Shadowglass

Water splashes, and Andy comes to with a start.

His forehead smacks against steam-coated glass, dizzying him. Black tangles scrape the mist, and he glimpses his own bedraggled reflection in the sepia-lit vanity mirror. For some reason, relief crackles his spine.

He sighs and rolls his neck under the spray, letting water flow over his aching limbs, through his hair, into his bitter-stained mouth. His pale skin stings, rust-scraped and raw, silvery scratches smarting.

Rough night.

Blackout. Dreams again, maybe. His wings hurt, inside to his bones, like he’s flown too far. He doesn’t remember getting home. Doesn’t even recall taking a shower, and with weary distaste, he hopes there’s no one in his bedroom.

He drenches his face. Dark water swirls down the drain, trailing grit on the tiles.

The rusted hellmirror. He remembers that. Evil thing, whispering at him like murder’s ghost, sliding guilt-tainted needles into his veins.

He spits a coppery mouthful. Nasty thing. Jinxx’s welcome to it.

And then Appolonnia, the scrunchy yellow girl who teases his blood to quicksilver and his senses to golden warning. Scrambling off his lap like he’d cut her, the smell of her dusky wings crawling under his skin, so he slammed up his ice-walled attitude and pushed her away.

Hot regret splashes over his wings. Hasn’t he done enough pushing away? She’s nice, isn’t she? An ordinary girl. Not dangerous. She wouldn’t get weird with him. Wouldn’t wheedle out his affection to use it against him. Would she?

Prickles on a pineapple. Damn right, she would. A petty scam artist like her? She’s doing too good a besotted-fangirl impression not to be playing him. No doubt she’s working for some thief-plagued master who owes Andy a kick in the ass. Maybe even for Jinxx.

A tricksier girl than Apples once messed with his mind like that, and look where it got her.

Andy snaps his teeth on bitter memories of auburn locks, a warm rich laugh, smooth red lips he’d kissed like her breath was air itself, now curving with delicious betrayal. An audacious theft twisted horribly wrong when she turned on him, tricked him, betrayed him once he’d led her to the loot. But then a demon’s rotten snarl of triumph, sharp brass shackles searing Andy’s wrists, easily broken but too late, the ground quaking with the demon’s indiscriminate rage.

She flees with him, his false-hearted girl, broken and bleeding, scrambling up cracked stone tunnels toward the light, but he’s too swift and she can’t fly. She’s not strong enough, he spits curses and shoves her away, but she falls. An accident. Not an accident. He isn’t sure. But remorse rips his heart like poison fangs, and his claws tear her skin as he scrabbles to catch her, to hold her, fighting gravity’s inescapable pull down a black spike-slashed hellpit. He can’t. She falls, wide blue eyes rimmed with blood, her last spit-choked words a curse.

The rage and crushing sorrow are faded after so long, and all that’s left is guilt, bitter regret, and the certainty he can never go there again. His heart’s not for the taking. He won’t fall for such pretty lies a second time.

But the image of Appolonnia’s awestruck gaze stirs his desire again, and he coughs and resists the need to touch himself. Jinxx’s not welcome to her. Just because Andy won’t have her doesn’t mean anyone else should be allowed.

Andy’s skin heats with honey-sweet memories he doesn’t want, vague steamy images like he’s watched through glass. Devoured the sight. Couldn’t tear his eyes away. Jinxx claiming her, kissing those taut golden lips, sniffing her puckered breasts, spreading her pretty thighs on his filthy demon lap like she belonged to him, and in the shower Andy slices his lip with sharp iron fangs, silvery blood washing onto his chest. The sting distracts him from his swelling hard-on, but it enhances it, too, and he gasps and indulges, stroking himself with light copper claws in the hot spray as he thinks of her.

Just a girl. An awkward, funny, sexy girl with fascinating flaws that tempt him and secret beauties that calm his raging blood. Normal. Ordinary. Imagine that. Ask her out, buy her dinner, take her to the fucking theater or whatever normal people do. Kiss her lips in the warm midnight breeze, take her somewhere fresh and clean and pleasure her, slide his body on hers and his tongue in her salty moisture and his cock deep into her willing body and let that be enough.

But he doesn’t trust her. He doesn’t trust himself, not anymore.

Current crackles across his wet skin like spiderweb. His cock strains in his hand, his balls tight, and he crunches aching teeth together and lets go. Guilt. Penance. Whatever. Just not her.

He twists the shower off and shakes himself, spraying rusty droplets on the glass. He rubs a towel in his hair and walks naked through the bedroom—empty, thankfully, bed still made—and his sparse blue lounge to the balcony, where the afternoon sun cooks the concrete and a light hot breeze cleans his skin in a sunbright view of shining apartment blocks and cerulean sky. A perfect day for views, for leaning off the dizzy-high roof with summer breeze lifting his wings, inhaling air washed clean of city filth. He likes it up there. But not today, not in this mood.

His shadow paints the floor, lean, wings carving like blades. He leans over to see the street six floors below, and his calves hurt, like he’s climbed too many stairs. Images flash, obscure.

Sprinting down a dark deserted street, his blood afire, laughing. Always laughing, this shadow self. Andy doesn’t remember the last time he laughed.

He turns his back to the breeze and stretches silvery wings. Water evaporates, cooling his blood, and the hot breeze lifts him, filling his membranes with the urge to fly.

Time he left this town. His soul is safe for now. His trade with Jinxx ensured that. Nothing here except bad memories and danger and a succulent yellow girl he can’t have. Maybe Sydney, the north shore where the weather’s cool, anonymity and salty sea breeze to comfort him. Maybe even across the sea, Jakarta or Colombo with their muddy monsoon gutters and warm typhoid rain, where the crumpled change in his pocket is a fortune and demons are poor and starving like everyone else, too busy gnawing at each other’s throats in the dirt to hire a thief.

Yes, leaving. It’s time.

He tosses the towel aside. Inside, he pulls on fresh jeans and buttons a sleeveless black shirt cut to fit around his wings. Cash, bank-cards, slim silvery phone from the marble bench. That’s it. His life. Portable, easy. No complications.

He glances around as he pulls the door shut. Dim, blue, cool. Empty. He won’t miss this place, and no one will care he’s gone. He’ll just stop paying the rent and the bills, and the estate agent will lease it to someone else. Neat. Uncomplicated.

Cryptic images and the memory of roses suggest he has another place, darker and more sensual, that needs care. But the memory slips from his grasp, and he can’t recall where or why. Doesn’t matter. Maybe he dreamed it.

Notes

So there has been talk about Andy in these chapters lately....so, why not give you guys a chapter about him. huhhh
Hope you enjoy.

Stay weird Baby Bats ;)
-Grimm