Humdrum

He knows of their arrival before they leap out of their vehicle: the great raven that alights on his windowsill tells him so. And thus when the young men, shushing each other in panicked voices, drag their comrade out of the back seat towards the side entrance of the great white building, he is already waiting for them and holding open the door.

"Upstairs," he says.

They cringe. It's been a difficult night. He can smell the exhaustion on their breath, held at bay only by the adrenaline still sparking in their limbs. Even without any lights on, he can see the bruises and cuts on their bodies: the heightened pulse of the body healing itself, packing the injuries with red- and white-blood cells, glimmers.

"How far?" one of them, the one he doesn't recognise, asks.

"All the way." He begins to walk.

The new boy curses under his breath, but one of the others slaps him on the back of the head. Yellow Dog -- so called because he erroneously renamed himself at his initiation, confusing the pictograms for 'mad' and 'yellow' -- dips his head in a grudging bow to the healer. "Sorry, Ox. He's new."

By the time the others have dragged the comatose victim up the stairs, they've left a trail of blood behind them and Ox has prepared his infirmary: a basin of boiled water sits at his elbow, and the gurney has had a fresh layer of plastic sheeting laid down. The gangsters lay their casualty on the gurney and step back, muttering apprehensively: the rooftop garden of the clan association that Ox claims for his own has been set up with all the trappings of ritual. A small gazebo built like a pagoda sits in the corner, a fountain feeds an otherwise-placid pool, and at the cardinal directions flap banners exhorting the spirits' benevolence and blessings.

Of course, nobody gains initiation into a triad gang without some sort of ceremonial investiture, but with the gang's recruitment at an all-time high, most officers have dispensed with the elaborate, ostentatious rituals of blood-bonding and oath-swearing with mere window-dressing: a sip of tea, a red packet for good luck, and suchlike.

Ox shakes his head to himself as he regards their jitters. Cowards. No wonder they're so badly cut-up. He resolves that the ones still standing do not deserve access to his arts, and focuses on the one lying before him.

He fought bravely, that much is evident: his wounds are all along his front. The knife-gashes along his arms are nearer the wrist than the elbow: gotten while attacking, not attempting to shield himself from steel with flesh. Most of them bleed sluggishly, and are of little concern. What perturbs Ox is the bandage wound tight over the young bravo's chest: true enough, when he cuts through the cloth and displaces the dressing, the youth's laboured breathing produces a sickening, sucking whistle.

I don't have much time. The rudimentary first-aid he's taught to the gang members has probably saved this young man's life.

He turns to the assembled gangsters. "Get out," he says bluntly. "I need to work alone."

The new kid looks like he's about to protest, but Yellow Dog's upraised fist sends them on their way.

Ox gathers clean water in cupped palms and washes blood out of the ragged gash. Too deep for the switchblades and boxcutters and kitchen knives these kids tend to sport. A machete, then, or maybe a kukri: the cut is long, and mostly shallow, but Ox's enhanced vision can see the life spurting from where a blade has slipped between ribs to nick the lung wall.

He holds the edges of the cut closed with one hand, striking a series of pressure points with the other, grunting each time as he does so, expelling forcefully the energised qi his body respires. He breathes deep of the sacred air of the Hallow. Blood flow slows, and the flesh beneath his hand grows hot. In a few moments, the horrible whistling sound subsides as the worst of the hurts closes.

Nodding in satisfaction, he reaches for his implements, and begins to sew the gash shut. He then washes and cleans all the other wounds, which begin to seem shallower and scab over as his hands pass.

By the time Yellow Dog returns, the injured man's colour has improved visibly, and his chest rises and falls with steady breathing. "How is he?" Yellow Dog asks, as Ox dresses the fighter's wounds with purely mundane skill.

"He'll live. It'll take at least a half year for him to recover fully, and he'll need a nourishing diet and bed-rest to get there."

Yellow Dog shrugs dismissively. "Shit, the money's not an issue. That new stuff we're moving has been selling well. Better than well. I'll be losing more money on lost business from his injury than on getting him back on his feet. I need more boys."

"You should be mindful of the ones you already have," Ox reminds him. "Take that new kid for instance. Looked scared half to death."

The gangster snorts. "Almost pissed himself. I swear he shrieked like a girl even before we got jumped."

Some instinct sparked in Ox's mind. "Are you quite sure he didn't?"

"What are you talking about? Why would he-- oh. Oh. Fuck. Goddamn. Fucking piece of shit! I'm going to get that stinking cunt!" Yellow Dog is up on his feet, yelling for his posse, before Ox can finishing cleaning a long cut on the back of his hand.

Ox waits for the gangsters to discover that the new kid has already fled the building, and for them to set off after him, before he acts. He cleans up after them, mopping up the blood splattering the stairs, and changes into a clean, long-sleeved sweatshirt and nondescript sweatpants.

He cups water from the pool and drinks it, tasting on his tongue the tingle of the Supernal energies suffusing it. The tingle becomes an itch as his skin toughens and the long bones of his legs subtly reconfigure beneath his flesh. His fingers sprout long, sharp claws, and his eyes burn yellow and slitted beneath his brow. Up in the sky, he can sense his familiar circling the new kid, having followed him since he fled the building.

Hopping from rooftop to rooftop, galloping on all fours, Ox avoids the narrow streets and keeps a low profile to avoid being spotted. His strong claws gain him purchase and an antelope's digitigrade legs power his leaps.

While Yellow Dog and his gang are still tearing up the neighbourhood, Ox crouches on the roof of the warehouse where the young kid has taken refuge. The gloom within is no obstacle to his enhanced eyes, and he makes out the shape of the kid, now far from timorous, as he puffs out his chest and laughs, regaling a group of other young men with the story of that night's treachery. These bear the tattoo of a rival gang, and Ox's lips curl in instinctive revulsion.

The raven alights on his forearm. It cocks its head as it studies the scene.

"Many," it notes.

"Many," Ox agrees.

"Iron teeth," it adds.

Ox curses himself for not having spotted the weapons earlier. True enough, machetes were in evidence.

"Break sun," he whispers, indicating to the spirit-familiar the halogen tubes illuminating the interior of the warehouse. Strength flows down his arm, and the raven's skin strains with barely-contained power.

"We hunt," the spirit sings as it lofts from his arm. Darting through an open window, it arrows straight for the first row of bulbs. Timing his movement precisely, Ox smashes through the window at the same moment the raven's augmented muscles tear right through the bulb. The sudden darkness and crash of falling glass perfectly mask his silent drop to the warehouse floor behind a metal container.

The rival gangsters swear vehemently in Cantonese. Foreigners, Ox realises. Some of them, at least, had been brought in from overseas, probably Hong Kong. So this was a syndicate matter, not just squabbling over turf. Best to get it over with, then.

"Just shoot the fucking bird," one of them snaps, and a tattooed gangster pulls a blocky handgun from his waistband. Ox stifles a growl: if they were smuggling firearms in, this was more serious than he'd expected.

The gunman is no fool: rather than track the blindingly-swift darting strikes of the raven, he instead aims at the last remaining light-tube, waiting for the raven to enter his sights. Ox has no intention of exposing his familiar to gunfire, and lunges. With everyone's eyes on the circling raven, there's nothing to prevent him dashing from cover, raking his claws across the gunman's throat, and rolling behind another container even as the last bulb shatters.

As darkness descends and the toughs go for their weapons, clustering in a panicked huddle, they assume the quality of herd-beasts more than predators, and Ox's shadow name has achieved a new level of incongruity as he assumes the attitude of the stalking tiger instead. There is a frenzied few moments of red slaughter as he hunts by scent. They slash and hew at him, but the darkness stifles their senses, and those blades that do connect glance off skin thicker than a crocodile's.

The carnage is punctuated only by the harsh and sudden illumination of a torch. It trembles in the hand of the new kid, the spy, the traitor. The gun in his other hand, however, doesn't tremble at all.

"S-stay back," the kid stammers, his finger already kinked on the trigger. Ox estimates at least twenty feet between them: too far for him to cover in a single bound. He curls his fingers inwards, hiding his blood-slick claws in his sleeves. He takes a sidling step forward.

"Stay back!" The kid's voice breaks into a squeak, but the gun remains trained squarely on Ox. The torch's glare catches him full-on, and his eyes, exchanged for those of a hunting cat, reflect the glare like a pair of golden coins. "W-what? What the hell are you?!" Panicking, the kid squeezes off the first shot.

Ox grunts as it takes him in the left shoulder. His toughened skin has absorbed some of the impact, but the bullet has still shattered the joint, and it is a struggle to keep on his feet. Another shot rings out, but the round whines over his head. And then there's a panicked shriek from the kid as Ox's familiar, stooping like a hawk, drives its claws into his scalp and jerks his head backwards. The gun falls from the kid's fingers, and he bludgeons at the raven with the torch, but his weak offensive comes to an abrupt halt when the raven drives its beak into the gangster's left eye.

Using one of the many now-discarded mobile phones to put in a call to the police, Ox jogs from the scene. His flesh forces out the bullet, depositing it in his hand as the wound in his shoulder closes; he pockets it and contemplates crafting it into a protective talisman. The raven scouts out the way before him, leading him around concentrations of people where he might be spotted, as he bounds first skywards to gain the rooftops, and then directs himself home.