Wes glanced out over the rain soaked vista in front of him. The swirling mists, the constant drizzle, and the rugged terrain spread out before him like something from one of those mega budget Hollywood blockbusters. It was as beautiful as it was foreboding. He could almost hear the voice over now, “Somewhere in Transylvania an evil has awoken and it is one man’s job to put it back to sleep…” or something equally inane.
In fact, as he sat in the meager lean-to that Zaha called home, the tap tap of the drizzle on the corrugated metal was almost soothing. There was something about having that small amount of shelter in the cold damp; like some primal mechanism that reinforced his desire to stay here safe, warm and dry. It was a bit like a subtle urging pleading with him to remain in the shelter and not go out into the elements and face whatever horror awaited him.
After all, that’s what any sane person would do right? Sadly, all pretext of sanity had fled him months ago after an especially ‘energizing’ visit from a small black and gold visitor. That thought gave him a jolt. Really? It had only been a few months. It felt like years or… worse, it felt like no time at all.
His reverie was interrupted as Zaha strode over and wordlessly cut one of the coneys she had hanging above the lean-to down and began to meticulously field dress it as preparation for her dinner. Her gaze fell heavily upon him and the disproving flicker of her eyes let him know in no uncertain terms that she thought his time would be better spent killing strigoi than mooning about in her camp. He momentarily thought of going up the hill to the windmill. The girls there seemed to be more intent on each other than on him the few times he visited, but the constant werewolf assaults made for poor reflection and contemplation; especially with the chainsaw growling and near constant rifle reports. Besides, he got the distinct impression that male visitors especially were not entirely welcome.
Wes smiled awkwardly at Zaha in hopes of assuaging some of the discomfort he felt sitting there under her intent gaze. Instead, the Romany woman selected that moment to gut the coney with one fluid stroke of her knife, her gaze as fixed on Wes as ever.
“You uh, are quite good at that. Once this is over, you could get a job as a butcher or…uh something,” Wes attempted small talk. This was of course foolish in the extreme as small talk and Wes went together as well as orange juice and mint toothpaste…and generally left just as bad a taste in his mouth.
Zaha rolled her eyes and made a faint ‘tch’ sound as she turned to tend the fire and spit her dinner. Wes glanced at her briefly to make sure nothing more was forthcoming and then fell back into his reflections. He thought briefly about the rain. It never seemed to pause, it never seemed to get heavier or lighter. It just was. As much a part of the landscape as the sun or the moon, just more constant.
He noted that the rain seemed to seep into your very soul. Its cold, damp fingers traced the contours of your face like some cadaverous lover’s touch. Then it infiltrated your ribcage taking a hold of your heart, cupping it gently like a farmer holding aloft a prized tomato before squeezing it to pulp and devouring it. The worst part was the effect it seemed to have on his outlook. He got the vague, queasy feeling that this constant pallor was a foreshadowing of the rest of his days. Days spent lone and vigilant against things that he knew awaited him behind the next hillock, despite the fact that he could not actually see them. That made it worse in some ways. When he could see the enemy, his mind focused itself with laser-like intensity on the battle ahead. But, as he had all too recently learned, sometimes the enemy… the horror…put on a pretty face. Sometimes, the greatest pain didn’t come from some thrashing monstrosity’s claws or tentacles but from mere words spoken softly.
Wes shook his head trying to stave off the creeping despair. No. That sort of thinking got you killed. Maybe not permanently in his case, but it still hurt like hell nonetheless. Worse, thinking like that got other people killed. Some of whom would not be resurrected by bees. People’s family and friends, brothers and sisters, sons and…daughters.
Of all the horrors he had witnessed since he had been forcefully thrust behind the curtains into the secret world, the hellish daycare and their insidious experiments on the little girls there was the most soul shatteringly terrifying. He was still not entirely sure what Vali was trying to accomplish, but what they unleashed and more importantly what they destroyed was all too clear to him. The fact that Callie was more or less unharmed was a small triumph, but even her innocence had been sundered irreparably. The terrors he had encountered made him want to run screaming into the night. How could all of these others be so non-chalant? Didn’t they ever get scared?
Wes longed to forget this all, go back to Oxford and get a boring job lecturing students into a bored stupor and then get into his boring car to drive to his boring home where his boring wife and boring children were awaiting him to have a boring dinner and then vegetate in front of a boring show on the Tele. Instead, he was here to kill vampires and werewolves, travel back and forth in the blink of an eye via a series of vertigo inducing pathways between unimaginably tall trees in the inner earth to his rooms at Temple Hall, where admittedly the food was quite good and there was never any shortage of excitement.
Through the gloom he saw Jenn coming up the hill and rose to meet her. Time to get his hands bloody again. He could feel the dread rising in the pit of his stomach; the familiar icy claws around his heart. Still… he had to summon the courage to face the horror and make a stand. He had to at least try.
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