we'll take the whole world by surprise. [open]

[Matthias Walker]

The bar’s exactly the kind of backwater hole in the wall Matthias once believed only existed in horror stories; the lights are dim in what’s probably intended to be mood lighting but comes off mostly as incredibly sketchy, and the door creaks like it wants to pop off the hinges and crawl somewhere to die when he pushes it open gingerly. Eyes all over the room flick to him and he suppresses the urge to gag at the reek of sweat and smoke, skin prickling uneasily at the attention before someone slides in behind him and the assessing stares shift, which, okay, that’s fine, then. He’s not questioning it. He is, on the other hand, definitely questioning his sanity coming here; even Silas wouldn’t come here, right? The entire place stinks of desperation, and he gets that they’re only anywhere near upper class in, uh, never, but it’s just…bad.

On the other other hand, it should be easy getting information. He’s been going from bar to bar—it’s getting late, but he’s not ready to call it quits for the night yet—and scavenging for newspapers, flipping straight to the obits every time and discarding every paper in short order, and he’s just not getting anywhere. Sometimes the trail’s pretty easy to follow—Matthias is good at this kind of research, and where Silas walks, death comes in his wake, but he doesn’t seem to ever linger once a werewolf’s been killed, and Matthias just needs him to stop for a change. Coming to Boston, it’s a desperate shot: There hasn’t been a wolf killing noted in the papers or online anywhere, but there has been a couple wolf sightings, and the last town’s close enough that Boston feels like the logical follow-up, but there’s no proof that Silas is here.

In fact, the longer he stays, the more it seems like he’s not.

He raps his knuckles against the sticky counter of the bar, quirks a grin at the man wiping down a glass with a rag like a scene out of an old Western movie. Only thing he’s missing is the cowboy hat and the pistol. Matthias leans against the bar, tries not to stare at the dubious stains across the surface. It’s much easier to focus on the barkeeper’s spectacularly awful mustache and thick eyebrows, honestly, or the rows of glass bottles on the shelf behind him—maybe once he’s done, if he gets anywhere, he can come back and actually have a drink like a normal person in a bar instead of coming and going with the wind.

“Hey,” he says, with an easy smile; he’s talking maybe a little louder than is strictly advisable, but hell, if it wouldn’t get him punched he’d go around and ask every single bar patron individually just to make sure he got all his bases covered. As it is, he’ll hope for the barkeeper and any eavesdroppers to be knowledgeable. “So I lost my friend, was wondering if you’d seen him.”

The barkeeper looks at him, patently unimpressed by the bright smile Matthias offers him, but he sets down the glass and nods anyway, and it’s not the worst reception Matthias’s gotten recently, so he’ll take what he’s given and run with it.

“He’s about my height, dark hair,” he says, the familiar description coming smooth now. At first he’d stumbled over how to describe Silas, other than dark and grumpy, but it’s easier now. “Crazy eyebrows, maybe ordered bourbon, top shelf? Wore a suit, probably kept mostly to himself, grumpy as hell?” Matthias can’t keep his hands from sketching out his words in the air, like he can shape Silas right there and then, leaning against the counter, pick him out of nothing. He hesitates, wonders if he’s overplaying his hand, if he’s really so desperate to know that he’s willing to throw caution to the wind, and decides that yes, yes, he absolutely is. “Might’ve been asking about wolves,” he says, carefully, drumming his fingers against the bar. “Or—”

He’s grasping at straws, now; the barkeeper’s looking at him with polite confusion and incomprehension, and there’s a wolf’s snarl of anger in his chest at his uselessness, an ugly thrum of helplessness turning sour. Matthias’s smile wavers, and he tries, “Have there been any weird deaths in the area, then? Animal attacks, anything? Anything?”