Blythe’s hand closed around Adri’s wrist, her eyes on the little cup beneath it. “You have no idea what that could do with your blood! It could mean your life! Maybe all our lives, if it can possess you. This is why we need a more thorough training course for the goddess-damned Sunday Group! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

The crow cawed from above them, it's claws tearing out a few hairs as it swooped past and readied itself to dive again. Blythe’s pulse throbbed in her ears, Kolratheth waking back up in her chest as a response to her fear and anger. Heat and pain flooded her eyes, her gums, her fingertips. Black spooled across her eyes and her teeth elongated. Her nails grew into claws. She had to let go of Adri to keep from hurting her.

[i]“No, hurt her. Claw them all!”[/i]

Adri just didn’t get it. The least horrible thing the pair was likely intending was to ward their nest against police. They could be planning that blood for rituals, for possession, for curse—

Blythe growled. Of fucking course. The cop was curseproof. No wonder she wasn’t worried.

In a movement more born out of spite than need, Blythe reached up and snatched the idiot creature out of the air as it dove at Adri’s head. It battered her with its wings, screaming and desperate until she managed to pin it in place beneath black tipped fingers. The homeless man whimpered, falling back against the wall, unable to move his eyes from his bird. 

Blythe sighed. Now she just felt like a brute. [i]What is this thing?[/i]

[i]“A parasite,”[/i] Kolratheth sighed. [i]“To lowly a thing to be considered a demon. It feeds off its host slowly in exchange for a little safety, and then hybernates for a time before taking a new shape and finding a new human host. Eat it. It would sustain me for days.”[/i]

[i]What would happen to the host?

“He would go mad, most likely. What does it matter? He is of no use to your species. And the parasite will consume all the parts that make him human eventually.”

Can you make it give back whatever it’s taken from him?

“No. It hasn’t taken much. Only memory. The human might even be able to relearn how to use his voice, if he isn’t too far gone. It’s just that I’ve never seen anyone manage it."
[/I]

Blythe ran her tongue over her teeth, and finding them only slightly pointed, grinned. There was no point in trying to play with any emotions now. The homeless man was already frightened enough. “Adri, if you would be so good as to let me borrow your clipboard….”

The homeless man—homeless boy, really— took it when Blythe thrust the clipboard at him, though he nearly dropped it. He couldn’t seem to remember what to do with his hands, so Blythe amended her earlier assessment and turned down the fear pinging through his head. Just a touch. She was calming down too, the black fading from her fingers though the ache lingered in the space behind her eyes. They were usually the last to turn.

The bird squirmed in her grip, but stilled when she tightened her fist around it. “Draw everything you saw last night. Include details like sizes and times and sounds.”

When he gave it back, Blythe only got a vague impression of scratchy figures with wide, blank eyes before she thrust the clipboard back at Adri and got an elbow up to block the homeless boy’s grab for the crow. He fell back against the wall immediately.

“Uh uh. This thing is incredibly bad for you. Here—“ she fished out a couple more bills and shoved them at him. “Catch a taxi. There’s a shelter on 5th and Cesar Chavez with a half-decent therapist. Let her help you get yourself back and don’t go accepting deals from strange creatures any more.”

[i]“You’re one to talk.”[/i]

[i]Yeah, well.[/i] She turned on her heel and purposely kicked over the little cup of Adri’s blood. “Come on. Let’s get back to the others.”