by thedoctor, NotWedge and Sonhaven
The Fish Factory:
The mattress squeaked under the weight of Dirk Bell dropping down onto it. He hated traveling by any means not created or domesticated by man. Having a spell and a fifth-dimensional imp carry you across the globe was not his idea of first class. He gazed out the window of his room and saw the old fish factory below. The ex-soldier wished that he had a better view. At least the wind was out of the east this time. Maybe he could get a little rest and put this whole zombie/Amazon thing out of his mind.
"Can I speak to you for a minute?" said the head that peeked in through his door. The body soon followed. Tayden pulled up a chair and sat at the foot of Dirk's bed.
"For fuck's sake! You'd think an angel would have better manners."
"Oh. Sorry. But about the book we found."
"You're talking about the book that you said was it? That He said was it?"
"Yeah. That one. I've been thinking about it. He told me that it was the book that we were meant to find. He never said that it was the book that we were hired to find. It's got to be for something else."
"Look," Dirk said as he stood up. "I don't give a damn if it sprouts wings and flies. It wasn't what we were after, and it wasn't what I was willing to fight a fucking zombie horde for."
"Sometimes, there are things that are more important than..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the gunslinger said in a rhythm of annoyance while pushing Tayden out of his door.
"I'm not leaving," the angel said, taking his stand. "What I have to say is of the most importance, and I'm not leaving until I say it."
"Okay. You stay and deliver your sermon. I'm leaving." He walked out the door and slammed the door behind him.
"I need to start thinking these things through a little better," the ex-angel mused to himself and left the room.
Tayden walked into the room with the small TV. "Anything interesting on?"
"Nothing much," Drake Marshall replied. "Just the worst scum I ever took off of the street getting released on a technicality."
"Oh. I'm sorry," Tayden said as he watched the smirking, platinum blonde man on the TV screen climb into a black limo with his team of lawyers.
"That's Jonas Cascade. Seriously bad news. He's rich and powerful in more ways than one. I thought I'd finally taken him off the streets for good on my last mission as Nightwatch. Guess that shows me for being too noble to kill the bad guys."
"There's nothing wrong with not wanting to kill."
"Yeah, I'm gonna keep telling myself that when his body count starts going up again. See ya around. I'm afraid I'm going to be sick if I keep watching this."
Tayden noticed that Drake was leaning on his cane more than usual as he limped out of the room.
Elsewhere:
"You look like you've been through Hell." A lovely Scottish accent filled Dirk's ears.
"Hell is not the word for it."
"What happened?" She sat in the chair across from him.
"Shit that you'd never believe."
Aine just smiled a wicked grin. "I see that it hasn't improved your attitude."
"Very little does," he said, returning the grin. "But now it's over. I have nothing on the calendar coming up soon. How about you?"
"Oh, I've got to leave in the morning. Somewhere in Asia. Shouldn't be gone more than a few days. You can ring me up next week."
"There's the problem," he said, leaning back to allow his waiter to deliver the meals. "I'm not much of an extended planner. I pretty much just look at the day ahead of me."
"Well," she said while looking at her plate, "I see you planned far enough in advance to make this dinner as short as possible. I can guess what you have planned for later."
"One day at a time."
Outside the Fish Factory:
It had been a year since this was a fish factory, but the sea gulls still swarmed it. Old habits die hard, I suppose... but then again, so does the smell of dead fish. Tayden sat at the end of a pier, formerly used for fishing boats that docked onto the plant. Staring at the setting sun, with his feet dangling over the water, he thought to himself.
Tayden:
Books of power, zombies, sweltering jungles, killers set free, and the anti-MBL... chaos and death averted for another day... all the kids get to wake up and go to school tomorrow, and mom and dad get to go out and bring home some bacon.
Meanwhile, Drake gets weaker, Dirk grows even bitterer, Euro sinks deeper into insanity... and the distance between who I was and who I am rapidly becomes a gulf.
It's so easy to drown in sorrow here. So easy to lose heart. So easy to get lost in the moments and lose sight of the bigger picture...
Wait a minute...
That's why I'm here, isn't it? To get lost in those moments... to get to experience what I couldn't from observation alone. It's one thing to watch these people go through life, and it's another to put on their shoes and start walking.
Ha! That's why we're all here, isn't it? To feel the pain and love. To walk a mile in their shoes. It's not the destination, it's the journey. You didn't send me here to do something. Oh, Father, I've been so vain! You don't need me to accomplish your goals. You're GOD. You sent me here to... live!
Tayden stood up, looked up, and shouted toward the sky. "That's it, isn't it?!" he yelled.
As if on cue, Tayden saw a gull leave the flock and glide right over him. In what seemed like slow motion, the bird dropped an enormous bomb of excrement directly into the right eye of the angel.
Tayden wiped his face, smiled, and muttered almost inaudibly, "Yep."