Then the truck hit the courthouse.
It erupted in a brilliant, fiery blaze, shooting up and out until nothing of the truck could even be seen anymore. After a moment, it settled, still burning as Genblade walked over and reached past the shattered driver’s side window and pulled out Black Womb by the neck. His taunting smile was gone now, replaced by a curling nose and hate-filled scowl.
“Didn’t learn anything about distraction, did we?” he screamed, bringing back his fist and slamming it into the Womb’s face. Its teeth grazed and cut his knuckles, but he barely even noticed. He hammered his fist down again, splashing the black tar onto the streets as he did.
The Womb tried to say something, but again its mouth was filled with blood.
“Shut your face!” Genblade screamed, bringing down his fist again. “You think I care about anything you have to say, you little shit? You killed my fucking wife!” he brought his fist down again, and this time the Womb’s teeth gave under the force of Genblade’s knuckles, cracking off and falling to the pavement. “I’ll fucking end you, you little piece of trash!”
The Womb brought up its legs and pushed Genblade off of itself, scrambling to its feet again as it vomited up the blood that had been rising up from its lungs and stomach.“She was going to kill me,” it said finally, the harsh, gritty voice sounding off when mixed with the sympathetic pang of Xander’s.
“I don’t care!” Genblade spat, drool and mucus huffing from his nose and mouth now. He lunged forward again, hitting the Womb in the throat.
The impact made it stagger backwards again, the flames from the burning truck right behind it.
Genblade leaned in slowly, again licking those pointed teeth of his. “You still got plenty to learn, but there’s one thing you’re gonna have to learn fast... and there’s only one way I know to teach you.”
“What’s that?” the Womb scoffed, even as it started to rise to its feet.
Genblade drove his hand forward, shoving the Womb’s long, serrated tooth into its gut and then swiping it all the way across.
The Womb’s eyes grew wide as the blackness covering it almost immediately began to lose its consistency, hanging off of Xander like wrinkled skin for a moment before losing its hold altogether and melting to the floor. Xander gasped for air and got a mouthful of the layer of blood that covered his body, his natural, blue eyes staring up at Genblade in horror as the killer twisted the tooth again, smiling.
Genblade wriggled the makeshift blade around one last time, snickering at the soft, wet sound it made before finally hauling it back out. “The lesson’ll come on its own time.”
“So will yours,” Xander spat, jumping at Genblade’s waist and forcing him to the ground. “Don’t fucking care about your lessons!” he screamed, bringing back his fist and slamming it into Genblade’s face as hard as he could. “Or your distractions!” he screamed again, right before landing another blow. Blood spattered up onto his face, but he didn’t notice. “Or your wife!” he brought both fists into the air at once, hammering them down simultaneously.
SLAM.
“I don’t care Genblade! Nobody does!”
SLAM!
“Mike doesn’t care, Cathy doesn’t care... Alpha never cared!”
SLAM!
“Nobody cares about you Genblade. Nobody - -”
“Xander!” Mike yelled, grabbing his friend’s wrist before he could bring his fists down again.
Xander struggled for a moment, turning to glare at his friend without even seeing him. Then he turned back to Genblade, and noticed the swollen, red piece of meat that had replaced his opponent’s face. There was so little white left to his skin that he was barely even recognizable, having been bruised into blacks, blues and yellows. His face seeped blood from almost every conceivable hole plus several newly created ones, and one gash on his forehead was so bad that a vicious white fluid with the consistency of an egg seemed to be coming out of it.
“Jesus,” Xander whispered, stepping away from Genblade.
Mike crouched down, placing two fingers on the side of Genblade’s throat.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes. Get out of here,” Mike snapped, not even bothering to turn around.
“But I can - -”
“Get out of here, Xander,” he said again, his voice a little more stern.
As the rest of the crowd approached, Xander ducked into an alleyway and was gone.
“You finish that research yet?”
Don looked up from his desk, pushing his hair back into place as his eyes adjusted to the light, trying his best to pretend that he hadn’t been asleep. “Um,” he stammered, gazing from Drake’s frowning, impatient face to the pile of papers covering his desk, looking for some clue to jog his memory of what he had been doing before he’d passed out. “Ah, just about.”
Thomas Drake cocked an eyebrow at him, his mouth never twitching to show any sign of amusement if he felt any. “The victims list, Don. I need a full, up-to-date victims list. Then I need you to contact the next of kin of each of them and see if they plan on suing the town for this crap.”
“Suing?” Don repeated, furrowing his brow. “I haven’t heard anything about any suit?”
“There isn’t anything,” Drake snapped. “And there won’t be if you don’t get off your ass and start asking people if they plan on suing for all the mental anguish the city’s putting them through with this farce of a trial. And they’ll sue. And then we’ll report on the suit.”
Don looked at him with a face that perfectly mixed both amazement and horror at the same time.
“You get all that, or do I need to write it down for you?”
“No, got it,” Don nodded, finally
