The Soul Collector

Ch. Fifty-One

"Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."

- Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

                                                                             ***

Galloway flipped her hair out of the collar and looked at Sirius. "Nice job." Dryly, she added, "The jeans are a little tight, but you were pretty accurate with the rest."

"I think it's a matter of familiarity over accuracy."

"That's a little cocky," she said, raising her eyebrows at him.

He stretched out on the bed.  "I'm pretty sure there's a joke in there somewhere."

Combing her fingers through her hair, she put it up in a heavy ponytail, then crawled over the top of him, pinning his wrists. He gave her a half-smile, but said, "I still don't like this."

With a sigh, she let herself fall into him, her head resting on his chest. His fingers played with the seams of her new jeans along her thighs. 

"Doesn't change the fact that I need to talk to them," she said quietly.

"What if I come and just wait outside?" he suggested, and she snorted.

Sitting up, she looked down at him. "When I say alone, I actually mean alone, Sirius. It'll be okay."

"You can't promise that," he snapped, then shut his eyes, turning his head away.

She gnawed at her lip, then started when he sat up, clutching at his shoulders to keep herself from falling over. His voice quiet, he said, "Where are you going, at least?"

Resting her head against his shoulder, she played with one of the buttons on his shirt and said, "I met Logan in Wyoming in '43. I was thirteen and hunting a ghoul at a local hospital there, but I couldn't get into the places I needed to be, 'cause I was a kid. Logan caught me trying to sneak into the morgue." She let out a soft laugh at the memory, then sobered. "The hospital's abandoned now."

Sirius was so still she could hear his heart beating. Then, he said, "You still didn't tell me where."

She blinked, frowning. If she hadn't, it wasn't on purpose. "It's outside Casper."

He inhaled, held the breath for a second, then let it blow out noisily. Glancing up, she found him giving her a pitiful look. Rolling her eyes to the ceiling, she said, "It's Wyoming. What could happen?"

"You are just...begging to be taught a lesson," he growled, voice low and resonant in her ears. "Assume it'll go wrong before you assume it'll go right."

"Did you seriously just say that to me?" she asked, then bit back a smile.

He snarled at her, then grasped her chin, forcing her to look at him. His jaw worked for a second, until he said, "And what exactly am I supposed to be doing while you're meeting the Hardy boys?"

She snorted, reluctantly amused. Biting her lip for a second, she said, "How do you feel about tattoos?"

"What? Like...generally?" He raised an eyebrow.

She sketched the shape of a pentagram over his heart. "Personally."

"Won't work," he said offhandedly. When she frowned at him, he said, "My body gets rid of the ink. Same way it got rid of the silver. Bleeds it out or whatever."

Like it wanted to prove his point, Galloway watched as a speck of metal was forced out of his half-healed cheek. He used a claw to knock the fleck away.