Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop.
Hosted by Denise
Only requirement is to make the story complete in Six (and only six) sentences.
This is a ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf’ week. So, what say we see what our dauntless detective, Ian Devereaux, is up to?
Our prompt word is
HOME
‘The People of the Abyss’ tucked under my arm, the bookstore receipt, a resolute, if not insecure, sentry drafted into service as bookmark, I walked down Commercial Street, the brick and masonry buildings that lined the street, once dominating the world with their four and five story height, now quaint, except for the graffiti that mocked their classic Victorian lines, colorful invader flags caught mid-wave.
I’d given up any hope of affecting a causal stroll and settled for a business-like walk, my target was Thrawl Street, highlighted in the google map sent by my ‘resource’ in Chicago; somehow I doubted that Henry Stanley would be as famous if his charts of the African jungle included a big ‘X’ marked ‘Historical footnote here’.
“Could show you around the ‘chapel, I could, nobody knows Spitalfields as good as your’s truly,” with a slight bow, a young man stepped out from a doorway labeled as property of ‘MONGOLZ’, though given the retro-psychedelic font, I wouldn’t swear it didn’t say ‘Mono Golf’, which would make about as much sense.
“I’ll double your rate for the location of certain Victorian-era site,” the confidence in his smile was dimmed by a flicker of calculation in his eyes, it was very much the look new inmates get from the lifers on their first day in prison; “What do you know about the location of a soup kitchen somewhere around here that was a front for the Order of Lilith?”
That he was alarmed at my mention of the Order told me nearly enough about what I was getting into, but given I liked my client and was too afraid of Anya Claireaux, all I could do was let him lead me down a series of increasingly dark-narrow streets, finally stopping at a storefront with windows like parchment paper, on either side of a single, un-marked entrance.
Opening the door like he lived there and, without bothering to look to see if I followed, my guide disappeared into the interior with a haste that spoke more of fear than dismissal; the way a dog, resigned to the visit to the vet, pulls on the leash to get in the door, the better to confront the threat and return home.
