Et tu, Assiah?
25 Miles From Home
Nobody ever found Route 7-10 by choice; unlike 8-10 and 9-10, 7-10 had, as far as anybody was aware, no static beginning anywhere in all of Assiah. You didn't find the Blood Road, it found you.
It had certainly found Sam and co. Sometime during their mad flight from the Protectorates (the Protectorates, for godssakes; Sam never though he'd be a fugitive from his own people) they'd been aware of a fog closing in, the buildings in the streets began looking more and more cramped together, as if more than one was trying to occupy the same space in time. The people sitting on the porches of the strange, looming houses began to look... wrong somehow. At first the fog and strange archetecture had meant Nails mistook the landscape for one of the towns scattered along 9-10. They were near Temple Road, he assured. Soon they'd hit the bayou and within reach of asylum from the Dark Lord. But something in the young ghoul's words sat wrong with Sam, and they never did find the Great Dark. When the fog began closing in so thickly that they couldn't even see the strange houses and their leery inhabitants anymore, Sam pulled the van to a halt.
"What's wrong?" Nails' milky-white eyes glowed from the back of the van. In the dim silver glow from the fog outside, Sam could just make out the ghoul's broad, lipless grin turned down with concern. At his side, their cargo -- the thing which had started this mad flight in the first place -- clicked and cooed curiously. Nails seemed to think of something. "Have we hit the bayou yet?"
"We're not on Temple Road," came Sam's curt reply. He gripped the back of the seat furiously to hid the shaking in his hands. "Those weren't the satelite towns back there."
Nails cocked an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side slightly in a curiously birdlike expression. "Then what were they? Where are we?"
"Golgotha," Sam said, watching Nails' face fall into slack horror at the mention of the Skull Place. "We're on the Blood Road."
All six foot nine of ghoul jumped to its feet at once, and there was a large crash as undead skull hit the roof of the van, and another as it came down again. When Nails had picked himself up again, he cried, "You've got to be joking! There is no Blood Road anymore; it was destroyed years ago to stop the Dog War..." his brow furrowed "... right?"
Sam nodded. "But we're on it all the same."
He opened the door and stepped out of the van to the sound of Nails cursing profusley in the Dead Tongue. The fog was thick out here to the point that he was having trouble seeing his feet; let alone any distance in front. The radar in the van was reporting total flatness for miles around, but Sam didn't trust it; not in this place. Keeping one hand on the side of the van, he walked around it, wrenching open the back doors to find Nails being gently reassured by the source of all this trouble.
"Come on," he said. "You and the kid get out for a bit, stretch your legs. Don't get too far away from the van, though. If we get lost out here, you can bet we ain't comin' back again."
Nails nodded slightly, though he still looked completley terrified, and unfolded himself from the back of the van. The kid followed, looking slightly bewildered as it did so. Of course, Sam had no idea whether or not it was a kid, though it certainly looked youngish. Human enough, apart from the strange cartoon cat-ears poking out of the shaggy blonde hair at either side of its head and the small feathery white wings fluttering against its back. Sam hadn't even decided whether it was male or female. It certainly couldn't just tell them. He sighed; if the thing didn't look so damn... familiar he would have been happy to have taken it right back to the Council, but the way it looked at him...
He shook his head; he was doing it again. Staring at the thing... the Council's science experimen gone wrong. And now Nails was looking at him strangely.
"You okay, boss?"
"Fine," he growled. "Just wondering how the hell we got into this mess."
"And how we'll get out?" Nails looked hopeful.
"Not even."
"Aw hell... I had a nice little job going back at the bayou and everything. Took travellers out fishing and stuff, you know? Ever caught fish in the Great Dark?"
"I don't fish."
"More your loss, then. Real good fish these were... the livelies loved 'em. I was thinkin' of opening a hire place, you know. Right on Temple Road; Nails' Fishing Joint. Could have a restraunt and everything... sell real bayou food and all."
"I dread to think of what you dead freaks eat..."
Nails looked indignant. "It's not all maggots and human flesh, you know." He sighed. "Anyway... that's what I was going to do."
Sam thought for a moment. "Why'd the Dark Lord send you down for this job?" he asked finally.
"The first thing you learn when you die," Nails began, "is that you never ask for the motives of the Dark Lord. Maybe I was just in the right place at the right time, I dunno. After all, it doesn't take much to deliver a message."
"Wayne back at the center says you used to work for Red Ops. Back before..." he trailed off. Asking a ghoul about its life was like walking through a minefield.
Fortunatley, Nails didn't leap up and attempt to eat Sam's brain, or even fall into a pile of rotting body parts. He just shrugged. "Maybe. I dunno." Eventually he asked, "What about you? What did you always want to do with your life?"
Sam frowned. "I dunno... work for the Protectorates, I guess," he said. "Which I am... was... doing."
"But after that?"
"Retire? I dunno. Never thought about it." A pause. "Or enver thought I'd have to." He pointed to the dark grey brocade trim around his uniform jacket. "Grey Ops agents usually don't last very long."
"So why'd you get into it in the first place?"
"Didn't. They came for me; I was an orphan. Grew up in a Protectorate-sponsored orphanage. Been trained to be a grey since I can remember."
"Oh. What happened to your parents? I mean, if they're dead I can, you know, look for them... or whatever. When we get out of this."
Sam shook his head. "They weren't dead when they left me on the Council's doorstep. If they're dead now, I don't give a flying fuck."
Nails shrugged. "Just offering."
There was another long silence in which each simply fell into their own thoughts. Something was niggling at the back of Sam's brain, however. Something he couldn't shake off. Finally, he gasped.
"What?" Nails jerked out of his nevel-gazing to stare at Sam with quizzical eyes.
"The kid," Sam began looking around frantically, straining his eyes to try and make out a damn thing through the silvery fog. "Where the hell is it?"
Nails looked around. "Aw hell..."
In the distance, the wolves began to howl.