Blind the Inner Eye, pt.1

Green eyes surveyed the dingy, dimly-lit coffee shop with the dull sheen of unimpressed boredom.  The cramped, slightly smelly interior of the establishment seemed to have earned its lack of a franchise sign.

But it was better than staying outside in the rain.  The owner of the green eyes twisted her lips in distaste; how could she have let herself get caught in a cloudburst without an umbrella?  She had only lived in or near this city her entire life.  A Seattleite should know better.

Detective Alanna Casey shook out her shoulder-length hair, dislodging the sheen of mist clinging to the strawberry-blonde curls.  She undid just the top button of her beige trench coat as she walked towards the counter, revealing the neck of her black sweater.  The coat stayed on despite the relative warmth of the shop’s interior; it was easier to conceal her Smith and Wesson .357 Compact that way.

The detective ordered a cappuccino from the pimply-faced kid at the counter and retreated to one of the round tables for two, lowering herself into a chair with a sigh.  In a way, she reflected, perhaps it was best to just stay put and wait for the worst of the downpour to pass.  The day had been such a disappointment that more than anything, Alanna needed a breather, needed to take a load off.

She slid her hand into the front pocket of her coat and drew out a photograph.  Her fingers, calloused from years of shooting range practice, delicately cradled the edges of the photo despite how much wear the glossy had seen.  Her other arm planted on the table, elbow down, palm up, with her freckled cheek resting on it.  Alanna let out another sigh.

Matthew Christianson, age 18, senior in high school.  Dark brown hair, blue eyes.  Approximately 5’10” in height; slender, athletic build.  Tan complexion from hours of Track and Field practice.

Missing for 46 days.

Alanna had only been on Matthew’s case for a week and it was already becoming a headache.  The boy seemed to have simply fallen off the face of the Earth.  The last time he’d been spotted was leaving school, and none of the students at West High had even been able to give her a certain confirmation that they had seen him that day.  He’d been spotted walking home, like he always did.  No one had thought anything of it, of course.  Except that he didn’t come home that night.  He hadn’t been home in months.

Even more frustrating was that the boy was without regular haunts.  Never went to the theatre or the arcade.  Never mall-crawled with his friends.  He had no close relatives in this city, no close friends to sofa-surf with, and had neither car nor money to get him out of the city.  Every weekday he went to school, went to Track, came home and did his homework; every Sunday he went to church with his parents and left too soon to socialize.  His life revolved solely around schoolwork, sports, and his parents.

Detective Casey was without leads.  Which was why she had spent the better part of today, as well as the better part of the previous day, patrolling the routes Matthew was most likely to take on the way from school to his house.  Patrolling and asking random passerby if they'd seen this boy.

A frustrating endeavor, and so far fruitless.

Speaking of frustrating...five minutes after ordering and still no sound of the espresso machine making her coffee.  Alanna scowled at the counter, but Pizza-Face was nowhere to be seen.  Convenient.

"Have a question?"

Alanna stiffened; she turned in her seat to scowl again, this time at the voice addressing her.  Didn't most people have the common courtesy not to interrupt strangers from their brooding?  She meant to do nothing more than convey this with an acidic stare and turn back, but...she found she couldn't.  She blinked, frozen.

There he was.  He had the same facial structure: the same sylvan chin, the same pointed nose, the same strong eyebrows.  The skin-tight, sleeveless black shirt and a tight pair of leather pants he wore showed that his body type was the same too, lithe and athletic.

But the coloring was all wrong.  The speaker's unhealthily pallid skin didn’t match her quarry's sun-darkened complexion.  The boy in the picture possessed rich, chocolaty hair, while this young man's face-framing bangs were hued a glossy black that no dye could ever accomplish.  His eyes, too, weren't blue, but...was that violet?  Alanna dismissed that as a trick of the coffee shop's shoddy light; no human on Earth had purple eyes and that was that.

Something else was wrong, too:  the grin.  The speaker's grin stretched his face far too wide, the edges climbing up his cheeks until they looked almost ready to tear his ears off.  No human being should be able to grin like that, either.

"I beg your pardon?" Alanna replied to the stranger coolly.

"Looks like you have a question, Ace."  That smirk could not be contained.

On the table in front of the man sat a deck of blue-backed Bicycle playing cards.  The young man picked them up and for a moment, held them gingerly in his palm despite their obvious wear and use.  He started to shuffle, causing Alanna to raise an eyebrow; his motions were so practiced, so smooth and controlled, that he looked about to pull a sleight-of-hand trick.

He planted the deck face-down on the table before him, and pinned down the top card with one index finger, poised and ready.  “Have a question, the cards will answer.”

Detective Casey gave him a blank look.  You have got to be kidding me.