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crap out of him, although she had a bruised eye and her one arm was in a brace.
    He froze in panic, limbs turned to mush as fear chained him motionless.
    Shit.

Chapter 4
    “It’s him!” the woman exclaimed coarsely.
    The young man leered. “It is! That guy that had that other guy help him. Wow, we’re lucky tonight.”
    Tony was paralyzed in terror. The part of him that wanted to fight back was being tied back to the wall of his mind by the part that cowered in fear. The man twisted his shirt collar in one hand and lifted him from the bench and into the air.
    “Beat him good for me.” The woman sneered as the young man clenched a fist and aimed for Tony’s face.
    The man’s fist floated inches from Tony’s nose, arm locked in mid-air. He grunted as he tried to move but he couldn’t, as if a great weight coupled with the earth’s gravity were bearing down on his body, helplessly trapping him in that one single spot.
    “His eyes!” screeched the woman. “They-they’re gold! Like a vampire’s!”
    Tony’s unwavering stare was now the color of warm honey as he stared at the young man and his friends like a starving wolf in wait. He stood from the bench and traced a finger along the young man’s jaw line with a wry smirk that reminded the hyenas of a snake.
    A hungry, poisonous snake about to strike its prey.
    *
    “What were you going to do to my servant?” Gabriel asked calmly, silkily.
    The woman turned to run but he was far superior in speed and appeared before her as she tried to sprint away. “I won’t let any of you go.” He growled as the woman stepped back until she was in a straight line with her friends.
    “Why can’t I move? What’s going on?” The one man, the one that hadn’t taken any actions, asked as he trembled in terror. “Is he a vampire or a panther? I can’t tell.”
    The vampire circled the were-hyenas, like a predator enjoying the hunt, greatly amused with the shocked expressions crossing their features. He laughed and said, “May I ask what you were planning to do with my servant?”
    “He’s been possessed by that vampire! But I thought only a master vampire could do that,” mumbled the woman in wonder.
    The young man spoke up. “W-we were just gonna hurt him a little. Not anything bad, just to get back at him for calling in help yesterday, that’s all.”
    Gabriel roughly cupped the man’s cheeks, eyes flashing crimson. “And why did you attack him yesterday to begin with?”
    The woman raised her voice. “He was an easy target, and we wanted to have some fun. It’s not every day you find a panther as weak as him.”
    Gabriel paused. “Ah, I see. So you had no real reason to harm him then. It was all done on a whim?”
    “I’m sorry! We’ll never do it again! Okay?” the woman screeched.
    Gabriel clapped and hissed. “I will let you go then, as I do not want to attract any unnecessary attention. But know that if I ever see you around this man again I will not hold back my anger.”
    “Y-yeah!” The woman squeaked as she and the young men found they could now move. They each shifted quickly into their hyena counterparts and fled into the nearby tree line.
    Gabriel watched them leave, waited until they were completely out his sight, and then began the long and arduous walk back to the apartment.
    He would need to feed. And soon.
    Taking over a servant’s body didn’t come without consequences after all.
    * * * *
    Tony’s head throbbed like a sledgehammer. He examined his room and flinched when he noticed that Gabriel was in the bed with him, long dark hair settled around him in an ebony waterfall. Tony looked at him closely, inspected the way his eyelashes were so long they reached his eyebrows like little angel wings, his pale mouth slightly agape, arms perfectly positioned by his sides as he slumbered in his death-sleep.
    His death sleep? Tony threw the covers off himself and jumped out of bed. Gabriel was as good as dead beside him, a lifeless corpse