Shadowglass

Midnight moonshine floods the neat grass courtyard behind Jinxx’s town house with pale underwater light. The creamy façade looms tall, throwing black shadows onto the garden.

Distant traffic smears the silence, and in the garden a fountain trickles, water over iron-bolted river stones and glassy blue ornaments, the rocks still smelling warm from the long-set sun.

In shadows above the porticoed entrance, Andy floats, warm air supporting his wings, his dark hand resting lightly on the upper-story window ledge for balance. His reflection glints in distant headlamps, flashing in and out like a dim blue ghost. Beyond, inside, darkness stares back, the shadowy edges of a doorway in pale walls and the darker shape of empty carpet.

He sniffs the summer air, searching for the telltale ozone tinge of current, but only pollen and warm concrete greet him. He inhales deeper, the oxygen rush filling his blood. His nose twitches. Residue, the worn conduit of voltage past. If there’s an alarm, it’s off, or broken.

Arrogance. Luck. Whatever. Saves him the trouble of shorting out the circuits.

He presses his palm against the top of the smooth window frame and grits his teeth in anticipation. Metaldark sweat springs out on his face, and the lock tumblers melt with a hiss and a puff of steam. Pain flares like acid. He yanks his singed palm away, the hot iron scent of his own burned flesh an unpleasant distraction.

He forces copper claws under the aluminum frame, a tiny grating sound he can’t avoid. Molten steel squelches from the ruined lock to splash on the carpet inside. Smoke wisps upward into darkness. He waits a few seconds, his pulse elevated but controlled. No movement. No lights.

Swiftly, silently, he raises the window sash and slips feet-first into Jinxx’s upstairs bedroom.

His feet hit coarse wool. The room’s empty, unused, the carpet bare of furniture. Not Jinxx’s room, and no one else lives here. Air-conditioning taints his sweat with ash, and he slides the window closed behind him to halt the inward rush of warm air.

He closes his eyes, listening, breathing, searching for metal’s innate pressure on his senses.

His eardrums throb, painful. As always, it’s deafening at first, and his sinuses whine in protest.

Steel girders surrounding him, crushing inward like a claustrophobe’s nightmare, wrapped in a tangle of dust and plastic-sheathed wires. White noise, garbage, hash on an empty channel, free to anyone who’ll listen. Andy’s trick is to tune in. It makes him such a useful thief.

Right now it makes him impatient. He digs deeper, in that iron-free space between air molecules, and faint motes of life glitter in the emptiness like a lost fairy girl’s diamond choker:

A pin, dropped on the carpet and lost. The dim coil of a tap spring, a strip of bright chrome on a shower recess. Flickers of cheap gold on a circuit board, an intricate brass hinge, silvery flecks in the skin of a discarded photograph. A scatter of lead crystal, soft golden chains, a gold quartz watch, a platinum ring.

He swallows, dismissing it all. He’s not interested in random plunder. He’s here for only one thing, and he listens harder, scouring the fae-bright ether for the itching stink of a rusted round hellball.

He doesn’t find it. Gritty sweat stings his burnt palm. Too much clutter. He’ll have to look the old-fashioned way. Folding damp silvery wings, he pads lightly out into the dark corridor, ears pricked for movement even though he knows Jinxx’s not here. If Jinxx were here, he’d be caught already.

Smooth off-white walls, an unused bathroom, the dry smell of vacuumed carpet leading to other rooms, empty, distant, stuffy with loneliness. Light spills up the curved white stairs, tall shadows angling, the rubble-flecked iron rail stabbing bright in his senses like a trail of fire. Down, on a draft of cool air that tingles beneath his wings, to mahogany floors lined with steel nails, receding like runway lights under the screaming tungsten filaments of halogen lamps.

The black television reflects him in a mosaic of glass and shimmering silicon transistors. The sick ache of overstimulation grips his skull. His stomach chews listlessly at what’s left of the cobalt-laced fish he swallowed for dinner, and nausea climbs his guts to crouch in his throat like an oily toad. Metalsense makes him sick. He tries to focus on the cool blue titanium bangle shining around his wrist. Light, inert, comforting, it’s the metalfae equivalent of a seasickness bracelet, but it’s never enough. If he doesn’t switch off soon, it’ll get messy.

But he still can’t smell the mirror. There’s no rust here, not in this vapid façade of an apartment, almost as fake as Andy’s own.

Down a fresh-painted corridor, mercifully synthetic. He ghosts past a lead-spattered oil painting that glares in his eyes, and an old gilt-framed mirror backed with mercury sickens him with the stink of his own blood.

Jinxx’s bedroom. Dim, cool, charcoal’s acid tang drifting from neat white sheets. Metal clamors from the master bathroom, sharp chrome edges knifing his sinuses. No rust. No mirror. He swivels to leave, but gentle silver twinkles on his tongue like sherbet.

There, under the bed. Almost hidden by folded linen. He bends to slide one claw over knotted woolen carpet and hooks out a woman’s shimmering diamond bracelet. Snapped, the silver wrenched apart, the clasp still holding.

He holds it to shadowed light, tiny rainbows prisming, and a faint fruity scent waters his mouth. Strawberries, tainted raw with alcohol. His memory somersaults back to last night, Apples laughing on his lap with diamonds tumbling around her slender wrists. The same wrists that trailed those sweaty diamonds around Jinxx’s neck and crushed them into his hair when she came.

Andy drags the shimmering chain over his tongue, just to be sure. Sweetness flares like fruit juice from rough facets, delicious icing on the cake of fine silver. His blood sparkles. It’s her.

Apples was here. The mirror’s gone. Given her incorrigible jackdaw fingers, probably not a coincidence. Brave, quirky, cute little Appolonnia. He wishes he’d been there to see it. He smiles darkly to think of her, and distrust of his own motives burns his bones.

He should leave her alone. No certainty she’ll know anything. Jinxx could simply have the horrid thing with him. And for all he knows, she’s working for Jinxx anyway.

But it’s a place to start. A plan that doesn’t involve picking a demon lord’s pocket in public view.
Anticipation whets his metal-drenched senses. His headache swells, deafening, and he wraps the diamond chain around his finger, clenching his fist so tight, it cuts, and silvery blood slides over his knuckles.

He’s still leaving. This is just for information. Ask his questions, use her blushing fangirl act against her. Find the mirror, return it to Sammi. Leave Apples alone and get out. That’s all.

That’s all.

Urgency twists his diaphragm, and he swirls on sweating wings and darts for the stairs. The motion sickens him further, and he barely makes it into the empty bedroom and out the window before gritty metal vomit explodes in his mouth. He spears into the air, giddy, and gasps warm fresh air through the acid remnants of his sensory feast and a faint, lingering lust for strawberries.

Notes

Alright so i decided to update again because omg I've hit 4000 views and 19 subscribers!!!
It probably isn't a lot compared to other stories but its still pretty cool cool that 4000 people have read my shitty fanfic. like omg

So...I hope you enjoy this chapter.
And

Stay Weird Baby Bats!!!!
-Grimm

P.s. - Thank you guys so much!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3