Into the Wild Dark

CHAPTER 30 - MAL

Ch. 30: Mal's Redemption

September 9 | Day

"I don't care what we have to do, we don't leave without him." I studied the beacon flashing on my phone screen and peered at the seedy bar on site.

Sunny flung open his car door before the driver made it to him, and he and Kato filed out. I followed them across the busted parking lot. Within the venue, the sun turned half-empty whiskey bottles into stained glass. Air, thick with cigarette smoke and errant bad decisions, hung stale in the room. A jukebox coughed up oldies, and cowboy-hatted regulars swayed, chatted, and sipped.

I spotted him across the room. Jack sloppily deposited his tumbler, and the cup fell on its side, rolling to the floor with a clunk. He never noticed. He was too wasted. Sunny and Kato hesitated at the door with me. With his thumb, the werewolf smudged a tear from under his eye and sniffed discreetly. He stared at something in his hand.

His judgement was impaired. Otherwise, he would have been hip to the ruffians huddled at a nearby table, discussing the duffle at his elbow. The bag was partially unzipped and put off a tell-tale whiff of money. I strode further into the bar to assist him. My feet shuffled through empty peanut hulls stuck to the tacky concrete. As our trio drew adjacent to his table, I realized he was staring at a framed picture of Ava's postcard, and I came up short.

The hesitation gave the men sizing him up all the opening they needed. One lunged forward and seized the bag. Another muscled an arm around Jack's neck to hold him back, and the third punched him in the stomach for good measure to slow any chances of pursuit. They had radically miscalculated.

Sunny leaped to join the scuffle, but I pinched back his shirt. "No, wait," I admonished. "He can handle this."

Jack grabbed his chokeholder's arms and flipped him hard onto the surface in front of him. He shoved the bad guy away as he pivoted to uppercut the man who had punched him. Equipped with the strength of someone three times his mass, Jack's force sent the man flying into the jukebox. The music bleated silent. Then, he charged after the runner, who pivoted in terror with a gun raised.

I blanched at how the tables turned. The barrel of the gun aimed at Jack's chest, but the fledgeling werewolf wasn't sane enough for wariness. After shaking off his haze of drunkeness, lycanthropic fires danced in his eyes. He attacked. The gun went off with a loud retort. Sunny cried out Jack's name and caught him stumbling back as the three men abandoned their thievery and dashed from the bar.

Patrons screamed. The bartender tucked the landline to his ear. Kato yanked the cord, and the man dropped the phone and raised his hands in surrender.

"No cops," said the agent.

"Alright, everybody calm down!" I yelled.

The screams died to whimpers, and the commotion settled into watchful expectancy as Sunny checked Jack's wellbeing. The werewolf had astounding regenerative capabilities. However, it wasn't his type that saved him. The bullethole smoking through his jacket spit out its projectile, and Jack lifted the leather to reveal the picture frame. It hadn't been damaged. The frame had shielded him from the bullet.

"Indestructible," Sunny laughed in relief.

"Good," I said. "Let's get out of here before any of the locals get brave enough to dial 9-1-1."

Jack allowed us to scramble him from the bar, but upon reaching the parking lot, he dug in his heels. "What makes you think I'm going anywhere with you?" he growled.

Kato thrust themself into the werewolf's line of sight. Jack's eyes widened in surprise. I thought the goblin was the only one who could talk sense into him. "Darcy Cyprian kidnapped me last night," said Kato. "He wanted to kill me when he found out I was a secret agent for OASIS, but Mal and Sunny stopped him. We have to go. We have to get out of here so she can explain the rest."