Safe

All at once the thunder crashed with such intensity it could have been right beside her, and the brief flash of lightning illuminated a sheet of pouring rain that obscured the entire street. Melia hugged her coat closer around her neck, trying in vain to close any openings that were allowing water to fall in and soak her clothes. The storm had come out of nowhere. One minute she had been walking home, enjoying the fact that the weather had finally warmed enough for her to forego the crowded afternoon bus. The next the sky was a ghastly grey, and she was hurrying to find some sort of cover.

She stayed close to the buildings beside her as she went, trying to find a brief reprieve under the awnings of the businesses she passed. Part of her wanted to huddle under one of them until the storm was over, but she was already shivering in her wet clothes and the rain showed no signs of letting up. All she wanted now was to get home.

She jumped back as another wave of thunder clapped, and the motion made her purse slide off her slick arm and splash onto the wet ground. She swore in frustration and stooped down to grab it, cursing to herself that even if the contents weren’t soaked the leather of the handbag was probably a lost cause. As she stood the lightning flashed again, this time reflecting close to her face, and the thunder masked her scream as she felt the cold, wet steel of a knife press against her throat.

“Give me your purse,” a gruff voice commanded in her ear. She wanted to nod an affirmation but thought better of moving her head when the blade tightened against her skin. She carefully moved her arm back, offering her bag out behind her. It was taken from her with a snatch, and she gasped, then tried to focus all of her concentration on staying as still as possible.

There was a boom, but this time there was no lightning. Instead, something like a growl sounded over the violent patter of the rain, and suddenly the presence at Melia’s back and the pressure on her throat were both gone. She wanted to turn, but the back of her neck tingled painfully and none of her muscles seemed to respond the way she needed them to. She told her legs to run, but in protest her knees buckled, and suddenly she was kneeling in water. The rain seemed to hit harder at her new height and the weight of it pushed down, coaxing her foggy mind to stop resisting, to lay down on the wet concrete…

But someone - or something - caught her before her head could touch the ground. Her eyes tried to focus on the person newly in front of her, but the rain obscured her vision, and what she could make out didn’t seem to make sense. She thought she must be delirious.

“You’re bleeding”, the blurry figure said. It was a man’s voice, but a kinder voice, not her attacker. Her fingers touched her throat, and she looked at them and saw a flash of blood before the rain washed it away. Spots appeared in her vision and she swayed.

She couldn’t make out exactly what happened next. She heard disjointed words - “safe”, “inside”, “warm” - and felt herself being lifted off the ground. She wanted to protest, but the spots got bigger and she couldn’t form the words her mind wanted to say.

She didn’t think she’d blacked out, but suddenly the rain was gone, and a bucket was in front of her, and she was vomiting into it.

“Easy, you’re all right,” a gentle voice said, this one female. Melia looked up and saw a blonde woman with kind eyes smiling down at her. 

“Where am I?” Melia croaked. The blood on her fingers from before flashed in her mind, and she reached suddenly for her throat. The skin stung, but she didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore.

“You just got a small nick, no real damage done,” the blonde assured her, taking the bucket away. “I think the shock took you out more than anything.”

“How long?” Melia felt at her hair. I was still soaking, but she wasn’t as cold now. She realized a blanket had been draped over her shoulders, and she was sitting next to a fire. Looking past her companion, she saw a bar and a few tables with a handful of patrons scattered throughout. She didn’t even know restaurants on this block could have fireplaces. She asked again, “Where am I?”

“Patterson’s bar. I’m Julie Patterson. You’ve only been here twenty minutes or so. Hank got your purse back too, I have it hanging in the back to dry out. I took your things out to dry too but they’re locked in the back office, no one will mess with them.”

“Hank…” Melia’s brow furrowed in confusion, then she looked and saw a man at the bar watching her. He smiled when their eyes met, then raised his glass and gave her a deep nod. He looked familiar, but also something wasn’t right.

“He saved me,” Melia said, more to herself than to Julie. “But he looked different. His face was -”

“On nights like tonight,” Julie cut her off. “We remember monsters hide in the dark corners. Sometimes those monsters look like men. And sometimes the men who fight them look like monsters. At the end of the day I think actions matter most, don’t you?”

Melia nodded slowly, but her eyes were now scanning the other patrons. A man in the corner was looking down at his beer, but when his glance shifted she could have sworn his eyes reflected red. Another laughed with his friend at a nearby table - and were those fangs? At the bar a woman sat, the palest woman Melia had ever seen. Her skin was so light it might have been blue - or white? - green? Suddenly a thought occurred to her and her eyes snapped back to Julie’s.

“Patterson’s? I thought this place closed. I mean you must have. My sister told me about you when she came to visit. She was looking up restaurants and she said she’d never seen an active bar rated so low. I think one review even used the word ‘dunghole’.”

“Dunghole!” Julie cackled loudly, making Melia jump with surprise. “Dunghole, was that you Liam? I love it.” 

The laughing man with the fangs winked at her. Melia shook her head, more confused than ever.

“You wrote them? I don’t understand. And your windows were boarded up -”

“Listen.” Melia was getting frustrated with Julie interrupting her mid-sentence, but she quieted down. “We get tourists around here - not a lot, but enough that having them wander in could cause a stir. Like your sister. I’d serve her a beer if she asked, but I don’t think she’d be comfortable here, do you? That’s all we want. A place to be comfortable. To be safe.”

Melia swallowed hard, looking around the room again. “But you brought me here.”

“You needed somewhere to be safe too, didn’t you?” There was an easiness about Julie. She wasn’t worried about Melia sharing her secrets, and Melia wouldn’t. She didn’t quite understand, but she knew there was something sacred about this place she had been allowed to enter, and the weight of that honor settled heavily on her chest as Julie stood.

“Stay as long as you like, I’ll bring you something to drink. At least stay warm here until the storm passes.”

“Until the storm passes,” Melia agreed, settling into her seat and letting out a deep breath as she stared into the fire.