As Dusk Falls

Chapter One

This was Aurelia's least favorite part of theatre practice-when the chatter slowed to a stop, their carefully created characters dissipated into thin air, and everyone split off, leaving Aurelia alone.

She carefully treaded down the alley, noting with a smirk how stereotypical this could become. A young lady, sixteen to be exact, carefully treads down a dark, deserted alley in the dead of the night...

God, she hoped she didn't get mugged. She would pray, if she were the least bit religious.

And if this weren't routine.

She knew that in a matter of minutes, she would make it to the other side. The narrow walls of dilapidated concrete and crackling bricks would open onto a lit parking lot, and her eyes would land on the pool of light in which her red Volkswagen Bug was illuminated in.

But then she heard a rustling behind her, the sound of steps echoing up the sidewalk.

Her first thought was of panic, a natural reaction that tugged at her guts, and constricted her throat, a coil of tightening emotion.

Then, the "logical" part of her brain kicked in. Imagination, an animal, a trick of the paranoid brain. Darkness feeds fear. Shadows are a breeding ground for raw emotion.

But she knew logic was only logical to the ones in denial of the world within the shadows. She was aware that there were things out there much worse than humans. Fanged things with scarlet red eyes that feed on blood, black things with bodies made of shadows that feed on fear.

Dark things that feed on the lighter aspects of the world.

So, she paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts, before wrapping her hand around the hilt of the wooden stake in her pocket, more of a reassurance than anything- she did not know how to use it.

Then she took a second to rummage through her bag, until her hand wrapped around a familiar bottle. It was small enough to fit in her hand, with a trigger an a nozzle that was reminiscent of a bottle one would use to train a dog.

It was filled to the rim with holy water.

Her grandmother, whom she lived with, was a stern woman from the Bayou. She was a strong believer in dark and light spirits, and the things one could do to ward them off. Good gris-gris and blah blah blah. When Aurelia was younger, she thought of her grandmother's "precautions against evil," as a game. Silly and interesting. Superstitious. Eccentric. Entertaining. Until the night that the...incident...occurred. Aurelia believed her grandmother, after that.

She gripped the bottle in her hand, and resumed her walk, hastening her pace. She was less than thirty seconds from her car. Twenty-eight....twenty-seven.

She felt a light exhalation of breath against her neck, cool against the perspiration.

Then, there was a blur- a dark silhouette against the darker shadows.

She stopped, lifting the bottle in her hands the way one might cradle a gun between their fingertips. Lightly, feathering her fingertips over the "trigger."

She looked up, wide eyes scouring the darkness. She wasn't alone, she knew that now. If she got lucky it would be a human, but if not...

Well, she supposed she would get to see the holy water in action.

There was another blur, the silhouette landing in front of her, blocking her path.

The light of the moon fell over his frame, illuminating his high cheekbones, the fine angles of his face- shadows and highlights.
And then she noticed his eyes- red as rubies, and light with humor.

When he smiled the moonlight glared off of his teeth, all pearly and flat, except for his eyeteeth.

Two incisors, sharp and deadly.