They don’t ever teach you what to do in impossible situations.

Phoenix glanced frantically around, his scimitar tracing a low circle in the air.

There was a man on the ground, hurt, bleeding, probably dying, that Phoenix needed to at least try to help.

There was a creature on the prowl, invisible to the naked eye, waiting for him to lower his guard so it could finish the job.

“Uncle Aaron?” he whispered, trying to keep the edge of panic out of his voice. “Can you hear me? Uncle Aaron?..”

There was no answer, and with another glance over the alley, Phoenix hurried to his side.

There was a steadily growing pool of blood under Uncle Aaron, seeping into Phoenix’s clothes, but he desperately tried not to think about it. It was fine. He could deal with it.

“Hold on… hold on. I’ll fix it, just hold on…” Phoenix muttered, more for himself than for anyone else, as his mind searched desperately for the right kind of magic. Healing had been a gift he sometimes took for granted, but now he was grateful for that talent.

His hands glowed blue, promising salvation. Energy pooled into the dying man, slowing the flow of blood from the wound, and Phoenix let himself breathe a sigh of relief.

When the strike came, he dodged on pure instinct, but the sharp claw still got his upper arm, breaking his concentration and ending the spell before it could finish its job. The air sang where the other claw came down, and Phoenix had no choice but to hurry to his feet.

As he stepped away, footwork practiced and automatic, panic settled in, too. He couldn’t help Uncle Aaron without taking care of the creature first, but the man was on death’s door and even Phoenix’s limited medical knowledge told him they were out of time.

Uncle Aaron’s eyes turned glassy, but before that realization settled in fully, Phoenix felt rather than saw another blow coming and stabbed blindly at the invisible arm, surprising himself when the blade met its target.

It bled red, just like a human, but Phoenix realized all too late that it being in range of his blade had also put him in range of its claws. The whistle of them was too quick, impossible to block in time, and Phoenix braced himself for another painful impact.

It never came.

Instead, a pale figure solidified in front of him, screaming in agony as the creature ripped at her, once, twice… Until the connection snapped and the figure disappeared, leaving a void in Phoenix’s mind.

He swiped at the creature again, earning a high-pierced shriek and seemingly making it step back, but before Phoenix could do anything further, there were voices outside the alley.

“Did you hear that?..”

“Is someone hurt?”

“It sounded like a woman…”

There was a low, rumbling growl from where the creature seemed to be, and then several long marks appeared on the wall, followed by a fallen tile, and then for a fleeting moment, everything was blissfully silent.

“Murder! This man murdered someone!!”

Phoenix whipped around, coming face-to-face with several well-dressed men, looking at him with obvious fear and disgust. It took him a few more moments to realize that he was standing over an unmoving body with a sword dripping blood.

“I didn’t –“

“Constable!”

There was nothing he could do, Phoenix realized with horror. He couldn’t tell them what really killed Uncle Aaron, he couldn’t prove his innocence, he couldn’t even find and kill the creature responsible to make sure it didn’t hurt anyone else…

The scimitar fell out of his hand.

He had failed.

Perhaps his bloodline really was cursed.

He barely noticed as he was being cuffed and stuffed, none too gently, into a police carriage. His arm throbbed where the creature clipped it, and he felt empty without the comforting presence of Katherine in his mind. Still, nothing hurt more than the realization that he was as weak as he had been four years ago when his parents had been killed.

Perhaps this was for the best.

Phoenix buried his head in his arms and surrendered to his fate.

—–

To be continued on day 7: Never Again

—–

Okay, this one’s short but I still really liked how some bits of it turned out.