ONE
In Angela’s defense, she’d been having a perfectly terrible night long before the alley tried to kill her.
Flanked by brick walls that seemed to lean inward, Angela’s heels clicked along the uneven pavement as the narrow alley stretched ahead of her. Somewhere above, a neon sign flickered, casting erratic bursts of red light across overfull dumpsters and grimy walls.
She shouldn’t even be here. Normally, she’d stay on the main street by the restaurants where the traffic flowed and people crowded the sidewalks.
But she’d been stood up. Again.
She was fine with it. Really. She enjoyed being single. Choosing dinner based on what she wanted, not what someone else considered date food. What was so interesting about potentially negotiating time with a man who’d eventually resent her work hours and life choices?
Now adding blind dates to that list of things to permanently avoid.
So when the flustered, elderly European couple stopped her outside the bistro, gesturing at an address scrawled on a crumpled napkin, Angela had smiled and dug into her rusty high school French.
“Par ici, suivez-moi.” Although she might have said chicken-cake-balloon-candle at one stage, which is how she ended up escorting them three blocks out of her way, pointing out landmarks, and making sure they found their restaurant.
They thanked her profusely, pressing her hands between theirs as if she’d saved their lives instead of just their dinner reservation. By the time Angela turned back toward her car, she was way off course.
The alley was faster.
Right?
So here she was…
Pulling her coat tighter, walking down this alley, her breath misting in the chilly night air. The sound of the street soon faded, swallowed by brick walls and shadows filled with secrets.
Then the temperature dropped. As that crawling sensation she’d get whenever someone walked too close behind her at night, making her skin tingle and senses heighten. But never this strong.
It was nothing, right? Cities had alleys. Alleys had dumpsters, rats, and the occasional homeless guy or junkie. So that metallic, faintly sweet, and overwhelmingly putrid aroma was perfectly justifiable.
Except her body didn’t believe her. Not with that annoying trickle of fear crawling up her spine, like some useless alarm bell from a primitive age.
Ahead, the alley split into a T-intersection. Left led to the street she wanted. Right led deeper into the shadows.
Angela hesitated. She should go left, but her gaze drifted right to a soft sound coming from behind a dumpster near the far wall. It wasn’t a cough or a laugh. And it wasn’t good.
Inside her handbag, her fingers dug past her change purse, the lip gloss, receipts, and tissues to finally close around her trusty pepper spray.
“Hello?” Her voice echoed back, so tiny.
Of course, the alley didn’t answer.
It was probably just a cat.
Still, there was this wrongness in the air itself, which had thickened into a deeper blackness, carrying a stench that made her eyes water. Along with a low, choking sound that made Angela’s skin crawl.
She took one step forward.
Then another.
What are you doing? her brain screamed. Go back. Go left. Go anywhere else.
But her body kept moving, drawn by some compulsion to look at the broken thing and try to fix it.
She edged past the dumpster where the smell swamped her as if stepping into a tent full of badness. It was metallic. Hot. And oh, so wrong-wrong-wrong, coating the back of her throat like rust, making her gag.
There was a man sprawled on his back, half in shadow, his jacket open to reveal a green uniform, like nurse’s scrubs. His mouth moved, shaping words that made no sound. His head jerked weakly, as his terror-filled eyes pleaded with her.
Crouched over the man was a being wearing a long black cloak that didn’t move the way fabric should.
It seemed to be absorbing the light into its dark folds.
The hood obscured the face; where not even a nose or a mouth was visible.
Just darkness, with one pale, thin hand pressed against the man’s throat, making his breath stutter.
But it only got worse, as that cloaked being gave a soft, satisfied sigh of pleasure.
Angela wanted to be sick, to run.
Instead, rage mixed with horror made her voice crack through the alley like a whip. “Get away from him!”
The cloaked figure slowly turned its head, showing no face or any clear shape under that hood.
Angela lifted the pepper spray with shaky hands. “Get off him. Now.”
The thing unfolded to a height taller than any man. Its too-long limbs were strangely fluid as if the air moved with it. From under the hood, the male voice was low and slithery, like a whisper heard through water. “You… see me?”
Angela’s throat tightened, as did her grip on her pepper spray. “Of course I see you.”
The hood tilted, as if curious. “But you should not see. The Accords—”
“You’re standing right there.” Her eyes burned from the stench rolling off him in waves. She had to do something, anything, even though she wanted to run and call the cops. “What are you? Part of some sick cult?”
A hollow laugh scraped out of the darkness. “Mortal words. Mortal comfort.”
It took one step toward her.
Angela stepped back, her heel skidding on the alley’s gritty floor. “Stay away from me.” She was so stupid. What on earth had possessed her to do this?
The thing paused, as if amused by her attempt at authority.
Then it suddenly moved too fast, closing the distance between them in a blink.
Angela jerked the pepper spray up, and it hissed, releasing a stream of chemicals hitting the darkness under the hood.
But it never even flinched.
Instead, it laughed.
Mercy.
Angela’s eyes watered from the chemical sting. “Get away from me.” She fired again, flooding the air with pepper and desperation as she stumbled backward.
But it did nothing.
The cloaked being’s voice became eerily intimate, the kind that would give her nightmares for the rest of her life. “That is not a weapon for my kind.”
It lunged.
Angela screamed. It was raw and ugly, as if dredged from the depths of her very soul, into a scream that echoed in the alley amplifying it a thousand times over.
You’d think someone would have heard her.
But the cloaked being’s hand closed around her throat, with fingers stiff as frozen bones, in a grip that wasn’t human.
The pepper spray canister slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the concrete to roll under the industrial bin, as the thing lifted her by the throat.
Her spine click-clacked into alignment; the muscles in her neck and shoulders strained as her feet left the ground, while she clawed at the hand gripping her throat.
The pain, the lack of air, and panic blended with black spots that danced with the stars in her eyes. Then it leaned closer with that hood to reveal red, hungry eyes.
Terror flooded through her. She struggled to breathe as it crushed her throat, forcing her to stare at evil itself.
“Put her down.” The deep male voice cut through the alley.
The cloaked being paused.
Its grip loosened just enough for Angela to draw in a breath. She spotted a man standing at the mouth of the alley, half-hidden in the spill of the streetlights.
He was dressed in thick black leathers, worn and scarred as if they’d seen too many nights like this. Topped off with a heavy black coat that opened, not to reveal a gun, but…
Silver blades.
His eyes caught the light. A pale sea-glass blue like a crystalline teal, too bright and too clear to be real.
How was any of this real?
Angela’s breath hitched. The hand around her throat tightened, crushing her windpipe before she could scream. She slapped at it as she tried to kick out and get herself free. “Help.”
“Shh, my lovely, won’t be long now.” The cloaked being crushed her throat and all hope of air.
The man stepped into the alley, carrying a wave of dry heat that seemed to roll over them, making the air shimmer. “Put her down. Now.”
The cloaked thing laughed, still holding Angela aloft. “Captain Zarek, Sworn Exarch of the Vanguard, it is an honor. Even if you are too late.”
Captain Zarek moved. In less than the blink of an eye, he appeared closer, the way lightning flashes. One moment distant, the next he was right there, followed by a flash of silver. The cloaked being’s arm was severed at the elbow with an impossibly clean slice.
Angela hit the concrete hard. Her breath exploded from her chest. Pain flared through her shoulder and hip as she coughed, dragging ragged lungs full of air through her burning throat.
Above her, the cloaked being shrieked in a way that wasn’t human or animal, but something that belonged in horror movies.
Zarek didn’t flinch. He just stepped into the shriek, raising his blade.
The cloaked figure lashed out with nails like black talons, slicing for Zarek’s face.
Zarek twisted aside with impossible speed as heat cracked through the air, unleashing a flame that flared out in a sharp burst to catch the black fabric of her attacker’s cloak.
In seconds, it smoked and burned, forcing the creature to stagger back.
Its shrieks echoed within the alley’s shadows so loudly it hurt her ears.
But Zarek kept moving, driving the silver blade straight into its chest as the entire thing ignited into a violent, raging red fireball that exploded outward in a sudden sphere of heat.
Angela threw her arm up, shielding her face as the blast washed over her.
And then…
Nothing.
The fire vanished like faded fireworks disappearing in the sky.
Angela blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Zarek had buried his blade in the creature’s chest, which had hardened into gray stone as a furious network of cracks spread outward from the blade.
Zarek removed the blade, and the statue shivered, then collapsed into ash, hitting the ground like a shower of dust.
Angela stared as her brain struggled to catch up.
Monsters didn’t turn to stone.
Stone didn’t turn to dust.
And people didn’t carry swords and set the air on fire.