Close Encounters

[wolfs_daughter]

It turned out that there was a place near The Dive where Echo could find Guinness, a small liquor store about a block from the bar, and the day after she visited the club she made another trip up the highway to see at least part of the city in daylight. She bought two six-packs of twelve-ounce bottles, knowing that would last her for a while because the stuff was so strong, then carried them down the crumbling sidewalk to where she'd parked her van.

She should call her parents in a couple of days, give them a status update. Having gotten her phone installed, she might as well make use of it by sending up a proverbial flare to let them know she was okay. Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn't eaten since lunch, and it was nearly seven o clock. Maybe she could find a decent pastrami sandwich somewhere.

She stowed the beer in the back of the van, then locked up the vehicle before starting off in the direction she'd come from. She'd eat dinner, then hit the road again. And check her mailbox when she got home, which she'd been doing obsessively lately. Her ship was about to come in, or at least she hoped it was.

And Las Vegas was much less tacky before the sun went down.

Comments

[primordial_visitation]

Griiiiind...

The sound of metal bar scraping along concrete. A dishevelled figure letting it trail at her side as she walked along, seeming for all the world as if in a daze.

Things felt... Different here. The atmosphere lighter than what she was used to. Free. Dizzyingly so, in fact. The air unable to support one's weight if leaned against.

Things were not always this way... And how she knew that, even the brunette's hosting occupant failed to know. Only flickers of recollection danced through its mind, too fleeting to catch and too unsubstantial to learn from. Mere snatches of a now-former existence.

Sabra. It knew that. Documentation... The picture had matched what was seen in a first-time glimpsed reflection and, while the writing seemed alien, some part of itself stirred in vague recognition. A word coming to mind as it stared at the text. A name. Not... Its true name, not that. But acceptable. Something it could tolerate. Could use, for now.

And another memory - another not of its own - seemed to tickle as it took notice of the sign. Not information, so much as an association. Knowing that a place should be thought of as a provider of... Provider of... Something.

Something this body had liked? Something it had avoided? Did not matter. What it now hosted craved knowledge. Understanding. Sabra's eyes attempting to adjust, refocus, as it... She... Took the decision to turn, entering the premises. Unsure, at first, of how to operate the door; the relationship between handle, twisting and opening what the mechanism was meant to safeguard. Then, standing there for a moment or two, taking visual stock of what filled the many shelves inside. Seeming, for all the world, as if she was already drunk, but there was no sway to her step as she decided to walk in. The metal bar still in hand as she did so.

[wolfs_daughter]

Echo saw the drunk first, just as she was getting in line and counting out some money. The other woman had to be drunk, because the hybrid had seen that staggering kind of walk before, and she was carrying what looked like a piece of rebar. The brunette's eyebrows drew together, and she wasn't sure if she should offer some kind of help or keep her distance. Food smells kept distracting her, though.

"Hey, lady, watch where you're going!"

The voice was coming from near the door, from an annoyed-looking skateboarder with pink hair and a cast on his arm. If he already had a cast, did he have any business carrying that board around? Echo took a discreet sniff at the air, but her senses weren't refined enough to cut through the scent of brewing coffee and sandwiches. Papa would have been able to suss out if there was impending danger, but Papa wasn't here.

"Excuse me, ma'am, are you all right?" she inquired politely, stepping out of line and moving towards the other woman. She really looked as if she'd woken up on the wrong side of the bed, or as if she'd escaped from somewhere. She should really listen to the news more often. What if this was some escaped lunatic?

Still, compassion won out over everything else, and she tentatively reached a hand out to touch the stranger's shoulder. It was never a bad idea to lend a helping hand. "Let me find you somewhere to sit down, okay?"

[primordial_visitation]

The pace differed now. Sabra was no longer aimless. There was slight curiosity at these surroundings. The shop's interior. Like a book asking to be read, yet offering no immediate clues as to how it should be best opened.

But like a tiger learning how to tread water, the youth earned himself a slow, steady turning of head. Something innate to her glare, something behind it, causing him to mentally startle. No rhyme nor reason to it. Just a feeling of having prodded a sleeping bear.

Or maybe dragon.

Then the girl. No verbal response yet. Just watching, head tilting, turning, as Sabra watched Echo's hand reach out to shoulder. Still not comfortable enough within its new vessel to immediately associate the body part as something of itself. Then her gaze travelled back. This time, the movement quicker. More awake than before. Detecting something, maybe. Perhaps a whiff of scent or something more. Nostrils widening inhaling swiftly. Head tilting again, this time a little to one side.

Back to the boy.

Back to Echo.

"Sssssommm... Sssommmmmmewhere... Sit dowwwnnnnn..."

Each syllable repeated in careful, considerate fashion. Was she foreign? In more ways than one.

Then, unexpectedly, the woman moved forwards, pushing Echo along with her to one of the nearest aisles. Doing so until the younger brunette's back pressed up against one, disturbing the carefully stocked contents of the shelves. Dipping head forth, taking another, deeper sniff of the girl, then looking to the side. A more tentative sniff being made of a bottle, as if comparing the two. Retrieving it with free hand, turning it around, up close to nose, like a dog trying to figure out how to open a box. Then back to Echo. Uncertain, yet animalistic.

[wolfs_daughter]

Okay, that was just bizarre. Maybe the stranger wasn't drunk after all. Maybe she was mildly autistic. Echo knew about autism because they'd mistaken her extreme shyness for a form of it when she first enrolled in public school. The only reason she'd avoided being overly medicated for her supposed condition was because her mother had managed to convince them she didn't need pills.

Her back instinctively arched, and she put out both hands to gently push the other woman away. In her head, the Wolf growled a warning, and her frown of confusion turned into a scowl of annoyance when she realized her other half was stirring to sluggish consciousness. Maybe Las Vegas was bad luck for her, because this was the second time she'd heard the demon within making noise.

"Be easy," she said aloud, and she was making patting gestures in the air but not actually touching the other woman, who she had an unusual height advantage over. Just a slight one, but she was definitely having to dip her head a bit to make eye contact. "Come on, put the rebar down. Do you need me to call someone for you? A doctor, maybe?"

The kid with the pink hair had sidled out of the way amidst all the pushing, but his voice was snide when he said, "She needs a straitjacket." "Make yourself useful or get the hell out of here," Echo snapped, because while she could be painfully shy, this woman was just coming off as weird. She knew were-creatures sniffed, it was how they knew their own kind, but she hadn't been personally sniffed in ages. "Now, let's just be easy, all right?"

[primordial_visitation]

"Doctorrr... Maybe..."

Something about the way this one seemed to be testing each word as she spoke them. Or perhaps, more truthfully, was testing this strange combination of mouth, teeth and tongue interaction. Everything was new.

And she was learning.

Quick as a flash, the bar was aimed squarely at the bright-haired male's face, hardly an inch away from coming into painful contact with his throat. Lifting it smoothly up into his chin and then easing him close, as if impaling him like fish on an imaginary hook, by virtue of threat. Another loud sniff, this time in the lad's direction. Then, making a facial expression of displeasure, a violent push away was made, shoving him off. Perhaps a little too forcefully... Someone hooked on PCP, maybe? The long-haired brunette's attention zipping back to Echo, letting the metal bar fall from hand, clattering to the floor.

No doubt, the cashier was starting to get worried. Maybe was getting ready to call 911. Sabra couldn't know. Didn't care. Sniffing, again, at the bottle in her hand, then at Echo. Drawing herself closer.

Didn't need the bottle. Let it go. Heard it... Smash. The sudden noise redirecting her attention. Whirling upon it. The noise unexpected. Watching as the contents flooded the floor, as if the physics of it were somehow new.

Looked at Echo. Back to the shattered glass. Back at Echo. Lips half-sneering, half-parting. Trying to articulate something. What ultimately came out, sounding like some bizarre cross between African and... What? Viking? Russian? Some of it so guttural that it seemed she was coughing. Then, crouching, experimentally reaching out fingers to the broken, alcohol-drenched glass...

[wolfs_daughter]

This time, the Wolf didn't just growl, it growled, and Echo felt her knees locking into place as Pink Hair went flying backwards to crash into one of the refrigerated cabinets, then sag to the floor. A puddle was forming on the scuffed linoleum, and the edge of it touched her shoes. She could feel her hackles going up.

Enemy. Predator.

"Don't do that," she said, and her voice sounded thick to her own ears. Shit, not here! "You'll cut yourself or someone else. I think you need a hospital. Did someone do something to you?"

The cashier was trying to fumble the handset on the wall out of the cradle, but he was shaken from the sudden outburst of near-violence and he kept dropping the receiver. Echo wasn't hungry anymore. She should definitely stay out of Las Vegas if this was going to become a habit.

"They're going to call the police on you if you don't calm down."

[primordial_visitation]

"Cut... Someone," repeated the visitor. Head swivelling independent of shoulders. A hair's breadth away from touching fingertips to glass before rearing up, cat-like.

Cobra-like.

Another sniff. This time short, sharp. Mind no longer quite so at odds with body.

"Did sssssomething to me..."

The next time Sabra parted mouth, tongue could be seen trailing over each individual tooth. Eyes glancing down, as if trying to visually inspect the action. Then, finishing, snap-shotting gaze back up. Jaw moving from one side to the other. Then back. And again. A muffled snapping sound being heard under the flesh, like someone cracking knuckles the size of vertebrae. Eyes closing as she moaned aloud... Effort. Strain. Lids reopening.

If Echo didn't do something soon...

[wolfs_daughter]

"Holy shit..."

It was the cashier, and he'd finally succeeded in dialing the phone, but he ducked out of sight before the...whatever it was could take notice of him. Echo felt the muscles in her back and shoulders tighten and bunch, and please God don't let there be fur sprouting underneath her clothes. If she changed here, she'd be either in police custody or in a rubber room in the psych ward before she could turn around. The Wolf snarled inside her skull.

She grabbed for the rebar, picked it up with her left hand even as the sound of the other brunette's moan reverberated, and she brought it down on the closest thing she could reach, the thing's left foot. It was a blow meant to distract rather than truly injure, and if she applied perhaps more force than she would have on a normal human, who was to say?

"I don't know what you are," she said, and her voice was thicker than ever, as if she had mud in her mouth. Enemy. Enemy. Enemy. The word was like her pulse, and she wanted to take this piece of metal and stab it through the unnatural thing with all of her strength. To see if whatever it was would bleed.

"Leave. Now."

[primordial_visitation]

The had been a loud screech, somewhere between a cat and dinosaur in heat. Instinct kicking in. The being wearing Sabra's face simply reacting, slamming herself back against the nearest row of shelves, almost ricocheting herself in muscular spasm up, taking ahold of the light fixture.

And, from her inverted new position on the ceiling, hissed her own warning loudly. Entire jaw seeming to unhinge, transmogrifying in some ghastly mockery of flesh and bone, until becoming like an obscene cross between the mouth-parts of arachnid and snake. The miniature fanged 'limbs' unfolding beneath her nose, mantis-like.

There had been a chance she could have been talked out of it, but not after being struck at like that. It reinforced natural instinct. Compounded the issue. Leaving Sabra revealed for something other than human.

At the first sight of pink-haired youth's scrabbling, Sabra's attention whirled, leaping upon and pinning him down. Fingers more like a bird of prey's talons than anything recognisable as a human being. That dreadful open maw threatening to tear into his flesh like a chainsaw. Instead, using him... Scaring him shitless before making us of him as a human javelin, throwing him at Echo.

[wolfs_daughter]

Enemy!

Echo had tried to suppress the change, to fight it off the way she did through meditation and relaxation techniques, but the open assault undid her control. There was pain as her bones began to alter their shape under her flesh, and inside her shirt light brown fur began to sprout on her shoulderblades. The skateboarder saw her face change shape, let out a scream of terror that he hadn't been able to release because of the earlier blow to his head, and a puddle of urine joined the mess of booze on the floor.

Half-shifted, Echo let out a strangled barking noise as her human thoughts were screaming "NO NO NO!" at her, and the shop's door opened from the outside as some unsuspecting tourist came wandering in with a camera around her neck and an opened map in her hands. Out, she had to get out. Mama was going to be furious with her.

The door's glass shattered as the hybrid slammed into the newcomer, knocking her down in tangle of arms and legs and terrified changeling. Echo got one pawish hand tangled in the camera's long strap, finally tore loose with a muted howl. She was no warrior, wanted no part of that thing back there.

The van. She had to make it back to the van so she could hide in the back until the Wolf subsided. And the only time she'd visit Vegas after this was in the morning with the sun beating down hard. Weird little town that it was, Searchlight seemed much safer all of a sudden.

[primordial_visitation]

From behind her, a shrill scream could be heard bellowing into the air. By nature, inhuman. In practice, formed by human vocal chords. Chaos breaking out within the shop; one confused, predatory being struggling against an apparent onslaught of frail mortal life. Wanting them away. Removed from its presence. Glass smashing in the ensuing chaos of a beast consumed by unholy wrath.

Passers by stopped, querying amongst themselves. An onset of Chinese whispers erupting between them in excited, fearful tones. Not one of them having a clue of what was causing such chaos within.

Outside... The back. Up, up, up... To the roof. Then to another. Another, still.

There would be time for thoughts later. Time, too, to reflect upon the wolfen girl's scent.