by K. Gorman
There was a pair of well-worn soles standing on the rafter above her. She could see their red tips poking out over the wood. She moved back from the alley’s entrance and found a pair of legs squatting over them. A face peered down at her.
“It’s dangerous down there,” said the stranger, who balanced on the beam with her wrists resting on her knees. A gleam caught Meese’s eye, and she noticed one of the hands held a gun that was casually pointed at her head. She moved back another step, swallowed a jump of adrenaline, and felt the corner of the intersecting alley nudge the back of her arm. She kept her voice steady.
“It’s dangerous up there. I could fall.”
“I suppose,” said the woman, and Meese’s eyes followed the gun’s barrel as the woman lifted it and aimed it farther down the alley.
“But down there, he could get you.”
Fear tightened her stomach, and she felt it turn in her gut. Despite herself, Meese turned and followed the gun’s aim. The alley behind her wasn’t nearly so festive, and the rafters lifted to give the woman an open range in the narrow maze. There didn’t seem to be anything remarkable about the empty alley. Just the usual darkness they came with, the same as what she’d just been stumbling around in.
But something moved in the dark. It was subtle, and quickly over. She could have imagined it, except it happened again with the same velvet smoothness. The dark of the alley seemed much more alive for it.
Bang!
Meese jumped, and the shadow did too. She was deaf for a few seconds after, and when her hearing returned, it came with a ringing. It wasn’t just the bullet the woman had fired. Meese had seen a form jump away from a blinding, dancing arc of electricity. The Christmas lights flickered.
“There’s a chain ladder on the wall a little way back.” said the stranger over the ringing in her ears, and Meese didn’t need telling a second time. She turned and ran, which is what a Meese does best.
Bang!
This time she heard it: a loud thunderclap with the gun’s retort. She didn’t look back a second time. She was pretty sure she didn’t want to know who ‘he’ was until she could look down on him. She almost missed the chain, but luckily some lights were wrapped around the top rung. She scrambled up it.
“You bitch, can’t you leave me in peace?”
It wasn’t the woman talking. This voice was male and odd in a way that made Meese scramble harder. It spoke slowly, and its pitch wavered a tiny bit through the sentence. The ladder jangled and swung stubbornly.
Bang!
Another thunderclap boomed through the scene, and the flash left little dots in Meese’s vision. There was a shriek, and something scraped the wall. Meese jumped, grabbed the highest chain she could, and pulled her legs up to push against the wall. She pulled herself up a few steps, then ran out of ladder as she reached the rafter. Something scraped on the ground below her as she jumped for the beam. Then the woman was there and pulling her up. A few seconds later, she was straddling over the support with her legs curled up and out of reach of whatever was below.
She looked down and saw a cat. A kitten.
“Quick, get the ladder up,” said the woman, aiming the gun at the kitten. The kitten looked up at Meese with piercing blue eyes. Even in the alley’s gloom, she could see those eyes. It had a blotched grey coat.
“What the f—” said Meese, but stopped when the kitten moved.
She wasn’t sure why the movement drew her attention, when she really should have been focused on the gun, but she looked down.
The kitten was reaching for the ladder. Her breath caught when she realized what she was seeing. It shouldn’t have been able to reach the ladder, but its foreleg had grown grotesquely long for the act. It caught her stare and pulled its lips into a sneer.
“What’s wrong? thought I was a cute little kitty?” It snarled over the last word, and those teeth grew much closer than she was comfortable with.
But not high enough to reach the beams. Meese hooked the ladder with a foot, and pulled it out of its reach. The woman grabbed the rest of it and draped it over the wood. The kitten-thing edged along Meese’s gaze, and slid back into a smaller form as it paced. it was a grownup version of the kitten she’d first seen, with long, skinny limbs, and a longer face. It had very prominent canine teeth, and his eyes, which she now saw were sunken into his face, never wavered from her. Its long tail moved madly, and a shadow snake writhed on the floor to its beat.
“What the hell?”
“It’s complicated,” said the woman. She was several skin tones darker than Meese. Her hair was black, and pulled into a rough ponytail. There were lines of fatigue under her eyes. The hand that held the gun shook. A number of hairs strayed from the ponytail, completing the image of someone wanting for coffee.
“You’re Kitty, right?”
“Yeah,” said the woman who watched the cat.
“Is he—”
“No, he’s not the reason I’m called Kitty.”
“Ah.”
“He used to live in my head. No one knew about him till a week ago.”
Maybe that explained the ‘mental condition.’ Meese decided to digest that later.
“When you killed that guy?” she said.
Kitty looked up, and Meese could see the gleam of light in her eyes.
“That wasn’t me.”
Meese raised an eyebrow.
“That was him.”
Meese looked down for a long moment. The shadows had grown around the cat, and they seemed to swim to his call. The black blotches of his coat bled like an ink-wash painting, and lingered in the air where he’d been. His face twisted in her gaze, and fury bristled his back. She could feel their gaze, like a poison in her mind. She believed Kitty.
“So who’re you?”
“Meese.”
“No shit?” The woman gave her a once-over. “I thought you’d be taller.”
“Her tales certainly are,” said a gentleman’s hiss from directly below.
“Shush you,” said Kitty to the cat, like they were old friends. His eyes were back to staring at Meese again. She thought she detected a change in their expression, though the venom remained.
The lights flickered.
“He’s trying to turn them off.”
They flickered again, and Meese looked up at Kitty.
“Let’s go.”
Left unsaid between them was just how neither of them wanted to be in the dark with the thing below.
***
What he didn’t know was anything about her new little red-haired friend with the big underworld reputation. He was not one to underestimate an enemy. It was time to end them. He pulled and felt the tug of the dark god’s gift within his reach, like a boat moored to his soul, bumping with the weight and drag of the lake it floated on. This time the lights went out for one long, delightful moment. Kitty fired at him again, and he dodged, but the burst was enough to drop his focus on the dark. He realized he would need some time to work his magic and, with a sneer, he walked away from his prey and into the quiet of the shadows. He left them the stair to run with, but he doubted they’d take his offer. He wasn’t a very trustworthy character, after all.
***
The ceiling above them rumbled and shook. Meese gave it a worried look.
“Subway tunnel,” explained Kitty, and then turned the sentence around in a way Meese was beginning to expect of her: “You smell like one.”
“Like one what?”
“Like a fire girl.”
Meese glanced up. Maybe it was time to get some answers.
“Really? You can smell that?”
Though Kitty leaned back against the wall, she seemed to have more energy. She regarded Meese with a smile that Meese wasn’t sure how to interpret.
“A little. You don’t use it, do you? Why not?”
“It was temporary. I burnt out.”
“You sure?”
Meese didn’t answer, and the silence hung between them for another l
ong moment. By the face of her phone, it was past midnight. The sun would be rising in another eight hours. But it was always night down here.
“What’s it like?” She asked. “Being an elemental. Where’s it come from?”
“If you’re a fire girl, you ought to know.”
She remembered her fingers burning like kindling, the flames dancing without heat. She’d almost burned down the building.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t—Please tell me.”
Kitty had a habit of holding a stare. Meese was determined to keep eye contact.
“It’s like I can feel all this big energy around me, everywhere. In the wires, in the air. My nerves, my heart… it tingles when I use it. Sometimes it hurts, but I guess that’s the risk you take. You gotta really concentrate, though. Like anything, it gets easier with practice. I don’t get it.”
Another turn of topic that Meese couldn’t follow.
“Get what?”
“How did you get such a hardass rep down here?”
“Oh.” Meese knew what she meant. Meese wasn’t the hardass type.
“It wasn’t my fault.”
***
He found them. It wasn’t that hard—he knew Kitty so well, after all. He was the size of a collie now, with a tail that lashed long and mad. His ears had grown in length, along with his teeth. His claws touched the brick with every step, and when he jumped, they left small scores in the clay. Behind him he dragged a pool of shadow. Sometimes he would hear it laugh, but he didn’t think much of it. It was allowed to be a little not-right-in-the-head; it seemed par for the course. He paused on the edge of their hiding place—a small rooftop that didn’t quite hit the ceiling of this world. He liked this world for that. Everything knew exactly how high it could go, and they were all at the mercy of this cement sky. He watched her look up and shout. The darkness, roused by her voice, flooded past him. He laughed a hearty, savage laugh, and followed its lead.
***
They ran away from the dark and across the shakier rooftops of lower buildings. It had been an instinctual thing, the direction they took, and Meese was glad it was an instinct they both shared. She did not want to be alone up here.
For about a minute, they seemed to be getting away, but then the vague, moving, hissing dark gained and no amount of fear was going to keep it back.
They hit a ledge. Meese jumped down, hit the pavement, and kept running. She assumed Kitty was right behind her. She felt the hairs on her entire body stand up all at once, and the light around them left for one long, terrible moment. Something, and she could guess what, hissed entirely too close to her. She heard a clang, and then a bang followed by Kitty’s electric signature. When she regained her hearing, she heard Kitty swearing. Then she was blinded by a bright flash that lasted as long as the dark had before. Meese heard herself breathe, and then the air erupted around her in the sound of sheet metal tearing.
Kitty yelled, and her gun clattered on the ground in front of Meese, its barrel nearly clawed in half. There was blood on the handle, and Meese looked to see Kitty holding a bloodied fist to her chest.
“Hello, my pretty,” said the cat, who had now turned his gleaming grin on Meese. He stalked toward her with a predatory ease. She backed up and fumbled for the gun at her back, tugging it free from its leather holster. He paused when he saw it. Its barrel was hardly thicker than two of her fingers.
“Now ain’t that cute. Does it come in pink?” He chuckled.
“You know what happened to the last person to laugh at it?” she said, conscious of how her voice wavered and broke and did little to promote confidence.
“No. Enlighten me.”
She paused and thought about it.
“Actually, I don’t either.”
She pulled the trigger and the gun went off with something similar to a bang, but completely lacking in volume. The bullet bit the concrete several meters behind the demon. She saw Kitty skitter out of the way and slink against the wall. Now that she knew what to look for, she felt the energy the woman gathered. She took a steadying breath and tried to do the same while she focused on the demon in front of her. The Mieshka held three bullets, and the demon’s smile had grown at her lack of aim. He moved toward her with the smooth waltz reserved for ghosts and shadows. Mo had given her three extra clips, but she doubted the cat would give her time to load them. Resisting the urge to close her eyes, she tried to picture the fire she’d held before, dancing, within her reach.
She took a breath, focused, and pulled the trigger. She didn’t miss.
***
They struck together, and his very real body went through some very real pain. He hadn’t known the little redhead was a fire wielder. His heart, black thing that it was, stopped beating when Kitty’s electricity hit it. He’d tried dodging it, but the fire had made him hesitate. And now he was burning to the tune of life. He realized he was about to be acquainted with Death, who probably did not offer deals. At least no deals he could take. Someone already had claim to his soul, and he wondered if that claim meant he would be doing a lot more burning in the near future. Perhaps, he thought, the devil had more use for him than that. Perhaps, he hoped, it was in the devil’s best interest to keep him alive. His fur was burning, and he smelled the sulphur of it briefly before the fire took his nose and lungs. The darkness he kept fled from the fire, though some remained in the corners of the place. It would lick up his ashes when he was all burned away. He wondered why he ever had ever wanted to be alive.
***
They watched the fire burn the beast. Meese, who still didn’t think she’d done it, had stumbled to the side with the little gun’s retort, and kept stumbling until she was next to Kitty. Her hands tingled and stung and shook, mainly from the little gun’s kick. The fire’s power had left as subtly as it had come to her, but she could still feel it burning in her chest. She couldn’t read the other woman’s thoughts, but Kitty’s mouth was a grim line as she watched the flames eat through the body of her enemy. They stood like that for a long, long time, until the cat was coal. She could see the sparks on the embers. The air waved a lazy heat, lounging after a big meal. Kitty was quiet until ash frosted the coals, and the smell wasn’t so obvious.
“I guess you hadn’t burnt out, huh?”
She’d only known Kitty a little over an hour, but she could tell there was something missing in her tone. Something that she thought was reflected in the glow of fire in the dark girl’s eyes. She let Kitty end the silence again.
“Now that he’s moved out of my head, it feels so empty.”
“That’s okay. My head feels like that, too. It’s normal.”
She caught Kitty’s eye.
“At least, I hope it’s normal.”
###
Afterword:
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this short. I'm in the process of writing more with these characters. You can check out my website at https://www.kgorman.ca/ for updates, extras, and sneakpeaks. Or, if you're only looking for release information, you can check out the website, sign up for the newsletter, and be done with the whole business.
Incidentally, I am also on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Wattpad. I love hearing from people! However, since the Chinese government has firewalled access to those websites from inside China, the best way to reach me for the next year is via the contact form on my website.