Page 17

H umming, Gavin started up the stairs to the second floor. It was obvious that aside from sealing off the two garage doors at front, and gutting the first floor, they’d also replaced the original wooden steps with metal ones, along with closing off the observatory and adding a glass wall where it used to be open.

He smiled, pausing on the landing he’d just reached when a human stumbled down a few steps on spotting him. The man stared, eyes wide and face pale, before swallowing hard and attempting to rush past him. As the human passed, Gavin snapped two fingers together. A spark leaped from his fingertips, seeming to disappear just before the man lit up like a roman torch.

His smile widened as the human started to scream and flail uselessly at the flames. The man took a tumble down the steps, before trying to ‘drop and roll’ on the landing he’d flopped down onto below.

Chuckling, Gavin continued up the stairs. His smile dropped as he reached the top. While the floor above was indeed smaller than the one below, it was still a decent size, and more set up than he’d anticipated, based on the purchases he’d tracked. But it was possible they’d moved from a different location.

Desks and bookshelves covered and filled with files and more, there was all sorts of lab equipment set up into stations along with large canisters of chemicals.

Everything was white, and it was screaming clinical to him. There were also a lot of computers, though it didn’t appear as if any were set up or plugged in. All of the equipment and chemicals seemed to take up the center and left of the room, while the desk and bookshelves were to the right.

Slowly walking through the floor, hands tucked into his pockets, he began to whistle as he neared the back and found the owners of the other sixteen beating hearts he’d heard up there.

He smiled, flashing canines that were sharper than any humans should be while he met the frightened gaze of each man. It was interesting how it had been all men there…but then, religious death cults did tend to be misogynistic.

All of the humans on the second floor were dressed similarly in a lab coat, and from what he could see, they were sporting business casual underneath. Some had glasses on, some didn’t. Some were short, some were tall. Some had blond hair, some brown, and so on, but every single one of them had one of those church boy haircuts—short, styled, and parted to one side.

It was sort of weird seeing sixteen people with the exact same fucking hair, but again…creepy cult, so… Or maybe it was just the lab worker requirement, as he was pretty sure that everyone below hadn’t been sporting the same look.

His gaze flicked around again.

“Oh!” he gasped, his smile widening as he hurried over to one of the desks. Gavin snagged the small, shiny goldfish sculpture off of it.

“Ah…”

He frowned, slowly spinning towards the person who spoke with a brow raised. “Yours?” he asked.

Gavin’s eyes narrowed when the blond man vehemently shook his head.

“I don’t like liars.” He snapped his fingers, igniting the old owner of his goldfish. As the liar started to scream, the rest of the humans tried to flee past him. Without hesitation, he blew a stream of fire, willing it to ‘stick’ as they tried to pass.

Letting out a pleased sigh as fifteen more screams joined in with the blond’s. The sound of flesh burning sent a satisfying shiver down his spine, while he looked down at his prize. Bronze and roundish, the sculpture was of one of those little chubby Ranchu Goldfish with the rounded cheeks—so cute! Yes, it would indeed join his hoard!

Gavin hummed happily, and slipped it into his pocket. He turned to leave, but froze when he caught a waft of something—something that was sweet and yet musky.

That waft was enough for him to then hear the soft hissing his brain hadn’t managed to before. Gaze flicking around the room, he eyed the mess the burning humans were creating.

A few chairs and desks were overturned, and chemicals of all kinds had been knocked down and mixed. And while some were releasing concerning visible gasses for sure, none were what he was smelling. The fire wasn’t spreading because of his will, but a gas leak would quickly fuck that up.

Drawing in a deep breath, he moved swiftly, following the scent. Gavin found what he’d been looking for against the left wall. Hidden behind a large piece of medical equipment, and covered in all of the fun fire hazard warning signs one could ask for, were three sizable tanks labeled Ethylene. The obvious source of the smell was the middle tank, whose valve had been broken off. And of course, lying only a few feet away from those tanks, his clothes now indistinguishable from his charred skin as the fire continued to eat at him, was the blond man…very much dead.

“Oh…that’s not good.”

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”

Fighting alongside Foxx, Harlow pulled his claws free, pausing as he swore he heard Gavin cursing from a distance. The repeated word was swiftly getting closer, it turning oddly rumbling deep while it did. After killing the last human that remained of the new arrivals, Foxx looked towards him with confusion, as he no doubt heard the same thing.

Both of them spun around when a dark shadow covered the area, and a gust of wind rushed past. Harlow’s eyes widened as he spotted Gavin, fully transformed. In dragon form, the man had large dark-violet horns on his head, a slightly lighter violet underbelly, and black claws and spines going from his head down his back, to his fan tipped tail. With them shifting color as he moved, Gavin’s scales looked very much like rainbow obsidian.

And while Harlow knew the man could change his size to be smaller than his maximum, and that this was in fact not his max, he couldn’t help but find himself somewhat concerned at the ever-drawing closer, currently bus-sized dragon.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Gavin continued to swear as he descended towards them.

“Oh…shit.” Harlow slammed his eyes shut just before the man crashed into the crates.

The sound of wood cracking, splintering, and clattering to the ground came at the same time he was blasted in the face by some sort of powder. Coughing as he accidentally inhaled the odorless substance, Harlow’s lids snapped back open when a large, scaled, clawed hand wrapped around him, pinning his arms to his side.

“Gavin!” he roared, struggling to get free. His struggles stopped the very second his feet lifted off the ground. “GAVIN!”

“WHEEE!” Foxx giggled as they took flight, the vampire’s laughter not stopping a bit, even as they slammed through the side of the building.

Harlow glanced toward his boyfriend, intending to give him a ‘really?’ type of look, when the building went boom. He flinched as the explosion seemed to rock the ground beneath.

Oh, that was close, Gavin thought. A semi safe distance away now, he slowed his wings and descended, while secondary explosions continued to go off behind them. Gently, he set the two men clutched in his front claws down.

Calling to his human side, Gavin’s form shrank swiftly. Seconds later, he landed lightly on the ground with two very human feet, fully back in his humanoid form.

Eyeing the two men, who were staring wide-eyed into the burning inferno, he cleared his throat. They were covered in gore, and dusted in a yellow power, yet, so was he. But Gavin also had some other weird powdery shit on him, and he was going to do his best to not think about what it all could be. As he had a list in his head, based on what he knew they bought, and most of the things on that list were concerning.

A hesitant laugh slipped out as the two finally glanced his way. Rubbing at the back of his neck, Gavin cleared his throat again. “Uh, yeah, so…I might have accidentally set some men on fire near a leaking gas tank, next to other gas tanks, and what looked to be questionable chemicals, which—” He dusted off some of the powder from his shoulders. “—seems to be what was also in those crates, and seemingly also flammable.”

“That definitely wasn’t quiet,” Harlow said slowly, sounding like he was straining for some reason. The dhampir made an odd choking noise, right before he doubled over in laughter.

“And the opposite of not making a scene,” Foxx added on, before he too started to laugh.

Gavin eyed them with slight confusion as they continued laughing, because he had no clue what was so funny. It kind of felt like he was missing something.

Shaking his head, he looked back towards the building. Using the flames as his eyes, finding none left alive, he tracked all of the bodies inside, and urged the fire to burn hotter, to consume them and all evidence of their presence until nothing was left. Gavin drew back once that was done.

“Not an electrical fire, but the bodies and evidence are all taken care of!”

“Welp,” Harlow said with an amused chuckle as his full-body laughter subsided, while wiping some of the powder off his face. “We should probably go then.”

“That was fun!” Foxx giggled cutely, as he bounced where he stood, which fit, yet…he was also looking pretty gory at the moment, probably even more so than Harlow .

“It was.” The dhampir smirked and started eyeing the bloody vampire with a bit too much interest, in Gavin’s opinion. Interest that he had no earthly desire to see.

Seeming to have noticed the look, Foxx stopped bouncing and eyed his brother back, a clearly interested smile spreading across his face. “Tony is going to be so mad.”

Harlow’s smirk widened, but his voice was stupidly husky as he repeated, “So mad.”

“Is this…how you two flirt?” Gavin barely managed to stop his mouth from twisting in disgust. His brother flirting was not something he really wanted to think about. In fact, Gavin had happily assumed he was safe from ever having to think about it, or Harlow’s love life in general, due to his assumption about the man’s personality disorder. He couldn’t say he was happy to be proven wrong.

Gavin frowned when his nose caught a scent he wished it hadn’t. “Why does Foxx smell like…” he trailed off, not wanting to say what the vampire smelled like, or really think about why the man smelled the way he currently smelled after just murdering a bunch of people.

Harlow snorted. “Come on.”

“That’s not an answer!”

When the two turned and started to walk away, bloody hand in hand, Gavin just stood there and watched.

He supposed, he shouldn’t care. Like, had he even wanted them to answer the question anyway? Gavin sighed. Probably not… Definitely not.

“Fuck, this is weird. Like…this is really weird, right?” he rasped out loud, before blinking. “Who the fuck am I talking to?”

Shaking his head again, Gavin hurried after them.