Shadowglass

Sunlight stabs, and Andy jerks awake, shielding his eyes with an aching blue forearm. His knees scrape on concrete, broken metal digging sharp and bitter into his bones. Blood sparks accusation in his mouth, and cold dread creeps under his skin.

He straightens, wincing as his muscles protest with a crackle of current. Sensation needles his wings, swollen veins stretching under pressure. He flutters, and distant pain shivers his bones. Silence, only the distant scrape of traffic, the dark alley smell of grease and cigarettes. He stretches cramped thighs, and something heavy rolls off his lap, thudding onto the concrete.

A head.
Attached to a body.

Andy’s pulse splinters. He scrambles backwards, crablike.

A body. A boy, slim, dark T-shirt and jeans. Dusty black-dyed hair tumbles lifeless over a purple-stained eyebrow, drained blue eyes, slack lips over sharp vampire teeth. Limbs fold, helpless and white and unnatural. Spit trickles. Scarlet blood seeps, slow and clotted. Dry. Dead. Empty.

Andy swallows, nothing in his mouth but dust and copper. Blood crusts his jeans, his shirt, his aching arms. Blood splatters the warming concrete, puddles against the cracked brick wall, splashes the rainbow-sprayed garbage bin like rust. Blood. Copper-laced, delicious, revolting vampire blood.

Bile froths in his throat, and he chokes metal-stinking mouthful onto the concrete. Pain spears his skull, the harsh iron slither of alien laughter.

He scrabbles to his feet and crouches against the wall in the dark, scrubbing hard at crusted arms. No one here. No one saw him. He can leave now, run, fly away into blinding sun, and no one will ever know. The world won’t miss one more scrap of vampire flotsam, any more than it’d miss Andy were he bled dry on the concrete like a squashed insect. Yes. Fly away, across the sea to poverty and glorious freedom in some muddy tropical paradise. . . .

“Not a chance.” Andy slams his skull back into the wall, and the malicious metal voice shuts up for the moment. But the mirror’s vile seduction still burns ruts in his veins, dragging pleasure from his blood, tempting him to rashness and murder.

He’s killed, dark and silent like poison in the night, and no one stopped him.

Urgency rips his pulse raw. He claws his hair with sticky fingers, trying to slow his breath, to scrape his memory for the last clear thing he recalls. Ice and her diamond bracelet, the mango scent of her hair, the unexpected warmth of her cheek on his. Poor foolish fairy trembled at his touch like she might actually care for him. Whispered like she might actually want his answer. Not telling if you’re gonna be nasty, she said, and everything after that’s a blank.

Andy grits his teeth, and stray flesh sticks, greasy with guilt. He spits in disgust, and meaty strands splat the concrete. He can’t deny this ghastly truth anymore. When this sorry kid died, Andy wasn’t there. He was someone else. Some seductive shadow self, darker, warmer, more dangerous.

Terror leaches thick into his blood. Since he first peeked into that cursed mirror—the night 'she' fell—he’s suffered blackouts. How many times? How long has he been like this without knowing, before this latest brush with the mirror thrust his secret face into the light?

No doubt the vampire kid was an asshole, but it makes no difference. He can’t pretend this isn’t happening, can’t ward off the inevitable with sparkle or caffeine or determination. Eventually his mind will wander, he’ll lose concentration or fall asleep, and that rotten metal voice will whisper again and next time it could be Appolonnia’s blood running down his arms and her pineapple-sweet skin sticky between his teeth. Hell, maybe he’ll give her that kiss he owes her first. . . .

“I said, not a fucking chance.” He crunches dirty claws into his palms to stay with it, and grimaces at copper’s stinging slice. He’ll never hurt her, such a simple innocent girl. Sammi must never find out Appolonnia means even a pleasant dream to him. He’ll prove the hellslut’s threats empty if his final breath scrapes to nothing doing it and he screams away the next thousand years in some rust-spiked hellpit.

If he can keep Apples safe—retrieve this cursed mirror and break the spell—it might make up for all this death.

But where to look? She must have told him. She must. He forces his eyes shut against guilt’s screaming glare and drives himself to remember.

Cold lights, a wall of mirrors, bright blue blood on golden skin. A kiss, that membrane-thin skin warm and seductive, the strawberry scent of her wrist making him imagine licking her all over, the crease of her elbow, inside her thigh, the sweet folds of her sex. He could smell the curved steel piercing her navel, and wanted to suck it into his mouth.

Dread and desire stir molten in his blood, and silently he begs it not to be true. Tell me I didn’t say any of that. Tell me I didn’t kiss her wrist like a lover.

—But you did.— The whisper caresses Andy’s thoughts like velvet.—A flash of diamonds, mango hair tickling your cheek, her breath like sugar on your tongue. Kiss me and I’ll tell you, she whispered, and you would’ve, only you didn’t need to. Danny’s place. She told you. She told me.—

Copper claws steal slyly for Andy’s will, and he snaps his eyes open, fighting to stay in the light. Sunshine dazzles, comforting, and a soft dark laugh slips away like a raindrop on glass.

Weird. But no time to assimilate it now. Damage control. Cover-up time.

Andy locks out the screeching metal netherworld and focuses, his attention fierce and bright like a pinpoint.

Coldly he surveys the gruesome scene, trying to ignore his pulse’s horrid scream, the cold iron sweat soaking his skin, the scaly nausea crawling inside. The body can stay. No one will care.

He drags it upright, the cold limbs strangely light now they’re drained of blood, and heaves it over the metal lip into the bin. Garbage crunches, bones clanging on iron.

See ya, pretty. Have a good sleep. Sorry I fucked you up, you parasite.

Swiftly he strips his shirt off in a squelch of clotted blood and wipes the stains from his skin before tossing the sticky fabric after the corpse. Now he’s at least presentable. No point trying to clean the place up. From the state of the dead kid’s hair and clothes, shadow Andy’s fluids are all over the fucking place.

Andy’s cock twitches in shady memory. His balls ache like an echo, and his mouth fills with sly, lustful spit.

He slashes a sharp claw across his knuckles, the pain bright and distracting. The evidence doesn’t matter. Banshees turn up in landfills, spriggans wash up rotting on the beach, gangsters and fairies murder each other with abandon in Jinxx’s black city, and no one tweaks an eyebrow. No one will come looking for him. Not another random fae killer.

Anyway, Andy’s shadow self is a ghost. Crafty. Brilliant.

—They won’t catch me. They didn’t last night, or the night before.—

“You’re wasting your time.” As if there’s someone Andy can reason with about this.

He laughs, helplessness bubbling bright. Too late for reason. Only action. Find this mirror.

Leave. Keep Ice safe from this ghastly ghost inside him. And then . . . Well, maybe the mirror can cure what it sickened.

—You won’t destroy me.— The whisper threatens, silky, and sharp metal clangs deafening in Andy’s head.—We’ll find this mirror. For her. To keep her safe from your ugly demon woman.

And then we’ll do what we must to scratch our itch. Don’t think you can silence me now.—

Andy’s brain swells, a sharp pain ripping at his skull. His muscles jerk, and he yanks his hair, desperate to get his claws inside his skull and scrape this monster away. “Christ, you make me spew, acting so noble. You’re just another fucking thrill killer.”

Smirk.—Well, so are you, Andy. You killed her. Dropped her slender body in a spiky pit. Watched her bleed to death and liked it. Where d’ya think I got the idea?—

Dizzy sickness clamps his guts. His blood lurches, pain shooting through his limbs. The clamor brightens, tearing his ears like thunder, and Andy bites off a scream and blacks out.

Notes

So, Andy and Juliet got married....thoughts?

Stay Weird Baby Bats
-Grimm