Seraphin

She’s that shade of amber that makes you think of honey and warm syrup, but you know really tastes more like grease and brass plating.

Still, I’m tempted.

Maybe it’s the impatient little way she flicks her hair, or how her mouth forms this perfect, tense, disapproving slope. The way her eyes narrow as they pass over you like she could squint you right out of existence if she tries hard enough.

Yeah. I’m tempted.

I can feel the skin of her throat beneath my hand – soft, vulnerable, pretending to be more solid that it really is – and with just the right amount of pressure -

In the shadows, Çyn shakes her head. Slowly. Left, then right.

Not tonight.

Not this girl.

I’ve got other plans for later, anyway.

The girl doesn’t trust me. Side effect of going into the family business and being just a little too good at it. They don’t tell you that when they’re pumping you full of duty and obligation, but there isn’t one of Them from half way around the world to here who doesn’t know what my name represents.

The old man thought we could diffuse that by sending me out here. They’re still disorganised, he said. They’re cut off.  

At least, that’s the official story. No one knows the real job. Not Çyn. Not the old man.

It makes playing glorified babysitter for nickel-and-dime handoffs tolerable, though.

I’m still thinking about the girl on my way to meet my handler later. Technically, Çyn isn’t supposed to let me out of her sight – not ‘til her boss says I can be trusted – but neither one of us have much taste for each other’s night-time proclivities so she gives me a little more leeway than she should. Though some of the things I had to do that first night to convince her she didn’t want to witness my extracurricular activities even made my stomach turn. And I’m not exactly the squeamish type.

You can’t be, in my business.

Somewhere around First and Maple, I taste Him. Smoky and taut. A cigarette in the crisp dawn of first snow.

The streets are practically empty; even with the lights on people still haven’t let go of the habit of sticking indoors after dark. That corner isn’t exactly one of those areas a person could hide well, either. But I don’t see Him.

I’ve been catching traces since I got here. Floating around a café. Lingering in a shop. Crushed against a lamppost. Like He’s marking the city as His.

I haven’t told my contact about it yet. I tell my handler, my handler tells the Boss, and I don’t know what that means for my smoky little friend. I don’t know what my smoky little friend means for me, either.

I’ve never tasted someone without seeing them before. I’m supposed to be the only one of my kind in this city, and the only way in is through the Boss. He’s either something else entirely, or Really Bad News.

That’s when I make the decision.

Instead of heading straight, I branch right, picking up His taste. I tell myself it’s about self-preservation. Looking out for myself. Being proactive. Staying one step ahead. If the bastards are going to come for me, I want to know about it.

Truth is, ever since that first tease

a bar literally not worth naming, where no one’ll remember your face and they sure as hell won’t ask your name, and asking theirs is liable to get you Vanished before you can even close your mouth. The perfect kind of place for what I do. Six hours after landing with that restless indiscretion being a stranger in strangeland brings with it, I’m in a corner booth separating the weakest from the weak and there it is. Saturating ripped up vinyl and soaked into scarred wood. So thick and strong it erases the creature in front of me and I can almost, almost, almost see Him

I haven’t been able to let go of finding who it belongs to. Especially with the dregs I’ve had to make do with over here.

He takes me looping through side streets and back alleys, not a single direct route to anything. He moves like something hunted. Or hunting. The only consolation is none of its familiar, so if He is hunting, I’m not his target.

By the time I reach the university campus, I’m practically drowning in hazy blue and I know He’s close. I can feel Him scratching under my skin and anticipation pacing in my lungs. But there’s no one.

I keep to the shadows, licking the air for any clue. He has to be there. I’m the one no one gets to hide from.

Stop.

Control.

Focus.

I breathe in and start picking through the swill of textures and impressions discarded on the steps of the university. The sludge of decades of emotions tumbled from one person to another without any concern for their value or impact. I sift them out until all that’s left is that cool, blue smoke snaking its way down the street.

There’s a shimmer on the steps and I see him.

Just a kid.

Well. Maybe no younger than me, but we’re talking about the difference between a coddled housecat so chuffed with himself for catching the occasional sedated rodent and… Well, me. He doesn’t stand a chance.

But that taste… People – normal people – only have one or two. They’re not very complex. He’s different. Every layer has another beneath it, and not just tastes. Smells. Colours. Hickory. Patchouli. Strong, dark coffee. Paper and dust and musty attics. Warm, warm nights and chaotic, primal rain. Fire. Ribbons of green and gold and silver pulsing, twisting, churning.

I want him.

He stops.

More than any other straggling I’ve singled out and stalked. I want to trip every wire of his nervous system until his mind shuts down from the force of it and push his body past all its limits so I can lap up every chemical and hormone chasing through his veins.

He comes back down a step, all hackles raised and wary. Eyes casting about not sure what they’re looking for but knowing that something is out there. Something is watching.

I wonder if I could break him. Crack him open and devour every shiny, sparkly bit of him, or if he’d withstand it so I could split him in two over and over again.

He takes a step forward. Hesitant. Unsure. Looking right at me but he doesn’t see me.

This is wrong and I know it. Beneath the superficial guilt and secrets handed to him by someone else, he’s innocent. There are no murky depths or punishable sins. I try to calm my breathing but my hands are shaking and as much as my brain screams at me to just go, just leave him, I can’t and he’s still getting closer. A blind man seeking out a muffled sound and I wonder if he reaches me, if he finds me, will I have enough control to not just take him then and there?

Halfway to me, he stops again. Hands in pockets and eyes in the sky. Some other distraction pulling at his focus. Maybe more kitten than cat, it seems. Something changes, like a switch thrown severing whatever draws the two of us together. I see it in him and feel it in myself. That gnawing want subsides to a dull urge rolling around the base of my skull.

He lights a cigarette and looks up at the sky again, and then he’s off. Forgetting there was ever anything posing any threat.

‘I dislike having to come fetch you.’

You don’t ask how they find you, or how they just appear in places. Mostly because you don’t want to think about how much they’re watching you. Being late for a meeting is bad; making your handler actually come get you… That’s the sort of thing you don’t walk away from.

‘Would you believe me if I said I got lost?’

This one is better than my last. My previous handler wouldn’t have bothered taking the time to have a conversation. I’d already be gone. But that doesn’t mean I’m free and clear, either. ‘We’re going to make a deal,’ he says.

‘What sort of deal?’

‘I’ll forget about your little indiscretion, and you forget about mine.’ He nods to the boxy, towering hulk of the university, and, presumably, the smoky little kitten hidden inside.

It would be easier to just get rid of me, though there would be questions and the Boss wouldn’t be happy about it. Not that I’m indispensable, but no one likes squandering resources. Which means the Boss doesn’t know about my new friend, and my handler wants to keep it that way. ‘Who is he?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘I was told I’d be the only one working in this area.’

‘You are. He doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re working on.’

‘What is he doing here then?’

He doesn’t say anything for so long I think he’s changed his mind about letting me off the hook this time. I always push just that little too much and get myself in trouble. You’d think I’d learn something from it.

‘Can you forget about him or not?’

‘Yeah. Of course. He doesn’t exist.’ And I mean it.

He shadows me within an inch of my apartment, and the whole way the only thought I have is I just had a lucky escape, and if the old man knew anything about it, my handler and the Boss would be the least of my concerns.

With only a few hours ‘til dawn, I crawl into bed knowing I won’t sleep. I never sleep. Not really. But it feels safer wrapped in the blankets and my body needs the mattress to uncoil the night. I close my eyes and sink into the warm and dark and familiar and pretend everything outside my cocoon no longer exists.

Ribbons of green and gold and silver drift beneath my skin.