Scott hunkered down into a seat behind and on the other side of the bus from Dave and Charis, glaring at them both evenly. The creepy Normal guy was all over her, probably drooling on her jacket. They were cuddled up together like this was a good thing. He already felt ill enough without looking at that.

  They are all on a interstate bus line headed for Seattle. There were only a few other passengers near the front trying to catch a nap on the red-eye trip. Dawn was only a little while off now as they climbed into the hills near northern California’s Mount Shasta. The location was a veritable Enemy stronghold, but they’d had little choice with the tickets.

  The massive alien moon spilled dim light through the tinted windows, flashing through the black forms of pine trees along the side of the winding highway. The irritating lights over each and every dreary, padded seat had been dimmed for night-time travel. They just made it both hard to read and hard to sleep and turned the windows into mirrors looking inward.

  Scott sighed/growled to himself again and slouched down further into the seat, trying to ignore the bite of jealousy and catch a nap. He shut his eyes for a while. When he opened them again to stare at the dark flicker of trees past his own sullen reflection he noticed that the sky was a lighter shade of night and that dawn was in the east.

  As they came around a big rolling bend in the road at far too high of a speed in his opinion, he saw the great snow-topped mountain looming up in the early sunlight, its peak orange and lit before the rest of the world was, eerie and powerful in a vaguely sinister way. They were almost to their destination. He sighed and gave up trying to sleep. There was no point; he was too tense anyway. He stared at Mt. Shasta wondering if there really was a dragon sleeping under it.

  The bus passed only one car as they rounded the mountain then wound its way through several small towns around its feet. As the sky visibly lightened toward a bright morning the bus left the trees behind temporarily and rolled through a sprawling, dusty village that called itself ‘Yreka’. He wasn’t sure what kind of a name ‘Yreka’ was or how it was pronounced, but it sounded like they’d arrived at the back end of Missouri. The kind of place where the locals might use a crashed ufo for a back yard swimming pool. What was a hick town doing in the middle of California?

  At least it was better name than Weed. They’d passed the town of Weed a little while ago.

  Scott gazed dispassionately at the predictable fast-food restaurants along the side of highway 5 as they rolled by, glimpsing a town beyond that hadn’t changed since maybe… last century? As they pulled in to a tiny dingy looking bus station with only a single platform, he kicked the bench seat that Charis was so happily snuggled up on. “Char. End of the line. We have to switch busses.”

  She blinked sleepily awake, rubbing her eyes like a child coming out of a long dream. “Nuh?”

  He yanked on Dusty’s sleeve until the deceptively young-looking Edor man opened his eyes, not a hint of sleep in them. Edor didn’t really ever sleep anyway; they just kind of daydreamed. He sat up to look through the windows curiously, letting Miradon fall over unsupported in the seat. “We here? This doesn’t look like Portland…”

  “It’s not. It’s some weird place called… uh… Yarika or something.” Scott glared hard into the semi-reflective window, trying to fix his hair. Without his gel and blow drier he was going to have a hard time making it look good. He hadn’t even gotten a shower yet. Served him right for sightseeing with Ebenezer… why the hell had the old nutjob talked him into the Wax Museum anyway?

  “Yarika… is that like a yarmulke?” Dusty asked in a vague tone.

  When the bus groaned and wheezed to a stop Scott was the first one on his boots and charging for the door. He hated public transportation and wanted to get Dave the Dud behind him as quickly as possible.

  He gave a terse nod of thanks to the baggy tired-looking bus driver and exited, the cold mountain air hitting him in the face and waking him up. With his boots firmly planted on the cold, stained concrete and his arms tightly crossed Scott Rothschild took a long, deep breath and surveyed his surroundings.

  He heard the rest of the group shuffle out of the bus, stumbling. They were all rubbing things that had gotten sore as they formed a loose circle around him.

  The bus creaked, groaned, hissed, made an ugly farting sound, and pulled away to go find its refueling station.

  Scott looked at his watch. “How long until the next bus?”

  “Forty-five minutes,” Charis said through a huge yawn, half-covering it with her fingers. Her other arm was firmly hooked around Dave’s. “God, what I wouldn’t do for a cigarette right now.”

  “You need to quit smoking,” Scott muttered offhand, as if he told her this at least once a day.

  She ignored him. “I think we should get some clothes before we keep going.” She was already shivering, her jacket wrapped tightly around her.

  Scott did his best to keep his teeth from chattering. He was wearing only his black silk shirt and leather waistcoat. He had ditched the white robe — Dave was now wearing it. He just couldn’t bring himself to keep it, it made him look like a freak.

  David didn’t seem to mind. Probably because he was a freak.

  “It’s like six AM. Nobody will be open.” Scott argued.

  “Dave doesn’t even have shoes,” she returned, pouting. She had that look. When Charis got that look it meant she wouldn’t give up until she won.

  “Yah, and it’s lucky for us they let him on the bus,” Scott growled.

  Dave stood to one side barefoot in a hotel robe and pulled out a cigarette and his lighter. He lit one and handed it to Charis, lighting a second for himself. Then he casually smoked it as they argued, staring very thoughtfully at his companions, his cigarette, and the sky.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “We have forty-five minutes. If we run we can make it.”

  “I think we shouldn’t risk… Charis… come on! Forty-five minutes? No way we can get to a store, buy a bunch of clothes, and get back here in time.”

  “Well we can TRY!” she returned. “I can zip us there! I know there’s a Super-mart nearby, I can feel it.” She blew smoke in the direction of her convictions.

  “No! We need to save our OFP for getting to Seattle!” After the chucabraca fight and the midnight escape, Scott could feel his spiritual energy at low ebb. Being on earth, on the run, and in discomfort, their odyllic energy wouldn’t replenish itself very quickly either. Once they ran out of power they would be rendered as helpless as every other normal human. That was a scary thought.

  “I don’t want to spend all day in a popsickle nightie!” she stomped cutely. She was always cute, she didn’t even have to try.

  Dave studied his goose bumps and the fact that he was so cold. Everything was so normal. Finally he looked at Dusty. “There is the small chance that most of this is real.”

  Dusty smiled at him, pausing in the middle of practicing skate-board tricks on the bus platform. “Yah. I think that all the time.”

  “Fine. Where do you want to go?” Scott gestured back toward the dusty, silent town around them. Far away a rooster crowed. There was little else awake in the world. “Keep in mind that the Mountain is a major mazik fortress and they have scouts crawling all over this area. A full Nythian team walking into this territory has probably already set off every alarm they have.”

  “Except,” Miradon held up a finger thoughtfully, “that we are running on fumes OFP-wise, aren’t we? That might actually play in our favor. We could well have slipped under their radar—near enough depleted not to trip their alarms.”

  “Do you want to bet your life on it?” Scott challenged the Professor.

  Dave put his arm around Charis protectively. He glowered at Scott. “If the woman wants clothes and food, then she’ll get clothes and food. Let’s go.” He towed her toward the nearest street as Charis gave Scott a smirk, flicking the butt of her cigarette off into the concrete darkness. She loved to get her way.

  He rolled his eyes and gave up, following after her in a pout.

  It was Charis’s ability to ‘zip’ as she called it that got them to the Super-Mart which perched on the far south end of town. With two steps they were suddenly half a mile down the road and looking at the new plastic shopping center totally out of character with the funky old-time gold rush atmosphere of the local community. Gotta love Super-Mart, it was always the same in every town, big or small.

  The vast parking lot was nearly empty as they walked toward the big glass bank of doors. Scott had to wonder if there were enough people in this town to keep the monstrosity afloat financially. Like most mega-stores of its size, it probably sucked customers from every direction within fifty miles.

  The rising sun reflected in the shiny polished concrete floors as they walked in, dazzling their eyes. They were immediately assaulted by the smell of a built-in fast food joint heating up its grease for the morning. Soft rock elevator music jangled off-key through the empty vastness of too many florescent lights, too much white paint, and the heady smell of cheap new clothes. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

  “Do you think they’re open?” Dave muttered, feeling extremely self-conscious barefoot in nothing but a robe and some slacks.

  “It’s a Super-Mart. They’re always open,” Charis said matter-of-factly, then took a deep breath of satisfaction as she looked around her, targeting the fast food niche at once. “Breakfast, then clothes.”

  “We only have half an hour to spend inside the store,” Scott reasoned. He headed for the back and the men’s clothes section, which would be a quarter mile away and hidden somewhere. He figured he’d waste half his time just trying to find it so he had no time to lose. “Whose card are we using anyway?”

  “Depends on whose identity they know,” Miradon said thoughtfully, also gazing at the restaurant.

  Dusty didn’t even hesitate, he was drawn to the empty counter and the beautiful glowing menu on the wall behind it. “Darn. Guys, the fast food opens at eight. And the restaurants next door aren’t open yet either.”

  “Well, that settles that,” Miradon headed for the grocery end of the super-store with a quick stride. “Meet you back at the check-outs in twenty minutes!”

  The group broke in four directions, frantically rummaging through the teenage offerings for something to wear. Scott looked through the entire men’s section twice in frustration, discovering that because it wasn’t quite winter yet they were selling next to zero jackets and nothing long. The only thing he could find in a decent color was a puffy black rip-stop baseball thing with no logos on it. It was either that or a nerdy brown cardigan his father wouldn’t even have worn.

  Frustrated he grabbed the black jacket and left the men’s section to find Charis petting Dave’s feet. They were trying on cheap canvas Converse knock-offs. At least that was what they said they were doing. Dave was wearing a plain white button shirt and the nerdy brown cardigan. Somehow it complimented him.

  “Hey!” Scott burst out the moment he saw them.

  “Hey what?” Dave challenged, glaring at him.

  Scott could only fume silently in jealousy and rage as he watched Charis enjoy the outrageous flirtation of the crazy Asset. Five years together and she’d never so much as looked his direction; then this! What the hell was this? She couldn’t actually like this arrogant, overeducated, half-baked retard, could she?

  “Go glare a hole through a wall somewhere else,” Charis told him without looking his direction.

  Scott lifted his chin and stormed away, crumpling the stupid ripstop jacket into a little ball in both fists as if he wanted to rip it to bits. He told himself to forget it and go find breakfast before their time ran out.

  When they finally reconvened beyond the check-outs at the front of the store, Charis was wearing a lavender velveteen stretch hoodie with matching flared-leg yoga pants, matching heart-shaped sunglasses, and a new purple backpack with a rhinestone fob and a matching cellphone case. Over that she had on her long brown leather coat with a pastel purple sparkle scarf thrown in just for good measure. She looked like a Super-Mart ad.

  Scott had on his new baggy ripstop jacket which didn’t fit right and looked really stupid with his long Renaissance style leather vest and tall fold-over boots. He carried a white plastic grocery sack full of snacks hooked over his arm.

  Dusty had discovered a rad new wallet chain with a big gothic cross dangling from it, a cool new skateboard sticker, and some beef jerky. And ho-ho’s. And doughnuts. And chips.

  Dave looked cheerful in his new white button shirt, brown nerd cardigan, and fake Cons. He also carried a white bag full of necessities, including underwear, a toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, and a razor.

  Miradon settled a brand-new red backpack onto his shoulders, positively bulging with junk food and cans of soda. “Right then, looks like we’re all set for the off—proper adventure awaits!”

  “Do you always have to act happy about this stuff?” Scott grumbled. “Is it in the Shifter rulebook or something?”

  “Well, do you always have to be so dour about it, mate?” Miradon pushed his yellow goggles further up onto his narrow nose with one finger. “Life’s far too short—even for the likes of me.”

  “Bingo,” Dave gloated, his arm still around Charis.

  Scott didn’t give Mr. Nerd the dignity of an answer, but turned on his heel and headed for the broad bank of glass doors. The sun was brighter now, chasing the long shadows of the trees across the road.

  They sat wherever they could in the morning sunlight outside Super-Mart and opened their sacks of loot. Charis perched on a huge concrete ball meant to stop cars from driving into the bank of store windows, and Dusty sat on his skateboard. Dave just sat on the sidewalk. They shivered in the brisk mountain morning air munching on dry Marshmallow Charms and chips for the last few minutes they had until the next bus would arrive to take them further in their escape.