Hymn of the Elder Gods

Highway Blues

Eve looked around to make sure he was talking to her. Unsurprisingly, they were the only ones sprawled out on this stretch of road.

She stuck her thumb out towards the car. "That shitbox?"

"Don't see any other ones," the stranger spat, shifting slowly, taking stock of all his limbs. He was cradling one wrist, and blood had begun to seep from beneath his suit jacket, staining a filthy white shirt underneath. Injured. But not by her car.

"Here," Eve breathed, crouching at his side, reaching out to help him. The man swatted her hands aside, sitting up with a low groan, and it felt like a tragic comment on Eve's life that she didn't even flinch.

The man did.

He recoiled as though burned, eyes grey as glass set within a face not entirely of this world. There was a bruise blossoming along one high cheekbone, black hair that had once been neatly parted covered in grime and hanging over his forehead. The thin line of a scar crossed diagonally over his lips and onto his chin from the left. For a fleeting breath, he gazed at Eve as though she held the radiance of the sun.

"You..." he breathed, lips parting with words unsaid. She held his eyes, careful to keep her face blank despite the incessant hammering of her heart.

Nothing.

She'd felt nothing, even when she'd touched the man directly. From such a distance, his anger and pain should have been a flood in her mind. Eve's magic slid over smooth, blessed quiet, not a single, fleeting emotion leaking from his body and into hers.

How long had it been since she encountered something capable of suppressing her power?

Centuries. And it had never been human. The man still hadn't moved, a statue amidst the dust mites glowing white in the car light. The gun lay heavy in her hand as she clicked the safety off, finger on the lever and the barrel pointed directly at the man's head.

"What are you?" Eve demanded, voice hard and steady.

"Clearly very unlucky," the man replied stiffly. His tone was low and smooth, but his eyes went colder, which Eve hadn't thought was even possible. There was a tenseness in the line of his neck that had not been there before. Apprehension, maybe? There was no way to be sure. "Barely escaped with my life, and the only person I could possibly hitchhike with is clearly insane."

Eve flicked the gun sideways, discharging it once, the sound of it echoing in the near silence of the pre-storm.

"Stop beating around the question."

The man stirred, slowly as though not to startle her, lifting his arms submissively. The broadness of his shoulders strained beneath the pressed, fine fabric of his clothes.

"That was not my intention." Something like anger scraped along Eve's throat, raw and painful and entirely her own. Frustration, that she could not decipher the truth behind his words.

"Then what do you want?"

"A ride," the man said, calm and quiet. "Though you have to admit that the state of your car is hardly encouraging. And what's with all the paper?"

"You can see those?" Eve gawked. A quick glance back confirmed the magic was still in place. Her hands trembled, and the soft stillness of the stranger's face was replaced by a lopsided smirk, lips curled back with some sort of twisted amusement. He reached for her, cold fingertips steadying her arms first before sliding gracefully to where she held the gun, pulling it forward until the barrel touched his skin.

"You're going to miss like that." There wasn't a shred of doubt in that steely face. Eve cursed, yanking away from his touch, slipping the gun back into the belt around her hips.