Red light fills the street, projected from dozens of lamps hung above doorways, or strung from great lines that crisscross the street. It gives this part of the city a warm, almost intimate, atmosphere that leaves behind the deepest shadows. Red light bleeds less, and seems to only heighten the darkness rather than creep into it. It would be nicer still, if it wasn’t for what goes on here. Something about the people here makes me feel distinctly uncomfortable, even as the environment feels pleasant.

I think it’s the customers, more than the streetwalkers. There’s just something slightly off about them, a distinct sense of wrongness that I can’t quite put my finger on. They act a little differently to the people in the rest of the city: they’re furtive, where others are confident, or boisterous where others would be professional. The vice brings out something in each of them. It might be a false self, bravado put on to work themselves up to this, or it might be their true self, free from inhibition. Either way, the air feels different here because of it.

I’m huddling in the shadows beneath the overhang of a set of large bay windows, displaying a richly furnished velvet room and a sparsely-clothed dancer. There are fewer dumpsters on this street, and the area is closed off to wheeled traffic, so my options are more than a little limited. Across from me, a three-story building has been converted from its original purpose. Its brickwork has been painted black, while all the woodwork, the doors and windowsills, have been redone in gaudy pink. Enormous pink letters stretch across the front of the building, glowing tubes of glass spelling out the place’s name. ‘A Streetwalker Named Desire.’ If it’s referencing something, then I don’t get it.

The building is not alone - pretty much every place in this part of town looks the same - but I’ve had my eye on it for a while. It’s one of the largest of its type, possibly the largest, and it sees a lot of customers every night. More importantly, it’s on the edge of the district and backs right onto a warren of tenements and alleyways. It’s also a little more upmarket than the others, which means it’s more expensive. I’ve been in there once before, clinging to the coattails of one of the staff, but this time it’s different. This time it’s the real thing.

I look left and right, sizing up the people on the street. The women, and a few men, who work here aren’t who I’m looking for. I want someone who looks decently well off, but not so drunk that they’ll jump into the arms of the first place they see. I want someone purposeful, who looks like they know where they’re going. Someone… Someone like him.

He’s wearing a charcoal-grey suit that looks expensive, but his collar is undone and his tie is hanging loose. He’s done with work for the day, and has relaxed his fashions accordingly. I understand people a bit more now - I know what clothes they wear to work, what clothes they wear for leisure, and the subtle adjustments they make to the former when they seek some small leisure at the end of the day. He’s walking on my side of the street, but his eyes are fixed on the building opposite. He’s young, but not so young he’d be trying his luck in a bar. His curly hair is neatly trimmed, and his rich brown skin is smooth and well cared for.

He looks, in short, like he’s heading exactly where I need to go.

I wait for him to wander close to my hiding spot, then let my tail drift out of the shadows and push against the tail of his jacket, making brief contact with the underside. That’s enough for me to pull my presence beneath his jacket, into the narrow band of shadows on top of his shirt. I pause for a moment, waiting to hear screams or shouts, or for him to violently try and shake me off. Nothing happens, and I know I’ve passed completely unseen.

I shift myself down his jacket, until I’m suspended in the narrow gap between the tail and his pants, then peer down at the ground as he crosses the street. The flat concrete of the pavement drops down onto the road, and he crosses over the faded white line that used to guide traffic before lurching up again onto the pavement on the other side. There’s a pause as he waits briefly at the door, before being waved through by a pair of polished black boots belonging to a hired thug. The featureless grey concrete is replaced briefly by a wooden doorframe, then by a patterned red carpet.

My unwitting guide pauses before a polished wooden desk, and holds a brief conversation with an unseen woman before I hear the metal sound of a case being opened, and the expectant quiet of money changing hands. The man starts to walk away, into the backrooms, and I let my tail slip from his jacket, using it to pull myself into the shadows beneath a decorative pedestal holding a strange plant made of fake green leaves.

I watch the charcoal grey suit step behind a heavy wooden door, and put him out of my mind. From my last visit, I know what he’ll find in there; a number of women and a few men arranged in a line like cattle at an auction. What he’ll do next frankly doesn’t bear thinking about, and it’s not why I’m here. My interest is strictly on the desk. There’s a woman sitting at it, in a short red dress, but she’s nothing compared to the desk itself. It’s made of a richly varnished wood, and its legs and panels bear curving patterns that are pleasing to the eye. It’s not half as pleasing, however, as the simple case made of black metal that sits on top of the desk.

As I watch, another customer comes in, dressed in a tan overcoat. He greets the woman with a smile, and she reciprocates before listing a few prices. The numbers are a lot larger than I’m used to, but the customer doesn’t seem phased. He simply smiles again, makes some half-witty jest that has the woman laughing sycophantically, and pulls out a number of green bills from his wallet. I have seen a few people paying for things with a small card, but I can’t figure out how that works and Mike isn’t interested in those anyway. In a place like this, however, everybody pays in cash.

More customers come, and a few leave looking significantly less put-together. The woman greets those ones with a half-friendly half-sarcastic ‘see you soon’ as they leave. I just wait, as the tin slowly fills up with all manner of notes. It doesn’t take long for the woman to start looking furtively into the tin, before she pushes a small button underneath her desk, one of several.

A few minutes later, a man enters the room from inside the building. He’s dressed a little more flamboyantly then the customers, in a white suit with a bright purple shirt, and he greets the woman like a friend, rather than a client. He has to walk past me to get to her, and I take in the sight of his neatly polished shoes, and expensive watch. He’s the owner, or someone important, rather than a security guard. That’s a good sign. He picks up the full tin, replacing it with an empty one, and, with a few parting words to the woman behind the desk, starts to make his way back into the building. As he passes, I slip my tail from my hiding place and brush against his jacket, pulling myself onto his back and leaving him none the wiser.

More carpets pass, and another set of black shoes that must belong to a guard, before he passes through a door and into an area that’s been left bare and unadorned, with a floor of boards of wood. He ascends a flight of stairs that seem to be tucked away into the side of the building, and emerges into a small cluster of rooms. I wait for my chance, before slipping into the folds of a white wool coat hanging from a hook on the wall. I manoeuvre myself until I can peer out of the folds of the jacket.

Compared to the opulence of the public areas, the office is positively barren. The wallpaper is chipped and fading, likely left over from whatever this place was before, and the floor is simply rough wooden boards, plain and utilitarian. The desk is far simpler than the magnificent spectacle in the entrance and it is almost the only furniture in the room. No sofas, no luxurious armchairs, just a simple chair set behind the desk and a set of shelves holding ledgers.

I watch from the shadows as the owner of ‘Desire’ takes a seat behind the desk, running his hand through his hair before opening up the small tin case, placing it next to a much larger briefcase made of silver metal. He opens up a ledger, and starts to transfer cash from the smaller case to the larger, noting down amounts into his leather-bound book with a fine fountain pen of wood and gold. The luxury of it looks more than a little out of place.

The work doesn’t take him long, and he places the empty tin onto the shelves after securing the silver case with a heavy padlock. He doesn’t leave, instead settling down with a paperback novel. Eventually, he seems to have a stab of conscience and gets up to check on his club. I wait until I hear the click of a lock in the door before slipping out of my hiding spot, forming myself onto the rough wooden boards. I immediately pace up to the desk, pawing at the metal case with my claws. It doesn’t open, but I wasn’t expecting it to. I can just hit it against something when I’m back home until either the case or the lock breaks.

I don’t know how much money is in here, but I know it’s a lot. It thrills me to think about Mike’s expression when I give it to him. I’ve been bringing him some more money after I chanced upon that fight a few nights ago, and he’s been giving me some advice on where to find more. It makes me happy, to see him happy. I like it when he smiles, when he rubs my head or scratches my neck. We were distant before, two people sharing a building without meaningfully interacting, but now it’s like we’re trusted friends. He needs more, though. He always needs more, and I’m happy to bring it to him in exchange for a little attention, and the sure knowledge that I can help him rebuild what he has lost.

All that leaves me with is the problem of how to bring this case back to him. It’s heavy, but not so heavy I can’t carry it. What matters more, however, is that it’s unwieldy and I can’t bring it through the shadows with me. I can’t even take it out through the door, not now that it’s been locked. I try to open the window, only to find a small lock on that as well. For a while, I debate whether to throw the case at the window and hope it breaks. I put that idea aside for later, and start to go through the shelves and the desk. As luck would have it, there’s a small key on top of the shelves that fits perfectly into the window. I push it open, struggling a little against the stiff frame, before letting in a cool breeze from the city.

I poke my head out, looking down into a dark alleyway, and smile. There’s a dumpster a little off from the window, and whoever last opened it forgot to close the lid. I pick the case up from the desk, carrying it over to the window before throwing it out into the alleyway, just barely landing it on top of the black sacks of refuse. I follow it down, turning into shadow to break my fall, and haul it out of the dumpster, brushing off a few chunks of half-rotten food.

I sprint off into the alleyway, keeping to the shadows even if I can’t merge with them, and I start to feel a familiar sense of elation as I move. My good mood infects my steps, and I start to skip and spring through the back streets of the city, turning off to move away from the red-light district. That’s when I see her, stepping out from a recessed doorway and putting herself right in my path. I skid to a halt and start to turn and run, before she shouts.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Something in her tone has me stop in my tracks, and I look back at her to see a thin tube held in her hand.

“This is a flare. I’m sure you’re familiar with how much light this thing puts out, in case you were thinking of slipping away.”

She pauses for a moment, before shaking her head and continuing in a markedly different tone.

“Look, believe it or not I’m not here to hurt you. It’s just that” - she points the unlit flare at the case in my hands - “belongs to someone. It’s the profits of a perfectly legal business, and a lot of people’s wages are in that case. So why don’t you hand it over, and we forget this ever happened?”

I hesitate only for a moment before pacing forwards slowly. As I get closer, I start to see her more clearly. She’s wearing a form-fitting outfit of black material, flared with orange, and the top half of her dark face is covered by an orange mask. Her long hair flows freely behind her, and there’s something about her stance that demonstrates the sort of confidence that only comes from long experience. She’s clearly a cape, and I start to understand that there’s nothing I can do.

I set the case on the ground, and begin backing away slowly.

“Hold on a second.” She leans against the wall of the alleyway, leaving the case between us. “I want to talk to you for a bit.”

I freeze in place. I know that she’s a cape, but I have no idea what she does and that terrifies me. If she’s anything like the thing I saw fighting alongside those soldiers, then there’s no way I can beat her. All I can do is listen.

“I’ve been keeping an eye out for you for a while now,” she begins, “and you’ve really been all over the place.” She smiles briefly, before her expression turns serious. “The problem is that other people might know about you as well. Now, I understand that you probably have your own thing going, but if it ever gets too much then I want you to come find me. I’m around the red-light district most nights, as they can’t really trust anyone else to not get distracted or involved in a scandal or something stupid like that.”

Some of my doubt must have shown through on my inhuman face, and she somehow picked up on it.

“Don’t look at me like that. Listen, my people can help you. I can help you. I haven’t told them about you yet, and I won’t, because I know they’d tell me to try a hard sell. Just please consider it, okay? If it ever gets too much? We have to look after our own.”

I nod, slowly, before slipping into the shadows. She doesn’t light the flare, instead smiling a little as she picks up the case and strolls off in the direction of the red-light district. I head the other way, and I know that if I had a heart in this form then it’d be racing. She scared me, but some of what she said made sense. I am looking after my own. I just hope he won’t be too disappointed in me for losing the money…

I could stay out for longer, try and scrounge up some more, but that cape spooked me. Right now, I’m seeing danger in every patch of light, and even the shadows have lost some of their usual comfort. Instead, I slink back home through the shadows, spending as little time as possible out of them. Instead of pushing aside the chain-link fence, cash in hand, I simply slide under it before forming myself on the doorstep of our building. It’s a little courtesy I’ve developed, to let Mike know that I’m here.

The door to the factory is still there, it’s just a little rusty. It doesn’t squeak, though. Not since I took that bottle of oil. It still takes a bit of force to open it, but there’s nothing I can do about that. On the ground floor I can almost fool myself into thinking the building is intact. The walls are still up, and most of the rooms still have their doors. There isn’t any light, but that’s more of a safety choice. The last thing either of us wants is for anyone to realise we’re living here. I gently push aside the door to Mike’s room, checking up on him.

He’s still sound asleep, just as he was when I left, curled up in his sleeping bag. There’s a backpack on the ground by his feet, filled with all the cash I’ve gathered for him. It’s the product of nights of work, and he likes to look through it sometimes, when he thinks I’m not looking. I smile a little, before spotting the open zip on the backpack. That’s not right; he always keeps it closed. I move slowly into his room, being even more careful not to make a sound so as not to disturb him, and gingerly open up the backpack with an outstretched finger.

It’s empty. Two words that rocked throughout my mind, sending my heart racing and putting me into a panic. I rummage through the bag, a hopeless act born of desperation, before throwing it aside. I leap up onto Mike’s makeshift bed, sweeping aside a few needles to try and shake him awake, to warn him so that he can do something. So that he can make things right.

He’s ice cold to the touch.