Chapter Nine: Betrayal

The moon turned her jealous gaze from the city, sullenly turning her pale back as she nestled in the unkempt flannel sheets of the sky. However, the luminous expanse of the lights within various department stores, classical music spattering out from propped open double-binary doors in hopes of luring just a handful more of locals and tourists alike into their interiors with walls painted soothing, neutral colors with a very posh designer wallpaper for the restrooms, plush and equally neutral hued chairs and loveseats, and elegant and abstract paintings by famous painters and obscure modern local artists, as well. Inevitably, like moths drawn to the solitary dance of the flame, they would attract a handful of tourists, who eyed the mannequins frozen in poor imitations of life, stenciled eyebrows arched high with contempt, as they modeled too-tight designer labels. Inescapably, the tourists would, as is their nature and curious mannerisms, step over the vibrant thresholds, and would look about, trying to minimize the largeness of their wide pupils, as they postured and gestured as they spoke with the smug authority of the obtuse, who knew nothing of the things of which they spoke.

After several moments, they were generally turned out of the doors, employees locking the doors behind them with the turn of a key, whose solemn clack echoed with mocking finality into the bewildered tourists faces was followed by the hasty reserving of the once-cheery sign of “Yes, We’re OPEN!” to the impassive face of “Sorry, We’re CLOSED!” Once it had been discovered that, as usual, the eyes of the tourist's far surpassed the size of their wallets. The signs, like the employees themselves, however, never expressed any true regret. Then, like shorn sheep, the tourists would gaze dull-eyed with bafflement at the signs, rather like sheep who suddenly find themselves locked out of the safety of the fold, just as the fallow gold glint of wolves eyes first begin to glint in the darkness. After a moment, they turned and walked away, usually heading into the bookstores or restaurants, with their much more soothing atmosphere and the white-gold glint of Christmas lights wrapped around their awnings.

Ousel slowed her flat-out dash into a somewhat leisurely sprint, then a jog, which in turn faltered into a walk as she prowled past the out-flung double-binary doors of various nightclubs, as they crooned their swift-paced lullabies to the city’s inhabitants, as comforting a sound as a mother’s heartbeat to an infant. The tourists didn’t dare stray here, for fear of the shadows beneath sputtering streetlights as plastic bags exchanged hands, the glint of knives, and....punkers, and druggies, and ganstas...oh, my.

No, only locals haunted these dim sanctuaries, and those speechless, wry, castways wraiths that haunted the hours of darkness said nothing as they appraised her blood-soaked sleeve and the concealed glint of crimson- tinted silver within said sleeve. Instead, they merely cast their eyes down at the dark stains of blood, beer, and blackened bubble gum on the sidewalk, and hurried on, each repeating Law Number One of this great city- Not My Problem. Didn’t see nothin’, don’t know nothin.’

Ousel crossed the street-right in the path of an oncoming Taxi, the driver of which the leaned on his horn, the strident, indignant blurt of the horn, the harsher squeal of tires as the alarmed driver made a last, desperate, attempt to bring the car to a grating halt whilst shouting swears words out of his rolled down window, all unnoticed to Ousel. Instead, she halted, turned her head slowly to the left, uncurled her left first, drew it level with the windshield, and promptly gave the sputtering Taxi driver the finger. Then, with a toss of her head, she sauntered leisurely across the remainder of the intersection, and into the healing balm of the alleyway, the lyrics of a local club pulsing round and echoing off the bricks. See the Devil on the doorstep now\ My, oh, my\ telling us all just how to\ live our lies. Sliding down the information highway\buying in just like\a bunch of fools.... Ousel’s form began to subtlety metamorphosis into that of a wolf. Keep watching from your picket fence\you keep talking but it makes no sense.... Her silhouette upon the opposite brick wall would have been alarming indeed for any passerby, as wolf ears shifted to the top of her still human head. They suck us dry\till there’s nothing left\ My oh my, my oh my....

The wailing woman-Ana, Ousel believed, was momentarily drowned out by the harsher, strident wail of an ambulance's sirens, flashing red and blue as it roared past her niche. She inhaled, and caught the vague undertone of Jacinth’s scent- as well as the urgent crackle of radio static as the ambulance alerted the hospital of the condition of their passenger. As they wail dimmed, Ousel was vaguely aware of the end of the song...You say we’re not responsible\but we are, we are...\what about the world today\what about the place we call home? We’ve never been so many...and we’ve never been so alone. So alone... With a snarl, Ousel bounded, in full wolf form, home, secretly loathing the reunion.

Jade would not be pleased about her prolonged absence. She was so intent on reaching the offices of Jade and Smith, that she wasn’t aware of a minute, fox-shaped shadow trailing her own. As she rounded a bend, she found herself backhanded by the large paw of a Siberian Tiger, that sent her crashing through a basement window, and into utter darkness.