Blood Magik: A Cold Day in Hell (Book One)

Chapter 3: ...Wolves Are Sure to Follow

1

Downtown, Los Angeles; Now:

On the street along the alley where Tessura had just devoured the soul of a man who, in all honesty, should've been enormously inconsequential, the last public transport of the evening slowly passed, its passengers oblivious to her diabolical mischief.

A young woman smirked at the thought of a young man before her attention was pulled into the alley that lingered in shade like a stalker hiding from prying eyes. Just a glimpse of it picked at her suspicions and reeled her in; uncertainties hidden behind the reflections on the window... But why it grabbed her, she was unsure. Just the thought of this inimical, lonely corridor birthed some slimy seed of disquiet inside...enticing her curiosity with a mystery to unravel.

The brakes on the bus squeaked and the hydraulics hissed as it came to a stop not far from the scene of a brutal murder that should have gone unnoticed. Alex stepped off the bus, leery as she'd be every night, and pinched her coat closed, buttoning it at its middle to shield herself from the cold. It normally wouldn't get below forty degrees in the dead of night in these streets she grew to endure, but this night seemed abnormally chilly, and her warm breath rolled from her lips into the frigid air as a dense mist as thick as smoke.

Her heels clopped against the hard cement, her stride speaking without her behest. The inviting sounds of her dressy shoes made her apprehensive when alone – like they were announcing to the local street creeps an unsuspecting and attractive female was close by and plumped for meddling.

Dark denim hugged her thighs beneath a long wool coat that only stopped to meet the top of her black suede boots. Straight black hair and curves proportional to her frame, if Disney's Pocahontas was a city girl, Alex might have been mistaken for her sister.

A nipping breeze caught the skin of her cheek. It startled her with a cold bite and a foul smell so she lowered her chin to avoid the taste as bits of trash and empty bags pushed past her feet like rolling urban tumbleweed. Her confusion then met a sudden worry winding in her chest, her heart uneasy as she neared the mystery that called to her.

Her stride slowed, but her advance was steady. Her gut knew better than to press on, clinching in protest, but her curiosity outmuscled her intuition and her feet foolishly followed her intrigue.

As she got closer, the air grew colder, and the breeze tore passed her face like ripping masking tape from her cheek. It was as if the wind was also trying to push her from her course, and she might've been wise to adhere. But when she reached the alley, she stepped cautious into its opening anyway, almost as much for cover from the current as to sate her curiosity.

When her foot found the alley floor the wind came to a stop. Frantic strands of her hair running from God-knows-what settled onto her back and shoulders almost with a sigh. The path's entire sinister feel dissipated in an instant and suddenly seemed to be more normal than any alley naturally should...

She thought her imagination might be reaching, thinking a "normal" alleyway wasn't normal at all, but she wasn't convinced of its proposed innocuousness. It didn't seem as dark as it did when she passed by it earlier. Instead she found it well-lit and strangely uncluttered. There were no smells of trash, urine, shit, alcohol, or any other signs of the filth that otherwise saturated the rest of the block.

It appeared to offer her nothing of interest other than how disinteresting it seemed...

She hadn't walked more than ten yards in before an inconveniently placed, building wall cut short her detour. She stared at the obstruction with suspicious eyes before reaching out, fingers prodding at its validity. She didn't know what she expected to find or even what she was searching for, but she honestly never realized the alley she frequently passed had such an abrupt dead end.