Illuminated

Chapter 28

Blue-white strobe lighting danced off Blaine's dour face in erratic pulses as he manoeuvred through the energetic crowd. Senses on high alert, he urgently scanned the underground level of the club for a very specific Little Red Riding Hood costume. Insomnia by Faithless was pounding through the speakers so loud, the floor was vibrating.

I can't get no sleep...

He tasted Andromeda's presence with his serpentine supersense before locating her with his eyes. Minute traces of apple molecules in the air led him to an elevated podium on the other side of the dancefloor where her crimson cloak was swaying in the dark.

A tall, thin man in a black shirt with his face painted like a skull was ogling her with blacked out eyes in a way that made Blaine's inner-snake coil and bare its teeth. She was his prey, and no one else's.

Keep the beast in my nature under ceaseless attack...

Cracking his neck from side to side, he leapt onto the podium in one graceful bound and seized her by the arm. "What are you doing down here?" He roared to be heard over the din.

Her pupils were dilated and her expression vacant, but a flicker of recognition drifted across her face as she drunkenly gazed into his eyes. "Oh, it's you," she slurred, reaching out and adjusting his shirt collar. Her hand slid to his chest, landing on his erratically pounding heart. "What took you so long?"

Snarling, he snatched the drink she was gripping in her other hand, barely holding it up to his flared nostrils before clocking the strong chemical smell lurking underneath. It'd been spiked.

He smashed the tumbler on the ground in disgust and firmly wrapped his right arm around her waist. "We're leaving."

She didn't resist; scarcely able to walk in a straight line, she leaned on him and he guided her to the edge of the podium. But before he could get her down, a hand roughly grabbed him by the shoulder.

It was the man in the skull face paint. "She's mine," he snarled, pointing a menacing forefinger at Andromeda.

Blaine hurled the human's hand off him as if it was a piece of muck. "No- she's mine."

Glowering in defiance, skullface clutched a handful of Andromeda's cloak and attempted to tug her towards him. "Go to Hell!"

Blaine tightened his grip on her waist, fury gushing through his veins like magma. His bloodlust skyrocketed to boiling point and his inner-snake sprang forward with an almighty hiss until all he saw was red. Face contorting wickedly, he unleashed a stream of white flame with the brute force of a lightning bolt from the palm of his hand. "After you!"

The flame struck the man square in the chest and a hellish shriek burst from his throat. Mouth gaping, his horrified eyes darted madly around in their exaggerated sockets before glazing over like marbles as he burned from the inside out, body hissing and disintegrating into a pile of ash.

Strobe lighting obscured most of the pyrotechnics, but the nearest clubbers clapped and cheered with wild delight, too high to realise it wasn't part of the light show.

With a smug sneer, Blaine turned his attention back to Andromeda, who was tucked in the crook of his arm. He peered into her face. Blinking, she stared back vacuously before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her entire body went limp as a carcass. Sagging in his grasp, her chin bumped against one of his pecs.

Fear billowed heat through him as if he'd caught the full blast of an open furnace. Fuck! How was he supposed to win the bet if she was dead?

Palms sweating, he gripped her close to his chest and held her upright. His heart was hammering so hard against her head, he was worried he might have to add concussion to her list of ailments. Using full demonic speed and not giving a fuck who saw, he sprang off the podium and deftly weaved through the maddening crowd before exiting through the steel double doors of the fire escape.

The air outside was cool and refreshing compared to the mingled stench of perspiration and alcohol inside, but it was making Andromeda shiver. Her face glistened with a feverish sweat and her breaths started coming out in shallow rasps. Tuning into her body's machinations, he realised her heart was beating too slowly in her chest and her temperature had plummeted.

He had to get her medical attention, pronto.

Pure instinct spurred him to sweep her into his arms and wrap her cloak around her for insulation. Glancing around and seeing no one else lurking about, he forced a pair of jet-black feathered wings out through his shoulder blades. His back ached with the released strain and his shirt ripped into shreds in the process, virtually clinging to his divinely sculpted body by a thread. Gnashing his teeth through the pain, he hastily stripped off the remnants of his shirt, not caring where they fell.

Someone gasped nearby. Blaine's head instinctively tilted upwards and he froze on the spot. A group of teenagers wearing Anonymous masks were perched on the steps above, gawking down at them through gaps in the metallic stairwell. One of them had a joint dangling hazardously out of his half-masked slack jaw. Blaine had been too preoccupied to notice them.

Shit, they've seen everything! I don't have fucking time for this!

But to his immense relief, they weren't paying attention to the apocalyptic vision of a demon bearing his eighteen foot wingspan in a dark alleyway.

Of course, it's Halloween!

Instead, they clattered slowly down the stairs in single file like a multi-headed centipede and gathered around Andromeda; pulling up their masks to reveal concerned, stoned faces underneath.

"Is your girlfriend ok?" One of them asked. The mask resting on top of his head seemed to be eyeing Blaine with a sort of manic exultation as he awaited a response.

Blaine shuddered, but of course it had nothing to do with the cold. He genuinely didn't know the answer. "I'm not sure... I have to get her help. Please stand back."

The boys backed off to give him room to manoeuvre his giant wings, and rather than risk being seen by anyone sober, Blaine took flight.

Red-eyes fixed and staring as if in a trace, the boys watched in open-mouthed disbelief as he leapt onto the fire escape bannister and propelled himself, bent-kneed, into the air, clutching a human girl to his chest as if she were a porcelain doll.

"Woah!" He heard one of them cry over the sound of his beating wings. "What the Hell did you put in this spliff, dude?"