Setting
The stench of booze, tobacco, and cigarette smoke are thick in the air, and the place has a rugged, and weathered feel to it.
Like most of the urban packs, Baron's wolves have staked out a decent sized territory within Vargeras, and though The Den doesn't maintain a strict guest list at the door, members of other packs are liable to be met with hostility.
The den house also doubles as a bar; however, humans though allowed, might find service difficult if they aren't good at blending into the rugged atmosphere that is The Den.
Minor brawls and pack spats are relatively common place here, though mind the furniture lest Baron get involved. One should also note that pack law bars the use of weapons with settling internal spats between pack members.
Though what came next likely saved Bowen the trouble of dealing with a bunch of territorial wolves.
The front door swung open and a man and a woman entered, unclothed and with their exposed flesh peppered with what appeared to be small shards of shrapnel. Only instead of piercing the body and bleeding, it looked as though they had been grafted to the body leaving it blistered and red.
"Jesse, we're going to need you downstairs," Carlisle told one of the younger looking individuals that was currently engaged at one of the pool tables.
"Uh... sure thing," he answered as he passed his pool cue to one of the other players. "Everything alright?" he asked.
"No."
The remainder of the conversation would go unheard as the trio made their way down into the cellar.
Meanwhile a woman had sidled up into a seat next to Bowen. She was a young woman with auburn hair and coy smile.
"Tell you what, stranger. I'll get you that drink, and if you tell me a bit about yourself maybe I'll see about helping you find that man you're looking for," she offered as she signaled for Jacques to go ahead and poor the drink.
The tender didn't look none too pleased with her fraternizing with the stranger, but as long as one of the pack was vouching for him he went ahead and provided the requested drink.
Aberfeldy 21 is a single malt whiskey. Twenty-one years of aging placed it as a flagship vintage for the brand. It was expensive for this location but not something he would normally drink if he wanted scotch. He raised the glass to his face and smiled. Its nose was a mixture honey with a just a hint of fruit. The drink had a thick malt, enlivened by a fresh, zesty quality. Don't let that fool anyone though. It was still whiskey. He turned to the woman, producing a smile of his own but not drinking yet.
Bowen chuckled at something he nearly said that he found greatly amusing before speaking. "Thanks. My name is Bowen Eli Davion and I was born in Qeulaya in the summer of 1432. That country was absorbed some time ago into the Terran National Government." He commented as if giving a lesson in history and then sipped his drink, letting the smooth vanilla and refined smokey flavor pass over his tongue and down the back of his throat. He lowered the drink and half extended his right hand to the woman. "Your name?"
"Though, I always did wonder why Baron lets you operate out there. I imagine there's a story behind that."
It was three years ago that Baron's territory had spread to include the business district along the west end of Vargeras. Baron had decreed the Vindex off limits to the pack, and Bowen exempt from affiliation. Just like that without so much as an explanation, Bowen had been left to continue running his business unhindered by the Bloodstone pack's encroachment.
Baron had never spoke of it to either pack, nor Bowen, and it simply remained as an unspoken understanding.
"I'm Vanessa," she added. "So what do you need with Baron?"
"A pleasure to meet you Vanessa. What do I want with Baron? Nothing specific. I just wanted to catch up with him. It has been about five years but I did want to speak to him about Ardelean." The Ardelean Society had been more active and more brazen in their attacks on the local werewolves. He could still smell the smoldering flesh of those that had retreated to the cellar. Bowen had even stopped allowing himself the freedom of running on a full moon out of some concern that he may not wake from his primal dream.
"He's out on a run right now," she explained. "He usually hangs out in here though. If you stick around long enough, you'll probably catch him."
Her eyes slid past him to the pool tables. "I don't suppose you play?" she inquired.
There was that coy little smile again.
She broke and sunk a striped ball and another on her second, a combo shot off a solid. He settled down to the table for his first shot, a rather easy corner shot off of one side of the table. He leaned across the table and pulled his cue back. "Then I will have to hang around for a bit.", he said with a smirk, his steel colored eyes glancing up to her and then back to the table before making his shot.
"So how do you know Baron?" Vanessa asked as she leaned over to line up another shot.
Eyes where on the both of them as they played, but she didn't seem to be paying it any mind.
Bowen didn't go into who had fired those bullets and even if he was pressed about it he would only reply that it was not his place to go into further detail on the incident. "I am surprised Baron remembered me after that night." He had missed his shot, it had been a difficult one. He moved away from the table and looked at his hand as if he still saw all the blood. It had not been the first time he was covered in blood. It would not be the last time.
"And you're not Pack, why's that?" Vanessa asked.
Bowen had been a leader of men, a leader of knights serving under a king. He had served faithfully but his men were slaughtered save him and then they were all branded as traitors. His titles were stripped. His lands were seized. He was left with nothing. It was not in him to give that trust to someone again. He was looking at her as she attempted the shot but he was muddled in his own memories, so many memories.
"What are you wasting your time with this loser for, babe?" Dominique Bastien asked. "Didn't you hear him? He's too good for us."
He sniffed at her hair.
"I'm not your babe, Bastien, and if you don't take your arms off me you're going to be missing that bean sized pecker you call a dick come morning," she warned him.
"Hey now," he said as he backed up holding his arms in a mock display of surrender. "No need for any of that..."
With Bastien providing an ample distraction, Marc dropped a beefy hand down onto Bowen's shoulder. Should Bowen turn around Marc was lined up to sucker punch him to get in the first hit.
None too amused at being utilized as a distraction Vanessa drove an elbow back into Bastien's gut while he was still too close to avoid it. He grunted and doubled over and she turned and shoved him back against the wall with the pool cue pressed lengthwise across his throat to make sure he didn't join the fray. Bowen was on his own with Marc though.
"Marc," he called sharply, narrowing his eyes at the other man, "He's not causing any trouble. Leave it. He knows Baron, let Baron deal with him."
He stepped over towards the pool table, but as of yet made no move to physically intervene.
To his credit Bowen did not fall. He did not even stumble away. If Marc didn't press the attack Bowen would turn back around and bring his right hand up to his jaw as if to mock Marc. There was no rage in Bowen's eyes. In fact he had the look of someone who was victorious and he had not even thrown a punch. It was then that Snow called out to Marc and if afforded a moment Bowen would lean his pool cue against a nearby wall.
When and if Marc pressed the attack he would find his follow up blows deflected. The movements of Bowen's body, his shoulders, arms, and hands pushed blows wide and to the outside. The tactic had the side effect of unbalancing Marc and opening up the centerline of his body for precise swift jabs to the bridge of his nose. The first or second jab would bloody Marc's nose, a psychological victory for Bowen.
If Marc threw more than a few more punches and did not back off Bowen would follow up one jab with another swift strike to Marc's Larynx. The interruption in Marc's breathing would likely cause him to reach for his own throat to which Bowen would respond by boxing Marc's ears with the flats of his hands. This would provide Bowen plenty of time to finish the larger man but he didn't. He was taking away Marc's senses one by one. Bowen would back away and let Marc recover if he could.
Bowen's precise blows had caught him off guard as he hadn't expected the stranger to have the military training he appeared to have. He was on his guard now though and from the way he centered his weight and kept his arms squared off to his body, Marc seemed to have some measure of training himself. Military perhaps? Or law enforcement. It was difficult to say where he had learned to fight, but he was a man who knew how to control his size and strength.
Meanwhile strong arms locked around Venessa and pulled her off from Bastien much to her ire.
"Keep her out of this," he told the man holding her before turning to point a finger at Snow. "And you keep out of this too, Snow."
He straightened his shirt before picking up a pool cue from the table and giving it a quick examination.
"Baron's going to have your ass for this, Bastien," Vanessa warned.
"Baron's not here, babe," he replied smuggly before moving in to take a wild swing for Bowen's back with it.
Most of the people in the room seemed content to simply observe, rather than join the fray. In fact, money was exchanging a few hands as quick bets where being laid.
He caught Bastien's wrist at the start of the man's swing. Using his momentum he twisted the man's hand down violently with enough force to break the arm at the wrist. With a pull and a twist of his hips, he would send Bastien sprawling to the floor between the two fighters and the cue clattering and then rolling away, across the floor. Bowen stepped around Bastien which also put some distance between Marc and him.
The message was clear. This was between him and Bowen now.
Bastien on the other hand, didn't quite get the message. As he saw the smug look in Vanessa's eyes, his own turned to a wolfish golden hue. There was a sound akin to a growl in his throat as he grabbed an abandoned beer bottle that had rolled up against the leg of one of the pool tables.
He smashed it against the pool table leg and made it to one knee as he eyed Bowen up for an opening.
Much as he disdained the manner in which this fight had begun, if Bowen was rising to the challenge, he wasn't going to intervene between him and Marc. But Bastien was another matter. "I would have hoped my packmate had more balls than to resort to a broken bottle from behind. That's a coward's tactic."
He trained every day of his life. His welfare, his life, and the lives of those who served under him depended on his physical and mental performance in the face of adversity and extreme violence. Bowen had obtained peak physical fitness and maintained that level for decades and it did show subtely in this fight. If the fight continued it would be indisputable. He was a trained killer, that made a life out of killing those that needed to be put down.
On a lighter note: He even had plans to travel to Wing City this coming summer to take part in the second annual Asland Ninja Warrior competition. Of course he would be running the courses against a handicap. He was happy about it even if he had to run those courses against a handicap.
He really had no reason to advance on Marc. So he waited and if Marc wanted to close the distance again the fight would shift into something much more brutal, much more violent than the previous engagement. Eventually Bowen's constant training and experience would produce an opening that could be capitalized on and this opening would result in a strike to a vulnerable part of Marc's anatomy. Once the larger werewolf was stunned or disorientated the follow up would be a more permanent and debilitating disable. "Easy...", he said calmly.
It was very possible someone was going to walk away from this fight with a permanent limp and it wasn't going to be Bowen unless Marc got extremely lucky, decided to up the ante with a weapon, or shifted.
The crack of bone was audible even over Marc's shout of pain and anger. The damage to the knee was furthered as he came down hard on it, adding the impact of his own weight to the already damaged joint.
It drew more sounds of pain that he bit off through clenched teeth as he held himself up on the edge of a pool table.
With Marc down though, there was no one to keep the rest at bay. Bowen would find himself alone, in a bar full of hostile wolves that were weighing up the risk of moving in on him.
Baron's return from his run likely couldn't have been timed better as the massive black furred wolf shoved the door open to pad inside. He threw his head from side to side, a warning glance to anyone thinking of continuing the confrontation. His steps stopped beside Marc as he took in the situation. Two of his wolves where down, with Snow atop one of them and a piece of broken glass discarded on the floor beside them.
His fur rapidly receded and Baron stood up from the floor.
"What's going on here?" he demanded.
"Marc and Bastien bit off more than they could chew," Vanessa bit out. "That's what happened."
The wolf holding her restrained let her go now that it seemed that the fight was over and she brushed her arms off indignantly.
Baron was well aware of Bastien's behavioral problems, and Marc's unwillingness to pass up a fight, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to sort out what was going on.
"Get them to the hospital," he stated bluntly.
A couple of onlookers moved in to help Marc and Bastien to their feet and from the bar.
Unless otherwise addressed, he simply took his seat and ordered another drink. It was over, and time to go back to solemnly brooding.
Though he had seemed to be enjoying the fight as it happened caught by the slight and subtle smirk at the corner of his lips. This had been a ruse to infuriate his attackers and a reaction of his own self confidence. Now that the fight was over there was not a hint of it remaining. After Marc and Bastien were pulled to their feet and then helped out of the bar Bowen would speak softly to Baron.
"I need a word with you concerning Ardelean.", said Bowen in a soft tone and with a serious look on his face.
Bowen gave no apology for the damage done to Marc or Bastien as he felt he had nothing to apologize for and to do so would only show weakness. On the flip side he did not necessarily expect an apology from Marc, Bastien, or anyone else as to apologize for one's nature or someone else's actions would be foolish. It was the rule of the strong, common in many packs he had encountered, something he was intimately familiar with, and something that was sometimes at odds with the world as it got smaller and society became kinder and gentler. In many packs this was the case and he had experienced it first hand from his birth into the world and again when he first howled to the moon. He had not always been the lone wolf he was today. His long since dead liege was not the last to betray him.
"Carlisle and Julienne are downstairs," she told him. "It looked like there was some trouble out in the streets."
Baron grabbed his clothes from the floor where he had discarded them earlier.
"Downstairs with me," he told Bowen as he headed for the cellar door.
"You too," he added as he looked to Snow before he started down the steps.
It was easy to mistake Snow for a kid, but truth be told he hadn't been a kid for some time now, and he proved that tonight. It was more than that though. He had shown an initiative and a willingness to enforce, and he hadn't succumbed to the pack mentality that often gripped their kind. He had a good head on his shoulders and a touch of morality that was needed if a pack was to maintain its humanity. It was time he started treating the kid like an adult.
The invitation for Snow to join Baron in speaking among the senior pack members was a first.
A small part of him was envisioning what Max's reaction might have been. He wondered if his friend would have been clapping him on the back or if his bitterness about not being turned would have made this into a point of contention.
There was no use dwelling on it now, though. Max was gone. He made his way down the steps.
"Hmm.." He huffed slowly through his nose.
The cherry of the cigarette grew brighter as he stood there in thought for a moment. The stench of wolf hung in the air like a noxious cloud, threatening to gag the vampire. He blew out the smoke through his nose to cleanse out the stink.
His unkempt hair fell to his shoulders from under the well worn brimmed hat he wore. His leather coat was equally worn and patched in places where it had been ripped at one point. He trekked mud from his boots on the floor as his made his way through the bar, the silver necklace of the cross making some noise as he moved.
He walked over towards the bar, pulling up a stool. If asked, he would most likely order a drink, but his main purpose was to sit and listen in and observe.
To most it would seem he was oblivious to the scene around him as he approached the bar and took a seat. In reality He saw everything as he crossed the room but there was no reason for him to stare and ogle.
"One of you're beer's on tap please, surprise me." He would suddenly say aloud to whomever was currently on staff.