Shadowglass

My pulse ripped into a sprint. I gulped, my fairy senses awash. Danger. Fight. Fly. But treacherous muscles seized my limbs tight, and I couldn’t move.

He clenched a silver-ringed hand, and in it, cruel iron petals snapped closed.

The mirror. Stalking me. The squidgy had shown him where I was. I’d wondered what weird plans he had for me. Now I was about to find out.

Fear sparked my nerves to life, and I scrambled to slam the door in his face.

But he slammed it aside one-handed. It hit the fuchsia-dark wall, and splinters flew.

I backed off, my limbs trembling and my wings uselessly tensed for flight. Nowhere to fly to.

“Leave me alone. What you want?”

He didn’t say anything. He just screamed.

Unearthly noise shattered inside my skull, spiking glassy agony into my ears. High, piercing, banshee-bright. I doubled over, clutching insides suddenly rippling with sick vibration.

Stupid indignation hacked my nerves as I staggered. No fair. That’s a banshee’s scream. Not supposed to be able to do that.

Dimly, I felt his fingers stroke my hair, and in a haze of pain I tried to turn, run, fly. But air ripped to evil shreds in my lungs, and my limbs shook to water in the awful scarlet noise, and before I could even scream, my brain swelled to mush and everything swirled to black.


* * *


Ashley leaps, sharp wings drawn back, and launches himself like a flame-drenched spear at the polished shop window.

His feet crash into the glass. Splinters explode, tinkling in a shower of sparks on teddy bears and painted dollhouses and frilly patchwork things now swimming in a jagged sea of broken glass. No alarm. No flashing lights. Idiots probably don’t even have insurance.

He darts away with stinging ankles, desperation burning empty holes in his heart. Not enough. Never enough. This urge to destroy won’t ease. Broken glass always soothed his anger, calmed his questing heart, but not anymore. Not since Appolonnia and her cursed squidgy. Now he’s always jittery and always horny and always sick to his guts with rage, feverish, sweaty, and juddering, a full-body hard-on that just won’t go away.

He squirms through the hole and grabs a yellow-furred bear. Yellow and green, like Apples, his no-longer best friend. His heart stings hot. He just wanted to make her love him back, just for a few minutes. Wanted to hurt her like he hurts, hollow and burning.

The bear stares at him, splinters dusting its glassy eyes, and in a burst of inconsolable anger, he ignites it. Flames lick and catch, green plastic bows melting. He tosses it away, and crawls outside, disconso-late. The place might catch fire. He doesn’t care.

The street is quiet, streetlights buzzing alone, only a few cars and no people. If anyone sees him, they’re keeping quiet about it. Good move. He’s in no mood for hiding, and his glamour pops, negligent. He skips along the footpath under dusty cantilevers, flitting upward at intervals to smash the lights one by one with his fist, leaving a trail of darkness and bloodstained broken glass behind him.

A drunken spriggan slumps nude on a piss-drenched doorstep, sucking on a beer bottle with ragged lips, stunted blue legs waving weakly like an upturned possum’s. She gives a bucktoothed smile, spit dribbling. “Nice one, mate. Fuck ’em.”

Nice one, yourself. A garbage bin snickers at him as he passes, and he leaps and kicks it over with both feet, refuse and rats spilling into the gutter. He takes aim at a rat with one incendiary claw and fries it dead in its tracks with a sharp ribbon of yellow flame. Steam rises from the charred corpse. Giggle. Shrug. Still no fun.

Despair seeps into his heart like thick dark wine, and he lets it overflow.

Storm-drenched moonlight wets black pavement, and scudding clouds pick up speed. He turns a corner at random, another, another. Shadows flicker by on dark alley walls, dust, moonshine, his own silhouette, lithe and poised and dangerous, the flames dripping un-checked from his wings lighting his way in eerie scarlet gloom.

Broken windows gleam above a garbage compactor, rusty and blue, leaning drunkenly against a warehouse wall. His heart lightens. Maybe a wino inside, or a homeless kid to torment. He skips up, ready to alight on the lid and scare the fuck out of them.

Notes

Heyy my beautiful bats, heres a lil update for you.
hope you enjoy

stay weird
- grimm