Vacant Passage by L. Hill

Author:L. Hill [Hill, L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-03-09T22:00:00+00:00

*******

Kyra arrived at her destination roughly forty-five minutes later. A small, square, dilapidated house, it hunched on the other side of the street looking as though the roof might fall in at any moment. It reminded Kyra somewhat of Mrs. Rosary’s house, or even the one Josie did business out of. Except no lights shone out and everything seemed quiet.

Only the rising wind made any noise at all. And that, not much. Kyra wondered vaguely if a storm was blowing in. She doubted it.

Approaching it from across the alley, Kyra stayed in the shadows and peered out, eyes sweeping the street.

Two Mirelings lounged outside the building, sitting casually against the brick exterior. One appeared vaguely high, while the other one’s head lolled on his chest. Snores gurgled from his nose periodically.

They didn’t fool Kyra. These weren’t run-of-the-mill Mirelings. They were guards, simply doing their best to blend in.

Kyra prepared herself to do battle for Manny if need be, but she had no way of knowing if other guards lounged in other places around the property. Obviously sneaking in and out without being spotted would be preferable. For the next half an hour, she circled the block, looking for another way in.

She eventually found it, though it didn’t prove easy to access.

A cinderblock fence completely enclosed the small house’s back yard, connecting to the house on either side. No gate or passage led directly into it. One could only access it by going through the house or hopping the fence. Kyra chose the latter.

She silently explored several other properties to reach the back side of the cinderblock fence. The properties were almost certainly abandoned, with the possible exception of a random Mireling squatting inside.

The problem came when she reached the fence. It stood eight feet tall and she didn’t have any real way to scale it. If she’d not gotten the shit kicked out of her earlier, as Carmen so eloquently put it, she’d have taken a running start, made a leap, and pulled herself up over the top. But her ribs were sore—possibly cracked—and she simply didn't have the strength for it tonight.

Crossing back through the properties, she spent the next half an hour finding crates and other pieces of refuse to stack up against the wall so she could climb over.

More than an hour after leaving Carmen, Kyra stood atop a makeshift staircase of odds and ends and peeked over the wall.

The backyard of the safe house struck her as utterly unimpressive. Not much ambient light filtered in from the Mire’s red-lit streets, making it a darkly opaque landscape. Dark shapes Kyra assumed to be piles of garbage and old furniture littered it. She doubted anything grew anywhere, including weeds.

What she discerned of the ground appeared to have been paved with a mixture of broken bricks and concrete. Not surprising in the city. Little greenery existed anywhere. The back door had no windows, though two were carved into the back wall of the house. They seemed to be covered on the inside with some kind of curtain or sheet.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.