Veda Thorne

The smell of sulfur and rain always settled heavy in the alley behind the old bathhouse, but tonight, the air felt especially thick.

The low, rhythmic thrum of the city’s generators vibrated through the brick walls, nearly matching the faint, mechanical hum of Vespera’s wings. She sat perched on the rusted edge of a fire escape, her knees pulled tight to her chest.

In the dim, flickering light of a dying neon sign, her silhouette looked less like a living thing and more like a jagged piece of scrap metal left out to rot. Slowly, she turned her head, her stark dark lips parting slightly as she exhaled a thin plume of grey mist. The pale, ghostly orchids woven through her hair shivered against her neck, weeping a single drop of dew that hissed as it hit the cold iron grating beneath her.

Down in the alleyway, a puddle rippled. Someone was walking through the smog—someone who didn't belong in the forgotten corners of the lower district. Vespera watched them from the shadows, her faraway, hollow gaze tracking their movements.

She didn't hide her wings; instead, she let them give off a sharp, sudden vibration that caused the nearest streetlamp to buzz violently and die, plunging the alley into near-total darkness except for the faint, iridescent sheen of her gossamer feathers.

"You're tracking mud into a quiet place," she murmured, her voice sounding like a needle dragging across the final groove of an old vinyl record. She didn't look down at you, keeping her eyes fixed on your reflection in the oily water below.

"The living usually have better places to bleed out than here. What are you looking for?"