Nightmare

Purple light filtered through the edges of the window treatment, and signaled the coming night. Night meant sleep and Ray wanted no part in the dreams that come

He sat in the motel room, clutching the small satchel of cash he was given at the end of his time with the Horrorshow. His deal was for Sophia's freedom, and The Elite had their paws in everything at some level. Ray participated in it first hand. Now his sleep was haunted by the faces of horror he witnessed as Silicate supplied him with glass shards to slash and impale the many homeowners and renters of the buildings they were attempting to clear out.

Nearly three weeks of watching Negalodon and Sauin use a faux injured Gorehound as bait for good Samaritans and desperate survivors to lure them out of hiding to save the injured body part thief. Sauin's Monster form stabbed and choked their victims with a tangle of roots and branches that impaled bodies and sucked them dry. Negalodon took bites out of victims as he chased them around the buildings and parking lots.

Farewell kept police and emergency services at bay using trick arrows to mimic Jack Slash's long range knife attacks. Gorehound had a careful selection of body parts to mimic the feared leader of the Nine when situations warranted appearances. Summer Gone made the nights colder, bursting pipes to much needed indoor water supplies, and igniting buildings and burning down haphazard barricades during the day. Last of all Ms. Adore would use the patients she rounded up from the Asylum and have them rove the open fields and construction sites for new housing developments. The enraged mobs assaulted, captured, and worse, any who tried to enter or leave the vicinity.

Ray refused to outright kill, he kept up his part helping Silicate, but he defied their demands to let loose and have fun. His threshold to take life was on a bigger scale, a far larger devastating monster than the Horrorshow or even the Slaughterhouse Nine provided.

So he sat in the motel room alone on the bed, lights off and utterly silent. He focused on thoughts of Sophia, stuck in jail, the communique with the Sponsor had assured Ray an attorney would be present to help square her release. The money on his person would get them started. Further details was Sophia's mother relinquished parental rights to Sophia, so the attorney could work to help file motions for emancipation for Shadow Stalker, and together they could choose a place to live. They could serve on a foreign corporate team or a community could pay them to keep the peace in one of the rowdy border towns to the south fighting cartel capes.

It was a stupid dream, really. Sophia would probably be pissed off he got taken into custody and then wasn't around when The Undersiders struck. She had every right to be pissed, take her bus fare and make off without him. But it didn't matter if she didn't feel how he felt, his feelings are not her problem. Sophia deserved someone there for her at release, to know that someone cared for her.

The patter of rain on the old roof may have calmed his heart in the past but the faces of his victims would be replaced by his Grandparents, his mother, Noemi, and Sophia everytime he shut his eyes to dream. The sound of branches scratched at the window of his small rented room. Which was odd since he was about a mile and a half from the Youth Commission Detention Center on a treeless stretch of road. The scratches turned to pounding on his door. The whole room shook with each blow.

"Pretty, come out and plaaaaaaaay!"

Sauin's dry cough of a laugh sent a shiver down his back. If she was here others could have joined in on her madness. He diffused and was in the bathroom. He wrapped his satchel in a dry-cleaning bag tying the opening in a knot then wrapping it in a towel. He punched the drain plug in and dropped the towel bundle on top of it and ran the faucet.

He materialized at least fifty meters outside the motel room and took in the scene.

Sauin was in her intermediate form the thin sickly looking woman he first met at the asylum. Her other forms were her idealized younger self she'd use to seduce or play with her victims, and her monster form was what truly needed feeding. Gorehound mentioned in passing her forms were based around triggering during one of her mother's drug binges who often offered her around her fellow addicts like a party favor.

Negalodon, of all the members of the crew to show up, was hovering above the roof watching the back side of the motel should Ray flee out the bathroom window. Word was he was a serial killer, who was eventually caught late at night by a vigilante while hiding bodies at sea. Was given a living burial at sea but triggered into this hairless, lithe monster that blended into the dark and could fly. The unhinging jaw and rows of teeth was a series of body mods done by a biotinker.

And sitting quietly in the driver's seat of a wreck of a car was the blue skinned hitwoman, Summer Gone. Ray knew the least about her other than she appeared much younger than she actually was and was considered a veteran cape. All in all a trio of killers that would make most any cape want the Earth to stop spinning and let them off in front of the next solar flare.

Ray couldn't just hide in the basement and hope Gorehound's word would protect him. No, he would fight, maybe win, but he was going to see tomorrow. He'd be there for Sophia. His pack, partner, and friend. Tonight, he was the predator and these monsters were his prey.

Ray diffused and was behind the door of his motel room, the insistent bangs from the rail thin Sauin made the metal door have visible indentations on the inside. Ray pulled his shirt off and kicked off his shoes and undid the broken security chain.

"Yes?" he yawned and made a show of wiping sleep from his eyes.

Visible confusion crossed the tattoo faced woman, "I have been knocking for a hot minute, Pretty Boy. It is rude to leave a woman waiting."

"Well when you see one, make sure she's got some meat on her."

Sauin placed a bony hand on her chest and blinked her black doll eyes in offense.

"Oh, and tell Nega, I can smell his oily stress sweat mingling with the rain up on the roof and he can go fuck himself with that weather vane."

Ray slammed the door, backed up a few paces from it and pulled the mattress from his bed.

"It's showtime."

~~x