Chapter Text
ONE NIGHT BEFORE THE RITUAL
The manhole burst open with a clang, and the few passers-by screamed as a huge, scaly thing scrambled from the depths below. It paid them no mind, squirming from the sewer and into the shadows of a nearby alleyway.
A few moments later, the few onlookers shocked into stillness found themselves in full flight, as an enormous, furry beast wrenched free of the manhole and leaped down the alley with a frustrated howl.
Such things were not uncommon, at midnight in the Cursed Apple. It was healthiest not to stick around too long to find out what was doing the slithering and howling.
Vyper, tearing down the backstreets like a bat out of hell, dearly wished she was able to follow that advice.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t planned the trip to New York. Okay, well, she hadn’t extensively planned. She’d found a ship—better to forget what she’d been holed up with, honestly—and for once, she’d managed to stay out of trouble. Mostly.
Sure, she probably shouldn’t have taken that guy’s advice. The jeweler was a huge bust, and not in the fun way. But she’d been quick on the escape! How was she supposed to keep track of everybody who might be walking past at just that moment?
And how was she supposed to know, she thought—diving over a mountain of trash bags and wincing at the sound of the garbage being torn apart by angry claws a second later—that the woman who fingered her would pick the perfect tip line to call?
Ah, but here was some luck. The lamps were out on this street. With a practiced eye Vyper scanned the buildings ahead: tenements, foreclosed, condemned. It was perfect. Old, abandoned buildings were a sea of brickwork and moldy wood, and baby, she was born to swim. She could see her diveboard: a boarded-up window, left open at the top, the landlord making the honest mistake of forgetting to account for Gorgons with a lust for liberty. Slip in there, sneak around a convenient corner, maybe find a nice open elevator shaft and Bob’s your uncle, free and clear!
She’d just have to shake the wolf…
The heavy, rapid panting behind her was getting steadily closer. Vyper took the risk of glancing behind herself and regretted it immediately. The werewolf was feet away, loping madly, eyes blazing crimson as she shot from the gloomy alleyway like a freight train. Vyper’d been chased by trains before, and right now, she’d have taken the machine nine times out of ten.
After the botched jeweler job, she’d done the sensible thing, for once, and lain low in the sewers. They turned out not to be much worse than a lot of jails she’d been in, with maybe the exception of the crocodiles. The cops wouldn’t come down there, no way, and of the bounty hunters she knew, only one had ever been able to track her. She’d hoped the sweet smells of the Cursed Apple would turn her off the scent, give her days to find a way out and reach the Patron.
She’d gotten exactly twenty hours.
Her eyes rolled back to the open street before her. There were seconds to spare. Her lungs were burning, her legs were aching. If she couldn’t stun the wolf now, she’d never get away.
And that just wasn’t an option anymore.
Something caught Vyper’s eye. A vertical glint, a hexagonal steel post. The streetlights! A few gears turned in her head, old skills coming back to light. Yes, that might just save her. But she’d only get one shot…
Behind her, the werewolf grunted. Something wicked sharp licked the tip of her tail, and it made her scales crawl. Nothing had nicked her like that since she bailed out of Milwaukee. Time was up! Fuck it!
For the barest moment, Vyper gathered herself, coiling against the cobbles. Then, in a single motion, her body snapped, lashed into the air, arrowing directly at the nearest lamppost.
Her left arm hooked against it. Her right arm found the bola looped at her waist. One shot.
Her body twisted. She whipped around the post, a green tornado, the bola swinging wide.
Vyper saw the werewolf leaping towards her, eyes radiant, jaws curled in a triumphant grin. It was the most horrifying thing she’d seen in her life. For a moment, she was not a person, but an animal, seeing the wolf in the last moment of the pounce.
Her will gathered in her right arm and banished the terror in a single continuous motion.
The bola spun out, glowing green, her mother’s own brand sizzling through the ventilation holes in its surface. The grin faded on the werewolf’s face.
The heads of the bola smashed into the wolf’s temples and there was a brilliant burst of actinic smoke.
Yes!
Vyper watched, as if in slow motion, as the petrifying venom invaded the hunter’s body and shut down her motor functions. The leap became a collapse, the collapse carried her below the angle of her lunge. Directly into the curb.
So long, sucker. It was stupid, it was trite. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Gorgon was almost too gleeful to catch the boards of the window rocketing towards her. As it was, she noticed her angle of approach too late to course-correct.
Vyper’s head exploded in shattering pain, and she heard rather than felt the scraping of her scales along the linoleum tenement floor beyond. All she could hear was the echoing of the boards hitting the walls and ceiling, and the pounding of the blood in her ears.
She came to a stop in a strange and unfamiliar world. Where was she? These were her limbs, right? She was so tired. God, but did her head hurt…
Her eyes swam back into focus. She was in a first-floor apartment, its door hanging ajar. Besides the scribbles on the walls, she was the only thing in the room. Even the carpet had been stripped off, leaving bare concrete where the linoleum wasn’t.
The sound of her own heartbeat faded out, replaced by something else, something that immediately shook her from her fugue.
It was the crunch of heavy claws on a windowsill.
Vyper scrambled back as the werewolf lurched into the room, one paw on her brow, growling like a motorboat. Shit shit shit shit shit—
There was still time! She could get out—get around the corner—
She tried to stand and one leg betrayed her, losing traction on the slippery surface and sending her crashing back to earth. The werewolf was shaking herself, trying to get her senses back. One of her eyes flicked open, a beam of bloody light aimed at her heart. Shit shit shit FUCK—
For a moment, both were still, the hunter and the hunted, the werewolf and the Gorgon.
A loose nail hit the concrete with a sharp clack.
The world became a blur of fur and teeth.
Vyper shoved and bit and tore and writhed and crawled and gasped and cried out, seeking a way out, seeking an end. No way she was going down here, no way, not when she was so close, so fucking close to victory—
Huge claws closed around her upper arms and squeezed. She found herself slammed against the wall, so hard it shifted the doorframe and knocked the fight clean out of her. The wolf gazed down at her. She had that creepy grin on her jaws again. God this was going bad.
Vyper found herself bracing for impact. This was the routine. She’d escape, get beat, wake up in a cell. It was almost a con, an easy familiar course across cities and counties and states. But not this time. Not tonight, of all nights.
Something inside her snapped, some pane of glass broke in-case-of-emergency, and as the werewolf drew her back for the final blow, Vyper played her final, stupid card.
“Nowaitcomeonyoucan’tdothisnowI’mimportantI’vegotaritualtomorrow—!”
And the most incredible thing happened. The werewolf hesitated. Her eyes went wide.
Play for time play for time play for time. “Yeah I’ve got this uh ritual thing and uh yeah it’d be real bad if I missed it! I mean for you know everyone? It’s that big? You know?”
The werewolf’s eyes narrowed. Her expression was inscrutable, briefly. Then Vyper realized what it was, something she’d never seen on the wolf’s face. Exasperation.
She found herself dragged away from the wall and into a gap between two cabinets. The werewolf let her go, dropping her with unfamiliar care, and growled frustratedly.
Confused, Vyper shifted against the metal screws poking into her tail. “D—d’you believe me? Heh, well that’s—”
The wolf growled again, the sound oddly strangled.
There was almost no light in here, but by the light of the sickle moon, Vyper watched the werewolf transform.
It was more of a deflation, she thought, absentmindedly.
The creature that remained was still tall, still built, even still had a tail and claws and big fluffy ears. But the bloody glow of her eyes was just the merest hint of scarlet.
And she stank.
“No, I don’t believe you,” Silver said, her drawl tired and annoyed. “I know.”
It took a moment to hit.
The Gorgon’s jaw fell open. Of course.
Silver crossed her arms and sighed. “Dammit, Vyper. How the hell did you, of all people…”
“I should be asking you the same thing, Sil!” Vyper scrambled up against the wall. A sly smile crossed her face. “What’d she offer you, eh? Everyone downwind thinks whiskey smells like roses?”
“You’re funny.” The bounty hunter stepped closer, bracing one arm against the cupboards over her quarry’s head. “What did she offer you? Y’know what, nevermind,” she sighed, leaning back. “It’ll just make me mad.”
“I guess that makes us partners!” Vyper cackled. “Oh, this is too good. V, you are the luckiest gal in the world tonight…”
It was alright! She’d made it! And with a little more luck, and an elder god on her side, she’d be home free once and for all!
Silver growled a threat. “We’re not done, lady. You and I have a score to settle.”
“You’ve got Jack to see you, I’ve got places to be, why don’ts we call it even?” Vyper tried to brush past the nude werewolf and found herself rebuffed. Silver planted herself, hands on her hips, eyes flickering, tail straight.
“I’ll let you go.” The hunter’s lip curled. “Once I’m good and ready.”
Vyper groaned. “Come oooon, Lilah! It’s alright! You and I are gonna get along just fine, just move along and let me get my forty winks…”
Internally, her heart, which had fallen from nightmare panic to the easy skip of a Highland jig, started picking up the tempo. Silver was in the game, she knew the score. Was she drunk—no, that didn’t fit—was she sober enough to risk it all on a bounty?
No, she couldn’t be. Vyper could smell it on her. Like a dumpster under the Blue Line. And so what?
“Ritual or not,” Silver growled, “once it’s over, you and I, we’re pickin’ this up again. I’ve got a burnin’ hangover now and I didn’t even get it the fun way.”
Her voice might be mean, but her eyes were wavering. Vyper had won.
“Oh, come on, Sil, we both know you had that before I kicked your ass.” The Gorgon stood up straight, as best she could, looking the werewolf in the eye. “It’s not gonna matter. This time tomorrow, you’ll be too drunk to move, I’ll be untouchable, or we’ll both be dead as—dogs. So, like, so what?”
Her heart was dancing; despite her misgivings, she felt invincible right now.
She really hoped the nasty grin on her lips made up for their height differences.
They stared each other down, unmoving. God, Silver stank. Part of her almost hoped the wolf would make a move, to free her from the stench of the literal hair of the dog.
Silver’s eyes narrowed, shifted.
Her voice, when it emerged, was quiet and full of restrained anger. “You got nerve, Vyper.” She rolled her shoulders. “Okay. You’re right. So what?” Her eyes were glittering oddly.
Vyper swelled with triumph. “You’re a smart woman, Lilah.”
“Oh, fuck you, snake.”
“Oh, you wish!”
Gorgon and werewolf snarled at each other, one wicked, the other frustrated.
Her heart was soaring, her nerves humming ragtime. It had been a long night, she’d been roughed up, she stank of blood and drunk werewolf, she had the fight of her life tomorrow. Vyper was a coiled spring, and the tension had her ready to snap.
Later on, maybe, what happened next would make sense.
Vyper threw herself against the bounty hunter, catching the back of her head in one hand and levering her body against the other woman’s muscled torso.
She caught herself too late. Her eyes went wide.
For a moment, they hung still, off a cliff, off the edge of the map.
“Oh.”
Silver’s surprise faded first. Her teeth flashed, white fangs in a wolfish grin. Christ, everything this woman did was wolfish, couldn’t she think of another way to—
A strong hand found the back of her head and drew her the rest of the way in.
The kiss was an impossible moment. All at once it had started and it was over, a flash of white hair against the dim starlight across her vision. A fleeting impression of softness, and roughness, and the taste of blood, someone else’s blood, when her forked tongue licked out involuntarily. They were kissing. They’d kissed. What the fuck? What did those words mean?
Looking into each other’s eyes, they sought the answer, and couldn’t find it.
So they did it again.
Rough. Bloody. Wild.
Oh. That was what it meant.
They broke apart, tasting each other’s lives, drinking in the same ragged breaths. Vyper felt the acrid buzz, felt how it made her heart scamper.
She gasped out the only thing she could. “You drink shit whiskey.”
Silver snarled. It was her turn for a wicked smile. “Shut the hell up, and let me get back to work.”
Vyper let her.