Serpent's Blood

The Man in t

's apartment ju

ep for a week, pretend the last few hours never happened. But instincts weren

crawling through his window

. The bars had emptied. The dealers had vanished. The cops didn't bother wi

ed the lon

air. Tim

wasn'

ked beneath a flickering streetlight that cast long, broken shadow

cl

the passenger wi

ll," said a voice that dripp

roze mi

e skin, no hair, sharp features like his face had been c

u?" Isaac ask

but it didn't

've been wa

omach drop

something shifts. You made noise ton

nt that... thing i

d, you'd

pa

cked you wasn't one of ours. It was

enched. "So you

ous bird. "But we will. Your kind used to be wiped ou

p back. "I'm not

ide." The smile vanishe

ut w

tion in the city will want a piece of you. Some will offer p

at do y

licked up and do

h kind of ma

window. A small card. Isaa

as b

burned into the surface: a coile

" the man said, "you'

dow rol

r pull

hum. No so

t g

at the card, heart pounding like a war drum. Th

back to his apartme

ck. No broken glass

hing had bled reality and then left. He searched

t one

e'd seen his eyes change. A single word etched into the g

ke

Then he dropped onto the mattress and lay there

dn't

ldn

ing had shifted. His blood wasn't just

been

, hidden behind shadows and symb