An excerpt.
Aura walks into the room as Gabriel pulls the shirt from his shoulders. He casts black eyes hooded over his scarred shoulder and the eye says what the mouth does not. Need something?
Nice tattoo. The corner of her mouth twitches as if on strings. What’s it mean?
“The end of the lullaby.”
That’s queer.
His head turns around and the growling purring voice is quiet for a moment. His whole body revolves a tanned planet and she recognizes the weight around him the weight of the air heavy and wavering across his body. It is not heat she has never felt warm around him and as he faces her a short breath from her lips blows out frosty and the icicles clatter to the ground to shatter in twinkles.
Something you needed? the well of a mouth asks.
I need money.
It is Gabriel’s turn to smile.
Look just give me twenty dollars and I’m gone. Let’s not get into this again.
Get into what?
She raises her left hand middle finger extended. She looks a moment and her flesh is taut white and cold. You going to give me the money or what?
The smile drops from his face and the air wavers madly around him. Roiling and flickering like the wash from a candle wick but heavy and not hot. So heavy. Aura feels the weight settle on her and the floorboards creak while her sneakers sag. So heavy.
Go ask Michael for it he says in a whispering snarl.
Fuck you Gabriel.
His eyes are black pools receding into the echoes of dying eternity.
Get out he says and the voice is the gravel of a hundred thousand years crushed to dust under the weight of the snow.
She drags her limping feet to the doorway and the heaviness leaves her in a pulsing rush of pinpricks and heat scalding her fingertips and the edges of her toes. She looks behind her to call one last curse and leaps the tenement stairs with the emptiness of his eyes drawing her in.
He picks up the icicles of her frozen breath and holds the end against his wrist. His boiling blood leaks out and over the sharp corners of the icy t in his hand. It hisses into steam and the noise rattles around his ears.
The spiderwebs at the windowsill sing out to him shrilly Does it really say that Does the ink really say that.
He smiles sadly.
Of course not.
Nice tattoo. The corner of her mouth twitches as if on strings. What’s it mean?
“The end of the lullaby.”
That’s queer.
His head turns around and the growling purring voice is quiet for a moment. His whole body revolves a tanned planet and she recognizes the weight around him the weight of the air heavy and wavering across his body. It is not heat she has never felt warm around him and as he faces her a short breath from her lips blows out frosty and the icicles clatter to the ground to shatter in twinkles.
Something you needed? the well of a mouth asks.
I need money.
It is Gabriel’s turn to smile.
Look just give me twenty dollars and I’m gone. Let’s not get into this again.
Get into what?
She raises her left hand middle finger extended. She looks a moment and her flesh is taut white and cold. You going to give me the money or what?
The smile drops from his face and the air wavers madly around him. Roiling and flickering like the wash from a candle wick but heavy and not hot. So heavy. Aura feels the weight settle on her and the floorboards creak while her sneakers sag. So heavy.
Go ask Michael for it he says in a whispering snarl.
Fuck you Gabriel.
His eyes are black pools receding into the echoes of dying eternity.
Get out he says and the voice is the gravel of a hundred thousand years crushed to dust under the weight of the snow.
She drags her limping feet to the doorway and the heaviness leaves her in a pulsing rush of pinpricks and heat scalding her fingertips and the edges of her toes. She looks behind her to call one last curse and leaps the tenement stairs with the emptiness of his eyes drawing her in.
He picks up the icicles of her frozen breath and holds the end against his wrist. His boiling blood leaks out and over the sharp corners of the icy t in his hand. It hisses into steam and the noise rattles around his ears.
The spiderwebs at the windowsill sing out to him shrilly Does it really say that Does the ink really say that.
He smiles sadly.
Of course not.
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