Chapter 12: Ch. 12

Wade had delayed the morning meet-up until a little after sunrise so that he could do some work and prep for the dual objectives of this outing. He would find and kill whatever was causing trouble (or at least what was causing trouble this week), and he would confirm that there was no hint of land under magical control.

Thoughts about fighting monsters and being part of massive Blightbane programs had been thrilling once. Now he just wanted to make progress on the mission, and not constantly feel guilty for not doing as much as he should have been able to. Sure, time to relax, play some guitar, maybe watch movies would have been nice. But he didn’t need that. Just to feel like he was doing his part.

First comes mask and mission. And he was so far from that goal that it wasn’t even worth daydreaming about anything beyond it.

With a sigh, he stepped out of the old truck he and Jasque had been waiting in and re-checked their equipment. He knew all of it was there and in good condition; he had put a Mark on it. But in preparation for this meeting he had adjusted the Mark so that if Shiloh was sensitive enough to sense it, the signature would be mild and non-threatening.

To regular people, it was impossible to fake the signature of a Were’s Mark. That was the whole point of it after all: to establish irrefutable ownership. So when she sensed a Mark giving the mild proclamation that simple Wade Raslow owned this truck, it would keep things simple.

Or as simple as this mess could be

“Son of a succubus,” he grumbled.

“What?” asked Jasque. The dark-haired man was still in the cab of a truck that had once been a lovely greenish blue and had long since become the color of its dirt coating.

“Witness-fucking-protection is what. I still can’t believe it. What are the odds?”

His bodyguard turned to face him, eyes dead and cold as a shark’s, “Why do you care? The fact that we can’t have her moved doesn’t mean anything. Not unless you were planning on being sloppy. Were you?”

Wade shrunk a little, “Come on. You know me better.”

The other man cocked his head to the side as if to questions that, “Were you planning on being sloppy, Wade?”

A surge of anger rose and died like the false start of a propane grill. He shouldn’t be mad. Hell, he shouldn’t have been complaining at all. This could be a relatively low-stakes way of finding a fault in his work. An opportunity to discover a fix, spread it across all the progress that had been made, and prevent malicious actors from exploiting it later on.

Jasque was just keeping him on mission. That was his job after all. And Slayers, for all their gifts and abilities, tended to have issues in terms of tunnel-vision. Though maybe it was the other way around, maybe only obsessively strange people had the sort of minds that allowed them to become a Slayer.

Wade was lucky. He was lucky he had someone to compensate for his many faults. He should be grateful. Plus, Jasque had made it clear from the start that he was Wade’s minder before he was Wade’s friend. First comes mask and mission.

“No, Jasque. I wasn’t planning on being sloppy. We need to get the most benefit from this situation and leave no gaps.”

The man stared at him, vivisected him with his eyes. Weighing each word for honesty before he nodded.

That ember of anger flared briefly. You would think that after enough years he would have earned some goddam trust?

But the thought just made him morose and angrier. Because, no. No he should not. Wade was only able to do what he did because of the inherent instability in himself. Which was grim fucking irony. He had just been thinking about how Jasque’s being a rigid, untrusting nature was what let him be useful, and already he was resenting it.

At least Jasque’s route to power wasn’t being a ticking time bomb who needed a rigid asshole as a watcher.

“She’s arriving,” said the Slayer.

Wade happily stepped away from the car and turned his attention to strapping on all of his gear. He had a lot to carry today. They didn’t know what they were facing and needed enough solutions that they could flee most types of threats and gather the appropriate resources to finish it off in a round two.

Before too long another truck arrived. It was smaller, with some rusty patches and a small hand-winch welded on the back in a way that was certainly not safe or according to manufacturer instructions.

A dark-haired woman got out of her car, holding a thermos of coffee and an expression that spoke of violent antipathy towards the world that was only just now fading to apathy thanks to the ministrations of caffeine.

Huh, seemed Shiloh had a late night. It was already eight a.m. and well into the daylight hours. Odd to be tired that late into the day.

“Ugh,” she grunted at him. Eyes glaring into the middle distance.

“Good morning!” Jasque called out, his charisma set to eleven out of ten.

Wade, who was standing closer to the woman, heard her quietly mutter, “Oh, get fucked,” before gritting her teeth and shifting to a more audible register where she could greet him politely.

They exchanged pleasantries, and he looked her over. But only to check her gear: not for any other reason. She had her hair tied back and was wearing cargo pants, a back tank top, and sturdy boots.

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“Excited for today’s hike?” he asked.

She glared at him and answered. The sun caught her cheekbones through small holes in the forest coverage. It was like stippling of light that went across the architecture of her face, lit up one eye a gorgeous hazel green, and drew attention to full cupid’s bow lips. The top lip had a small vertical scar just off center. Huh. He wondered how—

“Wade! If you pretend to ignore me when I cuss at you then I’ll be forced to escalate to violence.”

He blinked and smiled at her. She had been cussing?

“Apologies, I was just noticing the light,” he gestured to the banks of shadow falling behind her. “I was thinking that I should have set our meeting earlier.”

“No, the timing is right. We don’t want to be in the deeper parts of the forest until it’s firmly noon.”

“Really? I would have thought you would want up to catch up with a few of the mossquade while they are active. Bag a couple and get a bounty, right?”

“Seems unfair to you. You’ve probably got other things to be doing,” He could all but feel Jasque’s approval at that. Killing cryptos was good, but not always worth their time. Shiloh took a sip of coffee and kept going, ”Plus we didn’t make a deal about me getting the bounty on anything other than the mysterious creatures.”

Before he could respond, Shiloh chugged the last of her coffee and sighed. “Ya know, it’s always two days back that hits you. Not how little sleep you got last night, but the one before that.” She shook her head, “Oh well, no use holding up progress in the free world. Can you both be ready to hit the trail in five? Or does Wade need time to grow a third leg so he can strap on more weapons?”

Jasque barked out a laugh. Shiloh grinned at the Slayer and shot Wade with a finger gun.

He frowned. His abilities were not suited to small-scale conflict. It was perfectly reasonable to have contingencies. Plus, what was the point of access to high-level military equipment if he wasn’t going to carry it?

Shiloh quickly put on a flannel button-up and made sure her pants were tucked firmly into her boots. Then she threaded a multitool onto her belt, clipped a small snub-nose revolver to her left hip, and slid a sheathed knife onto her right. Then she put on a fanny pack and a backpack.

The new ensemble was topped off with the sort of hat that only stylish old men, a fictional archeologist, or a serious outdoorsman could wear.

“Won’t that make it hard to get to your weapons?” he asked, pointing at her fanny pack.

She tapped the fanny pack, “This is where I keep the bear-spray and other such things. They are my most likely weapons. And even then, I’ve only had to use them maybe twice. Honestly, the revolver is more to scare something big away with a loud noise rather than for actual violence.”

“Really?”

“Yup, if you know the woods, then you don’t put yourself in a situation where anything might want to attack you.”

He looked down at his own gear. He had a small backpack strapped on very tight. It had everything to last a couple days in dire straits. Aside from the water, and navigation tools, most of what he carried was weapons. A very high-caliber revolver was on his right thigh, and his belt was full of various bobs and bits. The left thigh had a decent sized trench knife, and he had a shoulder holster with an automatic handgun in a more normal, reasonable caliber for human targets. A small black rectangular case that looked like it could hold a few chisels was clipped to his shoulder-holster. And he had already attached his broad sword, Walker, to the backpack in case he needed some serious fire-power.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “it may have been a while since I’ve gone into the woods as a civilian.”

She looked him up and down, “You don’t say? Hey, won’t the shoulder holster make it hard to put on your backpack?

In a few quick motions, Wade undid the special clip and moved everything onto the corresponding receivers attached to his belt, bag, and his back packs shoulder straps. Though he did end up with Cici, his most public-appropriate enchanted weapon, folded in his hands.

Shiloh looked at him, eyebrows slowly rising, “I’m torn between commenting on boys and their toys and asking you to say ‘ta-da’ while making jazz hands.”

“I mean. It could be excessive, but…”

Jasque’s sharp eyes fixed on him. and seeing the dead expression on the the man’s face, he became aware of a flush building not the back of his neck and a tension in his legs.

When had he started caring what other people thought about how he looked?

“Ahem. Well, m’am—”

“Shiloh,” she interrupted.

“Shiloh, I’d appreciate if we moved on from my person equipment and to the matter at hand.”

She shrugged, “Whatever butters your biscuit. I’ve got a rifle in the car that I bring out when I escort hunters. Should I bring it or leave it?”

“Let’s just leave that for now. More guns doesn’t mean more safe. Not unless you’ve had training on avoiding friendly fire?”

“I am pleased to say that has never been a concern of mine. What about you, you ready, Jasque?”

“A’yup,” he drawled, giving her a laconic salute.

“I notice that he isn’t carrying an armory.”

Which was both true and not true. The only visible weapons he had were a modest handgun, a sheathed machete, and some extra pouches on his vest with a good skinning knife.

“His magic is better for this sort of thing,” I said.

“Aren’t you a Were?”

“Why? You hoping I’ll strip and shift?”

She froze for a heartbeat. Just long enough that Wade had time mentally reproach myself. Had that been in character? Then her expression scrunched up and she shuddered. “Pass. Also, it would take you thirty minutes to get out of all that.”

“Okay! Let’s stop talking about Wade being naked!” Jasque interrupted. “Otherwise, my therapy bill comes out of your pay.”

Wade nodded in thanks. For some asinine reason, had been about to mention the quick release charm. Having only talked to her for a grand total of some five to ten minutes he could already tell that would have opened a slew of jokes that, while familiar to any combat shifter, would still have been unending.

“It would be my pleasure,” the cartographer said.

“Yes,” Jasque grimaced, spitting off to the side. “On to less traumatizing topics. Like horrific monsters, gun fights, and the like. Nothing even vaguely related with Wade’s quick release charm.”

A lovely, merciless, and heartstopping smile spread across Shiloh’s face. “Did you say ‘quick release.’ As in, for one’s clothing?”

“Gives whole new meaning to the phrase ‘magic mike’, right?”

The woman took off her hat and held it over her heart, like the national anthem was playing, “Well I’ll be damned. And here I thought I was going to have a boring day. Hey, Wade, if it’s that easy, then do I need to be less charming to get your pants off?”

“That’s not going to happen?”

“I’d usually offer to take you to dinner first, but if you’ve already got a charm, will lunch do?”

He sighed and started walking towards the forest full of homicidal monsters, hoping one would attack before too long.

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