The Animal

Allison set the guns out on the table.

"Alright. You know you should clean these more often--for your own safety."

She sat down and disassembled each weapon, cleaned them, and reassembled them before declaring them ready for use. She also examined the ammo cases, each marked with a large "S" which she hoped meant silver.

"I'm not really good at small talk--in fact I'm not good at socializing outside the job at all. I think my last date was three years ago--not counting tonight and really--is he always that much of a sleaze?"

She smiled at Elenna hoping she had broken the ice a bit.

Elenna looked up from her book. "I know, that is what the boys always tell me, to take care of the guns, but, um, I, well, you know I don’t like them. I well, um, they can hurt people or even kill them and well, so I mostly hide them under my books.”

Lenna smiled when she continued her reading, but didn’t know why.

“I am not good in it either. I mostly talk too much about the wrong stuff. Who Rome? Yeah he is. Kind of annoying but it is good to tease him. I think he feel a little better he is breathing slower. Maybe we get some help here.”

"Nguh," Rome said. It was the Skin Walker! It was...painting him with symbols and covering him in weird paint. It blew some dust in his face...more Corpse Powder? What, it wasn't killing him fast enough?

And he was monologuing. Really? Really? What was it with the monologue? Didn't villains get that yet? Maybe it was a part of some secret villain Code of Conduct?

It's voice, guttural and raspy--on account of being dressed like a large goblinoid thing--came to him like choppy waves on the rocks:

"Anasazi Ruins...witchcraft...ruins and graves are strictly taboo...breaks that many times...fine knives and charms t...Don't be so shy, Rawson...Rituals will begin shortly."

Wait. Did it just call him "Rawson"? Rome was used to getting mixed up with his brother--he did it himself sometimes, actually--and they even encouraged this as kids, so it often didn't even register that he had been called the wrong name. But this time it did.

...Wait. Wait. Of course. Rome wasn't there! He was...dreaming? Vivid dream. Was he...dead? Nope, way too much pain. The bracelets, maybe? Some sort of magic? He'd never before walked in on Rawson's experiences, and he for sure didn't want Rawson walking in on some of his private experiences (hur hur hur). But if that was what this is...then he could...Rome could...

"RAWS!!"

And he was awake, sitting bolt-upright in bed. In bed? In the hotel? Whoa, what had he missed? Never mind. Elenna was there, sitting on the floor with a book. It was such an iconic picture of her he almost wondered if he was dreaming again.

"Elenna!!" he shouted, not sure how loud his voice was, or even if it was carrying at all. He felt like his ears were stuffed with cotton. And now his skin felt oddly dry and hot and horrible. But that didn't matter. "Elenna!"

"Rome!" she said, surprised, sitting on the bed next to him. He grabbed her by the shoulders and fixed her with a desperate, wild stare:

"I know where Raws is!"

Ugh. He's monologuing. Just when I thought this couldn't possibly get any worse. Do all bad guys do this? Muahahaha I have caught you, I have blah blah blah and then the cavalry saves the day or the hero escapes or Deus ex Machina intervenes.

"Your overconfidence shall be your downfall villain!" Ha. There ya go, back in your face.

And ew... white powerdry disgustingness on his face and nasty paints. He so needed a long shower and a jacuzzi tub. Interesting- those were some intriguing weapons. Come on Hunters. Of course, when there's no chance of escape, there's only one weapon to use.

"I'm sure you've caught deer hunters and pheasant hunters, but these kids are a different ball of yarn. Did you know that you look even uglier than you did the first time we met? Gods. Is it the skins you choose or your natural evilness seeping into it through your pus spewing little pores? Heh, puss spewing pores. I like that."

It didn't look impressed. The Scooby Gang needed hurry the frack up.

"You know, I'm not sure you should be here. I mean, I'm up for beating the crap out of supernatural yahoos, but you? You're totally pulling a Raxacoricofallapatorian nasty. Are you sure you didn't creep out of an episode of Doctor Who? And oh my god is Christopher Eccleston or David Tennant going to come save the day? That would be the epic win sort of deus ex machina! Do you have gas exchange problems with your meatsuits? Is that why it kinda smells down here?"

Oookay. It looks really mad. Maybe I overdid it a little. Oh well.

He gave a mental shrug. And it probably didn't work both ways, but he gave a mental shout as hard as a could.

Hurry up Romulus Remington and get the frack over down here!!! It's your turn to kick some monster assets to kingdom come!

“Whoa easy tiger you don’t need to shout, my ears are working totally fine. How do you feel? I know you have skills but how do you know where Raws is? I found some facts that might be interesting. This book says that the corpses of children, especially twins, are the best source for this corpse powder. And your new Fed girlfriend was so friendly and took care of the arsenal. So if your plan is still to jump in the car and rush to rescue Raws, we are more prepared and the last time. But first I would like to hear what you have seen.”

Lenna looked worried at Rome, he wasn’t sweating anymore.

Dehydration. Damn it. I want this skin walker dead. Mausetot.

Aly looked up as Rome woke yelling about his brother.

"I am most definitely not his girlfriend." She pulled the slide chambering a round on the pistol she'd just cleaned and loaded with silver to make her point. The sarcastic laughter helped too.

Allison got up and went over to the bed. He did not look good, but neither did she.

Blinking was hard, and the light was bright. Whatever. Rome licked his parched lips with a parched tongue like it did something, swallowed with difficulty, and spoke:

"Something about...where's the computer? Anasazi ruins. Are there any of those that still exist around here? He's...preparing some sort of ritual I think. With paints and crap..." Rome ran a hand over his face as if trying to wipe something away.

He could almost hear his brother berating him: "Hurry up, Romulus Remington and get the frack down here!!! It's your turn to kick some monster assets to kingdom come!"

Rome realized he had paused for some time and gone very far away. He looked down at his left arm, which looked frankly disgusting. The wrist felt dislocated and was swelling large, straining the bracelet, which was locked tightly around the larger-than-normal limb. It was glowing, faintly--orcs are near, he thought distantly, without much force--but now cooled. He shook his head and rallied:

"Umm, it'll be a grave site or something. He was...carving bones into knives." Rome glanced up, a little fearfully, at the looks of incredulous shock he faced. "I-I saw it. I don't know how, I swear, I didn't do anything. I was...there, you know, with Raws, for a second. He was making knives out of bones and crap. And painting stuff on Rawson. It was...he was in a building, like, ruined adobe or something. Carvings on the walls like...I dunno, people-animal things. And a fire. But it was underground, I think. Ruins, yeah, something about sacred ground. Hand me a computer, I'm sure I can find it."

Aly got on her knees on the bed. Rome winked at her--near death and still the same man.

"Alright Casanova, this is going to hurt."

She braced his shoulder putting equal and opposite pressures until she hear a loud pop. Then she took his wrist and without giving him a chance to recover set it as well. His skin was hot to the touch--dangerously so.

"We should be putting him in an ice bath..." Her voice faltered as Elenna got up from her place on the floor.

Casanova, huh? Knew it. This chick totally digs me.

That almost made the pain of getting two--not one, but two!--joints set in as many seconds. Almost.

"Ice bath, is it? You know, you get kinkier every time I talk to you," he grinned.

“Um guys I am still in the room, I hope you know that.”

Lenna smiled it was her turn to show off a little.

“We don’t need a computer silly goose. There is a much easier and quicker way to find Raws.”

Lenna jumped off the bed and rushed to her bag, her cheeks where pink from the excitement that she finally could help. Lenna not only had a book from the library but also a map of the area. She knew it could be handy. And she also took her crystal out of her bag.

“Finally I really can help. Rome can you stand up and come over here to the table, please.”

'Can you stand up?' he mocked in his head. What kind of woman does she think I am?

Rome twisted himself out of the bed, managing to stifle a groan, and stood. Albeit shakily, and the fever was still making the world look like he was viewing it through warped glass, but he could vaguely make out the direction and location where Elenna sat cross-legged on the floor in front of a map, holding some kind of crystal on the end of a chain. He was about to offer a deriding 'What's that for?', but he knew better than to ask that of Elenna. She wouldn't tell him.

She'd show him.

Especially now. He hadn't seen her this excited since that used bookshop in Albany where she'd bought three huge tomes of magic cookbooks and demonology.

He was glad it was only few feet from the bed to the map, because he wobbled when he reached her, and was glad for Allison coming up behind him and surreptitiously helping him to sit without incident.

"Okay," he said. "Now what?"

Lenna was so excited the last time she did this was to find Rome. She smiled at Rome with pink cheeks and sparkling eyes.

“Easy. Take the rock crystal, and just touch the chain of it at the very end. Um Aly I need you to stay back and be really quiet, sorry no offence. Okay Rome hold up the crystal and concentrate as much as possible how you feel about Raws without fainting again. I am going to say a spell and because you and Raws are very valuable for each other the crystal will show us where Raws is. Um don’t play with it Rome just let it happen and don’t worry it won’t harm you. Don’t move your arm and don’t talk just concentrate on the feeling for Raws.”

Elenna scattered some salt over Rome’s hand, the crystal and the map when she started in a singsong voice.

“Feuer, Wind, Wasser und Erde ich beschwöre euch, helft uns hier und jetzt. Offenbart uns den Ort den wir suchen. Wir bitten um eure Hilfe, bei allem was er ihm bedeutet.“

The crystal started to swing around the map, until it pulled suddenly Rome hand down that it could touch the map.

Aly's eyes went wide as Elenna started her incantation. She was torn between fear and laughter until the crystal actually moved.

She got up and moved to the furthest corner of the room.

"Whoa...I need some air...my invitation to Hogwarts got lost in the mail."

She needed to leave, but she didn't, just stood at a distance hugging herself and watching the--whatever it was.

"Whoa!" Rome cried as the crystal moved on its own accord as he thought of his brother, imagining badly-formulated defying-the-villain lines like "your overconfidence shall be your downfall, villain!", actually pulling his arm roughly to a point on the map.

He immediately bent down to check the name on the map, just as Elenna also crouched close to see, so that they clunked heads sharply together. "Ow! Frack!" Rome cried, recoiling.

Elenna was also rubbing her head furiously. "Oops, sorry," she tried, looking worried.

He forced a grin: "Nah, it's okay," he said, and knelt down, gingerly this time, to read the map.

Behind him, Allison said something about missing a train to Hogwarts which had him grinning. "Sorry, Allison. Looks like..." He squinted. "El Malpais...hey wasn't that where the kids went missing? No, wait. Big Tubes?" Rome paused, considering. "Because that's not dirty at all." He chuckled a bit. Probably more than was necessary, but he wasn't sure how many neurons he had that weren't boiled into soup now, so he felt justified.

"Okay, looks like you get there by the...uh...Highway 53...CR 42. Ha." He laughed again. Whatever, Raws would get it. "Do we know of any ruins in that area, or are we just going to drive over there and hope for the best? Looks like mountain, canyon country."

Lenna looked at Aly which was standing in the corner, she looked scared.

“Um Aly there nothing scary about this. It is just a locating spell. Not even real magic, even you could do that as long you pronounce the spell clearly.” Explained Lenna.

“As long you did concentrate on the feeling for Raws, there will be any ruins. The spell works that is how Raws and I found you last year. Um Rome do you need some ice or something to drink the corpse powder will dehydrate you.”

Lenna took her rock crystal from Rome and put it back in the little black velvet pouch.

Awesome it did work a second time and it was so much easier this time. I am getting better in it.

Water sounded heavenly right now...but Rome was about 110% positive he also didn't want to puke again any time soon. So no.

"Um. Ice, maybe? Can we get some ice? And we have guns, right? Let's head out. Where..." he looked around, confused. "Where's Georgie and the Russian dude?" A sudden pang of guilt flashed through him. Had he really pissed the old man off that much? Rome only remembered that he hadn't been nice, but then he hadn't exactly been fully conscious, either.

"Okay. Lock and load, ladies."

Allison walked around the map giving it a wide berth. Elenna may have said there was nothing to fear, but this whole hocus pocus, skin walker, silver bullet crap was scary enough.

She rolled her eyes a little at Rome's instructions--this wasn't some cheesy science fiction movie--and if it was she was clearly the expert which only meant either she was the first to die, or the only one to survive. Facebook quizzes were hardly reliable indicators. She didn't feel like the expert, which meant she was probably the skeptic law enforcement type. I am so dead...

She gathered up all the weapons and put them in a big black bag. Rome went to grab her keys off the table, she grabbed them first.

"I hold the FBI's current record for pursuit safety driving and marksmanship."

"Sure you do, cupcake."

"Awesome," Rome said, staggering to the bathroom to douse his face with cold water. He rinsed his mouth but didn't dare swallow. "You be my guest. Give me...oh, look, Raws left his Desert Eagle!" he said like a kid at Christmas as he discovered Rawson's .44 Magnum hidden in the bathroom. "Awesome. We have some .44's, right?" He pointed at Allison--one of the two he was seeing, anyway--and said, "You owe me a new pimped-out handgun, and we'll call it even for your handcuff trick."

He changed his shirt, which was bloodied and ripped, threw on a jacket--"Oh, and a new leather jacket," he added, recalling what else was left at the police station--and stood at the door, as ready as he would ever be. Actually really ready. It hit him suddenly that Rawson was still in very real danger, and that finding out where he had been taken him was a small victory.

"Okay, come on, let's go, cupcakes. I'm riding shotgun."

An hour.

A whole frakking hour.

And not one trace of the Skin Walker. It was like he had just left the ground.

Georgie had somewhat-begrudgingly come along (though Danila was sure she was glad for a respite from Elenna), and the two of them had been tracking the Skin Walker.

They'd managed to track it far out into the desert, but then they had lost the scent.

Well, not really scent. More like trail. But scent sounds better in a sentence. Anyways, after losing the trail, they scoured the area.

For twenty minutes. No dice. This was a waste of time.

Danila signaled Georgie and the two of them got back in the car. He turned the key, the ignition caught, and he threw the car into gear.

"Zorree for bringing you on a vild goose-chase. . ." Danila said with a sigh, not turning to face Georgie as he sped down the highway.

She glared over her shoulder before opening the door and heading for the car. He got in the passenger's side. She took off her blazer, the shirt underneath was sliced in ribbons like something she would find at Hot Topic, but it still worked.

"I owe you nothing--you owe me a job."

Lenna sat in the back seat, surprisingly with the big old book she was reading in the motel room. She looked like the child of the arguing adults in the front seats on a boring road trip. Without looking up or stopping to read she said just loud enough they might hear her.

“I don’t think being a FBI agent is that cool as a job. When I would be one and I lose it I would be celebrating, after all you were hunting the wrong guy for over a year. And you do know what you have to wear. Nope I wouldn’t be sad to lose that job. So I don’t think Rome owes you a job.”

Lenna didn’t try to offend Aly, she was just comparing the job.

FBI agent is never as cool as hunter or um life guard on a beach.

She looked up and smiled innocently at Aly.

"Haha, yeah," Rome joked, "If we weren't so pressed for time I'd say you slip into something more comfortable."

He continued chuckling as Allison threw the vehicle into gear and peeled out of the driveway as if the Skin Walker was already in sight.

"All right, Speed Racer!" he laughed, silencing it only in response to her highly venomous glare. What was it with the people he associated with and their hands-off relationship to fun?

Rome fell quiet and fidgeted in his seat. "There's something under my--hey! Whaddya know!" he cried, triumphantly unearthing his iPhone from the seat where it had apparently fallen out of his pocket. "I thought you'd taken this baby away!" Then he frowned slightly. "Bummer, actually. I was hoping for an excuse to get a new one." He shrugged. "Still can, I guess."

Rome flicked through his contacts despondently, avoiding landing on Rawson's because he just knew he'd try to call it and not get an answer and start getting very more worried than he was already. "Hey, Lennie, lemme borrow your phone," he said, reaching back and grabbing it off of the seat before she even said he could. He flicked through her clunking monstrosity of technological equipment until he found the Russian's number. He punched it into his own phone, under "Pops"--best to stick with pseudonyms after that last mishap--he made a mental note to change them to "Leonard," "Scully," "Barbie," and "Riddick" when he next remembered--and dialed the number.

"Heelo? Who eez zis?"

"Hey," Rome coughed, "Uh, Danila, right? It's Rome. Look, where are you guys? We got some pretty hot intel about where the Skin Walker's lair might be. Can you make it to a place called 'Big Tubes' in El Malpais? Coordinates are 34 North, 108 West," he continued quickly before the man could reply, checking the map, "and you get there on Highway 53. There's plenty of guns in the trunk if you're still in my brother's car." Rome paused for a second, considering, before he spoke again:

"And, uh, look, I'm sorry about being a dick, earlier. I was just--still am--worried, you know, but that's not an excuse to be a total bastard. You may still be Euro-trash but you're not outdated," he grinned into the phone, but seriously wondered if Russians understood humor or if he'd just made things worse, so he continued quickly again: "Anyway I'm glad to have you on our side, so, you know. Sorry."

Danila picked up his phone. Unknown number. Great. Telemarketer.

. . .though it could be one of the othe Hunters. . .

Danila answered the call. "Heelo? Who eez thees?"

Rome spoke. Gave him some coordinates and ran on about being sorry. He also tried to sneak a joke in there.

Danila chuckled, speaking when the youngster finally took a breath. "Rome," he started with a chuckle, "Eets okay. All men have an anatomical tendency to be dicks."

He smiled, wondering if the American would understand his humor.

"Anyvays," he continued, "we lozt thee trail a while ago. We weel meet up at the coordinates you zpessified - 34 North, 108 West?"

((Er. Lat -34.0 Long 108.0 is in the Indian ocean, off the coast of Australia. . . One of us is doin' it wrong here ))

"Ah...haha," Rome chuckled, nervously, wondering if he'd heard that right. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He turned to Elenna and mouthed 'Crazy Ivan' as he pointed to the phone. "Anyway, yeah, Pops, it's 34-108. How far out are you? We'll be there in an hour, if Allison keeps driving like this."

((Coordinate info got from here. I could be reading it wrong. Whatever!))

Danila was driving at top speed down the highway as he replied, "Eh. Maybe fourtee-five minutes."

Danila almost cringed at the nickname. He sighed. Kids these days. . .

"Alright. Zee you there, rebenka."

"Yeah, bye," he heard Rome's voice respond, then a click.

Danila hung up the phone, then turned to Georgie. "They have found new intel and are meeting us in about an hour at 34 North, 108 West. Zound good?"