#birdlime

There was a man up there, when there shouldn’t have been, in front of a broken display that should have been whole. He had a lantern and a baseball bat and was muttering to himself as he looked through the rarities that he’d knocked to the floor.

Alcul was behind Zalis, but still they could feel him thrumming, this urge to leap forward and protect his property, this history, from someone so careless. Zalis was in the way though, and they weren’t certain how to proceed. Their mind immediately went to the police, they were supposed to protect them, but they were too far away. If Zalis was to call them now, this stranger would be long gone by the time they arrived.

And the stranger had noticed them anyway, leaning on his baseball bat, looking at them with a smile that could only be described as manic. “There we have it, then, yes?” his voice was sharp and intimate, feeling closer than it was as it raised in anxiety.

He pushed out one foot, hidden behind knee-high boots, and scooped an orb closer to him. It was nothing to Zalis but they could feel the breath in Alcul heighten, the ways his body stiffened, and a crackle of energy, a burst just behind his lips.

“Look, you don’t want me to call the authorities, do you?” Zalis took a slow step forward. They had nothing to defend themself with and they didn’t know if this stranger had a gun or something, but they were at least far enough away to avoid the bat. Hopefully they were far enough from whatever Alcul was planning to. “Just set that down and be on your way. This is a bookshop, barely making its rent, there’s nothing of value for you here.” It was a lie and one that Zalis knew was blatant, but if this were just some random burglar there was a chance that he’d believe them.

Closer up, Zalis could see the eyepatch hidden behind some long bangs, the clothes that were far from shabby, and the intricate engravings on the bat. He wasn’t some random burglar. He wasn’t here by accident. He knew what he was up to and what he was getting.

“Oh, I don’t need anything more than this,” he smiled, too wide, stretching a hairline scar. He tossed the orb up in the air and Alcul stopped breathing until he caught it again. “You take gramps back downstairs and I’ll be out of here by the time you get back to your programs!” he cackled, as if he’d made some great joke. Alcul grumbled in disagreement.

There was a sharp tingling around Zalis’ shoulder and they moved, a slow inch, as if it were natural. The stranger didn’t notice it.

A burst of red energy shoved itself forward, past Zalis and towards the stranger. It spun and spiraled around itself, fractals of flame zigzagging around an electrical current. It was like a bullet with the curving wavelength behind it in brilliant red.

The stranger shrieked and threw up his bat, too high. He blocked with his arm instead. The energy rippled as it slammed into him, and he screamed throughout it, the sound akin to a banshee. It sounded as if Alcul was killing him. Zalis didn’t know anything about magic, aside from the usual, they didn’t know what this spell was. He could have been killing him.

Zalis took a glance back at the old man, sweat dripping down his brow. His arm looked like a Chinese dragon, carved from stone, red and angry, electricity swimming and bursting around its eyes. Its mouth was agape, still pointing at the stranger, ready for another shot.

The man lowered his arm and the bat with it, the orb protected against his body. There was no damage to his nice jacket, nor to him, although he had moved back, shoved by the force of the blow. Instead there was a ghostly shape swirling around his arm, almost white, and it appeared to be eating at the residual magic.

“So the old man does have a few tricks of his own!” The man guffawed. “I’d hate to see more, sincerely I would, but I’m afraid I must be going!”

He ran, back the way that he had come, back towards one of the many windows up there. His run was awkward, a limp accentuated, and it was clear that the bat was usually used as a cane, the length of it too much for someone of his stature, to be used for the actual sport.

“Hey!” Zalis called out after him, running before they thought better of it. They didn’t know what the man was after, but it meant something to Alcul, enough for him to use a spell, anyway. Zalis had only seen him cast a few before and they tended to mess with his digestive trac something awful. It wasn’t something to do over nothing.

The man pushed himself out through an open window, out onto the roof. The building was tall and slanted and he must have come up this way but there was no way that Zalis would ever go out on that thing of their own accord. The shingles had needed replacing before Zalis was even born by the looks of it and, while there hadn’t been any leaks in the months that they’d lived there, they wouldn’t be surprised if the next rainfall went through the roof like rice paper.