DRIVING MISS RAZIEL

Chapter 3: How to fail your Driving Test in one easy lesson

Disclaimer: Only Lupa & Vladimir and Vladimir's house actually belong to me: all other characters and locations do not. Raziel and Nosgoth belong to Eidos and the good people who created Legacy of Kain: Kurt (blue fur and all!) belongs to those lovely people at Marvel Comics. All copyright remains with them.

Author's Note: This story takes place before Raziel fights Kain at the end of Soul Reaver 1 – not that this has anything to do with the actual plot that follows!!! *grins…thinks: "Plot? What plot?"* This is most likely the last in this plot thread and it has some very mild (and censored) swear-words in it…so don't hurt your tender ears, kids - but I may write more about Lupa & Raz later!! And yes, for all who guessed, I am going through the horrible driving nightmare in real life….*sobs*

The warp-gate in front of him whirled green, and Lupa came hurtling out of it.

" I failed, Raz….Raz, I screwed up…"

She ran right into his chest at full force. Raziel made an involuntary "Gnnnnh!" noise which possibly wasn't quite as good as the comforting words he had been intending to offer. He wrapped his arms around the wolf-girl and they stood for a moment in silence.

"You didn't screw up," Raziel said eventually.

"Oh, I so did," came the slightly muffled reply, and Raziel wondered idly if he was going to have to hang up his scarf to dry again after this little episode. "Just one thing, Raz…I failed on one little thing…my parking…"

"My logic runs thusly," Raziel said, resting his arms across her shoulders. "You didn't fail, because you can do that manoeuvre. You did it the other day and you did it perfectly. So you didn't do it perfectly this one time. So what? It doesn't mean you can't ever do it, does it? So you're not a failure."

Lupa made a snorting noise. "You've got a tissue under there, right?" said Raziel, looking slightly worried. A hand emerged and waved a soggy white bundle at him. "Just checking. That's okay. You go back under there."

"But I'm going to have to do it right, aren't I?" Lupa said hoarsely. "It doesn't matter how much I know that I can drive, that I can park, what matters is that they see me do it and they see me do it right on that one day at that one time."

Raziel thought about this, and shrugged.

"S**t happens," he said. "Driving also happens, therefore driving is s**t and deserves to be treated as such. More impeccable vampire logic."

He held her out at arm's length and put his head on one side, considering. Lupa sniffled miserably. "Come on. Let's do something that'll make you feel better."

"Nothing," said Lupa, with absolute certainty, "is going to make me feel better."

"Here," said Raziel, rummaging in his closet, "put this on."

They were standing in the Frost Room in Vladimir's house, the room currently under Raziel's possession. Lupa took the hat from him and regarded it with suspicion.

"It says 'I'm the Boss!' on it," she said. "Is this yours?"

"No. It's Kain's. Put it on."

"Kain wears baseball caps?" Lupa said incredulously, pulling it on and tucking her ears through the slots.

"Have you seen him? He's bald as a billiard ball. Now."

Raziel fished around on his shelves and produced some paper and a big red marker pen. "Come along. We're going for a drive."

"Ohh, no," Lupa said, her lip curling, "I'm not going anywhere near a steering wheel for at least a week."

"Who said you were driving?" said Raziel snippily, and stamped down the stairs, his hooves leaving deep dents in the carpet pile. Lupa trailed after him, looking worried.

"But Raz, you don't know how to drive…"

"I know. You're going to teach me."

"Raz-i-el…" Lupa growled in a warning tone as they went out onto the pebbled drive.

There was a car parked in the driveway.

"That's not Vladimir's Beetle," Lupa said, sounding slightly stunned. "That's my driving instructor's car, I'd recognise the bloody thing anywhere. White Peugeot 206 with writing all over it. How did it get here?"

Raziel pushed a button on the key fob in his claws and the car responded with a bleep. "Magic," he said. "Actually, Vladimir and Kurt half-inched it while your instructor was in the pub and Vladimir drove it through the warp-gate to get it here."

"And you did this when? I only failed this morning."

"Details, details," dismissed Raziel, opening the car door and carefully folding his tall, angular body into the driving seat. "Now which button makes this thing go?"

"I refuse to let you do this," said Lupa, "it's illegal and besides, you'll crash."

Raziel stuck his head out of the window and looked her in the eye.

"I'm going to go whether you come or not – " and he flicked a look up at the baseball cap – "boss."

Lupa growled under her breath and got into the passenger side. "And it's not illegal around here," Raziel went on, leaning over to try and find the ignition, "In this place, you don't take driving tests. You either can drive or you can't."

"And you can't," said Lupa firmly.

"Yes, but you can. So teach me. How do I make it go?"

"Put the key in that hole and turn it."

"Yes, boss."

The engine caught and hummed happily. "Brilliant! Now what do I do?"

"Look down at your feet."

Raziel did so.

"See the three pedals? The one on the left is the clutch, the one in the middle is the brake, and the other one's the accelerator. To make the car go, you have to put it in gear. Press down the clutch, use that stick there and point it toward the number 1 marked on the top…"

"Boorrring," said Raziel, as the car slid forwards a few inches, and floored the accelerator.

"Slow down! Slow down!"

"Why? There's nothing in the way on this road," said Raziel, cheerfully swinging the car around a hairpin bend at seventy miles an hour. Lupa gulped. "How'm I doing? Pretend I'm on my test and mark me up on that paper I gave you. Marks out of ten."

Lupa, trembling, scrawled a '2' on the first sheet and held it up so he could see. "Really? I scored a positive number? I'm impressed."

"Well, you are using your mirrors," said Lupa unhappily as Raziel blasted another hapless cyclist behind him with a telekinetic projectile without taking his eyes off the road. "And you haven't stalled it once."

The Peugeot screamed around another sharp bend and came to a shuddering halt at the crossroads. Raziel carefully put the handbrake on. "Which way, fearless instructor?"

"Left," Lupa said, wondering whether this was the best choice to make. Left led back towards Vladimir's house and populated areas – but right led to miles and miles of twisting roads with very little chance of ever driving at speeds under eighty m.p.h.

"Left," echoed Raziel obediently, indicated to the right, and swung out confidently in front of an articulated lorry which was already blaring its horn in alarm.

"What are you beeping at?" Raziel roared over his shoulder, sticking one clawed hand out the window and gesticulating violently. "You were a learner once too, you bastard!"

The lorry driver, catching sight of the ten-inch claws making obscene gestures at him from the tiny Peugeot, apparently thought better of taking any further action and turned off at the next junction.

"Right," said Lupa, who, despite the threat to her life that this driving lesson was causing, was actually starting to enjoy herself, "let's turn right at the next roundabout and go into the supermarket car park. I'm gonna teach you how to park."

They made it to the car park with only minor faults on Raziel's part: the faults being, in priority order, driving with two tyres up on the kerb, fire-glyphing some pedestrians so he didn't have to stop at the crossing, and not driving in the direct centre of the lane.

"Okay. Now parking as we both know is a torture from the Dark Gods, so I expect you to be brilliant at it," said Lupa with only a hint of sarcasm. "Remember to look where you're going when you're reversing."

Raziel nodded, and drove the car forward into an empty space opposite the one Lupa had intended him to park in. He straightened the wheels up and sat back, looking at her expectantly.

Lupa opened her door and said: "Your tyres are about a centimetre over the white line."

Raziel shrugged. "So what?" he said.

"Quite so," Lupa agreed, straightening her baseball cap. "I give you…..9 out of 10. Let's go back to the test offices."

"Okay," said Raziel amicably. "Is Vladimir's house still masquerading as the headquarters of the driving test offices?"

"Indeed it is. Drive on, when you're ready."

Vladimir looked up from his paper in slight alarm as the Peugeot bounced into his drive, coming to a standstill in an impressive spray of gravel right in front of the door.

"So, did I pass?" Raziel asked.

"No," said Lupa, and scribbled an 'F' in red marker on the last piece of paper. "You are an abysmal driver. I am, however, generally pleased with your test attempt. You showed a positive and independent attitude towards parking, and you are obviously confident behind the wheel – "

"But -?"

"But…I'm going to have to fail you because you made rude gestures at that lorry driver."

Raziel sat back in his seat and frowned. "Fine," he sulked. "Next time I'll just have to save my anger up, hunt him down, and gut him afterwards. I can't believe you failed me on one little thing like that."

He glanced slyly across at her, and his white-blank eyes were amused.

"Hey, I'm the boss," Lupa said, tapping her hat. "Just remember next time."

They got out of the car and headed back towards the house. Kurt met Lupa in the doorway and offered her some of the chicken nuggets he was eating.

"Don't be sad, kätzchen," he said, putting one thin blue arm around her shoulders as she stole some barbecue dip, "I'll teleport you anywhere you want to go. You don't need a car."

"I'm not miserable, really," Lupa said, checking to see if he had any chips, "I'm just angry at myself. I know I can do this…I just don't see why they can't give you another chance during the test if you do it wrong once."

Nightcrawler diplomatically lifted his portion of fries out of her grasp with his tail. "It's what we call bloody red tape," he said. "Sometimes you seem to forget that that's what you are – human. Being human, being alive, being sentient – all of these bring with them fallibility. Nobody's perfect all the time. It's not natural. And yet you make these rules that expect perfection at a particular given time."

"I agree," said Raziel, leaning against the wall.

Lupa chuckled. "Hark to the blue-fur and the goat-foot talking about things not being natural," she said.

"Oh, hark at her," said Raziel dryly. "Half-wolf, half-cat, sometimes human – walks between worlds, talks to the undead…I don't think she has a leg to stand on."

"Children," interrupted Vladimir from inside the house, "there are muffins and tea and milk and cookies in the kitchen. Do me a favour. Go and eat them. I don't think I can stand listening to you all yammering on out there about petty things like perfection."

"Ooh," said Lupa, brightening, "cookies? muffins?"

"Tea?" said Raziel, looking slightly ill at the prospect.

At that moment, the left rear door fell off the 206 into the gravel of the drive with a crrrunnch.

"Oh," said Lupa. "I'm going to have to drive that again sometime."

"Don't worry," said Nightcrawler, eyeing the 206 critically, "bit of welding…no problem."

"Or a bit of magic," said Lupa, fetching a muffin and looking pointedly at Vladimir. "Either way. I need it functional again before my next test."

"Want me to put in automatic parking while I'm at it?" Vladimir asked, and then ducked as the food-fight began in earnest.

That's it for now! Did you like? Let me know! Thanks to all who have reviewed for me…*smiles* & for anyone who is a bit confused, I must explain that Kurt just tends to pop into my stories periodically…I think he gets bored…and everyone ends up at Vladimir's eventually anyway!!