“Ahleks? Ahleks!”

Lennie was entirely aware of how ridiculous he looked, a man touching on middle age screaming into an empty alley in the cold spring drizzle, but after enough encounters with Ahleks’ folk, it was something all too commonplace, however awkward.

After a few calls outwards, Lennie’s skin began to prickle, the feeling of being watched

“Oh, there you are. I need a favour, Ahleks”

Lennie could just about see them in the corner of his eye, an indistinct parable of a human that shifted with whatever image of them Lennie built in his mind, one moment a handsome-looking man, the next a frightening misshape of one, too long. Cryptids, to use a term Lennie didn’t fully understand, were something uniquely urban and new.

“I cannot give favours, but I am indebted to you, if you should force my hand”

The voice came from the other side, Lennie glanced that way, nothing, then back again, Ahleks had disappeared, reappearing as a vile curl of cold wind on his shoulder, coalescing behind Lennie. Trying to avoid jumping, Lennie instead grit his teeth and squeezed a fist, wrinkling his face into what must have looked like mild constipation.

“Don’t… don’t do that.”

“My apologies. If it offers consolation, your breathing is unnerving to me in much the same way as mine is to you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Why would a creature as you need breath?”

Lennie ignored their musings.

“Not a favour, then. I want to call in what you owe me”

“Hm,” the otherworlder considered, “Call in. That which I owe you is already named, you needn’t call it once more, naming things twice is… inconvenient. Much like that which you seek. You name her many times. Chloe, The Girl, She.”

Lennie briefly debated explaining the concept of pronouns to the cryptid.

“So you already know, good”

“How could I not know? It has already happened. Or will it? Recency is an odd concept.”

“So you can tell me where Chloe is?” Ahleks coalesced into the shadows, too dark for dusk. Were they hiding in the shadows, or were they the shadows themselves? Lennie tried not to think too hard about the otherworld, the more you tried to rationalise, the more irrational they grew, as if to make a point.

“I cannot.” two gleaming eyes poked out of the shadows, too far apart to be natural, and floating around the space. At least Lennie could look at them directly now.

“Why can’t you?” Lennie was concerned. The more he found out about this girl, the less sense she made. “Is she… protected against whatever you do?”

“No, I simply have not yet looked.” Oh. that made more sense. Cryptid irrationality. A paradox on its own, one that Lennie might have found amusing if he hadn’t been in a rush.

“Fine, can you look? If you do, I’ll consider that the end of your debt to me.”

“I can look, yes. I will show you.”

Lennie felt a weight on the back of his eyes, pressing, squeezing his vision against his cornea until it popped out, almost audibly. In reflex, Lennie spun around backwards, he felt his body move, but his vision stayed, looking outwards, to the end of the alleyway, and the disorientation made him lose balance. He hit the ground, turning his ankle slightly and tumbling into a puddle, vision still locked forwards. His hand shot to his belt, guns were a sticky issue in this country, but Lennie refused to go anywhere without a knife. He scrabbled to his feet, crawling on his back until he could see himself in the third person, a greying man in jeans and a brown, beaten-up leather jacket, dripping with water on one side. He could even see his head, twisting around, as if it would change his vision. The man rose to his feet, clutching the knife, with his free hand forwards, to probe for opponents.

“Lennie” he heard a voice behind him, and the man spun around, even though Lennie couldn’t see anything behind him.

“Don’t-” again, and the man spun around, catching himself on his back foot. Lennie had been blinded before, this wasn’t the most different

“Don’t be afraid” the voice continued from the same place, right behind him. Lennie was tense, but he stopped to think. The voice hadn’t moved, and it certainly wasn’t behind the man. Lennie whistled a single, brief call, and heard it, from the man’s lips about 5 feet away.

Lennie estimated where Ahleks would be, and spun round to face him. There was no colour in his retina, like his eyes had been bleached by the sun.

“Is this not you wanted?” now that the initial panic of the situation had faded, Lennie could hear that there was genuine curiosity in those words.

“What did you do to me?” he stayed ready to fight.

“I borrowed your vision from your eyes. You want to see She, do you not?”

Were they lying? Was this an elaborate ploy to steal something from Lennie, to betray him? What fairy with influence would want to harm him? Lennie rattled through the list, none of the ones he’d met harboured animosity to him, not as far as he could tell, but fairies were confusing, proud and arrogant, his outfit choice could have put a bounty on his head, for all he knew. But no, creatures from the otherworld didn’t lie, not as far as Lennie knew. The concept was foreign to them.

Lennie relaxed his grip on the knife.

“Fine. do what you need to do, but tell me next time” It was strange to hear his own voice from the outside

“There will not be a next time, I will no longer be indebted to you. And I did tell you.”

“Explain it, and let me process it before you use magic on me.”

“This is not magic. Magic is for humans” Ahleks had settled back into Lennie’s periphery, as something equating a lizard. As soon as he thought that, the Fae creature shrunk, and turned a dull shade of green.

“I simply moved your vision out of your eyes. I thought it would be more convenient, corporeality raises many problems”

“Fine. okay. What are we doing?” Lennie resigned himself to the cryptid’s logic

“To The Girl, of course.” and Lennie’s vision sped off.

For nearly thirty seconds, Lennie’s vision raced. Faster than he’d moved before, through the night. Lennie felt his eyes close, against the cutting wind and drizzle, against the walls, and ceilings, and cars that he slammed into, through. It was no use, however tight he squeezed his eyes, he still saw everything. Lennie felt his body stumble, in shock, and he reached out and felt slick, wet stone, a wall to support himself on. There was no sound of movement, no wind rushing by his ears. His ears, Lennie guessed, weren’t moving, after all.

Lennie was feeling queasy when he stopped, accompanied by a lurching backwards to counter a shift in momentum that never came. They were in a flat, a small one, five people with their arms stretched out could connect the furthest walls. There was a kitchen at one end, and a sofa bed under a window, seemingly permanently in the sleeping configuration and covered in clothes. Two people were sat on it, Chloe and another woman, sipping from mugs, steam was rising off the other woman’s.

Lennie vaguely remembered this woman, one of the morning shifts, with red lips and large hoops.

“Move me closer” Lennie whispered. He felt his lips move, the breath come out, but he was too far away to hear. Ahleks must have heard however, since the next moment, he was inches from the woman’s face

“Not that close, I need to be able to see them both”

Ahleks moved him backwards. He could hear the two of them talking

“It’s okay, love, he’ll be on CCTV, Tom can put out a sign tomorrow.” The woman sounded sorrowful, caring.

“Dotty, it’s okay, I’m really fine” Chloe was strained.

“It’s always better to be safe than sorry. What if he follows someone else? Someone without your spidey sense?” a pause from them both, as Chloe considered the implications.

“Okay, yeah… yeah.”

“Great, I’ll call Tom in the morning. Are you sure you don’t want hot chocolate?”

“No, really, orange juice is nice, I like it”

Lennie felt awkward, like he was infringing, which he was, in many ways. Every way, probably.

“Okay, take me outside, I want to see the address”

The rain was heavier here, and the street sign was beat-up and graffitied. Lennie took note of the building, of its tight stairwell, shabby carpeted, short, atrium-like central area on each floor that all three floors looked out to; double-checked the flat number, and left, back towards his body.

“That was… don’t do that again, not without a lot of explaining” Lennie rubbed his eyes, thankfully Ahleks had ceded Lennie’s vision back to him.

“I will not do that again, I am no longer indebted to you”

“No, I guess you aren’t. I release you from your bond, or whatever I have to say.”

“Why do you say that?” the snake-shaped cat curling in the corner of his vision asked “The debt has been complete, we both understand this, you need not explain.”

“I thought it would be nice to mark the moment.”

“Hmm,” the cryptid was bemused, “Very well. I am released from my bond.”

“One more thing,” Lennie called out. The shadows in the crevices were starting to shift away from him, Ahleks was leaving, “You said you didn’t know where Chloe was, how did you know where to take me?”

“I do not understand this question.”

Fae irrationality. Of course.

“Nevermind. I’ll be seeing you”

“You cannot see me”

And with that, the cryptid disappeared.

Lennie stood there for a minute, in the drizzle, making sure he was still back in his body. He muttered, to nobody in particular, the street while he typed it into his phone, but when he looked down to put his phone back in his pocket Lennie saw a flower of blood growing out of his torso. The second bullet took him in his gut.