Raven stared at Scout with haunted eyes that became more so when she stared at Hunter. Terror was a better description of the expression on her face when she looked at Hunter.
He didn’t blame her.
He recognized that look from the mirror earlier when he first saw what had been done to him.
Hunter sighed and followed Scout into the house. A candle had been lit, supplying some light in the otherwise dark house. Hunter wanted this night to be over, but at least he could hide in the shadows. If he never returned to his own body, he would lurk under the cover of night. He would at least have to embrace the darkness until then.
Scout had his items from his backpack laid out, preparing for whatever their next plan would be, and that meant figuring out a way to locate Patrick.
“Scout,” Hunter said.
Scout started shoving his items in his pack, one after another without any apparent order. “One way or another, I’m going to kill Patrick. I don’t care what he is now. I’m going to find a way.”
“Scout.”
“We have to find him and get Joan’s soul back. I mean, I knew she would eventually be gone and that Raven…” He stopped packing and flipped his hand towards the door as if mentioning Raven was an afterthought. Her existence was a thing he cared so little about that he couldn’t even offer her more than a casual wave. “Did you hear the way she spoke to me? She couldn't give a rat’s ass about what I’ve been going through since she walked out our door. It’s all about her.”
Hunter limped over and stood beside his friend kneeling on the floor, shoving stuff in his backpack, suffering over the loss of Joan. Hunter tried patience, allowing Scout time to grieve. They didn’t have the time to do that right now.
“She has always been a bitch. Joan thought we might…” Scout’s body trembled and he stopped packing. He sucked in and screamed, hands clenched, his entire being tensed as he forced his emotions out, veins in his neck exposed beneath the skin. The sound was frightening until the exertion passed. Scout ripped his arms through the straps of his backpack and stood.
“Is everything okay?”
Hunter turned to Samuel standing in the frame of the door and held up his hand to shut him up before he tried to alleviate the situation with jokes. “Give us a second.”
Samuel nodded and began to turn away. “We don’t have a second. We have to find Patrick and get Joan’s soul back before…” He looked at Hunter, and then dropped his gaze to the ground.
“Before he turns her into this,” Hunter said. “I totally agree.”
“We have to find your body too and get you back to…”
“Normal? I agree with that too.” Hunter didn’t care that the focus was switching back to him and his horrible form. He didn’t care that Scout wanted to find Patrick for his own reasons. Hunter didn’t care because at least now he had someone else who wanted Patrick found as badly as he did and doing so would restore the natural order of things for him. The time for grieving was over. “How do we find him?”
“I will start my search from the sky,” the Archangel said, standing in the door with the wings at Samuel’s back. “I can sense his presence but due to his specific nature, he is elusive, going wherever people are dying.”
“How do we stop him once he pops up?” Scout asked. “If he can disappear in a puff of smoke every time, how do we keep him in one spot long enough to get Joan’s soul back?”
“Once I make contact with his physical form I will draw out some of his energy. Enough to stun him and keep him from transporting.”
Hunter eyed the angel wings and remembered what happened when Jimmy wore the mantle of Death. “What’s to keep him from ripping off your wings again?”
Michael nodded. “I have learned from that failure. It shall not happen the next time we grapple.” The Archangel turned and walked from the doorway.
Hunter exchanged a look with Scout. “Did he say grapple?”
“Sounds kind of gay, doesn’t it?”
“You’d know best,” Hunter said with a smirk.
Scout shook his head “At least I know it’s you in there.”
“How so?”
“Because nobody can pull of that smirk of yours but you.” Scout followed the Archangel out the door with his backpack on like he was about to fly away too, leaving Hunter on the ground.
“What smirk?”
Hunter grabbed his backpack off the floor. He reached in and found his pistol, popped out the magazine to check for rounds and then pushed it back in the grip and racked one in the chamber. The gun felt big, heavier in his unaccustomed grip. He aimed at the wall and his arm trembled, unable to hold the position. He frowned, and tucked the gun in the back of his pants. It slid along his butt and down the leg of his jeans bouncing out by his barefoot. Hunter jumped sideways, afraid that the gun would go of as it hit the floor. It didn’t.
He looked at the clothes he wore and remembered that they weren’t his clothes. His clothes had been carted off with his dead body by God knows who to God knows where. He had assumed Patrick, but that only took him so far and the Archangel was getting set to find him for a grapple match.
Hunter needed something to wear other than bloody rags from dismembered bodies. He couldn’t stand his current clothing one more second, stripping away the stiff shirt and stiffer jeans, he stood in the candlelight naked as the day he was reborn, which was only twelve hours ago.
Barbie said, “I always wanted to see you naked, but this is not what I expected.”
Hunter held his backpack in front of his exposed parts. “You really have to stop with all the sexual innuendos. It makes me uncomfortable, besides I have…”
“A girlfriend?” Barbie said and walked through the door, followed by Raven, who at least now didn’t appear all that shook up by his appearance or her situation. “Believe me, I know all about it. Innuendo is kind of a big word for you.”
Hunter shrugged, not in the mood to spar with the saint. He looked at the girls in the room with mounting trepidation about being naked, but since this wasn’t his body he realized he cared little about what they saw of it. Still, his backpack remained in place and Barbie’s smile grew.
“Have you always been like this?” he asked.
“No,” Raven said. “She used to be the town whore.”
The smile vanished like smoke. “Fuck you, bitch.”
The backpack slipped from Hunter’s fingers. He bent down and picked it back up. “Language!”
Barbie flipped her middle finger at him and then stormed out of the room into the dark hallway, leaving him with Raven, who didn’t seem to notice or care that he was toting a backpack in front of his genitals. She looked around the room and spotted her own backpack in the corner. Joan’s sword in its sheath lay on top.
Raven said, “What the hell am I supposed to do with that stupid thing?”
Scout walked back in, took one look at Hunter’s predicament and shook his head.
Hunter couldn't be sure, but he believed that his best friend smirked at him.
Raven retrieved her backpack and left the sword in the corner. Scout moved past her and took the sword, holding it against his cheek like a precious heirloom. Raven watched his display of affection and something cracked in the stoic mask she hid behind. She looked away and went to the door, not leaving, just staring outside. Scout held the sword, alone in the corner where a tear rolled down his face.
Barbie trooped back in and took in the scene with hard eyes that immediately began to soften when she saw Scout. She dropped the bundle of clothes and a pair of boots at Hunter’s feet and then went to Scout, rubbing circles on his back, whispering words to him that Hunter could not hear but understood regardless. Hunter fell in love with her a little more for the way she comforted his best friend, but especially for bringing him the clothes.
He wasn’t going to be able to change in front of everyone. More importantly he wanted to wash off the dried blood and the smell of death. He grabbed the two-liter water bottle out of his pack and scooped up the clothes. He’d come back for the boots, but he did grab his gun off the floor and then escaped to the back of the house and through the kitchen door that led to the wood deck outside.
The chill in the dark sky made everything shrivel. He didn't care. It wasn’t really a wash, more a simple rinsing as he poured a little water at a time and scrubbed around the stitches and then his armpits and backside. He finished with his hands and face and put on the clean clothes. They fit fine, and it was nice to have underwear on again, even though he normally wore boxers. Barbie had also provided a belt and he cinched it up, sliding the gun in the waistband behind his back.
This time it stayed.
Hunter walked back into the living room, expecting everyone ready to go, but nothing had changed. Raven at the door, Barbie next to Scout, quietly now, rubbing his back. Scout, eyes shut, held the sword against his cheek. At least the tears had dried up.
“All right people,” Hunter said. “Enough is enough. Everybody get your shit together.”
Barbie glared at him. Raven’s shoulders went up with a breath and back down, turning back towards the inside. Scout laid the sword in the corner, shrugged off Barbie’s care, pulled his gun and checked the magazine. For half a second, looking at Scout’s change of expression which was as frightening as standing in front of an avalanche, Hunter thought he was about to get shot. But Scout put his weapon away.
Hunter bent over and slid one boot on and then the other. The right one was a little too tight and the left one was a little too loose. So be it.
“Anybody got any ideas?” he asked.
“We could go back to the church and beat answers out of Chase,” Scout said.
“Pestilence isn’t going to tell us anything,” Barbie said. “But maybe if we talk to Cal, we might be able to get somewhere. He must be working for them.”
“Cal?” Raven asked. “Didn’t he used to be your…”
“Boyfriend?” Hunter asked, thinking it was funny to turn the tables on Barbie.
“Pimp,” Barbie said.
Hunter stared slack jawed at her for more seconds than he could count.