Back in LA, the Bradford Hotel that Michael had commandeered looked like something out of a Hitchcock film. The flat-topped building was crowned with a row of black birds that roosted wherever their claws could find purchase. The fog had closed in on the place, adding to the creepy and abandoned appearance of the place. More crows perched in the overgrown maple tree out front and still more lined the nearby fence and inert powerlines. It truly looked damned.

In one of the two top-floor suites, Michael lit a clove cigarette and looked over at Evangelina. Her bare body was half-covered by the sheet, her long blond hair fanned out behind her like an angel's broken wing. He was naked too but the heat he put off was more than enough to compensate for the chill in the air. They didn't even need to run the hotel's heater, though the generator could support it.

"Do you smoke?" he asked after another puff.

She stirred, turning her head so she could see him. "No."

"I won't offer you one, then." He smiled crookedly at her and she smiled a lazy smile back. "They're hard to come by these days, for most people."

"I know," she acknowledged. "You're very well-connected."

"Don't patronize me," he said, sensing she was doing just that. "I'm not a child."

"Obviously," Evangelina said. She rolled over so she could reach him and pet a hand down his back. She slipped the other between his thighs. "You're a man."

"I'm a dragon."

She started stroking his cock and he thought about putting out his cigarette, but he decided he could enjoy both at the same time. Evangelina knew well how to please a man with her hands. Her blooded father had seen to that. She might still be trying to placate Michael's moodiness, but he approved of her methods. When she got him close to the edge, she took over with her mouth, showing no concern for the fact that they had recently had sex and was surely tasting herself on him.

He nearly dropped the cigarette when he got off, but he managed to recover enough to crush it in the ashtray before losing himself to the delicious sensations her mouth delivered. Afterward, he sprawled out on his back to enjoy the afterglow, one hand draped over his racing heart. Sex, he decided, was unique to each coupling and he wanted to try it with more women. His unplanned tryst with Evangelina proved he could screw a living woman and not kill her, if he just controlled his impulses.

"My birthday celebration is coming soon," he said after a bit. "I would like you to be there."

The pale woman lit a cigarette for him and handed it to him. "I was planning to be." She was confused because she thought that much was already established.

"No, I mean as my companion," he clarified. He accepted the black cigarette. "My consort, if you will."

She hesitated, surprised. "Are you sure?"

"I wouldn't have said it if I wasn't sure," Michael smiled. He exhaled smoke toward the ceiling then rolled to his side so he could see her better.

Evangelina flashed a quick smile. Her first thoughts were of the Order and how they might view such a thing, but she reminded herself that she had left the Order. Their opinions meant little. Still, there was one detail that occurred to her.

"What about Jeremiah?"

Michael shrugged. "What about him? I seriously doubt it would bother him. Anyway, he gave up any claim to you years ago when he started sleeping with Mother Constance."

Evangelina nodded slowly. She still had reservations, but she couldn't pin down what specifically was behind the feeling of misgiving, so she didn't try to articulate it. "What should I wear?"

"Pietre will have something for us," Michael dismissed, unconcerned. "You can change when you get here. It'll be the night of my birthday." He smiled charmingly at her. "No gift required."

...

Kyle could hear the bay of the hellhounds in the distance, an eerie sound that made even his undead skin crawl. The misshapen brutes were all muscle and fang and they had been after him for nearly 48 hours with no sign of tiring. Like Kyle, they had nearly limitless endurance. They would pursue him until they caught him. He had fought one, the first to find him back at Zoe's flat in Sin City. The creature had given him a couple of nasty gashes with its sharp teeth when he refused to let it corner him.

He was able to get away from it by pitching it out the window of the five-story building they were in, but it only bought him time. He had been on the run ever since. Now, facing the dark wasteland that was the Nevada desert, he was faced with the first serious choice he'd had to make in years. He wanted to stay, to wait for Zoe, but she had made him memorize very specific instructions in the event that she ever went missing. He was to take the Daggers of Armageddon to Madison in Seattle. He even knew how to get there, more or less.

Kyle didn't think about it for long. He knew what Zoe wanted him to do.

—

Carrying out the witch's wish proved to be extremely difficult. Kyle couldn't navigate by the stars, though he had the impression he might've been able to, before he died. It seemed like something Old-Kyle knew. During the day he could navigate northeastward by tracking the sun when it wasn't directly overhead, but as soon as it was fully set, he was left roaming in the dark, largely directed by the ever-closer howls of the hellhounds.

On the second night, he was starting to grow concerned that he was going in circles until he found his way to an area where the ground suddenly dropped away. It was a steep gorge, but he was able to scramble down quickly, half-sliding with a hail of dusty rocks. The bottom of the ravine was flat and studded with thorny, dead shrubs that he wove between. He hoped the plants would slow the dogs, but he wasn't counting on it.

He ran and ran, until the rocky desert gave way to the sandy desert. Eventually he found himself running on broken pavement that had nearly been swallowed by the environment. As the sun started to rise, he began to see the skeletal remains of old buildings. After a bit he could see a truck in the distance. When he got to it he could see that it too was virtually a skeleton of its former self, all rusted and falling in on itself. He passed it by.

The remnants of buildings got more substantial as he pressed on. He started to see walls and even some roofs. There were more rusted out vehicles abandoned in front of what looked like a former warehouse or store of some sort. Then he started to see houses. The outlying ones were almost as bad off as the cars he had passed but the houses further along the buried road were fairly intact.

Up ahead, he saw something else that surprised him: A person. They were coming out into the road in front of him. From the shape, he guessed it to be a man. As Kyle got closer he could tell they were carrying something but, it wasn't until the skinny man lifted it and pointed it his direction that Kyle realized it was a shotgun.

Alarmed, Kyle stopped short and raised his hands. He was still several feet away; he hoped he was out of range. "You gotta get out of here!" he hollered. "There's these dogs chasing me…"

The man, who was dressed in dark jeans and a threadbare t-shirt, took aim and squared his stance.

"I'm serious!" Kyle shouted.

Behind him, he could hear the distant bays of the hellhounds closing the distance he'd worked so hard to gain. Infuriated by the hick's silent aggression, Kyle bolted to the right, between two of the old houses. He heard the shotgun go off behind him, but nothing hit him except some chips of ancient paint.

Keeping low as he ran, just in case, Kyle kept between the buildings. He hopped a low, rusty wire fence and was almost to the back of a mostly-dirt yard when he heard the shotgun go off again in the distance. The noise from the hounds reached a frenzied level, with snarls and growls, then Kyle couldn't hear them for several seconds.

That was almost more unnerving than their constant baying. He didn't trust it either and kept going. Sure enough, he could hear the dogs howling again, farther away but heading his direction. He scrambled atop a crumbling brick fence and saw in the morning light a flat, open wasteland of blasted earth. He had found his way to the Nevada Test Site and there was nowhere left to run. He would be an easy target out there.

Looking back at the abandoned work town he had just run through, he thought about trying to seal himself in one of the old buildings, but he seriously doubted any of them could withstand a single hellhound, let alone a pack of them.

The first infernal beast arrived, followed quickly by the rest. Kyle braced himself to fight them all. Behind them, he saw Pietre and his creepy triplets. The hounds were almost to the wall where Kyle was crouched when the warlock lifted a hand.

"Hold," Pietre said. He didn't raise his voice, but Kyle and the dogs heard him quite clearly.

The distorted beasts halted where they were, keeping their beady black eyes on the young man they had treed.

"Well, that was certainly entertaining," Pietre said in a bright way. "Wasn't it, children?"

The albino triplets didn't look amused at all as they closed in on where the pack had congregated. They were collectively sick of following the runaway construct. They didn't have a limitless supply of energy or patience.

Pietre wasn't counting on their vocal support; he didn't even wait for it, really. "Very entertaining. So, Kyle. What shall it be? Are you going to come along like a good little boy? Or shall we let the hellhounds eat you? I'm not sure but I don't think that's something even you'll be able to heal up from. It should be interesting to see either way."

Kyle eyed the pack of distorted dogs below him. He could tell they would like nothing more than to tear him apart. He could see fresh blood on the muzzles of a few. He wondered how many he could take out before they shredded him.

"Now, don't be like that," Pietre admonished. "Fiona would prefer you brought back whole. Besides, you want to see Zoe, don't you?"

Kyle perked, eyes on the barefoot warlock. "Where's Zoe?"

The man smiled smugly. "You'll only find out if you surrender. Now come down off that wall and stop making a spectacle of yourself."

Kyle considered his options then carefully started to pick his way down. "You'll take me to Zoe?"

"That was always the plan, silly boy," Pietre agreed. Then, to the dogs: "Back."

The hellhounds fell back, though several offered throaty growls when Kyle passed them.

"Put the collar on him, Alec," Pietre instructed the pale man.

Alec pulled a black leather collar from the pack he carried. It was a sturdy thing that one would put on a large dog. Kyle took a couple of steps back when Alec came at him with it. The nearest dog nipped at the back of his knee.

"If you want to see Zoe, you'll stop this pointless resistance," advised Pietre. He was growing bored with the antics of the witch's untrained pet.

It went against his instincts to submit and let Alec belt the collar on him. The guy added further indignity to the situation by snapped a chain lead onto the o-ring that was set into the thick band.

"Don't bother trying to take it off at any point," the warlock went on, as though they were casually chatting. "It won't come off until I say. And considering how well it suits you, I don't think that will be for a very, very long time."

He looked around at the triplets but none of them were in the mood to appreciate his cleverness, not even Tisi. So he gave an order to the hellhounds to feast on anything living they could find in the rest of the rundown town then he and the triplets took their captured quarry back to Los Angeles.

Back to Fiona.

…

Author's Note:

This chapter was brought to you by the Lost Highway soundtrack and my love of post-apocalyptic oldie horror like The Hills Have Eyes and Damnation Alley. I'll admit I've even watched a few things like Toxic Avenger. I imagine the hellhounds had some mutant meat for supper...

Michael's truly hit his 'rock star' stride. I can appreciate wanting to have a lot of sexual partners but making it a bucket list item? I can't decide if that's conceited or nerdy. He is 'grandma's boy' after all.

Next time, we'll catch up with Zoe and also, Tate's got a decision to make.