Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 128: A Strange Event

The window on the black Mercedes rolled down and a somewhat feminine voice came out from it,

"Leona? Fancy meeting you here. What are you up to?"

'Fancy meeting you here? When you've been stalking her for a while now? Does this guy think people are going to believe this shit?' Laz decided to keep this thoughts to himself for now.

"Hello Brian. I'm just out for a walk and headed home." Leona had become ice cold in an instant. It happened so fast that Laz could have sworn he felt the temperature drop.

"Oh. Did you want a ride since I am going by your house?" The voice sounded out again. Laz was finally able to see the face attached to the voice as the window finished rolling down. He had to admit that Brian was rather attractive. Blonde hair and hazel eyes along with a somewhat buff body. The only weird part was his voice which seemed like it was a few notches too high, like someone had a vice around his balls that was continuously tightening it. Laz was actually having trouble not laughing now that he caught a glimpse of this guy.

Of course, there was also the fact that Laz was being ignored, but he didn't mind that. This was the usual ploy of those who felt themselves rich and powerful enough to take control no matter what the situation.

"I'm fine." Leona replied back sternly and started walking again with Laz matching her pace. Driving along beside them, Brian seemed to have finally noticed Laz.

"Who are you?" There wasn't even a hint of friendliness in the voice. It was more like a demand of identity. Laz had actually been waiting for this. It really was pretty easy to deal with these kinds of people, you just had to know how.

"Hey oh. Name's Lazlo. Good to meet yah!" Laz extended his hand for the window as though he wanted to shake hands, totally ignoring the aggressiveness with which he was questioned.

"Why are you walking with her?" Brian ignored the friendly greeting and just went on with his questioning, as though interrogating someone who had gotten close to his wife. Due to having acted like he was greeting someone, Laz had changed places with Leona and was now closer to the car than she was.

"What? Course I'd be walking with her, I'm taking her home." Laz said. Since the moment he had opened his mouth, he was using a deeper voice and a thick accent as though he wasn't from around here. Leona couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at his act, but she didn't say anything either.

"Then what is your relationship with Leona?" Brian's high pitched voice seemed to be trembling a bit as he asked, as though he was getting angry at the idiot he was talking to.

"Huh? My relationship? She's my cousin of course, can't you see the family resemblance?" Laz reached his arm over and wrapped it around Leona's shoulder, pulling her closer. Then he used his other hand to indicate his face, then her face, as though it should be obvious to make the connection.

"Her cousin?" Brian was getting really angry right now. How the hell did they look anything alike. Other things aside, Leona has soft, brown skin while Laz was pale like a ghost.

"What? Can't see it? When we were younger, everyone said me and Little Lee looked like we could be twins." Laz could see Brian's eye lid twitching and couldn't help but start enjoying himself. Even Leona had to turn away, acting like she was upset when in fact she was trying her best not to laugh. She had no idea Laz had this side to him.

"What bullshit are you talking about? And what the hell is Little Lee?" Brian was about to park the car and beat this joker's ass.

"HA ha, I'm playing brother. My dad married her Aunt Mary, so yeah, we're cousin fo shore since years ago. They live up in Jersey and used to ship me down here for the summer so they could get a little freaky time together. She's little Lee cuz whens we were younger, she wanted to be a guy, so she used to ask the grown ups when her pee pee would grow in, ouch... OUCH. Ok. Sorry Little Lee, I know you don't want me talking bout that. But come on, it's still funny." Laz had turned over to look at Leona who, after hearing what he said, started violently pinching him. She couldn't help but think how much worse this was going to make things. The strange part though was that when she looked over at Brian, he had an almost blank look on his face. She couldn't believe it.

"Yo, so listen up. I'm just in town cause Mama Mary said to stop on by. I go to Penn state and since Little Lee here is going to college in the spring, they wants me to talk bout my experiences or something. After this, it's straight on to Virginia Beach for a summer of hot chicks with loose morals, ya know what I'm sayin, eh?" Laz just continued to rattle off some bullshit as though it was the most natural thing in the world and Brian just stared blankly back not knowing what to say.

All of this was part of Laz's plan. He could tell from what he knew that a guy like Brian had control issues. Because of this, when things went totally out of his control base, he would basically short circuit for a while, then get pissed off and try to find a way to control things again. The tricky part was making sure to leave before it reached that point. The other part of the plan was for Brian to put Laz into the grouping of Leona's family so that it would cause less trouble overall. If he was just some random guy hanging with Leona, Brian would probably totally lose it and do something stupid. Laz wasn't trying to bring problems to Leona and Reggie so this was what he came up with to handle that.

"Right. Time to go Little Lee or we will both be in trouble." Laz took the chance to start walking faster with Leona, leaving Brian behind with a stomach full of hatred and a head that couldn't make sense of this weird guy.

'Was he telling the truth? If I act now then I might drive Leona way. Damn bitch, it's like she's playing with me. And this Lazlo...' When Brian finally regained his thoughts, he suddenly had the feeling that he had been played. But the only truth he could muster out of it was that Leona didn't say anything else so there should be some truth to this Lazlo guy. Of course he wasn't just going to believe it though. Instead, he sent a text message to a certain friend of his to get a background check and see if he could figure out who this guy actually was. Until he knew for sure, he would have to wait. Brian couldn't help but grab the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. He finally revved the engine, spun the tires, and doing a 180, sped off in the other direction while his goons in the car parked outside the entrance had to quickly follow..

"What the hell was that?" Leona finally asked when they noticed they weren't being followed.

"What?" Laz had reverted back to his normal voice.

"That!" Leona used her hands to indicate all of Laz, as though asking where that guy from before came from.

"Ah. Well... There are two ways to bullshit someone. First way is to mix enough fact with fiction that it's hard to figure out which is which. The other way to to make the story so crazy and so fake that it seems like no one would believe it, but to act like it is the truth," Laz responded.

"How do you know all this stuff?" Leona asked, feeling as though he had a point.

"Crime Dramas. Vivi got attached to them for a while and wouldn't let me watch anything else," Laz answered honestly.

"Vivi? Your dog?" Leona questioned.

Laz just nodded in response and did say anything else. After walking for a bit longer, Leona couldn't help but voice her worry.

"Thank you. For that. But now he is going to be trying his best to figure you out. And he will take advantage of whatever he finds to make your life hell," Leona warned Laz.

"He's welcome to try, but that won't be something a kid in the middle of nowhere will be able to figure out, no matter how much help he has," Laz responded confidently.

"You're full of secrets, aren't you?" Leona ask, unknowingly smiling at Laz's show of bravery.

"I'm full of something, I'm just not sure it's secrets," Laz joked back, making her laugh. It didn't take long for him to finish walking her home before he ran back to his own place. As he went inside, Vivi was still up and munching on some dried meat while watching a show.

*How'd it go?* She asked, pushing the bag of snacks towards Laz.

*Decent. She has potential.* Laz responded while grabbing a few pieces.

*I have no idea how you people have survived for so long after loosing your animal instincts,* Vivi commented.

*I know. But that's just how the world ended up.*

*Like lambs to a slaughter,* Vivi grabbed out another snack and started munching.

"What kind is this one anyway?" Laz asked out loud.

*This was that bear that had the flames coming off it's back,* Vivi replied.

"The one I thought someone had lit on fire?"

*That would be the one.*

"Hmm... it's got a bit of spice to it." Laz finally stopped talking and just watched the show with Vivi. They both finally got to bed sometime after midnight.

...

Around one in the morning, Laz suddenly felt a chill run up and down his spine, causing him to wake up out of a deep sleep. As he sat up on the twin size bed, he noticed that Vivi had also awakened and was sniffing the air while looking around.

"You felt that too?" He asked.

*Yeah.*

"Oh. Good night." Laz laid back down without a care in the world and was going to go back to sleep.

*Wake up. We've got to go check that out!*

"Bah, it will wait till morning."

*Come on lazy human, it might be something good.* Vivi tried to yank the covers down to force Laz to get up.

"It will still be good in the morning."

"GGRRRR" Vivi started growling at Laz.

"Go check it out then, just be careful and let me know when you get back." Laz turned over and snuggled in. It had been a rather long day and night for him and he was exhausted. Knowing his condition, Vivi just sighed and didn't say anything else. She couldn't blame him after all. She jumped down off the bed and exited the trailer.

Taking her time, Vivi made her way quickly out of the back field before she suddenly started changing. Gone was the small dogg with a cute star mark over her eye and in her place was a slightly over six foot tall wolf with sparking, jet black fur that seemed to shimmer in the moon light. If someone were to look close enough, they would even been able to see rings of pure white fur surrounding her feet. At a speed that Laz couldn't hope to match, Vivi took off, running up the mountain towards the source of the energy spike they had both felt.

When she finally got close, she noticed an old abandoned hunting lodge situated next to a rather steep rock cliff. Sniffing around, Vivi took a while to go through the entire overgrown area before she finally stopped in front of an old well. As she stood over it, the only thing she could see was pitch black darkness that seemed to go on forever. With a slight breath and a blink, Vivi's eyes suddenly glowed the same blood red light that Laz's did, except hers were much brighter. As she once again looked down the well, she was shocked by what she saw.

*That's impossible...*