Could it possibly be human?
It was so pale and its skin so shiny that it looked almost as if it was wearing a human-costume. There was a notable hump on its back and its face, when it lifted it momentarily from the ground, was all hollow cheeks, sunken eye sockets, and a wide shelf of lower jaw that looked as thick and heavy as a brick.
And it was shuffling and snuffling down along the ground, scooting along now on all fours. The sight revolted her even further, but it also baffled her. What the hell was it? No—it was a male. It was a he, she saw as her brain finally kicked in and began to put the pieces together. This human male that had somehow become deformed was down on the ground, and it was clear that he was looking for something, but what?
Her blood froze in her veins.
Could he be looking for her? Sweat broke out on her brow. She could smell it, slick and salty. The deformed man’s head popped up. His eyes, bulging and glassy, rolled around in their sockets and she shrank back, yet again praying to every deity she had ever heard of that it would not see her or smell her or somehow sense her.
Sickness rolled up in her belly and floated toward her tongue. The rank smell lying so thick on the air finally hit her full-force, and more sickness came up, burning her throat with its acid. She clutched at the stones of the wall, trying to keep herself both upright and out of sight but the feel of the stones, their spongy texture and dampness, was too much for her to take. She yanked her hands away and pressed them into her sides
The deformed human stood. His hands, long and shovel-like, flipped up in the air and his head went back. She saw his nostrils flare widely, flapping open and shut as he sniffed the air, swiveling his head around on his stalk of a neck.
I’m going to die. There’s no other way around it. He’s going to kill me. Either he’s some kind of human-mutt mix that they use to track down people that escaped from whatever that place was, or he’s feral. Like a wild beast, that kind of feral, and he’s going to kill me and eat me.
Those thoughts raced through her brain. So did one word, lighting up in bright color flashing before her eyes like a sign from the very heavens. Run. She told herself that even as she saw the word form before her eyes. She had to run. But she was frozen solid, stuck there and unable to even breathe anymore.
She was so terrified by the appearance of this strange thing, this mutated human, that all she could do was stand right there while the snakes on the ground slithered closer to her feet and the human came even closer to her, still sniffing the air and clearly excited now.
Then a shadow detached itself from the low roof of the building behind the deformed human. It moved off the roof and upright so swiftly that for a moment she was sure she was imagining it.
He came down off the roof, something glittering in one hand. He landed on the deformed human, and it went down with a low grunt and cry, and then it was lying still on the stones in a spreading pool of dark fluid that she only vaguely registered as blood.
Tara stared at the man who had just killed the deformed human. He was tall and incredibly hard to see because of the shadows. The stink of blood and fear overwhelmed her. He spoke into the darkness around her in a low and sultry baritone voice that sent shivers racing down her spine despite the seriousness of the situation. “If they find you, they will kill you. I would suggest you run, but if you run to the east, you will run right into his clan, and they will smell his blood upon your feet and kill you. If you run to the west, you’ll be running back to whatever it was you ran from. To the north, there is a turf war going on, and you would get caught within it and die. Clearly, you’re no fighter.”
She finally found her voice. Her practical streak reared its head, and she said, “Then perhaps south would be the best choice.”
Had she really just said that? It seemed she had and while it obviously was the most practical, and in fact the only, choice it still seemed utterly insane that she could make such a remark after first having killed some creature that she had never seen before and then having witnessed the death of the deformed human.
And that death had been so swift, and so silent.
A new thought formed in her head and words came out before she could stop them. “Are you an assassin?”
He said, “I’m in a hurry to not be assassinated. I’m headed south. I do not need you to slow me down. If you can keep up, you can follow me. But I won’t be responsible for you. Do you understand?”
What lay to the south? She had no idea. She did know that she couldn’t go back the way she’d come and she most certainly didn’t want to meet anyone connected to the dead thing on the ground either.
He took off down the alley, right toward the blank wall that she had spotted earlier when she had run inside the alley. That wall had stopped her headlong flight and sent her back toward the mouth of it, all up until she had seen that creature. She opened her mouth to call out to him that there was a wall there but just then he reached and began to scale it easily.
She muttered, “And my mother never allowed me to climb on things when I was young either. It just figures.”
She raced down the alley, hoping that there was some sort of handholds in the wall. He was at the top, flattened down along it. She scrabbled for purchase, found none, and looked up. He had shrunk back into the shadows. The wall, while not very thick, was wide enough that he could dangle off the side of it. He dropped one arm toward her and hissed, “Come on if you are coming.”
Oh, she was definitely going. She had to jump as high as she could with one hand stretched up and over her head in order to reach his hand. His fingers caught her wrists, and her feet slid and scrambled on the stones of the wall.
The stones were so smooth, and she had no idea how he had managed to scale that wall that way, and she didn’t really care either. He was tugging her upward, levering himself over the wall and using the weight of his body dangling off the other side to help her come up it. She finally reached the top and grasped it with both shaking hands.
The sound of him hitting the ground never came, and she hung there, puzzled for a moment before peeking over the side of the wall to see him already moving, heading away from the wall and toward the dim street just beyond. She managed to swing her legs over the top of the wall and then she stared at the long drop down the other side. What if she fell? What if she broke her neck and died? Worse, what if she fell and broke her neck but didn’t die?
If the ones who had captured her and the ones who were clan to the dead thing behind her did something really horrible to her, that would end in a painful death that would not come soon enough to spare her excruciating pain and terror.
Just then his figure turned and came back. He hissed up at her, “I’m wasting time on you.”
“Then why did you come back?”
His answer was terse. “Damn if I know. Come on!”
She managed to turn herself so that she was facing the wall. She hung to that side of it now, and the empty air below her feet shocked her back into paralysis. What if, what if, what if? So many things could go wrong, and she could die or be harmed in a way that would mean she would not escape!
