Tall, Dark & Furious (Pyte/Sentinel 6)

The road which should have been a muddy mess filled with horseshit and garbage was black, smooth, and looked like stone, the walkways were a pale gray with buildings taller than he’d ever thought possible filled with more glass than he’d ever seen in his short human life lining either side of the road and everything was clean.

Everything.

He’d never seen a road without horse shit before, he mused as he glanced at the walkways and-

“Are we at a whore house?” he asked, not particularly happy that his wife knew that such places existed.

“Why would you think this was a whore house?” Samantha asked, frowning as she followed his gaze and-

“Oh,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck with a sigh. “It’s not a whore house.”

“That woman?” Trace asked, watching as the woman in question pulled herself tightly against a short man with thinning red hair so that she was pushing her breasts up against him as they continued devouring each other where everyone could see them.

“Is just really friendly,” Samantha said, nodding as she returned her attention to her bag.

“What are we doing here?” Trace asked as he returned his attention to the building in front of them.

“I have to take care of something,” Samantha said as she reached over and opened her door, leaving him to do the same. It took a few tries, but he finally managed to open his door just as his wife reached his side.

“It might be for the best if you waited in the car?” she suggested with a hopeful look on her face that had him narrowing his eyes on her even as he tested the word “car” in his head.

“No,” he said, careful to keep his breaths shallow so that he was able to avoid the scent of anything that might set him off.

“That’s what I thought,” she muttered with a heavy sigh as she turned around and headed back the other way, leaving him to follow as he glanced at what he was assuming were also cars and-

“Why are the other cars placed between two white lines?” Trace asked, shifting his attention to the white line coming out from beneath the back of her car.

“Because they don’t have my skills,” Samantha said with a sad shake of her head.

“They also managed to keep theirs straight while yours is at an angle,” Trace pointed out.

“Skills, Trace, skills,” Samantha said, making his lips twitch as he glanced towards the building they were standing in front of and read the words written across the building in perfect black lettering.

Westdrom Police Department.

Not sure what that meant, he glanced around them as he slowly exhaled and-

“Trace?”

Felt like his skull was about to split in two as a whole new world of scents slammed into him when he made the mistake of taking in too much air with his next breath. Once the scents began assaulting him, the sounds that he’d managed to block out quickly followed. Shaking his head, he stumbled back against the car as he struggled to stay in control.

“Are you okay?” Samantha asked as she worried her bottom lip.

Unable to answer, he slowly exhaled as sounds continued to slam into him, making him feel like his head was about to explode as the scents of humans, body odor, dust, dirt, rotted food, and a thousand odors that he’d never encountered before battled for his attention. His eyes shifted red and-

“Oomph!”

“So, I’m just going to run inside and take care of a few things,” his small wife explained as she yanked open the car door and somehow managed to shove him back inside the car so that he was slumped over onto his side with a weak groan.

“I’ll only be a few minutes, so just sit here and try not to drain anyone, okay?” Samantha said with a sigh, as she stood up only to shake her head with a mumble that caused the pain in his head to double as she opened a hidden cabinet in front of him, pulled out something black and placed it on his face, covering his eyes with a “That should help,” and a hopeful smile.

When he only glared at her through the black thing on his face that made everything darker, she shifted nervously, cleared her throat, and mumbled, “Right,” with a nod as she rubbed her hands down her face with another sigh and a muttered, “This isn’t going to end well,” to herself as she closed the door before he could stop her and made her way to the large building.

As he watched her walk away, his breaths came faster, his body trembled as his fangs slid down, his vision began to go black, and-

His wife suddenly stopped, shook her head with a muttered, “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” turned around and walked back towards him as the black haze that had been threatening to take over only seconds earlier disappeared, and he realized something important.

She was his salvation.