Chapter 80 End of Book 2 - Deviate
The chain rattled as I slamd the pedals, wind biting my face, legs burning with each stroke until I cut the brakes and skidded hard on gravel, stopping right in front of the bar that lood by the town’s entrance. Dust curled off the wheels as I planted one foot on the ground, eyes drawn to the row of motorbikes tethered and leaning against one another. So were rusted, others glead with chro and oil-slick paint. Outsiders, I realize. A town like this couldn’t afford to shut out trade or visitors. They only barred the worst kinds: those with bounties from the Council of City-States, or fools stupid enough to carry obvious weapons inside. Everyone else could slink through so long as they behaved and kept the peace.
My jacket clung snug against , still slling faintly of the store I’d robbed it from, leather stiff around my shoulders, the weight of pearl necklaces heavy in my pockets.
The door creaked as I pushed through, smoke and heat spilling out. Laughter, curses, and glasses clinking. n with jackets stitched in patches sat hunched over drinks, boots tapping to the half-dead jukebox in the corner. Their presence carried that musk of grease, sweat, and stale liquor. For a mont, I almost looked the part, like I’d stumbled into a tribe I hadn’t realized I was born to.
Almost.
Because right at the center, pinned to a table with a jagged wooden leg hamred straight through the surface, lay a man in spandex. A cape. Bright colors torn and muddied, mask cracked across his cheek. His chest rose shallowly, barely alive, his body twitching in defeat. The bikers around him drank without sha, ignoring his groans, like he was just another carcass thrown on display.
“I just can’t catch a break.”
No one stared too hard in my direction. A few even nodded at , voices spilling out with good-natured jabs.
“Nice jacket, brother.”
“Grab a pint, sit down.”
“Where have you been? The party already started!”
Their laughter rolled like thunder, the kind only drunks and killers could share without sha. Mugs clashed, foam spilled onto the warped wood, boots thumped in rhythm to so invisible beat.
I let the noise wash over while my eyes prowled. Hands lifted tankards, belts hung loose with keys clinking against chains, pockets bulged heavy with coin or steel. They were so busy drowning themselves in ale that they barely noticed drift past. I brushed too close to one, let my fingers hover, then pulled back. Not that one. Too light. Another jingled with the promise of sothing more, my pulse rising with the thought of a stolen ride roaring under before dawn.
Their voices swelled as one man stood, tankard raised high. His beard was wild, his leather vest stitched with a snarling wolf’s head, silver studs glinting under the dim light. His words cut through the noise, every throat quieting to listen.
“We are the Wolf Pack!” he bellowed, voice cracking the smoke-thick air. “Lawless or not, this land will bow to us! We’ll take their roads, their towns, their won, their lives if we have to! Once we’ve filled our coffers and fattened our bellies, we march on a city-state. And when we do—” he slamd the tankard down, foam spraying—“we won’t bow to kings. We’ll be kings!”
The bar erupted, voices howling, fists pounding the tables like wolves baying for blood.
I counted heads while pretending to sip at a warm mug soone shoved into my hand. One, two, ten… by the ti I hit fifty, my jaw had tightened. Fifty capes. My empathic senses didn’t lie. I could tell that they were capes by my empathy. Their emotions flared sharp and volatile, so buzzing with hunger, others slick with lust, too many drowning in the heady joy of belonging to a pack. I’d faced gangs, superheroes, even small armies, but never this many gifted bodies breathing the sa smoke and laughter under one roof.
At the far end, pinned like a grotesque trophy was the town sheriff. He sagged against the wall. His blood painted the wood beneath him, his body slumped where a mounted deer head’s antler skewered through his shoulder. His badge still clung to his chest, catching the lamplight, defiant even as his breath rasped weakly.
The man with the wolf-stitched vest leaned forward, teeth bared in a grin that made the crowd shiver with anticipation. His voice cracked above the raucous noise.
“We’ll have so much cunt to fuck we’ll choke on it, boys! Gold, at, and won… ours for the taking!” His words sent them pounding the tables, howling like animals drunk on blood. “All we need is more of us, more teeth, more wolves… and then we’ll drown in riches till we’re swimming in it!”
“But sir, I want to fuck won too…”
“Yeah, this town’s ripe with them!”
“We already killed a cape, you idiot!”
“The cape ain’t dead, yet… It’s a fucking regenerator, okay?”
“Just stick to the plan…”
“I know.”
“Escalate slowly, and when we have enough wolves, we take over a town in full!”
“Yeah, mundanes would flock our way, eager to beco capes!
“Boss is so smart.”
“That’s why he’s the Alpha.”
Most towns weren’t fortresses, but they were close enough. A wall, a fence, a militia, and most importantly… a cape. Every town worth the dirt it stood on had one. A veteran, usually. Six, maybe seven in power ratings. Enough to snap any lawless punk who thought himself untouchable. Add the SRC’s long reach, and suddenly even the smallest backwater could make bandits disappear like smoke.
That was why most serious villainous capes stuck to the sprawl of the city-states. Easier to vanish in crowds, harder to track patterns, and plenty of marks to bleed. Out here in the open, the land itself hunted you. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say the lawless was a dangerous place, especially for the mundane and the weak, but they still couldn’t compare to what heavy-hitters the big cities have. The mont you escalated, killed too many, and burned too bright for anyone’s liking, an elite squad would be dispatched in your direction. Not just a hero, but sothing designed to kill capes. I’d read a few reports of such scenarios before.
This gang had gone too far. They’d crossed the line the second they pinned a sheriff on display inside town borders and thoroughly humiliated their town-sponsored cape. This would probably just provoke the SRC further. They didn’t know they just painted a target on their backs in blood.
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha… Do you think the boss got a good fuck?”
“Yeah, she’s quite a beauty, isn’t she?”
“The boss would probably be too rough on her for us to get sloppy seconds.”
“I’d be fine with sloppy seconds.”
I sighed.
The sheriff sagged against the deer antler skewering his shoulder, his face pallid, one eye swollen shut. His lips trembled as he tried to speak, breath rattling in his chest.
“Please… it hurts too much…”
Through my empathy, the sheriff’s pain dug into like splinters. Sothing was gnawing at him from the inside. His throat bore a ragged, animal-like bite, veins crawling black like spiderweb cracks spreading from the wound. Infection, but not natural… No, it reeked of superpower, sa twisted flavor Crow’s parasitic shadows once carried.
The gang’s cheer fractured with a sound too sharp for the room. A wail. It was thin and desperate, a child’s cry. Heads turned as the door banged open, and a boy stumbled in, tears wetting his dirt-smudged cheeks. “Mama… Mama…” His small body shook as he sobbed, voice breaking.
My chest tightened as recognition slamd into . What were the fucking odds? It was… Tim.
One of the bikers moved fast, rough fingers snaring the kid by his collar and hauling him off the ground like a stray pup. The man’s laugh was sour beer and smoke. “Don’t run off too soon, kid. Your mama’s havin’ a fine ti. Ain’t she, boys?” He turned, sneering at the door the boy ran from. “Hey, Gary! Weren’t you watching the brat? We said he’s perfect for the pack! Boss says he’d make a damn good wolf!”
The laughter shifted again, low and ugly. Boots scraped. A chair tipped over. And then ca a figure frad in the doorway, heels clicking on wood, sharp against the floor. A tall shape, wig crooked, dress too tight over broad shoulders, and lips painted garish red. A drag queen, cigarette hanging loose from his mouth, smoke curling lazy rings as his tongue flicked ash.
He spat to the side, curling his lip. “Boring to death. Fucker, you don’t even let touch the kid. And little shit bit my hand!”
“What’s up with the noise? I can’t even sleep…”
All jeers cut short as the far door creaked open. A man erged. He was huge and bare-chested, with muscle layered thick with hair like a pelt. His hand clamped the wrist of a blonde woman, dragging her limp across the floorboards. Her skin was mottled with bruises, lips split, eyes dull glass. My empathic threads told nothing from her. There was neither pain, fear, nor flicker of a thought. Just the hollow silence of the dead.
Tim’s scream cracked the room. “Mama! Mama!” His small arms reached but could never close the distance. His eyes flicked frantically across the faces until they landed on . Recognition hit him like a lightning strike, his mouth trembling. “P-Please… save Mama…”
I shook my head, voice low and steady. “I can’t. She’s gone.”
The truth gutted him deeper than any blade, tears streaming as his knees buckled. His sobs turned raw, begging without words. I crouched slightly, eyes eting his. “Do you want the bad guys gone?”
“I… I hate them all… I…”
The room shifted. Boots scraped, chairs groaned. Biker eyes turned to , squinting, sniffing the air like wolves catching sothing strange. Confusion simred on their faces, thickening into suspicion. One of them growled, voice sharp. “I… I don’t recognize you. Or your sll…”
I stepped forward, casual, the corners of my lips tugging upward. My hand clapped his shoulder, a friendly pat that lingered just a second too long. “I don’t know you either.”
Then I let him fall through the earth.
There was utter silence, the kind that pressed against the eardrums and sank straight into the marrow. My chest rose and fell too quickly, and already I could feel a chunk of my strength slipping away. I had entertained the notion of ending this without bloodshed; in a sense, I’d bury them underground. The idea seed ridiculous now.
A rush of fury swept behind , claws slicing the air where my spine had been a mont before. I had sensed his hunger, hatred, and blind rashness just before he struck. I slid to the right, caught his wolf-like hand mid-swipe, and without hesitation redirected it toward another of his kin. Their snarls tangled, their confusion a brief gift. My dagger flashed in my grip, sinking cleanly into the throat of the first who lunged too near. Hot breath rattled in his windpipe before silence claid him.
Three more leaped at . I let gravity pull down, phasing into the stone beneath my feet, then erged behind them. Before they even turned their heavy necks, I thrust their heads into the floor itself. Bone cracked and jaws dislocated as the ground itself swallowed their snarling faces with intangibility.
Sothing in broke loose then, sothing feral but rcilessly precise. I was no longer simply fighting; I was dissecting and dismantling the pack in a storm of motion. Pearls and jewelry spilled from my pockets, whirling in the air like tiny stars. I guided each one with Enhancer precision, driving them into eyes, throats, and arteries, gleaming teors of death.
The splatter of blood just phased through as I thoroughly slaughtered them.
I reached out with my power and pulled one wolf’s arm, and phased into another’s chest where it protruded grotesquely. A scream choked off as I twisted, pulling another creature’s head to where his ally’s should have been, stitching misfired abominations together with nothing but my ntangibility.
My dagger phantod through flesh as if it were water, severing limbs not with brute violence but inevitability. I slid the blade along the lines of their pulses, peeling apart the machinery of their bodies. My hand plunged through ribs; hearts vanished into my grasp before their owners even realized they had been undone. One spine ca loose in my grip, its length jagged and slick. Without thought, I hurled it across the floor, an improvised intangible spear that nailed another beast to the wall.
“WHO WANTS MORE!?”
When the echoes faded, only two remained: the alpha, his golden eyes locked on mine with fury refusing to yield, and Gary, pitiful Gary, trembling in the far corner. The coward scrambled, grabbed poor Tim in a desperate clench, pressing the boy in front of him like a shield.
Gary’s hand clamped around Tim’s throat, his knuckles white and trembling. His eyes burned with madness as he rasped, “Y-You… You gotta be the Grim Reaper himself. No way you could’ve taken out all of us.”
I didn’t waste my breath. The dagger left my hand with a whisper, sinking into his forehead before he could choke out another word. His body twitched once, then slumped forward onto Tim, who stood there wide-eyed, frozen in shock.
The Alpha stepped forward, his expression curling with disgust. “The Grim Reaper, huh? I’ve never heard of you… Reaper… Reaper… It’s a fitting na.”
I ignored him. My gaze went to Tim, still trembling, his face pale. “I’m sorry you had to see all of that,” I told him, though the words felt too small for the blood that stained the floor. “Stay strong, okay?”
The Alpha snarled, his pride stung. “Are you ignoring !? Don’t think of yourself as invincible! My fangs can nullify powers, and I am durable and strong enough to tear through most tals!”
What kind of fool announced his own powers before using them?
Maybe it was a misdirection.
I spread my arms wide, my voice calm and steady. “Try .”
His body warped and bulged, muscle tearing through cloth. Fur sprouted like wildfire until he lood as a hulking werewolf. He was snarling and monstrous. Still, compared to Greyhound, he was smaller in comparison.
With a thunderous growl, Alpha lunged, his maw stretched wide, aiming to snap in half.
I dropped into the ground in a rush of shadow, phasing through the ground and reappearing behind him. My hand clasped his tail, and with deliberate cruelty, I dragged my intangibility across his flesh. His skin peeled away like wet cloth, and his organs spilled onto the floor with a slick, nauseating sound.
He turned his head, eyes wide, trapped between disbelief and terror. I saw the purity of his fear, and in that mont, I felt bliss unlike any other. I knew how wrong it sounded, but that was what I felt. Honestly, they were just annoying and nothing more.
I placed my boot upon his twitching skull.
And I stomped.
Adrenaline coursed through like fire in my veins, a raw surge that left grinning at the carnage, ecstatic at the job well done. I phased the sheriff from where he hung impaled, his body trembling as though I were the executioner instead of the one setting him down. His eyes darted at with fear he couldn’t hide. I tilted my head, voice calm.
“Help your cape friend there. He’s still alive. I can feel his thoughts.”
The sheriff’s breath rattled, but he nodded, stumbling away toward the man bleeding on the floor. I turned back to the boy. Tim.
He was small, still trembling, but when I knelt before him, I saw his eyes change. The tears streaming down his cheeks weren’t childish anymore; they carried weight, clarity, the sudden shift of soone forced to grow too fast. I placed a hand on his shoulder, firm and steady.
“You’ll be fine. Just stay strong.”
His lips quivered, and then he whispered, voice cracking but steady enough to carry aning. “Thank you, Mr. Courier.”
The na lingered in the air like a strange benediction. I rose without another word, letting the weight of it hang as I turned my back. A ring of keys glinted on the ground beside a broken table leg; I stooped, plucked them up, and pushed through the door into the night.
Outside, the air was cool and sharp. I pressed the button, and a bike in the line of chro and steel growled awake, headlight blinking like it recognized . I swung a leg over, the seat vibrating beneath , and twisted the throttle.
The engine roared, drowning the silence of the ruined bar behind . The town shrank in the distance, its lights dim under the watch of the stars. As the night wind lashed at my face, I let the thought surface, bitter and almost amused: being a hero didn’t suit . But maybe I could live with being... Mr. Courier.
Who am I kidding, right?
But there had to be sothing out there for , or what was even the point?
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