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He’s heard the rumors, of course–-a man in black with an owl on his shoulder, killing everything he touches, something straight out of a ghost story. Blackwatch’s taught him that rumors usually have a grain of truth, so when one too many former bluecoats wind up dead under mysterious circumstances, Jesse and Dulce go hunting.
It feels good to have something big to chase, instead of two-penny criminals and husbands running off without leaving alimony. They can almost make-believe they’re in Blackwatch again, serving a cause bigger than themselves. They still have their contacts, their safehouses, and it leads them to a quiet suburban neighborhood. There’s a man living in the third house from the corner who’s been a little loud about his service under Overwatch, and history has shown that he’ll make a tempting target.
There are kid’s toys in the front yard. When the third day of their stakeout is interrupted by an owl’s hoot and a shadow flowing under the little house’s front door, Jesse and Dulce don’t think twice about running in after it.
The difference, of course, is that they no longer have backup.
They split to case the house, Dulce heading off to make sure the kids’ rooms are secure, Jesse taking the rest. He’s just stepped into the living room when he hears Dulce’s scream, phantom talons pricking around his shoulders.
“The kids!” Dulce yowls, filling the silent house with her voice. “The kids, Jesse!”
He’s got Peacekeeper cocked and ready when he shoulders into the room, and the thing that meets him is straight out of a nightmare. A bone-white mask turns to face him, set in a body that swallows light and churns like smoke. The creature holding Dulce to the floor only barely resembles an owl, letting off ashes like it’s burning.
The bullet hits the thing center mass, just like Jesse’s been taught, and all the Reaper does is sigh like it’s been mildly inconvenienced at the grocery store. The noise makes the hair on Jesse’s neck stand up, and for a moment all he wants is to grab Dulce and run. But there’s two kids huddled behind that bluecoat, scared silent, and so instead Jesse does the stupid thing and tackles the mass of smoke.
He half-expects it to dissipate under his fingers, but instead he’s crashing into a broad chest, claws grabbing him by the scruff to hurl him against the wall. Something cracks in his ribs, and he gasps for breath and tries to scramble upright. Dulce yowls again, biting furiously at the owl. It catches her throat in its beak and squeezes until she’s wheezing for breath, and Jesse wheezes along with her.
“Stay down,” the Reaper growls, and Jesse heaves himself upright, throws himself between it and its targets.
“Run,” he tells them, screams, “run!” and tackles the creature again, praying it’ll buy them enough time to escape. He can hear the kids scrambling past as he grapples with those claws, hopes they’ll make it when he’s thrown to the ground.
Reaper sets one big, heavy boot right in the center of Jesse’s chest. “Stay down,” it rasps.
“Go to hell,” Jesse snarls back, and unloads Peacekeeper in its face.
It rears back with a scream, the owl flaring its wings in alarm, and for a moment Jesse catches shards of bloody bone and ragged skin under that white mask. The next moment, he’s got a shotgun pressed to his throat, and the Reaper growls, “Too stubborn for your own good, aren’t you?”
There’s something wrong about that shotgun, something niggling in the back of Jesse’s head, and he claws at the mask and manages to hook his fingers under the edge right as the Reaper jerks its head back.
The shotgun clatters to the floor, and a heavy hand lands right over Jesse’s eyes. He coughs, trying to breathe past the smell of gangrene, the sense of wrongness growing. He can hear Dulce yowling, “No, no, you bastards! How could you, how could you–” and she sounds like she’s been shot.
“Be silent,” snaps the owl, and that, there, is what clicks the pieces together. Jesse never was able to forget the sound of Luz’s voice.
“Gabriel?”
The Reaper shudders, and the hand around Jesse’s head tightens. “Keep out of my way, Jessito,” Gabriel whispers, and then something smacks against his temples and everything goes black.
~
Jesse wakes up to blood in his mouth and an aching head. His ribs protest when he rolls over, but he ignores them–-he’s had worse. “Dulce,” he calls. “Dulce.”
He hears a low whine and crawls towards it, and finds her huddled under the bed. She’s got two kids and their daemons tucked behind her, and a mouth that looks like it’s been splashed with tar.
“Oh, gracias a Dios,” Jesse croaks, legs quivering in relief. She thumps her tail at him and crawls out to lick at his face, nestling against his chest. He grabs her close, carefully feeling over her fur. He finds talon-scores, deep but not as deep as he knows they could be.
One of the kids whimpers, and he kneels back down to look at them. One boy, one girl, faces streaked with tears but otherwise unhurt. Their daemons huddle together, two little mice, and something in Jesse’s heart clenches. “C’mon,” he says, gentling his voice. “Promise I won’t hurt ya. C’mon out here.”
“He’s safe,” Dulce adds, wagging her tail at them, making herself look as much like a friendly dog as she can. “I toldya he was safe, didn’t I?”
It takes a little more coaxing, but eventually Jesse has the two kids cradled against his chest, stroking their hair and murmuring comforting nothings. Dulce trots off to find the phone, and he can hear her tapping buttons and calling the police. When she returns, he hands her his gun, serape, and hat without comment, and off she goes again to squirrel them away before the authorities arrive.
They make a miserable little trio, Jesse and those kids, when the police show up. He has his story ready, about hearing something weird while strolling around the neighborhood and walking into a break-in gone wrong. He tells it well. The kids take up most of the police’s attention, which is good, because it means no one runs an id on Jesse and Dulce and finds out about the bounty on their heads. They slip away once someone’s taken the children and everyone else is looking at the body in the living room.
“So,” Dulce says, once they’re ensconced in their safehouse.
“So,” Jesse sighs, tying off the last of the stitches on her back. He picks her up and carries her over to the bed, sitting down heavily. She crawls up onto his chest, offering comforting licks against his beard, and he sinks his fingers into her fur and scratches behind her pointy ears. “That really was ‘em, huh.”
“Yeah.” Dulce whines softly, nudging her nose under his chin. “Yeah.”
“What happened when I was out?”
“Bit Luz,” Dulce says. “Ripped her up enough to get her offa me, ‘n’ ran like hell to find th’ kids. They came in right after, shot th’ dad.” She shudders. “Shot him right in front of th’ kids.“
Jesse swallows. “They didn’t go after th’ kids…?”
“Nah.” She shudders again, nestles closer. “Nah. Put myself between ‘em ‘n’ screamed like th’ devil, ‘n’ Gabe ‘n’ Luz looked at me for a long while an’ then left.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
They sit in silence for a while, listening to each other’s heartbeats.
“What’re we gonna do?” Dulce asks.
“I dunno.” Jesse hugs her closer, buries his face in her fur. “I really don’t have a clue, darlin’.”