43. Get Wrecked

T urney groaned, aching more than a bit, his head swayed as he stared up in confusion. Blinking as the world slowly stopped spinning, he realized he was staring up at Scarlett, through what looked to be broken floorboards.

“Anything broken?” his sire asked, as she lowered herself down using the ledge. She swung from it and landed lightly right beside him, where she started to eye him critically.

“I—Fuck!” he cursed when, without warning, she yanked out a piece of wood that happened to be sticking out of his left leg.

“You’re fine,” Scarlett huffed, before gripping hold of his left bicep and pulling him up into a sitting position.

Suddenly, he caught sight of Octavius in the hole above. His big bat head was peaking down. It was very cute, yet disconcerting to see a bat this size. At the same time, he wanted to hug him, because he looked very soft… The normal blond curly cues on the top of his bat head looked so fluffy at this size…

“Is everything okay—EK!” the vampire yelped, before disappearing. Soon after, the phantom flew past with the floating guillotine.

Right…he’d seen him chasing Octavius, and then…he'd had this surge of anger…and… “Hell, I lost control.”

She scoffed. “What was your first clue?”

“I don’t think anything is broken.” He groaned as he stretched and looked around, quickly realizing that he was underneath the stage.

“You sure about that?” Scarlett asked, sounding amused.

He eyed her, and then saw where she was looking. Turney’s eyes widened at the sight of his right arm, which was bent the wrong way. “It doesn’t…hurt…”

“It has healed already,” she snorted, walking around to his other side. “This is going to hurt.”

“Of course, it is…”

Closing his eyes, he flinched at the first light touch.

CRACK!

Turney bellowed as she rebroke his arm. The pain was instantaneous, burning and sharp, but it was gone just as quickly.

“HEHEH, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, MOTHERFUCKER!” Octavius cried out defiantly. Turney found it interesting that his bat voice hadn’t gotten deeper with the size increase.

“WHY WON’T YOU JUST DIE?!”

He glanced above as the two men passed over them. “Ugh…when will this end?”

“You managed to get hold of him… Do it again, and be stubborn.”

A howl was released, that could only be Theo’s.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” Aurelius passed over the hole again, followed by a fully transformed Theo, who was in his giant black wolf form.

“Oh, come on. Theo should at least be obvious?!” Turney huffed.

Scarlett scoffed. “Dumb… Just unbelievably dumb…”

“Does Min-ji have anything to help us grab him?”

“If she did, she would have done it by now. I think most of her spells, at least the rune ones, are attacks of some type. Destroying him is not our purpose…”

He frowned, thinking about the odd expression on his boyfriend’s face, back when they were in front of the police station. “It may be Octavius’…” Turney took a deep breath. “But I won’t let him.”

Because he didn’t want that… He understood the paranormal world enough. He knew despite the reaper’s rules that paranormals still killed, yet…he didn’t want Octavius to kill anyone because of him.

He glanced up to Scarlett, on feeling her eyes on him. Her expression was empty of emotion, and nothing was coming through the bond. “Octavius will do what he will, Turney. You won’t always agree, but in the end, his choices aren’t yours.”

“When it comes to killing someone because they hurt me…I will have a say,” Turney said, determined, before frowning as he mused, “I’m actually surprised you don’t want to kill him.”

Scarlett chuckled. “Octavius is short sighted on these things. He's impatient. I am not. Why would I kill him when he could instead spend years locked away in a tiny cell, screaming from the rooftops about his ‘delusions’, slowly going more and more insane as everyone stares on, either in pity or disgust?”

He let out a laugh of disbelief. “Yeah, you’re twisted.”

“Thank you, I do try,” she deadpanned.

He pushed to his feet, stretching again. “So, you said to…catch and stubbornly hold on… I can do that…”

His eyes were glued to the opening as he watched the vampire, werewolf, and phantom, in various different orders, go back and forth.

“I just…need to do it…at the right…time—” He leaped up through the hole, grabbing onto the phantom with a roar. Curling, Turney used his body weight to slam the phantom down onto the stage.

“The spell!” he growled, as he started to feel himself lift up.

Letting his zombie side free, he changed, jamming his fingers into the floorboards, instead of holding on. Turney basically used the full weight of his body to press the bastard down. Not even his slimy ass could wiggle free of this.

“LET ME GO!” Aurelius roared, bucking frantically.

Turney grunted in pain as the giant black wolf that was Theo landed on top of him, no doubt trying to help. He had to say, the werewolf was a hell of a lot heavier in this form.

Octavius flew up onto the stage with Min-ji, who had the liquid spell in her hand.

Aurelius’ eyes widened, his mouth snapping shut, as if realizing that it was for him, but it didn’t matter. Scarlett walked over then. He was unsure when she’d jumped out from under the stage.

Crouching down, Scarlett gripped the man’s chin and forced Aurelius’ mouth open. The phantom’s screeching began then, and continued endlessly.

Back in his humanoid form, Octavius hissed, “Get wrecked!” as Min-ji uncorked the bottle and dumped it into the man’s mouth.

As soon as it hit Aurelius’ throat, the shrieks stopped, and his form began to solidify. The ghostly body beneath him became less slippery and slimy by the second. On returning human, the phantom was left with two choices, either choke or swallow— Aurelius swallowed, while also gagging. Then again, the stuff had smelled putrid, so…probably did not taste great.

Scarlett released the man’s jaw as soon as all of the potion was down, stepping away. Turney was pretty sure she wiped her hands on Theo’s fur, based on the growl he let out before the wolf climbed off of him.

Aurelius’ face screwed up, looking like he was about to yell, but the man stopped, his eyes widening when he no doubt tried to change and nothing happened.

“What… What…did you do?” the phantom gasped, before starting to repeatedly scream, “WHAT DID YOU DO?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!!”

Pulling his hands free from the floor, Turney grabbed onto the man, who wasn’t as hard to hold now that he was human, and awkwardly pushed up to his feet, while not letting go.

“Anyone…think to bring some rope?”

Octavius smirked evilly, and pulled from his pocket…what he was going to guess…were the handcuffs they had used during sex. They were pink… He hadn’t known that, as the vampire had put them away before he had gotten a chance to look at them.

“That is not going to keep him in place,” he huffed. “Also, no! Put them away.”

“It was just an option!” Octavius grumbled, before slipping them back into his jacket.

“Why do you even have them in your pocket?!”

The man stared at him innocently. “Well…in case the mood hits.”

Turney groaned as he felt the blush spread across his face.

“I am learning things that I do not necessarily want to know,” Min-ji drawled.

Scarlett chuckled. “Been there, done that.”

“Found rope,” Theo announced. The werewolf came from behind the curtain on the stage with rope in his hands. The wolf held it out. “Honestly, I'm going to pretend I heard and saw nothing.”

Min-ji grabbed the rope from him, and together with Octavius, they quickly extracted the now sealed phantom from Turney’s hold. Tying him up quickly, they also gagged him, because the idiot was loud as hell.

“There we go!” Octavius said, before patting the phantom’s cheek. Aurelius was staring daggers of hatred at them at all, a rag now stuffed in his mouth.

Turney sat down on the stage with a sigh, wiping his slimy, bandaged covered hands on his sweatpants. It didn't really help as it had soaked underneath. “Now what? We got him…and he’s fully human. But how are we going to connect him to everything?”

Octavius frowned, standing there with his hands on his hips. The vampire’s head slowly tilted, until he suddenly perked up, gasping, “AH! I know, his handwriting will match the note! And those emails, and that app I downloaded, had to have come from him. Even if they can’t figure out how he did it all, they should be able to tie him to enough of the crimes that it wouldn’t be necessary.”

“The reapers will make sure he goes away, at the very least. Even if the one here hadn’t wanted to lift a finger to help,” Min-ji mused.

The witch was the only one who didn’t look dirty as hell from the encounter, while the rest of them were covered in a disgusting coating of…slime? It was shiny and…clear, but… ugh… It was kind of odd, as Aurelius hadn’t looked shiny. He’d been more of a soft translucent matte over all…

“Scarlett, CALL THE POLICE!” Octavius announced grandly.

Turney sighed. “Here’s hoping we don’t get arrested…again.”

“Technically, we were only really arrested once. Those other times we were just brought in for questioning, with strong emphasis that they WOULD arrest us if we didn’t show up,” the vampire pointed out sweetly, as if all of that made a difference.

“Semantics,” he scoffed.

“WAIT!” Octavius suddenly cried. “Before you call the police, I need to get my Glittery Case Board of Doom—I mean…the Case Discovery Board!”

He couldn’t help but mouth, ‘Glittery Case Board of Doom’. That was new…

“Why?” Turney sighed.

“Well…to explain the case, of course!”

Scarlett snorted. “What exactly do you need it to explain, Octavius?”

“Well, EVERYTHING!” The vampire let out a whine. “I didn’t spend all that time drawing those pictures so no one would see them!”

Theo chuckled. “Oh boy…this is going to be hilarious…”

Turney glared at the wolf. “You are more like Cormac than you let on.”

The wolf snorted. “You mean, Cormac is more like me than you assumed. I am the older brother.”

“Right…” He sighed and flinched as he found himself staring into Octavius’ big ocean-blue eyes.

The vampire’s bottom lip popped out, and he started to lay on the cuteness as he begged. “Please…hmm...PLEASE?!”

Rolling his eyes, he waved the man on. “Go. Go, get your board.”

“YAY!” Octavius squealed. The vampire jumped off the stage, and quickly disappeared into the front of the restaurant.

Shaking his head, he let out a tired groan.

“Min-ji,” Octavius’ voice floated back to them in an impatient whine, that was soft but clearly irritated. “I can’t get out!”

Theo snorted.

Min-ji chuckled. “Coming!” she called out as she jumped down from the stage.

“You know…” He eyed the other two. “Maybe we should change?”

They all stared at each other for a brief moment before hurrying after Min-ji.