Shadow Borne by Angie West

in
horror as the blade hurtled dead center toward his face. At the
last second, just before the knife would have embedded itself into
his flesh, he twisted to the side and the weapon flew past him, out
the open door. It clattered into the dirt beside my scraggly
looking flowerbeds and I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn't
just managed to inadvertently kill one of my oldest friends.
    I sagged over a kitchen chair, breathing
heavily while I waited for my racing heart to slow. The adrenaline
crash left me feeling weak, spent. "I'm so sorry." I gasped,
shoving ropes of black hair out of my face and finally pushing away
from the chair to face him. "Nice reflexes. It's a good thing,
huh?" I smiled weakly.
    Aranu had remained standing in the doorway,
not moving a muscle but quietly assessing the situation inside my
house. His eyes traveled past me to the kitchenette area of the
minuscule kitchen/dining combo, to the broken window and black
splatters and stains, down to the burlap sack just beyond my feet.
He seemed to take the scene in before finally he glanced back at
me. "And here I thought I was coming to save you."
    "You're a few minutes late, I'm afraid." I
smiled ruefully and bent to retrieve the sack from where I'd
dropped it, intending to ask Aranu what he was doing here, how he'd
known I had been in trouble. Not that I was overly concerned about
getting bogged down in the details. I probably should have been but
truthfully I was just grateful to not be alone right then; the
why's and how's of it almost didn't matter.
    "I was on my way home from patrol and
noticed the broken window. I could see you were kneeling on the
floor so I stopped in." He answered my unspoken question. "I was
going to rescue you." He shrugged, a hint of a smile touching his
lips in the dimly lit room.
    "Hey, yeah," I hefted the bag over one
shoulder, remembering the series of clicks I'd heard in the seconds
before Aranu had pulled a he-man on my door. "How did you get in?
Not that I'm not appreciative." I added, loathe to appear
ungrateful, especially after I'd jumped all over him earlier.
    Aranu reached into some hidden inner pocket
of his leather vest and pulled out a pair of silver picks, neither
of the instruments was much longer than the width of his palm; one
was a little thicker and shorter than the other.
    "Oh. Well, that answers my question then.
Like I said, you missed the action by a good ten minutes, but I
could use a hand getting this stuff outside." And I could use the
company. "It's a dead Coatyl." I added as an afterthought. It was
probably bad etiquette to hand someone a dead body without telling
them first.
    "Sure thing." he said easily and plucked the
awkward sack from my arms. He slung it over his own shoulder with
ridiculous ease. "But I wouldn't be so hasty in saying I'm too late
to save you. Not that you need the help," he was quick to add, "but
there's another Coatyl outside."
    "Damn." I slammed a fist against the table
and snatched up my spare clothes, blanket, and jug of water. Great.
That was just great.
    "So we kill it. Easy." Aranu started toward
the door. "They're getting bold." He glanced back with a frown at
the damage in the room. And suddenly I remembered the most
shattering development of the night and that I had to tell him
before he walked out the door.
    "Aranu, wait!" He paused at the threshold
and swiveled his head toward the middle of the room, where I had
once again plunked my bags down, this time on the table though,
instead of the floor. "The Coatyl–at least I think it's all of the
Coatyl–aren't just getting bold. They've been...altered." I said,
for lack of a better word. "They're talking. Well, this one spoke
to me, anyway. He was able to think for himself, too." I added.
    Aranu shifted the burden from his right
shoulder to his left and cocked his head to the side. "What did it
say to you?"
    That was so like Aranu. No visible surprise
in his hard face. I couldn't say for sure if he was shocked or