PUNK As...

Chapter One

They are taking their time killing her. She feels her life slowly slipping away as they work up and down her body with their boots. It would have been embarrassing if it wasn't so depressing. She was going to die in a back alley on this stupid world all because she let her guard down. She thought she was safe here, that they couldn't travel. Or at least they weren't able to pass themselves off as human well enough for the transition to be worth making.

Yet, here she was being kicked to death in a back alley by three of them who looked human enough. Of course they had elected to look like skin heads. Their favoured shaved heads would be easy for them to simulate while the clothes could be used to hide the more obvious bits which wouldn't blend as well. Doc Martens - Air Ware she noted as one tried to imprint the sole on her forehead - were ideal for disguising the fact they didn't really have feet. Nobody would question how ugly they looked, skin heads were ugly to begin with.

Amazing where your thoughts take you when you are dying. She wonders how much longer it will take before consciences is lost . She hopes it will be soon as the pain is beginning to become unbearable - she won't be able to block it out much longer.

They are being remarkably quiet about it all as well, so the chances of anyone overhearing are almost nil. Part of her realizes how odd this was - normally they would make a great deal of noise, they usually find violence equivalent to sexual release. Somebody had gone to a lot of effort to make sure this was carried out without any witnesses, to ensure their silence. A spell of some kind?

It didn't really matter as she is dying no matter what happens. All they have to do is hit a couple more vital organs and she'll be done for. Rupture the spleen and she's guaranteed to bleed out - just missed that time bud. If she had the strength she's almost willing to point them in the right direction so her death isn't so prolonged. Of course they probably wouldn't listen to her, especially if they thought it would hasten her death. They enjoyed their work and liked to make these things as protracted as possible.

They were really unpleasant beings. In their natural state they were even more repugnant looking, but not by much. Their heads weren't normally so round, more like oddly shaped pentagons, but which had been inflated so they sat on top of shoulders like heads. Of course they don't have nearly as impressive fangs or claws, (the Doc Martens could be covering the claws she supposed) now as they do normally. Something to be grateful for maybe, at least now they couldn't exercise their favourite pass time of slowly eating their prey alive.

Still, all in all, it's a rather ignoble way to die. She had just popped over to Earth to listen to some music, something she technically wasn't supposed to do, which meant she didn't have proper clearance to be here, which in turn meant nobody knew where she was officially so there wasn't about to be any last second rescue by friends showing up to see what the hell had become of her. Yep, pretty pathetic to be ambushed by a trio of pointy heads in a back alley on Earth. The only thing still niggling in the back of her brain as she begins to finally fade away was how did they seem to know in advance she was going to be here when nobody else did?

As preoccupied as she is by this, what she figures to be her last thought, she barely hears the howl ripping through the alley or her erstwhile killers being ripped apart and torn into shreds. As she finally loses consciences she has the strangest vision of a very hairy face with long fangs looming over her with a very human look of concern in its bestial eyes.

Chapter Two

The trouble with being basically immortal is how you never forget anything. He's heard mortals talk about wishing to forget things they'd done, having memories that still made them wince with embarrassment. Well, if they thought their measly little life spans were a bother he wondered how they'd cope labouring under the weight of centuries worth of mistakes, mishaps, putting your foot in your mouth and all the rest.

Of course what they called memories are like vague recollections compared to what he experiences. At best they might be able to dredge a few spectral images from their past out of the morass they called a brain, while he and his kind are forced to suffer through a full sensory experience. You thought of something and you had the whole package from how the air smelt to what the ground underfoot felt like. All the stuff that you might not even have been aware of the first time around seemed to have no problem making its presence felt ever after.

Even good memories could become a downer after a while, mainly because they reminded you of a better time. Who wants to remember walking hand in hand with a beautiful person under the soft light of the moon in some pastoral paradise when you're down and out and the only green you see are weeds growing up through concrete?

Of course there in lay the paradox for most of his kind. The easiest way to block out memories was to develop either a serious drinking problem or drug habit. Unfortunately either one of those lifestyle choices usually meant you would inevitably find yourself living in run down neighbourhoods of inner cities surrounded by concrete and filth. The last thing you want to remember is walking hand in hand with some beautiful...

Fuck, he was repeating himself again. Well, must be good shit, he can't even keep track of the babble inside his head. Looking down at the needle still in his vein he decides he really should loosen the tubing before he cuts circulation off. Blissful oblivion was beckoning and he needs to find somewhere he can den up safely before he passes out. Shooting up in alleyways wasn't his first choice, but sometimes needs must wins out.

He doesn't think he's able to get far so he settles for pulling the pin and wrapping it in a rag before slipping it into his pocket. He tries to be conscientious, he didn't have to worry about infection, but he could still carry and doesn't want some other schmuck to catch something. Drawing his shabby coat tightly around him and using the wall for support, he pulls himself deeper into the alley. At least the shadows should give him some shelter from searching eyes.

He doesn't know how long he's been out, but not long enough, when he's rudely awoken by noise from the mouth of his alley. He's going to try and roll over and find oblivion again when he realizes it was the sound of boots connecting to flesh rousing him. It was the boots plural which succeeded in making him lift his head and sniffing the air to investigate. Normally he couldn't care less if a couple of fuckwads wanted to beat the crap out of each other - one human more or less at this end of social ladder didn't make much difference to him.

But the scents coming his way aren't human. Underneath the smell of blood and sweat was an overlay of something he's never caught wind of before. That's enough to get him on his feet - curiosity was alway a curse for his kind - and the sight which greets him is enough to motivate him to change. The three pointy headed 'things' working over the slim figure on the ground are definitely not from around here, and even more certainly they're methodically intent on killing whoever they're laying into.

Without even thinking about what he's doing, heroin is good for that too, he charges in with fangs out and claws flailing. He tears the head off the first almost before the other two realize he's there. The second has his (its - what were these things - he better not swallow any or he has a feeling he'd be puking for hours) throat chewed out as it was turning its head to face the new threat and the third's heart comes out in his claws where they got stuck as he throws it against the one wall of the alley.

Shit, he'd really need to gargle with something after this - those things left a really bad taste in his mouth. While they definitely aren't from around here, neither is the person laid out on the alley floor. She could pass for human to most observers, looks South East Asian and dresses like most of the punk kids these days. Hair spiked into a Mohawk, black leather jacket with all sorts of buckles, black jeans and black boots which come up over the ankles, But she sure does't smell human.

In fact there is almost nothing about her he can recognize save for the fact she needs immediate medical attention or she was going to die. Cant't take her to a hospital. Who knows what they'll discover if they take x-rays. Anyway, he isn't about to go marching into a emergency ward stinking of blood and with flesh under his finger nails. That could cause all sorts of awkward questions. Good thing he knows some folk around town who have the type of specialized knowledge required for these situations. They also knew enough not to ask questions or to worry about any peculiarities in anatomy.

The best option is to take her to see Boneman. The difficulty is going to be moving her. In his changed form he can probably carry her there with little problem. However that could attract a lot of unwanted attention. He isn't sure if his human shape was strong enough to carry her without causing any more, potentially fatal, damage.

Ah, well, shifted form it will have to be. Hopefully anybody who sees him will be too wasted to remember or notice. He bends down to scoop her up in his arms and is surprised to see her eyes flicker open.

"Nice doggy?"

He grinned, which may or may not have been reassuring, "Not quite".

"No hospital"

"No kidding"

That seems to have taken what little strength she has, so he carefully works his forepaws under her body until she is secularly nestled in his arms. Straightening his legs he picks her up and brings her to his chest so he can support her body against his torso. With one last look around him to make sure those, whatever they were, things are really down for the count. (too much experience with the undead to trust things he didn't know to stay dead) The last thing he needs is to be jumped while carrying her.

The Boneman's place is some way off and he'll have to negotiate the city's streets as carefully as possible if he wants to get her there in one piece. Hopefully she'll hang on until they make it. He'd hate to go to all this trouble only to have her die. Hell, it was going to take months to wash the awful taste of those things out of his mouth. He moved to the end of the alley and, after nobody is looking directly at him, he bent his legs and jumped - straight up three stories onto the roof of the tenement on the corner.

Chapter Three

In the alley where the corpses lie some time passes. Attracted by the smell of meat and blood rats and other scavengers scurry over, only to take one sniff and flee in terror. Up close the scent was so far out of their range of experience their hind brains kicked in with "run away run away" commands.

Some more time passes. Then, at the far end of the alley a small point of light appears. Gradually it grows from a point to an orb, from an orb to a large circle, until finally it's a hole of light in the darkness large enough for a person to walk through. Save it isn't anything recognizable on earth as a person who stalks out of the light.

It actually wasn't anything most sane people would associate with light. While the wings might have given its silhouette a passing resemblance to an angel, any relationship it may have had to anyone's definition of "good" would end when the first whiff of its carrion smell hits their nostrils.

Whatever it was, smelled like it had been dead for - well it shouldn't have been up and wandering around is for certain. Not that it really walks, it sort of shambles and slouches - long taloned feet dragging through the grime and dirt and wing tips trailing the ground behind it. The beak like protuberance perched under its eyes seems to pull it onwards as the head bobs back and forwards on the end of a serpentine neck like some mockery of a chicken.

Catching sight of the three corpses laid out on the floor of the alley it shambles forward, head to one side allowing one eye to stare at their dismembered figures. Raising a fold of skin over the eye in an obscene parody of a lifted eyebrow it manages to convey something akin to surprise. Something, or somebody, has interfered in the kill. There's no way she could have inflicted those kind of wounds. Stooping low over the figure with the ripped out throat it examines damage.

"Fangs", it thinks, "and claws" as it moves over to the one whose chest has been torn out. "Well, well, it looks like our friend has found a furry ally. That's unexpected."

Musingly it tears a strip of flesh off the carcass in front of it and begins idly chewing. Swallowing, it stands up. and placing its hands behind its back it wanders over to the mouth of the alley - occasionally stoping and stooping as if looking for something. Just before it comes out into the light of the street it bends right over and picks up a small tuft of hair. Holding it up to one eye it carefully examines it, and then with a small sigh of satisfaction it places it in an inner fold/pocket of its skin. Not much to go on, but the scent is distinctive enough, his trackers should be able to pick up the trail without too much difficulty. After all that's why they got the big bucks, or have their heads ripped off.

With that it turns and walks back down the alley. As he moves further down into the darkness space seemed to fold in on itself and swallow him up as if he'd never even been there. Almost as an afterthought, he makes an idle gesture with one claw like hand, and the three corpses and various loose appendages were swept up behind him. He didn't need to leave loose ends lying around, and he might want a snack for the trip home.

However, he's been so preoccupied with finding the scent of the one who destroyed his servants, he fails to pick up on the scent of another witness. Although, to be fair, the area was so ripe with human scent he could hardly be expected to discern the one from among the many. However, he did miss out on the fact this one had been witness to the fight and, this would have really been of interest, it had followed the other two beings. Probably he wouldn't have cared either way, except maybe to expand the kill list. After all, what difference could one human make?