Ablaze Without Flames

Chapter 6, Part 2 - Blaise

Rumbling as deep as thunder made the air tremble all around and Blaise craned his neck to look upward. Something vaguely bird-shaped glided across the dimming sky, its wings stiff and unmoving. Blaise had seen several of them already but the sound of them, which seemed to come from the very depths of the world as well as the sky, never failed to make him shiver.

Blaise pulled his jacket tighter around himself and shoved his hands into the pockets, hunching his shoulders as the warmth faded with the sun. Silence did not exist in the human world, it seemed. Even in the middle of the night when he lay awake in the she-demon's home, the screeching growls of the cars droned on and on without respite. One zipped past him on the road, blue lights flashing on top and wailing sharply, spraying puddle-water over the hems of his jeans.

The crowding on the edges of the roads was thinning, but the noise was not. Chatter floated up all around; rough barks of anger and shrieks of laughter. The shrouds muffled the sharper sounds, but he flattened his ears against his head to reduce the noise further, his fingers itching to cover them. The muffled noise was not much better, especially when the toll of the bell hidden in the great clock tower looming over everything began to count out the hour.

He paused in the relative quiet of a narrow side street, leaning back against the rough brick wall and staring skyward. The blanket of cloud had moved on to finally reveal the sky, a blue so pale it was almost white. The glaring sun was bigger than the one of Learus, but cooler, even at its highest point of the day. Now it was out of sight behind the buildings behind him.

Wandering aimlessly south was losing its appeal. Even the fresh breeze didn't feel so comfortable now. There was no point to any of this unless he could find a way back through whatever tear in the seams he had fallen through. No doorway allowed passage from only one direction. Balance was fundamental in all worlds, he knew that. Blaise thought of the park he had landed in and considered taking his chances there—if he could find it again. His senses had been so blurred that he wasn't sure he could remember exactly where the portal was; assuming it was still there at all.

The scent crept up on him without warning. His nose twitched against the hint of bitterness in the smoke-ridden air, but he was inhaling the smell for many moments before he recognised it. His head snapped around and his ears pricked up.

'...an increase in demon energies...'

'Probably intelligent...one that can hide...'

They were not voices Blaise recognised but he was in no doubt of the subject of which they spoke. He crept closer to the corner, wishing he could let the shroud dissolve, or at least thin it somehow, to better hear them. He flattened his back to the wall when he could catch every word, staring hard at the ground while he listened out of sight.

'Keep an eye on your radars. These aren't our usual numbers.'

Blood beginning to roar through his head, Blaise peeked around the corner. This street was even narrower, only one line of houses looking out onto a stretch of freshly-ploughed land—the first sign of farmland he'd found—and every window was shuttered with fabric. The colours on the doors were scratched. There were holes in the road and glass bottles lining the edges. Five humans stood facing each other in the middle of the road. One of them Blaise recognised instantly; the man in black leather armour he had fought before. The others were all strange to him, but every one of them emitted the same bitter, toxic scent. Two were in similar armour, a male and a female, but the other two men were in flimsy grey clothes.

'We already know it's a kitsune,' said Carl, scuffing the ground with his boot. 'Strong, fast, sentient. Sort of intelligent. Speaks English.'

'Humanoid, as far as South's concerned,' said the woman.