The rest of Marco's day went by in a flash of fearful glares, boring substance lacking classes and him being stuck in his own head while trying avoid the cameras littering the high-school. He had a feeling Gerard was watching them all like a Hawk.
He would never be prey, but he also wouldn't be an idiot. Until he understood enough, Gerard was a gazelle he wouldn't hunt. Even if that's what he was— a gazelle, game. They all were. But they all also had their time.
The greatest hunters are seldom impatient.
So Marco played it safe, and went through the day as a normal high schooler.
No seizing girls with odd supernatural sensory abilities, no young WereWolf with a mutated hand, no rambunctious WereCoyote nipping at his heels. Just class, his own thoughts and home.
He made sure to stay away from Scott and Stiles who'd definitely try to trap him inside their pale blue death machine again. He didn't have the patience for it.
He didn't have the patience for much at all by the time the earsplitting final bell rang. And when those doors opened, he was gone.
As soon as the sounds of students and cheap cars faded, he broke off into a sprint, feeling his joints and muscles loosen as his rage and frustration burned like gasoline in a fuel tank.
Once he was even further away, he slung his massive two hundred and fifty pound guitar case over his shoulder and began leaping— bounding all through the surrounding forest and across the empty street, letting the screaming winds fill his ears and run through his dreads like an invisible earthly comb.
Every jump— without sound, within speed. Every land, shook the grounds, sending dead leaves flying in a twisting gale of dirt and sticks before he'd take off once more, soaring across the street to soundlessly crash into the woodland on the other side.
With the encroaching darkness of early spring afternoon settling over Beacon Hills, he was little more than a blur— a sound to any passerby in car. And cars never took this road anyway. As if no one ever left Beacon…..
Something he'd do when his job was finished— unfortunately that date had been pushed back by Gerard…..and Scott— and so many other distractions.
Marco ceased his leaping mode of travel and settled with running, letting out a roaring bark that sounded both feline and wolf-like as he slashed at a passing tree and ripped such a large chunk out of it that he heard the tall wooden monolith collapse behind him as he pressed on toward home.
So much for enough control to fill an ocean…..
***
After leaving the limits of Beacon Hills, he came up on his home shortly. Very shortly. He was a fast runner— and an even faster jumper.
Pouncing was kind of his thing— his entire families thing. To make it a mode of travel was only natural for short distances. So getting home was a cakewalk.
But it was dark, the warm and beautiful sun relegated to hiding behind the surrounding woodland and city life as the waning Moon rose.
Violence and Serenity, forever at ends.
Marco pulled his eyes from the sky and looked to the house residing behind his home.
A small and dilapidated doghouse of a home bathed in shades of blues, greens, yellows and purples. It looked like alien vomit— if alien vomit could be adorned with flowers, motivational hanging messages carved into wood and unnaturally clean windows.
Kat's home. His neighbor without sight and full of insight. The house didn't always look so ridiculous— but one day after she'd perfectly executed a full force combo concluded with a crescent kick strong enough to knock over her standing punching bag, she simply had the impulse.
He warned her against it but she seemed liberated by the fact that she couldn't see what she was doing— or understand the types of looks passerby's sent towards her home. Eventually Marco gave up and helped her finish. Even in the darkness he could see where he painted…..and where she splashed.
His brushstrokes were forward, hard, leaving lines in the wood while hers were light swirling and twisting coils of intertwining color and pigmentation.
...…
"I'm studying fucking paint….." Marco realized before he angrily adjusted his hoodie and approached her door to attempt an apology for the previous morning— along the way he could scent check her home and see if she was still watching the news like a hawk.
Easy.
He approached the door in a rush, letting his hard calloused knuckles hit the surface to send the sound thudding through the house.
The darkness inside didn't perturb him. Kat never turned on the lights. She simply walked amidst the darkness, dorkishly joking with her cats while she went about her evenings.
He could hear none of that now— other than the cats purring as they rubbed against the door on the other side.
He raised his nose into the air and took a sniff.
Nothing.
Old usual scents.
No sound from the tv.
She was still at work.
Late shift maybe…..
Apologies would have to wait. He wasn't good at them anyway.
With a exhale of relief he returned to his home, not even bothering with going inside as he hopped the gate and entered his training grounds in the backyard.
He still had some fuel to burn. And burn he would. Like the sun if he could.
***
Minutes passed in a blur, and darkness descended as a slowly creeping veil of shadows.
He could see fine as he casually wrapped his knuckles, wrists and ankles. After he was done, he removed his shirt and put on a pair of shorts before approaching his heavy bag.
Slowly, he began working the bag. Light punches, feints, elbows, and kicking combos. Over time the intensity increased, picking up in speed and force after every combo finished. And after every combo the style seamlessly morphed as if he were a living array of combat arts of full display. High kicks, question mark kicks, high knees, spinning elbows, palm strikes, capoeira kicks.
After a few minutes of working the bag his hits began to sound like gun shots, and his muscles bulged beneath his skin. Black and blond fur spread across his forearms, chest, back and shins like armor. His eyes glimmered in the darkness and his ears sharpened to bladed points.
He'd grown a few inches causing his high kicks to soar over the top of the bag, he was too caught up in the moment to care and simply spun and flowed into back kicks and elbows that slid the punching bag across his patio as if it were a rag doll.
The odd half form between man and beast gave more power to his hits and stoked his aggression. He let it for the time being.
He hadn't used his half form in a long time— it wasn't often used for anything other than hard training or rough housing with family— as he did sometimes as a child. He often watched his sisters in the background instead. To see them move was like watching art in motion. Their speed and fluid ferocity was dizzying— amazing.
The men were more violent in their half forms, using their unbreakable defenses to bash each-other into rocks and and bite deep enough to make him cringe. Whenever they had visitors, they cringed as well.
His race was unlike many others from more modern portions of the world, where the classic shifter died out—and a new was born. Where Shifters were out of touch with their beast for generations over. They didn't know— some did, but it diluted their bloodline, dimmed the spark. Leaving their transformations slow— agonizing and lackluster. And without a half form— or even a full form. His family— his kind, was centered around staying in touch with such things. The animal held strong in their blood and seamlessly blended to them. Now only to him. All that remained, to him.
He was thankful for it. Thankful for his connection— his half form, and the memories associated with it.
Happy memories were rare.
Bad ones were inescapable. They flanked the happy memories like they were hunting them, coming in blurred flashes like the attacks of a cornered cat.
Dead bodies...
Blood dying the sands red under silvery yellow hybrid light.
Purple flames…..
Inhuman laughter blending with childlike cries for help.
A beast— a quadrupedal silvery-black furred monstrosity with the mane of a lion and long limbed ghastly body of a wolf. It's sabered fangs like swords as it stalked toward him under the silvery gold light.
In the distance, something flew overhead, a shadow that quickly darkened his vision as it absorbed the light and warmth of everything.
A woman roared in the distance as her children were slain and blasted to ash.
"Mother..." Marco's mouth moved as he tore into the bag he could no longer see, but the sound of his voice was eerily childlike.
The beast snarled, eyes flashing a color he couldn't comprehend before it dug its claws into the dry earth and lunged for him.
"Father— STOP!" He snarled, sending his hand towards the lunging monster.
The memory faded, he stood back on his patio, growling as he shook with his arm piercing through the heavy bag and out the other end.
Sand and pebbles spilled from the punctured leather like blood and guts.
He shivered to himself before removing his arm from the bag and beginning to clean up.
He was now tired. But he didn't want to sleep…..
After a few minutes of cleanup, he detached the heavy bag from the pole it rested on and tossed it off into the grass where it landed beside dozens of other heavy bags full of holes and blunt force dents.
He'd have to clean that up soon. But not now.
In a daze he traveled to his room after checking on his mother.
He stood at the foot of his bed for what felt like ever before he sat on it and reached under his pillow, immediately feeling his fingers brush against a leathery surface.
He grabbed the book with a hunger and pulled it out, letting the moonlight illuminate its surface. Not that he needed it.
Still, a little light was enjoyable.
And the book was informative— rarer than rare. A gift from his father actually. An odd gift at the time, but now he knew it was meant to help him for what was to come. For what had already arrived.
Just as the Hunters had a book on Beasts.
The Beasts through the all the generations of war and strife had learned. Differences, variations, norms, historical and cultural nuances in the ones who studied them. The Hunters.
And within this book, he hoped to find answers for all the questions the day had brought him.
Within this book, the information of centuries of research dyed each page and picture. Because this book was the anti-bestiary. The collection of cruel minded criminals. The genesis of genociders.
A one of a kind amalgamation of information and histories taken from the other side, The Huntsman Codex.
As Marco began digging into the large book, he heard Kat's ride pull into her driveway. He didn't move, he'd talk with her some other time.
He had work to do.