zg_shadows | A non zeitgeist story

Blame

annwfyn, she asked for it. If anyone objects to a someone nostalgic look back at the old cam Garou game, I shall move it elsewhere. This also fulfils an old promise I made to

adze that I would write a story about the Pack of the Double Barrel.

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The bar stank of fear sweat. The rank odour of hundreds of young people with questionable personal hygiene crammed into a tiny area,finally relaxing after weeks of tension. Exams were finally over and soon the smell of sweat would be overwhelmed by the delicate fragrances of lager, rum and lynx anti-perspirant.

Xander was at the bar with two of his college friends, Kate and Maximilian. They were into their fourth round after a harrowing history exam, which had been made worse by Xander having to keep the official history of the British Isles separate from the true history which his mother was considered a world authority on. You would think that having such a lineage would help, but all it did was make him have to filter out such statements as "Guy Fawkes's legacy was to strengthen the parliament movement and reinforce the new mode of government, only overshadowed by his manipulation the Order of the Unlidded Eye and their ongoing domination of the post-mortem politics in Annwfyn." It was his final exam and he was becoming boisterous under the influence of the alcohol.

"So," he proclaimed, concluding the conversation . "I can proudly say that not only could I pull the terribly attractive young lady sitting by the thick set lad, but I could also do it after five more rounds."

Max winced at the loudness of his friend's voice.

The thick-set lad in question hunched his shoulders forward and hauled himself off his stool. He swung around towards the three friends and made his way down the bar. Xander had been unusually understated in referring to thim as a thick-set lad. Enormous mountain of angry man may have been more appropriate.

Max's eyes widened as he tried to get Xander's attention before the behemoth arrived. Xander was now listening intently to Kate's description of the way in which she had completely aced the last part of the exam, and probably revolutionised the modern understanding of the purpose of burial sites and their relation to the rather violent social and geographic upheavals twenty years ago.

"Let me tell you something, boy" said the towering man in a growling voice, his hand coming down heavily of Xander's shoulder.

Xander's face went blank. It was the look he got shortly before he would vanish from uni for a day or two, or when he was about to do something very stupid. His mother called it his Kestrel look. He swivelled around in the chair.

"Let me guess... this is a short story about pain and how you are going to inflict it on me for the terrible affront I have just caused to the young lady who is now picking up her bag and leaving the bar because she doesn't want to see you pulverise some other guy for the eighteenth time."

The man seemed briefly taken aback by his usual flow being broken.

"Yeah, that's exactly the story I'm gonna tell you boy, and then I'll get to the..."

"Punch line? Really, is that where you want to take it? C'mon, you can do better than that. I can do better than that and the number of actual bar room brawls I have been involved in can hardly tally up to your evident experience. So let me refer to what I have been taught and tell you about another one.

"Once my uncle Matteus was drinking in a fine London establishment that...

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... reeked of fear sweat. The rank odour of fear that came from being in a pub with the four men at the bar. Matteus, Hogan, Jay and the Hound were unwinding after a particularly nasty day which had involved two scandals (only one for the Hound, unsurprisingly) and the discovery that Matteus' flat had been infested by fomori who exploded messily when torn to shreds. Hogan had taken a blast directly to the face and still could not see clearly, Jay's silent communication guiding his hand to his drink whenever the Hound decided to move it.

They were facing a week staying either at the Caern or at Julian's boat, which only had one comfortable bed and the Elder didn't share well with others. Jay was mulling over the tribal recall to Tibet and Matteus was trying to get through the first lines of a formal greeting to the new king of House Golden Sun, he was somewhat stumped at "Your Majesty."

All in all it came as a relief when the vampires walked into the pub.

The four came to their feet in an instant; accelerated metabolisms burning away the last of the alcohol as adrenalin flooded their bodies.

The vampires stopped and tensed. They could feel the tension already in the air from the humans who had been eying up the four Garou at the bar and hoping they weren't about to die horribly. The leader, a muscular blond man pushed past the others and swaggered up to the four werewolves. He locked eyes with Matteus and smiled widely, showing his too white teeth.

"Leave here, now. I don't like the smell of wet carpet when I drink."

His voice vibrated with the force of command. Matteus stiffened for an instant and then relaxed. Jay sat down at the bar, already seeing what was going to happen here.

"Well," Matteus said cheerfully. "We have a family tradition of what to do when spoken to like that, Leech."

Then he broke the vampire's nose.

The humans in the bar started screaming at the fulfilment of the potential violence they had feared all this time and started racing towards the exit. The hound of Herne barely waited until their backs were turned before leaping forward, his body twisting in mid air into that of a giant wolf, crashing into a tattooed, vampire and the petite, blonde leach next to him. Hogan snarled and his body grew more muscular as he pulled two heavy revolvers from under his coat.

The blond leader blurred into motion, trying to scissor Matteus' feet out from under him. Matteus jumped over the whirling legs and struck again at the vampire's face, connecting but barely hurting him.

The two other vampires charged towards their leader at inhuman speed. Hogan waited until they were fully committed to the charge before pulling the triggers on the archaic revolvers. The loud booms echoed around the room as he unloaded all twelve chambers at an inhuman rate. The two vampires jerked and twitched under the onslaught of the fetish bullets, each one burning like liquid fire as they tore through their bodies. Hogan ran forward simultaneously, closing with the two leeches in no time at all.

The Hound of Herne now had his jaws closed around the face of one of the vampires who was screaming ineffectively, trying to focus his mental powers to force back the enraged Fianna. The Hound shook the vampire fiercely but the crack of his neck did not slow his struggling. The small woman grabbed his feet and tried to drag him away from the huge wolf. The Hound planted his feet widely and pulled back, and the vampire caught between them screamed with a new intensity as he was racked between the two creatures.

Matteus staggered backwards as the vampire leader punched him in the chest, smashing through two chairs. Jay calmly moved his spring water so it would not be spilled and then angled himself sideways on his stool - out of the way of Matteus' huge, silver man-wolf form which leapt at the startled vampire leader with a howl of joy. The Silver Fang prince swatted the vampire, raking huge cuts across his black shirt and then whirled and drove a chair leg through the leech's chest. Matteus dropped back down to his smaller Glabro form with a self satisfied smile.

Hogan Risks-Life-And-Limb dropped to his knees as he raced forwards, sliding the last feet to the two bullet riddled vampires, there was a burning smell as he pressed the still hot muzzles of his six-shooters to their foreheads. The vampires had been starting to stir but now froze, and Hogan could see them almost visibly counting the number of shots he had fired. He grinned at them with too many teeth.

"You don't have to ask yourself, fang-boys, whether I fired five shots or six. You need to ask whether I follow Clashing Boom-Boom and if she would ever let me pull the trigger without a suitably bloody result."

The vampire leader stirred against the wood in his chest and then his eyes snapped open, red and angry, frenzy taking hold of him. Matteus ripped out the chair leg and smashed it back in again. The vampire snapped at him and cuffed him in the jaw. Matteus shouted back at Jay.

"Where the bloody hell is his heart?"

When the doors opened this was the tableau that lay before the man who entered. The Hound growling with his jaws locked around the head of a whimpering vampire, pulling him in an evenly matched tug-of-war with a five foot blonde. Hogan with two guns held to the heads of two vampires who looked like they were trying to gain enough courage to find out if they did, indeed, feel lucky. Matteus repeatedly staking a vampire with increasing desperation. And Jay, raising a bottle of water ironically in greeting...

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"...At least, this was what my father saw when he arrived at the pub. Or so my mother tells it."

The man seemed almost stunned by the torrent of words that had poured out of the young man. Xander had kept the story going almost without breath, slowly edging away from his two friends until he was out in the middle of the bar.

"Your mother?" the man said dully, and then some automatic switch seemed to throw in his head. "Didn’t your daddy teach you nothin’? Only a pussy would let his mother teach him that a story was a way out of a fight."

Xander cocked his head to the side and his eyes narrowed. His Uncle Res would have called it his Lara look.

"No, my mother taught me this."

Xander shifted his weight forward on to his left leg as his right foot lashed out, connecting squarely with the man's testicles. He shifted forwards as he brought his foot down and smashed the heal of his right hand into the man's chin as the enormous body folded into itself. The man's jaw crunched and teeth flew sideways and he crumpled backwards.

"And I never knew my father. But I heard he liked to make a proper exit." he said in a flat voice. Then his tone lightened and he turned to his friends. "Next bar?"

Kate and Max nodded and joined Xander as he made his way through the murmuring crowd. Once outside the air was cooling rapidly and the tension of the moment seemed to fade with it. Max was still somewhat shocked but Kate couldn't help but grin.

Xander returned the smile and through his arms around their shoulders, ushering them into the twilight. His voice was gleeful as he sang into the night.

"The bravest warriors in the land, are Prince Matteus and his band. That's Risks-his-Limbs, Hound-o-Herne, Dukey Jules and Listnin’ J. They march through the woodlands singing songs, that tell how they have righted wrongs..."