heartbeat // zayn malik AU

chapter nine

"And the walls kept tumbling down,

In the city that we love.

Gray clouds roll over the hills,

bringing darkness from above."

- Bastille [Pompeii]

 Fingers still tangled in mine, Zayn tugged me out of the crowd and towards the table nestled against the far wall of the club. "Figured we could use drinks," he said, tugging at the collar of his shirt. His face was red, but I couldn't tell if it was from exertion or embarrassment or what. 

Trying my utmost to appear nonchalant, I smacked his hand away from the cooler of alcoholic drinks. As a strong reek assailed my nostrils--similar to the smell of beer, but twenty times stronger--I recalled what he'd said about the kind of drinks angels had. Enough to knock a human out. I shuddered; I wasn't much of a drinker anyway, and I wasn't about to start with angelic drinks that had the power to knock me out cold.

"Hey! Why'd you do that?" Zayn yelped, giving me a glare.

"We're here to find about the Infinity Sword," I reminded him, tugging at the skirt of my dress irritably; it kept riding up, and I was in no mood to even partially flash everyone at the club--little attention as they were paying to Zayn and I. "Not to get drunk off our asses."

Frustration blazed on his face, and he moved away from the cooler of beer. "You... you... you expect me to-" He practically bit down on his own tongue, silencing whatever he was about to say. Which was a shame, because my curiosity was dying to hear what kind of thoughts were making his eyes burn like they were.

My mind threw the reminder of how we'd just been dancing--his hands on my hips, mine on the small of his back--back in my face, and I had to fight to shove down the wave of emotions that came with it.

Before the two of us could get started on a fight that would probably get us thrown out of the club, we heard a shout, and turned to see Astral making her way towards us. Behind her, she was dragging along a giggling, cross-eyed young man. He couldn't have been more than two or three years older than the rest of us, but there was a kind of immaturity stamped on his face that made me extremely not inclined to trust him.

This was the man who was going to tell us vital information about the Infinity Sword? This drunk weirdo? I'd struggled into a dress and high heels just so I could watch this asshole trip over his own feet as Astral guided him over?

Bloody hell.

I glanced over at Zayn to see if he was as upset, but he was just giving a sort of rueful smile. "Long time, no see, Cyphus," he told the new arrival.

Cyphus. Upon closer inspection, I could see that he was a ginger; the carroty hue of his hair stood out starkly against his pale, clammy skin. His brown eyes rolled around in their whites a little bit, before finally stopping and fixing on me. "I guess that's Valarie?" he asked Astral, ignoring Zayn's half-hearted greeting.

She'd already told him about me? 

"Yeah. And you already know Zayn," Astral said. Nodding to the both of us, she said, "I already told him everything."

Zayn raised one eyebrow at her, as if asking just how much "everything" was.

"About the demon and Valarie's uncle's requests for the Infinity Sword," she clarified. "And now he's going to enlighten us as to why Uncle Jack might think that Valarie and her mother had the sword."

"Uncle Jack-ass," Zayn corrected, causing me to snicker a little.

Rolling her eyes at our not-so-mature jokes, Astral moved to stand a little closer to Zayn. "Take it away, Cyphus."