Edited by PennLady
This is a copyrighted work of fiction. All rights reserved.
*
Night had fallen. Chad gathered his weapon, its bag, and ammunition. He looked over the map of the area with hot spots marked out. He made a mental note of where he was going, layered his clothes in deference to the cold, and left his room through the fire escape.
Chad shivered as he made his way out into the night. It was clear and cold. Not just bone chilling cold, it was bone crushing cold. He thought back to the first time he met Ambrose, the rat he left food out for. Or the rat spirit, at any rate. He had been defending a homeless guy and had Chad help him move the poor old bastard to a shelter. He wondered what Ambrose did for them when the weather turned so bitter.
He wandered the streets, waiting for a sense of something to guide him. Nothing was coming. Perhaps it was too cold for even the predatory goblins to be out.
The lights of the city were pretty, Chad decided. He remembered when he was little how much fuss his mother used to make out of Christmas. He smiled at the memories of huge Christmas trees draped with lights and ornaments and little presents. Of home spun Christmas characters, Santas and snowmen and reindeer and teddy bears scattered about the house. It almost made all the other things that happened in the house bearable. Then she was gone, and instead of just being shitty most of the time, things went to complete shit. He felt his anger rising, the need to hurt something beginning to crest.
NO,
he told himself harshly as he shut down the memories.
I am not going here again.
He stood on the empty side walk and desperately willed the memories and feelings to cease. Then the sense came to him. He went on alert. He followed it to a single individual with a terrified woman pushed against the wall. The hem line of her fire engine red leather mini dress almost touched the tops of her matching high leather stiletto boots. Her short fur jacket didn't look substantial enough to keep out the cold. Chad determined her to be a member of the oldest profession.
The figure reacted to Chad's presence. Qiang had warned about that, and it had been happening more often. He pulled the weapon out of its sack only to have it yanked from his grasp. He looked over and was struck in the face by the handle of the rifle. A trap, and he'd walked into it.
He stepped backwards and sized up his opponent. He was tall for a goblin, but that only put him to about Chad's height. He wore no hat or face covering. An out of place detail from what Chad had previously seen. His dark, stringy hair hung on the side of his head, and in the available light his complection looked grayish. A vindictive sneer spread across his unpleasant features and the creature tossed the rifle away. Chad could see the musculature move under the rough cut clothes the creature wore. He was definitely brawny, and not just for a goblin. He looked to be a bruiser by any estimation. Chad had to end this quickly. He could brawl, and had done so often in his life. But it had always been with humans, not supernatural creatures.
The goblin closed quickly, cuffing Chad hard on the side of the head. He saw stars, but instinctively returned a blow by slamming his fist into what would be the solar plexus on a human. The creature seemed to share a similar anatomy and his breath left it in a sudden reeking exhale. The creature stumbled back and Chad shook his head to clear it.
The creature recovered and was back on Chad, reaching for his throat. Chad spared a look down, then went into a controlled fall, raising his hands to about eye level. The creature followed him down and Chad caught the forehead in his hands. Instantly, he was at the tear ducts of the eyes with his thumbs. Realizing the mistake, the creature tried to pull back. Chad only gouged the left eye. The thumb at the right eye penetrated into the socket. The creature gave a loud shriek. Chad gripped the right side of the head by hooking his thumb into the socket and curling his fingers around the ear. He pulled the creature down to the ground by the side of his head.
Chad grasped the left shoulder and forced the goblin onto his back, lying entirely on the ground. He pinned the body by straddling the chest and located a broken glass bottle. Without hesitation, he slit the throat and the goblin expired with a gurgled last breath. Chad rose up, the dead goblin's gore splattered on him, and turned to face the one with the woman. It fled.
"You should go. Do you have anyplace safe to stay?"
She nodded.
"Good. Go there and stay there."
She nodded again and stumbled away. Chad heard applause. He looked up to see the weather elemental, as Qiang had called it, looking at him from the top of a dumpster.
"Were you going to help me there?" he asked.
"Should you have needed it. But that was rather expediently handled."
Chad gave him a sour look as he gathered his gun. "The Snow Miser would have helped."
"If he existed."
Chad shook his head. "Whatever," he muttered as he exited the alley. The entity followed him.
"You know, if you have something to say, I wish you'd just say it," Chad snapped.
"Well, you're a little testy. I think I should wait until you're not in as foul a mood."
"Great."
Chad traveled in the silent company of the winter elemental. He walked for what felt like hours, though he wondered if the cold wasn't making the time feel longer then it was. He was about ready to call it a night when he felt another spike.
The feeling was different this time. It didn't quite feel like the goblins. He followed up on it and was led to an industrial area. There were figures crouched and hunched around in a tight circle. Though their backs were to him, he knew them not to be human. They were emaciated and huddled close together. Their heads were down and their attention tightly focused on whatever was in the center of the group. It somehow reminded Chad of a communal meal. Chad shouted at them.
They looked up. The features weren't human, they were too feral, but neither were they animal like. They were pinched and drawn, with a hungry look about them. But they didn't carry themselves as predators. Hunched and ground clinging, they seemed more like scavengers. A bit like stray dogs picking over the refuse from garbage cans. They shifted for a moment, wanting to run but not wanting to leave what was between them. As they shifted about in indecision, Chad glimpsed a body at the center of the mass. A human body. He screamed at them as he charged.
The scavengers scattered into the night. Their shuffling, hunched gait was surprisingly swift. When Chad reached the body, he realized the man had been dead long before the scavengers had arrived.
The man was cyanic. His body was dusted with frost, his eyes wide open and staring, and the clothes partially removed. When Chad touched the body, it was completely cold. The places where he'd been feed off weren't bleeding. While Chad couldn't be certain, the man appeared to have frozen to death before he became a meal. For a moment he thought it might be the man he'd helped with previously, but it wasn't. Chad sat on the ground next to the man and wondered what to do. He sensed more than saw the elemental approach.
"What the fuck was he doing way out here?" Chad asked.
"I don't know but I suppose he was trying to find shelter."
"Out here? How fucking dumb was he, looking for shelter out here?"
The elemental shrugged, sadness filling his eyes. "I don't know. Maybe this was how far he was forced to go. There's not a lot of shelter in the city, either."
Chad sensed the rebuke. "Well, there's not a lot I can do about that, now is there? Maybe if you didn't make it so damn cold, they wouldn't freeze to death."
