Excerpt: Firestarter

"I'll tell you something, I am a wolf, but I like to wear sheep's clothing… I am a bonfire, I am a vampire…" Temptation Waits, Garbage

February met Cade the way one normally meets people, by sheer, blind accident and a little luck, though she couldn't say if the luck was from the Good column or the Bad. Good, she supposed, since Cade turned out to be moderately friendly, and, well, he didn't eat her. That was good. Mostly. Then again, there were several ticks in favor of the Bad, too; his business associates, say, and his tendency to eat people even if he didn't eat her. Cade was, as he aspired to be, complicated. Maybe meeting Cade was really an exercise in Sod's Law.

When February walked into a pub one Wednesday night, she wasn't thinking about meeting anyone or luck at all. It was tipping down rain outside and had been for almost a week. Everything at the hostel held the sharp scent of mildew. The sound of rain on the roof and against the windows had ceased to be soothing and had begun to make her feel closed in and smothered. February was restless enough to wander down one street and up another until she found a pub that from the outside looked to be just the right sort of run down to suit her means. It was early evening, but the rain had kept many tucked up in their own homes. The pub wasn't even half-full, but that was all right.

Inside, she ordered a pint and a cup of whatever soup was on offer straightaway, slapping down soggy notes on the scarred wooden bar, before turning to consider the rest of the pub. There was a corkboard near the door with advertisements and business cards pinned here and there. Haphazard, vaguely masculine attempts at decorating included fairy lights strung around the wooden columns and faded pennants hung behind the bar next to the display of liquors, a faded color printout of the Manchester United schedule, and a little telly tuned to Top Gear.

Nothing new there. February sipped her beer and turned to lean one hip against the solid wood bar while waiting for her soup.

And there he was, amongst the congenial gloom that all pubs seemed to cultivate in place of "atmosphere." He wasn't in the darkest shadow or even in a corner, but his table did seem somehow very clearly delineated as separate from the rest of the pub, and the shadows did appear richer than the general dimness.

He was the tall, dark stranger of a thousand carnival fortunetellers' predictions. Except he wasn't that, either. He was handsome in a rumpled, indie way, but he obviously wasn't there to sweep anyone in particular off their feet, and, in fact, looked disinclined to climb to his own feet for much of anything except, perhaps inevitably, another glass of whatever dark liquor he was sipping. Despite his youthful face, he looked faintly bored with all of existence. Certainly he had achieved that sort of lazy disinterest to which art students universally aspire and the upper classes sullied with too much self-indulgence.

February noticed later that he had pretty eyes, pale and expressive with the long dark lashes that men sometimes have despite it being entirely unfair to all women everywhere. (Boots' Wonderlash certainly benefited from the phenomena.) When she first saw him, though, what she noticed was the half-smile causing the corners of his mouth to almost twitch with amusement. She immediately liked that contained, almost-expression more than she did the broad, blatant grins or scowls with which she was far more familiar. The nuance of visual cues seemed to promise degrees and particles of meaning to be learned and cataloged. Like that exasperating, disappearing cat from literature, she wanted immediately to know the source of his amusement even while prickling with the suspicion that she was, in fact, the butt of the joke.

"You're staring," he informed her in a reedy voice that carried effortlessly other then background noise of glasses, endless rain, Jeremy Clarkson nattering on about The Stig's latest lap time, and other incidental pub-noises. He didn't seem particularly disturbed or surprised that someone would stare at him. He gave the impression that he probably got that sort of reaction all the time from a broad and good-looking segment of the population. Her staring hadn't even enticed him into a better posture. He was still half-sprawled, all legs and dark denim.

"Am I? Sorry." She lifted her glass in a little salute and turned to retrieve her soup which looked to be a medley of beans. When she turned around again with the intent of finding a table, he was still watching her. "Are we taking turns staring then? Is that what we do here? Not much of a replacement for a pub quiz. And, really, staring contests seem a little primitive. Even for Hull."

That made him laugh. The sound was soft, low and breathy, and before it had faded, the stranger had straightened and gestured towards the empty chair at his table. Without considering the implications, February slid into the seat. Days of being cooped up had left her eager for something new. She placed her pint on the coaster and took an inquisitive sniff of the soup before she looked up at him again. The faintly bemused expression was back, twitching and tantalizing.

"I hope you're not amused because it's well known that nasty things are lurking in the kitchen," she said, gesturing to her cup of soup with the spoon.

The dark-haired man shook his head, making a "go-on" gesture with the fingers not involved in supporting his glass.