time hurts like a bitch, but soon you'll be changing whenever you want, moon won't make a shit bit of difference."

 

Taylor interpreted the next exasperated pant as one of gratitude.

 

"Don't get too attached," cautioned Pierce. "Smart money still says this one ends up on cafeteria menu."

 

"Don't talk like that right in front of him," Taylor protested. "What if he doesn't die? You want him to be out to kick your ass once he joins up?"

 

"You never managed it, runt." Pierce frowned. "Why are you being so fucking nice to some rat in its cage back there?"

 

A smirk crept across his round face. "Let's just say I'm in a good mood," he answered. "Hey new guy," he asked, eyes still on Pierce as his fingers found the radio dial, "do you listen to crap factory?"

 

The light changed and he blasted out of there like the hardcore wail from the speakers. The mark still didn't sound too comfortable, but at least he wasn't the only damned thing to listen to anymore. If Taylor hadn't been driving, he'd have let his eyes close. This blaring music drowned out the racing heartbeat of the man behind him, the uneven scatter of the rain, the sonic overload from the city outside. Why the hell didn't Pierce thank him for finding this stuff? Even the doubts in his head were finally taking a break.

 

And it made Pierce talk less. That was also a nice fringe benefit.

 

The guy in the back seat was still in a bad way. The smirk on Taylor's face was still there even though Pierce had stopped grumbling about the music. After all, the new guy had clipped him one, and it was perfectly okay to feel inhospitable toward someone who clips a guy one. Taylor tipped his jaw. Fucking strong, too. Fucking strong. Taylor guessed that that might actually mean there was something to this candidate business after all. At least then he'd get to think that it hadn't been a regular new-bitten who'd nearly taken him out ...even if he had passed medical school.

 

He felt his smile sour. It had been fun making fun of Pierce with it, but now that the dude was actually there, flesh and blood and breath behind bars that wouldn't hold...

 

Time to face it: this guy is strong and rare and probably smarter than me. Taylor leaned his head back against the headrest and sniffed twice. And he gets to shower more.

 

Pierce was a rock, but even though it had been years, years, since Taylor'd really lost control, he couldn't help a little shiver when they drove out of the shadows and hit the moonlight. He swallowed the sudden wetness in his mouth. The boss could take fancy words over this? It was like... It was like he remembered that there was more than meat inside his skin. Like he remembered that he was something strong, and that he was never going back to—

 

Taylor's mind snapped clean as the new guy's wordless voice grow more frantic, like a cat that was being held too hard. His foot was on the brake before Pierce even drew the breath in.

 

"Shit, he's not going to make it. Pull over!"

 

Taylor could dimly remember that other moon, over another city, and being on the other end of something with too clean a name. He felt his feet touch ground and yanked open the passenger door in time to see Pierce get kicked into a stack of garbage cans. What if this guy didn't think his human life sucked? What if this guy had more than a starving stray to regret? What if—

 

What if Lucian never got the plan to work, and this wild thing inside him was gone forever? What if every guy who was never good enough for anything just stayed walking under the table at the dock like some kind of asphalt treadmill with no one to drag them off kicking and screaming?

 

Taylor's elbows locked around the kid's arms. He ducked his head, keeping his neck clear of teeth eerily jagged to be first-change as Pierce pulled out a needle far too thick to be fit for anything that walked on two legs.

 

"It's about staying alive," he whispered. "Everything's about staying alive."

.
.
.

 

(in the stands)

PIERCE: But the other one hunts vampires. Shouldn't we be cheering for her?

TAYLOR: It's a grabbing fight between two hot chicks. Just pick a face, man.

PIERCE: Go Selene! Pound her out of that skanky corset!

ANNA and SELENE: CORSETS ARE NOT SKANKY!!

PIERCE: (tiny voice) ...oh god...

ANNA and SELENE: (leap into the stands)

 

 

 

drf24@columbia.edu