The GPS said “Danny’s Barrelhouse.” The sign out front said “D’Nys.” Half the bulbs were out. One flickered like it was dying of embarrassment.

Gabriel peered through the bug-smeared van window. “This place looks like it got condemned and just didn’t notice.”

Mark gave a slow blink from the passenger seat. “I’ve been in worse.”

Thane grunted from the driver’s seat, pulling into the gravel lot with a crunch. “Name two.”

Mark didn’t answer.

The dive bar sat between a pawn shop and a taxidermy place that proudly advertised “We Mount Anything.” A lone neon sign buzzed over the front door, casting a radioactive green glow on a pair of tipped-over barstools and what was either an opossum or a very drunk cat.

Cassie stepped out and sniffed the air. “Smells like regret and pickle juice.”

Inside, the bar was dim, humid, and full of character—if the character in question was a whiskey-soaked cryptid who played darts with switchblades. The stage was barely big enough for a drum kit and a bad attitude. The sound system looked like it had been built during the Cold War, and someone had clearly spilled a drink on it in every decade since.

A bartender with half a mohawk and a full neck tattoo waved them in. “You the band?”

Gabriel smiled. “Yes, sir. Feral Eclipse.”

“Cool. Set up fast. The bingo crowd’s still in the parking lot, and they get mean when the jukebox stops.”

As Thane unloaded cables and gear like a man preparing for war, Jonah wandered toward the stage and poked at a speaker that gave off an ominous wheeze.

“Pretty sure this thing just said a racial slur.”

Rico stepped over a puddle that may have been beer or ammonia. “If I get electrocuted tonight, I’m haunting Gabriel.”

Maya shot a glance around the bar. “You sure we’re not in a Quentin Tarantino movie?”

“I’m almost sure,” Thane muttered.

They managed to wedge themselves onto the stage, Mark doing his lighting magic with three clamp lights and a prayer. The bar regulars stared with a mix of suspicion and mild amusement. One man in a “Born to Fish, Forced to Work” tank top raised his beer and nodded at Thane.

“Nice boots.”

Thane looked down at his bare clawed feet, then back up. “Thanks. Yours are… consistent.”

The first song blasted through the space like a sonic cleansing. Gabriel’s bass lines cracked a pint glass. Maya’s riffs scared off the jukebox entirely—it sparked and died in the corner. Cassie’s voice melted the wax off a decorative deer skull.

Jonah went full animal behind the kit, launching into his fills with the grace of a caffeinated bear. Rico’s solos carved holes in the cigarette haze, each note daring the crowd to look away.

And the crowd?

They loved it.

One woman tossed her bra at Cassie and missed by four feet, hitting Mark in the face. He didn’t even flinch. Another guy tried to mosh with a barstool and immediately got ejected by the bartender, who high-fived Gabriel on his way back behind the bar.

By the end of the second set, people were dancing. Not well. Not in time. But with wild, drunken joy.

Thane worked the soundboard like it owed him money, drenched in sweat, barely keeping the system from exploding. At one point he smacked the compressor with a flashlight, and it started working better.

Cassie leaned into her mic between songs. “We’re Feral Eclipse. We love you weirdos.”

A guy screamed, “I WANNA BE A WEREWOLF!”

Mark just muttered, “No, you don’t.”

After the show, they got paid in mostly cash and half a gift card to a gas station that might not exist anymore. The bartender slid Thane a paper envelope and said, “That was the loudest this place has ever been without police showing up.”

Thane smirked. “Give it time.”

Back in the van, everyone collapsed into their usual piles.

“That wasn’t entirely awful,” Jonah offered.

“It was half-awful,” Rico corrected. “With a chaser of almost-fun.”

Gabriel grinned, fangy and delighted. “I’d play there again.”

Cassie threw a towel at him.

Thane leaned his head against the window, eyes closed, voice low.

“We survive everything.”

Mark, already dozing in the back, cracked one eye open. “Even this.”

And the van rolled into the night, chasing the next disaster with claws, chords, and caffeine.