Tales from the Monico, Episode Sixteen:
Aftermath
Aftermath
Disclaimer: Oz isn't mine, but everybody else is. I'm writing for my own amusement and enlightenment, and make no profit from it.
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Previously in Tales from the Monico:
McKenzie: "I can't do this on my own. I can't lose my little girl to this thing. I need help. Please."
Oz saves Anouk from the Toshok demon and they smile shyly at one another.
Anouk: "I think you kinda just saved my life. That was amazing."
Emma: "Gonna call her?"
Oz: "I might."
Anouk: "When I'm with you I am happy, so it's all good."
Anouk and Oz lean in for a kiss.
Oz and Jim meditate together.
Jim: "This is my thing, it's what I do. Why Sheng sent you here?. You're never going to have the kind of control you need, long-term, with your concentration as scattered as it is today?. The answer is to find some way to bend the discipline you need around the life you want to lead"
Anouk: "We can't go on like this. I can't go on like this?. You've just got so much on your plate right now. And I don't know where I fit into that. I'm not sure I do fit into that. Just lately it seems like the only times I get to see you is if I'm in danger, or when you can fit me into that hectic schedule of yours, and I don't like being an after-thought?. Actions speak louder than words, Oz, and I don't want to be a part-time girlfriend. I'm greedy that way?. Why are you even with me in the first place, if you don't trust me enough to talk to about anything?"
Oz: "I don't think this is working."
Anouk: "No. It really isn't, is it?"
At the university, Oz is hit with a tranq dart, and wakes up in chains in Mary MacBride's secret laboratory.
Team Oz burst into the secret laboratory to find Mary's ritual in full swing and rescue Oz, but are too late to prevent Mary's partial transformation into the Ravyon demon.
Staunton: "Do you honestly think that you could stop a thing like that?"
Elli: "I honestly think we're going to try."
Oz leads the team as they track Mary-Ravyon to the university too late to prevent a massacre, and they find Anouk dead.
Mary-Ravyon is finally located at her family mansion, and the gang fight a losing battle against her, until Oz gives in to his anger and injuries and wolfs out. The others are forced to leave the room and lock him in with the creature.
Emma: "I thought you said spontaneous daytime changing wouldn't happen."
Elli: "That wasn't spontaneous. That was a decision."
Elli returns to the room to find the battle over, Mary-Ravyon defeated, and the Oz-wolf collapsed at her side. She kneels beside him.
Elli: "Come on, Oz, come back to me."
Oz returns to human shape, injured and exhausted.
Oz: "Thanks? For not saying anything."
Elli: "Nothing to say. I know that."
McKenzie: "Tell me you killed the thing that did it."
*****
Prologue:
*****
Prologue:
*****
He leapt, teeth bared, claws unsheathed.
The demon leapt with him. They met mid-air and crashed to the ground, rolling and grappling, tearing and biting. He roared in agony as demonic talons ripped into his skin. He slashed back, drawing blood, bit back, tearing out chunks of flesh.
The fight went on and on, endlessly. Exhaustion set in. At last he collapsed, utterly spent, watched the demon stalk around him, jaws snapping and eyes glittering. It had him at last. He could not even lift his head to follow the movement, could barely raise a paw. It had him, and there was nothing more he could do.
Behind it he caught a glimpse of a familiar face, pale and still, in need of his defence. He gasped, struggled to rise, to continue the fight.
The demon pounced, gaping jaws dripping saliva, fetid breath hot on his skin?.
He awoke with a start.
He was lying flat on his back, naked. Strapped hand and foot to a cold metal surface, the light bright in his eyes. People clustering all around, soldiers and scientists. Faces were familiar, yet his confused mind struggled to identify them in this unfamiliar setting. A college professor, harsh and unyielding. A post-graduate TA, tense and concerned, arguing on his behalf.
Nothing made sense.
Above him, mouths were moving, opening and closing, yet the voices seemed to come from a long way off and failed to keep pace, hard to make out.
"I always suspected that stuff about werewolf transformations being based on a lunar cycle was campfire talk."
A needle pierced his skin, ice-cold fluid entering his veins. It burned. He groaned.
A sudden jolt as electricity coursed through his body like fire. He screamed as bright white light enveloped his vision?.
He awoke, breathing hard. Where was he now?
A secret laboratory, hidden on campus, chained hand and foot. The silver blade cut deep; a smouldering pain, like acid eating into his skin.
Mary MacBride laughed and played, taunting him, decorating his skin with mystical symbols painted in blood. Chest, back, arms, face. The blood was warm and sticky, the scent acrid and metallic. Deep cuts and shallow cuts, burning like fire. Professor Staunton stood nearby, watching, arms folded across his chest, lip curling in distaste.
"I don't want to open the paper tomorrow and find your name attached to a grisly murder headline?"
The voice drifted through the room, echoing slightly. No speaker was visible.
Mary laughed and walked away, then returned dragging Anouk by the arm. Dark eyes bore into him, terror-filled. Pleading.
"Save me. Please."
Mary laughed again, drew her blade across Anouk's throat in one deadly strike.
He shouted in despair, straining at his chains.
"?grisly murder headline?"
"?grisly murder?"
Anouk slumped to the ground, eyes open, unseeing. Blood pooled around her, the scent flooding his senses with metallic red fire. Fury burned deep within. The inner beast roared.
"All will die, one by one." Mary taunted and teased.
The chains loosened, broke free. He fell to the ground, braced himself, and rose. A growl sounded, deep in the back of his throat. A warning. Beware.
He leapt, teeth bared, claws unsheathed.
Mary leapt with him. They met mid-air and crashed to the ground, rolling and grappling, tearing and biting. He roared in agony as demonic talons ripped into his skin. He slashed back, drawing blood, bit back, tearing out chunks of flesh.
A shot rang out. He leapt to his feet. The demon was gone.
He span around. Where was he now?
A cellar at the Monico, the door safely locked, trapping him inside. He charged at it, bounced off. Charged again, bounced off. Over and over.
The door opened. He rushed through it.
His friends were clustered on the steps, tense and afraid. The scent of fear set his pulse racing, intoxicating. He howled, and charged, bowling them over. David hit the wall and fell, lay still. Emma screamed. Charlie shouted.
Anouk stood before him, pale with terror, next in line. He leapt, claws ripping into her, teeth tearing out great chunks of flesh.
A shot rang out.
He dropped Anouk and stared in horror. She lay still, pale and waxen, her eyes open, unseeing.
He turned. Mike raised the gun. The shot echoed in the confines of the stairwell. A bullet punched into his body.
Pain, blackness, and then nothing?.
He awoke with a yell in a small metal cage. Scientists and soldiers stood all around, guns trained on him, surprise registering in their eyes. They argued among themselves, manhandled him out of the cage.
Who am I?
He was a man.
What am I?
They saw only an animal.
Naked and vulnerable, dragged into a laboratory, against his will. Strapped to a table, flat on his back. Trapped. Helpless. Scientific experiments, conducted on him. Needles and tasers and pain.
He was a lab rat, nothing more.
Mary MacBride stood over him, white lab coat contrasting oddly with her customary black attire beneath. She laughed as her silver blade cut into his skin, burning like fire.
"Let it out."
Hate and rage bubbled up inside him, fast reaching boiling point. Why even try to deny it? Use it. Embrace it.
Let it out.
He reached deep inside, found the switch, and flipped.
The wolf sprang, rejoicing in its freedom, burning with fury, seeking revenge.
The demon leapt with him. They met mid-air and crashed to the ground, rolling and grappling, tearing and biting. He roared in agony as demonic talons ripped into his skin. He slashed back, drawing blood, bit back, tearing out chunks of flesh. The demon twisted and convulsed as little by little he beat it down until at last it lay still. Eyes filled with hatred were fixed on him. Dripping blood, every fibre of his being burning in fiery agony, he collapsed, stared at it, let his eyes drift beyond it.
The bodies of his friends lay still, blood splattered all around. Horror flooded through him. Anouk lay atop the pile, face pale and waxen, eyes open, unseeing, her expression accusatory.
Too late.
*****
Oz woke gasping for breath, and sat bolt upright, the blanket covering him sliding to the floor. It was dark, and his surroundings were unfamiliar, yet not. He wasn't where he should be, and an unexpected fear stabbed at him.
Memories both real and imagined danced at the edges of his mind. Disoriented, tense and sore, he peered around, breathing hard. Where was he now? Trapped in a nightmare still? Awake? Asleep? He was in the wrong place, whichever.
A light came on, dazzling him. Blinking, he looked up to see Elli standing in a doorway, leaning against the jamb, bleary-eyed and pyjama-clad, the strap of her vest-top sliding off one shoulder.
"Bad dream, huh." She yawned. "You all right?"
His surroundings resolved into familiarity, with a side of confusion. Why was he sleeping on Elli's sofa?
"You fell asleep," she helpfully informed him. "Last night. After mooching around all evening with a bottle of beer and a great big wall of silence as your only companions. I decided not to disturb you."
He remembered now ? he'd come over to escape from Emma's suffocating concern. Not that Elli was any less concerned, but she was less obvious, less overwhelming with it. Having his every movement carefully monitored as though he was made of glass and might shatter and wolf-out at any moment was not something he could bear in lengthy doses. So he'd come across to Elli's apartment in search of more soothing company, fallen asleep?and now he'd woken her up. 'Bad dream' was kind of an understatement. Even immediate post-Initiative nightmares had not been like that, and it had been a long time since those particular memories had played such a featured role in his dreams.
"Sorry." Still fuzzy with not-so-restful sleep, a vision of his own bed where he wouldn't be disturbing anyone drifted through his mind. Following it automatically, he started to stand, but then thought better of it, catching his breath as a dozen not-yet-fully healed injuries instantly protested the unguarded movement, stiff from sleeping on the sofa.
"It's after three am." Elli was shaking her head. "You might as well stay where you are and try to get some more sleep as wake everyone else blundering back over there at this hour."
Fragments of a nightmare flashed through his mind. Sleep right now was the last thing he wanted and, judging by the way Elli narrowed her eyes, it showed.
"Or, I could put the kettle on." With a little shrug that said 'makes no difference to me' she headed for the kitchenette, but despite her nonchalance a pang of guilt now added to the physical aches and mental discomfort Oz was already feeling.
"Sorry," he murmured again, shifting a little in search of a more comfortable position. "Didn't mean to keep you up."
"That's okay." Water splashed into the kettle. "I don't always sleep that well myself."
*****
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