Chapter Text
“As Travars ,” Kell begged once again, sighing in relief as he finally sank through the wall.
The humid air of Red London peeled away like so much wrapping paper and Kell found his forehead lying against the dank wall of a Grey London alleyway.
Mist-slicked cobbles bit into his knees, and to the sides, the bulging walls of Tudor houses threatened to crush him. Flickering gas light filtered into the long alley from a nearby lamppost. All he smelled was petrichor and blood.
Using one hand to lift himself and the other to cradle the congealing wound across his stomach, he clambered to his feet and promptly slumped back against the wall. Deep, shuddering breaths racked through him. Without his magic, what was he to do but wait to regain his power? His side ached; his head ached; his nose was starting to bleed.
Indistinct shapes were starting to swirl at the corners of his vision: factory smog, a smothering of rats and… a figure.
Deliriously, he watched the man’s shadow gracefully lower itself to the ground. With a swift movement, the man snatched up one of the rats and raised it to where Kell could no longer see it, under the shadow of his broad-brimmed hat.
Kell’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. He stumbled around the corner of the alley to hide among the various detritus.
The man’s gaze flicked up. He had somehow heard Kell’s minute movements. With his head tilted back, the man’s hat no longer shielded his pale face. His eyes were zeroed in on Kell’s end of the alley; one with a pupil as wide as if he were intoxicated and the other unchanging, though a slightly lighter brown. He didn’t blink.
There was something in the man’s gaze that made Kell nervous in a way that most people failed to. He cringed back into his dark bend of the alley.
Come back, come back, come back , he pleaded of the absent magic that usually poured from his veins, the pain of the gash in his side only becoming more poignant.
The man’s gaze hadn’t drifted.
When he stretched to his feet, Kell got a better look at him: tall, if a bit lanky—not well-nourished, most likely. And, therefore, not likely to be a problem for Kell— if only his bloody magic would come back .
Still, the man’s brown eyes were focused. With unnatural grace, he lowered his makeshift mask.
Kell’s brow furrowed.
A woman , he thought. He could tell from the set of her narrow jaw. A woman dressed like a man—a woman with fangs, he corrected himself upon second glance. Sanct , the blood loss must be getting to him.
“Come out,” she purred in a tone that would’ve sounded less like a demand if it were from anyone else. It seemed she’d given up all pretence of hiding as a man. Her eyes finally left Kell’s hiding spot to follow the feeble trail of blood he’d made. It was barely visible in the dark—to him, at least.
Agonisingly, he stood his ground. It wasn’t like he was untrained in fighting without magic, or with an injury, for that matter, and, logically, he didn’t expect this woman to be a very taxing opponent, despite the unreasonable terror pooling in his stomach.
Unperturbed, she stalked closer to the bend in the alley, close enough that Kell should’ve been able to hear her breathing. But he couldn’t. Her chest didn’t have that telltale rise and fall; there was no gentle pulse at the open collar of her shirt.
Kell gasped. His reactions had grown lethargic. In the time that it had taken him to notice her seeming lack of breath, she was on him, swift as a bat in her thick, dark coat.
A vile squelch sounded as the woman sunk pointed, glassy nails into Kell’s wound, her other hand gripping his shoulder to pull him into the blow. She head-butted him precisely in the nose. Her dark hair was splattered with his blood.
Frantically, he fought back—all clumsy feet and weakened arms—but he knew he was passing out from the pain.