A Supernatural Threat

Chapter One
A Clonder of cats

Storm clouds cast their eerie shadows over a streamline of skyscrapers majestically towering high above suburbs half-immersed in darkness.  As the thunder echoes the sound of kettledrums into the night.

Somewhere within this concrete labyrinth of carbon monoxide polluted streets and neon lights, rattling past a phalanx of tin garbage cans, is a man--no more deserving to die than anyone else.

Dribbling blood all over the dingy asphalt pavement, he limps his way across the vagaries of the thinly lit alleyed-quarter with a fogged set of eyes.  Though determined, they could barely see beyond the specter of death that was lingering around the dusky gloom drawing closer and closer with each bumbling stride that he took.

A senses-numbing dread propels him forward, down the twisting corridors and sharp angular corners.  Though his  legs  have long surrendered to the piercing pain exhaustion has wracked upon them, he never slackens, not even for a second.  He understands only too well that  rest, no matter how brief, translates to certain doom.

"Not too long now," he whispers to himself with a waning sense of optimism in his croaking timbre.  "Not too long."

Clutching onto his left breast desperately, where a gaping wound continues to spew blood in alarmingly generous quantities, he finally staggers out of the oil slick darkness a short while later, filched of breath and cold down to the bones.

There, in the oasis of a street lamp's soft halogen glow, a clonder of black cats perched atop a weather beaten brick wall, marks him.  Collectively, they acknowledge his shambling entrance with an earsplitting cacophony of fanged hisses and acerbic dagger looks made even more threatening by multiple pairs of unaturally fiery red eyes.  Bloodshot and torched Svengali eyes.