The divine is full of monsters 

LUCKY 

Nike's fixation on Dakota is completely accidental. If he hadn't been by my side when that dove approached me, he would never have found his way onto Nike's radar. I wouldn't say it's directly my fault; I feel as though we both played our parts in this misfortune. But I will take responsibility for not clearing out the area immediately after noticing how hostile the dove was towards me. I should have realized something was amiss, that humans would only end up as collateral damage in a scuffle between beings of creation and devastation.

That's my bad, for sure.

On a brighter note, Dakota has come to terms with the fact that he's a wanted man. And by come to terms I mean he hasn't thrown up in the last few hours.

And it has been hours since our disastrous first meeting outside the bank. We've sat together in relative silence apart from the half hour it took for me to better explain the situation Dakota has landed himself in. There was minimal shouting, the bedside lamp was in brief danger of being thrashed against the window - but overall he remained quite calm. Then he threw up. But that was only once, and his stomach has calmed considerably since then.

However, he doesn't accept that he'll be staying with me for... however long it takes to sort things out with Nike. Twice now I've caught him trying to sneak out the door while I'm "passed out" on the bed. He doesn't seem to realize that as a non-human, I have a few advanced senses, and that I can hear him even when he's being sneaky with as much clarity as if he were bounding towards the door in lead-soled shoes. It's amusing, though, so I haven't bothered to tell him that any effort to escape from here is futile.

Luke arrives in the evening.

His face is grim, his usually lively eyes dimmed by foul news. He barely spares Dakota a glance before taking me aside, his hand tight on my upper arm, knuckles nearly white with the force of his grip.

"What is it?" I ask, anxious to know what's riled him up to this extent. Dakota, seated cross-legged atop the bed, mirrors my uneasy expression. He may not know who Luke is (he jumped rather high when the man appeared seemingly out of thin air in front of me) but he can read the importance of the moment on my face, and he wisely chooses not to interrupt.

"The ravens were stirring even before I came to gather them. Their ties to you have left them scrambling to find out what's troubling you."
I bite down on the inside of my cheek. Yet another problem I've caused.

"The other wolves were... less than enthusiastic to abandon their duties and enter the Woods, but they eventually complied with your wishes."

"Then what's making you look as though you've been punched in the face?"

Luke raises a brow but doesn't comment. "We're missing owls."

I can feel the blood drain from my face. The owls. Of all my followers, they're the masters of stealth, and I have them working as monitors who watch over the balance in various parts of the world, For them to have gone missing is unheard of. It's... worrying.

"Is everyone else accounted for?" I can't look at Luke, so my gaze slides past him to Dakota, who's still watching our exchange, perturbed but unable to fathom why, exactly. He catches my eye and lifts both brows, asking a silent question. I subtly shake my head, warning him off it; I'll catch him up on things once Luke leaves.

"By my count, yes."

"...don't send anyone out to look for them. I'll handle it."

"Lucky, boss, you know I trust you implicitly, but--"

"Luke." I sharpen his name on my tongue, the sound of it poised to strike something vital. His eyes narrow but he locks his jaw, dipping his head in acknowledgment. "That will be all for now, Luke."

He rolls his eyes skyward, threading a hand through his mane of heather-brown hair, before rolling his hand and bowing at the waist in a mock display of obedience. Then he's gone - another shadow among thousands in the room.

Dakota's on me before I can even take a breath, and I level something of an exasperated stare at him, which he blatantly chooses to ignore.

"Who was that?"

"Luke," I reply.

He blinks. "Didn't... I thought you said you don't have human... followers?" He scrunches up his face, trying to recall my exact wording on the subject. It's a marvel to look at, somehow, because like this he seems younger than his twenty-seven years allow. It returns some of the faded playfulness to his features, and it makes me think he was rather charming when he was a child. The laughter lines around his eyes say he probably has a nice smile.

"I don't, usually. Luke is an exception. His original form is that of a wolf - well, no, his original form is simply energy that I employed to do my bidding. As the world evolved, I adapted, as did my followers. But Luke... he came around at a time when humans were first flooding the earth, and he had that spark of man that many of my followers lacked. I felt it a shame to keep him bound in animal form, so... he is as he appears now because of that."
"...okay?"

I smile, just a flash of amusement across my lips, really, but a smile all the same. Dakota's much more manageable than I would have expected him to be. It's a relief, though I wonder how much of it is an act. He's yet to crack, despite ample opportunities to do so when he mistakenly believed me to be asleep; I'm unsure whether to call that an exemplary triumph of the human spirit, or sheer stupidity.

I'm beginning to lean more and more towards the latter option with every hour that passes.

"I would suggest that you pack a bag, Kota, but didn't quite have the forethought to bring one for you. Or clothes, for that matter. Also you have no toothbrush, but we'll remedy that as soon as possible, because I can assure you, it's just as unbearable for me as it is for you."

With the waning evening coming to a close, we'll have plenty of time to explore some of Nike's known haunts. I'm not laboring under any sort of delusion that I'll find them there - they're as clever as I am, after all - but if I'm fortunate, I might find traces of one or more of their followers. Those traces can lead me to a dove, and the dove will bring me that much closer to Nike themselves.

Once I've found Nike...

I haven't gotten that far yet, but I'm sure I'll manage something. Talking it out doesn't seem like it will go all that well for me, but I haven't ruled it out just yet. I'll keep my options open for now and whittle them down when the time calls for it.

Dakota stops me with a hand at my elbow (a feat I'll have to compliment him on, as I'd thought he was in that stage where touching me equated to touching something that had been dead for seven years), twisting me around so that we're facing one another. He looks concerned, for whatever reason. I tilt my head in question.

"You're... infuriatingly vague sometimes, ass."

Well, then. His rudeness wasn't just shock, it seems.

"You can't just tell me to pack up and move out without saying where you're going," he says tiredly. Like he's speaking to a child. How dare he. I also note that he uses you rather than we. As though he thinks he's getting out of this.

"We're going to flush out Nike's rats. Didn't I say that? Perhaps that was only in my head." I frown. "My apologies, Kota."
He knits his brows together, removing his hand from my arm. "You're thinking they'll lead you to their nest? So to speak, anyway."
"Something like that," I agree with another smile. And without a word of warning, I hook my fingers on the collar of his shirt, drag him closer, and have us both vanish into smoke.

_______________________________

We land in the depths of a darkened alleyway, the sudden materialization more jarring for Dakota than it is for me. I release him the moment we're both corporeal, and he braces himself against the wall of the closest building, hanging his head and breathing hard. I suppose I should have warned him, but in my experience, no word of advice can compensate for the surreal feeling of at once existing and being void.

The air is thick and humid, and I take a few deep breaths to acclimate myself to the change in air. Greece is warm and pleasant and dark, so early in the morning that nothing stirs apart from the wind teasing at my hair. I can't see any people from our current vantage point, and I take that as the stroke of luck that it is. More than once I've appeared in the midst of a crowd and barely passed myself off as a vagabond magician (a series of events that never fails to make Luke double over in raucous laughter when he forces me to retell them during slow nights).

Dakota shakily joins me as I pad to the mouth of the alley and peek out into the adjacent streets. Dark windows and locked doors greet me, and I grin to myself, pleased that for once things are going according to plan.

Then Dakota drives his fist into my arm, seemingly with the intent to break something.

"...why?" I question, flicking my eyes away from the rapidly fading red mark to Dakota's taut face.

"Don't act so human when you're capable of that kind of shit."
"Oh? Would you prefer that I distinguish myself a bit more from the human race?"
"It wouldn't hurt," Dakota mumbles, peering across the street at the sign of some restaurant or another. He squints, no doubt wondering why he can't understand the language.

The change takes longer this time, though I'm only manipulating a part of this body rather than the whole thing. But now I'm forming completely new bones, stitching together sinew and skin from scratch; I alter the shirt I'm wearing just enough to accommodate the protruding joints and muscles that erupt from my back. When all is said and done, I shake myself out, touching a conscious hand to the pointed horns now adorning the crown of my head.

I clear my throat, and when Dakota turns to look back at me, the wings unfurl from my back with a snap, the tips of the outermost feathers skimming along his cheeks. He stumbles back, swallowing a gasp, his hands clamping over his face; he looks furtively between the horns and the wings, his curiosity shining past the dull pulse of fear shadowing the grey-green of his eyes.

"Demon or angel?" I tuck the wings against my back, crossing my arms expectantly. "How do you see me, Dakota? What would you prefer to see when you look at me?"

He swallows again, dropping his hands to fidget with the hem of his wrinkled uniform. He doesn't answer for several heartbeats, and in that time the extra appendages have melted away, leaving me starkly human in the sporadic moonlight.

I'm about to dismiss the matter altogether and simply walk off, hoping he'll follow without me having to tell him to do so, when he says, very quietly, "I'm sorry."
His sincerity catches me so completely off guard that I stumble, only just catching myself on the worn stone of the shop beside me before I hit the ground disgracefully.

"I keep... I keep forgetting that you're not..." He waves a hand, as if hoping to pluck the word he's searching for from thin air. "You're separate, aren't you? From everything and everyone. Not good, not evil."

His smile is blinding when it appears. More radiant than anything produced by that wretched, twisted dove. He's really trying here, isn't he? To accept that this isn't some fever dream concocted by his addled brain. To accept that I am real, that I am his reality. That I am not the monster humanity has always labeled me as in their myths and nightmares.

Well. I may be a monster still, regardless of the thoughts spinning new stories in Dakota's head. Anything so caked in blood and swathed in death can hardly be called anything else. But there is purpose in my monstrous life, and that is all the comfort I require.

"You know," I say, disregarding the somewhat profound realization that Dakota has just come to, "the Greeks got it right. Almost, anyway."

"Got what right?" Dakota asks hesitantly.

"Me." And that's all I say before dragging Dakota out into the hot Grecian night, already in pursuit of the flickering golden aura I can feel flitting throughout the city.