Author Games: Empty Night

Quarterfinals: Brandy Alva

Everything ached. From a cluster headache pinned between her eyes to her pinkie toe, Brandy's body was encased in a heavy, sore feeling that made even reaching for the remote on the stained coffee table seem like too much effort. It'd been like this for the past day and a half, too tired to get off the couch she had crashed down on after a well-needed shower was taken since the ordeal in that dirty, bloodstained warehouse where she and Adam had found the page from the Word of Atropos. The whole case was a mess. It felt like it'd been dragging on for months now, her patience worn down and her tolerance lasting as long as the time it took her to blink.

There were too many suspects, too many people that wanted Dorian dead or out of the way. From rival dragons to the fae courts, both Seelie and Unseelie alike - for where they didn't share their methods, they shared a motive - to any other demon, werewolf, vampire, or fallen alike that wanted to extract revenge in some form or another. How easy it would've been to pin it on a consort of Dorian's, call it an isolated incident, and shut the case file closed. After all, love could make people do terrible things. Stupid, reckless things.

With two fingers pressed against her temple, Brandy rubbed a slow circle into her skull. Thinking about it changed nothing. She'd wait until Adam contacted her again. Who she was more worried about, was Oz. She didn't know where the boy was or who he was with, he wasn't picking up his phone - that currently was left sitting on the kitchen counter - and after all the trouble he'd been getting into lately the idea of him being out on his own again wasn't a pleasant one. Still, she had to hope he knew what he was doing. Or at the very least, that he knew to try and not get himself killed.

Sighing heavily, Brandy heaved herself off of the couch. Her pajama bottoms fell from their bunched up, wrinkled position around her thighs and down to their original height. Curling her toes in the carpet, the woman reached up and stretched. A small protest came from her arm. It was continuing to heal from the long cut sliced into it, not old enough yet for a scab to begin forming. Had she had the time or energy, Brandy might have bothered with a quick spell to heal it over, but her thoughts were scattered among too many other things as it was.

A pair of socks were laying out in the middle of the living room for her to step over and a set of kicked off tennis shoes rested nearby to match. Shoving her silver hair over her shoulder and out of the way of her face, the woman bent over and picked them up to toss into the open closet door. It was a mess in there, but no more than the rest of the apartment was. The kitchen bar was lined with mail that hadn't been sorted and newspapers that hadn't been read. An official story on Dorian's death still laid front and center with a half-eaten bowl of Fruit Loops discarded on top. Folding up the paper and dumping the soiled, colorful bowl of mush into the sink, Brandy let out another deep breath.

The house needed to be cleaned, that was another thing to add to the list. She made the mental note and set it aside to pull open the refrigerator door. Besides some questionable lunch meat, a half gallon of milk, and a few condiments stuffed into the side shelf, the inside was empty. Grocery shopping, add that too. With a hesitant hand, Brandy bent over farther and got a hold of a large glass bottle resting in the very bottom of the fridge. It looked like a mixture of toothpaste and Windex, which wasn't very appealing on the first glance, or the second.

Still, the demon shut the door with a bump of her hip and took a coffee mug down from one of the cabinets to fill. Uncorking the bottle, a few wisps of magic curled up and out as the rest sloshed into the cup still squirming. With an added splash of coffee, Brandy left the rest of the soul on the counter and wandered back to the couch, now bathed in the bright light of another rerun featuring Rachel choking on a cherry stem.

Just as the woman set down her new drink on the worn table, a knock sounded on the door. Suspicion crept up her spine, drawing her like a puppet on a string to her full height in a second. Eyes narrowed toward the door, Brandy strode to it on silent feet and placed her left eye up against the keyhole. There was never any telling who would be on the other side, but she was fully surprised by the two Others on the other side, her hands fidgeting hurriedly with the handle and flinging open the shabby door.