* * * * *

Knowledge is power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

In that case, let’s all get smart and grow evil together.

* * * * *

* The Drunk -

As the man swayed along the crowded city street, his drunken mind reflected on the nature of his city. And though he couldn’t feel the thrum of the city’s beating heart through the swaddling of his inebriation, he knew it was there. He wondered what the heart of the city was, what gave it the pulsing rhythm that pumped traffic through arterial boulevards, or that bled people down side streets and minor squares. He’d been to many cities in his life and they all had their own character. Differing sections and districts coming to life at different times throughout the everpresent cycle of the sun. Financial districts would discharge their lifesblood into the restaurants and bars as the shadows grew in length and thickness. And yet throughout it all, regardless of the nation, state, or layout, it was the alleys that gave a city personality.

Seattle was no different. Boulevards and highways ‘made’ a city, gave it function. But it was the alleyways that gave a city personality. Alleys acted as shortcuts, or circuitous routes that nestled hidden gems. Some were little more than hairs on a map, like him, forgotten, without a name, discarded offcast that had served their purpose, left to rot into obscurity.

Yet, It was precisely for this reason the man, the man that had lost even his name to alcohol, sought such an alley. An alley such as that could provide riches to someone such as him.

“Nice coat.”

“Blll?” The Drunk nasalled, trying to locate the speaker in the pitching street.

The man, cut in casual black, was smirking. “How many times?”

“Buuh?” The Drunk blinked.

“How many times you fucked it?”

The lady by his side giggled. “Oh you're so bad!” Swatting him playfully on his arm.

“Heh, I know.”

They continued walking, their cutting words of derision, disgust…, and something else beginning with d, fading in the echo of her clicking heels.

‘Dripped?’ The Drunk thought, wobbling away. ‘No… People’s eyes don’t drip. They, they,’ He waved a hand expansively. It nearly tipped him to the floor. ‘They, they disregard. They disdain! Yeah that was the one. They drunk and He Distain.’ No wait, that was him. He was drunk. He was The Drunk, thank you very much, and they distained him for it.

‘What do they know about it? Eh? Nuffin’.’ He thought as the search continued. The streets were lively even at this time of night, the warmth of the noonday sun long since washed away. ‘They don’t know nothin’.’ He thought again, swaddled in warmth.

His coat was his most cherished possession. A coat like this, worn as it may be, could make all the difference when living on the streets. It was a shelter, a companion, a ward against the worst, a comfort when the worst eventually occurred. He would have traded it in a heartbeat for just one more precious dark amber bottle of oblivion. That he already had one clutched in each oversized fist was of no consequence. In his experience there was always room for another. Just one more.

But that was foolish. Even he could appreciate the patches that loosely resembled a jacket would never sell. Thus, his quest for riches was foremost, utmost, and consuming.

He continued to meander lazily in search for the perfect alley. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for, but certain he’d recognise it when he saw it. Alleys were the treasure hunt of life. Afteral, he’d found a ring once. Oh that was a good find… or so he’d been told. He couldn’t actually remember any of the following week, or how much he’d gotten for it. But his friends had told him it was great. More often though, a couple of coins, maybe dropped headphones, they were always good for pawning. They weren’t that common a find anymore, but he was hopeful.

Draining the last from his opened bottle, head tipped far back to ensure each drop landed on his tongue, he froze. He became a statue as gravity and balance fought to decide the winner. In such a pose the previous man, the one who was now The Drunk, could be seen. Broad shoulders that would have filled a uniform proudly. Tall, feet planted at attention, one hand raised to head… Balance held the line against gravity, his foot kicking forward, coming down with a heavy slap on the boulevard. He staggered on, shambling crookedly from streetlight to shop front.

Ridding himself of the now useless, empty bottle, The Drunk made it all of twenty paces before his hand went for his pocket, and the horror of his situation screamed out like a fog horn. Beating at himself in a panic, he tried to refuse the reality that leaked through his protective cloud. He was down to his last bottle!

And then he saw it. as if his desperation had somehow called the alley into being. It was narrow, partially blocked by a dumpster, it even lacked a drain to syphon away potential plunder.

Gleefully, ‘Lady lucks looking on me,’ He thought.

Unbeknownst to him, it was not an unnamed alley; one that acted as a gutter, sifting what was clean from the unclean, tainted, and fouled. This was an alley revealed ‘by’ his desperation, the illusory Wards peeling back, no longer dividing the general public, the natural, from the underworld, and the supernatural.

And so The Drunk chose the alley that would change his life forever. Overhead the silver moonlight of a white crescent, half obscured behind thick clouds, augmented the grey concrete with an otherworldly blue sheen. A more observant watcher would have seen the signs, someone less drunk might have felt them. But it was ‘this’ alley The Drunk chose, and with it he slipped into another world, the underworld from which he’d never return. Just another in a long line of hapless souls, falling through the cracks of a society that wouldn’t miss him.

Lurching as if on a ship's rolling deck, he made it into the mouth of the alley, no matter how much the damn entryway tried to fluctuate. Where the streets were crisp, with a curb neatly dividing the road from the street, the alley was blurred under refuse. Even through a drunken stupor, the seam between the building wall and the alley floor could not be found. The orange of rusting soda cans, they themselves spilling from composting paper bags, accented the oily rainbows of puddles clogged with rotting leaves. The Drunk bent to examine a promising silver wrapper, overbalanced, then stubbed a toe on the raised lip of the uneven paving slabs as he tried to catch himself.

Cursing and wringing out his pudgy fingers, he ‘fell’ after his prize. It took him three attempts, the first two causing the bottle to scamper away with sounds of gleeful merriment, before he managed to slap a paw around the dewy neck. Stomping to his feet, and quite forgetting the cap was still in place, he tried to take a drink. Confused, he eyeballed the offending piece of metal like some great ape of old trying to understand a child’s toy. Then, with a burble of sickly laughter, he popped the top and quaffed a heavenly chug of the dark liquid. Life was good. A yellow toothed smile blossomed beneath uncoordinated eyes.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Back to searching, he examined a collection of trash bags. ’Nah,’ His mind slurred. He took another chug from his bottle, wiping away the foamy overflow with the back of a greasy hand. There had to be ‘something’ here. That was when, up ahead, something glinted. Squinting through the blue grey light, one eye, slowly followed by the other, made out the familiar shape. ‘Needles?’ Disgusted, he pressed on. Drunkard as he may be, he could stop that at any time. Junkies though, junkies are just a lost cause.

‘Stealing money away from good people,’ He grumbled. ‘Good people that’d be better off helping me! Greedy bastards the lo-’

“What do you expect me to do about it?!!” The voice, seething with some darkly coloured emotion, slashed through his ranting. “Do it your fucking self!”

The Drunk dared not move, hitched breath straining his senses ahead of himself. The growl that flowed the length of the corridor was ichorous, and more acidic than the bile suddenly filling his throat.

“You shouldn’t get so angry.” The second voice reproached in giddy excitement. It shivered the drunk more violently than the growl.

Two, male, and clearly angry. Yet there was more to it, something else, something extra, something darker. He swallowed. Why was he so cold all-of-a-sudden? His mouth was dry. He tried to wet it. His bottle foamed lightly in his trembling hand. Who were they? What were they angry about? He felt something stroke his curiosity coaxingly, beckoning him as if asking, ‘What's the harm?’ He wobbled, wavering with indecision. His gut squelched a warning, but the same invisible crooking finger taunted him, ‘Come on. Just a peek.’

The final nudge moved his heavy legs that, mere moments before, had felt warm. It was as if the fuzzy pyjamas that swaddled him had been stripped bare, replaced by leaden boots filled with dread. Crouched as low as his seasick balance would allow, he stealthed forward. Around the sharp corner of the building he spied the two figures, darkly clad and menacing. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled in warning.

They weren’t wearing dark jackets and jeans, no. The darkness itself seemed to cocoon them, though through this he could make out some qualities. One tall, the other small - both stood over the crumpled listless form of a… something. With a hand clutching the sharp line that divided seen from unseen, the drunk fought to dredge greater detail through the pitching earth to his bobbing eyes. An expanding pool, a set of shoes, and piled clothes.

‘A body.’ Sobriety never felt so good, the chilling realisation washed away any vestiges of his once cherished stupor.

A hand slammed into the back of his skull. Another snapped his slacked jaw shut. Teeth cracked and came loose under the force. Then, with a heave that creaked the bones of his neck, he was hauled by the head into the clearing. Bottle forgotten, The Drunk stumbled to his hands and knees - palms grazing amid the grit and blood - at the feet of the quarrelling duo. Silence enveloped them like water swirling about a drowning man, an oppressive unnatural feeling that foretold only misery.

“Looks like we’ve found our volunteer after all,” The taller of the two chuckled. The mirth didn’t travel, pressed down by the weight of the silence.

A bubble of blood oozed wetly as The Drunk tried to speak. It ended in a gak of agony as the taller man, thin and reedy, kicked him hard enough to send him airborne. Pain fought with astonishment over the feat of strength. He weighed twice as much as this man, and yet he was shunted so easily into the piled refuse. After impacting the wall he came down with a crash that was, once again, oppressed by the silence. It didn’t want anyone else coming to investigate. The man swallowed the blood quickly filling his mouth, feeling something small and hard slip down his throat. Scanning about for an escape he noticed again the darkness that emanated from the two men. It seeped from their pores like oil, a corruption that light bent to avoid, scared that it too would be tainted.

The shorter man shook his head in disgust, “No,” He said flatly. “This is getting out of hand. Any more disappearances and the Inquisition will come looking.”

The hungry smoke that seemed to cling to the taller morphed into a blood mist as his eyes, red at the pupil, flicked to his partner. “Feel free to leave if you can’t stomach it,” He taunted.

“Please,” The Drunk tried to beg, his words oozing in a slur. “I don’t have anyt-” He broke off in a squeal.

The taller one had flicked his wrist casually, and a creature landed on his chest.

Hands flying up to snatch at the apparition. it hissed and fluttered with a beat of its wings. A skeletal claw, tipped with barbed and crooked talons, flashed down at his face. The howl was strangled in his throat as the silence constricted his airways. A talon pierced the fleshy membrane under his jaw, skewering his tongue, while two more did the same to his eyes. The silence receded to permit his bawling. The silence, laughed.

* * * * *

* Mark

Arms folded, Mark watched his companion crouch beside the bloated man. He pet the Demonic creature that, in so many ways, resembled a vulture, the bald head connected to the rest of the body by a long sagging neck. The flesh of the creature was a vicious red, as if someone had poured acid over blistering sunburn. And while it had wings, the Demon’s feathered frame absorbed light, making it impossible to truly know what it resembled. It phased slightly, wings fluttering in glee as its master scratched it under the chin. The Prometheture was one of a few Demons they had stored in their cache. Though as of late, the amount of affection a Demon was showing his ally was concerning.

“Shh, shh, shh,” His fellow Warlock crooned, a mother soothing a baby. “It’ll all be over soon.”

“You make me sick,” Mark shivered as he watched the display.

Without looking up, “I’m getting ‘real’ tired of your constant complaining.” The taller man said, contempt stressing his words. He started drawing symbols with the drunk’s blood.

“Fuck you,” He snapped, coming around to glare at the top of the other man’s head. “What are you even doing? Neither of these fools has an ounce of power in them!”

Ignoring his counterpart in favour of his dark art, the taller, with his greasy shoulder length hair, continued to draw Sigils across the body of his latest ‘volunteer.’

The sacrifice strained feebly against his Shadow. Steadily, slowly but surely, intensifying with each heartbeat, the marks began to glow a rusted red. It filled the area, glowing in its demented light. Mark continued to glower, his antipathy becoming revulsion as the Soul was syphoned away to feed their new pets.

He could almost see the veins connecting The Drunk to his companion, and from the Warlock to the Demons that watched eagerly. The moment the syphoning started, The Drunk’s limbs danced under electrocution. The muffled screams belted lungfuls of air, each successive time getting weaker, wheezier, and more desperate. The Demon luxuriated in the lavish noise. Mark stepped away from the entire thing.

“Are you done?” He demanded.

It was difficult to see through the Blood Veil Rashaad so enjoyed, but Mark still felt the flinch, given away as the curtain of stringy hair trembled. Rashaaad’s fingers shed the crusted blood like a snake shedding its skin. As it fell, it turned to dust - the life it once sustained, drained away. He rose to face him. His movements weren’t fluid, nor smooth, a sneer, and the silence, pressing him onto his back foot.

“That’s the problem with you,” His once friend voiced, his tone raspy. “Everything’s fine if it’s what ‘you’ want. Why do you draw the line here? What’s the difference between sucking the essence from a ten-year-old and leaving them to wither, and these junkies?” Glee bloomed across his stretched features as quickly as a flipped switch. “You never had the stomach for this. You never understood. You never had the stones for this and-”

Lunging away the shorter Warlock narrowly evaded the blast of Hellfire aimed at his heart. “You traitorous whore!” He roared. From one knee he fired back with a purple stream of energy that pinged off the taller man’s shield. The force of the ricochet pushed Rashaad back, almost flooring him. “These parasites will end you, and I’ll laugh when they do!” Marck reached for his necklace, crushing one of the crystals and disappearing in a puff of stolen Aethral energy.

Reappearing some interminable distance away Mark began to run, legs pounding the concrete. He could sense the other Mage blend his presence into the background, along with his pets. He didn’t know if they were chasing him.

‘I’ll be back bitch!’ He vowed, emerging onto a pedestrian filled street. ‘Mark my words, you’ll be at my feet when this ends.’