Children of a Lesser God

"You... How are you here? Wait... are you even here? What is this?" Malene, who Laz hadn't seen in the few days since their last meeting, was circling around him in interest while chatting off to the side. Laz, understanding that she was talking to one of her spirits, just stood there and didn't say anything.

Instead, he was studying the air where he thought the spirit was. In the past, he had been able to see the spirit and even hear it speak as though it was no issue. But now, he noticed that if it was Aqua Malene was talking to, it was almost completely hidden from Laz, assuming he wasn't trying to hard. As it was, his eyes were able to pick up a distortion in the air so he assumed that if he really focused his spiritual sense, he would be able to detect the spirit.

"Amazing. Simply amazing. I didn't know you were this skilled with runes. I figured Reggie was the best when it came to this and I still think he is... but it seems that you can do it to if you try?"

"The way you say that kind of pisses me off..." Laz replied honestly.

"What's wrong? Not enough faith in yourself?" Malene teased.

"Oh, I think I do very well, thank you." Laz said back with a glint in his eye, causing Malene to turn a little red.

"You know this crazy girl?" Dwayne asked from the side, recovering himself. Despite the hard hit he took, he had already healed.

"Crazy eh? You think that was crazy?" Although Malene was a somewhat sweet natured girl, she could also be a little firecracker. Hearing someone call her crazy was enough to make her go off.

Just before she was about the teach Dwayne another lesson though, Laz stepped in.

"He didn't mean it like that. He was dropped on his head a lot... as both a child and an aduŀt," Laz joked.

"Homie. We just started hitting it off and you already going to abandon me for this piece of tail? Just cause she's hot?" Dwayne started acting like a rejected house wife.

"She's very special to me bro," Laz said, as a matter of fact.

Dwayne, seeing Laz act this way, figured he should treat her as his and act as such.

"Alright. Alright. I get it. Sorry mam. Didn't mean nothing by it. You with my boy here then that means you ok in my book," Dwayne said in apology. Well, he meant it that way, but Malene still seemed a bit angry.

Laz turned to her and just said, "Don't mind him. He's good. He just speaks before thinking sometimes."

"Ok. If you say so." Malene decided she would give her man face and not press on about it.

"So what are you doing here?" Laz asked. He knew that tonight was the last night he could see her as she was slated to head back home tomorrow, having only come to town to take care of some business. He was planning on dropping by her hotel room tonight, so it was a bit of s surprise that he would just run into her on the street without her even driving.

"Sometimes I just like to walk to go places. Being in a car is ok, but... sometimes you just got to stretch," Malene said, somewhat unconvincingly. Even Dwayne knew that she was lying and he had just met her.

Hearing this, Laz didn't say anything or expose her. He just nodded his head in agreement.

"Alright. Well, I'm head off now. I've got to go check up on a newly awakened friend and prepare some things for later." Laz nodded his head to Malene and started walking away again, leaving Dwayne and Malene both dumbfounded.

Malene recovered first and jumped at Laz who was walking off. She put her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist while squeezing him from behind. She then started kissing his neck as though she was trying to get his attention. Watching on, Dwayne couldn't make sense of what just happened and just looked on, blank faced..

"Are you mad that I'm not telling you what I'm doing?' Malene whispered into his ear, causing Laz to stop walking. Seeing as how he was paying attention, Malene slide her body around him like a snake and was positioned just about his hips and he slight body clung on to Laz's strong frame. If they hadn't been wearing as much clothing as they were, it would have been a truly provocative position.

"I'm not mad about that. I understand that you and the others are currently busy with your own thing. But it's what you said..." Laz felt like he was being a bit petty really. After all, was he trying to act like a main part of their lives when he really was only a foot note in their history? Did he over inflate his own importance just because of the way Malene acted after having seen him again?

Wasn't it just a booty call?

How could Laz possibly understand the feelings the girls still had for him? Or the connection that he had brought about, all be it accidently through their sharing of passions? The girls themselves didn't know the reason and they could only share with each other their thoughts.

"I lied to you..." Malene realized why he might have been turned off.

"It's ok. I'm sure you're busy doing your thing and you don't need to report things to me..." Even before Laz could finish, Malene sealed his mouth with a kiss.

After a good few minutes, she finally backed away enough, showing the redness in her cheeks with a bit of shortness of breath. Laz's hands hadn't been idle.

"You have no idea how deep the connection goes." With that, she pointed at her chest, at the location of the tattoo.

"Well, you explained it before..." Laz said, thinking back to what she told him.

"Then know this as well, since it's something I just discovered. I can feel you emotions when we are close enough together. I can feel your thoughts. It's different than just figuring it out based on your facial features or even what you're saying. I could actually feel the dejection in you and it hurt me." Malene said with a sad smile.

"I'm sorry... I didn't..."

"Shhh. I know. You don't know much you dense blockhead. But that's fine. It was my mistake too. I promise. I won't lie to you in the future. I'm sure after I tell them, the other girls won't either. But I need something from you to, ok?" Malene asked while nuzzling her head under his neck and rubbing against him.

"Anything," Laz replied without thinking.

"There will be some secrets. Please, just let us do our thing. I promise you that in the future, you will know everything. But until then, keep going on your journey. Keep moving forward. And just know, we are all behind you, ok?"

Laz had questions, a lot of questions. But he still nodded his head and said ok.

He couldn't feel any falseness to Malene's words and he couldn't help but trust her. In fact, he felt like he needed to trust her. He didn't have many people he could trust.

"YAY!" With those words, Malene kissed Laz again before jumping off of him. She then proceeded to fix her outfit and stand up straight, as though none of what just happened, happened.

"Alright. You go do your thing and I will go do mine. Just remember, tonight is the last night I am around so make sure you stop by. I won't forgive you if I have to leave without a goodbye from you," Malene said with a smile of pure bliss.

Seeing her recover so quickly, Laz knew he had been played, but he felt he didn't mind.

"I will be there."

"You'd better be."

With that, Malene walked off, going in the direction that Laz was coming from.

As for Laz, he just stood there and watched her walk away, the wheels in his mind going a million miles a minute.

Just when he was debating going after her, a hand landed around his shoulder, waking him up.

"Damn brother. What a sexy animal of a woman you have there. Honestly, she's like an angry lioness one moment and like a gentle kitten the next. How the hell do you tame something like that? Anyway, not important. I'm not about to end up whipped like you. Hey, Don't look at me like that, I'm just calling what I see. And besides, just seeing you look at her walk away is breaking my heart. Take some advice from this master at game, it's better to let her be free than to try to keep her close. No, hold on. Let me explain. We all are people living our lives right? You and her are the same way. She's got her life to live and you've got yours. Doesn't mean you can't love each other just cause you ain't always together. Some relationships are just like that. That happy ever after shit is just the biggest fucking lie we are told as kids. There is no happy endings cept the ones you pay for, got that? Good. Let's go eat. I'm starving." Laz had wanted to interrupt several times, but Dwayne cut him off each time. Since it looked like he was stuck with him, he just let Dwayne lead him to a restaurant down the road from where they were.

...

Unknown to Laz, laying in pools of their own blood, there were several bodies that were currently pulled off the road and piled together in heaps in trash bins. If one were able to identify them, they would see that these used to be the people who were in charge of watching the Vodun.

Everyone one of them had been killed with the only clue being one small, overlooked shoe print that might have belonged to a female.

...

Laz ended up eating and drinking at some BBQ restaurant that Laz didn't remember the name of. After that, he and Dwayne went their separate ways, agreeing to meet up at the shop on the night of the operation. Laz had to go inform Freya and her kin of the plan while also going to find Julia who was probably still working since he had skipped out on doing it today. He figured he should also look in on Abraham and see how he was progressing.

Now that things were coming together, the hardest part was going to be actually doing it. This wasn't the kind of thing Laz had done before, minus the one time he tried to sneak into the home complex where he rescued Leona. While he did live through that, he also understood that being captured again would probably have a far worse consequence this time. And besides, he wasn't going to be the only one involved.

He couldn't help but hurry on his way, quite a bit of worry on his mind.

Back at the shop, Dwayne had just returned was went looking for his aunt and uncle to chat with them for a bit before settling down to cultivate. Now that he had the new technique that Laz worked out, he wanted to do all he could to stabilize himself in the next few days before the mission.

Just as he was coming up on the drawing room where he felt his aunt and uncle were sitting, he noticed another strange energy signature, one that he had encountered only hours ago.

Sure enough, walking into the room, he saw his aunt and uncle speaking respectably to Malene, although it seemed like their was some tension between them.

"Boy. Now isn't a good time. Go make yourself scarce and we can talk later," his uncle Aaron said, seeing Dwayne enter the room.

When Dwayne finally saw how everyone was sitting, how tense Aaron and his Aunt Cal were and yet how relaxed Malene seemed, he went a bit absent minded.

"Oh. It's you. That makes sense I guess," Malene said with a rather wicked smile.

"You... you know our nephew?" Aaron said, wondering what the boy did now.

"We just had the pŀeasure of meeting not too long ago. And what a bold young man he is, trying to sneak way too close a peek at me..." Malene answered back.

Dwayne was about to apologize again, but before he even had a chance, his uncle was in front of him with a rush of wind. Before Dwayne could even understand what was happening, his uncle had buried his fist in his stomach and sent him flying out of the room with a painful yell.

Getting back up off the floor, all Dwayne could see was his uncle and his aunt apologizing for his rudeness and asking for forgiveness.

Dwayne felt like his eyeballs were going to pop out of his head.

"What the hell..." he muttered.

"It's fine. It's already been taken care of. Besides, what's the worse that happens? I take his eyes? Or maybe his head? No problem." The way that Malene said that put a chill down Dwayne's spin the way nothing had done before.

'WHERE THE HELL WAS THE SWEET LITTLE KITTEN THAT WAS NUZZLING HIS BUDDY A FEW HOURS AGO?'

Dwayne felt like his brain was going to melt. Either way, he apologized himself before running away as fast as possible. Whatever they were talking about was not a god damn concern of his.

After Malene left, Dwayne's uncle and aunt went to come find him and ask him the whole story which he told without leaving anything out.

"Who exactly was she?" He finally asked when he was done.

"Someone's who had helped us immensely but is also downright crazy...."

"They be calling her 'The Spirit Girl.' I be talking to da spirits fer many years now, but compared to her, I be like a infant learning to walk. Mangine suddenly being dead one day, a hole right through yer head and not even knowing when you be killed. Dat because she can have those spirits kill yah just like that and you don't even be knowing dey be there. But dat ain't even it. She be having da taste of blood and she go real gone. On da way here, she be taking it upon herself to be... removing all the watches outside dat yous uncle missed. The stronger ones, a second layer they gave specially for us. Didn't even be knowing they were there. And that was just a greeting gift."

"Damn..."

"So listen to me boy and listen good. You even come across her again and you be polite and go the other way as fast as possible, got that?"

"Yeah. Yeah." Dwayne said, his thoughts still a wreck.

"Still though. They not be forcing us with nothing which be better than you thought."

"Yeah. For now... but she's right. It's only a matter of time."

"But at least we be having time for now. Come and rest husband and let this old woman take goooood care of you..." Madam Cal, even though she no longer carried the look of a much older grandma, was still ages older than Dwayne. So hearing his aunt talk like this cause his mind to sober up in an instant as he once again decided to run.

"FOR THE LOVE OF... DON'T DO THAT SHIT IN FRONT OF ME..."