Hunter: Eclipse

The vibration against my leg was persistent and becoming irritating. Reaching down, I felt the box shape in my pocket and pulled it out. Forcing one eye open, bright white light had me flinching, and with the result happening on the second attempt, I gave up, and the vibrating stopped. Rolling onto my back, my shoulder aches while pins and needles flooded my hand and arm. When it started to vibrate again, reality hit me.

"Oh, shit."

Someone groaned beside me and forcing myself to sit, the taste in my mouth had my stomach rolling. Squinting, I looked around and took in the mass of sleeping women around me. Valkyries. Trying to look at my phone again, the light was still too brutal for my eyes, but the numbers on the screen were visible now.

19 Missed Calls.

8 Messages from Apollo

5 Messages from V

1 Message from Mum

It was nine thirty.

Feeling like a newborn deer, I manage to stand, sway, take a step, sway and then stumble over two people to get to the stairs. I know I made it to the steps because I fell down them and stayed there for a minute, while I prayed I wouldn't vomit.

"You're not a mead drinker are you?" The much too happy voice greeted me, right before a pair of hands and feet were in front of me. "Let me help."

"I didn't think I was supposed to get hangovers," I groaned. No, not hungover yet - still drunk.

"The brew is one from their homeland. It doesn't matter who you are, you drink that, and you're in trouble."

"Oh, you have no idea," I mumble, clinging to the back of a chair to stay standing.

I was in so much trouble.

"Did you stay here?" I ask him, stumbling my way to the bar where he sat with a laptop.

"I live here. I got a room out the back. It's nothing fancy but does the job. Coffee?" I nod, yet as he reappears with a hot cup of black liquid, I make it to the bathroom with new found agility and desperation. "Maybe try water first?"

Dropping beside the toilet, I take the glass he offers and then the napkin to wipe my face.

"This is so bad." I sigh.

"I've seen worse. Anna is like that if she touches tequila." He shrugs, only my current situation isn't what I meant. No, the time, the missing the debrief, everything was bad. "Then there are the local fox shifters that come in, and boy, they are one species that should never touch alcohol. It makes them crazy, and the reason why we fastened down the tables."

Eric doesn't shut up.

Not as I'm throwing up.

Not as I ask for more water.

Not even as I take off my vomit covered shirt and dump it in the waste bin.

"Eric, please. For love of any of the gods, shut the fuck up." I groan before washing my face, ignoring the vibrating phone on the counter. I need to be able to think a single thought before even attempting to face, that.

"Want me to answer it? Someone seems pretty worried about you?"

"I'll call in a second, once I can take the coffee. I don't know why they don't just, come here?" I manage to get some new clothes in front of me. Plus some new random guy answering wasn't going to help. "Any place for a shower?"

"The girls are pretty secretive about their whereabouts. Even now they still get paranoid they're going to be hunted down, so if anyone is using magic to locate you, they'll come up empty. I'll take you to the shower." He smiles, leading be down behind the curtains, past the stage and through another room before we're in what I guess is his place. He points to a door in the corner and hands me a neatly folded towel. "Go for it."