A b e l
I WILL OFFER UP A BRICK
TO THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD, BOY
His mind goes curiously blank as the first flames spark. It is as though all the thoughts and anxiety that had dogged his heels for days were simply pressed flat by an immense hand. For a few seconds there is blankness behind his dark eyes, the only movement the reflection of the flames.
And then something pops, air exploding out as the fire ate it up, and Abel startles and jerks his head away at the shower of sparks, and a moth-like of slip of ash blows out into the winter street to wither. Then Abel knows it is too late to go back, as the primordial voice in his mind screams fire.
The palomino’s voice stirs him from these thoughts, steadies him from shuffling and striking his feet on the cobblestones. Abel looks to him, and if he had considered the man golden before now he something born of Midas, glowing like molten rings in the light of the fire eating up and up the Night Court’s grain. The sharp curl and jut of his horns make him look almost demonic, the smoke curling thick as his hair. Abel opens his mouth to answer and chokes on the taste of ash.
That is when the striking of hooves against stone becomes a drumbeat too near to ignore. The boy glances white-eyed down the alleyway, and when he looks back his companion is gone. In the flickering heat, he can’t make out whether he sees a silhouetted set of horns or a gleam of gold, but when he narrows his gaze against the sting of smoke he sees nothing. Nothing but sacks and sacks of dried grain, and wooden beams, and growing fire. The noise of it is immense, beyond what he would have imagined; the building is groaning, the flames snap like trees. He thinks of the tidal wave, of so many buildings crushed at once. This is nothing in comparison, but -
but he has caused it.
Abel has lingered too long. With a wild snort he lunges after the palomino, but he doesn’t get beyond that first stride. A figure barrels into him, driving all the air from his lungs and sending him stumbling down. For a moment he can’t breathe, and he stares dazedly at the fire and the rising smoke, wondering if he will die here.
But then one of his gasping breaths pulls in something other than smoke and Abel turns his head toward his attacker, his eyes already red-rimmed and glazed from the smoke, and finds a bald-faced demon whose eyes glinted crimson (he wonders if it is only the flame). It is not hard, in this moment, to feel like the orphan he was - the orphan he still is, son of destruction and flame.
“Please,” he barely manages it, his voice hoarse with smoke and having the air knocked from his lungs. His chest and shoulder burn with pain. “They’re getting away-” and Abel begins to scramble to his feet, coughing on smoke and the taste of his lie.
@Toulouse
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