Chương 9: Man on Fire

Across from Lloyd stood a man. Or rather — a creature draped in living fire. Not the kind that dances in a fireplace on long winter evenings, not the kind that flares up from a dropped match. This was fire of a different nature — dense, deliberate, as though each tongue of flame knew exactly where to reach. The fire enveloped the figure in a tight cocoon, pulsing steadily with his breathing, yet it did not scorch the asphalt beneath his feet.

Only the air around him trembled and warped from the heat, distorting the outlines of the alley behind the fiery stranger's back. — Player... Lloyd said the word almost soundlessly. Not from fear — from surprise. He had seen Players before, of course. The city had only emerged from the Veil a year ago, and since then such creatures had been appearing more and more often on the streets, in doorways, in late-night establishments.

But like this — face to face, in a narrow alley with barely anywhere to run — this was a first. On the fiery stranger's body, traces of coffee were visible. Dark stains slowly dissolved in the flames, evaporating with a quiet hiss.

"So that's what that sound was." Only now did Lloyd understand what he had heard a few seconds ago — not the crackling of fire, not footsteps, but precisely that quiet hiss. He glanced down at his cup. Empty. The coffee had gone somewhere else — or rather, not only onto him. The fiery man slowly lowered his gaze to the barely visible stain on his clothing — where the fabric had not yet fully dissolved into the flame. Then he raised his eyes to Lloyd just as slowly. His gaze held neither rage nor pain.

It held something far worse — cold, measured contempt. — Bastard. A cold sweat ran down Lloyd's back. A strange sensation — to be chilled by heat. — That's not what you think. I don't know how this happened, I really didn't mean to— He didn't get to finish. The blow came before Lloyd could blink. A fist — scorching, hard as a piece of metal fresh from a forge — slammed into his face. A white flash burst across his vision. The world tilted.

His legs gave out and Lloyd flew backward a couple of meters, his back slamming into the brick wall of the alley. His nose began bleeding immediately — hot, salty, streaming down his lips and chin, dripping onto the asphalt in small dark drops. For a few seconds Lloyd simply sat there, leaning against the wall, staring up at the sky. The sky was grey. Ordinary. Indifferent — the same as it had been that morning when he walked out for coffee, and the same as it would remain after all of this. — Hey...

— he managed through a rasp. — I'm telling you, it's not what you think— The second blow was weaker. Considerably weaker — apparently the stranger had no intention of killing him. Not yet. Lloyd swayed, took a step back more from momentum than pain, and tried to steady himself. He didn't make it. He was grabbed by the collar — the fingers were hot, like heated iron rods. The fabric of his hoodie — that same orange one he had put on that morning, which had already survived a coffee stain — tore with a crack.

Lloyd was lifted and spun around so that he found himself face to face with the fiery man. Up close it was even worse — the heat hit in waves, his eyelashes stung, his throat went dry. — Filth, — the stranger said quietly, almost calmly, and it was precisely that calm that was more frightening than any shouting. — First you beat a cat. And now this on top of it. Now that you're caught, you'll answer to me for everything. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Genuine, unclouded surprise spread across Lloyd's face. So genuine that even through a broken nose and ringing ears it managed to surface. — Wait. You've got me confused with some— Another blow. This time — to the nose, precise and hard. Lloyd dropped to the asphalt. His knees slammed painfully into the hard surface, his palms scraped against the small stones. And then began what he would later simply call, in his mind, "it." He was beaten methodically. Without malice — which was particularly unpleasant.

Punches, kicks, each one calculated to cause exactly enough pain to hurt but not to kill. Professionally, if such a word could apply to a man beating someone on the ground in a burning alley. Lloyd was lucky — the fiery man wasn't hitting at full strength. Otherwise, all that would have remained of him was a handful of ash and a couple of buttons from his hoodie. Time blurred. Lloyd couldn't say how long it lasted — a minute, five, an eternity. He only felt the blows, the heat, the pain, then more blows.

Somewhere at the edge of his consciousness floated an absurd thought — that in the morning he had looked at the clouds and figured there wouldn't be rain just yet. That the day had seemed ordinary. That the latte had been a little sweeter than usual, but that had actually been pleasant. And then it all stopped. Lloyd lay on the asphalt, staring up at the grey sky, and heard the fiery man breathing slowly, heavily, somewhere nearby. Then came a quiet, contemptuous sound — and something hot landed on Lloyd's face.

A spit. Footsteps. Retreating footsteps.

"I thought it would never end..." Lloyd didn't move for another half minute. He simply lay there listening as the footsteps faded, as a car passed somewhere in the distance, as the wind pushed along the alley the scrap of newspaper he had noticed on the way to the coffee stand. Then, groaning and hissing through his teeth in pain, he got up. He sat down, leaning his back against the cold brick wall. The cold of the wall was almost pleasant. Almost.

The wounds burned — not just ached, but burned, as though scorching sand had been pressed into every scratch. Even the spit on his cheek was hot. Lloyd wiped it off with his sleeve — or what remained of his sleeve. He pulled his phone from his pocket. Somehow — not a single crack. He opened the camera and pointed it at himself. The reflection on the screen looked back at him with the expression of a man who had just had very bad luck.

One burn on his cheekbone — from that first blow, the one that had started it all. A bruise was already blooming around it in purple. His nose was swollen, dried blood beneath it. Overall — bearable. His face had fared better than expected. Lloyd lowered the camera. His body, though, was a considerably worse story. The orange hoodie — so bright just that morning, almost defiant against the grey October sky — was now torn in several places and singed where the fiery fists had made direct contact with the fabric.

Over the coffee stain, new marks had been added. Beneath the hoodie, judging by the feel of it, the picture was bleaker still.

"Well, at least my face is mostly spared. And for that, thank you... you bastard." In that moment he was seized by the feeling he hated most of all. Not pain — pain he could endure. Not anger — anger at least gave energy. He was seized by disgust at himself. Quiet, gnawing, like the smell of smoke. He was weak. Not just weak — helpless. In the new world his city had been navigating for a year now, strength decided everything.

Players, creatures of other races, people with awakened abilities — all of them existed by laws where your worth was measured by how hard you could hit and how easily you could take a hit in return. And Lloyd — an ordinary man in an ordinary, now torn and singed hoodie — could be beaten bloody for absolutely nothing. By anyone. In any back alley. His city had emerged from the Veil a year ago. For many, that had been a celebration — new possibilities, new horizons, a new world beyond the threshold.

For Lloyd, it had become a daily reminder of what he was. Nobody. There were few Players in the city — the Veil had only recently lifted, and those who had managed to awaken hadn't yet been flooding in by the masses. That was Lloyd's only piece of luck. If there had been more of them — he probably wouldn't have gone outside at all.

"Though today, perhaps, it would have been better if he hadn't." He slowly got to his feet. The pain moved through his body like a bow drawn across the strings of an out-of-tune violin — sharp, uneven, in the most unexpected places. His knee. His ribs. His left shoulder. His cheek. Lloyd exhaled. He looked toward the end of the alley — the direction the fiery man had gone. There was no one there.

Only the wind, the grey sky above the rooftops, and a solitary red leaf that had somehow made its way here from the street and now lay on the wet asphalt beside the dark drops of blood. He moved forward. Slowly, but he moved. Because sitting against a wall feeling sorry for himself was something he had no time for. And no reason for, either.