Night of the Fallen Angel

Cay-Lie cast a glance across her unusually busy neighbourhood getting little amusement from the three large moving vans that parked randomly across the road. It seemed the three houses that had been abandoned for some time had been occupied… All within the same day.
Cay-Lie wasn’t fussed like her neighbours that stared from behind their curtains and gawped while pegging out washing.
Maybe it was unusual for the neighbourhood to gain three extra citizens all within one day but it wasn’t exactly something to make a scene about. Already the smell of cherry pies and homemade bread was drifting from her neighbours kitchen windows, Cay-Lie dreaded to think what she had to bake or arrange for the new neighbours house welcoming.
She wasn’t the best cook, so that was out of the window. And flowers… too predictable. A hamper with chocolate or wine? No. Bath assortments? For some reason she sensed all the things she was coming up with had already been prepared and chosen by the neighbourhood. She had to be different.
Not paying much attention to the unloading of the vans Cay-Lie leaned back in the chair on the porch drifting into the shadows, the hat she was wearing cascaded her face solemnly in a dark overcast, her eyes a piercing blue sparked brightly under the random falls of her hair and the brim of her hat.

Melissa Gospel fluttered down the path and leaned flirtatiously against the furthest van from her house. She smiled, a wide toothy grin as she locked eyes upon a young man who struggled with two boxes at the same time. Instead of helping she fluttered her eyelids and yawned loudly, he dropped the boxes and batted his clothing.
“Hi. Jared Wilks.” Jared smiled eager to introduce himself and get to know his neighbours. Within seconds Melissa saw Jared was too young. Nineteen years old at the most, she was mid thirty’s.
“Your… dad around?” Melissa was careful not to say parents, she didn’t want to be stuck talking to this kids mum pretending to be cheery and welcoming.
“Erm… yeah?” Jared frowned, instantly catching on to Melissa’s antics “He’s inside talking to all the other… people around here…”
Melissa stood up straight clearly no longer wanting to waste her time “Oh it’s fine, I just wanted to welcome you to the neighbourhood.” and within a second she fluttered off.
Jared watched amused for a second before he turned down the pathway to the house he now inhabited.
“Nice to meet you.” he smiled as his new neighbours came out of the house.
“Remember, if you need any help we only live across from you.” one neighbour reminded him and he nodded.
Jared stood in the doorway as the last of them walked out of the garden “Jeez, thank god we rehearsed coming down here… They sure as hell pry into your private lives.”
“Rather you than me dad.” Jared winked walking into the house and picking up the boxes in the hallway.
“Funny, real funny.” Jared’s dad muttered.

“Oie, I’ve told you already can you help Jewels put the beam up in the kitchen!” Alexis shouted at the two teenagers in the back garden that were focused entirely on putting a trampoline up.
“Were busy too.” Haley shouted.
“Jewels doesn’t’t even like me.” Leon answered as he attached a spring to the trampoline.
“Thanks. You’re an amazing help.” Alexis spat walking back into the house.
“God, their more stressed than what we are and where the ones that have to do the snooping around here.” Haley muttered.
“Their only here for the free ride if you think about it.” Leon cast a glance back into the house before turning back to putting the springs on the trampoline.
“True.” Haley mumbled.

“Go ask him his name, his age, star sign, favourite colour, what he does on a weekend, what school his going to, if he has a dog.” Jasmine read of the list of possible conversation starters.
“No way you go and ask him!” Lyn-z cried peeking through the bedroom window at the house across from them.
They had been peeking from the window all morning, building up the courage to go and introduce themselves to the supposedly smoking hot boy who was kicking a ball for his dog.
“We have to be the first to talk to him!” Jasmine moaned “Otherwise someone else will get there before us and steal the hot gossip!”
“We could always walk little Sparkle?” Lyn-Z suggested peering down at the little sausage dog that was sound asleep in her basket “Accidentally… let her go and… You catch my drift?”
“Hmmhmm.” Jasmine winked grabbing her mascara and whacking on a load of it, Lyn-Z grabbed a hair pin and started arranging her hair.

Hendrix kicked the football hard and watched his dog retrieve it with ease and fetch it back to him.
“Good boy Hunter.” Hendrix praised just as a hyper sausage dog ran up eager to wrestle the ball from Hunter, a pitch black Great Dane. With the sausage dog came two girls.
“Oh I’m sorry. Sparkle…. Sparkle stop it!” one girl cried “She’s a little rascal is Sparkle.”
Hendrix picked the sausage dog up and handed it over the fence “That’s fine. Hunter here’s just not very fond of other dogs. Sparkle must be careful.” both the girls sensed the warning in his voice and smiled nervously.
“Oh.” one merely said.
“So…” the other attempted “You’ve just moved in I guess?”
“Well yeah, the parents wanted a change.” Hendrix was obviously not interested in the topic of conversation yet didn’t’ want to sound rude.
“Your parents?” the girl carried on “Oh wait… I’m Lyn-z. You are?”
“Hendrix. My parents work away most weeks.” Hendrix said.
“Really? Interesting. So you’re here by yourself now?” Lyn-Z pressed, wondering how one boy could unpack a van by himself.
“Yeah, until Saturday. It’s like that all the time.”
Lyn-Z and Jasmine expressed a small exchange of eye contact. The thought of Hendrix alone in his house all week…
“Jasmine! Jasmine! Get Sparkle in here right now! She hasn’t had her puppy jab yet!” Jasmine flushed a bright red and turned to glare at her mother. She grabbed Lyn-Z and stormed across the road to her house.
“She sure knows how to treat me like a little kid.” Jasmine seethed. Great. She hadn’t even properly spoke to Hendrix and already she had made a fool of herself.
“Come on girl at least you get him opposite your bedroom window, I live right at the other end of this damn neighbourhood!” Lyn-Z frowned.
“Hmm… and his parents are away all week…” Jasmine winked.
“That’s my girl.” Lyn-Z smiled.

Cay-Lie had accidentally fallen asleep on the porch and had missed the days events, it had now fallen dark and the moving vans had gone.
“Damn.” she grumbled still in a sleepy phase, she was too tired to cook. It looked like a take-away was in order.
Cay-Lie walked into the house and picked the house phone up only to get no dial tone through the receiver.
“Phone down. Great.” Cay-Lie frowned looking at the takeaway leaflet and catching the address of the place. It wasn’t too much of a hassle to walk. Or she could always illegally take the crosser out of the garage?
Deal.
To be on the polite side she pushed the bike out of the garage and onto the road just so the neighbours didn’t hear a loud rev and then a skid when she came down the drive way. She turned the key and instantly the crosser thundered to life. It was dark, the crosser was only a legal dirt bike and she hadn’t even got a helmet but she was in need of a take-away. Plus, it was dark? Who would see her? Not that Cay-Lie even thought of the consequences.
Rapidly accelerating out of the neighbourhood Cay-Lie only just noticed a flicker of a curtain in one of the new houses but then she was too far away to see who it had been.
On the crosser she was at the takeaway in no time, dumping it down an alleyway just so it was out of sight she walked round and entered the takeaway place.
“Cay-Lie! Three times in a row! Something tells us were your favourite takeout. True?”
“No where near.” Cay-Lie smiled secretly “Where’s your f…”
“Cay-Lie!” Cay-Lie was interrupted by none other than Granditi the owner to the Thai takeout, the man she had wanted in the first place. “Cay-Lie god damn please tell me that’s your bike down the alleyway?”
Something in Granditi’s tone of voice made Cay-Lie nod and forget any greetings “Cay-Lie I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day! Your phone must be out… and none of us dared leave to go to your house.”
“I don’t understand?” Cat-Lie frowned Granditi and his workers had been too scared to come to her house? The house they delivered to whenever she ordered takeout?
“Come round the back. Hurry.” Granditi made way for Cay-Lie and she followed past the counter, through the back room, out into the small garden and then into a smaller outer house. Granditi’s granddaughter had smiled at Cay-Lie on the way in, she had been rinsing a cloth filled with a dark, metallic silver colour.
“Here.” Granditi whispered pulling a cloth aside and allowing Cay-Lie to walk into the small, dimly lit room. Around a bed stood more family of Granditi’s, his two other sons, his wife and his daughter-in-law all were staring down at a crumpled figure upon a bed littered with cloth.
“You mustn’t tell Ohia about this.” Granditi mentioned meaning his youngest son out front keeping the takeaway place in order, fifteen at the most and he was at a vulnerable stage due to the family losing their highly respected grandfather not a week or two back.
Cay-Lie hadn’t paid attention to what Granditi had just said and stared down at the figure. The boy was laid on his stomach, deep scratches almost like a wolf attack were set deep into his back and instead of bright red blood, they pulsated the same metallic liquid that Granditi’s granddaughter had been rinsing out outside.
“We found tons of these around him.” Granditi’s eldest son pointed to a bag in the corner of the room that was overfilled with brilliant white feathers. Cay-Lie choked on what she had been about to say and clutched her chest. A ripple of pain screamed up her and she flinched at the thought, her eyes glued onto the feathers before glancing back at the boy.
“Is he…” Granditi whispered and Cay-Lie nodded “He said your name before he was brought inside, we found him in the park around back. We’ve been trying to get in contact with you since early this morning. None of us dared leave him though… not knowing for sure what he was and all that.”
Cay-Lie locked her eyes upon the boy and dug deep into her thoughts trying to figure out just why he had said her name.
“What does it mean Cay-Lie?” and even Cay-Lie wanted herself to answer that, but the reality was she had no idea.
“He’s dieing.” Cay-Lie said “We need some needles and strong thread… no we need string… we need to stitch all the wounds.”
“String?” Granditi’s wife asked eyes wide.
“His skins going to repel the thread and just reopen the wounds, he needs to heal fast and we can’t mess around. We all need to help.” Granditi’s wife and daughter-in-law sped from the room in search for thread.
“Won’t we need any medication?” Granditi asked.
“Even if we had the stuff he’d need it all pure, it would have to be blessed before it even made a difference.” Granditi guessed she meant being blessed by a priest.
“Were just going to stitch him up?” Granditi said.
“Yes. Find a wound and all you’ve got to do is stitch it up strong enough to hold.”
Granditi nodded.
Cay-Lie walked over to the side of the bed and kneeled down, brushing the blonde hair from the boys face. He was incredibly weak and had his eyes closed, his face looked in pain and she brushed a light hand over his cheek to reassure him. He flinched slightly. He was scared.
“Your safe now.” Cay-Lie whispered and she knew it was true. She had to protect him if he survived. He’d been sent to tell her something important. And whatever that had been had been worthy of an attack that had left him for dead.