Up in Smoke

"7 Days to the Wolves", Nightwish

In which Hanna has a whole sub plot and Conrad figures something out. Warning: Long speeches, rabble-rousing.

Author's note!

This's the end, yessir/ma'am. It should be noted, though, that I've been conned-or-contracted-depending-on-your-perspective into writing an omake which will contain actual slash. It's... not going to be out until 2011, of course.

Much love.

The road has a mind of its own.

That's just a poetic way of saying that some things are bound unravel a certain way, no matter how bad you fight it. Some things have to be dealt with sooner or later.

Worth figured that out somewhere along the way. Too many nights of trying not to look up at the stars, trying not to get sucked back into let's-remember, too many times when his heart jumpstarted like an electrocuted engine and he had to pretend that the first thought in his head hadn't been can't lose him too.

The road doesn't like lies.

That's just a poetic way of saying that the truth is gonna out, one way or another, if you spend long enough trying to ignore it. But still.

The road demands to be acknowledged.

-A-

Tuesday.

Salem.

It was three o'clock in the morning, and Worth had the window rolled down as they raced through tiny streets, where spring was still a far away promise hanging over frostbitten heads. He said something to Conrad, but the wind snapped his words away and he gave up. Too much trouble.

Conrad's teeth were gritted, and that meant he was thinking about where they were going, whether it would be any different, if they could trust Hanna to take care of them, moan moan moan.

He let the pansy worry.

The world blurred at fifty miles an hour, which was as fast as Confag was willing to go down a winding New England road. He figured he'd bitch about it some other time.

Something caught his eye. Outside the window, down the road where night created a muddled pit of half-seen suspicion, there was something like a man's silhouette standing at the far end of a bridge—and when the Doc leaned forward to get a better look, Conrad flicked his eyes that way.

"Great," he muttered, "running water, that's gonna be pleasant. Yet another gift from Hanna."

The doctor let out a slow breath. "Y'think it looks like a bloke ou' there?"

"You're asking me?" Conrad snorted. "My night vision isn't exactly up to folk-tale par."

"Righ'. Shoulda known better'n to think y'd be helpful."

The vampire made an annoyed noise, but he was too used to Worth by now to take the bait. Snooty little fag was getting smarter. Worth would just have to up the ante, wouldn't he?

He started to say something else, but a shadow out the corner of his eye halted the words.

Motion at the end of the bridge. More shapes.

"Well well," Doc Worth muttered, "looks like we got ourselves invited to a party."

Conrad squinted out into the darkness, and then he sat back with a hiss. "Fucking fantastic."

The Cadillac rolled to a stop at the edge of the bridge, headlights shining on a rank of not quite human shapes. It was hard to get a good look, because they seemed to suck the light in more than reflect it, and the hoods pulled over their faces left a lot to be desired—or maybe that wasn't a hood, Worth wasn't sure, but it creeped him the fuck out and he found himself trying not to look at them directly.

"Wraiths," Conrad growled, tendons in his neck sharpening into tense lines. "Fucking shadow people."

"An' that means, wha', exactly?"

"They're a kind of fey," the vampire muttered, "We had a run in with one last fall. Hanna said that they're really malicious, I think they feed off fear. Shadow people. Of all the fucking…"

The doctor glanced back through the rear window, some kind of something sparking off in his head. "They ain't gonna let us leave, are they?"

"Not likely," his companion replied, flicking the stick shift into park. "We're going to die, this is just fantastic, goddamn, what a fantastic ending. Killed by Wraiths ten miles from Salem."

Doc Worth hummed and looked out at the waiting creatures again, ran a thumb over his stubble. "Fey, eh?"

"Yes, that's what I said," Conrad growled, and then relapsed into soft swearing.

There was a mess of tools in the Cadillac's trunk. Whoever had originally owned the vintage Cadillac had been keen on servicing it himself, and there had to have been at least five different kinds of wrenches, not to mention various tools that Worth had never seen before—and back in his college days, he'd known a thing or two about cars.

His eyes strayed back towards the cradled cache.

"Well," he announced, "lesse what they want, then."

Conrad turned so quickly something cracked. "The hell, Worth? How many times have you told me not to get out of the damn car?"

The doctor shrugged. "Yeah, but tha's you. Unlike yer sorry ass, I happen t' know what I'm doin'."

And then he threw the door open, climbed out and waited impatiently. Cold wind blasted over the river, and the edges of Worth's coat caught the moonlight as he leaned against the stone wall. Conrad disentangled himself with more vague swearing.

"Ask 'em what they're holdin' up the show fer," Worth ordered, nodding towards the line with a grin.

Conrad spared a second to look over at the doctor. Worth looked back. The wind smelled like smoke and winter. After one last curse, the younger man tugged on his collar and went stalking off towards the Wraiths, seething indignant because at least anger didn't leave any room for fear. Worth watched him for a precious second, and then he was sliding behind the Cadillac, pulling open the trunk and reaching inside.

He could hear Conrad clearing his throat.

"Uh," the undead man's voice came sliding back across the bridge, "whoever you people are, it'd be really great if you'd, uh, move for a second?"

There was silence, and Worth clicked the trunk back into place.

A voice that wasn't so much a voice as branches rattling against a window, floorboards creaking in an attic, whispered into the places that Conrad's voice hadn't filled.

"You are not human…" it rattled, suspicious. "Go away, Redlips. Your kind are not welcome here."

Worth made his way up behind Conrad, eyed the creatures as much as he could while his vision fought to slide away from them like water running off a leaf. Wasn't much to look at anyways.

"Oi, 'm human," he cut in, resting a hand on Conrad's not-quite-shaking shoulder. "I got people waitin' fer me on th' other side. Gonna let me through?"

A clicking noise filled the air, and the hair on the back of Worth's neck ran with black electricity.

"We have no objection to humans," the Wraith creaked, at last. "Swear to enter under the hand of the Shadows, and you may join the black city."

"Real gracious. 'Ow abou' Conniekins 'ere?"

"The Redlips may not pass. You may."

The doctor tilted towards his traveling companion. A nasty grin split the seam over his teeth. "Sorry princess," he said, grabbing the startled vampire's chin. "I gotta get in that city. Looks like yer on yer own after all."

Conrad's eyes flared up with sheer rage. "You're just going to leave me, after all that? You motherfucking… You said you wanted to stay with me!"

"Nah, I said it was convi'ent," Worth corrected, "an' I didn' want Hanna cryin' all over my goddamn jacket. But right about now… I ain't gettin' nowhere less I ditch you."

He raised one brow, almost pityingly.

"An' I'm sure Hanna'll get over it fast enough. I'll buy 'im a proper puppy 'r somethin'. He'll forget ya in a month tops."

The look on Conrad's face was murderous, like the guy with a pistol in hand who found his wife in bed with another man. Wisps of white curled away from his moon-silver skin. The clicking started up again.

"I trusted you," the vampire spat, more white wisps smoking off him.

"Shoulda known better," Worth shrugged, wrapping his cold fingers more tightly around the weight in his right hand. "Y' said it yerself. I'm an egotistical bastard. Doc Worth don't look out for nobody but 'imself."

White smoke. That face. Worth realized he recognized the symptoms from when Conrad had flipped a shit on the cannibal, and he grinned even harder. A step back, and then another step back, and he was almost level with the Wraiths.

"Or," he mused, glittering eyes locked on Conrad's blazing ones, "maybe I juss needed a distraction."

And then he turned on his heel and aimed one heavy end of a tire iron at the nearest indistinct head.

The difference between Doc Worth and Conrad was that the Doc always had his eye on a solution. The thing about Fey is that they have certain rules, just like every supernatural creature, and when you know the tricks suddenly the high and mighty aren't quite so mighty anymore. Believe it or not, sometimes he listens when Hanna talks.

Fun fact number one. Crosses don't tear massive gaping holes in Fey bodies because the Christian church says so. That shit is older than anybody's religion, older than written history. Equal armed crosses were a sun symbol since the beginning of time.

Fun fact number two. The really great thing about tire irons is—they're really just massive iron crosses, when you get down to it.

Iron is good.

The doctor swung cold metal at the nearest shape, tearing a fizzling swath through the black outline, turned and swung again, ears ringing with a high pitched shriek wherever his makeshift weapon rent holes around him. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of half-transformed flesh and skeletal fingers sinking through a shadow neck as easily as cheesecloth—

He laughed, and swung again.

This was it.

The push-and-pull, duck-and-thrust tide dragged them out into an ocean of laughing shrieking moonlight, until there was nothing left at the bridge's end but a human and an undead man, and the soft hum of a forgotten engine.

Worth tossed the tire iron away and smirked back at his friend.

"Y' really thought I was leavin' ya, eh?"

Moonlight seemed to congeal on Conrad's skin, leaving pale human flesh in its wake. The sharp bone of his jaw disappeared. "Piss off," he shot back, rubbing the place where his glasses pressed into his nose.

"I mean," the older man went on, "wasn' like it was too hard t' figgur out what I was doin'."

"Piss. Off. Seriously."

The doctor flipped a careless hand and headed back to the car.

"I gotcher back, sweetcheeks. Now get yer ass in the car," he called over his shoulder. "Don' want ya wand'rin' off inter another nest of 'em."

As he turned back to the Cadillac, he almost missed the shrewd look on Conrad's face—but he didn't think much on it, really. It didn't quite sit comfortable with him, but there were more important things to deal with. Right now, they had places to be.

-A-

You have 1 text message:

777 DORMIER STREET

BE THERE OR BE SQUARE

-A-

The moon was full two days ago. Worth only noticed it because Conrad noticed it first, made an offhanded comment about how rare werewolves were. Probably had his panties all up in a bunch about the crazy Mohawk chick. Worth had scowled and taken a shot at Conrad's sexuality, because that was guaranteed to piss him the hell off every time.

You know, something about waning moons just got him all uneasy.

The cherry red Cadillac purred down New England streets, glancing streetlights off its sides for the first time in almost a week. Without thinking, Worth reached for his cigarettes. Somebody had this town running.

Eyes melted here and there into the background, watching them go. Unlike every other town or city they had passed through—even only briefly—there were no corpses strewn across the streets or tucked into gutters. Only a few broken windows. No candles in the upper stories.

Almost like the world wasn't dying.

A pale face flashed through a doorway, and Doc Worth decided, not quite.

Dormier Street turned out to be a forgotten dockside road, and the Cadillac clashed horribly with the collapsing wooden warehouses. They loomed just off the cracked pavement, black and empty like the chest of the dead boy Worth still couldn't get out of his head.

Light spilled from the frame of number 777.

Conrad parked outside, opened his door to a low rumble of voices seeping out with the light. The vampire took a look around and adjusted his sleeves, ran a hand through the mess of his black hair—he'd made the mistake of lamenting the lack of gel days ago, and Worth still hadn't let him live it down.

"Think Hanna's in there?" Conrad asked, leaning against the cooling metal as Worth shrugged on his jacket.

"Only place on the damn block wit' the lights on," Worth said around his cigarette. "If he ain't in there, we're walkin' inter 'n ambush."

"Uggghhh. Why does everybody want us dead?"

"Mostly 'cause I'm so damn good lookin', the jealous bastards."

They met glances for a brief second, and then they were off towards the party.

They pushed though the door into a yellow-lit room, massive and filled with people who didn't all look quite like people. A cloud of voices buzzed overhead, near the rafters where there was a loft full of indistinct humanoid shapes, hanging away from the well-lit interior. A flash of orange caught Worth's eye, and he followed it toward the makeshift stage erected in the middle of the room.

A boy named Hanna had his arms thrown out to the wings.

"—You know I'm right!" he shouted, somehow meeting every eye in the sprawling room at the same time. "You heard Casimiro, you've seen it yourselves!"

The doctor dug a sharp elbow into his undead companion's side. He cut off the resulting bitch fit with a well aimed finger. A kind of hush fell over the crowd.

"I know you're tired of getting pushed around," Hanna was saying, looking up at the loft full of indistinct figures. "And I know it's gotta feel like you're finally getting a chance for revenge—I know! I know! Nobody likes hiding, nobody likes being oppressed. You've been locking yourselves away in fairy-forts and mansions for a hundred years now, you've been starving yourselves and sleeping in basements because you can't come out at night anymore. I know!"

Worth leaned back against the wall, scanning the crowd, watching faces watching Hanna—emotions sliding behind eyes, quick flutters of righteous anger before immortal discipline shuttered them away.

"I understand cabin fever, I really do! And I know what it's like to be wronged, to want to get even no matter what it takes—but you can't let your anger blind you! That's what humans do, and you've seen where it gets them. It feels good now, sure, it feels amazing and you'll finally show them all and you'll be rid of those idiot humans once and for all and then—What?"

The hyper-motion on stage stilled.

"What then?"

He looked down.

" You'll be alone. It'll be just you. You and yourselves and rocks and dirt, and there'll be no one to make it balance. Think about it! There's a reason why you've never tried to stamp out humanity before—there's a reason why even you can't remember a time before people. We have to have each other! You need us! We need you! Everything gets fucked up and unbalanced otherwise, you saw what happened in the last hundred years!"

A rumble went through the crowd, and Worth took another drag on his cigarette, watching.

"I know what you're thinking: yeah, it's great for the vampires, this is their dinner we're talking about—but that's just it! One way or another, we all feed back into the same cycle. If you take us out of the equation, who's going to till the farms? Who's going to leave out food, tell the stories, make the machines? Where will you go for food or neutral ground, where will you go for the old games?"

The redhead paced like a caged tiger.

"You're immortals, you've got the foresight that humans don't have. Think about tomorrow, or next century, or next millennia, even. Don't let something this minor screw up your judgment. The cities are falling—all the factories and the police forces and the scientists that want to slice you open and see what makes you tick. All the things that fucked up the balance are dying! The old world is dying! The power is back with you, but the old laws are weak. You're angry. If you let revenge eat at you, you'll find way around them. And once you destroy humanity, you'll turn back on yourselves."

A low wave of hisses rolled in from the back of the warehouse, from somewhere in the dark corners of the room. Hanna pointed a stiff finger towards them.

"Think you won't? Look at the werewolf-vampire wars back in the dark ages. Look at the Unseelie court back in the BC's. Every time humans lose power, every time the balance swings back towards you… the first thing you do is turn against each other! This isn't any different! You've seen what happens, some of you first hand!"

Pause.

"So that's where my proposition comes in. We need new laws. We need a treaty. There has to be some kind of guideline to keep everyone from walking all over everyone else, something that we'll all hate equally even if that's all we can agree on it. I don't want the wolf packs in Ohio hunting down all us humans—and you know what? I don't want the mages rounding the fey up into frickin' concentration camps either! And you know what I really really don't want?"

Hanna looked towards the door, and for a second Worth thought that maybe he noticed them—but nah, there was nothing. The words kept pouring out like blood from a head wound.

"I don't want the damn Wraiths starting this fucking territory feud with the vampires and shutting all the people up like livestock. How many laws does that break? Yeah. This is your problem too. Think it won't affect you? Think again. The shadow people don't want any competition, they don't want anybody's rules—it's not just the vampires. Look, you guys know better than anyone that laws only have as much power as people give them. What I'm asking is that we give them power again."

"Think about it."

And that was when Worth noticed the Zombie for the first time. He glided into motion so subtly that you didn't even see him until the stitched green hand was closing over Hanna's shoulder and leading him away, down off the stage and into the crowd. Like some kind of ghost machine.

Whatever spell Hanna's voice had cast over the crowd, it broke the second he stepped off stage and disappeared between their bodies. Voices clanged over voices, layer and layers and layers, almost as quickly as the noise had ceased.

Worth looked over at Conrad, raised brow. Ain't that somethin'.

The vampire snorted. Hanna's an idiot.

The doctor took a drag of his dwindling smoke, watching debates break out between a green-skinned woman and a white-skinned vampire. To his left, an elf twisted awkwardly to avoid brushing the bodies around her. This many species were just not meant to come under the same roof—had to be some bad shit going down if all the races agreed to play nice for the night.

"Let's go get the ginger midget," Worth rasped, after a long moment, eyeing one particularly fine ass between here and there. No harm in trying, is there?

"Lead the way," Conrad muttered, staring at the crowd with the horrified look of the mildly agoraphobic.

The doctor looked sideways at him. "Ladies first, peaches." He grabbed the vampire by the shoulder and shoved him headfirst into the buzzing throng.

Hey, what's a doctor for?

-A-

Hanna was standing in the far west corner when they finally found him, chatting the ear off a one-eyed vampire. The redhead was mid-sentence when he noticed them, pushing between two gnomes, and his blue eyes went bright like twin lighthouse beacons.

"Doc! Connie! Man I'm glad to see you!"

Worth ran an eye down his tiny form. Kind of greasy hair, bags under the eyes, periodic trembling in the left hand—oh hell. The doctor grabbed him by the ear.

"Kid, ya got yerself a doctor's appointment. Tell yer buddies g'bye, we're going back t' the damn car so I kin see what kinda damage y've done while I was off watching Count Fagula."

("I freaking hate it when you call me that—")

Hanna laughed nervously. "Uh, I really don't have time for a checkup. There's a lot of people I gotta talk to, you know, the Selkies are here from Maine and I really gotta talk to them myself 'cause of the whole thing with Vesser's mom—"

"What's going on?" Conrad demanded, busting into the conversation with the righteous indignation of the customarily ignored. Worth rolled his eyes.

"Good question," Hanna replied, relived for a distraction. "You see all these guys here?"

"Yes Hanna, I've been seeing them for the last ten minutes."

"Yeah, well, every one of these guys is a delegate from one of the Moonlight Races—er, paranormal races. That guy—" he pointed to a hulking man in a long overcoat, "—he's a troll. The tribes in the Appalachians sent him up a couple days ago. That woman—" he pointed to a lady in a flowing white gown, "—she's a Fey, from the Seelie Court. We've got the Ghost and poltergeist representatives up in the rafters, along with a few… a few Wraiths. They make the ghosts nervous, I can tell. There's Iwa up there too, they came up from Louisiana and some other places. It's amazing! Do you know how many of these guys immigrated here in the old days? I couldn't even believe it, it's like every country that came to America brought somebody along for the ride!"

Conrad pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's interesting and all, Hanna, but what is going on here?"

The zombie—shit, where'd he come from?—placed a placating hand on Conrad's shoulder.

"It's hard to explain," he said, soft and even. "You have to understand what's been happening while you were on the road. The riots started Wednesday… there was a lot of killing. People died. That sort of chaos brings out the darker side of the world."

"There's this sort of barometer of weakness," Hanna agreed, making a balancing motion. "It's a power struggle, I guess, between humanity and the supernatural, Light-side/Dark-side of the force type stuff. As soon as everyone realized how bad things were going to get—you know, people dying, sickness, infrastructure collapsing—pretty much all Hell broke loose. There's been an imbalance swinging towards humans for a long time now, and, you know, pendulum effect."

Conrad looked at him like he was speaking gibberish. "What?"

"What he means," the Zombie cut in, "is that when the oppressed races realized their oppressors were losing power, they took the opportunity to get even."

"Casimiro found me about five hours after things really started getting out of hand," the younger man piped up, gesturing towards the tall vampire he'd been speaking with earlier. "About the same time as the riots did. Really, it was Finas' idea, but you know Casimiro always does the talking so yeah, he was all like things are getting out of hand and I was all like—"

"Can it, Cross," the tall vampire cut in, "I know where this is going, and you will not make me out to be some sort of good guy. I know how to look out for my interests, that's all."

Worth cleared his throat, and the four idiots looked back at him like he'd fired a gun. What, he didn't sound that bad. A little phlegm adds character.

"If thissus how ya talk when I ain't around," he said, cocking a brow, "makes me glad I don' go on any of yer dumbass adventures. Casi-whatever, whoever th' hell y' are, go make nice with a gnome 'r somethin'. I don' need yer dead ass hoverin' over my patient."

The vampire scowled dangerously. "You don't know who you're talking to, old man."

"Yeah yeah, save it Cap'n Depth Perception." The Doctor looked at him for a second. "Unless ya wanna take it outside, eh? Can ya even walk through doors like that?"

The dark vampire practically growled, fingers clenching into long-nailed fists that would probably hurt like balls if they hit your face. Worth grinned around the butt of his cigarette.

"Well?"

And that was when the lights went out.

Screams and curses went up from every corner of the room, and the vampire spun like a top, disappeared off into the crowd. Conrad grabbed the Doctor's arm and then nearly fell backwards in his haste to let go when he realized what he was touching.

"Fuck," Hanna hissed, digging through his pockets, "fucking Wraiths—where's my…"

Conrad and Worth looked at each other.

"Hanna, what's happening?" the artist demanded, rubbing his hands vaguely against his jeans. "What are you not telling us?"

The magician produced his sharpie with a crow of triumph. "Yes! Uh, yeah, so the Wraiths really don't want us to make a federation; they've been sabotaging us since Saturday. They can't come into direct light, so yanno, we had the whole placed rigged up to keep them out but somebody must have fallen asleep on duty or, I dunno, maybe they got ballsy and took the guard out of commission—who was it, Havel, that mer-guy we met this morning?—and now they're gonna try to kill us all probably, so I really have to go."

Then there was an empty place where the redhead had been standing, and the dead guy was racing off after him.

"Hanna FUCKIN' CROSS," the doctor yelled after him, "you get yer ass back here or I'm gonna kill ya MYSELF!"

Conrad huffed and rolled up his sleeves. "C'mon," he muttered, elbowing his companion, "let's go get ourselves fucked again."

Conrad ran after them, and Worth ran after him, swearing the whole bloody way. Nobody around here had any goddamn sense of self-preservation.

Busting through the crowd, wrists bruising throats and heels digging into feet, Worth knocked a blue creature out of the way and found himself standing between Conrad and Hanna with his feet digging into the stone-cold body of whatever poor bastard got there first.

The door was thrown open, warehouse doors swung open to the wind and moonlight, and a mass of Wraiths filled the space just beyond the opening. Worth felt Conrad take a deep, unnecessary breath beside him, could practically feel the jittering of Hanna's cells. He took another drag, observing.

"We told you not to come here," Hanna said, almost managing to sound neutral. "You aren't welcome."

A familiar clicking sounded through the warehouse and down the street. Laughing. The bastards were laughing at him.

"Unlike your Redlipped allies," the Wraith—one of the Wraiths, all of the Wraiths—whispered, like wind whispering through the corners of an old house, "Shadows do not need to be invited."

"We gave you a chance to send delegates," Hanna told them, "and you said no. Well. Nobody wants friends like you anyways. You're more trustworthy as enemies. The hell do you want?"

"The Redlips," it—they—creaked, "and the angry one. They killed our people. We will have them. And then, we will destroy your infantile meeting and grind the human-loving traitors into dust for fires to burn and scatter."

Hanna looked sideways at Worth.

He shrugged. "Well they got th' whole damn city blockaded, don't they? Had ter get through some'ow."

The Wraiths hissed.

"You're not getting in here," Hanna told them, and suddenly he wasn't a redheaded klutz with an accidental talent for magic anymore. It had been a long time since he'd seen that, and Worth was sort of startled by the shift.

Only sort of, though.

"If you want to get in there," Hanna said, hard as iron, "you have to get through us."

("Great cliché," Conrad muttered, and was promptly ignored.)

"Oi," Worth said, "I ain't volunteered for the fuckin' coast guard, Hanna."

Hanna grinned at him, blue eyes bluer than the sky even in the moonlight—impossible, you don't see colors in low light situations, what the hell—and said, "Think of it this way. The fewer people I have to deal with, the less you gotta patch me up."

Worth blew out a cloud of smoke, spit out his fag and ground it under his heel. Moonlight disappeared into the shoulders of a hundred living shadows.

"Awright," Worth said, "but ya owe me one."

And then he was reaching into his shirt where Lamont's iron crucifix still hung, tugging the chain over his head. He wrapped it so that the cross bit into his knuckles.

"Here comes th' fun part."

They sprang into motion in the same moment, four bodies like a wave tugged out to meet the moon—two dead men and two humans; a vampire and a doctor, a magician and a zombie. It was good to be fighting again—swings and hooks and kicks, leaving gaping holes where his armored fist tore through solid shadow.

Punch and duck—where the crucifix didn't hit, the creatures were like moving ice—and somehow Worth ended up with his back against Conrad's, and he knew without turning around that the vampire had his claws out, and he was gritting his teeth like he always did when the two of them fought, and Worth thought he might be the luckiest son of a bitch in the world—

One of the Wraiths finally landed a hit on him: sunk inky talons into the thin flesh over his ribs as he punched through another shadow aiming for Conrad's side. The feeling almost knocked him over. It wasn't pain—pain he knew, pain was sweet and familiar—it was like death on impact, freezing and empty.

A low moan escaped his windpipe.

Conrad turned quicker than lightning and sank white claws into the Wraith's side, red eyes dilating to endless black rings.

You could almost hear the thing that wasn't his humanity growling.

And then the wind blew him back to his feet and the sensation was gone and, shit, maybe it was brushing so close to the abyss or maybe it was what Conrad's not-humanity hadn't said, but he was twice as alive now. Words gone. Motion. Sweet destruction.

That was the wave he rode until they found themselves surrounded, pinned in by a new wave of shadow people, pouring out from all the black crevices on the street—under the gable of number 776, from between the twisted knots of the oak tree at 778—and he realized this wasn't going to fucking work.

"Any bright ideas, Hanna?" he muttered, meeting the zombie's glowing eyes. Hoping for another Cross-brand miracle.

"Just one," the redhead replied.

Quick as a flash, he uncurled his glowing palm—light as a weapon, not bad—and scribbled something on his fingertips. There was a crackle of electricity and then the glow became a beacon blasting up through the midnight sky.

"I didn't want to do this," Hanna muttered through clenched teeth. "This is going to hurt our allies too, but we need all the power we can get."

Light flashed.

The sudden clang of a church bell rattled the warehouse, rang down the street and shook the atoms of whatever dark matter Wraiths were made from. You could almost see it in your head, suspended stories above the ground and swinging with the unstoppable force of gravity.

BRANNNGGG.

Somewhere behind them, Worth vaguely heard swearing and cries of pain.

The ringing went on until the sea of shadows around them fled or shook apart and collapsed onto the gravel like nitrogen bursting across a warm floor; until the world shrunk back down to definitions and perceptions. Worth found himself panting, fingers white from lack of circulation, watching the yellow glow on Hanna's palm die down to an ember and disappear. Conrad's wicked hands shrunk back to human proportions along with his pupils.

The last ring faded away.

"You okay?" the vampire asked him, too dazed to remember he didn't give a shit about Worth.

The doctor cackled, unbinding his hand. "Best I've felt in a damn long time, Xena."

Conrad blinked at him and then rubbed his temples furiously. "Is that a complement or an insult, Jesus Christ I don't even know anymore…"

Behind him, Hanna coughed discretely and high fived his undead companion. "I'm gonna have to apologize to all the Unseelie delegates now but whatever, man that was so cool!"

"A bell?" Conrad demanded, because somebody always had to go and ask stupid questions.

"Casimiro," the redhead replied, as if that explained everything. "We worked it out as a backup system a couple days ago. Church bells really do a number on Fey."

Doc Worth rolled his neck, cracking tense vertebrae. He glanced down at the dissipating shadows around his feet, and then back at the crowd of delegates just behind the warehouse gates.

"'Ey," the Doctor shouted, "fat lotta cowards y'are, great job holdin' down the fuckin' fort."

Hanna coughed and slapped his friend across the back. "Don't worry about it, Doc. They have a different concept of the rules of engagement. That's why it's good to have some humans around," he added, a little bit louder.

Conrad rolled his eyes and flopped down on the gravel. "How often are we going to have to do that?"

"Oh, yanno, until the guys there can hammer of some kind of agreement so maybe a week or two if we're lucky?"

The look on Conrad's face spelled tirade in capital letters, and Hanna quickly changed the subject.

"Hey Worth, isn't that Lamont's cheap-ass cross?"

The older man tucked it into the tight creases of his palm. "Yeah."

Hanna wiped a smattering of dark matter off his glasses. "He finally managed to pawn it off onto you, huh?"

"Yeah," Worth said again.

"About freakin' time. How'd he do it?"

Worth was silent for a moment, reached into his pocket for another cigarette. The lighter fizzled into life.

"He died."

And suddenly, the look on Hanna's face made him want to climb inside the Cadillac and leave the whole stupid place behind, fuck Hanna and his fucking shockpitysympathy. Just when he thought he'd gone past it, Lamont's dead slammed him in the ribcage and broke his heart all over again, and he realized there wasn't going to be any easy way out.

"Oh, man," Hanna whispered, "I'm so sorry."

"He's dead?" Conrad echoed, paler even than usual. "This whole time?"

Worth scowled at them both and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Yes, Mary. The man's fuckin' dead. Just shut yer trap, alrigh'?"

"But then, all that stuff—"

"I said shut it, Conrad!"

The vampire recoiled.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Hanna opening his mouth—to say some useless shit, like Worth need his goddamn sympathy—but instead of words, thick hacking coughs poured out.

And blood.

Half a second later, the doctor was on his knees tugging down the kid's eyelid, staring at a web of criss-crossing blue veins spiking through the cornea—blue because he knew they were blue, he knew it like he knew his own fucking first name.

It was Luce.

-A-

Doc Worth lay back in the passenger seat of the Cadillac, legs crossed and hanging out the window. Smoke twisted off into the darkness. The moon hung suspended over the treetops, broken by the spire of a church somewhere in the distance. Couple hours to dawn.

He heard the sound of the driver's door clicking open, but he didn't move.

Soft leather creaked.

He kept his eye on the rings of smoke.

"Whacher Nancy ass want now?" he demanded, filling his lungs with grey heat.

Beside him, Conrad sighed. He didn't have to look to know the stupid faggot was picking lint off his shirt like a socially retarded girl scout.

"It's not your fault, you know," the vampire told him.

"Who the 'ell said it was my fault?" the doctor shot back. "I ain't said nuffin."

"God Worth, give it up. You're about as hard to read as a picture book. Hanna's your patient—Hanna's your friend. Tell me you're not kicking yourself right now."

"It ain't my fault," the older man insisted, grinding his teeth around the butt of his cigarette. "Ungrateful li'l prick wants ter go out an' ignore all my bloody warnin's, work too damn hard an' catch the motherfuckin' plague, tha's fine. Whatever. I ain't his momma."

"Yeah, that's really convincing. You should have been an actor," Conrad muttered, dripping sarcasm. "Stop being a dick for five seconds, okay?"

"Don't like it, find a dif'rent car," Worth said, still refusing to budge.

Fucking… Of course he cared, figured that out the night Lamont died. And now he was kicking the shit out of himself, running in fucking circles trying to figure out what he could have done different, what might have changed things.

So motherfucking useless.

But to say it would be to admit he lost control—that he had a weakness and he felt pain and his goddamn heart was breaking and he couldn't… he couldn't rip that wound open. Men don't show their emotions. Men don't cry.

Worth doesn't cry.

Cold air settled between them, sinking down where he'd rolled the top back. Somewhere far away, an owl's screech shattered the night. Fucking banshees.

"He'll be fine, Worth," Conrad sighed, at last. "You know Hanna. He'll find a way through it. Somehow."

That's bloody rich. The doctor tilted his head back and laughed until his throat was raw.

"Stop deludin' yerself, peaches," he ground out, words scraping his mouth and windpipe. "That boy's got two days at the most, what with th' way he's been runnin' 'imself to the fuckin' bone. 'E'll be six feet under before y' kin say 'ow much fer th' small coffins?"

There was a pause, and Worth was thinking to himself, fuckin' showed him, miserable son of a bitch, even as he felt the hand close around his lapels. In one fluid movement, Conrad had yanked him around so they were face to face and punched his lights out.

Pow.

Five minutes later, they lay in a bruised heap across the driver's seat, Conrad half-across his thudding chest.

"I know you miss him," the younger man murmured, through a split lip that refused to bleed. "Even if you won't admit it, I know you have to miss him. But you're not going to lose Hanna too. I promise."

Worth closed his eyes and concentrated on the sweet burn under his eye. That was going to leave a mark.

"How th' fuckin' hell can ya promise that?"

Conrad pushed up his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I just do, okay? I still owe you one from the whole gas station thing."

Moon. Wind. Cold. It all blurred together. Nothing stayed, nothing held its form. Men don't cry. Men go it alone. Men don't ask for…

"Just… let me help," Conrad sighed, sounding almost too tired to speak. "Even bastards like you don't have to do everything alone."

Let me help.

How many days had they spent together, anyways? How long had they spent bitching and fighting and listening to Journey at two o'clock in the morning? How many bruises? How many insults? If he was a better man, he would have gotten up and left—he would have ignored whatever the hell it all meant and just walked away, left before he could see Hanna die or watch Conrad struggle to offer him what little support he could spare as a worry-sick idiot with anger-management problems.

If he was a better man, he would have just opened the door and started walking.

"Yer so damn useless."

And Worth reached into his pocket for a new smoke.

"Shit," he growled, suddenly, finding nothing but pennies and pills, "I left the whole damn pack with th' ginger moron."

The mood shift startled Conrad.

"Uh… why?"

"I dunno, he asked fer one."

"Hanna smokes?"

"Not usually. Bad fer yer health, see?" the doctor replied, disentangling himself so he could paw through the glovebox for a spare. "Said 'e wanted one tonight though. Reminds him of m' office 'r summat."

Worth turned around with a half-burnt spare and found himself looking at an almost comically wide eyed Conrad.

"Wha'?"

"I just… I had an idea. We need to go. Now."

-A-

"Now that you mention it," Hanna said, voice hoarse, "I do feel a little better, I guess."

Conrad was standing over his bed in the RV while Worth and the dead guy stood to the side, shoulders brushing fake wooden paneling.

"How often were you coming into Worth's office before the riots?" Conrad demanded, even though he'd been there with Hanna nine out of ten times so it wasn't like he didn't know the answer already.

"I dunno, three times a week maybe? You were there, Connie," Hanna pointed out, much to the vampire's annoyance.

"So pretty damn often," Conrad surmised, choosing to bypass the obvious. "And that guy, the one Worth and I had an encounter with, the, uh, the cannibal—"

"Cannibal?" Hanna piped up, and for once he was ignored instead.

"—He was a smoker," Conrad continued. "He had the voice, not as bad as Worth's obviously, but still pretty bad. And his whole family was immune—everybody in his house was immune, even the random guys he took off the streets."

The Doc eyed his pack, resting innocuously on the bedside table. He remembered Joe Shmuck, all the mafia boys who came busting through his door, the way they'd talk about him like he was their last chance, the only thing that had ever remotely helped.

He thought about all the packs he'd emptied out for his patients.

"You probably have to get it in you early on in the sickness," the vampire was saying, "maybe within twelve hours of showing symptoms. I'm just guessing, but I bet keeping it in your system will stop you from catching the bug, like a… like a tetanus injection or something."

"Hey, Connie, this mean I don't die after all?"

The undead man glanced down at his bed-ridden friend, unable to look him in the blue-stained eye for more than a second. "Er, if you keep that shit in your lungs for the next day, maybe not. I hope not. Just, whatever you do don't stop smoking. Ugh. I can't believe I just said that."

The redhead looked up at him like a kid that just heard Christmas was coming a month early.

"Hah, Worth," Hanna cackled, turning towards the Doc, "you're not gonna look like such a bad ass when everybody else is smoking too! Man, it's gonna be a weird world."

Conrad looked back at him too, pushed up his glasses and hmmphed. "So how's that for useless, you hack?"

Worth bared his teeth in something resembling a grin. "Good li'l housewife, takin' care o' the sick kiddies. How's about ya fetch me m' slippers now?"

"You—you're a fucking asshole!"

Worth leaned back as the pale man stomped out of the RV, spewing insults about the doctor and the heartless bitch that must have raised him. The creaking door slammed shut behind him. SMACK.

And then it was just the three of them, Hanna fiddling with the lighter as Conrad's cursing faded to nothingness. The zombie turned to examine the doctor, glowing orange eyes soft with muted relief. Worth looked away.

"He cares about you," the dead man said, quietly, and there wasn't a question who he meant.

The Doc snorted.

Havel, or whatever his name was today, blinked suddenly, as if he'd only just remembered that people were generally supposed to blink. "I owe you for the way you take care of Hanna," he said, his even voice firm. "Don't say it's just your job. True or not, it's irrelevant. I owe you."

The vehicle creaked, somewhere deep inside its core, like a sigh.

"Conrad… has changed a lot. He's lost a lot. Not being so much of a person myself, I readily admit I don't know much about people—but I know you give him something. Don't ignore him if he tries to give something back."

Worth tugged on the bandaging around his arms. "I ain't gonna take 'im ter the debutant ball, man."

"That isn't what I was saying," the zombie replied, "and you know it."

-A-

There was a Fey woman standing on the makeshift stage.

She was shouting something about trust and balance, real Starwars kind of shit, gesturing towards the congregation below her. Worth swore there was something different about the air tonight, a different kind of fire than the one Hanna had sparked—there's outside fire, and then there's the inside kind.

"You don't have to join me," she was saying, with a voice like how Worth always figured an angel's might sound. "None of you are bound to this cause. There will be power here if even two races choose to join me!"

Worth glanced over at Hanna, who was sucking on one of Worth's unfiltereds. His eyes were blazing like electricity and his hand was clenched tight around the Zombie's. Worth had told him to get the fuck back into bed, but Hanna's Hanna after all, and you can't tell that boy shit. Worth was going to perform an involuntary appendicectomy on him if he collapsed tonight, though.

"—I speak for all the eastern Fey courts," the female was saying, "when I pledge to work until I am dead or abandoned for the sake of this meeting. We will have a federation, or we will have nothing!"

A roar went up throughout the packed cella of number 777, Dormier Street. The doctor took a drag of his own cigarette and looked across the room, amused to see Hanna's zealot expression mirrored everywhere he looked.

"They're big on respect," Hanna had told him, earlier. "Symbols, yanno? They live in this world where ideas have physical power, where contracts are literally binding, and I dunno, I guess these guys act with words and talk with actions if that makes any sense. That thing we did last night? Impressed the hell out of 'em."

The Fey woman was talking again.

"I am not afraid. The Wraiths and their allies will not turn us so easily, like frightened younglings at the sunrise. They are scared and weak, but we are strong! We will show them what the Moonlight Races are capable of—you who are with me, say aye!"

As a deafening cheer blasted against the walls, Worth allowed himself to look for one last face, the only one in the room who wasn't blazing with patriotic pride.

There would be business later, unquestionably, some tedious job that Hanna would somehow manage to talk him into—and he had a feeling that it was going to be like that from here on out, whether the idiot redhead stuck around Salem to rebuild the last outpost of civilization or went gallivanting off across the country with the rest of them in tow, like some deranged crusader against the world.

But for tonight, the doctor met eyes with a tired, undead twenty-six year old, and the rest of it faded to nothingness.

-A-

Worth dreamed.

He dreamed that new cities rose up out of the ashes of the old, maybe better, maybe worse. There was smoke hanging in the sky, reminders of the world before—to remember, to learn.

He dreamed that a tree grew in the center of the world, a tree whose branches held up the sky and whose roots made up the earth, and stars hung from its boughs. He looked up at it, standing at the knot of one soaring root, and Lamont was standing next to him counting poker chips.

You never were a betting man.

Worth didn't bother turning. He shot back

I don' never pay ya back anyways

And Lamont smiled at him the same way he always had, just as greasy and down-right suspicious as ever, like nothing had changed between them—maybe it never had. He laughed, and he replied

That's debatable

And Worth dreamed that he was standing behind Conrad, and there were strings wrapped around his own arms and legs, tied tighter than sin and yellow as cowardice. He turned to the undead man and thrust out his bound hands

I ain't a coward

Conrad looked unimpressed.

Prove it

The string sang like an electric harp when he tugged at it. The harder he pulled, the louder it got, until it was screaming and his ears and hands were bleeding. Conrad continued to look unimpressed.

I got it, awright?

The vampire sighed angrily and turned on his heel.

You always do.

And Worth dreamed that he pulled and pulled and pulled until he collapsed and cursed and screamed. When he finally looked up, Conrad was standing above him.

Let me help.

The doctor looked away. Luce looked away.

Don't need yer nancy-boy help, sweetheart

Conrad scowled.

Let me help

And Worth dreamed that he looked down at his useless hands, and then back up at the man who had spent a week fighting and bitching with him, a month coming back again and again for god knows what reason, and a night promising to back him up. His hands bled and three damning words were ringing around his head. Let. Me. Help. I hate you—trust you—just go away—this isn't some kind of—where's your goddamn—follow my lead—I'm sorry—you can drive—my mother—

—if I was a better man—

Doc Worth nodded, slowly, and Conrad reached down to touch his bindings. The second his fingers brushed them, yellow string unraveled around the skinny wrists and dripped to the floor. Evaporated. The older man looked up at him, for a long time, and finally he grinned, saying

T' conquer death, y' only have to die

And Conrad crossed his arms, demanding

What the hell does that even mean?

And Worth just grinned at him, threw out his unbound arms and said

Hell if I know. But it's got a nice ring, don't it?

-A-

When you wake up in a field, in the middle of the night, the first thing you have to ask yourself is why?

Sometimes, the answer is too complicated to explain in one sitting.

Sometimes, the answer is as simple as Hanna.

Doc Worth lights himself a cigarette. His fingers are cold, but they don't fumble with the gears. The movement is perfected by more than a decade of practice, and the sweet little snick is the only thing that's right these days.

But he's always had a thing for wrong anyway.

He looks up at the stars—so much brighter tonight, there's got to be more stars in the sky than there were pages in all his college textbooks combined. He can see a stripe of dust across the center of the sky, every goddamn star in the galaxy spiraling off into space. He doesn't like them. They're pretty and they remind him of things he'd rather forget, all different kinds of things at once, ghosts of memories that press in on him from every side and turn the sky into a massive blue and gray blur.

There goes Lamont, the greasy bastard. There goes his office, his city, his life, and his finely crafted reputation as a heartless dick.

So he thinks about other things instead, like the machinery in his lighter and the shadow lying next to him, and how he's going to explain this to the goddamn fairy princess when he doesn't even get it himself. And he thinks about how the ground is fucking hard out here but he's not complaining, and how there's somebody, somebody up there or out there, having a laugh at his expense.

It's the end of March, and the world is coming to an end.

But, when you get down to it, the world was never any great shakes anyways. Medical degrees and policemen and idiot FBI agents, fucking hand sanitizer. Stupid shit.

Doc Worth looks over at the body lying next to him, momentarily peaceful because vampires don't really dream, everyone knows that, and he thinks. You lose something, you gain something. It's weird to see Conrad so peaceful, but it sort of makes him feel like he's in a bubble of halted time, like the universe is pausing around him.

The world goes up in smoke, but it gives you time, like a cheap door prize.

Time to think.

Time to grieve.

Time to make plans.

He takes another drag of his cigarette, and he reaches for Confag's shoulder.

He doesn't want the fucking consolation prize.

Fuck you.