By a Thread

by Nyna Queen

  She pulled back her hand and rocked her shoulders, beaten. “Alright. Fine.”

  Darcy beamed at her, putting a brand-new headlight to shame. “Oh Alex, you’re a real gem! You’re the best colleague ever!”

  Sure, she was. The one who always got the dirty end of the stick. The one who took the shifts nobody desired and cleaned up the others’ mess when they left early.

  Before she could change her mind, Darcy grabbed her bag and swooshed off in another cloud of perfume.

  “Don’t worry,” she fluted over her shoulder. “It was the last time. Prooomise!”

  Alex looked after her as she tottered away—unwittingly evoking another earthquake around the block—and wondered how long it would take exactly until her dearest colleague Mrs. It-will-be-the-last-time-promise came scratching at her doorstep again. Two weeks? Three, perhaps?

  “You should have said ‘no,’” Mitja commented mercilessly from the side with a shake of his head, before heading off to serve a customer at the other end of the bar, leaving her alone in her self-evoked misery.

  Alex peevishly wiped her hands on the cleaning rag and tossed it into the basin. She didn’t need him to tell her she was a fool. She knew that pretty damn well for herself, thank you very much.

  Grudgingly, she went back to work, silently cursing Mitja for always being so damn right; Darcy for being such a pain in the ass; and, most of all, herself, for not having stood her ground.

  The clock monitored her from above, mocking her with tick-tocking laughter as it chimed the passing of another hour.

  Alex ignored its teasing. Because now, counting the time left at work, also meant calling to mind what little time was left until she had to be back at work again.

  Sometimes life could be a real bitch!

  ALEX locked the Jester’s front door. When she straightened, a soft moan escaped her lips.

  She’d thrown out the last customer more or less voluntarily about half an hour ago and started the cleaning process. Now, she felt like she’d been run over by a truck, or better, a whole motorcade. Her back ached like hell from crawling on all fours, scrubbing at sticky puddles of alcohol and chewing gum and there was a gaping hole in her middle where her stomach should be located. She couldn’t even recall when she had last eaten. The few greasy nuts in the table bowls she’d chewed while mopping the floor didn’t count.

  Stifling another moan, she reached out and rattled at the lock, making double sure that it was fairly secured. The Bin wasn’t the worst place she’d seen, but leaving a door improperly locked, now that posed an invitation which to miss out upon bordered on a crime itself.

  She shook her head. Places and their rules. It was like a feeling, a certain dynamic that vibrated through its streets like the underlying beat of a giant heart. If the Bin had a mind, it would squint at the world from resentful eyes, while gnawing on the meager bones it enviously guarded in its scrawny paws.

  Alex took a step back and grimaced at the squishy feeling under her soles. Her socks were soaked from dishwasher and leaked beverages and she slipped in her raddled sneakers at every step. Yuck!

  When she reached for the extra sliding gate, she noted a slight tremor in her fingertips.

  Yeah, congrats, Alex! Now you’ve done it!

  She closed her eyes, fighting the strong urge to smash her fist into something. It just had to happen today. Of course, it had. Oh, she’d so kill Mitja for always being right.

  Inhaling deeply through her nose, she flexed her fingers several times, hoping that it would choke off the trembling, knowing full well that I was a useless effort. When it had reached this point, it wouldn’t stop. It would only get worse. And she’d be lucky if she could avoid the worst.

  Nothing that couldn’t be cured with a snatch of sleep and a proper meal for now, but if she let it evolve …

  Alex grimaced. The tremors were the first symptom of what her kind called a shaper’s bite, the physical backlash of overexertion. It started out with a little shiver, a hint of dizziness, but beware of the storm that rises ever so slightly. If the shit hit the fan, her body would simply shut down. Like an engine cut short. She might be flat out for hours, while her body forcefully claimed what it had been deprived of and there would be nothing, but really nothing, she’d be able to do about it.

  Now, try and explain that at work.

  Not gonna happen, she assured herself and wiped her hands on her jeans. Just a bit longer and she’d be home, crawling under her covers and get her well-deserved hours of sleep. Only that they would be considerably shorter than she’d originally calculated.

  Well, no one to blame but yourself, a sardonic little voice whispered from above her shoulder. A voice that sounded just a bit too much like Mitja for her taste right now.

  “Oh, shut up,” Alex muttered through clenched teeth as she yanked at the sliding gate.

  Of course, to be fair, he had a point. She could have said no, after all. But honestly, who wanted to be fair?

  With the sliding gate firmly in place, she stuffed the keys into the pocket of her jacket and started down the dark street.

  Night still held the Bin in its firm grip, but dawn was already pawing at the gates. She could feel it in the slight difference in the scents on the wind, the subtle change in the way the light broke on surfaces. It crawled closer on silent feet and brought a brisk wind from the north that drove in mist from the sea. So close to the docks it carried the telltale stench of saltwater, seaweeds, rubbish, and rotten fish.

  The cobbled cinder streets lay empty and abandoned in dark. Except for the soft creaking and squeaking of scuffed shop signs in the breeze and the occasional bark of a stray dog, it was almost eerily silent. It was the time, when even the boiling kettle that was the Bin, came to rest for a couple of hours, inhaling deeply before releasing another smelly breath.

  Alex had not covered half a mile down to her apartment when the drizzle started—the sweet cherry on the icing of her day.

  She threw her head back and stared at the dark overcast sky.

  Now, really? A ridiculous urge to laugh burned in her chest. Had to be the exhaustion.

  Cold droplets caught her lashes and splashed her cheeks. The wild in her sputtered and pulled back, retreating into the deeper layers of herself. As a spider, she naturally wasn’t a big fan of rain. The constant vibrations of raindrops drumming on the ground confused her delicate shaper senses and the moisture irritated her skin, gumming up her sensitive tactile hairs and confusing her sense of orientation, turning her into a less than effective predator.

  With a muttered curse, Alex tugged her jacket tighter around her body, lowered her head and hurried down the alley, while above her the sky slowly turned from obsidian to steel.

  IT wasn’t far to her apartment, less than twenty minutes at a brisk walk, but Alex was still soaked to her bones when she reached her block, clothes and hair clinging to her skin in cold, clammy folds.

  The dirty industrial neighborhood greeted her with grim apathy: gray-white, washed-out brick stone buildings lining the street like an old, faded photo, whose color had been sucked out by the breath of time.

  Although she wanted nothing more than to get out of her wet clothes as quickly as possible, Alex slowed when she neared her street and, with a quick glance over her shoulder, slipped into the gap between an abandoned shop and the adjourning building.

  Taking a deep breath, she put one palm against the cold, moist wall.

  This procedure was so second nature to her she usually didn’t spend another thought on it, like brushing your teeth first thing in the morning when you were still half-asleep. Today, with the events of the night still fresh in her mind, she was painfully aware of every movement.

  She made sure nobody knew exactly where she lived. Not her coworkers. Not even her boss.

  Mr. Mahoney had been skeptical first when she had offered to work for him cash-in-hand only, but then she’d virtually seen the dollar signs flashing in his eyes. No documentation equaled
no social security contributions. Greedy bastard! Yet, in this case, it suited her just well; he paid her cash at the end of the month and she didn’t have to worry about her name and data appearing in the bar’s paperwork. Wasn’t that what people called a win-win-situation?

  Yeah and we’re all a nice big family, dancing in a round.

  It might seem overcautious but being on the run for as long as she had, you eventually learned that a healthy amount of paranoia kept you alive. When she moved, she always made sure to cover all her tracks and tie up loose ends, but the past was like your own shadow; it followed you even in the darkness when you couldn’t see it.

  Alex closed her eyes, reaching for her sensory threads—and swore under her breath, when they slid through her mental fingers like water.

  Gah! That was exactly why she despised rain! Alex ground her teeth. It wasn’t like she was helpless without access to her shaper senses. Still, it made her feel … deficient as if a part of her was missing.

  She pushed harder against that gooey mental barrier, but it was useless. The spider had retreated so deeply into her core, it wouldn't be coaxed. So, she’d have to put up with her human senses. Well, wasn’t that just wonderful?

  Opening her eyes, Alex leaned forward and squinted into the dark alley. The rain had almost dwindled to nothing in the last minutes, leaving just a fine haze of tiny droplets hanging in the air that shrouded the world in a misty veil, turning everything blurry and soft. The rainbow-colored halo of a street-lamp in the alleyway across from her reflected on the wet, black cobblestones, but apart from that, the world seemed all empty. Silent. Deserted. And yet …

  Alex scanned the dark road up and down, the naked buildings lining the street, their dark windows like empty eye sockets staring down at her from giant pale skulls.

  Right outside the cone of the street lamp something moved. Alex’s heart leaped into her throat. The shadows rolled and deepened like dark tissue about to rip and for a panic-stricken second, she saw a tall figure in a dark coat, leaning against the wall.

  She snapped upright, two knives automatically jumping into her hands—when the shadows tore, revealing just a dark piece of cloth that had gotten stuck to a rusty nail in the wall, idly flapping in the wind

  Alex let out a shuddering breath and pressed her eyes shut for a second.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, sugar!

  The trueborn hadn’t come for her. She’d already established that.

  She grimaced. It was the shaper’s bite, starting to play its tricks on her overtired mind. That’s what it did. It messed with your brains and if she didn’t find a way to stop it, it would play her like an untuned fiddle until all her strings snapped.

  Taking a deep breath, she stared at the piece of fabric, so innocent and mundane. No hell-spawn send to put her to an early grave.

  She still couldn’t wrap her head around the trueborn’s appearance, though. If he hadn’t been sent for her, then what business could have brought him to the Jester’s Inn? When they send one of Death’s Servants into the halfborn nether, it had to be a matter of some importance. Well, pointless to speculate. She’d just ask Mitja about it. Why she hadn’t done so tonight, she had no clue. The whole thing must have rattled her a lot more than she wanted to admit to herself. Well, she’d just ask him tomorrow and—wait a minute! Why did she even care? He hadn’t come for her. That’s all she needed to know. End of story!

  With a shake of her head, she forced herself to inspect the street one last time.

  There. Nothing. Empty as a graveyard at night. Satisfied?

  She tried to tell herself yes, but the feeling of unease still clung to her like a sheen of oil. The feeling that someone was out there, watching her from the dark …

  Oh, stop it!

  Irritated, she pushed herself off the wall and quickly covered the last stretch toward her street, while making a point of marching in the middle of the road instead of clinging to the wall like a scared little mouse. She’d be damned if she let some strutting arrogant male turn her into a nervous wreck. Even if he was trueborn. And a state licensed assassin-slash-killing machine. Oh, whatever!

  In front of her, a plain five-story building peeled out of the night, squatting between its ugly peers. Alex squeezed through the shabby wrought iron gate in the fence that encompassed the building and followed a narrow passageway into a paved inner yard, where the towering walls seemed to lean toward each other as if they were intending to bury her alive in a dark stony tomb. A tangle of hardly confidence-inspiring metal staircases cascaded from the walls in a rusty waterfall, screaming danger at everyone who cared to listen. Technically those were the mandatory fire escapes as prescribed by province law, but regarding their desolate condition, they would more likely be the actual cause of death for people running from a fire. Maintenance wasn’t a word written in big letters in low custom halfborn areas such as the Bin.

  To Alex’s apartment, the fireladder was the only access path. That fact should probably make her feel uncomfortable, but it didn’t. It was the reason why she’d been able to rent this place for an affordable price in the first place.

  Her landlord, Mr. Gibbons, had come up with the genius idea of splitting the two stories covering base apartment into two separate entities since he had trouble renting out the bigger apartment, but had basically run out of money before finishing the construction. Now he was stuck with two separate apartments, one without a proper front entrance that he couldn’t rent out. Let’s face it, most sane people weren’t exactly thrilled by the prospect of breaking their necks while accessing their home. For a shaper, on the other hand, a ramshackle staircase posed the least problem, and as a bonus, it kept out uninvited guests. One man’s sorrow, another man’s joy.

  Like her boss, Mr. Gibbons had been … well, stunned was putting it mildly, when she’d inquired for the apartment, fireladder and all, but with the sword of insolvency hovering over his bare neck at the time, he’d been more than willing to rent it out, even for a considerable reduction in price. She was pretty sure he suspected something about her disposition, but as long as she paid her rent full and on time, he was ready to overlook a great deal.

  Alex rolled her eyes. Money. Count on something that could solve almost any problem.

  Come to think of it, Mr. Gibbons hadn’t yet bothered her about the upcoming rent. Perhaps he’d finally realized that she was able to count to the last of the month, Alex thought as she crossed the yard with a few long steps and stepped onto the fireladder that led up to her apartment.

  Adjusting her center of gravity to the oscillation of the metal, she slipped up the staircase without barely any sound, having no trouble to keep her balance on the shaky braces. Alex looked down and smiled. Except for herself—and another shaper, of course—nobody would be able to approach her apartment without her knowing it when he set foot on the first step. If somebody came to mess with her, this influenced the arena to her advantage. It might only be a few seconds, but in a fight for life and death seconds could mean the difference between a knife in her gut or in someone else's.

  Opening the door posed more of a problem than expected since her hands were shaking so hard by now that she had trouble sticking the key into the lock. After almost dropping it twice, she finally managed to force it in and turned. The lock opened with a gentle click. Music to her ears.

  Home sweet home! As much as she dared to speak of such.

  Suddenly not far from collapsing, Alex more fell than walked over the doorstep. She quickly kicked off her soggy shoes and socks, stripped her work clothes and dragged herself under the shower. She moaned in pleasure as the hot water pummeled her body and rinsed off the stink of the bar that clung to her hair and body like another sticky layer of skin. Slowly, very slowly, life returned into her stiff, clammy limbs.

  There is nothing like a good hot shower after a long hard day of work, Alex reflected when she stepped out of the bathroom a couple of minutes later, dressed in an over-sized t-shirt she used as a ni
ghtie, toweling her damp hair.

  Right now, she felt almost … comfortable. Even the tremor in her fingers had receded to an almost ignorable quality.

  To her left, the tiny hall opened into a small kitchenette, halfway separated by an L-shaped counter which functioned as both her table and workspace. There simply wasn’t enough space to place a dining table and why would she need one anyway?

  The door on her right lead to the only other room of the apartment beside the bathroom which combined living and bedroom, holding her beloved lime-green two-seater and an old electric halfborn TV. It sat on a little table at the backside of her wardrobe which served as a makeshift “room divider” and hid the bed that squatted behind it in the nook below the window.

  Not quite a palace, but certainly much better than the shack she’d dwelt in before. For all its simplicity, it was clean and renovated and if she threw in a big smile and a couple of bucks, her landlord might even get off his ass and get that dumb heater fixed before next winter.

  The soft humming sound of the fridge welcomed her as she padded into the kitchen, the white floor tiles cold below the bare soles of her feet. By the time she reached the counter, the hot shower was starting to take its toll and a dull, warm heaviness was spreading through her limbs.

  For the first time in hours, she allowed her body to give in to that comforting lure. It nearly cost her her life.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE attack came out of nowhere.

  It was only Alex’s constantly honed reflexes that saved her.

  Something moved to her right and she reacted instinctively: she let go of the towel, dove to the left, rolled over and came up in a crouch, claws unsheathed and true teeth bared in a snarl, ready to fend off the attacker. The towel silently glided to the floor, folding in on itself like a deflating white cloud.

  Alex stared at the attacker—and almost laughed at her own ridiculousness. Well, some attacker he was!