Ablaze Without Flames

Chapter 3, Part 2 - Thea

The door from the kitchen led into an alley shared with the dentist's beside the Shieldmaiden. The entire city had a network of alleys that linked the centre with the suburbs and everything in between. They were dark and damp and were good for nothing other than storing dustbins and skips.

And here I was expecting an early night, Thea thought, stifling a yawn as she locked the side door. It was just past two; her colleagues had taken off early and the Saturday night rowdiness was beginning in the streets. Sirens wailed from the road behind her and she saw blue flashing against the brickwork. She glanced toward the mouth of the alley and hoped she would see no one she knew on her way home. Drunk strangers she could avoid, but classmates and regular customers seemed to think she enjoyed their company. Turning back to the door, she dropped the keys into her rucksack.

A shadow moved in the corner of her eye and she spun around in time to watch a figure leap over the lowest platform on the fire escape. With a grunt, his knees gave out beneath him and he paused, his hands steadying him on the ground.

Under the white floodlight over the door, he was much clearer than he had been in the park.

He straightened up out of his crouch, eyes unwavering from her. The wall lamps highlighted the shadows under his eyes and cheekbones. His skin was olive, his hair bronze and shone with hints of deep red under the white light. To see him as a whole, lithe body with pointed ears that twitched and a sleek furry tail the same colour as his hair made him all the more real. Honey-brown eyes still glowed around slit pupils in a way no human eye could.

But it was more than that. His face narrowed to a pointed chin, made all the more pronounced by the shadows. He stood on his toes, which were wrapped in thin leather boots, with his knees at a slight bend. He was like something out of a horror film. Or nightmare.

Her neck snapped from side to side, looking up and down the alley, as much to look for the best way to escape as to shake him from her sight. 'What on Earth is going on..?' she murmured under her breath when he stayed put. Given a few more days, she could have convinced herself that the creature had been a hallucination, a result of overwork, stress, fatigue or all of the above, or simply just a vivid dream. To see it twice was harder to explain away. 

'Earth?' he repeated. Thea's nostrils flared in the effort to keep her breaths even, heart threatening to pound right through her ribcage at the sound of him speaking. His ears swivelled like a cat's, latching onto sounds Thea couldn't hear through the roaring of blood through her head. His gaze slid away from her to examine the road stretching past the mouth of the alley. 'That's one question answered, at least.'

'What question?' Thea demanded.

'Where I am,' he said, casting her a brief glance. He spoke with a slight accent, lilts of Irish and Scottish without sounding fully like one or the other. 'I was halfway to believing I'd landed in hell. Still am.'

The ground tilted and Thea caught herself on the wall of the restaurant, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head. He was still there when she opened them. His shoulders leant back against the wall with one foot flat against it.

She forced a short laugh up from her throat. 'I don't know if this is some elaborate prank or something, but it's ridiculous. Either those—um, appendages are some very fancy animatronics or...' She cut herself off. The idea of voicing the alternatives made her stomach churn in warning.

The creature stared at her and folded his arms. His eyebrows drew together and the corners of his mouth twitched, but not from mirth. Thea looked around, searching for cameras. Unless there was an entire crew camouflaged among the dustbins, they were completely alone without CCTV. She made a mental note to talk to George about that.