Chapter 23 - It's Not Fun To Stay At The NOPD

"Good. They won't give a shit about me and probably will do as they're told I hope." Says Lawrence as he takes the two folders off the table. He hands the one marked Rin to Riyada.

"Keep hold of this, at least you'll know what they know up to this point."

I glance at the other folder and my eyes widen. The large folder says 'Lawrence Blake' on it.

"Lawrence, is that your file?"

"Yeah." he opens it up and rifles through some of it, a frown slowly creasing his face turning into a scowl.

"Fuck, looks like I have some work to do. Here's hoping I hang around long enough to fix some of it. I can read this later, let's get a move on."

I nod and Lawrence moves the bodies out of the line of sight of the door before shoving me out of it. Riyada pulls the door shut behind him as Lawrence stars shoving me down the hallway.

"Come on come on, I've got better shit to do today than worry about you runt." he growls and generally hassles me the entire way out through the station. He's doing a really good job so I find I don't have to pretend to be pissed at being man handled.

We get to the doors when someone finally stops us.

"Inspector Blake? What's happening?" says another pair of officers. They look like they've enjoyed their desks a little too much though. Guts hanging over their trousers and one of them even has a stain on his shirt from something, I'm gonna put bets on jam or jelly from a donut.

"This little runt is wasting my time so before I'm inclined to do something more drastic, the officer here is escorting him off the premises." and Lawrence jerks his head towards Riyada who gives me a shove towards the exit. The pair move out of the way and turn to face Lawrence and that's the last I see until we're outside.

"Come on, let's put some ground between us and them." I say to Riyada.

He nods and we start running. After a few moments I realise I don't know which way to run but Riyada over takes me and I start following him. About fifteen minutes later we're back at the motel. It must not have been as far as I thought originally to the police station. I run to the door of our room and knock, praying that Soothing hadn't left already.

Soothing opens the door.

"Alex, thank fuck. What the hell?! Riyada?! How?"

"No time Soothing, we need to make a move and get our asses somewhere else, in case the police come looking for."

KABOOOM!

We all look in the direction we've come from as there's a massive explosion and a huge billow of smoke up into the air. What the hell was that?

"Fucking hell, what was that?!" says Soothing.

"An explosion, let's get a move on, that will keep the police busy enough for us to fuck off somewhere else."

"Did you do that?"

"Nope, just taking advantage of it. Let's move."

"Where's Lawrence?"

I glance back and realise he didn't follow us. That's not good.

"Fuck, I don't know. We have to go and hope he catches up with us. We'll talk as we move, please Soothing."

Soothing nods and ducks back in the room. Riyada and I follow and grab the few bits we had left around the place. Riyada swaps his police clothes for his own that he'd left on underneath and shoves the uniform in a bag. We quickly take off from the motel and I follow Soothing as he hails a taxi. Hopping in together, we're just about to set off as the other door opens and Lawrence hops in the other side.

"Sorry I'm late."

"Lawrence! " I exclaim and grin at him. I'm happy to see him even though what he did, I'm still happy to see him.

"In the flesh, if a bit singed. Shall we go?"

Soothing gives some directions to the driver and we head off.

I lay back in my seat and actually enjoy the ride for once. This New Orleans is so much different to the one I left. It's cleaner, the streets are all much better laid out. The attitude to both nature and technology seems healthier, but then again I don't remember hearing much about religion. Maybe they don't have the same one as back in my old world?

There's a lot of subtle differences to this place, but it makes a big difference in the long run. There's not as much prejudice to things like being gay. Naturally being a gay man I'm inclined to notice these things first, but on top of that I haven't really been seeing out and out hatred like those stupid Bayou Knights back in New Orleans. Those white supremacist wankers want to stamp out anything that isn't white and bible bashed to shit. Here I've seen different ethnic groups just being totally normal, like there's a lack of difference. I mean there's still been bits like the fag shit back there with the cops, so it's still got to exist, but it's more like it's just, accepted.

I glance over at Riyada, he's sat between Lawrence and I looking through the file that Lawrence gave him, I can see bits of the file which there's a lot of papers and photograph printouts in it. A quick glance at Lawrence and I can see him doing the same with his file, only he's having to juggle a whole host more papers.

My gaze turns towards the window again and I catch sight of the back of Soothing's head. I shouldn't be this jealous of a man I've only known for less than a week. Yet something new is stirring inside me, I've never felt like this before. I'm also betting that it's the same feelings that Lawrence is starting to get for Colt as well. Yet I can't be with either. So... Shouldn't it be better to let someone I know who can look out for him and his best interests to, well. Nrgh. It's an easy enough thought, but it's a bitter one to swallow.

Okay, yes, I'll admit. Even after today's little escapade and the shit that Lawrence put me through. He did it for good reasons and to teach me a lesson as well as rescuing Riyada. I still trust him and I actually give two shits about the bastard's happiness. So if he does get with Colt then... I'll deal. The hardest part about all of this is really if he can ever deal with forgiving me or if I'm beyond that in his eyes.

Then there's the stuff to deal with today. My feelings are getting stronger for Soothing. That little jealous strop proved it. But we 'cannot' be, we just can't. Can we?

The taxi pulls to a halt, looks like we've arrived at our destination. Which funnily enough appears to be an arcade? Wow, it's kinda cool seeing all the different technologies in there, I've never seen game machines like these before. There appears to even be a couple that you get hooked into with a visor and gloves and other things. Seriously cool.

Soothing just paid the driver and he's gone off. We're now all stood outside this arcade with Lawrence and I looking inside in almost wonderment .

"Home sweet home then." says Soothing.

"Huh?" I say, just before Soothing walks into the arcade and motions us to follow.

We head on through the slightly crowded arcade and with a lot of winding around we finally get to the back of the arcade to a pair of double doors. Soothing heads to one and opens it, ushering us all through. Once I pass through I run into a familiar face. It's the huge guy who offered to feed me when I was bolloxed. I smile at him and he actually smiles back at me! If I was in any of my wolven forms right now I'd be wagging my tail!

We head up some side stairs, the walls are painted a snazzy looking blue and red with I think that was the transformer's symbol but I'm not sure. Oh well. There's some really nice looking markings up the walls that I don't recognise but the place certainly does have a bright feel to it.

At the top I recognise more faces, including Silverlight wandering around. He gives me a brief nod as he passes through another door. This place is like a warren with the amount of doors, but Soothing seems to know where he's going. He goes through another door and we enter what I'd assume to be a break out area. There's seating, a kitchenette area, a couple of familiar faces sat around, they're the pack members I remember treating. Wyrmripper is just finishing making a cuppa from the looks of things as he turns around with a grin.

"Nice, you got him." he says.

"Yeah, with a little help from my friend Lawrence here."

Lawrence gives a mock salute towards Wyrmripper.

"Yo... Oh shit, manners yeah."

He sighs and steps up, gives a quick bow and his tone is different.

"Greetings alpha, I am Loki Dances through forms, Ragabash and Keeper of the Cairn of the pack of the Lost."

My jaw drops. That's a title and three quarters. Colt told me his other name was Hunter in the Shadows and he was one of the warrior types which were called Ahrouns. Ragabash are the ones who are the mischief makers. Suddenly quite a few new things became clear to me with that thought. No wonder he was kind of miserable, he's never been all the good at practical jokes or forward planning. He's brilliant at improvisation though.

"Greetings Dances through forms. I am Wyrmripper the fang breaker and foe of fomori, alpha of the pack of the City Dancers. What brings you to this city?"

"Wizards did it." Lawrence replies.

Wyrmripper blinks a couple of times and then laughs. "Subtle, so you're one of Alex's old friends?"

"Yuh huh."

"So what you planning on doin whilst you're here?"

"Wasn't planning anything, but I got to join in on the fun of getting Mr Riyada back here. Oh and blew up a Fomori nest."

The grin on Wyrmripper's face scares me. That level of happiness is a tad on the frightening side.

"Now THAT I like! You're welcome to hang around for a bit if you want, we'll call that your arrival gift."

Lawrence grins back at Wyrmripper and I frown.

"So that explosion was you? Why'd you blow up the police station?"

"That station was a fomori base. The whole place was corrupt as hell, so badly even I could see it through the umbra. I don't know how they were hiding their true forms but apparently the Lawrence from this dimension was pretty high ranking and they were scared shitless of me. So I found some C4 in the evidence room and stuck it in basement next to the gasline."

Wyrmripper laughs and claps his hands. "Nice one! So, we need to worry about the other Lawrence turning up then?"

"Maybe, but he won't be a werecoyote. He's a vampire now."

Wyrmripper's frown vanishes. "The fuck, were's can become vampires?"

Lawrence and I glance at each other. Fuck. This was something we'd forgotten to mention to the garou here.

"Yes and no. I'll be more specific. I have the body of this world's Lawrence, he has mine. So he has all my old powers."

I groan and put my hand on my face.

"You are fucking kidding me Lawrence! You switched bodies with the nuwisha from this world and gave him all the power of your blood?!" I growl.

"I didn't do it on purpose. I was tricked, ironic I know. Apparently they tricked him too hence swapping our bodies. They used Tyr as an anchor for me in our world. Why do you think I'd been working so damn hard to actually be a decent were?" Lawrence growls back with his arms folded.

"So you're telling me it's okay just because you got tricked? That it should just be overlooked because you didn't see it coming?! You sacrificed two people JUST to get what you wanted!" I snarl at him.

"Who the hell made you judge and jury?! You're hardly mr high and mighty considering I got tricked out of love, you chowed down on that gangrel's soul without a second thought to who you'd betray!"

I roared in rage and charged at him, fully intent on ripping his arm off and trying to beat him with the soggy end.

I'd forgotten that Lawrence was the more experienced fighter of us two and as I jumped him, he rolled back and threw me clean over him and I smashed into the concrete wall. Rolling up to my feet I screamed at him and charged yet again, sidestepping at the last moment and going in for a low tackle. But he was just too quick and caught my arm, twisting and pulling me to the side and shoving me hard backwards. I realised too late that his foot was hooked behind mine and I lost my balance. The air was knocked out of me as he rode me down onto the floor, his knee lodge beneath my ribs and into my stomach. I laid there gasping for air as he snarls above me.

"You're the LAST person who should be judging me you bastard! I'm only like this because you convinced me to save Tyr! If it wasn't for him I'd have never have fallen in love, I'd have never have begged to be with him and I wouldn't have had him die! He'd be saving his race, he'd be alive!"

Lawrence's hands grip my upper arms tightly and he shakes me with each snarl into my face.

"I'm not the golden child who's fallen on his feet! You've been spoon fed this garou life where as I've had nothing but blow after blow! How dare you judge me when you get the out clause of taking a trip to some mystical purification land!"

I look up at him and stop, there's tears streaming down his face and dripping onto my chest as his face is contorted into sheer anger. I stop struggling below him, the pain on his face just too raw for me not to be moved by it.

"You left everyone's lives a bastard mess and I've had to clean up as best as I can but all I get each fucking time is looked down on. They took Tyr from me and gave me a life. I can't believe you of all people can dare to judge me when I've been through all this..."

His tears overwhelm him and he's started sobbing. Oh god I never thought about the repercussions of what I did. I left everyone behind and it cost Leonis his life and what happened to Colt? He was distraught when he left me that goodbye video and I just walked away from them all. Even my one vampire friend followed my tracks and tried to make amends for my mistakes and he ended up in a worse situation. All because of me..

I slide my arms around him and gently lean up, hugging him against me as he cries against me, his body shuddering with each choked sob against my shoulder. I begin murmuring softly.

"I'm sorry Lawrence, I am so so sorry."

I can't do anything else right now. I'd torn apart his world by leaving and never thinking that my actions would cause him to become involved. Nor any of the people I left behind. They'd come together and as Lawrence cried on my shoulder, I understood that all of them had pain they could attribute to me in one way or another.