Jesse Jones Glimpses

[Cayce]

“So your mind is set on going?”

Jesse didn’t look up, but continued to clean her Armalite AR-24, lovingly rubbing down the slide and trigger assembly. The disassembled gun lay on a scrap of newspaper next to its freshly oiled and loaded sister, the assortment of cleaning materials lying nearby.

“Yeah. I’m gonna head up to Sac.” The loading assembly came next, methodically followed by the slide.

“Are you sure your heart is set on following?”

Jesse’s hands froze, and her dark gaze flickered up to the woman standing over her. The elder Uratha was staring at Jesse with her arms folded, one clawed finger tapping a tattoo of a broken oak tree. “I ask because what the two want is often not the same thing.”

“Wrong. You’re askin’ because you just heard something you didn’t like in the Shadow,” Jesse snapped back, her fingers trying to rub the cleaning cloth through the steel of the AR’s frame. For several seconds the only sound in the room was the soft swish of the cloth. Jesse kept her eyes fixed on the matte black finish of the pistols frame, but she heard the other Uratha pace slowly behind her. Jesse could swear she felt the spider’s legs tattooed on her back beginning to twitch.

“Watch your tongue, wolfling, or else I might start to think you’re ungrateful. You would do well to remember that my pack took you in with the promise of only trouble in return.” The words came slowly and softly, making Jesse think of the hard steel that dwelled beneath wolves' fur. She continued to clean her pistol, the repetitive motion helping to slow her heartbeat. She wondered how close she was to getting her ass kicked. Sure the bruises would heal in less than an hour, but she wasn’t a glutton for pain, and she knew exactly what the elder could dish out. Unfortunately, Jesse had a habit of being a repeat offender.

Silence reigned while these thoughts ran through the Irraka's head and the scent of gun oil poured through the room.

“Hmm. It seems to me that your heart and mind are not of the same pack, Jesse. Perhaps you should speak of what’s troubling you. If you head over to Sacramento with fire sparking from your tongue and venom in your veins, I guarantee you’ll be sent back with more than a few broken bones. If you’re lucky.”

Jesse blew out a sharp breathe and continued to oil and assemble her gun. It was only after the ritual was complete that she turned to look at her Alpha.

“You’re right, First-to-Know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you, I just…Today is just,” the words trailed off and Jesse took a shuddering breath. Her eyes burned and her fists clenched, but no tears came. The start of a growl rumbled low in her chest.

“Ah, that’s right. This marks the passing of your first year with the People. I shouldn’t have forgotten,” First apologized, putting a hand on the younger wolf’s shoulder. “I understand that you have some painful memories attached to your first change. I just wonder…why do you think you can change anything in Sacramento if you can’t even deal with your past?”

Jesse wrenched her shoulder away from the elder and sprang to her feet, her muscles and bones shifting as she swelled into Dalu. “Every wolf,” she snarled, “feels the bite of the past.” Her whole body was shaking, her teeth were clenched, her eyes shone with anger and unshed tears, and it was only after following First’s gaze that Jesse realized she was holding something; something with a rubberized grip and a safety catch that was digging into her thumb. The two wolves stared at the gun until Jesse slid back into her human form and tucked the pistol in the back of her jeans.

“Look,” she said, turning away. “I didn’t come runnin’ to you with my problems, First, and you can go fuck yourself if you think you can give me shit for dealing with one. I’m going to Sac cause I need a change. You and Ten-Story helped teach me about all of this, but I’ve gotta get out of your shelter and run on my own, find my own pack. From what I’ve heard, Sacramento could use another wolf with her ear to the city, so that’s where I’m headed.”

“When a wolf gets the wanderlust, it’s foolish to stop them, but I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into. Our existence revolves around the cycles of change, and loss is often a part of change. You grieve for a lost one now, and I guarantee you’ll grieve for many more if you survive long in this world.”

Jesse brushed a hand through her hair, looking at the floor. “Yeah…I know. So what's it matter where I am when it happens?”

First-to-Know smiled, her lips twisting cruelly. “Even if you don’t know, you will soon learn. But very well, enough of this, I see that you won’t change your mind. Knowing you as I do, the news I will tell is this: when you get to Sacramento, seek out the Tur. There will be a message there that you should see.”

“Wait, what?”

“And seek out Ten-Story before you go. He’ll want to have words with you.”

[Cayce]

Disclaimer

So, this one contains violence and yadda yadda. I tried writing it from a strange perspective, and haven't really proof read it, so hopefully it's not painful to read. Feedback is always welcome!

“The sun beat down like a hammer on an anvil, hotter than any damn day you’ve ever had. Shade didn’t make a damn difference, just made the air wetter, harder to breathe. You couldn’t tell what was sweat and what was water dripping down onto you in the depths of that jungle...”

The old man’s words hung gravely in the air, painting the night with his memories. He leaned forward, ragged boots planted firmly in front of the stained backpack he sat on. Bloodshot eyes nestled inside a sunken face glinted briefly in the firelight, and the man thrust a dirt grimed finger at the fierce blaze inside the old oil barrel they were seated by.

“Course, the moisture was all that kept that whole country from imitating our own merry source of light here. I say indeed, was no wonder we used fire as our artillery of choice there.” He nodded solemnly, took a sip of lukewarm coffee out of a battered tin mug, and then continued, his dry, vivid yarn. Each word that spilled from his lips drew the audience of destitute men and women further and further out of another night on the Sacramento streets and into a the depths of his tale. The fire cracked and sparked quietly, lending an odd percussion to the remembrance of war in a foreign land. The hours passed and the tale slowly wound down, its end mimicking the last guttering of the fire and the approach of nights embrace.

As the light died and the shadows of the alleyway swept in, the small gathering of homeless quieted, trading a few last pieces of gossip before the darkness made all but sleep pointless. Blankets, jackets, bundles of clothes for pillows were pulled out, but suddenly a loud crash boomed through the alley, the sound of metal thundering off the brick walls. Everyone froze and cast furtive glances towards the corner the sound echoed from. Soon, the laughter and voices of men followed after the crash, the alleys strange acoustics bouncing and distorting the sound.

“Ah hell. More jackasses from the bar,” the storyteller, Don, muttered under his breath. Slowly, moving as though his joints had long since been ground to dust, he rose to his feet and shouldered his backpack on. The other men and women around him grumbled and began to gather up their possessions as the voices grew nearer.

“Bastards,” one of the women, Jane, spat. “Won’t give us any peace.”

“Won’t give you anything,” Don replied in a hushed voice, waving the others to their feet. “They’re just here to kick us while we’re down. Fuckers know the cops don’t give a shit about us, especially not after that whole ‘urban development’ shit the city pulled. The shanty town might have been full of crazy SOBs, but at least it was a place for us to go.”

“Almost like they’re taking the city's example. Tryin’ to drive us all away. Hell, the cops arrested everyone in the squat down on 15th for trespassing, and they even blamed ol’ Toby’s murder on the drunks who took his shit after he was already dead. If they had asked, anybody coulda told ‘em it was a bunch of scum who kicked his teeth and ribs in for fun. Weren’t one of us,” one of the other men, Rob, threw in.

The group hurried through the twist and turns of the alleys and onto the street, dragging their worldly possessions with them. They lowered their voices as soon as they hit the sidewalks pavement, and began migrating in different directions, all heading away from the drunken laughs and shouts echoing behind them. Car headlights washed over the dispersing homeless as the last of the late night traffic sped by.

“Hey, slow down for a sec,” a voice suddenly called. “Look. If we head south, we start hitting biker and gang turf. We head down 18th, we run into dealers, and past that are either more bars, the suburbs, or the city core where the cops are doing their ‘high profile protection’ shit.”

About half of them stopped and looked back at the filly that had spoken. She was young, but like most on the street, her eyes were hard and unflinching. She had short, greasy black hair that was tied back out of her face, and she wore jeans and a stained, almost threadbare Terry O’Reilly Bruins jersey over a green sweatshirt.

“Look, Jess,” Don said flatly. “It sucks, but we have to move. If they start shit, the cops take their side. Bottom line, we lose. Nothing’s fuckin’ new. Get used to it. We need to find a new place for when the shelters are packed.” He turned his back and began to walk away, shaking his head.

“Hey, WAIT! Look. Give me, like, two weeks. Two weeks from now, we’ll have the Brick Stretch to sleep in again. I’ll make sure those assholes learn to stay out of it.”

“Better to just forget it girl. Move on or the cops, the reaper, or somethin’ worse will get you,” Jane offered in parting, following after Don. A few minutes later, all of the vagrants but the woman in the Bruins jersey was gone.

…

Tom Allenbury prowled into the nest of alleyways behind his favored bar, his friends Jim Mason and Frank Parson at his back. Mason’s breath stank of booze, and he staggered slightly, but his blood was up. Parson cracked his knuckles and chuckled.

“So, we goin’ cockroach hunting, are we? We don’t want those fuckers stinking up this part of town. They get together, they steal shit, break things. Take up our tax money. Gotta drive scum out,” Parson grumbled, bloodshot eyes wide with delight.

Tom shook his head and laughed quietly, voicing agreement with his friend. But he didn’t actually agree, or at least not completely. When the booze was in them, it was easy to get his friends to go looking for trouble. They were too weak stomached to realize they just liked violence, they had to invite reasons to go vent their rage, their frustration at their impotence, both financially and otherwise, but Tom didn’t lie to himself. He knew exactly why he was prowling in the dark, looking for a fight, but he did agree with one thing. The homeless were scum. Fuck those lazy, stinking animals. They chose not to be a part of society, now they would just have to pay. He picked up a length of pipe from one of the piles of trash the sanitation crews never bothered with (probably because bums clogged these alleys) and tested its weight.

They prowled deeper into the alley system, trying not to make noise. They had thought making noise would have pissed the bums off, and gotten them to come out, but instead they ran. Just like beasts from a nest, Tom thought, scowling. But it didn’t matter. It looked like they had all cleared out. All the found was the hobos barrel, and a few tattered blankets. Tom swore and slammed his foot into the side of the barrel, knocking it over. It seemed they had missed their chance. But wait, was that the sound of someone creeping away in the next alley down?

“Come on, Jim, I think I hear one of the fuckers,” Tom growled quietly, pulling on his friends elbow.

“Pffff…Prolly a cat or some shit. Nothin’s here,” Parson slurred. “You guys go huntin’ for what ain’t there. I’m gonna take a piss,” he continued, the sound of a zipper accompanying his words. Tom swore silently and moved off, Jim Mason trailing behind him.

After his friends footsteps had faded away, Parson sighed with satisfaction and was able to let the remains of the whiskey out his system, making sure to leave it all over the blankets and sacks the bums had left behind. Teach them to leave their shit lying aroun…A low growl from behind him, reverberating off the walls, numbing his mind with a blind sense of terror. A sudden weight slammed into his back, before he could even zip himself up, and he went down with a gurgling cry that was cut short as his head rebounded off the brick wall in front of him. The growl deepened and suddenly he felt fangs ripping into his arm, spinning him around, the strong jaws tearing his muscle down to the bone. He began to scream as white fangs slashed and blood fountained over his face, arms, and chest.

Tom and Mason came hurtling back around the corner just in time to see the silhouette of a dog dart out of the alleyway, leaving behind a sobbing, bleeding, Parson. He was blubbering too hard to scream, lying there with his pants undone. Tom swore again, fist clenching around the steel pipe.

“Fuck. They must have trained that thing to attack us,” Mason gasped, staring at the remains of Parson’s forearm.

“It’s probably wild, you idiot. Shit. Come on, grab his legs,” Tom shouted, his face a mask of wrath. He slipped his arms under Parson’s arms and lifted him up with Mason’s help. They began hauling him back to the bar so they could get him to the hospital. He wouldn’t die, although he was messed up, so they didn’t need to worry about an ambulance. Not that Parson could afford one anyway. He’d thank them for driving him later…

Suddenly Mason jerked forward, dropping Parson’s feet as he convulsed onto one knee and started to shriek. Tom got a glimpse of the dog ripping into Jim’s calf from behind. What kind of fucking mutt would sneak up like that? Tom’s outraged mind screamed. He dropped Parson to the ground, uncaring about his injuries, and started laying into the mutt with his the steel pipe. The dog growled and yipped, but kept furiously tearing at Mason’s leg. The steel thundered down again and again and again, and finally the dog half-jumped, half-staggered away from its victim and careened out of alleyway, fleeing from the blows.

“The hell is going on here?” Tom panted, his sides heaving and not just from exhaustion. Something about the dog was too vicious, too predatory; it had been too intent on injuring them. He’d never seen a dog that violent not try to go for the throat. Sweat dripped into his eyes and he blinked, turning frantically on his heals to watch the shadowed alley behind him. A powerful, vicious howl suddenly sounded around him, echoing and resonating off the pavement and brick alley, doubling in volume as other howls began to sound. The steel pipe clattered to the ground and the howls continued to well up, muffling the sound of Tom’s feet pounding the concrete.

….

A week passed and three mutts were rounded up by Animal Control and put down. The papers and evening news seemed satisfied that the rabid threat was over, but Tom knew differently. His brother worked at the pound, and he had gone in to see the fucking animal that had attacked his friends die, but none of them had been it. The thing he had beaten off had been large, well-furred, and it’s teeth were fearsome. There was something too predatory, too wolflike for it to have been anywhere close of resembling the sorry excuses of canine genes that had been rounded up. That thing was still out there, he saw it baring bloody fangs when and he closed his eyes, and he was going to put it down. No beast was going to best him…

Two days later the full moon shone down, bleaching away all colour and casting the alley in queer half-light. Tom crept through the alleyways, the cold rubber of a revolver resting in his hand. Another friend, Chip Bruster, was in next series of alleys over, trying to flush the mutt out. Chip was an avid hunter, and Tom knew they could get the mutt. Happiness was a warm gun, after all, he thought, gripping his pistol tighter. He carefully stepped around the detritus strewn across the pavement, approaching a deep well of shadows behind a dumpster. The blackness was utter and complete, almost seeming to seethe as he swept his pistol up, preparing for anything to come bursting out. Sweat trickled down his back, and he shifted his grip on the pistol irritably, trying to see into the darkness. Something clattered behind him and he spun around, thrusting his pistol in front of him, but something cold and metal suddenly jammed itself against the side of his head and an arm snaked its way around his neck.

“Drop it. Drop the gun now, or I’ll blow your goddamn head off,” a rough voice hissed into his ear. Tom's arms fell, as though they were filled with lead, and he noticed the tremors passing through them before the revolver dropped to the ground. It barely finished clattering before he was thrown against the metal dumpster, his forehead cracking off the rim. The arm began to squeeze, and he tried to fight, tried to scream, but his assailant was too strong, and his throat refused to open. Fire spiked threw his head and then he knew only blackness…

Tom woke up to a blinding white light, and a dark, serious face looming over him.

“So, Mr. Cheney is finally awake,” a stern voice boomed.

“What? What are you talking about?” Tom gasped, trying to sit up only to have a hand push him back down.

“Well, you’re the one who shot your friend, you tell me. Was the pot really worth it, asshole? And don’t move, you have a hell of a concussion.”

“What?” Tom screamed, forcing himself upright. His vision cleared and he found himself handcuffed to a hospital bed, looking at a man in a blue police sergeants uniform.

“We found a few measly grams of marijuana in your back pocket, and your finger prints on your pistol, which emptied one round into your friends knee, one into his shoulder, and several into the wall of the alley. Near as we figure, some kinda deal went wrong. Your friend shot back, and I guess you ducked and hit your head. We saw the blood on the dumpster too.”

“This is fucking ridiculous! That’s all supposed bullshit. I was mugged damn it! They, I, they…”

“Yeah, it’s never anyone’s fault, it’s always someone else. Save it Allenbury. Get a good lawyer, because a jury is going to eat up that ‘supposing’ as soon as they see the evidence.”

“That…that fucking alley. It’s, it’s fucking evil. I didn’t shoot anyone,” he screamed again, feeling the walls press in around him. His world darkened, and he saw his future narrow into the gutter. The visage of a bloody muzzle grinning over him appeared, the darkness at the edge of his vision danced like crows over a kill right before he passed out.

…

Two weeks later, Don finished another story, this time about the pranks that happened around his barracks, and Jane talked about how she had once sold a painting for several thousand bucks. They sat around the old oil barrel once again, and as the flames died and sleep began to claim them, Don walked over to where Jesse lay.

“Listen, girl. I don’t know how you did it, and I don’t want to know, but you watch yourself. We might not be bothered in this alley anymore, not after mysterious gang things and animal attacks, but when strange things happen eventual someone pokes their nose in. Just…take it easy,” he finished, patting her on the shoulder. The woman sat up and felt something slide off her sleeping bag as she thanked him. In the morning she saw it was an old rangers patch still trailing threads from the jacket it had been cut off of.